Nobody Should have to Live Like This

     Call it my American sense of entitlement, accuse me of white privilege. But no American who'd kicked into the Social Security fund for decades as I and tens of millions of others had should live in a state of siege, fear and uncertainty.

     Social Security, going back to FDR's administration, was one of the greatest compacts struck between the American labor force and the United States government. What the government was saying in essence was, "Go to work like you've been doing, pay your taxes and when you retire, you'll get that money back. It's yours and we'll manage it well for you."

     That, and the subsequent Medicaid and Medicare, because one of the greatest social safety nets in the industrialized world. While not perfect by any means, it nonetheless saved countless tens of millions of senior citizens from needing to work for the rest of their lives.

     The Republicans from 90 years ago, naturally, sneered at it and ever since the 30s have tirelessly worked to undermine it, to privatize it, doing everything in their power to destroy it. Republicans, then and now, saw it as an example of government that works for the bottom 90% and not just the elite and Republicans hate that. Social Security's aim, to allow elderly folks to retire with dignity, was intolerable to Republicans who saw Social Security as nothing more than an example of the welfare state, an entitlement system, one that poached workers from the work force. Who cares about that one big, pesky fact that we have been kicking into the fund our entire working lives?

     But for the longest time until Bush II, Republicans were just smart enough to know that going after SS full bore was a third rail. Yeah, Bush nibbled around the edges of it, trying his damnedest to privatize it on the craps tables of Wall Street (You know, the same psychopaths whose horrible behavior resulted in the 2008 Wall Street crash that resulted in a $700 billion bailout to reward such bad behavior?). He even said that not privatizing Social Security was the biggest failure of his administration.

     Then Trump came back, literally with a vengeance. And this time, he brought an army of psychopaths with him that makes the last pack of gators in that swamp look like otters. He brought with him a sociopath named Elon Musk, a guy who's every bit the fraud Trump is only he's vastly more successful at it.

     Musk and his 69 member DOGE of mostly juvenile delinquents, some of them as young as 19, have been allowed to barge their way into government office buildings, such as the SSA, even being supported by law enforcement. And now we're hearing that they're planning on closing 47 SSA regional offices by simply getting the GSA to revoke the leases. This is after they'd disabled the phone lines.

     And the ridiculous rationale is that they're combating fraud, waste and abuse, carefully sidestepping the fact this is our money, not theirs, and that, no, nobody claiming to 150 years-old are fraudulently drawing benefits. Then we started reading about poor Ned Johnson, whom Elon decided was dead (as usual, without evidence) and had $5201 stolen from his bank account.

     It's now Friday, March 28th and I still haven't gotten my Social Security. I've never gotten it this late before. I tried setting up an account on their website and the SSA is making it literally impossible to do so I can't get answers.

     So, I may have lost my sole revenue stream. I'm almost out of food and I have $4 in the bank. Why is this happening to me? To many of us? What did we do?

     How did we get to this point? How did this become acceptable, for some asshole from South Africa to just swoop in with gang of arrogant thugs and decide who gets benefits and who doesn't, who's dead or alive? 

      One of the greatest accomplishments of the SSA, one of its greatest legacies, was in never skipping a payment period. It was a sterling example of government that worked to the benefit of the most vulnerable among us - elderly retirees who faithfully kicked into the system through their payroll taxes without a second thought for decades, secure in the knowledge that it would be there waiting for us when it came time to retire.

      Why are we letting this happen? Why are police letting these vandals wreck our government through the most massive home invasion in US history? How do these psychopaths think this will have a happy ending? Do they really think that if they succeed in robbing 73,500,000 people out of their retirement fund that it won't result in serious blowback?

      Yes, they seriously believe this. Remember Howard Lutnick in that podcast when he said those who yell the loudest about losing their benefits are the fraudsters.

     It's classic sociopathic thinking. If you get mugged and have your money stolen from you and report it to the police, suddenly you're the criminal.

     People, I'm not looking for sympathy and this isn't another fundraising drive (although I certainly wouldn't turn down a donation). I'm just looking for answers from a decaying, crumbling system that isn't even interested in hearing the questions. I and others in my predicament are living in a nightmare like something out of Kafka.

     Someone please make this stop.

     Addendum: I've just set up my first Go Fund Me. You can find the page right here.