Well, I told you so regarding the dual meaning of ‘entitlements’ in other forums. 

This language thing is damn important. 

We actually must take back the word ‘Entitlements’, because it implies the things we have piad in for. Aw working Americans, we pay in for certain returns, not specifically for us, but government administered programs for the general welfare.  There is another word like ‘Entitlements’, the word ‘welfare’.  It has two meanings, one negative, one, ‘The general welfare’, is very positive. 

The term ‘liberal’ is trashed, the perm ‘progressive’ is halfway useless.  The term ‘conservative’, sounds good, but means ‘radical’ if you look at their policies.

Back to ‘Entitlements’.  AS damn harsh as this sounds, some ‘so-called entitlements’ used to be called ‘charity’, because the recipients never paid in a dime of cash or effort.  Is helping a severely retarded person ‘charity’, YES AND THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.  But, if we don’t start to agree on the distinction between these words, we will lose them.  .........and the entitlements that go with them. 

Back to ‘entitlements’.  I propose that this word be embraced!  CLAIM IT NOW!  It means either Social Security, or Medicare, or a benefit of publicly funded education.  Am I missing anything?  We pay in for it.  If a member of society isn’t paying in, their ‘benefit’ is a charity, not an entitlement. A good and productive society can and should afford charity, and we have to have the un-politically-correct guts to call it that.  It is this ‘softening’ of speech to be considerate to the damn self-esteem of the recipients which allows these words to be stolen.

If we lose our words, we lose.  We are battling a cultural war for hearts and minds.  We do this battle with words and we have been almost totally disarmed.  I urge all to use the word ‘entitlement’ loudly and proudly, and describe exactly why we are indeed entitled to social security, medicare and a good public education.  Draw the lines.

Blah,blah,blah - progressives must arm and eliminate.

Repubs play to their base of stupidity - believing that social security is just a ‘hand out’ - that every governmnent program is just underserved welfare - isn’t just false it’s collosally stupid.
What is the role of government but to take care of its citizens? The Repugs will certainly accept one government organ in that protective role - the military - reason being it can expand its imperialist base of power. Its the only role that assholes will buy into.
Their claimed humanistic reasons, however declared, are just bogus and hypocritical.

There is an ocean of difference between those that write and manipulate laws and get them passed so that they work in favor for those whom benefit from those laws -  versus -  those whom were not paying attention or were paying attention but did not act or protest.

Many, of course are unable to act.

But those that can; get involved in order to oppose or approve of the law being passed.

We live in the here and the now, so act in the here and the now, keeping actions in history and they’re effects close to the heart. Think globally, act locally - yes it’s an old phrase but it still works.

Keep informing those around you, even when you feel like your speaking to a plant.

When your eyes are closed, and your on the ground, the bed, wherever you may be, think of your fellow human being, that will also eventually do, as you are doing.

The most common traits we share are eating, sleeping, making love.

Kindness is not weakness. It is the opposite. A person that can share, and shows compassion in the face of hardship, is a person that is of the highest human trait, that of empathy.

Do not let them sway from you, your ability to show kindness.

Rescinding the Bush tax cuts for the top income earners
would fund SS for the next 75 years.  This is old news
and surely info that Obama had access to when he
decided to keep the tax cuts in place. 

Would that some reporter sitting in on one of these
seemingly endless news conferences being conducted by
Obama ask him to explain, maybe justify, why keeping
the tax cuts in place was preferable to reducing
funding to Medicare etc.

Entitlement IS a Right-Wing Republican EXTREMIST word that is meant to demean the Left-Wing’s Common Population, while corporations take welfare as entitlement from the public through government with both hands, as if there is no consequences from their humongous TAKE, when corporate greed as entitlement is what is tearing down our nation, not benefits for the common population.  Republicans will never own up and call their TAKE entitlement, because their linguistic schtick is to play words in dialectic, sophism, and propaganda to FOOL the 70% Majority Common Population into being unaware of their majority population power and just let them take advantage of the Majority Population.

American Legislative Exchange Council EXPOSED,

ALEC’s model legislation reflects long-term goals: downsizing government, removing regulations on corporations and making it harder to hold the economically and politically powerful to account. Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces. The task forces cover issues from education to health policy. ALEC’s priorities for the 2011 session included bills to privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws and more.

“Dozens of corporations are investing millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly legislation that is being made into law in statehouses coast to coast, with no regard for the public interest,” says Bob Edgar of Common Cause. “This is proof positive of the depth and scope of the corporate reach into our democratic processes.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/13-8

Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called “model bills” reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. Through ALEC, corporations have “a VOICE and a VOTE” on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state. DO YOU?

http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

“Any rational person can look at what these corporations are doing through ALEC and on their own and know that essentially for-profit corporations are writing legislation in Arizona,” said Caroline Isaacs, AFSC program director. “The spirit of the law—which I think most of us believe is there to prevent money from buying undue influence in politics—is clearly being violated.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/151627/inside_alec,_the_koch-funded_group_behind_right-wing_state_laws?page=entire

Republicans are misanthropes, pure and simple. They have no relevance as a party serving the people, only as puppets of the rich.

