If the GOP starts decimating Social Security....

[lbrtbell]

Let's say the Republicans destroy our majority in both houses of Congress, and start pursuing their deplorable goal of dismantling Social Security and Medicare.

What happens then?

Will Obama veto these attempts, or (God forbid) will he roll over in "bipartisanship"?

And what happens whenever another Republican president is elected?

Will people realize what's happening before it's too late, and push back hard? Will the aging baby boomer generation fight for their own Social Security? Will the politicians listen?

What do you think is going to happen?

[MineralMan]

1. The solution is to work very, very hard to get Democratic voters

to the polls and prevent that from happening. It's up to us.

[liberalmuse]

5. You are completely correct.

If the liberals/Democrats don't show up in November, we can expect more of the same.

[MineralMan]

12. Exactly. Anyone who thinks they can simply sit back and not

participate in this election, and participate energetically, is simply wrong. Either we continue to make progress, or we lose. That is all there is to it.

I encourage every DUer to contact their local Democratic congressional candidates offices and volunteer to walk their own precinct and help bring out the Democratic vote. It works. I see no option.

I also encourage DUers to look very carefully at those who are trashing the Obama adminstration and ask what the motivations might be for that. A good example is this "Cat Food Commission" meme that is being spread. That commission has issued no reports. It has made no recommendations. Yet, there are a number of DUers who are spreading the meme that it's all a done deal and that the Democrats are going to destroy Social Security.

There is no evidence that this is the case. We don't have any idea what proposals will come forward. None. So, why is so much time being spent here condemning the Obama administration? I encourage all DUers to think about this and other similar efforts currently ongoing.

We can defeat the Republicans if we want to. Some seem to wish the Republicans would win for some reason I simply cannot understand. Let's think about that. Let's get out the vote and keep the Democratic majority strong and growing in Congress. That's what we can do. Sitting back and saying it's a lost cause will accomplish absolutely nothing but to set things back to the Bush years. No, thank you, very much.

President Obama isn't the perfect President. No question about it. I haven't ever seen a perfect President. Have you?

[jillan]

23. + 100000000000000

[flamingdem]

28. [phone]

[depakid]

2. "...will he roll over in "bipartisanship"?"

Your answer lies in the Clinton approach to deregulation of the banking system.

[liberalmuse]

3. Why are these lizards even allowed to do this?

They are holding up unemployment benefits, and now this. Something's got to give. Are approximately 47% of Americans so evil as to allow this sh*t? I just. Don't. Get it!

[JVS]

4. ... does that mean that the catfood commission didn't work quickly enough to do it first?

[Yuugal]

7. +1000

[county worker]

6. I just resigned from Organizing for America over this issue.

If Obama was serious about protecting Social Security and Medicare he would disband the cat food commission in my opinion and end the wars

[lob1]

8. What if the dems keep everything and Obama

still guts social security? It looks like its heading that way...the gutting s.s. part.

[Yuugal]

9. In that case

I predict alot of pizza here as we are told to like it and anyone who doesn't is removed.

[kenny blankenship]

26. In that case we should be marching on DC

and not posting here anyway.

[sendero]

10. Exactly..

... Obama has made more progress towards gutting social security than the Republicans ever did.

[JVS]

11. Only Nixon could go to China redux

[sellitman]

13. It's just a matter of how soon.

They won't stop until there is no more middle class. It's their game and they are patiently waiting to continue their destruction of the new deal.

[Curmudgeoness]

14. If (big if) this happens, and all our work to get Dems in office fails,

I will fight like hell to stop the rape of a program that all of us have paid into all our lives, that has kept our parents independent and proud, and that will keep us independent and proud. And I will fight the lies put out that we would be better off with privatized retirements and social security is broke. But let's just hope it does not get to this point.

[OHdem10]

15. I fear the pressure will be on him just as Clinton to freform Welfare.

[DonCoquixote]

16. Can someone please post

Where they found out Bill Clinton was going to do this but then he got distracted by Monica gate?

