Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
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.
The banks are gettng 45 billion per month for years under bailout. The pension fund is only short 45 billion. Why can't we give it a one time infusion of cash? Also, the crooked banks are the ones who sold these pension funds bad mortgages/papers/investments. These same banks should make up the losses to the pension funds which they caused. There was a guy on c-span who wanted to pay social security one doillar for every 10 dollars in cuts. He has been trying to privitize the social security since 1993. It failed a vote then, but it will probably will get the o.k. from the republicans in congress next time. Watch out.
The conversation since Michael Brown was murdered standing in the middle of the street has stirred the media to elevate their creativity and developed a low cost reality TV show in Fergurson. Reporters on the ground. Eyes in the sky. Police eyes. Sniper rifles have laser lights pointing the way to take down anyone. Although the actors have prepared; police secured in armored artillery, reinforced transport vehicles.
A hand full of local residents wonder the street but with little hope for change. No insiring speakers to help them get to the promised land. No MLK. No Bobby. No Mandella. No dream....
The local news reminds us each night the imperative necessity of a strong police force. Murders. Beatings. Rape. Bank robberies. Domestic beatings. Rap. Missing fair skinned women. The underlying message is clear; community is dying and authority will assure commercialism will prevail.
The police are the agents of commercialism conformity. "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."
We must remember that the Weimar Republic became the Third Reich by the ceding of emergency powers to the executive branch of government after the burning of the Reichstag. Fear mongering is essential to fascist (by the more common definition of aggressively intolerant authoritarianism) takeover.
Torture may be unconstitutional but not because Reagan signed a treaty. It is illegal for that reason but the Constitution is a supreme body of law separate and apart from treaties or other laws. A treaty, for example, couldn't simply contradict the Fourth Amendment. It would have to be discarded in favor of the amendment or any other constitutional provision.
A law or treaty can simply be repealed, or at least the requirements aren't as stringent as for passing and repealing an amendment to the Constitution.
The constitutional provision banning torture would have to be Article VIII on "cruel and unusual punishment". What constitutes such punishment, however, is determined by the cultural mores of the period in which a controversy occurs. At the time of the first ratification of the Constitution, for example, cropping of ears was a customary punishment, perhaps even striking off the offending arm of a thief - least ways that had relatively recently been practiced in Massachusetts colony in the 1600's. Drawing and quartering was practiced in Europe, at least, as late as the 1600's.
By 1972 any form of capital punishment was deemed " cuel and unusual" by the Supreme Court. Supreme Courts reflect the mores of their period in their interpretations of the Constitution.
One aspect of this debate that is missing is that by torturing enemy combatants we lose the expectation that enemies in the future will surrender to American troops. The US has had a long history of having enemy combatants surrender to us, saving thousands of American lives. In the future, we will have to beat an enemy "to death", causing many more American casualties. Thanks Cheney.
In a discussion over the limits of Freedom between Patrick Henry and Benjamin Franklin, Franklin statis "Your freedom stops at the end of my nose." (I always thought Benjamin wa speaking of the odor of Patrick's unwashed body!) However, in the age of amplified music, on persons appreciation of loud music may interfere with another's enjoyment of another genre so thke application of Freedom might include the interference in the "khappiness" of anther person. Such occupand in my first apartment wkhen my first dauhghter was crying dukring the night. He pounded on his ceiling and shouted, "Keep that baby quiet!" and threatened to call the police.
Control of our media and thus the message has played a large role in the Fascists gaining authoritarian power. Extreme Conservative/ Teabag talk radio accounts for 90% of all political talk format. Just six corporate conglomerates own most of the mass media outlets. Control of the the message makes it easy for the Fascists to subvert truth and place their self serving nutbags in office.
Once in office just vote along the Fascist line, no thinking required. In other words always vote yes on out of control spending for the military/oil industrial spy complex and then scream like hell about government being too big and vote no on anything related to promoting the general welfare of the people. Complain about the National Debt being too high and then give massive tax breaks to the same Fascists/Carbon Barons responsible for starting unfunded wars and creating that very debt. The result.....a very few gain massive wealth and power, a power much greater than our government.
