Carrol said: The only part of Clinton's program that he has failed to implement is the destruction of Social Security -- and who knows, he may do it yet. The tasks of the left are hopeless as long as so many people see the enemy as well intentioned but weak.
For the last several months I've been hanging out at investor message boards. These places are crazy, especially but certainly not exclusively, the small company boards. It has struck me that one tack the Left should take in saving Social Security from the privatization crowd is to use the utter disgust and distrust that retail investors are developing toward the market. Ideas such as manipulation by market makers, Venture Capitalists , hired bashers, stock promotors and just about anyone connected with Wall Street, are incredibly strong on those boards. Even when people are doing well. Many internet and development stage tech companies have gone through what is being called Toxic Financing, ie., Preferred Stock is issued that is converted in connection with the market price over a certain period. One Pallidin Ventures is being sued now by Aria for shorting the stock to the bottom during the price setting period, yet this is something discussed and expected by investors. One company I'm familiar with actually gave these Palladin guys a contractual right to short the stock before conversion when they needed a reclassification of the investment to meet NASDAQ requirements. The people most actively involved with their own investments are the very people who are beginning to assume the whole thing is rigged against the little guy.
The other thing I wanted to mention about these boards is the overwhelming homophobia. (Hope I didn't mention this before.) On the main boards I hung at, many insults involved something obscene being done with a mother or girlfriend of the guy being attacked. The other biggie was accusing the other fellow of homosexual acts. Ad nauseum. I managed to quell the anti-woman(quite violent too) stuff on a couple of sites, got a rep as a real ball-breaker, I fear. But I was never able to get even embarrassed silence about gay-bashing.(wasn't bashing directly, more using homosexual acts as the ultimate put down). Even the nice people who would chime in when someone made a racist remark would never make a peep when I objected to the gay stuff. From my experience it seems that woman and minorities are doing great compared to gays, as far as the moral far-from silent majority goes.