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.
Oh, and don't forget to have your computer scanned by the FBI (for the DNSchanger virus..you know..the "internet doomsday virus"..yeah, right). I smell a major sting operation here. "Operation Ghost Click" may be a double entendre for let the ghosts scope out your hard drives. Is it any wonder why they have kept extending the so-called deadline for removing the "clean" servers that have supposedly been protecting us. Now it is July 9...who trusts the FBI anyway? I suspect they are not any more trustworthy than the click jackers.
Check out these concepts for alternative energy that is decentralized. It will take all five pillars to achieve the vision. The failures in the past were due to focusing on only subsystems and not the whole. This will be a huge jobs program that will require engineers and construction workers!http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Industrial_Revolution The podcast is definitely worth listening to. Spread the word. A better world is possible!http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=25036
Haven't you heard? Obama is a socialist according to our right wing friends! Too bad it's not true.
I think it's the word "Socialist" that is the "problem". For too many years, Americans have been misled into thinking that Socialism=Communism. I think that has poisoned the word in people's minds, and caused them to balk at the mere mention of the "S" word, even when preceeded by the word "democratic" (small "D"). I lived in the UK in the late 70s, just as the "Nasty Conservatives" in the form of Margaret Thatcher, were rattling about getting ready to take over the government. Prior to her entry onto the scene, I noted that even the so-called "Conservative Party" members were often somewhat to the left of the US! The UK has its problems, to be sure, but their "democratic-socialist" ways appeared to work. And no one was scared and looking for "commies" under their beds. I knew a lot of people from different "classes", because for sure, there is still a bit of a class system in England. Okay, more than just a "bit", but that never stopped people, at least in Chelsea, where I lived, from "co-mingling" with each other! There wasn't any class warfare; nothing like what the GOP-style "Conservatism" of today is causing! But a Socialist becoming president? Yes, Bernie Sanders would make a wonderful president, but he has a lot of "baggage" to handle: The fact that he's from a small-New England state, but with a sometimes thick distinctly NYC accent, doesn't help. I also wonder whether we are ready to vote for a Jewish president. (I'm Jewish, but I certainly don't vote for people because of that. I just happen to think Sen. Sanders is terrific! I'd vote for him in a heartbeat. But "faux-Dem" Joe Leiberman? No way!) I just think that it's the word Socialist itself that is the problem. Just as I don't believe this country would ever (at least in this time of devolution) elect an avowed Athiest. (On the other hand, I'd bet you anything that a number of the early presidents were indeed Atheists, but again, back in the early days of our Republic, they really did have separation of church and state, so it wasn't something anyone talked about in public, whether a religious person or not.)
There is a lot of hope in a new green technology. Pumped storage hydroelectricity has been around for years. Problem is it destroys mountain habitats. In Germany an interdisciplinary team from the University of Duisburg-Essen and the Ruhr-University Bochum is studying a new storage technique. Their team is studying the use of pumped hydro in underground facilities at abandoned mines. According to Dr. Ulrich Schreiber, Professor of Geology, "Our idea needs no mountains or cliffs. It could be used almost anywhere" (Ziegler). Although the research is only just beginning their team offers great positivity for this technology. According to the university team, “the first calculations of the scientists show that there is a remarkable potential, especially in the case of open-cast mines” (Ziegler).
According to a blog written by Susan Kraemer in CleanTechnica.com (A blog that is syndicated in the well-respected journal Scientific American) a company called RiverBank Power has “pioneered” storing wind power underground. Their method is pumped storage hydroelectricity in reverse. Her blog reported, “the RiverBank technology has none of the environmental defects of hydro electric power, (and thus normal pumped storage up hills) because the storage is underground, instead of up a hill” (Kraemer).
If these energy storage methods pan out we could see a lot more investment in wind farms. These plants could help address baseload issues that so plague renewables. Keep your eye out for these technologies.
We need a law passed that makes it illegal to pay someone to lobby congress and also makes it illegal to accept money in exchange for lobbying services. Then, instead of having former politicians doing the lobbying, who care less about the cause they are promoting and more about the paycheck they are receiving, we would only have true believers of a particular cause lobbying congress.
Today we have a scenario where Senators could care less about being reelected anymore. They know they'll have a lobbying job lined up as soon as they leave office which will pay them a lot more.
