Invoking FDR on Soc. Sec.

The Bush Administration has directed the Social Security Administration to run a propaganda campaign whose goal is the diminution of the very service that agency provides.

The conservative group "Progress for America" is using the image of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a TV ad which has the same purpose, despite a protest by FDR’s grandson.

These tactics go beyond selling an idea that won’t sell itself – they are designed to twist the knife. They are reminiscent of the criminal who at gunpoint forces his hostage to dig a grave before executing him and kicking his limp body in.

And these tactics serve Wall Street firms who hope to earn billions administering private accounts.

Am I just spouting angry rhetoric? Here’s some rhetoric from someone who would know, speaking at his first inauguration, having just been elected to do what Herbert Hoover had failed to do, with the Great Depression ravaging the country after my great-grandfather and millions of others had lost their retirement savings to the stock market crash:

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Read the rest here. Too bad they didn’t play the audio in those TV commercials.