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 only fallacy is the one put out by the official conspiracy theory. 911 was an inside job!
It blows me away that Americans would even consider giving people who broke the law on how they entered your country a free pass to stay. They steal your jobs, drive down the wages, fill your schools and hospitals then take the money back home and spend it there. and no cares seems to care. Do you really think they are going to come above ground and pay taxes? Wow. Our construction workers here in Canada make huge money because there is no one else to do the job. No other country in the world would even consider this.
The Government never wanted to stop the flow of cheap labor. We need cheap labor to pick our crops work the sweat shops, etc, etc. Easy to stop, put those who hire "them" in jail and out of business.
Black no longer doing that work, on wellfare , Brown next to be on WF. Need to import yellow next to pick the crops, etc. After that bact to white the new minority.
chuckle8: #13: Yes, I agree!
I used to "buck bales" (note: that is a "b"!) when I was a kid going to school. Bucking bales of hay (ie: walking along side a flat bed truck and tossing bales of hay up for someone up in the flat bed to stack, we took turns up in the truck).
We kids worked our butts off in the hot sun...sweat and dirt and hay chaff got in our eyes constantly..always sunburned. We worked for just a few cents per bale and made enough money to buy things we wanted. I realized then that if I didn't work...I wouldn't have any money to spend.
Perhaps many kids today wouldn't do such a thing or even work "picking jobs" in the fields...but I bet there are some who would. Of course, if you are competing with cheap Mexican laborers there is not much incentive to do that.
You could argue, I suppose, that these cheap laborers keep our food prices down..but I'd argue that the food prices are not kept down by cheap labor...but the profits of these exploiter company executives, stock holders, etc are the real winners by hiring illegal cheap labor from Mexico...the corporatist and capitalist profits are up.
The problem with the manufactured mentality of people today, even...or especially..kids, is that they've all been Bernaysed (ie: Edward Bernays--the "buy now before it's too late" --the "your neighbor has one so you too deserve to have one too"--progagandist). We've all bought into the propaganda idolizing the uber rich and many people believe that they too will be very wealthy one day...not through hard work but through the same kind of trickery that the uber rich have done.
And now, some of them want the rest of us to believe that we need these cheap laborers, that they just want to feed their families too! The last part may be very true but if we had the very same mentality about the rest of the world, as well, then good luck on trying to feed your own families.
If you spread the American wealth out over the whole world, every one of us Americans would be living way below poverty levels...Those same idiots who espoused NAFTA, the Clintonistas, which is breaking the back of Americans, are the same ones who may think that we should "tear down the walls" of our borders and hold hands with everyone with their hands out...and sing Cubaya. Be careful, people, those hands will likely pick your pockets...perhaps not overtly...but it will happen just the same... over time.
The problem with foreign laborers earning all that cash that they would not have previously earned in Mexico is that when they take that cash back, or send it back to family, the capitalist hyenas in Mexico will raise their prices on everything including food. I've been there many times and I know that there are some department stores that even I wouldn't shop in because their prices were way too high..I couldn't imagine how most Mexicans could afford to pay those prices. Maybe they had a different credit arrangement there...buy a shirt and spend 30 years paying it off kind of thing?
By letting the foreigners work here...are we really doing them any favors? Short term...maybe yes...long term...they will still be poor and stuck with paying higher prices due to inflationary influx of money. But, the few hyenas will be still be filthy rich! And so will the capitalist hyenas right here in America. They'll be eating us all for lunch!
Thom? wrote ~
"...the Dreamers, who were came to our country as children. "
"...let's fix out broken legal immigration system,"
Wow, I've never seen so many grammar mistakes in a Thom post. It was so shocking I think have we if will read another on time again.
Seriously folks, does Congress ever come up with a good idea? I agree we need a clear path to Citizenship for anyone who is already here; especially, if they have family here as well. We don't have to incriminate them to do this.
This is a two tier problem:
First, at this time we cannot afford to improve the path of citizenship. We have to do everything we can to reduce the influx of illegal workers into this country. Before we can even begin to address the question of immigration reform we have to restore our manufacturing base by repealing free trade. We don't have enough jobs for the people here already. Once we achieve that goal we can look at immigration reform. Anything other than this approach only opens the floodgates for institutionalized slave labor and a permanent indigenous poverty class of disposable workers. Every worker class citizen and immigrant will lose.