Unfortunately, for this to hapen, congress would have to be big enough to vote away their meal ticket. Not likely.
The reason we've never had a Socialist POTUS, or a Socialist majority legislative branch, is because generations of deeply depraved corporate obedient Democrat voters have so reliably regularly flocked to the polls to efficiently exterminate the Left.
The "progressives" are the liberals who keep voting for the corporate party's Democrats so they can keep protesting against what they keep voting for.
Voter Consent Wastes Dissent:
http://chenangogreens.org
Dr. Jill Stein for President:
http://www.jillstein.org
The Talking Point of today is "middle class workers." They are the alpha and the omega, every politician claims to represent them, media bends over backwards on their behalf, and they are entirely willing to crush the poor into the gravel. Historically, each time the richest few obtained too much power over government, the poor and middle classes united to push back, to the benefit of both. Not this time. Because the non-rich masses have been split in two, there is no chance of pushing back against a fascist/reactionary takeover of the US.
"Stupid" might be an understatement. "Gullible" is obvious. A rather dramatic point of proof: For years, our politicians insisted that welfare - specifically, AFDC - was driving our deficits, threatening economic collapse. Never mind that at its highest (1970s), AFDC used a mere 6% of the fed. budget. Contrast this with the 50%+ of the fed.budget drained by wars of choice and handouts to the richest few. After years of massively exporting US jobs, we increased the size of the workforce by eliminating General Assistance and AFDC, leaving far more people struggling for far fewer jobs -- and that's our primary economic agenda! For 30+ years, we have watched rich politicians drain the money out of the budget, pouring it directly into the bank accounts of the richest few, leading the US to complete economic collapse, and what's our solution? Why, to end food stamps, of course. We're watching the greatest bank robbery in the history of the world. But no matter, up is down, black is white, and the Cat in the Hat will come along to get the house back into order before the grownups get back home.
Whenever governments move to austerity measures (i.e. the Paul Ryan budget), they are flirting with disaster. In the US we stopped regulating banks, we stopped taxing the rich, we bailed out oligopolies and we grew the military into an albatross around our necks. Then we started getting blood out of the turnip -- sucking the blood out of the middle class and ignoring the poor then calling it "patriotism."
That is the pattern of right-wing extremism in history, as Thom points out. Now they have the three-pronged strategy for one-party rule: Citizens United, voter ID, and gerrymandering. If they get their wish, a cabal of billionaire right-wing activist zealot plutocrats will run the country and finish the job that GWB interrupted with a so-called Keynesian bailout process that didn't trickle down much either. The tea party regime will send us into Great Depression 2.
Republicans use Reagan's name as a brand, just like they do with Christianity, as John Fugelsang always says. They don't care about substance, they care about labels. They learned to control language, but they stopped there and never learned how to govern.
Nope. We're too stupid to have a socialist
The farming injuries suffered by children could be made an age-of-consent issue. Those jobs could be declared to be so risky that one must be legally able to give consent to be hire for them.
Funny how a blockade from just one country is making life on Cuba so tough? What if you can't trade with the US, you can't survive?
On another point, my history book says the Bay of Pigs invasion was in the early 1960's. I don't recall any other attacks on Cuba by the US since then.
Sorry if you hold up Cuba as Utopia, you are smoking some serious weed my friend. I wouldn't move to Miami and and state that opinion, look what happened to Ozzie Guillen whne he defended Fidel Castro recently.
I had answered the question in comment #2:
I was leaving conclusions out, because anybody should be able to make them: To restrict voting to ID cards makes voting unaffordable to the very poor, because you pay for ID cards even in blue states.The problem is not the fact that we have to pay for ID cards in all states, the problem is voter restriction in red states.
I am concentrated/specialized on social policy, and this is the reason why I felt in charge and answered the question in #2. But I expect people to think themselves and make their own conclusions.
