A few quick links from around the blogosphere as I gear up to start teaching again …
“Scott McLemee”:http://www.prospect.org/web/view-print.ww?id=9051 in _TAP_ on teenage crushes and Susan Sontag.
“Kevin Drum”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_01/005480.php professes puzzlement about why Bush has been flogging the dead horse of social security; “Mark Schmitt”:http://markschmitt.typepad.com/decembrist/2005/01/bill_thomas_giv.html provides a plausible reason why.
“Brad DeLong”:http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2005-3_archives/000178.html on the “Salvador Option”:
bq. To claim that American officers calling for a “Salvador option” are unaware that they are calling for Death Squads is as incredible as claiming that Plantagenets calling for a “Canterbury option” are unaware of murder in the cathedral.
Finally, the BlogPAC sets up its “There Is No Crisis”:http://www.thereisnocrisis.com/ website (via “Matt Yglesias”:http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/01/only_try_to_see.html). And a good thing too. A few weeks ago, Matt, Mark Schmitt and I had a good conversation about the need to build some sort of organization around the intellectual energy of the left blogosphere’s discussion of Social Security. This is a great start.
{ 8 comments }
Thorley Winston 01.19.05 at 10:18 pm
It doesn’t say much for the “intellectual energy†of the left of the blogosphere that this is the best they can come up with. The fact of the matter is you’ve already lost the argument that Social Security is a problem* and rather than try to participate in finding a workable solution, you’ve opted to become the play the part of ostriches denying that there is a problem.
Enjoy your stay in the political wilderness, looks like you’re determined to be there a while.
* In no small part due to the last Democrat President who was at least willing to admit there was a problem.
http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=896
Uncle Kvetch 01.20.05 at 12:49 am
Thorley, now that you’ve set us all straight, tell it to those wild-eyed lefties over at Time Magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1018030,00.html
horatio kornpone 01.20.05 at 2:41 am
Okay, Thorley, please explain something. What is it with bizarre expressions like “Democrat president” (or “Democrat party”) when the correct usage is “Democratic”?
I hear this on the TV from right-wing nutjobs all the time, and it puzzles me. It makes anyone using it sound, well, semiliterate is being nice about it.
Is it a code signal? A way for right-wing nutjobs to identify one another?
Jason McCullough 01.20.05 at 4:16 am
Has a nastier connotation; something about that “at” ending makes it sound bad, like racist/homophobic/etc.
Darren 01.20.05 at 10:24 am
Just curious: how does one initiate a discussion on this forum?
I ask because there is an interesting article in the Asia Times about the recent Ukranian election.
Also, I appreciate that this forum is censored (moderated) and hence this post will be removed to stop it detracting from the original post.
Thorley Winston 01.20.05 at 4:21 pm
Uncle Kvetch wrote:
No need, they’ve ended up conceding the argument. From the Time magazine article you so thoughtfully provided:
Bush is clearly stating then that unless we do something to change the system, we are looking at raising taxes [and/]or cutting benefits. Later on in the Time article they end up admitting:
In other words, Bush is stating that he wants to change the Social Security system now because if we don’t do it before the baby boom generation begins to retire, there is a problem because we are looking at having to raise taxes and/or cut benefits in the future. The authors of the Time magazine article are stating there is no problem because we can always raise taxes and/or cut benefits in the future. Both agree to the likely outcome of doing nothing until the problem manifests itself, the difference is that “There is No Crisis†mongers have put themselves in the unenviable position of (a) trying to demagogue any sort of benefit “cuts†while (b) stating that they don’t think that there is anything wrong with raising taxes and cutting benefits particularly since (c) under their proposal of doing nothing until the problem manifests itself, we would wind up having do more of both.
Uncle Kvetch 01.20.05 at 6:03 pm
Thorley,
There is a difference between saying “there is no crisis” and saying that nothing should be done. There is a minor, long-term financing problem that should be addressed, and a vigorous debate about the best way to address it is all to the good. (I personally would favor removing the salary cap on the FICA tax, making it at least flat and not regressive, as it presently is.)
If you take the time to examine the arguments of those in the “there is no crisis” camp, you’ll see that the argument is actually something more like “There is no crisis that necessitates fundamentally transforming Social Security in order to ‘save’ it.” The point being that Social Security can continue to exist indefinitely in its present form with some minor adjustments.
This is miles away from the signals that are coming from the administration, which suggest that the ultimate objective is to transform SS into something other than what it is today.
And to top it all off, the proposals that Bush seems to be concocting do nothing to address the financing problem; if anything, they exacerbate it.
Kenneth 01.21.05 at 4:03 pm
Not only is it insulting to hear them use democrat instead of Democratic, it is an intententional insult that angers me every time it is allowed to be used. I can’t believe that the “media” allows the bastardization of the word.
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