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Chuckle:Point well taken and might I add that the treatment of African Americans went off the scale on the inhumanity meter as well. But in the context of time and place I'm even more horrified by the behaviour of the billionaire/political puppet consortium I referred to in my initial posting. How anyone living in the 21st century with a fundamental knowledge of history can so conveniently ignore the pain and suffering of their fellow man is inexcusable.....these bastards know better. Employment is a human right, and should never be reduced to a desperate act of begging and submission to some greedy and power hungry nut.
Marc, Johnnie D., "10K", "ptg0", "delster", "Sandlewould", Gary R. .... I concur.
By the way Marc, I checked out that link you shared earlier, with the clip of Rachel Maddow showing and talking about Obama's little - (ahem) - contradictions regarding our constitutional freedoms & protections; also the degree to which His Majesty deems it perfectly appropriate to violate such freedoms, all in the name of "security" of course! That smooth-talking asshole is one piece of work. I highly recommend this vignette to anyone who hasn't seen it, in post #7. The contradictions coming out of Obama's mouth, in a couple of speeches made within the very same day, were pretty stunning. Ms. Maddow gave an excellent report & commentary on the subject.
Reading the blog that followed, I was stunned to find such vitriol directed against Ms. Maddow! I actually left a post to counter these attacks against her. (My blog name there is "Lefty Keys" if you'd like to check it out, Marc.) Anyway I am amazed by the cynacism with which many regard anyone in the media spotlight, no matter who they are. As I've stated earlier, I see much grounds for cynicism in regards to politicians, as well as those in the media. However I also believe it's easy to get caught up in a knee-jerk, indiscriminately hostile sort of mind-set that is simply reactionary. Some folks don't bother to distinguish between what few good apples there are and the rotten majority.
I happen to like Ms. Maddow. I have seen and heard nothing thus far to put me at odds with her, or make her suspect in my mind. It troubles me when I observe even the most genuine individuals in those arenas, what few there are, subjected to verbal attacks and character assassinations. Thom Hartmann has been targeted by these attacks as well. People need to choose their targets more carefully, in my opinion. Misdirected anger is counter-productive and gets us nowhere. Why alienate and/or marginalize what few friends we have in Washington, Hollywood or wherever? We've so many adversaries - even enemies - to choose from who are genuinely evil, stupid, corrupt, greedy, etc. Why pick on Hartmann and Maddow? I just don't get it.
We're all in this together. It's time to take back our country; not from blacks, Mexicans or Muslims, but from the self-appointed lords & masters of this evil capitalist empire, along with all their enablers! Let's quit squabbling, roll up our sleeves an' git to work. - Aliceinwonderland
A friend just shared this film with me about FEMA concentration camps. The most striking claim made in the film is that it doesn't matter what ideology you have; be it, right wing, left wing, pro life, pro choice, anti war, pro war, Black Panther, or Klu Klux Klan, with the passing of HR 5122 and HR 645, strong beliefs in ANYTHING automatically qualify one to be a potential terrorist and enemy combatant and subject to indefinite detention and a lengthy stay in any club USA facility.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxOAK7iOlVk
Perhaps now is the time to put aside our petty differences and focus on our common problems? United we are unbeatable, divided we are defeated.
Thank you, Marc. Kend too. Appreciated. - AIW
Aliceinwonderland ~ Kend is right. Technically the bird hit you. Birds don't fly into windshields every day. For something like that to have happened the bird must have been in bad sorts already.. Perhaps he/she was on his last leg before the accident. I know how such an experience can make you feel; but, I wouldn't feel too bad. You did everything you could do; and, after all, he's in a better place.
Good piece Thom. I would of liked to hear more. I found it facinating that this guy was presenting the KKK in a way as to distance itself from what we all have been taught them to be. I can surely understand the concept of white pride. Just as with any proud culture, they do have that right. I just wish there was more time to hear the rest of what he had to say. I'm a regular listener of WCPT in Northwest Indiana. I tend to only listen to your show & Norman Goldman. I find you guys to be the least biased in this crazy world of politics. You guys really try to look at all angles of what's right and how things should be in this country. I don't know how far this post will get but, I am always disappointed to hear "we're out of time" and the opposing side doesn't get to finish their statement. I feel it really closes the door to the whole bipartisan agenda. I actually enjoy it when the opposing side makes their point and you dismantle it with facts. I enjoy it even more when I can take away some small point from the Rep side or Lib side that is missed in the Dem talking points I hear. Thanks.
