Where is AARP?

Requiring the wealthiest and corporations to pay their fair share, starting with ending tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent. We urge you to allow tax cuts that benefit only the richest 2 percent to expire on schedule, which would save nearly $1 trillion in revenues and reduced interest payments. While a wide range of programs have been cut in recent years, the very wealthy and corporations have so far not been required to contribute a penny in additional revenues toward deficit reduction.

Me likey.

You have good eyes. Yes, they are conspicuous by their absence from that letter — which means that they have been likely bought off or are waiting to see what goodies Obama will promise them.

Might be a good time to pressure the AARP on this:

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/aarp_cuts?source=web&subsource=EKwidget

countdown has started toward the first reference to a certain cattle enclosure …. 20, 19, 18 …

The undersigned, representing 146 national organizations, understand the urgent budget decisions we face as a nation over the next few months.

Bullshit. There are no challenges. This is a losing position out of the blocks … unless one’s real goal is to simply look like one is opposing Obama, before inevitably going along with whatever he wants.

what about UNITE/HERE? Are they just incorporated by reference into the AFL-CIO? Same question for the social workers and farmworkers and postal workers (other than NALC). I bet this list of signers gets longer before tonight’s news broadcasts.

Oh, and the UE? Do the United Electrical Workers still exist as an independent union? What are they up to?

Weak sauce.

Thank you for your consideration…???

How about “Check out the third party platform we’ll be implementing should you sell us down the river” (again)?

Obama wants to be remembered as Lincoln II. He wants to go down in history as someone who, when times were most bitter, worked with the other side. You are irrelevant to him now. Send your letters to the Democrats in Congress.

I mean, not that I’m surprised. I’m not sure I like what I wrote, because it makes it look as if I had no idea what the veal pen (h/t Fractal) would be doing.

But a winning position would sound more like Greenwald’s, or this.

[T]he Obama administration’s policies are not determined by the will of the people—as the AFL-CIO and various liberal and ‘left’ supporters of Obama claim—but by the corporate and financial elite, which controls the entire political system.

That’s why you have to challenge the system. Without systemic challenge, elites aren’t threatened. And when elites aren’t threatened, their water carriers in the political establishment will carry the out bottom-to-top redistribution policies the ruling class desires.

That’s also why the system is not now, nor has it ever been “broken.” The system in all its facets is working exactly as the big people — the capitalist class — want it to.

I don’t know to say this any more clearly. The. System. Is. Working. Perfectly. Until the left realizes that, elites face zero threat to their interests.

And actually, the headline is completely wrong. The groups aren’t fighting the bargain. They’re enabling it and, unless they’re complete morons, consciously so. Note that “consciously” and “willingly” are two different things.

Some of them may genuinely want to fight, but are smart enough not to. Others (more likely) have convinced themselves that they’re simply doing what must be done. But fighting they are not. None of them. Not as an organization. Not a single one of them.

The link to this blogpost is problematic for FDL’s comment box for some reason, so I have unspooled the link by converting the dots and slashes to words. The word “slash” means the frontslash symbol (/). (Is there a malware threat at the wordpress site?)

I would be curious if anyone thinks this AFL-CIO strategy of holding dozens of rallies across the country constitutes the kind of “fighting” we want to see (h/t Eric P):

talkingunion dot wordpress dot com slash 2012 slash 11 slash 08 slash working-families-say-lame-duck-cant-bargain-away-social-security-medicare-medicaid/

It seems to me that the AFL-CIO is putting its boots on the ground in a way that will have some impact. In addition to the rally covered by Philly dot com in Dday’s second link in the main post, they held a rally outside Senator Rob Portman’s office (GOP-OH) in Cincinnati.

AS I understand it, AARP is now an insurance broker more than a lobby for retired people. When medicare and medicaid are cut, AARP’s insurance will be in greater demand. How people will pay premiums, co-pays and deductibles out of reduced Social Security and disappearing pensions is another question.

Don’t y’all get it? Or, in fact, I think you do.

They got your votes, or at least enough of them to win re-election, and now it is time to get to the back of the bus where you belong.

They just can’t come right out and say it.

