Daily Topics - Wednesday September 22nd, 2010
By shawnt56
Quote of the Day: I’ve always had the impression that real militants are like cleaning women, doing a thankless, daily but necessary job. -- Francois Truffaut
Hour One: "Who's winning around the world...citizen activists or authoritarian governments?" Thom talks with Kumi Naido, Executive Director of Greenpeace International and author of the new book "Boiling Point" www.greenpeace.org
Hour Two: What does Fidel Castro know that most Americans don't? Thom has a rumble with Dan Gainor of the Business and Media Institute www.businessandmedia.org
Hour Three: "The New McCarthyism - are we in the midst of a national psychosis?" Peter Beinart, Senior Political Writer for the Daily Beast and author of "The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris" www.newamerica.net; Plus, will labor be able to face down Citizen's United money? Thom talks with Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO www.aflcio.org
Comments
#2
**Reflection of the Week**
"We’re willing to step forward and take up a fight even if the odds appear stacked against us. We recognize the risk of failure and accept it, believing we have a chance to make a difference, no matter how long it may take."- Jimmy Carter (in a letter about the work of the Carter Center)
#4
Give them hell, Jimmy!!!
#7
So if voter caging and intimidation is illegal, and there's a court order telling Republicans not to do it, how is it that they are going to do it and get away with it? Couldn't the Justice Department do something about this if they had a copy of the call? Not that they would, but couldn't they?
Maybe liberals need to do this to Republicans. Challenge all Republicans and intimidate them in the same manner until they complain and this is made illegal.
#8
Sounds like a good idea to me Jeanie, fight fire with fire. Stop letting the Republicans use underhanded tricks carte blanche. I'm sure they will make far more fuss about Liberals caging Conservatives, and perhaps we'll get decent stategies from them on how to enforce such laws.
Of course we shouldn't be naive either, there are a lot of conservative Judges put in place over the years, so enforcement may just be nothing more than one sided.
N
#9
You turn back the tide of deception with the Light of Truth. You Show up. You Speak up. You Turn it up. You Live what you Believe. You Believe -- despite the odds. This has been the WAY, the message of Mythology, the Quest of the Hero, the Message of the Gurus, and the Teachers, and Jesus, and Tinker Bell -- since Day One... Show up!!!
Seattle One Nation Rally announced!
"One Nation Working Together Rally -Seattle" (One Nation Events)
We Are
ONE NATION
WORKING TOGETHER
SEATTLE RALLY
Join us as we support the national call for Jobs, Justice & Education,
demanding the Change we voted for as a part of the national march
and rally taking place in Washington D.C. at the Nation’s Capitol.
On October 2nd (10-2-10)
From 10:00 A.M. To 1:00 P.M.
Downtown at 2nd Ave.
Henry M. Jackson Federal Bldg. (JFB)
915 2nd Avenue, Seattle Washington
Putting America Back To Work;
Pulling America Back Together
Information: Call (206) 854-3684 or Visit www.naacpaowsac.org
www.onenationworkingtogether.org
One Nation Working Together
For Jobs, Justice and Education for All
#10
Can unions legally run co-ops? If so why don't we see more unions moving that direction. If not, well that would be what I expect of our status quo.
N
#11
The United States of Hell is full of stupid people. We go into other countries and dictate whether or not the elections are fair. In our country we have had unfair elections for years. We are a truly corrupt nation.
#12
Unions have helped to give us a middle class but unions are not without their faults. The Teanster Union has been corrupt for years and they have even encouraged their union members to vote for Republicans. They were embedded with Nixon.
#13
WE DO NOT NEED PREDATORY CAPITALISM!!! We need Responsible Capitalism and Spiritual Capitalism.
#14
Are happiier days returning to America?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/larry-summers-replacements_n_734442.html
#15
Hi Jeanie,
cuz they, the GOP is playing the game the way the Corporate Democrats want it to be played.
there is a bad guy and a good guy....and we,you & me ,the people are being screwed.
This is happening cuz the "powers" wants it to be.......in the mean time the Corporations
wins.
Both major political parties are corporate owned.Folks this is not the America of long ago.
#16
From Alex Jones, infowars.com!
Charging private citizens seems to be a growing trend by public police forces, apparently to cover their budget shortfalls. Anchorage police have begun sending bills to people if officers have to make more than eight trips per year to their homes. In the UK, police sent a man a bill when their car was damaged pursuing the victim’s stolen vehicle. These are extreme cases but the precedents threaten to turn the police into a “private” security force.
Consequently, as police and sheriff departments face more cutbacks, they are also increasingly telling citizens (and criminals) what types of crimes they’ll respond to. In a recent article titled Third World America, Macleans reported:
In February, the board of commissioners of Ohio’s Ashtabula County faced a scene familiar to local governments across America: a budget shortfall. They began to cut spending and reduced the sheriff’s budget by 20 per cent. A law enforcement agency staff that only a few years ago numbered 112, and had subsequently been pared down to 70, was cut again to 49 people and just one squad car for a county of 1,900 sq. km along the shore of Lake Erie. The sheriff’s department adapted. “We have no patrol units. There is no one on the streets. We respond to only crimes in progress. We don’t respond to property crimes,” deputy sheriff Ron Fenton told Maclean’s. The county once had a “very proactive” detective division in narcotics. Now, there is no detective division. “We are down to one evidence officer and he just runs the evidence room in case someone wants to claim property,” said Fenton. “People are getting property stolen, their houses broken into, and there is no one investigating. We are basically just writing up a report for the insurance company.”
