Recent comments

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Hi folks, I'd just like to let you know about my last reply to our real active of the last week and a half or so at http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/04/how-george-w-bush-screwed-gener... I just ain't gonna let it die.

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    I'm sure you could fault NPR for several disappointing things. On their "flagship: news shows, such as Morning Edition, I often have to change the station not because of disagreements with pro-business comments or conservative sources being treated as if they are objective and beyond question, but because NPR offers an excessive amount of sports programming in the middle of what I would assume is supposed to be a serious news program. If I wanted to find out about sports, I would listen to a commercial sports-talk station or read the sports pages. The desire to appeal to the lowest common denominator I think is a worse problem on public radio than slanted reporting, which may be a problem as well, as Thom has indicated two days in a row of having mentioned it. I do not consider classical music, which as the caller from several days ago said, is missing from many public radio stations, to be entertainment. Art can be entertaining, but it is not entertainment per se. NPR programs have hosts who are chummy with pop musicians, but only report on classical music when a new manuscript is found of a work by a famous composer or when a violinist has a rare and expensive instrument stolen.

    I think Thom could have given both sides of the story in a fairer way if he is going to bring up public radio and NPR. Morning Edition has done several reports based on an investigation of judges around the country who fine poor people for doing something illegal and who cannot afford to pay the fines. Although they included comments from a prosecutor saying that crime has to be paid for, and if someone cannot afford to pay their fine, the only other option for the courts is to take people's time by having them serve time in jail, they also included the views of the Civil Liberities Union and the Bremen Center for Justice who believe that because debtors' prison was made illegal in this country, it is against the law to put someone in jail because they cannot afford to pay a fine. They reported on one man who got drunk and went into some building illegal with some other people in Thom's city of birth, Grand Rapids, MI. The man told the judge that although he didn't have the money that was being demanded of him to pay the fine, he had been hired to start a good-paying job in a few days, and that after he begins working at this the new, he could start making payments toward the fine. The judge said, "Who cares if you can't pay," and threw the defendant in jail. By the time he was released, the employer said that he had filled the job with someone else but was willing to see if there was some other job in which the man could be placed. He ended up getting a job which he likes from a different employer, but it pays less than the job he would have had if he hadn't been detained in jail. He has to maintain employment and pay the fine to stay out of jail. I haven't heard any stories about poor people who can't pay their fines being imprisoned on progressive radio.

    Marketplace Morning which is produced by American Public Media (APM), not Public Radio Insernational as I incorrectly wrote when I made my above post, had an interview from England with a woman who is a former financial journalist and has started an organization to oppose the ridiculously high salaries of corporate CEOs and other topic executives in British companies. The show's host pointed out that Peter Drucker recommened paying these high-level executives 20 times more than the average employee's salary, but that today, in many corporations, the CEO makes 200 times more than the average work earns. The host also pointed out that the requirement in the U.S. from the Dodd/Frank Act that companies publically disclose the ratio between the CEO and other top executives' salaries and those of the average employee income has just been in effect for about two months, and has not resulted in any national reaction against these high executive salaries. The guest from England said that in her country, companies don't want to voluntarily state what this ratio is, because the executive salaries are so high that it wouldn't look good if this comparison with what everyone else is paid were to be made public. Occasionally, I may hear mention of this issue on commercial news broadcasts, but Marketplace Morning did a segment including an interview on it.

  • How George W. Bush screwed this generation of college students...   11 years 10 weeks ago
    When manufacturing moved out property taxes became their tax base and not only did life in the cities become much less affordable, particularly for the now largely obsolete and superfluous working classes, but a number of other problems resulted as well - like the unfair system of funding schools

    With that in mind, what is the solution? Even the most optimistic person must see that those manufacturing jobs aren't coming back any time soon. And, if they do come back from overseas, they will relocate to the South and other business-friendly, non-union areas of the country. Without jobs that actually produce things, all we are left with is people passing the same money back and forth to each other.