Tao my friend

Let me explain why I thought of you as some corporate keyboard warrior, masquerading as an Indian.

Much of your message seems to say From the Rage Against The Machine song Freedom (about Leonard Peltier)

What Does The Billboard say?

Come and Play, Come and Play
Forget About the Movement

So what does yourSELF (just another insignificant irrelevant SELF according to your philosophy) say in response to the situation that we face?

Is it, do nothing because it does not matter what your SELF says or does? Because I hold that the corporate powers that be (who are directly responsible for the attack on mother earth) want precisely that.

Do nothing

Serious question

Thus does the idiotic “dominance”-paradigm grind-on to its inevitable DEAD
END CONclusion.  Meanwhile, “the (left-over middle-class) meat,”  still jonesing
on the toxic bennies now barely “trickling-down” to them from the groaning
‘tables’ on the top tiers of the pyramidal CONfidence-scheme, obsesses
endlessly over how to keep the machinery running.  “The president could….,”
the Democrats oughta…..,” “the Republicans should realize…..,” “the people
just have-to…..,” goes the monotonous heterodyne whine of their relentlessly
“self”-referential refrain.

Since, however, they’re rapidly running-out of colorful ‘others’ who can be
easily and eCONomically shoved into the death-dealing device ahead of their
own too-precious “self,” these paragons are now in panic-mode.  Simply
shutting the damned thing down is unthinkable.  So they’ve taken-to selling
their own children and great grandchildren into perpetual wage/debt slavery,
just to keep from losing the last of the cold comforts and crippling
CONveniences to which they’ve become addicted…..and so feel “entitled”....but
which are (as they’ve always been) biologically unaffordable.  Yet there’s all this
feigned surprise (shock even) that having slap-happily numbered their days,
their Days have turned-out to be “numbered”....and nowhere near as amply as
they were so easily fooled into believing.

Better quit counting, tame Sisters and Brothers….because The Living Virtue of
Organic Functional Integrity available to remedy what ails you is beyond any
reckoning, anyhow….if you can only get-over the smothering limitations of
your own silly “self”....and the idolized “SELF” it’s spun-off-from.

HokaHey!

Ah, “entitlements” indeed. George Lakoff and other astute progressives have been pointing at superior Republican “framing” skills for a number of years now. Strange how Democrats once they’re elected pay little attention to the liberal think tanks, let alone follow their sage advice. Must be those “beltway blinders”, or else the money these so-called liberals receive from Wall Street. Honest American citizens have paid into these government programs all their lives—these benefits are owed to them, yes, OWED! As Dennis Kucinich said in his recent article, this high-speed funneling of American wealth to the super-rich is casting great doubt on the validity of the two-party system. Amen, brother.

It just occurred to me that “entitlements” is the new racist code word for Blacks, Browns and “White Trash” (like Hillary Swank’s family in “Million Dollar Baby”).

Look how it’s used…like “Crime and Welfare” and “Law and Order” were used in the past as code words for Black and Brown people.

“Nice” White People don’t get “entitlements” (and we all know the 1/4 million dollars Michelle Bachmann got in farm subsidies isn’t an “entitlement”), they get “job-stimulating tax relief”.  (and where are all the jobs all that “relief” generated? Not in the USA!)

Several years back the penalties for crack cocaine were made 10x more onerous than those for powdered cocaine in the same amounts.  Same exact stuff. Same amount of cocaine.  But crack is more prevalent among people in ghettos and powdered coke is used more by middle and upper-class Whites….

It’s amazing and disgusting how, 146 years after the war to end slavery, its aftermath still dogs us.

Sorry for the double….

It occured to me that the word “entitlement” is an accurate representation of a key government function. In my own opinion a key function of government is the caring for those citizens in need of such. What is wrong with “entitling” children to have a good education? What is wrong with a senior expecting to receive his social security after working her whole life and contributing into that fund? What is so republican about an entitlement for decent, available and inexpensive health care?

I think Boyarski is full of shite generally , to be frank about it, an apologist for all things Democrat in fact. Just as I believe Barack Obama to be an inexperienced and incompetent President. The problem is far from just the Republicans, believe it.

“What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet…sorry Will for my butchery of your phrasing.

Rather than get so caught up in names and phrases, instead of playing the game in right wing territory why not simply state the freaking facts, plainly and simply and let the public decide. The left is so easily herded!

It’s so obvious that, once all those lazy seniors have their ponzi scheme handouts taken away, the economy will just soar. It was the burden of all these parasites that brought down our employment rate.

