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.
@Zero G & Charles, ya'll have lost me. NAFTA involves Canada, US and Mexico. Nothing to do with imports from China; other than just another example of a "free trade" agreement.
Uh, Craig. Are you a conservative or just playing one? As you have only shown yourself to be uncritical and to repeat other people's words, I can only assume as much.
Which unjust and unnecessary war is he talking about? Probably the one started by Demos, no?It’s time we turn that around and tell the conservatives – The nine most terrifying words in the English language are – I’m from the corporation and I’m here to help.Now that is just funny shit. I am really scared that a corporation is going to come into my house uninvited and help me out. Until then, I will be more concerned about the Police State as Antifascist was always concerned about also.
Keep up the spamming, maybe one day I will read the whole thing...
Sorry last link won't work:
Thom, People; Pigeons are living, feeling beings. Plus they are smart: http://blog.peta.org/archives/2010/03/pigeon_iqs_soar.php ;)
ease
Nels:
You know, ideology has everything to do with our trade policy. Don't you listen to Thom or his guests on economic and trade policy? Do the words "conservative," "libertarian," "populist," "capitalist," "socialist" have any meaning for you? Of course ideology dictates policy. And prejudice does as well. I know, because I've heard in words and gestures from whites (and blacks too) who think I'm taking a "real" American's job. I sick and tired of the denials, when I've experienced the reality. If you have "Mexico" and "Mexican" on the brain, then how is one supposed to interpret that? Yes, hypocrisy does make for pointless conversations.
Thom, People; Pigeons are living, feeling beings. Plus they are smart: http://blog.peta.org/archives/2010/03/pigeon_iqs_soar.php;)
ease
@Charles in OH - "Corporations are practicing the latter and our government seems content to not enact the former."
Sadly this is so. I do think the word game is part of what keeps us from getting traction on this issue. Rebranding "Free Trade" as something more descriptive of the reality would help.
legalizing Hemp will be a challenge from the oil industy as they would loose money from 1. farming, there would be no ned to fertilize or pestiside the crops. 2.the industrial lubricants that would be prduced, would directly compete with parolium products, 3. all of the other biodegradable plastic like products that could be made. and the list goes on. then the pharmasutical industry....
I've heard NAFTA equated to imports from China, so good point Zero G.
NAFTA is often used to mean more than the specific trade deal for which the anacronym stands...
...just so's people don't talk past each other.
Gee Mark that's an excellent point... but you're the only one I see tying ideology to prejudices here.
I don't equate NAFTA with a Mexico trade policy, apparently you do, so I guess this discussion is pointless because we're talking about two different things.
It has crept up on us so slowly we hardly realized it. The purging of critical thinking skills from our schools and from our society in general. Over the last 30 + years the Cons have been pushing us to stop thinking critically and just accept authority without question.
It really started in the 1960s with the spread of activism and public protests. It was a movement in response to an unjust and unnecessary war. Our generation was the product of an affluent and successful middle class resulting from high taxes on the rich, enforcement of anti-trust laws, empowerment of labor unions and an educated and informed generation of young people. It was this generation of critical thinkers that scared the shit out of the Republicans. When we took to the streets and challenged the authority of the establishment a shock wave resonated throughout the conservative world.
Conservative thinking relies on unquestioning acceptance of authority as the way to keep socieity civil and keep the rabble from mucking up the works. That fear gave rise to a long and sustained effort to cleanse our country of the cancer of critical and progressive thinking. When President Nixon said that if the President does it then it must be legal, he set the mold for the future vision of conservatives for a rigidly ordered nation where dissent is not tolerated and punishable by all manner of penalties.
It really kicked into high gear during the Reagan administration when the Cons were able to eliminate most of the means of imparting critical thinking skills to students the elimination of civics classes, principles of democracy classes and any kind of format that would encourage students to question authority and make an attempt to improve their lot in life.
We now have an entire generation of young adults who have very little idea of what Jeffersonian Democracy is or what ideas and values our form of government and our principles were founded upon. They are ignorant of the great struggle throughout history between rigid, fear-driven, conservatism and forward thinking, progressivism. The demise of true journalism is one means by which the Cons have accomplished this change. We no longer have actual journalism taught in our schools and colleges - it's all been re-geared towards info-tainment - the battle for ratings, advertising dollars and PROFIT.
Our media, what the founding fathers referred to as the fourth estate - the independant journalistic means by which our representatives are held to account for their actions, has been completely swallowed by the radical right-wing corporate power structure. Through witholding enforcement of The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, corporations have been allowed to grow larger and larger until their wealth, power and influence has completely eclipsed the power and influence of we the people .
Jefferson believed that the only way this great experiment could succeed was if there were a literate and informed electorate. That is why he pushed so hard for public education and why he founded the University of Virginia. Without said informed electorate our experiment in democratic rule would be doomed to failure and this is exactly what we are experiencing now.
Critical thinking scares the holy hell out of conservatives because when people are able to think critically for themselves they don't need an authoritative government to keep them down, they tell them what to think or punish them if they step out of the limits set by their betters . When people are able to think critically they are able to understand what is happening and make informed decisions about how to govern themselves. The people take control of the helm and tell those who would be authoritarians how to steer our ship of state.