Secondly, we cannot incriminate people for coming here to seek work to support their families. The post by LorenBliss addresses this issue perfectly. He said it perfectly:
"The obvious purpose of this criminalization proposal is to create a huge free-labor pool for easy enslavement by the prison industry. Its hidden agenda -- obvious to those of us who are union members and understand how immigrants are already being persecuted for their labor activism -- is to make it easier for union-minded immigrants to be arrested, imprisoned, enslaved and deported."
We must object to this nefarious agenda and insist Congress addresses free trade, tax, and campaign finance reform before touching immigration. All this approach will accomplish will harm the country in the long run!
Palin - I will say one thing about you, you never hesitate to interject your theory on 9-11 regardless of the subject!! I have decided no matter how crazy you sound, I am not going to point out the fallacies in your claims, it does no good to try! Ken. (But I will comment like I have today) Have a good night, my friend.
We need laws on the books that criminalize the kinds of activities that both parties have been guilty of over the past 40 years.
For one, why is it that with all of the money spent on border patrols, people are still able to enter the country illegally? Also, why are American citizens harrassed by these federal parasites every time they try to leave and re-enter the country with a passport? Why does the government insist on hiring morons for border protection?
It seems that someone should audit how taxpayer money is spent instead of "trusting" the government to spend it wisely.
The Times had an article today concerning the immigration legislation that our wonderful government is trying to put together. To start with I am against giving what amounts to as amnesty for people that have broken our immigration laws to get here. All this will accomplish is to spread the idea that if you can get your family and yourself inside of our borders you will have nothing to worry about, because tens of millions of other illegal aliens have done it and are working at American companies. It is not our responsibility to keep these families together when their parents make the decision to disregard our immigration laws and "sneak" (that is the kindest word I can come up with for these individuals) themselves and their family members across our border illegally. As I was stating, the Times article today stated that several major Tech companies and one Software company have each donated a million dollars ($7,000,000.00) to buy lobbyist to try to convince congress to increase the number of work visas and green cards in the Immigration Bill, so they will have an endless supply of cheap labor to assure greater profits for these companies where more than likely they are being filled with illegal workers now. Hartmann as a left wing liberal progressive has a habit of understating facts when it comes to making a point concerning something he agrees with and understating the facts concerning something he does not agree with. The latest "guess" we have because no government estimates can be evaluated since the government immigration agency, I.C.E. is not sure; Many have calculated there are some 20,000,000 illegal aliens that have violated our immigration laws and have illegally taken up residence in our country. That is almost twice the number the left wants us to believe have entered our country illegally. As a moderate Independent, I will take the middle ground and say there are 15,000,000 illegal aliens in our country. Does anyone realize how many Americans have been put out of work because of these people? Employers who need full time permanent workers make a bundle off cheap illegal workers. They hire them as independent contractors and therefore do not have to pay for their (the employers) part of the of Social Security tax that is paid into our S.S. system when you hire a person. They do not need to pay for disability insurance on them as independent contractors, nor do they have to worry about them asking for health insurance, because most of them (illegals)use the public hospitals and avoid paying their bills here in California. Our schools are overcrowded with illegal alien children and a large cost of the school budgets go to interpreters and special needs of children who are here illegally. The law does not differentiate whether you are an illegal adult or child. Our prisons have a large percentage of their population that are illegal aliens and were caught committing crimes and will be sent back to their country of origin. I realize the left wingers are going to state that I am a heartless uncaring individual with no compassion for these people. And, they would be right to state so. I am not the type of person who tries to be politically correct when discussing this matter. Here in California the blue collar work force has been decimated by the large and ever growing population of cheap illegal workers taking their (American's) jobs in order to increase the profits of these companies. From carpenters and construction workers to simple production jobs, you will find it is difficult to find a place that hasn't replaced American workers with illegal cheap labor here in California. Three busloads of illegal workers headed to the Midwest (to a meat packing company) were pulled over by local police and Immigration was called in to arrest these people and eventually send them back to Mexico. Many states that are thousands of miles from our borders have been forced to create and enforce laws to stop the never ending flow of illegal workers into their states, because the Federal Government (I.C.E.) refuses to do their job properly, especially around election times. Why is it we are called to overlook the fact that these people have violated our laws to get here and we are expected to overlook that fact because it is too expensive to enforce the laws currently on the books? If you want to verify these statements just Google any of the comments I have made and see for yourself. Washington is pressing for new Immigration laws not because it is the right thing to do, because it is not, they are doing it because they want to retain those political donations from companies who make large profits from illegal workers as well as wanting an endless supply of cheap labor with work visas and green cards to take the place of American workers here in our states and home towns. Try going to any other country and illegally enter their nation to take jobs from their citizens, because that is why they are here illegally, and see how long you last without going to jail. I even doubt that the great frozen lake to the north of us would allow Americans to illegally enter their sovereignty and work illegally! We do not need new Immigration laws; we need to enforce the laws we already have here in America. Sincerely, K.W.