Medicare and Medicaid will but cut because we have to cut the deficit. Top tax rates won’t increase (so the GOP can say they didn’t raise taxes), but some loopholes will be closed. Corporate tax rates will be cut (to help spur growth, Obama has already said he is for it). Corporate loopholes won’t be mentioned or touched.

I hope I’m wrong, but I very seriously doubt it.

You have ONE chance left (now that you have foolishly reelected Barack Obama as President). That chance is to let your representatives and senators know that you will make it your mission in life to see that their political careers are OVER if they touch Social Security or Medicare. Don’t touch Social Security or Medicare. Not even a little bit.

If they are Democrats, tell them you will end their careers (and will never vote Democrat again, except to unseat them).

The problem is your credibility. See, you guys have been so completely pliant and so easily manipulated thus far, that they have little reason to believe that you mean it. Why should they fear consequences from you pipsqueaks? All they have to do, no matter how they have betrayed you, is to threaten you with the Republicans – and you always come running back under their apron. Every time.

You will have to go to extraordinary lengths now to show them that you mean business.

Pelt them with cans of cat food! If there is a march to Washington BE THERE. Get angry. Smash things.

Pelt them with cans of cat food. Do it now, while you can still afford it. The dry stuff won’t carry as far due to wind resistance.

Can you explain to me how Obama is going to justify cutting corporate tax rates when they pay nothing as it is and after the whole CRS supressed report brouhaha? I’m not doubting you at all, I’m just incredulous that he’s still pushing for something that can be empirically proved to be worthless and offering up our Social Security to do it! How exactly does he think that is a winning proposition for Democratic constituencies? It’s like he has no idea what sells in his own party.

Lincoln? Wrong Republican, I suspect.

Obama has a dream. That is to mentioned in the same reverent breath as Ronald Reagan, by the chaps on the golf course.

I kick in $20/month. How much are you donating a month to FDL?

Have you ever protested? If so please do a diary and include photos.

Have you ever been arrested at a protest?

As a protest, are you filing, but not paying your federal income taxes?

These are the folks who are now campaigning against the guy they were campaigning for just four days ago.

I’m too lazy to look it up, but didn’t the AARP come out against proposed changes to the social security COLA a year or so ago. If I’m correct, they had initially hedged their position and only changed it after a mild uproar amongst their membership.

Probably just a marketing ploy, but who knows?

So the same faux Liberals, whipped dog Progressives and brain-dead partisan Democrats who voted for Obama while he told them he intended to commit the Great Betrayal are now objecting to the Great Betrayal. Good luck with that!

lol

Never happen.

http://my.firedoglake.com/cassiodorus/2012/11/08/congratulations-unqualifying-obama-supporters/

Are you the Official Arbiter of Who Is A Real Activist and Who Isn’t?

Did Elvis make you King with his last dying breath?

But, but Harry Reid promised!

The bots will eat any turd sandwich as long as it comes in a blue wrapper.

So the dilemma for Obama is how to serve his masters while pretending to be president of all the people? He’s a master obfuscation with a straight face so it’ll just take a little while to work out the logistics.

I hope all this shouting and hand wringing will be saved. Good material for a future Charles Dickens, complete with dim lighting supplied by monitor screens!

The last peoples president writ large died in 1945, and even he blinked, the result of which we are now witnessing in spades.

Well, that was the dilemma of his first term. He can do whatever he likes now: there’s no further need to placate the Left with empty words.

. . . not so much a matter of placating as of burnishing his own image . . . . IMO

We don’t know that yet. The best is yet to come.

I am willing to march and engage in civil disobedience to attempt to force our government to work for the American People. But we need organization and numbers and I have no idea how to achieve that as I couldn’t organize the inside of a shoe box. Aren’t there some organizing type folks around who can help get us of the ground? Or am I just pissing into the wind as usual?

Already emailed all my Congresscritters — including the Republicans, telling them to let the Bush/Obama tax cuts expire.

I’m not sure I should bother with the White House.

President Obama is tainted, contaminated and owned by corrupt people as is evident from his pathetic performance of last four years. The only to get him to do right things (anything), including strengthening SS, medicare and Medicaid, is to deliver nationwide counter avalanche to all members of congress – similar to PIPA & SOPA.