Coincidentally, governments are being forced into more cutbacks just as police units are introducing the idea of charging victims for their security services. In other words, as local and state economies worsen by design, we can expect to see more cutbacks and more “billing” for public security. Some experts have predicted ”IMF riots” to take place in America if the economic collapse continues.
We know that big corporations like Monsanto and Disney can afford private mercenaries such as Blackwater — fully equipped for high-level espionage, with a full-blown private air force, and even tactical weapons. But who will protect average American citizens against such corporate-government thuggery, let alone desperate petty thieves, if not the local public servants?
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As America continues to implode, it appears that security will go to the highest bidder, leaving average citizens to fend for themselves. Perhaps we should have seen it coming with the start of the privatization boom of security and intelligence gathering since the War on Terror was declared, which resulted in a massive “Top Secret” Surveillance-Industrial Complex. The ramifications of this privatization are only now becoming clear, as it was reported that an Israeli-owned organization was in charge of tracking, tracing, and databasing peaceful American activists on behalf of the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania. It’s already obvious that property taxes are no longer sufficient to pay the security bills.
#17
5 Surprising Facts About Spying In Americahttp://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
#18
Obama not canning the Bush appointed cronies is infuriatung. Such Democratic actions keep me in the Green Party.
Both mainstream parties are obscene, but I don't have any illusions that a 3rd party can emerge. However, I am beginning to believe a simultaneous effort at both a 3rd and 4th party might just work. One extremely left, the other extremely right. I don't like the thought of an extreme right party, but countered with an extreme left party, it may prove to be a necessary evil.
N
#19
Re: Obama not canning the Bush Cronies
Why do you think that is so?
#20
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
#21
@DRichards, I'm not sure what Obama's rationale was for keeping things "Unchanged", but it begs the question, what was "Change you can believe in" supposed to be? Frankly the reasons aren't all that important to me, the results of his inaction are far more problematic. If I were to hazard a guess as to one of his motivations to keep the attorneys where they are, it is not so much about what they would or not do, but if he brought in progressive minded attorneys, they might actually start going into the obvious crimes of the Bush Admin. Why exactly he wants to keep that under wraps I'm not sure, but he certainly has demonstrated that is his intent.
N
#22
Congressman Gary Peters
Gary Peters has been a great Congressman for his district and for his constituents. He has answered every question that has been asked of him. Mr. Peters has voted for every one of President Obama’s initiatives.
Thom had a caller who said that Mr. Peters was not for the people. The caller’s words are pure fabrication. The conservative crazies are calling Thom. They sound good but are deviating from the truth.
Congressman Gary Peters’ father was a teacher and a member of the teacher’s union. I believe that his father was a shop teacher and teaching skills to the students. Our country needs more shop teachers.
TCM
I was watching TCM and the movie, “The North Star” (1943), with Dana Andrews. Anne Baxter, and Farley Granger. The Germans bombed villages in the Ukraine.
War is obscene. It is for stupid people, started by stupid people. War creates more problems than it resolves problems. We have now stupid people worshipping Bush II and Obama who have killed and are killing God’s children. America will forever have an endless stream of stupid people to carry on our stupid wars. Wake up you warmongering Americans and come to realize that wars resolve nothing!
#23
Karen is one of my favorite writers.
#24
More of Karen!
#25
The conservative crazies will love this article.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/story/Opinion/Our-Endless-War,154373
#26
We are now in a one hundred year war. I can see the conservative crazies rejoicing in the streets, beer gardens, and brothels of the United States.
http://www.bangordailynews.com/story/Opinion/Our-Endless-War,154373
#27
The author, Andrew J. Bascevich, is a retired Army colonel and now a professor at Boston University. He calls it a “sacred trinity: an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism.”
The sacred trinity is a lot different than the Blessed Trinity.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
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"In Cracking the Code, Thom Hartmann, America’s most popular, informed, and articulate progressive talk show host and political analyst, tells us what makes humans vulnerable to unscrupulous propagandists and what we can do about it. It is essential reading for all Americans who are fed up with right-wing extremists manipulating our minds and politics to promote agendas contrary to our core values and interests."
From Screwed:
"Once again, Thom Hartmann hits the bull’s eye with a much needed exposé of the so-called ‘free market.’ Anyone concerned about the future of our nation needs to read Screwed now."
Stupidity Has Its Benefits
My wife and her sisters went out to eat in Old Town Port Huron for the twins' birthday. One of my wife's conservative crazy sisters said that she could not judge Israel because Israel is a Jewish state and Jesus was Jewish. She makes no sense. It is the same as for me to say that I cannot offer my perceptual opinion that Bush II and Obama are mass murderers because they are human beings and Jesus was a human being.
My wife’s sister is really stupid. Her thinking processes are contaminated with nonsense. Being stupid does have its benefits. The one big benefit is that stupid people cannot commit a mortal sin because they do not know the extent of their stupidity.
Maybe our federal government is keeping us stupid so we do not know that we are complicit in the killing of God’s children and living in a state of mortal sin and damns our soul for eternity. Stupid people cannot be blamed for their mortal sins.