Daily Topics - Monday March 14th, 2011

Truthout proudly presents weekly installments of Thom Hartmann's much-lauded book, "Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became 'People' and How You Can Fight Back." Click here for the latest chapter

Hour One: Latest from the trenches...war on Labor - John Nichols, The Nation Magazine / Plus, Japan's nuclear reactors in peril - David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists

Hour Two: Latest from the frontlines...war on democracy - Joe Madison, The Joe Madison Show / Plus, why do we need ranked choice voting? Eric Fried, Fort Collins Ranked Voting Campaign

Hour Three: Why aren't we prosecuting the banksters? Peter Ferrara, America Civil Rights Union / Plus, why America's banksters get off easy - Michael W. Hudson, The Monster

Comments

William Klein 15 years 21 weeks ago
#1

Lifting the Veil: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy

Video

“Barack Obama and the failure of capitalist democracy”, this film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the “graveyard of social movements”, the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.

Original interview footage derives from Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Michael Albert, John Stauber (PR Watch), Sharon Smith (Historian), William I. Robinson (Editor, Critical Globalization Studies), Morris Berman (Author, Dark Ages America), and famed black panther Larry Pinkney.

Non-original interviews/lectures include Michael Hudson, Paul Craig Roberts, Ted Rall, Richard Wolff, Glen Ford, Lewis Black, Glenn Greenwald, George Carlin, Gerald Cliente, Chris Hedges, John Pilger, Bernie Sanders, Sheldon Wollin and Martin Luther King.

Visit http://metanoia-films.org/compilations.php for more info.

"Lifting the Veil is the long overdue film that powerfully, definitively, and finally exposes the deadly 21st century hypocrisy of U.S. internal and external policies, even as it imbues the viewer with a sense of urgency and an actualized hope to bring about real systemic change while there is yet time for humanity and this planet. See this film!" - Larry Pinkney - Editorial Board Member & Columnist - The Black Commentator

Viewer discretion advised - Video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war.

Posted March 11, 2011

Lifting the Veil from S DN on Vimeo. By grtv

Paradigm Mine's picture
Paradigm Mine 15 years 21 weeks ago
#2

Dennis Kucincich gave probably the greatest speech in modern America this weekend in WI. Watch this flick (and note the #1 rated comment :) )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiNIWCP5hck

Machineman's picture
Machineman 15 years 21 weeks ago
#3

Thom - it looks like Reagan did not jail 1000 banksters - Clinton did the deed

Poor Randy Rhodes is going nuts trying to figure out who is saying Reagan jailed a bunch of banksters from the savings and loan debacle. According to government documents she refers to on the air - the credit union thieves were jailed by Ms. Reno during Clinton's term - Randy keeps reading the actual trial dates over the air and your listeners argue with her. In this case, it sounds like you (Thom) might be wrong about Reagan. When you talk about the banksters in the third hour today could you please clarify whether Reagan or Clinton jailed the thieves - if it was Reagan, why do the records show the prosecutions took place in the early 90's (after Bush1)?

mathboy's picture
mathboy 15 years 21 weeks ago
#4

I should point out that most mutations (caused by radiation or otherwise) are so non-beneficial that they cause cell death. Cancer happens when the cell does not die but begins to reproduce faster than it's normally programmed to do. This has a very small chance of happening per cell per radiation particle striking it. This why it's possible to use radiation against cancer.

DRichards's picture
DRichards 15 years 21 weeks ago
#5

Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand

The liberal class is discovering what happens when you tolerate the intolerant. Let hate speech pollute the airways. Let corporations buy up your courts and state and federal legislative bodies. Let the Christian religion be manipulated by charlatans to demonize Muslims, gays and intellectuals, discredit science and become a source of personal enrichment. Let unions wither under corporate assault. Let social services and public education be stripped of funding. Let Wall Street loot the national treasury with impunity.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/14