Seek out your local Occupy. They still exist.

AARP waits to see what’s in it for them before taking a stand, cf the Bush Medicare Part D decision. First they were against it but once they saw they could make a buck selling supplemental policies, they were all in and they partnered with United Health Care, a company as corrupt as they come.

That’s the full faith in what’s good for seniors you can count on from the whores at AARP.

Yes, Occupy has (or had) the right idea. But the fact that you add “they still exist” demonstrates the problem. The Occupy Movement must be broadened to include old farts like me. WIll that happen within the Occupy Movement? I doubt it. I think something new is needed. For example, if all the Progressives who regularly read and post comments at web sites like this could get organized we could make an qualitative leap in impact. One thing we have learned to our profound chagrin is that keyboard warriors are no substitute for the real thing. And I write that as one who had banged out plenty of keystrokes. It doesn’t work. Bitching to likeminded folks doesn’t work. Online petitions don’t work. Direct action is needed. We must get up off our asses and start resisting for real.

>>
‘that’s when I’m gonna lend my hand, find my brother in every man – I’ve always known’

lend a hand by the civilian conservation corps on acmerecords

Social Security has been loaning funds to the US Treasury for three decades to finance tax cuts to the wealthy, and the wealthy don’t want to pay it back now. So, those of you who voted for Obama, get ready to smile and say “mmm…good” when you eat the shit sandwich he will be handing you in a few months. I on the other hand am proud not to have enabled him.

As David Dayen noted several days ago, there’s another way out of this mess:

“That would be fixing the economy instead of fixing the debt…”

Yup.

There will be a deal. Probably not of anyone’s liking here. But the public wants one. I don’t think most people out there are willing to go to the mats on this. So long as the deal is not “terrible” people will accept it. In fact, raising taxes is not really in anyone’s interest. Still getting the wealthy to accept more will likely be part of the “deal”. Just my opinion. Hope I’m wrong.

OTOH it is clear the voting public is changing. White men with their ownership of the bedroom issues are on the way out. That was true in 2008 as it is now. Obama and the Kochs can ignore it only at their peril, as the Rs did this time and last time. That is prolly the reason they lost this time. Call it lesser of two evils or a continuation of the end time for white men. Already the Rs are “willing” to accept some immigration reform. Stay tuned more to come, maybe even a purge on the right.

LOL yeah, they fought by voting for Obama !!
With friends like these, who needs repubs?

What difference does it make whether the Great Betrayal is effectuated by a black man or a white man?

And who says the American People want the social safety net cut? Not the American People.

Some good news in this. And of course pressure must be applied.

But I would much rather see all those groups organizing for a third party as the tool to apply that pressure Now is the time.

AARP is primariply in the business of selling insurance of this type or that to oldsters who think they’re getting a good deal. AARP is about profits, not about its members interests.

In March 2011 Obama stated that he was willing to sign off on a deal to raise the eligibility age and cut at least $250 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years, with another $800 billion in cuts in the decade after that. He said that he was amenable to $100+ billion in cuts to Medicaid and other health care programs, and $250 billion more in the second decade. He also said he wouldn’t oppose implementing a less generous formula for calculating Social Security benefits starting in 2015. He was explicit. He didn’t mince words. His position was clear. And when countless lives are ruined and lost when he follows through on his promise, we can send thank-you notes to the “undersigned” representatives of the listed 146 organizations, who did everything in their power to elect the Democrat who would make it happen.

got a robo call just yesterday from ARRP about insurance. They are indeed a big player.

They can be swayed though.

Problem is, those who are dying to cut Medicare are trying to take seniors out of the game by vowing to protect the current crop of seniors (and counting on human selfishness to keep them quiet). Thing is, obviously, in this area, the majority of seniors have kid and grandkids who they care about — even if those kids can’t seem to care enough to get mobilized themselves.

You misunderstand. I don’t think anyone wants it cut but I also don’t think most people are as fired up about it as you. There are many other issues out there. So it might depend on what exactly the cuts are. Those groups that signed the letter may have an impact on this, but like DD noted they tend to lose their fire with time.

The big issues now relate to demographics IMO. That will determine where we go from here. Sure there is the safety net, but there is immigration, education, environment, social issues, voting rights, war and peace, taxes, unemployment and the like. This is not a one trick pony here.