    It's interesting to that you use the word "unfair" to describe education funding, which is done at the local level with property taxes. The only way to "fix" the current system is to fund schools at the state level, which would be seen by some as "unfair" as well. Think, for example, of a family who moves to Naperville for their good schools. That family pays more in property taxes for that privledge. Why should that money be sent to Springfield and then given to students in other communities?

    I'm trying to avoid the Republican talking point of "income redistribution", but that's what it is. And it's also not fair. They always counter with "work-ethic redistribution", which I know is also not fair. If both sides have legitamite points, the status quo continues. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing.

    Also, I think school funding is a easy scapegoat for a much bigger societal problem. People want to believe that throwing money at a problem will fix it, but it won't.

    The population of cities like Chicago has been increasing with gentrification and upperscale residents have been moving in to the cities from the suburbs.

    True, but isn't that mostly young people who move to Lincoln Park and the Gold Coast in their 20s to have fun and date around. Once it comes time to settle down and raise families, don't most of those people leave back to the suburbs? The working-class types are still left out of that equation. The young rich types don't stray too far from their own neighborhoods, full of other young, rich types.

    Do they still call them Yuppies? Or is that derrogatory?

  • How George W. Bush screwed this generation of college students...   11 years 10 weeks ago
    Quote ChicagoMatt:

    I predict that Chicago is on the same track as Detroit - it will just take longer to get to the breaking point, because it's a bigger city. They raise taxes and fines while at the same time reducing services, and everyone who can, leaves, and takes their money with them.

    You're much too racializing the matter. You seem to be buying into the "those #%* blacks are messing everything up" theory of history.

    Detroit is completely different from Chicago. No city in the U.S. was so utterly dependant on manufacturing as Detroit was - and not only on manufacturing but on manufacturing in only one specific industry. When the auto industry went south (sometimes quite literally) what happened to Detroit was inevitable. 1/3 of a million good paying, middleclass manufacturing jobs left the city - which means that hundreds of thousands of other local jobs disappeared too because those in the auto industry were spending money locally. It was just not possible to recoup the resulting loss of revenue to the city government.

    Chicago, as many cities, had a more diversified portfolio as far as manufacturing was concerned and wasn't wiped out by the fluctuations in a single industry - although it did, like all U.S. cities, have to deal with capital flight (thanks largely to Reagan). Like with most U.S. cities, Chicago's greatest symptom of capital flight was - and continues to be - gentrification. Manufacturing, until the '70s, was the tax base for Chicago and other U.S. cities. When manufacturing moved out property taxes became their tax base and not only did life in the cities become much less affordable, particularly for the now largely obsolete and superfluous working classes, but a number of other problems resulted as well - like the unfair system of funding schools and a great explosion in the numbers of homeless people as not only were great numbers of unskilled jobs now gone but remaining jobs were low paying and costs of housing skyrocketing.

    The population of cities like Chicago has been increasing with gentrification and upperscale residents have been moving in to the cities from the suburbs. Many of the problems of the cities are, in fact, from Reagan but more recent ones are from Bush and the reckless, ideologically driven tax policies of Bush's obsessed tax guru, Grover Nordquist. Nordquist, son of an obsessively tax hating high level executive of General Electric, designed Bush's tax laws and has said that he wanted "to shrink government to the where he could drown it in the bath tub" and that he wanted "a few of the states to go bankrupt just to teach them a lesson". Under his policies the Federal government cut off its subsidies to the states so then the states cut off theirs to the cities so now cities and states are both broke and needing to raise taxes - only that causes the capital flight, people with money leaving the cities and states, and a downwardly spiraling tailspin results as people with money leave because of poor services and high taxes which results in poorer services and higher taxes. As we agreed before, a more centralized, Federal system of revenue collection is needed to prevent this type of cannibalism of the cities and states.

  • The Mitch McConnell VA Scandal   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Everyone in every state listen up! We The People need to enforce a max 2-term limits in both the Senate and Congress. Please do not reelect an incumbent if they have already served 2 terms. These positions were not meant to be lifetime appointments! We need fresh blood, new ideas, less political one-upmanship. I know it's hard but we as a country need to reclaim our Congress and Senate. This is the only way to do it! THINK HARD before you next vote!