Palindromedary -- It is a crime to hire undocumented workers. Those businesses need to be put in jail. We do not need any new laws. We need someone to enforce the ones we have.
DAnneMarc -- My key point was what can we possibly have happen. I believe the progressives entry into process is the fraud perpetuated by the Reinhart-Rougland scam. Now, progressives can say we should not even consider austerity. We need jobs, so please fix our infrastructure. The repugs previous resistance to fixing the infrastructure was the deficit.
To expand on your dog analogy, we now (due to the scam) have two lunches. I suggest we have no option other than to feed the predatory dog. However, we do now have the option to give a lunch to the dog catcher. When he is fed, we can hope the dog is history. Beware, I remember from high school English (55 years ago) that analogies are a hinderance to clear thinking. I believe, however, they are great assistance in understanding a problem.
Are immigrants, who sneak across the border, really "immigrants" or are they criminals? If we snuck across the border into Mexico or into Canada..or even tried to sneak past border control of any other country how do you think they would treat us? These criminals are effectively stealing from citizens of the US by taking away jobs that Americans could have. Because they are willing to work cheaply, they undercut American wages. And before long, or perhaps it is already happening, Americans will have to compete with these people for whatever is left of the benefits that Americans are supposed to get.
Are the businesses, that "knowingly" use these "immigrants", not criminals themselves? Maybe we should deport them...not the businesses...but the top executives who are ultimately responsible for taking advantage of cheap labor by hiring illegal aliens.
Aren't the real "drug dealers" also running our banks and businesses and sitting in our Congress? Maybe it is about time America shuts down our borders...stop all those foreigners from entering our country by air...or at least thoroughly check each and every one out before they enter our country. Business wouldn't like that would they!
If the US government had been more picky about who they let into the country prior to 911...the real traitors who planned and carried out 911 would not have gotten those "patsies" into the country. One, the 20th "hijacker", didn't make it into the country because one American Hero border agent took a big chance, risking his career, by stopping this arrogant Saudi Arab from coming into the country.
The Bush administration was all hands off in allowing these people into the country despite all of the warnings of an imminent attack. They needed their patsies for the scheme to work!
And despite the fact that Susan Lindauer, a CIA asset, helped to ruin the Neocon's con game of plausible deniability (ie: being able to say things like "who could have expected that terrorists would hijack planes and crash them into buildings"), after 911 happened, they said those things anyway thinking they had Susan Lindauer stuck in a prison with no visitors and about to be chemically lobotomized. Susan Lindauer's call to Ashcroft, just a couple of weeks before 911, warning him of the imminent attacks, made them very mad because then they would not be able to claim they didn't know anything about an imminent attack.
Then after the 911 attack..the "Bin Laden determined to strike.." memo became public showing what liars the Bush administration was. But what gets me is that the Bush administration continued to lie us into illegal wars in the Middle East. And people bought it hook, line, and sinker. And many people still don't get it that 911 was largely an inside job. They can watch those WTC towers collapse, at near free-fall speed, in their own footprints just like in any other demolition and they can't see with their very own eyes that the official government conspiracy theory is a lie. I guess Americans love to be lied to and don't mind being gullible.
Palindromedary -- About the MWv thing. I have a panasonic. After about a month it quit working. Since it was in warranty, I took it to an authorized repair guy to fix it for free. He fixed it and said there is switch in the door which is operated from the latch on the door. The problem was the connection between door latch and the switch was a flat piece of plastic which borke.
Kassandra Troy -- I do not think the government is stupid. The congress people and their staffs are getting all kind of goodies from the corporatists.
I am with Thom just put employers in jail that hire undocumented workers. If we do this, we wil not have to deport anyone. When I our unemployment rate becomes less than 4% we can think about providing a path to citizenship.
Part of what Louise Hartmann said;
“Create a real path to citizenship for people who came here looking for a better life.” Citizenship appears basic to American immigration policy.
