Daily Topics - Tuesday October 12th, 2010
By shawnt56
Hour Three: "The Coming Famine"...are we on the verge of a global food crisis? Thom speaks with Australian Science Journalist Julian Cribb about his new book and the reality of global food shortages www.sciencealert.com.au
Comments
#2
Thom...Regarding your commentary on the church's influence on the conservative worldview that is so concerned about what we do in private, especially when it comes to who we can or can't love or have sex with... the church got it from the Roman Empire and its internal battle between Patriarchy and the Republic. Patriarchy won under Augustus and has been an invisible ruling influence in our society and lives ever since. This is all revealed in a MUST READ: - "The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, & Democracy's Future," by Carol Gilligan & David A.J. Richards. Authors are a prominent developmental psychologist and a constitutional lawyer. Either would be a great guest on your show!!!
From the front book leaf:
"In a moving collective voice, they (the authors) find a duality between repressive power and liberated emotional and erotic bonds, born in the Roman Republic and reproduced through the course of every subsequent political arrangement. At the heart of this duality is the transformation of private desire into a crime against the state and a construction of gender that replicates the state's war against dissent and transgressive sexuality. in order to blind them to the violence, constraint, and emotional trauma radiating outward from those who control the levers of power, men are told that the only way to rescue their masculinity is to channel a portion of the state's anger upon a perceive enemy: unregulated women, religious and ethnic others, and men who challenge dominant norms. Borrowing Arundhati Roy's phrase "Love Laws" - the laws that lay down who should be loved and how and how much - Gilligan and Richards show that resistance to those laws is a resistance to the very logic of the patriarchal oppression that poisons our culture. Desire and attachment freely chosen among equals are quite literally the heart of the democracy we can and must nurture."
#3
Mr. Watkins just provided us with the most chilling glimpse of how the sociopaths work out twisted logic that lets them sleep -- his smooth as glass carefully Krafted reasoning ---
competing fire departments?? competing private "police" forces?? So if I don't like the way BLACKWATER -- in handy dandy "town" named uniforms or subsidiary garb -- snatch some neighbor out of his bed in his sleep for investigating their global "secret" blacksites -- I just call them up, cancel my subscription -- and hire a new police force??????
#4
---- the reason the EXtreme Right wants government to fail, as it did in the case of this house burning (which could have afterward been discovered to have a wandering neighbor's child inside for all anyone knew for sure), is so that they can make this very argument. See? gov't by the people failed... ah, too bad... Let us kind hearted BIG business run it for you!
#5
J. Sea- I agree with both statements. I'd be nice to have "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" buttons similar to facebook. I do think this is animal cruelty, whether the fire took a long time to spread or not. To stand by and let a house burn is shamelessly sick. It's policy that once a fire squad arrives on sight, non-emergency workers, ie, homeowners, good samaritans aren't allowed to enter a burning structure regarless of the fire's extent. TO not even make sure the house wsa clear of anybody sleeping, injured, trapped, disabled is heinous.
#6
The Myth of the Free Market, by Mark Martinez explains how pretty much all the wealth at any given time is inherited from the generosity of past generations, indiscriminately. Also, the "free" market is a construct of government.
#7
Hi Thom,
Should we privatize the Fire department? I think we already saw just what that will lead to during the Golf oil spill. Neither the Navy or the Coastguard had any tools or strategy of how to deal with the spill. They were completely dependent on BP, a private company. So BP was calling the shots, telling the government what to do, and we all stood by watching a helpless president being caught in the middle. What if there is a really big fire? Will private companies have the resources, or, just like in the case of BP to a cost comparison. Don't people learn? I get the feeling that the corporate right establishment just wants to push us further and further towards the edge, until …, ooops, we fall over. Then they'll blame the liberals, or the victims. In the case of the fire, they blame the guy for not paying the $75. In the case of the housing market, they blame the people who lost their homes. The list goes on, and so does the pattern of blaming the victims.
#8
A common libertarian talking point is the concept of “freely entering into a contract”. Yet, implicit within this argument is an individual’s ability to make intelligent decisions. My wife volunteers within our inner-city community where the inability to make basic intelligent financial and social decisions is painfully obvious. Beside their lack of education, there is a bigger factor called “social capitol” or should I say the lack there of. Any libertarian argument presumes a minimal amount of social capitol to make an intelligent decision to “freely enter into a contract’ which in today’s world ususally also means the ability to hire a lawyer to decipher the contract.
#9
does anybody here work in auto insurance? i have a question...
#10
We need to change the name of the Supreme Court to the Extreme Court.
#11
TN has one of the highest death rates in house fires in the nation -- 67 citizens and firefighters killed so far this year. The day before the house we are discussing burned another home in Atoka TN burned and killed 5 people, including 3 children, one apparently a quadriplegic. Had they "paid their fee"? Was service delayed because someone was checking? In Union TN a barn was apparently allowed to burn with horses in it.... there are multiple reports out there from ordinary citizens with little access to media. Someone needs to get serious about this soon -- as it is a crime. At least a moral one. Instead of withdrawing from this program, the fire department is expanding the" fee to survive" program -- all to avoid a 13cent tax increase, and EXtremeRight can claim they are lowing taxes and reducing gov't. Instead they are killing gov't by the People and replacing with Big Gov't by the Corp.
There is an excellent extended conversation regarding this at THINK PROGRESS.org: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/05/after-firefighters-obion-expands/
#12
Professor Paul A. Schilpp liked to use this tool:
"If you steal $1,000 from a man, you are a thief!" "If you steal $.01 from each of 100,000 men, you are a successful business man."
#13
@Gene Savory, I agree!!! The banksters and the Wall Street crooks are SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MEN!!!
#14
Long wars are glorious experiences for Numb Nuts.
http://original.antiwar.com/huber/2010/10/11/long-warfare-theory/
#15
Please read the "Long War" section of the above article. The Long War is intended to kill God's children and enslave ninety percent of the Americans. I, personally, sense that God's patience toward the United States of Hell is quite thin and His wrath will be upon us. I am currently sensing that we are reliving in America the Sodom and Gomorrah story in the Holy Bible. It is time for the United States of Mortal Sin to repent. Please I beg and plead with you to return to God and His words to "love one another as I have loved you."
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
Mueller's favorite place to pray (written about in "Prophet's Way"), and the roof of the room where the Last Supper is reputed to have happened.
At Mondragon - both the mountain and the cooperative city - in Spain (written about in "Threshold" book)
From Screwed:
"If we are going to live in a Democracy, we need to have a healthy middle class. Thom Hartmann shows us how the ‘cons’ have wronged this country, and tells us what needs to be done to reclaim what it is to be American."
From Cracking the Code:
"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 Unequal Protection, 2nd Edition:
"Hartmann combines a remarkable piece of historical research with a brilliant literary style to tell the grand story of corporate corruption and its consequences for society with the force and readability of a great novel."
Thom, much of the reporting I've read about Gene Cranick's house fire that was allowed to burn claims that the fire took more than an hour or two to reach his home and that the family did nothing to save their pets.
Please address this on the show.