William Klein 15 years 21 weeks ago
#7

Obama Says Safe Nuclear Power Plants are a Necessary InvestmentPresident Obama today said that safe, new nuclear power plants are a "necessity" as he announced more than $8 billion in federal loan guarantees to build the first ...blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/obama-says-safe... - Cached

margaretgrams 15 years 21 weeks ago
#8

I went and looked at the earthquake data -- from what I could tell, there were 34 quakes of significant magnitude over 51 hours before the big one occured. What about having an earthquake expert on to address the issue of wether or not the reactors should have been shut down before the big one.

j.sea's picture
j.sea 15 years 21 weeks ago
#9

CA plants built for 7.0 quake (as if anyone could really predict the complex events that surround a true natural disaster, and did they take into account the effect of tsunami -- clearly not). From LA Times today:
The 84-acre generating station in the northern corner of San Diego County is built to withstand a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, said Gil Alexander, a spokesman for the generation station's operator, Southern California Edison. That is greater than the 6.5 shaker that scientists predicted could strike the plant before it was built 42 years ago, he said. But it's less than the 8.9 quake that hit Japan last week.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/san-onofre-nuclear-plant-c...

Gene Savory's picture
Gene Savory 15 years 21 weeks ago
#10

I repeat, just because it is so obvious that it blends in with the background, "the ones who know the least, know it the loudest."

Machineman's picture
Machineman 15 years 21 weeks ago
#11

Thom - you just did it again

There seems to be no evidence Reagan jailed anybody... Janet Reno did it (again, see Randi Rhodes - she was reading from government reconds that had these convictions in Clintons time). What are you referring to when you say Reagan jailed 1000 people? Have you picked up a talking point?

William Klein 15 years 21 weeks ago
#12

Savory, So how loud is your bass? Have an argument or a position or something! If all you can do is name call shut the "ef" up you MORON!

j.sea's picture
j.sea 15 years 21 weeks ago
#13

Radioactive release from Japan may continue for a year.

- NY Times:

Japanese reactor operators now have little choice but to periodically release radioactive steam as part of an emergency cooling process for the fuel of the stricken reactors that may continue for a year or more even after fission has stopped. The plant’s operator must constantly try to flood the reactors with seawater, then release the resulting radioactive steam into the atmosphere, several experts familiar with the design of the Daiichi facility said.

...But all weekend, after a series of intense interchanges between Tokyo and Washington and the arrival of the first American nuclear experts in Japan, officials said they were beginning to get a clearer picture of what went wrong over the past three days. And as one senior official put it, “under the best scenarios, this isn’t going to end anytime soon.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/japan-fukushima-nuclear-rea...

-- we are one planet, one world, one air and water system, one atmosphere, one human species -- with one giant mental illness: believing we can live in an insane way and not experience insane results. Time for a true revolution of the soul -- to live in an authentic manner, in accordance with the laws of Nature, not laws written by bankers and war-mongering necromancers who cannibalize their own species.

Thom's Blog Is On the Move

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.

From Cracking the Code:
"No one communicates more thoughtfully or effectively on the radio airwaves than Thom Hartmann. He gets inside the arguments and helps people to think them through—to understand how to respond when they’re talking about public issues with coworkers, neighbors, and friends. This book explores some of the key perspectives behind his approach, teaching us not just how to find the facts, but to talk about what they mean in a way that people will hear."
to understand how to respond when they’re talking about public issues with coworkers, neighbors, and friends. This book explores some of the key perspectives behind his approach, teaching us not just how to find the facts, but to talk about what they mean in a way that people will hear."
From Screwed:
"Hartmann speaks with the straight talking clarity and brilliance of a modern day Tom Paine as he exposes the intentional and systematic destruction of America’s middle class by an alliance of political con artists and outlines a program to restore it. This is Hartmann at his best. Essential reading for those interested in restoring the institution that made America the envy of the world."
David C. Korten, author of The Great Turning and When Corporations Rule the World
From Cracking the Code:
"Thom Hartmann ought to be bronzed. His new book sets off from the same high plane as the last and offers explicit tools and how-to advice that will allow you to see, hear, and feel propaganda when it's directed at you and use the same techniques to refute it. His book would make a deaf-mute a better communicator. I want him on my reading table every day, and if you try one of his books, so will you."
Peter Coyote, actor and author of Sleeping Where I Fall