BTW I don’t think Obama has all cuts in mind at all. He has said he won’t cut medicare (he will make improvements, like those in the ACA). On SS I have to wait and see. He could raise the retirement age, the cap or the way they calculate the COLA. But he has to be careful here. He may “negotiate” some of this for other things like keeping taxes lower on the middle class or more stimulus. On those things, many people will be willing to give something up, like if you are unemployed or something.

I am mindful also that there is still a divided government. So compromises are gonna happen like it or not. You can say he is a traitor or just doing his job as best he can. Your choice.

The ACA already includes some of those cuts for medicare. You may recall the debate over the 716b. That included three somewhat equal parts. One was a reduction in subsidies to medicare advantage plans (like why should they get subsidies when others don’t?), a reduction in hospital reimbursements (they agree to it since there would be fewer emergency room visits from uninsured) and a bunch of smaller ones. When you start going decades into the future all of this is just accounting bullshit. I doubt you can go beyond five years. And most of what they do is also bullshit, since they look at the economy in complete isolation.

SS? Don’t know. He will do something here likely to get something else.

I understand perfectly.

A Democratic president is about to cut the social safety net, the signature achievement of the Democratic Party. And he is going to do it at a time of widespread economic suffering and record income and wealth inequality. He is attacking the foundation of the American Middle Class when the American Middle Class is already collapsing. And once the cuts to the social safety net begin under a Democratic president, what do you think the next Republican president will do?

This isn’t a “compromise”; it is another attack in the neoliberal War on the American People. The Shock Doctrine turned on the troops. You seem to want the Great Betrayal and, presumably, that’s why you were a vehement Obama supporter. And those other issues? Environment, education, immigration, taxes, war? Obama sucks on them too.

I undertand perfectly well.

I understand perfectly.

A Democratic president is about to cut the social safety net, the signature achievement of the Democratic Party. And he is going to do it at a time of widespread economic suffering and record income and wealth inequality. He is attacking the foundation of the American Middle Class when the American Middle Class is already collapsing. And once the cuts to the social safety net begin under a Democratic president, what do you think the next Republican president will do?

This isn’t a “compromise”; it is another attack in the neoliberal War on the American People. The Shock Doctrine turned on the troops. You seem to want the Great Betrayal and, presumably, that’s why you were a vehement Obama supporter. And those other issues? Environment, education, immigration, taxes, war? Obama sucks on them too.

I undertand perfectly well.

Ok Obama sucks. I’ll just leave it at that.

Your whole line of reasoning here is obnoxious. Nothing has to be bargained away. That’s complete and total bullshit.

You don’t get anywhere bargaining shit away. Have you been asleep for 12 years?

Yup, and when President Rubio (or Ryan or whoever the next GOP president is) uses Democratic President Obama as cover for privatizing Social Security and voucherizing Medicare and Medicaid you can say you never saw it coming. Plausible deniability is the refuse of scoundrels.

Funny, I think it is bullshit and obnoxious to think a divided government means nothing at all.

I’m sure by then Dr Stein and her party will already control government. But, yes, I will deny it today, if you like.

12 years? Well at least it goes beyond that scoundrel Obama. Who else bargained it all away? I thought we were all happy making money and all for most of that time?

A divided government doesn’t mean you preemptively cave. In fact, it makes that approach suicidal. You lead, propose what is right, take the case to the people who elected you, and make the opposition own their recalcitrance — and pay for it.

The budget crisis is fiction. The fiscal cliff is fiction. The need to cut the social safety net is fiction. The whole need to “bargain” is fiction.

Who said we preemptively cave? I would like nothing better than to get it all.

When you say the crisis is fiction, of course I agree, but both political parties hold on to the self evident truths they think they hear. So how do you change it between now and say six months from now? I think we have to deal with the here and now, get the best deal you can. Even if they agreed to all the MMT philosopy there would be vast areas of disagreement. I happen to think we have to engage in the world before us, not one we would like to have. And I posit the notion that the Rs are now standing in the deep end of the pool. History is against them and the water is rising.

Hear hear, what you just described is textbook negotiating, if only Capt. Caveman would read it.