Connect the dots..... control the media, buy the politicians, concentrate wealth and power, and you end up with the continual slide into the autoritarian state Thom speaks of.
Mention and analysis about the Ferguson, MO phenomena of racism and police excesses were made in ten recent articles. Despite this number, I found no reference to behavioral science or psychological analysis. It seems that these scientific areas are more ignored than climate science by Republican congressmen from fossil fuel states.
There is enlightened knowledge available in the writing and works of both Murray Sidman for coercion and punishment and Bob Altemeyer about testing and characteristics of right wing authoritarians ((RWA). Sidman shows what is effective and not in guiding human behavior. Altemeyer has questionnaires which indicate the degree of RWA, a MAD scale which indicates the degree of exploitive, manipulative amoral dishonesty, and a social dominance scale which measures the degree of personal power, meanness, and dominance control. Altemeyers tests should be used to screen candidates applying to work as policemen to avoid having cops who use excessive force or are abusive or racist. One of the characteristics of high RWAs is ethnocentrism which includes racism. Altemeyer’s most recent book on THE AUTHORITARIANS can be easily found to be read in its entirety on the internet.
Sidman’s recommendations should be used by legislatures in drawing up more effective laws to prevent and control crime. Judging by present day laws using mainly degrees of punishment and the excessive prison population in America, legislators are ignorant of behavioral science. The present system is poor at best and very costly, and need not be if science were used in drawing up legislation.
You've all made some great points, I was beneficiary to a family (mis-)trust! My parents made a woman bank officer, Mom (who soon failed) and my brother trustees. Guess who got bullied! I was on food stamps while the brother was dipping in and taking a little loan of $15K for himself. Arrogant well-spoken arson investigator. As a fireman, even his rescue work was judgmental! Nobody who calls 911 needs to be judged at that moment for a dirty bathrobe or the mistakes of a lifetime! And in my long career as a temp secretary, I worked on many cases where the brother was denying compassionate family benefits to a sister! . . . Many people do not handle a job description very well! My HUD senior housing manager, for example. Power trip! Or the Water Attendant in the dining room at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. One night, the Water Attendant had to go off to pee. I went to the water pitcher table and took a pitcher for my table. The man came back and gave me holy hell! This was associated with a damned church free food line! . . . I fought the VA for a decade when they garnished my Social Security Disability to the tune of $8,100 -- by mistake! I had done nothing to deserve this! Finally with a lawmaker's help, I received a check for $7,490. When I wrote and called the lawmaker's assistant about the balance owed me, he got very correct sounding, called me "Ma'am" and explained that the $610 is an administrative fee and that's how it is and he is not going to try to get the rest, etc. etc. So the VA is charging me a bundle to take my money by mistake -- and this punk in a suit is lording it over a powerless little woman veteran because of his fortunate position! . . . I complain higher up every time I observe such high-handedness. Lucky for me, my community is mostly pretty mellow.
Thom.
It's APACHE LEAP!
The area in Arizona that the "Cromnibus" gave to the foreign mining firm to mine for copper is called "Apache LEAP", not Apache tears. It commemorates a site where some Apaches about to be captured by US forces chose to LEAP to their deaths rather than be taken alive.
Apache tears, on the other hand, are small bits of obsidian that have been tumbled smooth by water and sand.
In 1963, Yale college professor, Stanley Milgram, published the results of an experiment he called, "Obedience to Authority." In this experiment Milgram paid an actor to sit in a chair and pretend to receive electric shocks from a student volunteer. The student was told that it was the recipient of the shock that was the subject of the experiment; however, it was actually the other way around. Under the instructions of a 'man in a smock with a name badge and clip board the student continued to shock the man in the chair repeatedly whenever he failed to answer random questions correctly. Despite the man complaining about a heart condition and how much pain he was in. The experiment intended to instruct the subject to continue shocking until the maximum voltage possible was reached despite the pleadings of the man in the chair. It was estimated that only 3.75% of the subjects would proceed to the limit. It was learned that over 65% of the subjects could be convinced to kill an innocent man under the guise of authority, simply for the purpose of a laboratory experiment. 65% of the subjects continued to ask questions and increase the level of the shock even after the actor in the chair became unresponsive and apparently dead simply because the authority figure in the room told them to.
