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Friday, December 10, 2010

Krugthulu Exposes Obama's Misleading Revision of Social Democratic Accomplishments

What Krugman Said:
[T]he president is rewriting history -- and, revealingly, doing so in a way that makes the case for timid[idity]… while waving away the actual history of bold[ness of his Democratic predecessors]. Specifically, Obama said… "FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans… And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people. When Medicare was started, it was a small program. It grew… [My progressive critics would pretend] each of those were betrayals of some abstract ideal." This is all wrong: both programs were huge from the start. From the beginning, Social Security applied to all private-sector workers, except those in agriculture, domestic service, or casual employment -- and yes, those exceptions happened to exclude the majority of African-Americans. [Yes, it always pays to remember that America failed to become a sensible social democracy in the twentieth century because of our racism most of all, the latest festering of our original sin, the white racism that institutionalized human slavery and then built an empire with the genocide of native populations. But I am interrupting and digressing, let's get back to Krugman:] Still, [Social Security] was by no means a small program that grew big. [Also,] Medicare covered everyone 65 and older right from the beginning

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