* My Dad and Social Reality

My father, at 78, enjoying the fruits of Social Security, which he had convinced himself was a Republican idea!
















































Social Amnesia, Social Security, and its Stepson, Social Health Care


We might as well throw a few trillion dollars at health care as throw it at anything else. If it doesn't work out, what the hell? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

In fact, it might act as a counterbalance to the trillions we spend on organized death: from Viet Nam (a lie--a manifest lie, according to Secretary of State Robert Manamara); Iraq (also a lie--according to Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose testimony on "weapons of mass destruction" was "incorrect", a euphemism for "lie"); and now Afghanistan. We will see if this "war" (which has the misfortune to inadvertently kill women and children who are either in the way of missiles, or not known to be with those who are the intended targets of the rockets)is based on truth or deception.

Counterbalance in this regard: If we spend all our money on health (or the bureaucracy necessary to make us THINK we are providing care for health), we may not be so quick to spend what we DON'T HAVE on its opposite : Providing Death.

Maybe.

In any event , a decade will shoot by before we know it, and we will either hate this monstrosity of legislative "leadership" or, like Social Security, get so used to it---think it so user-friendly --- that we can't imagine a time when we didn't have it.

My own father --- a dyed in the wool Republican --- died in 1992 at 78, enjoying the fruits of Social Security while having convinced himself that it was an Eisenhower initiative rather than and FDR creation, so he wouldn't have to believe he was benefitting from a DEMOCRAT idea.

So too may Health Care Amnesia prevail.

The question is, will that Amnesia take place before this November -- a mere eight months from now -- or too late for eight?.

Democrats can start scouring the polling statistics for signs of such a Social Altzheimer's to show itself soon on the bi-monthly Quinnipiac surveys.

Like my father, we may come to convinve ourselves before November, that Social Health Care, like Social Security, was essentially an Eisenhower descendant's idea.

But I doubt it.

These current Republicans -- unlike my father -- are too eager to hang-on to their resentments to allow Social Amnesia to gently erase reality.