What you fail to realize is that during the timeframe you are referring to, the U.S. had Cuba under a blockade that restricted the development of their society according to the prerogatives in which the leaders wished to guide it. That blockade, which is the longest in history, made for a great scarcity of ordinary supplies that non-blockaded countries take for granted. Also, the multitude of terrorist actions of the U.S. against Cuba at that time were, besides all of the physical damage to property from the bombs, shootings and biological attacks, causing thousands of deaths and many more thousands of injuries which made life extremely difficult for the Cuban people over a span of decades. So, naturally, those of a weaker spirit wished to be away from there because of the permanent state of low level war which the U.S. employed against the civilian population. And, it must be realized, you are talking of a period that was more than a quarter of a century ago. Since then the Cuban system has evolved in immeasureable ways into the incredible transformation that virtually the whole world now admires, as was evidenced most recently by the summit in Cartegena where the U.S. and it's new vassel Canada were the only countries to veto the inclusion of Cuba into the next summit of the OAS.
Hey if you think Cuba is a model for anything good other than cigars, you must live in on a different planet than I do! To say that Cuba has a better system than we do here in the US is ridiculas beyond belief! You don't see Amwericans trying to float from Miami to Cuba, but there sure were a lot of Cubans trying to float to Miami in the late 70's. Why do you think that is?
Hi Clarissa,
If this is the case, why are you complaining (like a good liberal/progressive) in your orginal post, about New York charging a fee for voter ID cards?
Voter registration is NOT restricted to driver licenses and non-driver ID cards in the state New York!
You can use various kinds of other documents, that document your name and adress. If you've been a resident for some time, you have documents like that anyway. As we always say : restriction to ID cards is not necessary and just to keep people from voting in Republican states.
It's fairly easy to vote in the state New York. I call this liberal liberty.
I've been reading these progressive posts for over a year. Most are blame and complain, and the rest want some unseen diety or something to "fix" the "problems". Progressives are good at coming up with idea for others to do, but don't have a clue how to get things done. Actually, this makes sense. If progressives knew how to get things done, they would't be progressives, they would be Republicans.
That is not how communism works in the real world. Clearly, there is a great misunderstanding among people who are raised in the criminal capitalist societies due to them being indoctrinated their whole lives by the lies of the ruling class. The works of Marx, while undoubtably forward looking and meant with good intent, are not to be considered as a bible to be followed blindly. The only way for a country to get to be a communist nation in reality is to do it, and that requires working out what is suitable to a real communist society by the actual implementaion of policies that work, and those aren't always the way that Marx envisioned them. You have to remember that Marx was an idealist and was not working with a system where he could test his theory on a working model. The only truly communist system in the world where communism has been implemented and has then been overwhelmingly successful is in Cuba, therefore Cuba is the prime model of communism and the only one which should be referred to when making comparisons to other systems.
The working model of communism is about ensuring all of the basic needs and safety of all citizens and not about everyone having identical wealth with no distinction between top to bottom. It is about ensuring that every citizen has full rights to healthcare, education, civil defense protection, food and lodging and freedom from persecution. Communism is not about turning people into slaves or automatons, that is for criminal capitalist ruled societies although that truth is well camouflaged under a mountain of lies.
Yup, we're doomed! In fact the more we type on this, or other blogs, the more they can analyze and pigeon-hole us. Hitler used IBM cards...thank you IBM! But it is so much easier now for the brown shirt gestapo bully boys to round us all up when the time comes. And with the newest attempt at spying on us and controlling us...CISPA — the "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act" ...the new on-line spying bill...may have a good chance of being pushed through this time.
Hey John, this has been tried before, it is called communism, and it doesn't work in the real world. It has failed miserably every time it has been tried.
There should also be a limit on how much personal wealth someone should be allowed to own. Anyone with more than a billion dollars in total wealth is clearly in possession of far more than they or their family would require in their lifetimes. And the excess imbues an undue influence that can only be detrimental to the progression of society.
Let's see, President Obama as CEO of the entire country makes maybe 10 times more than the average worker, which to begin with says something about the cost effective side of public employee pay-scales. So I think this is a good ratio for fair compensation. I'm sure there are many qualified CEO candidates willing to work for around a half mill per year. Just think, a company could expand it's work force by hundreds or better fund retirements and health insurance with the savings equivalent to 370 salaries.
Romney and his tea party republicans say they want to restore the former glory of this country by disregarding the will of the vast majority for the Buffet Rule. They must be referring to that 18-19th century time period where massive profit for the few at the expense of the many was a given in the deep south.