Social Security and Medicare Don't Make Hard Times, Military Spending and Tax Cuts for the Rich Do

SHIRLEY SMITH FOR BUZZFLASH

How can Social Security be in trouble? Even if there have been no raises for the last year or two, if it were really in trouble, wouldn't people or multimillionaires like John McCain, who has been photographed proudly waiving his social security check, want to give their checks back? Why would a multimillionaire, knowing there are so many poor people around this country, people who can barely afford utilities or food want to keep his check? Instead, we see John McCain smiling smugly, showing us that he gets social security. That picture says it all about the Republican Party of today. A sick, incurable greed for more money and power regardless of who it hurts.
 
How can it be hard times in this country when US government voted for health care, of course, it wasn't either of the two choices that the people wanted. It wasn't anything we could brag to Canada or Great Britain, or France about . . . but, that's probably because we aren't really having hard times in this country . . . you think? Of course, there are still hundreds of thousands of our poor, too poor to buy insurance, still without health insurance.
 
Surely, we couldn't be having hard times when US military still takes 50% of our US government budget. If we were really having hard times, wouldn't it be prudent for those who work for the people (all three branches of government) to close most of those 800 to 900 military bases around the world?
 
How could we be having hard times when our own president's family, his wife and daughter, just took a vacation to Spain and paid $7,000 a night for lodging. I'm assuming, in order to save money, that she went alone and there were no secret service people traveling along. I've been to Spain and missed that one. Of course, that was cheaper than Bush's tours. I remember it being reported that he usually took hundreds of secret service along on many of his trips. He was known to have towns cut down all of their trees along their main streets before he would go down them. Funny what people will do, when most of us know that they didn't miss anything by refusing his visits.
 
Hard times are caused by excess military spending, privatization, NAFTA, CAFTA, illegal and treasonous invasions/occupations, tax cuts for the wealthy . . . and all of the other changes made in this country since Nixon. America's hard times are a combination of all of that, and even with the Bush GOP's war against the American people, such as the Patriot Act and more, it still goes on. We have not had that many changes. And, when we have had change happening, the GOP whine and shout until the Democrats in Congress give up and the GOP gives a hoop and holler and they win again. Democrats and Obama's administration have to speak out, practice at being an oppositional power. Commit to the people of this nation, instead of to the corporations and the unfriendly fire coming from the GO.
 
But, come on, if those things were so bad, surely, we could have expected Obama to clean up the Executive Branch first and get rid of all of the Bush/Clinton influences. Yes?
 
These hard times will seem like a walk in the park at midnight without a picnic basket if the Democrats in US government fail to wake the hell up. People won't vote against them, they just won't vote. Gibbs, for instance, sure knows how to stab a 'gift horse' (progressives and liberals) in the heart, and I guess come future election Novembers, he will expect that dead horse to just jump up and save his arrogant ass. You know, the same horse who put his ungrateful self into DC in the first place. Mr. Gibbs, I don't care how friendly you are with the Bush GOP, they still won't vote for you.

Obama has done a few good things to keep people happy and forgiving. So, our military is leaving Iraq. I hope Americans remember that our young men/women have spent years going back and forth to Iraq and Afghanistan. Tour after tour after tour all commanded by a resident of the White House, Bush, and who also was reported to have gone AWOL when he was serving in the military. To do that to our troops and many were so stressed out they committed suicide, that was not leadership, it was military tyranny towards those who serve because of love for  the military or because they needed a job. Women in the military died in their sleep for fear of being raped when they went to the latrines during the night.  All of this debt, death, and destruction due to lies. Lies that have gone for years without any hint of accountability for the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by those lies.
 
What about that embassy/palace Bush built in Iraq, will it be emptied too, and people are worried about a mosque in New York in a democracy where freedom of religion is one of our most treasured Bill of Rights. Right Wing GOP Christians . . . take a vacation from your prejudices against Muslims, and, for a time, worry about the other 4,000 religions in America why don't you.

Ah, please forgive, during hard times, when is the truth ever popular.