Give Them Self Interest

My dad was a staunch Republican much of his life. He was a Republican by tradition, not self interest. For decades, Republicans fumed over Social Security, I'd say, early on at least, maybe because they didn't enact the legislation themselves, although the administration of Herbert Hoover had developed a basic plan for what became Social Security during that beleaguered president's term in office. Due to the severity of the economic situation, the plan was never pushed to the forefront. Other Republicans were just plain against the very idea of Social Security. In my opinion, it just kind of gnawed at the Republicans that they had failed to grasp how this important program slipped through their fingers, giving Democrats a major advantage with Social Security recipients for decades. Republicans correctly criticized the funding for Social Security, as it has always been based upon "pay-as-you-go" financing; a problem to this very day. On the other hand, some real hard line conservatives just seemed to want to turn the clock back to a time when older folks were left to fate, or to their families to provide them with life's basics of food, clothing and shelter.

Toward the end of his life, my dad made some pretty startling statements to me. He gave praise to Eleanor Roosevelt for helping my great grandmother (his maternal grandmother) with some issue about Social Security, I believe it was. He got the attention of Mrs. Roosevelt for his grandmother's cause by writing a letter to her when he was in the Army during World War Two in the Pacific. By the time he told me all of this, circa 1996, the Republicans were preaching about investing Social Security money in the stock market. His comment was something like, "The Republicans should just leave this stock market stuff alone. These business people can't wait to get their hands on that Social Security money. That's what this is about! The Republicans are getting too close to big business." Now, this was a BIG statement to be coming from my dad.

That statement shows one thing, blasting a government program for older folks when you're 30 or 40 or 50, or even 60 is one thing, but hearing about risky proposals on such a program when you're 65, 75, or 80 (he was about 80 when he made his remark about Social Security), when you're in need of that program, is another matter entirely! Self interest and necessity trumps any ideological nonsense.

I hope all of you will vote. I also hope that when you go to the polls, you will think about your own self interest. The big money people have told us over and over that self interest drives the capitalist system. We've now seen how their self interest has driven that system to the edge of the cliff (and maybe over the cliff). Now it is OUR turn. Whichever presidential candidate wins, they may well be constrained by ( and maybe destroyed by) the economic situation that confronts, not only the country, but the world. But think for a moment about which candidate will think about YOUR interest the most. Which candidate wants more tax reductions for the bastions of greed and the wealthy,*** and which candidate wants tax reductions for more average people. Give the big money folks what they love to proclaim (when things are going their way) and think about self interest, YOUR self interest!


*** To me, with the one side, it is more like, "Capitalism and the free markets really DO work, we just didn't give them enough tax cuts!" Folks, these people can't spend all that they've got now!!! If truth be told, I'll bet we'd find out that many of them took any and all extra money and invested it in various commodities, like oil, gasoline, natural gas, wheat, corn, etc; thus driving up the prices of those things and picking our pockets even more.

Word History:
World-This word only seems to exist in the Germanic languages. In Old Germanic, it was "werald," a compound of "wer," which meant "man/human" in Germanic, and is still with us in "werewolf," that is, "man wolf," and "ald," which meant "old, or age." So the basic concept was, "age of man," or "the present time." Later, it developed the more extensive meaning of the existing actual physical surroundings or "world," as opposed to "the hereafter." In Old English it was "woruld/worold," and Old Saxon (while Saxon was one of the dialects that became English, "Old" Saxon refers to the Saxon dialect that remained on the Continent) had "werold," and Old Frisian, another very close dialect to English had "warld." Modern German has "Welt," as the "r" sound died out in that variation, Dutch has "wereld," and Danish and Norgegian have "verden." By the way, in Old English, "worldly," was "woruldlic," with the "c" being a harder sound similar to "k." That sound eventually morphed into English "ly," but is still alive in modern German, which has "weltlich," although when you here some German speakers pronounce it, it is very similar to English "ly."