The answer is simple really, President Obama is a Republican in Democratic clothing.
The man filled his cabinet with Wall St. types. Just who does anyone think is whispering
in his ear regarding “strengthening” Social Security. Wall St. has been trying to get it’s
hands on Social Security funds for years and who better to give it to them but a
“Democratic” president? The liberal fallout wiould be much greater if it were a
Republican to do it. And speaking of telling language, when he finally grabbed a set a
walked out of the meeting, apparently he commented that ‘Reagan would not have to sit
through this…’ or something of the like. Reagan!!! Not FDR but Reagan!!! Now he has
already expressed his admiration for the man who spent half his term in senility but, it
seems he is now measuring his Presidency against the hero of the right.

Let’s see if you spend your whole working life paying into programs like Social Security and Medicare.  You are not entitled to the benefits of these programs?

Obama ““dealt” with Republican’ts in the healthcare
battle, caved in to their amendments and then saw
exactly NONE of them vote for the eventual watered-down
bill that nobody really liked.  One would hope he
learned his lesson from that experience.

A most excellent article Mr. Boyarsky

The Republican mantra is to get back in control of every facet of the Government.  To do this they will wreck the Nation.  It has been their plan since they realized even months before the 2008 election that Obama was going to win because of the most disastrous years of the Bush Administration.

Their plan was to make them forget the Bush years by impeding any Economic recovery possible.

This Morning on CNN a Republican guest was saying that on August 2, the payout to Social Security would be 23 Billion and there would be only 12 Billion in the Treasury to pay to those who’s very lives depend on that Social Security Check.  What a Lie!

The money spent on current wars and defense (Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) cost 98.04% of the money spent on Social Security.  Did you know that?  The Republicans didn’t tell you that did they.  Add Federal Pensions and Interest on the Debt to Wars and Defense and you find that Social Security only costs 63.56% of what Wars, Defense, Federal Pensions, and Debt Interest cost.  Were you aware of that?

And it gets worse.  Social Security recipients have paid into the Social Security Fund for all their working lives.  Congress has admitted robbing the fund of over $2.5 Trillion dollars over those years - no wonder there is no longer any money in the fund.  Let’s do some math.

If the shortfall was correct ($23 Billion - $12 Billion = $11 Billion ) and there really is no shortfall, the $2.5 Trillion that even the Government admits has been stolen from the Social Security fund, if re-deposited into the SS Fund would pay that amount of shortfall for 19 years (2,500 Billion / $11 Billion = 227.27 months.  227.27 months / 12 months in a year = 18.94 years).  And the Republicans want to give the richest 1% even more while placing a guaranteed number of Social Security dependents into starvation or death from untreated illness.  Any person who would defend the Republican Party has just got to be borderline stupid.
 
And yet there is even more.

When Bush was President he signed an act that would allow a sitting President to declare a National Emergency and assume Dictatorial Powers.  Obama promised to get rid of that abomination the first day in Office.  Have you noticed he didn’t do it?  Does that mean he could appoint himself Dictator on August 3rd if there is no Debt extension?

Think about it.  Who gains by all this Debt Ceiling BS?

Why doesn’t Obama talk about corporate welfare as an entitlement?

It seems he accepts the Republican language and is in defense mode instead of crafting the language to suit his position.  Reframing the debate on his own terms, in other words, instead of letting Republicans set the agenda through the words they choose.

After awhile, though, it becomes apparent that Obama does not stuggle trying to define his own terms.  He seems to happy accept the Republican agenda and create a capitulating and vague ideological tone.

‘Entitlement’ is also poorly used when applied to the republican party, as in ‘The republicans have an entitlement to negotiate to have their positions heard and considered’. That used to be true when the republicans had a majority of members who were rational and kept the rabid-right ‘conservatives’ relatively muzzled and out-of-sight, for the most part.

Now, however, negotiating with republicans is exactly comparable with trying to strike a deal with Al Qaeda. What negotiating strategy do you adopt when the other side says ‘We’re gonna kill you SOB’s and feed your remains to our dogs, and that’s not negotiable, we don’t compromise’?

Do you try to get them to only half-kill you, or only slaughter half of you?

The only answer to the rabid dogs running the GOPer ‘negotiations’ these days is to tell them to ‘F***OFF’ and do whatever is necessary to arrive at a reasonable solution. The US public is still smart enough, though perhaps only barely, to recognize the idiot approach the GOP/TPers are taking for the amoral stupidity it is. And if the public weren’t, it would deserve the eff-up it would get if the idiots had their way…so, Obama, do what’s right, what you promised way back in the day, and ignore the feces falling from the GOP/TP a**holes’ lips.

I agree.  Note that corporate “entitlements” are called subsidies, tax breaks, grants
while programs for the people represent some kind of welfare. 

There are all kinds of govt programs, as Michelle Bachman and her husband can
tell you.  Their argument that these breaks should exist only for the upper 2% is a
disturbing omen of how all this corporate sponsorship will ultimately effect our
democracy. 

Four trillion in spending cuts in the midst of a recession (counting people who are
underemployed and part time) will devastate the American worker.