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    I've often heard Thom talk about "shills", as in people paid to parrot right-wing talking points online or on his show. I've also heard Rush talk about "seminar callers", or people who say one thing to get on air with him, then start saying left-wing talking points. I wonder how much truth there is to either claim. It's very, very easy for anyone who is in to politics to assume anyone who doesn't agree with them is not legit for one reason or another. And we end up with what we have today - a very polarized country, with no end in sight.

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Matt, I concur. You are more articulate than "OU812", and others I could mention (but won't). Marc and I get really frustrated with these folks; please don't take it personally. We're aware that shills often invade forums like this one, to harass people and inject their corporate-fascist propaganda; it's made us angry and a little defensive; maybe even a tad bit paranoid. Palin was just trying to confirm that you're not one of these hostile invaders. Won't worry, nobody's gonna come knocking at your door some stormy night.

    Certain things you've said have pushed my buttons and pissed me off, Matt, and I don't see that changing. But I'm glad you enjoy this forum and I encourage you to keep posting here anyway. We might give ya a hard time but please be assured, no one wishes you harm. - Aliceinwonderland

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Ok, I guess I'm jump in on this one too.

    Alice, you say that Capitalism is not about the common good, and to this I agree. When I look at a list of Socialist countries, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states), I notice that there are only a few, and they are very homogenous. That is, the majority of the populations have something in common, either race/relgion/background/history/value system, etc. We do not have that in the United States. It's human nature to be distrustful of people who are different than you, and for Socialism to work, there needs to be some base level of trust among the citizens. I think this is why social wedge issues (abortion, for example) work so well in dividing us and keeping us Capitalistic. Even if both the Planned Parenthood clinician and the protester would benefit from a more Socialistic economy, they will never see eye-to-eye enough to come together for it. Of course, that's just my opinion.

    Craig, will you be at that rally today? If so, please take pictures. Or anyone for that matter - if someone at that rally can please take some pictures of the crowd, and give us all a link to it. That would be appreciated. I've heard there is some sort of fast-food strike going on this week, but I haven't seen it, either because of a media blackout, or very low turnout by the strikers. If it's because of a media blackout, surely there is some website with pictures of the strikers.

    Elio, you say that to starve your worker is to starve your customer and your profit. I believe that was Henry Ford's model - paying his employees enough to afford the cars they were making. However, (and I am NOT saying this is morally right), I believe that with the current glut of people in the world, businesses have figured out that, just as there are always more employees, there will always be more customers. That in a country of more than 300 million, the 50 million or so people living in poverty still leaves 250 million middle and upper-class customers. Again, not saying it's right to do that to people.

    Anyway, just throwing my opinion into the mix. Feel free to bash away...

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Kend: I don't know about "Public service pensions, health care benefits, and holiday pay are much higher then the private sector."

    My daughter is an assistant prosecuting attorney for our county, her wages and benefits, with a law degree earned with honors, passed the bar in two states in the same year, are nowhere nearly as good as her barely graduated from high school aunt who got one of the last good factory jobs in the area, which has been eroding its worker benefits and pay, too. I know because my husband also works there. I provide free daycare for her son because she cannot afford the $800 to $1000/ month and keep her very modest home and pay for the small amount, comparitively, of school debt she holds (she won a full scholarship to law school).

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago

    If business people are SO smart, why do they hold their worker--the person who makes the crap they will profit from--and consumer--the person who will buy their crap--in such general disdain?

    To starve your worker is to starve your customer is to starve your profits, eventually--it's the circle of economic life. The business elite have broken that circle. They evidentually need to be FORCED to play nice/fair.

    All you small businesspeople out there have the big businesses to blame for your hostile business environment--big business buys/bribes the hand of government and makes the rules you must follow. The rethuglican party is not your friend--they are openly the party of MONEY--BIG MONEY. Weak-kneed Democrats have to refuse the glamour of big money and begin to serve the PEOPLE--the real humans they represent--the REAL people who ELECTED them.

