Toward the end of the reign of George the First (alias Bush pere, alias George Herbert Walker Bush), Mark Shields once said of the sitting president that he was "born on third base and thought he hit a home run." If we stretch this analogy to the younger generation of Bush presidents, we soon end up with the current occupant of the oval office having been born at home plate, the ball already belted out of the park by a pinch hitter (James Baker, Karl Rove, or God Almighty, take your pick).
"Only the Paranoid Survive," the title of a management book by former Intel CEO Andy Grove, is a popular credo in the Darwinian shark tank of American free enterprise, where a constant awareness of imminent danger is essential for survival. Without the wisdom to be afraid, one cannot hope to compete, a maxim that may explain the serial business failures of our current president before he cashed out of the oil patch, gave up alcohol, got religion, and joined the real Bush family enterprise in politics.
Boosted straight to the forefront by family connection, George the candidate could leave the technicalities of survival to the ferocious schemes of Karl Rove, whose paranoia had been honed by decades of the dirtiest political maneuvering ever seen in this country. The rest, as they say, is history, and now shall we behold the brave scion of inherited wealth who, having been tragically denied the fundamental American right of being allowed to struggle for his own survival, swings the swift sword of his terrible vengeance as the mighty POTHUS (President Of These Here United States) and Commander in Chief of the greatest military power the world has ever known.
Nothing could be more offensive than the prospect of this sneering and wealthy prep-school brat, whose faltering career was repackaged as a political dynamo by the redeeming power of wealth and class, now wielding the full authority of presidential directive to initiate the phase-out of Social Security, a retirement fund that provides crucial economic assistance to those who have paid into it throughout their careers. Exactly how Bush's initiative will fare in congress is not yet clear, but it will take more than faint-hearted democratic opposition to counter republican support.
If that support is monolithic, Bush will succeed in ramming privatization down our throats, with the result that most of us can look forward to increased pain and difficulty as we slide down the razor blade of our declining years. The claim that only part of the system will be privatized is simply a convenient lie that is deployed to overcome initial resistance. There will be a short "trial period," accompanied by loud applause and proclamations of success no matter what the numbers indicate, after which the final dismantling will commence. Sooner than most people imagine, there will be no security for anyone not independently wealthy, so the best advice for younger members of the workforce is to get rich before the age of fifty. The rest of you are free to invest in the Almighty after your private accounts in the stock market plummet toward zero.
While we're giving advice, let's emphasize once again that God helps those who help themselves, and nobody but you is responsible for your problems. If you're hungry, eat dog food. If you're sick, you will likely get sicker, and if you're old and dying, let nothing stand in your way. Those venerable souls among us whose worthy ancestors fought and scratched their way up the economic ladder are not here to help or protect you. We're here to select the highest quality jacuzzis for our bathrooms. Everything worth having belongs to us because we're better than you, a fact that is clearly demonstrated by the long sequence of zeroes before the decimal point on our bank statements.
But you are owners too. You may own that which is required for you to serve us cocktails and install our jacuzzis, and you are free to purchase media receivers for the display of morally righteous content broad-blasted by our entertainment subsidiaries. Under our democracy, you are also granted the right to own limited communications equipment with which to transmit individual messages across the internets, but only so long as such traffic does not interfere with entertainment venues and does not violate religious or moral precepts. Remember that only you are the owner of your destiny.
Welcome to the Ownership Society, and have a nice day!
1 comment:
I am not a Bush supporter and I am not even saying I am in agreement with his social security replanning, but there's a fluorescent elephant in social security and questions to explore.
I wonder how generations prior to social security viewed themselves and "retirement age"--and if even the concept of "retirement" existed then. Retirement is something people speak ideally of--when I retire, I can do "x", "y", "z" and look forward to social security. Has this perhaps shaped us to postpone our dreams and life until this magical age? Has this perhaps shaped us as a society to believe that at a certain age (65 and older) an individual no longer has anything to contribute and they are to be taken care of? I thought teenagers were the most depressed group in terms of age, but I read years ago that among those who hit retirement age there are higher incidents of depression. There are also higher incidents of suicide.
Has it been a plan for us to let go of our hard-earned money for some supposed reward the government will return to us at some later date in the future if we ever get to 63 or 65? If we don't have the government won't we start looking to ourselves, to families, to friends to come in and help the older generation if need be. Isn't that what happens in other societies? People take care of each other--not the government. Or perhaps will we strip away the nonsense that age can have some power over our worth as members of a society? Just some questions to explore.
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