However, from my view what we do now by increasing Democracy is or seems to be the goal of our leadership, yet, it appears wildly cockeyed to war for Democracy at the same time we support to build a fence to prevent that the basic liberty.
The South Central American immigration issue has been a weird thing for decades. The Republicans declared an amnesty for immigration during the Reagan administration which is totally opposite of what is happening now.
There must be a saturation point, or a critical domestic point which the country can endure such an influx of persons for me its hard to understand because they are literate. They do not understand why such grief is coupled to freedom, either do I.
Moreover, it is non-sense to consider that these persons from the border who don’t speak English can immediately understand American concepts or laws let alone automatically become Democrats to be able to vote for the Democratic Party.
Contrary to what Republicans say the border people are easily malleable. A message or what is supposed to be a civic learning duty turns into a deception that is wildly avoided by mainstream media, especially by mainstream MSNBC, CNN, or really, really Fox News here to express my view using Rachel Maddow’s hand waving smiling animation which is her character. A natural media type personality which is matched by Thom’s natural honesty that trumps it.
For me it is tiring to listen about Gay stuff. Hey guess what I am a white straight man former closet stuffer do you think I can get air time for about a week and get popular. Or how about the straight marriage issue in America is it not closely approaching fifty percent. I don’t think Maddow cares about straight marriage; it’s just abortion, abortion, abortion.
Oh get this, Rush Limbaugh introduced the Black tax concepts, was listening on the radio could not believe it. Then introduced the Gay tax concept, sheesh, this guy is an electromagnetic air foiling expert.
Limbaugh’s civic educational message is sedition. Now the topper a bounty for sports people. Yes big money offered for selected sportsters, Yowee those people should be steaming
The obvious purpose of this criminalization proposal is to create a huge free-labor pool for easy enslavement by the prison industry. Its hidden agenda -- obvious to those of us who are union members and understand how immigrants are already being persecuted for their labor activism -- is to make it easier for union-minded immigrants to be arrested, imprisoned, enslaved and deported.
Given how the total corruption of the Democrats results in effectively unchallenged rule by The One Party of Two Names, there's no doubt this new Republican effort expresses the true will of the One Percent. And given how the anti-immigrant raids ordered by Barack the Deporter always focus on labor activists (and are therefore de facto union-busting operations), it's obvious the DemocRats will go along with it, demonstrating once again they are merely GOPorkers in disguise.
So ends immigration reform, another example of "change we can believe in."
The only people that should be prosecuted should be those illustrious citizens that have capitalized on the cheap labor of illegal immegrants. Big agriculture, wealthy folks with big domestic staffs (Dianne Feinstein? - Nancy Pelosi?); the illegals themselves should be given two years to gain citizenship the regular way or sent back to wherever, families included. The government (tax payers) should belly up for language training and tutoring that will no doubt be required. If these people are truly motivated, they will make it. Otherwise - too bad. Another thing: service in the United States military should NOT be considered a path to citizenship. You can't take that oath if you aren't a citizen.
The problem with this bill is that it does all the wrong things. The people shouldn't be charged as criminals and certainly their children shouldn't. The kids should be allowed to stay and the adults who broke the law should be made to leave. We Dems hate the fact that good jobs are being outsourced for cheap labor but then we support importing (yes they are already here) cheap labor. Many of the jobs these people take are pretty hard and then we support a fixed lower wage. The line that Americans won't do these jobs always leaves off "at the wages offereed. Why are we willing to subsidize agi-business, construction and the hotel industry. You have those jobs to fill; pay whatever it will take to fill them. The free market after all is the Republican way. Hard for them to argue. If this bill passes it will continue to depress wages, throw many more lower income citizens out of work, cost us more money just when the "entitlement" budgets are being cut and ten years from now there will be 5-10 million more illegal aliens in the country. Don't offer jobs, don't offer benefits, don't offer citizenship, deport immediately when caught and offer incentives to leave (priority over others to get back in) and most will leave and we don't have to spend billions building walls and then billions more each year maintaining them. If you reward bad behavior you are guaranteed to get more of it.
But who needs robbers breaking into your home to rob you when there are so many robbers (merchants) robbing us.
I just went up to a car dealership to buy two new headlamps ( not the bulbs...the plastic reflector&lens) because mine was all scratched and hazed up and there was not much light coming out. I had bought a restorer kit some time ago and tried that but getting good results just wasn't in the cards even after lots of sanding with those little pads and lubricant.