"ptg0"- Your anger is absolutely justified and I share it, wholeheartedly. 'Flushing the toilet of Washington" is a metaphor i can get behind. But please, not the baby with the bathwater! If we lost senators like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alan Grayson, Maxine Waters or Dennis Kucinich (to cite just five examples), I'd cry me a river. These folks are fighting their butts off for us and we'd be in even worse shape without them. Know who your friends are. We do have a few allies in Washington and I can't over-stress the importance of knowing who they are. Otherwise we're playing into the fascists' hands by refusing to vote. Don't let your anger blind you to the good folks out there who struggle so hard to create an environment where we can thrive, where we can have - and earn - what is rightfully ours. Anyone who can afford it should be contributing to these people's campaign coffers. They need and deserve our support.
"k78333"- I love your avatar cartoon. What's the message in the cartoon bubble? It must be a good one or I doubt you'd use it.
What a nightmare we all are experiencing. Stripping people of every last thread of a safety net is tantamount to a death sentence. This is so horrifying. And cutting off unemployment benefits just two days after Christmas!! Just try to imagine what these people are going through and what the holidays must be like for them. How sadistic and cruel can the fascists get?! THAT's who we need to "flush down Washington's toilet". Our country is sick sick sick… We really need to come up with a strategy to rid ourselves of the parasites, the predators, the monsters who've hijacked our government. I'm not being a drama queen when I keep stressing that they're killing us. I mean, from the fascists' point of view, who needs extermination camps?! Why should they draw all this negative worldwide attention to themselves when they can kill us slowly and silently, via starvation and deprivation?!!! (Loren Bliss, I hear ya bro...)
Incredibly, I've continued receiving e-mailed requests from the Rethugs, asking for donations. This last time, I wrote in their reply box: "When I've got food security and healthcare and have you to thank for it, I will donate generously. In the meantime, go fuck yourselves." Of course it was all tongue-in-cheek because even if those fascists did the right thing, I would question their motives after all the suffering and death they've caused.
We've got our work cut out for us, my friends. Like Thom says, despair is not an option. I can only pray more people wake up before the 2014 midterms. May that toilet flush be loud enough to resonate around the world! - Aliceinwonderland
2950 -- Some native americans might say we have seen parallels and worse.
Alice sorry to hear about hitting the bird. I am sure it was pretty tough on you.
the scary thing is that wind turbines are killing millions of them. A estimated 39 million birds have been killed by them. I saw a show on TV the other day on how they are very concerned about the eagle population in the US because of them. The good news is they are working very hard on improving them to be bird friendly. Nobody seems too care. You almost never see or hear anything about it.
Republican policies are worse than terrorism. More people will die as a result of cuts to everything from mosquito control programs, that stop spread of mosquito Borne diseases, to foodstamp cuts to cuts to Medicaid, every budget year than the 3,000 that died in the September 11 attacks of 2001.
Let's face it, as the congressional republicans sit around doing nothing but collect their paychecks, they're also reveling with delight in the fact that only one job exists for every three desperate souls seeking employment. It serves their benefactors with increased power to keep wages low, fight off unions, unrealistic workloads, long hours, decreased beneifits, and erosion of all manner of things that promote dignity and respect in the workplace.
The resulting increase in suicide, depression, anxiety, domestic violence..... innocent children cowering and crying as Mom and Dad fight over financial frustrations beyond their control..... will all only amplify as already paid for unemployment insurance gets cut off. Yes my friends, that's the Christmas present being bestowed upon millions of our fellow citizens from the Teapublican Party.
I truly believe the current republican inhumanity is unparalleled in the history of any Democratic Republic. There has never been a more selfish and greedy consortium of billionaires and puppet politicians than what we are now experiencing.
Sandlewould, so much of what you've said really resonates with me. That last paragraph made me cry. It's not only the sadness of it that moved me, but its beauty. Our souls, like drops of water; eternity, or death, like the sea... Wow. I was blown away by that. Thank you for sharing these thoughts.
Yesterday morning as I was driving to work, a little bird hit my windshield, seemingly from nowhere. The odd thing about it was how the bird hit. It didn't smack the windshield or go thud, appearing instead to brush up against it, almost in slow motion. For maybe a second, I hoped it would fly off on its merry way. But the bird's neck was broken. I saw it blink once or twice before it died. I pulled off to the side, parked my car and gently lifted its broken body off the windshield. I held it between my cupped hands and prayed. It wasn't a religious prayer, as I am not a religious person. It was more like a meditation of sorts, on how fragile and precious life is. I stood at the side of the road maybe five minutes, holding that warm little body between cupped hands, feeling so helpless. I kept saying "I'm sorry", repeating it like some sort of mantra. Then I lay the dead bird down under some bushes and continued on. I felt like crap. It was a rude reminder how hard our way of life is on the natural world. Wild creatures like birds and possums didn't evolve to co-exist with things like trucks, cars and planes. Consequently we have the endless carnage resulting from this collision between two worlds: one which is man-made against the other, the real world.