[rfranklin]

17. How Monica Saved Social Security...

By 1997, Bill Clinton felt he had the upper hand with Congress and it was time for him to make historic moves. He had replaced Leon Panetta as Chief of Staff with investment banker Erskine Bowles late in his first term, and as author Steven Gillon tells the tale, Bowles brought a sense of order to the White House. Bowles planned to return to the private sector as Clinton’s second term began, but Bill and Hillary implored him to stay on for one final task: “fixing” Social Security.

President Obama has likewise entrusted Erskine Bowles with the task of chairing his own Deficit Commission, which is currently meeting in secret to address Social Security and other entitlement issues. Since little is known about the deliberations of that commission, I thought it would be instructive to have Dr. Gillon on to talk about Bowles’s history of shuttle diplomacy in 1997 to negotiate a deal between Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton to cut Social Security. He based his book The Pact: Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Rivalry that Defined a Generation on interviews he conducted with Clinton, Gingrich, Bowles and others involved in the negotiations. And according to Bowles, the deal would have gone through save for one factor: the Monica Lewinsky episode.

http://firedoglake.com/2010/05/18/how-monica-lewinsky-saved-social-security-clinton-gingrich-bowles-and-the-pact/

[Proud Liberal Dem]

20. I don't quite understand how the Monica *episode* undid this supposed deal?

The Republicans have wanted to gut SS since its inception. All he really had to do was let them go hog wild and then quietly sign off on it. Why would Monicagate have derailed it? I just don't get it.

[rfranklin]

24. This passage from the story seems to explain that...

Politically, it forced Clinton to seek refuge in the liberal wing of his party, the same group he had agreed to abandon a few months earlier. “All opportunities for accomplishment were killed once the story came out,” reflected a senior White House official. “If we cut a deal with the Republicans on Social Security there was every possibility that the Democrats, who were the only people defending him in Congress against these charges, could easily get angry and abandon him.” With conservatives in an uproar, Gingrich lost his political wiggle room and was forced to appease his right-wing base. If Gingrich did not “feed the conservative beast,” recalled a colleague, he would have been removed from his job as Speaker.

http://firedoglake.com/2010/05/18/how-monica-lewinsky-saved-social-security-clinton-gingrich-bowles-and-the-pact/

[Proud Liberal Dem]

25. So, basically because Clinton didn't have anywhere but the liberal wing to defend himself?

and he couldn't risk pissing them off by doing anything about SS? Is that the gist of it?

[DonCoquixote]

30. Danke Scheon

Nice to know we are on the ball here at DU

[RKP5637]

18. My take on this is Americans have become one passive bunch with no guts to

stand up for their rights, but rather fall for diversionary tactics. I am hopeful that some of the lame teabaggers in this country might wake up and realize their Medicare and SS come from the gov. and not some nebulous provider. And that the GOP is really not their best buddy.

I also hope that the democrats that think they are protesting by sitting home and not voting and simply enabling the republicans a win might become motivated to rethink what they are doing.

Frankly, America seems to have been drained of intelligence. I don't know what to expect anymore, but I for one will move forward trying to secure democratic votes and some level of sanity in this place loosely called a country.

[Dawson Leery]

21. The majority of Americans are gutless simpletons

who are easily swayed by propaganda.

[RKP5637]

27. And even that, sadly, is an understatement. n/t

[Kievan Rus]

19. As long as celebrity crap/"reality shows" are still on the teevee, people won't care

[Nite Owl]

22. Obama's Catfood Commision

has great plans for taking Social Security down more than a few notches.

[mmonk]

29. What do I think will happen? Don't know but I don't like what I see.

http://americancommentary.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/advancing-long-held-republican-right-and-libertarian-dreams-defunding-and-privatizing-entitlements-and-public-education-can-the-obama-administration-and-the-democratic-leadership-council-pull-it-o/">Advancing Long Held Republican Right And Libertarian Dreams.

[Better Believe It]

31. That can only happen if President Obama and Democratic Senators support SS cuts that will be ....

proposed by President Obama's "Deficit" Commission right after the election.

[asdjrocky]

32. The pugs don't have to.

The Dems are doing it for them.

Welcome to bazarro world.