In 1971, Stanford college professor, Philip Zimbardo, conducted what has become known as the "Stanford Prison Experiment." Student volunteers were chosen at random and assigned the role of guard or prisoner. The experiment was held in the Stanford basement. The experiment was set to determine the extent to which the guard students would use their authority. It was learned that the authority given to them was quickly abused and even become forms of torture. The prisoners on the other hand readily accepted their roles. The results, it was determined that whenever ultimate authority is given over anyone, it is ultimately abused; even, by the best of us. Even Zimbardo recanted that he willingly allowed the abuse to go on.
The conclusions of these two very important experiments shows the danger of authoritarianism. There should be no question as to whether or not this trend of growing authoritarianism is dangerous; as, that fact has already been scientifically proven beyond a doubt in two separate laboratory experiments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
The police had better get their act together by protecting people and not brutalizing them because vigilante justice is just around the corner. There's only so much of this nonsence people will take before they break.
Hi Thom,
Charles here from Tom Dwyer in Portland. I thought that with the release of the torture report you might be interested in Tom's editorial in our company newsletter. As always, he seems to be right on. http://tomdwyer.com/2014/newsletters/toms-tidbits-pardon-bush-cheney/.
Glad to be listening to you again on XRAY.FM. With their new signal, we can actually hear over-the-air Progressivism in Portland once again! And our best holiday wishes to you, Louise, and all the crew.
I often hear progressive broadcasters say, "the first one to use the Hitler or Nazi analogy loses". However, I believe that is the last one to use the Hitler/Nazi analogy that loses. How far do these people have to go before the comparison becomes valid.
I further believe that the Cops have become a cult that are isolated from the people that they are sworn to serve. They are isolated in their squad cars and even in their social lives where many only associate with fellow officers and their spouses only associate with the spouses of other officers. They live in a bubble that reinforces their mentality of, us against them.
I have long felt that the real problem of the world today is the sheer number of people who want to dictate every little aspect of OTHER peoples lives, even though they can't run their own lives. And the number, and power, of these controls freaks is increasing.
What ever happened to 'Live And Let Live'?
I don't think Scalia has ever read the constitution. Clearly, he doesn't even know what the first three words are...
"We, The People..."
"Pathetic" is the word for it, Ken.
While big corporations are spending billions to try to prevent required labeling, this is a grossly distorted view of things. I am a senior professor of biochemistry and chemistry with no connection to any GMO company. But, as I scientist, I find the anti-GMO advocates to be inaccurate, uniformed and frankly suspect in their motivation. While labeling of food as having genertic modification is a reasonable idea in some respects, just having "GMO" on it is meaningless as it tells us nothing of value. All is does is frighten the uninformed, which seems to be what the advocates really want to do. Genetic modification to improve crop yields and nutritive value, resistance to pests, production of human insulin in microorganisms (the first commercial use of GMO), are among the many things that this technology has done to help mankind. The fear-mongering about pesticides, which are not GMOs although some GMOs are pesticide resistant, is an example of how the anti-GMO crusaders spread fear. They are modern day Luddites, who misuse scientific arguments in the same manner as the global warming deniers, picking only the small and unconfirmed items that seem to support their arguments. That approach to argument may work in courts of law and legislatures, but in the world of science, it is considered fraud.
What the Koch Brothers are doing has nothing to do with creationism/evolution. That's just a go-to for people when talking about curriculum reform because creationists seem stupid to most people.
But that's beside the point. If a group of people want their school to teach creationism, or anything else, it should be up to them. There should be no federal or state-wide curriculum.
If your value system places what you call "facts" over what you call "myths", and the rest of your community wants the school to have the same value system, good for your community. Go for it. But don't project your value system on to others. If, to a community, what you call "myths" are more important (like, to some people, planning for your eternity is more important than planning for your next 70-80 years), then, again, those people should be allowed to teach their kids whatever they want.
Suppose there are entire schools full of Spanish-speaking students. And suppose the parents of those students did not want their children learning English. Shouldn't it be up to those parents? Shouldn't we respect their wishes?
The solution is simple: 1. Do away with the Department of Education, and 2. Allow school choice. (That is, money for education is attached to the student, and parents can send that student, and the money, to whatever school they please.)