What Sandlewould's post highlights is the necessity of a spiritual awakening, shared by a large enough slice of humanity to bring about major changes in our way of life, our world view; indeed, how we relate to each other as human beings and as creatures of the earth. A major overhaul, of all the above, is our only hope. Without it, we're a doomed species.
A thought that has crossed my mind thousands of times over the past 30+ years is how different life would be today, had the Europeans who first migrated here formed an alliance with the indigenous natives who were here first. Had the European invaders not been the predators they were, setting out to "conquer" the natives and steal all their land, what an amazing outcome there could have been. European culture is what enabled technology to evolve, and our European ancestors were very clever, but they lacked the wisdom and spirituality of the natives. I get overwhelmed just trying to imagine what the end result could have been, had the members of these vastly different cultures come together and learned from each other, extracting the very best each culture had to offer humanity as a whole. What a different world we'd be living in today!
Sandlewould is right; we need to share more. We need to create societies worldwide where greed and psychopathy - the darkest sides of human nature - are discouraged rather than nurtured. The indigenous natives viewed greed & psychopathy as mental illnesses. Individuals with these traits were expelled from the tribe, left to fend for themselves. In this culture, such people occupy the highest seats of power, dictating the terms by which we live, and it is killing us.
A culture with no spiritual awareness is a doomed culture. That lack of spiritual awareness is what enables us to destroy Mother Earth for profit, drilling under oceans, blasting mountains to smithereens, reducing whole forests to acres of naked, dead stumps. All for short-term gains and for greed. Because to this day, our culture embraces the idea that everything is expendable, exploitable and for the taking, and to hell with the consequences. Why? Because nothing - nothing - is sacred. When nothing is sacred, when everyone's just out for themselves, it's not only civilization that's in jeopardy, but everything on the planet.
This psychopathic, corporatized world view has it that our worth is defined and measured solely by how much money we possess. Our employability and employment status is what determines our value as human beings. Congress's refusal to extend unemployment benefits to over a million desperate people and their families is only the latest example of a mentality and worldview that is destroying us, individually and collectively. Like Thom has pointed out time and again, it is like a cancer. And time is running out. - Aliceinwonderland
The fact that James and I exchanged a few emails and talked a bit prior made it all feel quite easy. I hardly noticed the camera, the idea that thousands of people would be viewing this soon, or what my ass was doing the entire time. Dear God, what was my ass doing the amateur porn entire time? That was a month ago. The video goes live on his website today. James says it's great! Whatever that means. He informed me that the first part is hilarious, as it was intended to be, which of course speaks to the comic in me.
I keep repeating and no one replies (except Palin mentioned how hypocritical it would be to punish China for currency manipulation). To recover the economy all we need is a majority of dems in the house and 61 dem senators. It seems that the acts that Nancy P passed would have turned this ship around; namely, card check, no waivers to Buy America Act of 1936, no credits for shipping jobs out of the country and penalties on China for currency manipulation (there were about 300 more acts that were filibustered as well, but I am too lazy to look those up).
Gary Reber -- The solution you describe seems to be that of the minimum income that the Swiss are voting on. I still believe the economic policies of the New Deal and the Great Society would work (examples, high tariffs, max tax rate of 92%, Taft-Hartley etc.).
How can labor be only contributing 5% to the growth of the economy, when 2 billion people in China and India are working 60 hour week?
Yes, same exploration of inequality and a good, extensive presentation of a huge data set. Tom has cited Pickett and Wilkinson many times tho not much lately. I seem to recall a couple of youTube presentations by the authors.
I could,nt agree more Aliceinwonderland! Corporate America is starving out our society. They have bought,lock,stock and barrell, all the political capital that they need to dismantle our society. All while the population is looking the other way! Now on to attack the unemployment insurance, further dismantling any hope for these people and the generation behind them, of a chance to a better future.. Assuring more kahos and tragedy in the form of killings and robberies as a direct result from the inequality that they (the oligarchs) are purposely accelerating! The Greed and disregard for the health of this country and it,s people are really apparent now and we really need a messenger to deliver for us! Thank God for people like Thom Hartmann, But we need more of them! We need to recognize that they are stripping us of our intellect for a reason!
NEWS FLASH-
Those jack ass's have done nothing for the middle class and in November they are ALL going to pay for it. If the dumb fuck democRATS keep any seats, there will be strings attached.
