Wednesday 16 December ‘09 show notes

  • Guests:
  • Topics:
    • First, they came for the banksters…
    • The Healthcare Debacle.
    • Kill the Bill!
  • Bumper Music:
  • Today’s newsletter has details of today’s guests and links to the major stories and alerts that Thom covered in the show, plus lots more. If you haven’t signed up for the free newsletter yet, please do. If you missed today’s newsletter, it is in the archive.
  • Quote: “We are called to be architects of the future…not its victims.” — R. Buckminster Fuller.
  • Article: Healthcare: First They Came for the Banksters by Thom Hartmann.

    “With apologies to Pastor Niemöller:

    First they came for the banksters, and showered them with money and put them in the Administration in a way that was not change we could believe in.

    Then they came for the military industrial complex, and sent more and more of our children to die in faraway lands that had never attacked us in a way that was not change we could believe in.

    And now they’ve sold out our hope for a national health care system not run by millionaire gangsters in suits. And who is left to speak for us?”

  • Dwight Eisenhower letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, November 8, 1954.

    “But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything–even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon “moderation” in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid. …”

  • Clip: LBJ tells Ted Kennedy how to pass health care.

    “A health program yesterday runs $300 million, but the fools had to go to projecting it down the road five or six years, and when you project it the first year, it runs $900 million. Now I don’t know whether I would approve $900 million second year or not. I might approve 450 or 500. But the first thing Dick Russell comes running in saying, ‘My God, you’ve got a billion-dollar program for next year on health, therefore I’m against any of it now.’ Do you follow me?”

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