So, the dealership parts department only had one, they'd have to order the other one. And it was going to cost $240 for each and they would charge $125 labor for each headlamp installation....over $700! $125 labor for each?!! All it takes is to unscrew the 3 wing nuts that hold the assemblies in and you can remove/replace in a matter of just a few minutes. Yes, the beams would have to be re-aimed..but that is also very easy and quick to do.
That year 2000 model car was probably not even worth $700 any more. I had thought of going to a car junk yard but I thought I'd give one more try in restoring the head lamps.
I used a 1000 grit, 1200 grit, then a 2000 grit wet or dry sandpaper that I had on hand with the liquid "lubricant" in that kit (but could have just used water) and then I used a tiny felt buffing wheel coated with jewelers rouge mounted on a little Dremmel tool to give it a final buffing. This cleared it up so well that it almost looked like new. Then I rubbed it with the wax swab, from the kit, for a final coat of protection.
On my second headlamp, I saved some rubbing labor by mounting those sandpapers to a normal 7" buffer.
Now, that's the way to keep from being robbed by robbers disguised as legit businesses.
The other day, I saved about $200 by repairing my microwave. Those darn microwave ovens often have a problem with their door switches.
I had a smaller microwave oven, that I had for years. And a few months ago I had problems with the door switches and finally junked it, after stealing the magnetron (I like the magnets) and other parts, I junked it (recycled, of course). But, now that I think about it...I could probably have built a real PDK (portable dog killer) with that magnetron. I would have had to design and build a waveguide to direct the microwave energy to the target though. HOT DOG! ;-} I love dogs...they're very tasty! But seriously folks...it's the big, mean and very viciously scary dogs I would go after...all the other cute and cuddly smaller ones deserve to live.
So, anyway, I bought a bigger microwave oven and was ticked off that after a few months I started to have the same kind of problem with the door switches. I tore the MW apart and found the problem. I ohmed out the switches making sure they were not bad. Then found that the switch assembly (3 switches on a plastic mount assembly) was mounted on a very flimsy piece of tin panel that would flex out of shape every time the door would close...so that one of the switches would not activate when the door was closed. I drilled a hole into the front, after opening the door, and put a screw in to hold the switch assembly solidly against the inside front wall which kept the switch assembly from moving. Works perfectly now!
You want to know what I think? I think this government is the stupidist government I've seen in my short, sweet life on this palent..... but they sure have mamaged to impoverish and insult us all while we sat around thinking positive thoughts, haven't they?
Children should NOT pay for the mistakes of their parents Thats UNacceptable to any reasonable person Of course that excludes T Bagger run GOP Boehner Cantor Mcconnell Bachman Rove FOX followers ...
Which makes it a very good idea to not only have weapons to use in your own self-defense...but to make sure any potential assailant knows that you would not be an easy prey for them. I don't know...maybe post a sign on your house that your house is not only protected by a fierce pit bull but also a 357 Magnum...or something similar. Of course, if you advertise like that then they might just break in while you are gone and steal your weapons. So, I think it is a much better idea for everyone to be well armed (ie: stop the government from trying to take them all away from us) and then potential assailants wouldn't have a clue as to who was armed and who wasn't.
2950-10K ~ You know it quite frankly amazes me as to how much time and energy people on this blog put into arguing with Kend. He reminds me of a cat toy. A feather or two tied to a string and supported by a stick. Float him around on the floor and look at the Kitties go crazy--just like it was for real prey. Shame they can't find a way to stuff him with a catnip substitute! That might make all the efforts worthwhile! Either case its always a fun game to watch.
chuckle8 ~ After rereading your previous post a few times, I think I see what you're saying about getting the economy moving again. Makes sense; but, I still have to disagree. Giving your lunch to a hungry dog to keep it from eating you might postpone the inevitable till it gets hungry again. But then you're still stuck with the same dilemma--this time you're starving as well. Best to eat your own lunch and face the Beast at full strength with a full stomach. IMHO.
Here's another idea! If you're so concerned about the tank factory workers why not just eliminate the defense industry altogether and send the surplus in tax money directly to the displaced workers. Just eliminate the middleman altogether. Workers still have an income and the economy still gets stimulated. Quite frankly, I'd rather stimulate the economy that way than to have a lot of unnecessary weapons of mass destruction sitting around I can't use.