There are a few basic, root changes that must be made if we are ever to regain our power as a free and self-governing people. The re-learning of critical thinking is among the most basic of those changes. From that will stem a whole host of positive changes such as the ability to see when they are being manipulated and intimidated. When people are able to think critically about what is going on around them they will come up with amazing ideas about how to make things better.
It doesn't take a genius to see how we've been herded into a pen and manipulated and scared into doing the will of the rich and powerful, so that they may keep and increase their wealth and power. It's time to face our fears, gird our loins and push back in unison with the power of our numbers to take back what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights gave to every American, the right to be free to make our own choices about how we govern ourselves.
The government is not a them it is an us, we the people. We elect these schmucks, they are supposed to do what we want them to - that which is the very best for all of us. Reagan succeeded in creating a false demon - government. Remember when he said - The nine most terrifying words in the English language are - 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help' . It's time we turn that around and tell the conservatives - The nine most terrifying words in the English language are - I'm from the corporation and I'm here to help.
It goes without saying I find Dennis Kucinich admirable. I do not believe he should be made the scapegoat of killing healthcare reform. He is standing behind the principals he has espoused since entering Congress, Medicare for all. Rightly, he has called out the Senate bill as the insurance industry handout it is. He is looking out for the best interest of the poor and middle-class. There are 215 other Dems that can vote to pass the bill.
Now Bart Stupak is another story. Pulling together a small group to hold the bill hostage for the sake of banning abortion.
What can I say. I will merely reiterate that it is craven to use one's prejudices to dictate policy. We have an import to export ratio with China that is 5-1, and some people still want to whine about NAFTA, because it is easy. I am saying that we have much bigger problems with our other trade "partners," and it amazes me that people run away like cowardly neighborhood bullies when confronted by that issue.
Hi Mark,
Thanks, didn't know when the pilot program ended.
I don't doubt what you say as the motivation behind lots of this. Technical specs have long been a tool for back-door protectionism.. this bolt is approved.. this one isn't... make the process onerous enough on all the minor bits and you have excluded foreign products.
I don't know the whole story, but I wonder if just the basic thing that companies based in Mexico, like 'Liberian-registered ships', would likely undercut US shippers, could be the basic argument against it by the unions etc.?
Cheers,
Rick
Well Mark, respectfully, I disagree with you about NAFTA. I want to see it ended.
Nels:
Like I pointed out last week, NAFTA is the closest thing to a "fair trade" policy we have in the world. Save for exceptions that I noted that benefit the U.S., the effects of NAFTA represent the "real world" of free trade. The differences in the effect on each of the countries involved has more to do with the capacity of each to absorb imports. Some of these effects benefit the U.S., others do not, and this is true for Mexico and Canada. The real trade issues we have is with the countries we freely import from, but place barriers to our exports.
@Ed - "Freedom denotes a kind of liberty bounded by rational limits and regulations that keep it from devolving into pure license to prey upon the vital interests of others."
Corporations are practicing the latter and our government seems content to not enact the former.
Well Charles that brings it up to 4 congress members, quadrupling what Thom gave us to start with.
I'll send Mr. Brown a note too (already sent one to Mr. Franken)
Pot is stigmatized and it is very hard for people to talk about it. When I was in junior high school, we had speakers tell the school it would cause boys to grow boobs, among other ridiculous things. I remember a news programing pushing the idea that smoking it widens the sinapses in the brain causing cognitive deficits. The reality is to get politicians to legalize pot, we need to re-educate the populace to reduce the stigmas about it and make the politicians comfortable legalizing it.
And pot smokers should get all their friends stoned :)
I think the real reason that Rush wants to go to Costa Rica is so he can get his detox/rehab for FREE under their socialized medical system.
Mark, I wasn't saying anything specific about Mexico. I was taking about ending NAFTA which is a bad trade policy for America, Canada and Mexico. On top of that my main concern is the piddly tariffs in place now which allows all sorts of countries to dump goods made by cheap labor in severely unsafe working conditions.
@Nels - You can probably ad Sherrod Brown to the list. His book "Myths of Free Trade" lauds the importance of tarrifs.
@rewinn,
exactly my point, friend, it isn't the pot that makes you stupid, if you're smart before you light up, you're smart when intoxicated, just with an illegal smile.
I just find the "stupid stoner archtype" to be over pervasive.
Rick:
As I pointed out before in a post some time ago, that "pilot program" was stopped in a spending bill last year, a token move to appease unions. Mexico claims that its trucks and drivers are just as safe as their Canadian counterparts, but in any case I think this is simply a case of the prejudices Americans have toward Mexicans and not Canadians, for reasons that should be quite obvious.
How Reagan's Propaganda Succeeded
By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
March 8, 2010 http://consortiumnews.com/2010/030810.html
In the 1980s, CIA propaganda experts and military psy-war specialists oversaw the creation of special programs aimed at managing public perceptions in targeted foreign countries as well as inside the United States, according to declassified documents at Ronald Reagan’s Presidential Library.
*************************
So long as the national security state, which recruits from wall street and the banking elite rely on drug money laundering to further their interests, don't expect pot to be legalized anytime soon.