    Is that why on Wall Street there are so many "made-up" ways to make money? Bookies in the darkness betting on a losing horse because they have nothing REAL to create?

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago
    I can't help but think that Tom1945, "the prostitute", and ChicagoMatt are all the same person. An out-of-work, scattered brained follower of Rush Limpballs or some other right wing trash.

    Well I'm offended. I thought I was WAY more articulate than some of these other non-Progressives I see posting here. I still refuse to label myself as Conservative.

    I'm still reading these blogs by the way. I've been eager to post again (this site is so addictive!), but it is still really creepy when someone talks about trying to find you in real life. It only takes one crazy person to ruin a good thing for everyone. Which is a real shame. I got my copy of "The Crash of 2016", and I was looking forward to discussing it with people of different mindsets.

    And, I'm starting to think the "webmaster" of this site is just an unmonitored mailbox. I've asked twice now for my account to be deleted.

    In my quest for respectful political discourse with people from "the other side of the aisle", I ended up on The Huffington Post's comment section. But people don't really reply there. Everyone's posting, no one is reading.

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    I hear ya, Marc! I too am sick of answering the same dumb-ass questions over and over, into oblivion. If there's one thing Tom1945 has said that I can agree with, it's that we can all do better. But I repeat that assertion with a somewhat different twist. We can do better than corporate fascism and pay-or-die healthcare. We can do better than digging our own graves with our forks. We can do better than living paycheck-to-paycheck. We certainly can do better than allowing this forum to get dragged down by these "newbies" who refuse to think outside the corporate fascist box.

    Hang in there, brother. This too shall pass... - Alice IW

  • Save the Internet!   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Excellent, "kasperie"! I only wish I was signed up with Netflix, just so that I could cancel the subscription. - AIW

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Thom, with due respect (and I have tremendous respect for you), I think you've missed one very important point: the problem is CAPITALISM. This capitalist type of system empowers the psychopaths among us to screw us every which way until there's nothing left for them to steal. Then eventually, the whole dung heap gets toppled, too top-heavy to stand on its own. And that's what keeps happening, over and over again. Government regulations come and go, depending on who's in office, which in turn, depends on how many constituents are asleep at the wheel at any given time. 'Round and 'round it goes…

    By design, by its very nature, capitalism is cannibalistic and predatory. It's not about the common good. Never has been and never will be. Unless capitalism is rendered obsolete, we'll keep going through these boom-and-bust cycles while the planet cooks, 'til eventually, humans join the dinosaurs on evolution's scrap heap. Then ole Mother Nature will hit the drawing board once again with all her raw materials, and start over from scratch.

    Capitalism is literally kiling us, Thom. Humans walked the earth for millennia before capitalism was invented. It has had its day, and now it's time to go bye-bye! Craig Bush gets right to the nitty-gritty when he points out that we need to learn to work less, consume less and live more. - Aliceinwonderland

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Aliceinwonderland ~ How come all these newbies with nothing substantial to say and everything nonsensical to ask have the nerve to repeat their stupid questions after being answered like they heard nothing? Like your answer makes no sense? It sure made sense to me. Took the words right out of my mouth. Yet somehow the same question persist?. I'm getting sick of it myself. I refuse to engage such ludicrousness any more. Perhaps I'm just tired. Long day again. However, I can't help but think that Tom1945, "the prostitute", and ChicagoMatt are all the same person. An out-of-work, scattered brained follower of Rush Limpballs or some other right wing trash. They all demonstrate the same ignorance, rhetoric, sexism, racism, and classism. They all talk with the same disrespectful arrogance. They all have collected on this forum at about the same time from nowhere. If you ask me they are all one and the same desperate person. They remind me of a whack-a-mole machine. The harder you try to whack it the more aggressive it becomes. I recommend ignoring this whack-a-mole machine altogether. To date I have never seen such a device move in any way when it was ignored. Food for thought.

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Tom, I explained the difference to "OU". She doesn't care about the answer. It was a rhetorical question, not a authentically inquiring one. Sorry, but I and Marc and various others here have lost patience with that B.S. If you'd rather give people like "OU" the benefit of the doubt, well then good for you. But some of us have had our fill of her and her ilk.

