Down with the Baby Boomers

I got an email from the Social Security Administration today. It was a press release trumpeting the fact that the "first baby boomer", Kathy Casey-Kirschling, applied for her Social Security benefits "online".

"Filing for Social Security benefits online is easy and convenient," said Kathy Casey-Kirschling, who turns 62 on January 1, 2008. "I urge my fellow Baby Boomers to give Social Security's online services a try. Save a trip and do business with Social Security from the comfort of your home or office."

I did not realize that Baby Boomers had been given free access to the SSA email database to communicate with one another, and frankly, I don't think its a good use of our tax dollars. I also think that KCK should hold off on applying for benefits for a few more years. Hasn't she heard that the whole system is going down the toilet?!? No matter WHAT Paul Krugman says?? And that you can get a lot more money if you wait until you are actually old to apply? I am not going to school her.

A different topic: Yesterday and today I watched The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (video here), about the coup attempted against Hugo Chavez. It's edge-of-the-seat good: two Irish filmmakers happened to be present (literally in the Presidential Palace) during the April 2002 coup attempt. They were there when the coup happened and they were there when it fell. It's really compelling to watch, and raises a few interesting issues. The private media in Venezuela were complicit in the coup, refusing to broadcast honest information about Chavez's whereabouts, and the massive demonstrations against the coup, among other things. They explicitly participated in the coup planning, which they explained in a celebratory post-coup news interview. By reference to contemporaneous U.S. news reports, you realize that the American media buys the Bush administration view of Chavez uncritically, and that its "neo-liberal" perspective is almost as bad as the private media in Venezuela.

The problem that detracts from this well-done expose is the filmmakers' assertion that the CIA and the Bush administration are behind the coup. While I don't doubt it - the U.S. can't not meddle in South and Central American politics - the filmmakers have no evidence at all that this happened. Here's the information they allege supports this conclusion: Pedro Carmona and Carlos Ortega, leaders of the opposition to Chavez, may have gone to the White House the year before; an airplane with U.S. registration may have been sent to take Chavez out of Venezuela when his government was restored. And I say "may" because Chavez didn't report that happening. The viewer learns it from some random person in the movie relating it as a rumor. So the movie is great, unfiltered news, it isn't hard journalism.

Another interesting problem the movie raises: Chavez was clearly thoughtful, passionate, articulate about both socialism and democracy in 2002, scaring the shit out of the upper class. He's done a lot of good things, and much of the things he is blamed for doing in the American media are not entirely true. For example, there is supposedly a constitutional basis for him refusing to renew the license of the TV station that participated in the coup against him, and they kept broadcasting on cable. Not exactly grossly offensive censorship, particularly since the FCC here is giving the green light to complete media monopolies. But I got into an argument with a guy I work with who is very pro-Chavez on the question about Chavez extending his term limits for 14 more years. (Supposedly he's just extending them until 2021, not indefinitely). He said that this extension was the will of the people. My view was, there is no exception to the rule that power corrupts, and that if Chavez does not have underlings (Vice President, cabinet members) capable of sustaining the programs he has created, then they don't have a democracy. And while I am ranting, I think socialism without democracy is, at best, paternalism, and at worst, dictatorship. I won't say fascism because I think JFB and I once may have argued about THAT word (or was it totalitarianism?).

The final analysis is: I wish I knew more about Hugo Chavez, and about nearly everything else in the world. When I learn new things - like about this coup - it makes me feel so dumb and naive. I feel like I know almost nothing when I learn anything at all.