"Why are these CRIMINALS on television, allowed to present their side of the story??!"
A big part of the answer to that lies in the pathetic sentence: "That happened in the past; I want to look forward". (Barack Obama, 2009, in referrence to Bush war crminals)
You know, last week we had plenty of opportunity to expose the inhumanity and logical fallacies of the supporters of torture - but I am disappointed to note that Monday's show avoided the topic of Obama's perfidy in regard to the corporatist Omnibus Spending Bill. That budget, that our Democratic President strong-armed Democrats into supporting, was a windfall for the crooked billionaires and bloated banks and corporations for whom the Bush torture chambers were established.
Thom, please quit shielding our shave-tail, banker's pet President from the truth of his betrayals.
I agree with Thom and the posts that support his view on torture. Furthermore, I would say that the "information" derived from the tortured pales in comparison to the "information" shown by the society that allows it.
But I find a disconnect that troubles me. Military drones, bombs, machine guns all cause more death, destruction, and misery than torture. Why are we as a nation so quick to condem torture yet allow the traditional elements of war?
Amendment 8 to the United States Constitution clearly states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” So, regarding torture, when the dishonorable U. S. Supreme Court “Justice” Antonin Scalia said that he “doesn’t know what article of the Constitution that would contravene”, he was clearly (and maliciously) LYING!
Likewise Antonin Scalia blatantly lied when he ruled that “corporations are people” and “money equals speech”, because there is nothing in the U. S. Constitution that comes even close to supporting such dishonest claims. We shouldn't need to pass another constitutional amendment in order to negate the horrendous impacts of such obvious lies. Antonin Scalia should be IMPEACHED and removed from office IMMEDIATELY for judicial misconduct and for violating BOTH of his oaths of office!
They are making hard for the students in their studies. We study different course and our children's are going to study different course. By this we will not be able to teach our students because my education will be useless for them. Do the faults in the distorted course do not replace full course.
Bad judges exist, but to have one as a Supreme Court Judge is not good for anyone.
What a sad comment from a SP Justice who is there to interpret the Constitution. I think Scalia and most of the GOP serving on Capitol Hill want to agree with the former Administration - wherein IF and WHEN the President says unequivocally that when the President says it's legal, it is... And they are all still smitten with the "Jack Bauer character" from "24"; they used to quote him, you should remember... And I used to think, "We elect these people because they're supposed to be smarter than us, and yet they seem to get reality confused with a television series??!! (Gee, what's wrong with that ideology?!)
Scalia is supposed to be such a righteous man. Then if he truly were, why would he believe corporations are people? People have SOULS; corporations do not.
Can we please get someone who DOES have a soul and a conscience to work for an ammendment to the Constitution which allows for the People to bring Supreme Court Judges who abuse their rights to make decisions for all of us, to be censured or removed from the Bench after 3 bad (and obviously paid-for) decisions that discriminate, harms, or do not honor the 99% of those of us who pay their salaries? If we can take away their "For Life Judgeships" when we Americans vehemently suffer from decisions that only benefit the corporations and the extremely wealthy donors, perhaps they would weigh their opinions a little more seriously before they jeopardize the rights of the millions of taxpayers. FEAR, remember, is a great equilizer... And just perhaps they would respect moderate Presidents who ARE in touch with those of us who always seem to be dishonored and reap only the repercussions when bad rulings are made.
The opinion Scalia (also) just made against the pregnant employee for UPS who's pregnancy and health would be placed in jeopardy if she continues to work having to lift not 20 pounds for the rest of her pregnancy, but rather be terminated for not lifting up to 70 while the life of her baby and her future health could be placed in extreme danger. Scalia seems to be against women's health and rights as much as he's FOR the totally rich and the combining of church and state... This seems to me, is disrespectful of women who have families to support while they're carrying new life in their wombs. And he also seems to agree with the GOP that women who are heads of households don't deserve to be paid as much for the same work that men are paid higher.
We need to draw a firm line in the sand. We need a way to oust the ones who rely on the Bible, their personal prejudices, and their monies earned from speakerships, when they so vividly exhibit tendencies against the majority of the Americans they are appointed to serve.