I need to go out for a few hours, but I will check back later. so leave all the love notes.

I would like nothing better than to get it all.

Yes, I’m sure you and the rest of the Neoliberals like Obama would rather skip the preliminaries and get right to vouchers and privatization. But first you have to remove the Third Rail from the social safety net. That is Obama’s mission.

Too busy hawking overpriced private insurance to its members to weigh in? If memory serves, AARP makes more money from that than from membership dues and is properly characterized as an insurance brokerage masquerading as an organization that represents seniors.

Actually, as I recall, textbook negotiating involves opening positions BEYOND what you hope to get in your realistic fall back position. But, with Obama, that ship sailed long ago. So instead, if he even had the inclination to fight for saving the safety net in a meaningful way, he would indeed have no where to go but to dig in his heels and leverage the power of his office and recent refutation of the catfood approach favored by most of the PTB in the so-caled govern-ment. Ha, come to think of it, that puts him in the most powerful negotiating seat in the nation, even for a crappy non-negotiator like him.

Serious question:

Does anyone still think Obama doesn’t WANT to cut the social safety net?

Obama has previously offered to raise the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67. This is great way to not just funnel even more money into private, for-profit insurance coffers, but also to screw average African-American males out of all but six months of the Medicare coverage they’ve paid into their entire working lives (http://goo.gl/LgjPb). But I’m a “fucking retard” who doesn’t understand how Obama’s brilliant eleven-dimensional-chess mind is actually helping the little people, so what do I know?

no no no- you’re a purity troll, not a retard. That term of endearment is reserved for the progressives who voted for the brilliant chess player.

Obama needs to play Marshall Dillon to the motley money crowd. A baleful eye might do wonders.

It’s as simple as that. Thank you.

And the baleful eye would underscore it.

How’s cookin’?

Your repetitive pompous self righteous attacks on fellow posters are getting beyond tiresome.

My tactic is to twitter like mad!

TWITTER that the Dems can retake the House in 2014 IF the Dems can work together.

Then I provide a link in the tweet to an article about how and why platforms work. They work because one elected politician cannot pass a law. They work because one elected politician cannot even get a bill out of a committee! AND Why should a voter have any enthusiasm for candidates that cannot find one single candidate that agrees with them on a single specific issue?

The article also provides reference material about every U.S. House platform that either party has put out (1994 midterm elections) (2006 midterm elections) (2010 midterm elections) And how those midterm elections just happened to provide a U.S. House majority for the political party that created the platform.

I promote this tactic because the Dems in the House are the most susceptible to pressure, If widely known, this tactic is not easily spun or blamed on the other party like the filibuster. Also once this tactic is in the voters mind, it behaves like radiation and keeps killing for years and years!

Here is the link to my article:
http://i-voter.tripod.com/Platforms.html

But you can easily write something up yourself.

This started July 7th, 2011:

Rather than roughly $2 trillion in savings, the White House is now seeking a plan that would slash more than $4 trillion from annual budget deficits over the next decade, stabilize borrowing, and defuse the biggest budgetary time bombs that are set to explode as the cost of health care rises and the nation’s population ages.

That would represent a major legislative achievement, but it would also put Obama and GOP leaders at odds with major factions of their own parties. While Democrats would be asked to cut social-safety-net programs, Republicans would be asked to raise taxes, perhaps by letting tax breaks for the nation’s wealthiest households expire on schedule at the end of next year.

This is what this administration wants.

There is probably no better way to take Republican congressional seats than taxing socially destructive or socially useless means of wealth acquisition. The market is no “decider,” on this of all issues.

We need a business reform party. Hilarious I know. Trade and commerce are important but they don’t belong at the front of the line. Running society for the sake of business leads to busy work lives that begin in production oriented class rooms.

We don’t want sponsored busywork lives. We don’t want society for the sake of business; we don’t want production oriented classrooms. We don’t want people like Romney or Cheney or Cantor or Ryan in power. They simply aren’t fit for office or any kind of power. We don’t want any more fraudulent ballot initiatives.

I don’t take it personally. I’m sure he chats up all the new boys.

Very likely he has a little black notebook he’d like to take down all our particulars in.