Daily Topics - Monday March 28th, 2011
By shawnt56
Truthout proudly presents Thom Hartmann's book, "Unequal Protection" Click here for the latest chapter
Hour One: 500,000 Brits take to the streets...where was the mainstream media? Erica Sagrans, Think Progress / Plus, Latest on the War on democracy - John Nichols, The Nation Magazine / And, students take back America - David Vines, Autonomous Solidarity
Hour Two: Is Fukushima already worse than Chernobyl? Paul Gunter, Beyond Nuclear
Hour Three: Should we abandon the social safety net...get a job? Carrie Lukas, Independent Women's Forum / Plus, are mandated drug tests unconstitutional? Howard Simon, ACLU of Florida
Comments
#2
There is a large number of corporations that intentionally abuse the system . . . Ms Lukas, what message does that send?
#3
Ms Lukas's argument assumes that folk are being warehoused by welfare devoid of any positive effects within the society. If for no other reason that expanding the sales tax base, she in wrong.
#4
I never seize to be amazed at how, narrow minded the conservative view on social safety nets really is. It makes only sense if they live on a different planet. The argument to abandon welfare because there are some bad apples in the system who could use it to get a free ride is misguided. It does not make any sense. To cut a whole system because of a small minority who slacks off will cut short the greater good it can do for a much bigger portion of the population who use it constructively to get back on their feet, which then again is of benefit for the country as a whole. In my mind there is something inherently unpatriotic about this, and it has nothing to do with rich, poor, good or bad. It is an ideology that is so 'reverse current' of everything that makes sense, because the same people who want to destroy social safety nets argue for tax money in form of bail outs and obscene bonuses to a moiority of banksters who caused the system to collapse in the first place; and pull the carpet away from that very part of the population that is then dependent on social safety nets. Since none of this makes any logical sense, I wonder if the whole conservative agenda is not rather based on some form of neurosis rather than political ideology, and if it is, I wonder if there is a form of cure for it, and if there isn't, I wonder when they will stop, after everything is destroyed?
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
With His Holiness The Dalai Lama, at His home in Dharamsala, India (Synthesis Dialogues - made into a movie narrated by Harrison Ford)
From Screwed:
"The powers that be are running roughshod over the powers that OUGHT to be. Hartmann tells us what went wrong — and what you and I can do to help set American right again."
From Screwed:
"Thom Hartmann’s book explains in simple language and with concrete research the details of the Neo-con’s war against the American middle class. It proves what many have intuited and serves to remind us that without a healthy, employed, and vital middle class, America is no more than the richest Third World country on the planet."
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."
Ms Lukas is absolutely incorrect. Liberty requires a baseline.
May she find any future time in an unemployment line, not onerous but be grateful that our great nation provides for folk that need it . . . That is if she ever moves back to America.