    It appears that there's some sort of viris infecting our society, because Americans seem to be getting dumber by the year. Must be all that artificial food they're eating, not to mention the corporate garbage they watch on the boob tube and hear on the radio all the time, reducing that gray matter between their ears to something more akin to styrofoam. Because they don't absorb the facts; they repel them.

    "OU's" comments and questions were stupid. I told her they were stupid. So sue me. - AIW

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Set foot!

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Sometimes (e.g., some of the responses in this blog) I am rather ashamed of my liberal brothers and sisters. I thought that the original question posed by Ou812 was a legitimate one. She merely pointed out that Thom says that monopolies are "bad" but yet wants a "monopoly" (single payer) for health care.

    Instead of that generating a discussion, some chose to do nothing more than name calling. Then Ou812 responded in kind.

    I think that we can all do better.

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Really 10k. Public service pensions, health care benefits, and holiday pay are much higher then the private sector. Are you saying that had nothing to do with it. If it is wall street to blame why do these same unions still investing in them?

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Kend, I've heard of selective hearing, but you seem to be doing it with reading. The fact about the pension fund being stolen by the Wall Street Banksters during the Great Bush Crash of 2008 seems to have escaped your reading comprehension. In other words, the cities didn't simply overspend. That pension money was taken out of workers paychecks before it was stolen by guys with the same criminal bent as Mitt Romney.

    The wealthy few are determined to have it all...it's time the working many get even more determined to take back what is ours!

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago
    Quote ckrob:Can we think of the relationship between the citizen and a democratically elected government as a meta-contract?

    ckrob ~ I'm not so sure I understand your term "meta-contract." If one were to replace that with "conditional contract, " I certainly would agree.

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Robindell ~ I read your comment earlier today and only now have had time to respond. You have truly hit a note with me. Music is very important to any civilized society; and, it must be cultivated as early as possible. It also need to be encouraged. I didn't hear the segment you are talking about and personally find it hard to believe that Thom's question was anything less than rhetorical; however, you are so right about the level of musical education in this country and how it relates so well to critical thinking that I too am concerned about where Thom is coming from.

    NPR and Public TV have to use the airwaves to promote all manner of music for the good of everyone. Just because someone has a MP3 player and an account doesn't mean they know anything about what is quality music and what is junk. Public Media has the pulpit through which to deliver the highest quality musical programming along with the discussion as to why it is so high quality. This educates, inspires, and motivates everyone to not only enjoy great music, but to aspire to participate in the making of great music as well.

    As you might have guessed, I too have been moved deeply by music delivered through public media in my life time; and, I want that resource to be non ending. You certainly have my support; and, if Thom is listening, I would appreciate if you explained exactly what you meant by what I hope was a purely rhetorical question. Robindell ~ Thanks again!!

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    I'm not surprised by your comments, you are all good at calling names, and assigning blame. But you are not winning the hearts and minds of anyone. It's that same old people make the same tired comments, (mostly name calling) where are the ideas, original thoughts? I'll probably be thrown off here. But who loses, not me. You need me and those like me if you want to accomplish anything. So keep blaming, name calling and thinking you are so damn smart. you have about 2 dozen people who agree with you.

  • The End of Choice...   11 years 10 weeks ago

    OU812 ~ Aliceinwonderland has been way too kind to you. I find you, your comments, your name, and your avatar to be low brow, sophomoric, sexist, ridiculous, insulting, pathetic, and offensive. I'm quite surprised that Thom's web monitor is allowing you to participate this long. Obviously he/she is asleep at the wheel.

    Sorry! I for one do not consider you or your comments worthy of a response. I also don't like your style of disrespect for this forum Mr/Ms "Oh You Ate One Too." Eat this, I'm flagging you as offensive and asking everyone else to do the same. Moron. Grow up and learn to think for yourself.

  • How The War on Workers Is Changing   11 years 10 weeks ago

    Kend -- As union membership declined, conditions became worse. Unions are the force that keeps tariffs in place.

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