Obama campaign REFUSES to disclose plans on Social Security, says discussion belongs with senators

[woo me with science]

177. Ah, the Third Way bids for passivity. Textbook.

Let's look at the absolutely ludicrous assumptions in your post:

1. We have no alternatives. Best to sit back and be passive. Even though nearly ALL Americans have a stake in Social Security, and even though the polls show consistently and powerfully that Americans *across party lines* want to defend Social Security benefits, we should accept that we really can't do much about what is going to happen to us. Best to shut up.

2. Speaking out, demanding answers from our party, raising awareness of political issues that are important to us, and pushing our party to represent us is mere "caterwauling" and should be discouraged and denigrated as trivial and unimportant. You sound like Axelrod: Nobody's voice counts unless they are at the Senate table. No, "LiberalandProud," speaking out is, historically and now, the greatest weapon and leverage that citizens of this country have.

We have in recent years witnessed a creeping, growing, extremely disturbing line of argument on political discussion boards about shutting up during elections, as though it is a given that good citizens must do that so as not to disturb the delicate strategies being implemented by our parties. Now we begin to hear this garbage from the party itself? This at the same time that our political venues are being corrupted by "free speech zones," ....as though our entire country should not be a zone for free speech.

It's textbook spin, a textbook bid for passivity by authoritarians who have infiltrated our parties, and it's a reeking, steaming load. The entire foundation of our political system is supposed to be responsiveness to the people. It's called representative government, and citizen participation in the political process is at the core of it. ESPECIALLY during election seasons.

It is noteworthy that your post also includes the utterly predictable, albeit clumsy, attempt to smear any speaking out as disloyal to the party and an attempt to get people not to vote.

We have a serious problem of growing corporate control and authoritarianism in this country and in our two political parties, and your post is an excellent example of the garbage we are being fed. Everything you wrote is a corruption of what elections are supposed to be about in this country.

It is well past time that the people of America stand up forcefully and remind our politicians on both sides that THEY WORK FOR US....not the other way around.