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Dear Progressive Reader,

Ninety years ago, on August 14, 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act, noting ([link removed]) : “Today a hope of many years’ standing is in large part fulfilled. The civilization of the past hundred years, with its startling industrial changes, has tended more and more to make life insecure. Young people have come to wonder what would be their lot when they came to old age.” But, he continued, “This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete.” Thirty years later, President Lyndon Johnson would take a step toward completing that structure with the signing, on July 30, 1965, of the Social Security Amendments (also known as The Medicare Act) which established the new programs of Medicare and Medicaid. At the ceremony, Johnson told
([link removed]) the audience, “no longer will this nation refuse the hand of justice to those who have given a lifetime of service and wisdom and labor to the progress of this progressive country.”

But now, on the same day sixty years later, that progress has been called into question. Speaking at an event hosted by Breibart, the rightwing news organization once led ([link removed]) by Steve Bannon, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told ([link removed]) listeners that the new “Trump Accounts” (created under the “Big Beautiful Bill” signed earlier in the month) would be, “a back door for privatizing Social Security.” Attempts to privatize Social Security have long been a goal ([link removed]) of certain sectors of the right. In his 2005 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush proposed
([link removed]) a phased-in privatization by creating private stock-market invested accounts (what could possibly go wrong?) for individuals. The proposal with met with ([link removed]) strong public opposition. Donald Trump, during his first term, took moves ([link removed]'s%20proposed%20payroll%20tax%20cut%20would:%20*,employee%20share%20of%20the%20Social%20Security%20tax.) that would undermine Social Security (despite his public pronouncements ([link removed]) to the contrary), but this new plan seems to be moving forward. However, Bessent’s comments on Wednesday seem to have struck a nerve,
and he is now trying to ([link removed]) walk them back and the AARP, the nation’s largest lobbying group on behalf of seniors wrote ([link removed]) in a statement following the revelations at the Breibart event, “AARP condemns Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's endorsement of a "backdoor" to Social Security privatization. We have fought any and all efforts to privatize Social Security, and we will continue to. . . . President Trump has said that Social Security should be protected and strengthened, and his Administration needs to be clear: any form of Social Security privatization is unacceptable.” We must all continue to be vigilant to the opening of any “back doors.”

This week on our website, Mike Ervin writes about ([link removed]) how the Trump Administration has quietly rolled back a rule change that would have raised wages for thousands of underpaid workers with disabilities; Debbie Chase tells the story ([link removed]) of unequal relief efforts following the devastating tornadoes in St. Louis, Missouri; Glenn Daigon reports on ([link removed]) efforts to curtail the role of private equity firms in buying up health care systems; and Sandra Jones describes ([link removed]) efforts to change the narrative around the victims of gun violence. Plus, Matt Minton reviews
([link removed]) the new film To a Land Unknown from Palestinian-owned distributor Watermelon Pictures; Peter Greene examines ([link removed]) the need to provide “more resources for public schools so that they could better serve students” in order to solve the manufactured crisis of failing schools; health advocates Dr. Phillip Polakoff and June Sargent pen an op-ed ([link removed]) on the ways the current “backsliding of democracy has direct effects on the public health outcomes of our nation;” and Dr. Ira Helfand opines ([link removed]) on the current nuclear threats we face eight decades after the genii was unleashed from
the atomic bottle.

This week marks the eightieth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan by the U.S. military using the world’s first atomic bombs. The Progressive has covered ([link removed]) this topic since August 1945, and we continue to call for an end to all nuclear weapons. The latest issue of the magazine, August/September 2025, has a first-hand report from Nagasaki by Jim Carrier, along with an excerpt from a 1965 article we published on the twentieth anniversary of the bombings. This week, in cities across the United States ([link removed]) and around the world ([link removed]) , commemorations will take place. Here in Madison, Wisconsin, the local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility is holding ([link removed]) its annual “Lanterns for Peace” event on Wednesday, August
6 at 6:30 p.m. But in 2025, this year’s message is even more clear and urgent. As Ira Helfand writes ([link removed]) in his op-ed this week, “So far this year, five of the nine nations that possess nuclear weapons have been engaged in active military operations that could have, and might still, escalate to the use of those weapons. . . . We must use this somber anniversary to organize the strongest possible movement to eliminate nuclear weapons so that, indeed, the evil is not repeated.”

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,
Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. - On Sunday, August 3, at 7:00 p.m. at the Goodman Center in Madison, Wisconsin, The Progressive is sponsoring a performance ([link removed]) of “I've Got a Song” which tells the story of one family's encounter with the Blacklist of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. It is free and open to the public.

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P.P.P.S. – The NEW August/September issue just went to press! If you don’t already subscribe to The Progressive in print or digital form, please consider doing so today ([link removed]) . Also, if you have a friend or relative who you feel should hear from the many voices for progressive change within our pages, please consider giving a gift subscription ([link removed]) .

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