The Passion of Alan...


Well, Alan Greenspan has gone and done it.
He went and called for reductions in social security benefits.
Specifically MY presumed social security benefits.
I'm not surprised, behind that cardboard sage facade, Alan remains a libertarian fanatic of the dreariest type.
It has only been a matter of time before Greenspan put the weight of his office as Fed Chairman and his ineffable prestige as a financial wizard behind such a reactionary proposal.
His timing though, is the main point of contention with the current occupant of the White House.
La Famiglia Arbusto would prefer to put social security cuts on the table after the 2004 election when they presumably plan to sit down with the rest of the conservative galaxy and send the welfare state off for the proverbial terminal dirt nap.
Their theory being they can hack the federal government to ribbons once Bush has a legit landslide under his belt.
Here is where the thinking gets ambiguous, clearly Rove etc are planning on a squeaker this November whilst hoping for a big mandate that they can interpret as a victory for GOP's revolutionary program.
They can't have both obviously so the size of Bush's margin governs how radical his proposals will be when the time comes.
Nevertheless, Alan has "jumped the gun" so to speak and put the issue on the front burner in campaign 2004.
His main thesis seems to be that the continued and uninterrupted flow of boons, perks, and benefits and tax cuts to the rich must now be financed out of MY few Federally guaranteed retirement monies.
Movement conservatism, that dying saurian seems to be "down to the raisins" to quote Abraham Lincoln.
We've countenanced shipping factories and jobs overseas, lost billions in large and small revenues, as a result the only way to keep the gravy train rolling for the overclass is to start robbing baby boomer retirees.
That is what it comes down to...and that fool President of ours can do naught but babble incoherently about his all but forgotten plan to partially privatize social security.
In all, a disheartening situation brought down on us solely by a bunch of hacks and ineptoids whose are in thrall to no one save their big money donors.
These people are bereft of ideas...all they seem to do is keep harping lower and lower taxes and an increasingly iniquitous revenue matrix.
Movement conservatism is so far gone down the rocky road to extinction that they are now forced to "dip into the principal" to keep those pay offs going to their paymasters.
What may come next though, is far more ominous, one must ask the question what will replace modern conservatism?
Nature abhors a vacuum, political nature most of all.
Something possibly more socially reactionary but explicitly socialist in terms of welfare and truculently xenophobic ...we see signs of this all the time nowadays.
Whether or not this fanciful movement replaces modern conservatism outright or simply co-opts the liberals on it's way to a fatal confrontation with the moribund right is another question entirely.
Meanwhile, Alan can't keep Bohemian Grove afloat without my money, and he'll have to fight me for that.