I say that we flush the toilet of washington of ALL democRATs and republiCONs. Both parties suck and are filled with useless assholes.
It seems funny having to use "useless assholes" in the same sentence as "senator, congressman or president" but it has become clearly evident that NO elected official has the power to do anything.
Thats what happens when you live in a police state like this shit hole of a country has become.
Cell phone emissions: Thom, I don't know if cell phone emissions are strong enough to have caused the skin irritation you experienced; but I recall reading somewhere years ago that cell phones emit the strongest electromagnetic radiation when they are ringing, dialing, or are seeking (when you move from one cell to another or lose signal.) And for that reason, what I read recommended that you not have the phone near your head while it is dialing or ring; use a headset/blue tooth, or wait until the recipient answers before putting the phone to your ear.
I have noticed that when my cell rings or seeks; it causes a noise in my car's radio, and the same thing happens with my computer's speakers if the phone is within 2 feet or so of my computer. Also, I have a cheap MP3 player which apparently isn't well shielded; if I have it within a foot or so of the phone and the phone rings or seeks, it causes the MP3 player to shut off (the same thing happens from static if I have the player in my shirt pocket and taking off a jacket builds up static. It usually happens if the amount of static generated is enough to zap you if you touch something grounded.) Since the aforementioned noise only happens when the phone rings or seeks, and not at other times; it indicates that phones do emit the most electromagnetic radiation when they ring or seek.
Not to worry, "delster"! The Romneys & Ryans of the world have the answer: Let'em eat sawdust.
I do not need statistics to validate to me that there are not enough jobs in the United States or in the world. Corporations are not in the busines of creating jobs for the unemployed. They never have been
and they never will be. We simply cannot be in the busines of eliminating employment and job creation simultaneously. Not gonna happen. As a reult of technology a handfull of engineers design technology that replaces skilled labor, face to face sales and promotion, and customer service. Corporatie philosophy is not about the expense and social responsibility that comes with employees. I believe modern society has worked it's way into an unsustainable dilemma with a social crisis encouraging a level of unrest leading to the grim possiblity of retaliation at any cost. I don't believe we are coming out of a recession. I believe we are on the edge of a world wide financial colapse. Democracy is a bit like an engine that requires liberty, a little socialism, and a bit of responsible capitalism in order for us to care for one another and be sucessfully sustainable and responsible to one another.
Their "democans" are eating out of the same trough, they live in a different world from us mere former working stiffs.
BAU is ending because we have shipped too many jobs overseas, there are too many people & resources are in decline & becoming more expensive. With so many people out of work & those who still have jobs are earning less, they don't have enough disposable income to support the economy & the oil extractors aren't getting enough $ to keep drilling for expensive oil. The # of taxpayers is shrinking but the government won't tax the rich or big corporations so they have to borrow more to pay for their illegal wars, occupations & the bloated military. What do you think will happen if we default or can't borrow more $?
Now with long term unemployment ending, there will be even more poverty, more people needing aid from the governments & less $ to support it. We are in a downward spiral thanks to government policies, immigration & overpopulation. By ending long term unemployment, they will disappear from the unemployment figures so they can claim that unemployment has declined, a lie of course, just one of many lies the government has been telling us.
The fracking "boom" will soon go bust & we will have to import more oil to support the war machine. The only jobs left is in the military, burger flipping & low wage service jobs. There will be no recovery as this economy requires endless growth which in turn requires increased consumption of oil & other finite resources. No government can survive with a declining tax base & rising expenses so it will fall along with the economy. It dosen't matter which "party" is in charge, their much the same, fascist plutocrats.
Everybody, Mark? Count me out.
I am fifty nine years old, and I saw all this coming in the late 1970's. After Ronald Reagan was elected, the president that opened up the flooding gates of Neo-con anti-union thugs and the rest of the corporate fascists, I couldn't help but notice that union laborers were vanishing and being replaced by slave wage workers. I was a heavy equipment operator that witnessed what they did to the construction industry. Construction workers before all of that had dignity, pride in their jobs and had a decent retirement and medical coverage, only to see it all disappear.
This country is sick, a country made sick by evil fascist pigs. The only way we will ever get our country back to the great Roosevelt economic structure it once had is to finally get rid of the fascist that infested our government with their greed and crimes against the people. I'm just glad that my parents didn't live to see what this country has been turned into.
Rush Limbaugh: "Roosevelt is dead, his policies live on, but we're in the process of doing something about that as well."
Me: "Reagan is dead, his policies live on, but we're in the process of doing something about that as well."
Everybody hates Congress, everybody loves their own Congressman.