Perry Deane Young - My Father and Social Security

PDY Blog for 3-14-05

     'You write very well. Too bad you’re not equally as good at math.’

    The article in my previous blog about my father and social security was published on the op ed page of the March 4 Atlanta Constitution and in the March 13 Asheville Citizen-Times. The responses have been quite gratifying…a couple of nasty ones, but that goes with the territory. Here are some of them:

     Thank you for your excellent column about Social Security Sunday. I appreciate your willingness to share your father's intransigence with us. Your experience is an excellent example of the importance of Social Security to a child losing a parent. It has been quite a while since I saw anything from you in the AC-T. Hopefully, we will hear from you again soon.

Bruce Steinbicker
Asheville

-o-

     Perry Deane.......great article in the Sunday paper on your family and SS, thanks for standing up and being heard. The apathy in this country is apalling or people are just afraid to speak up for fear of being labeled un-American! The republicans have really done a number on us. Of course, Bush's people have studied the masters on controlling the masses-hitler. All in the name of national security. People need to understand that social security is national security. Screw up SS and health care and people will take to the streets.

    Keep up your good work! Hope to see you this summer at SART.

Rick Morgan

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    Thanks for column which appeared in March 13 Asheville C-T. In our area of NC, it is often only the very personal spin that gets through to many people, so maybe you made some readers take note. Although I never gave it much thought until I read your column, my father in Albemarle, NC was a Republican opposed to SS, and that was also the case with my friend Tom Sanders who grew up in Asheville.

    Bush has called out all his steamrollers to try to trash SS and Tom and I follow with great interest daily in the NY Times his attempts to rearrange the truth about SS and countless other issues. Many thanks.

Mary Lasher

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Mr. Young:

     It is very depressing reading your article on 3/13. You seem so blinded by emotion and hate. Please tell me this isn't so. Your father is not to blame for what you, yourself, have done. Who have you listened to about your 'alleged' disinformation on Social Security? It certainly was not Bush. Is it because he's Republican? Would you have listened to him had he been a Democrat?

    Why does it seem you espouse the communist policies of the government providing for all the citizens? The government never made any citizen great. Freedom did. As the fore-fathers were insistent upon, the 'people' will only prosper if government is out of their lives.

    Social Security is now solely dependent on the government. It is headed for bankruptcy. That much is known. Changes have to be made. It is highly unfortunate that you think anything but the private sector can only make those changes. You are old enough where you would not be affected anyway. Why would you be so dead set against anything you seem to know nothing about?

    We pray that your mind will be changed before long. For your sake, it must...

Kevin Roeten
Asheville, NC
AC-T Subscriber

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Mr. Young,

    Thank you so much for having the courage and taking the time to write this most timely article.

    Rarely do I respond to anything in print, but this piece resonated so well that I felt a need to let you know how much it was appreciated. I am a retired eye doctor with most of my friends being quite conservative. While I appreciate and live a conservative life-style, philosophically and politically I am a very liberal democrat. The lies we were told about Iraq, that along with this blantant attempt to undermine and destroy our most basic safety-net, has hardened my position even more.

    Your contribution to the Social Security dialogue is not to be under-estimated and I thank you for it. Certainly you will come under attack, but you must not be discouraged. It will be my prayer that you be shielded, as much as possible, from it. Remember your position is the correct one and I hope you will think to expand these experiences into into book form.

    BTW I live in Andrews (NC), yet my great-grand parents migrated first to Swain, then later to Graham counties from Red Hill.

    May God Bless!!

Respectfully,
Dale Garland

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    "flat out trying to destroy it...." Please explain how "George Bush and his Republican conspirators..." are going to destroy SS? I have seen nothing that demonstrates or leads to that conclusion. I have known many like your Dad who have barely gotten by with SS and I believe that we have to have a program similar to current SS to take care of these. I don't see how GB and Reps are going to destroy. Please explain. thks.

ellen williams

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    Hello Perry Young, Bill Duyck here. I'll bet you will never remember me from our youthful days down in dear old Woodfin. I went to school with Robert and graduated the same year. We played all the sports together. If you remember me, I had crew cut and 6' 4". I still have that crew cut and my wife of fifty years has never seen me with anything but a crew cut. We were married fifty years in December, 2004.

    I remember you as a young boy of maybe 4 or 5 and the house at the end of Washington Ave. But, I also remember you as you grew older and in school and when you would come to our ballgames. I asked my wife if she had read the article that you had written and I said "this is the brother of Robert that I had gone to school with and played ball with."

    I just wanted to say hello to you and to tell you how much I enjoyed reading your article in the paper today. Isn't it the truth at just how many gullible people there are in this country? I cannot believe the people that think that Bush is such a wonderful person. Well, so much for that. I just wanted to say hello and keep up the good works!!!!

Bill Duyck

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     I read with great interest, your editorial in this morning"s Asheville Citizens-Times. My story is very similar. My Dad, also a Republican who certainly did not vote for Roosevelt, went through bankruptcy trying to run a small business. He admittedly lived better under Social Security than at any other time of his life, until he was 94. Where we part company is in believing that the "do nothing" Democratic plan will save this wonderful program. You write very well. Too bad you aren't equally as good at math.

James W. Bailey, Hendersonville, NC

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    Thank you for writing about your dad, social security and today's GOP. I totally agree, it is not reform but destruction of SS that is on the agenda of GWB and party. You used word plutocrats...very few people realize that is where we are headed, plutocracy, while we urge democracy on the world we are a plutocracy. It is getting worse, and the warning from President Eisenhour rings truer than ever, we need to fear the military - industrial take over of our government. Copied and sent this insightful article to many people. Thank you so much for enlightening us.

Joyce Coutlakis

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