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.
Gerald, I don't believe that if you can't think well or open your self to a wide range of ideas before entering college, that college will bestow this on you. However, if you can't think well or open yourself to a wide range of ideas, its probably not likely you'll graduate anyway. I guess what I'm saying is, College doesn't make people more intelligent, it just proves whether they are or are not, while imparting knowledge (and being knowledgeable is different then being intelligent in my book, a smart man can be very foolish).
I agree with your statements about conservatives wholeheartedly!
The purpose of college is to help you think and to be exposed to a wide range of ideas. Conservatives want dummies leaving our high schools and colleges. They want programmed idiots roaming our country and the world. What truly amaze me are my relatives from marriage who are conservatives and they fail to know the difference between what is right and what is wrong. Conservatives do not want to be challenged by educated persons. They believe in keeping people stupid so they can control you and enslave you to remain their drones and cannon fodder.
In general people are more inclined towards liberal ideas and philosophy, not conservative ones. If that is so and you are an extreme conservative what do you do? You attack their ideas as unpatriotic and evil, a cancer. You create a list of words such as Newt Gingrich did to hand out to Republicans when describing Democrats. Naturally, all the words paint a negative picture. You create a hostile atmosphere, you make government not work for the average person so they will be turned off to the whole process and thus not vote because the move people vote the less chance you have to gain and maintain power.
Let me start by giving credit to Thom for the seeds that led to this. Last week, in passing, Thom tossed out the a thought about Medicare eligible at age -9 months. Since that time, I have been refining the idea.
There are two keys to winning this health insurance reform war.
The first is designing a good marketing strategy and the second is choosing the appropriate battle ground.
Democrats have been inept at getting their message out; they lack bumper sticker sound bites and talking points that resonate with low-information voters. To that end, I offer to the Democrats, for free, what services that Frank Luntz would charge the Republicans several million dollars:
The Bumper Sticker Sound bite: MEDICARE ELIGIBLE AT CONCEPTION
The Talking Points:
We want all babies to be born healthy
We want all Americans to have the right to a healthy life.
Let the Republicans argue against health care for a fetus.
BTW: DO NOT fight the Reproductive Rights battle in the Health Care Arena.
I’m reminded of the scene from 1776, where Adams and Rutledge are arguing over the slavery issue. Franklin remarks that if Independence is not achieved then any attempt to abolish Slavery would be a meaningless.
Win the health care fight and Democrats will control congress and the White House for a generation or more. They will have the ability to deal with the issue by regaining control of the Supreme Court. LOSE the health care battle and the Republicans will gain even stronger grip on SCOTUS. We can kiss Reproductive and other Rights good bye.
(I also posted this on the blog)
Here's a quote from John Stuart Mill:
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
Its a shame, maybe even criminal the way higher education is priced out of the reach of more and more students. Then on the other side, after one has graduated with a Bachelors Degree, Master Degree, or Doctorate keep your fingers crossed there is some sort of job available for you that can put that degree to use.
Re: Educated Liberals
If more education and higher intelligence are pre-cursors to Liberalism (or characteristics of,) and lower intelligence, levels of education and IQ are characteristics of Conservatism – then what explains Libertarianism?
Are libertarians simply more intelligent conservatives? Are they conservatives, either through nurture or some negative experience that they associate with Liberalism, who are also intelligent enough to recognize the truths of Liberalism and our Nation’s history? Is their identity as a Libertarian really just the compromise of their inner conflict between believing that they are supposed to be conservative and their own personal experiences and knowledge proving to them that Liberalism is the truth?
Thom,
My and my husband's I.Q.s are each over 140 and our son's is almost off the charts. It doesn't mean a darn thing to our lives (and definitely not to our incomes.) It just seems to leave us with more questions (and disappointments.) It also makes it hard to "tune things out", though we do try to live our lives the way we wish the world would be --- a good place for everyone.
The "Liberal is antithetical to evolution" argument is nonsense.
The reverse is true. Man has ALWAYS lived in "societies" and knew that caring for the well-being of the society was necessary for the survival of the community. Societies provided food when your hunt didn't pan out, social interaction and entertainment (story-tellers) and protection from outside forces.
Vis a vie, selfishness and concern.for only ones self was an aberration..With no outside support system, you were on your own and more likely to die in the wild.
Liberalism and concern for the Community is mans' natural state. Conservative selfishness is new (not liberalism) and antithetical to survival.
@Mark K
The way I see things. I think Obama is well aware of what really helps create jobs. If he was a dictator (like dubya), he would have provided significantly more of the stimulus package for infrastructure. The tax cuts were placed in the stimulus package to get votes to pass it; mainly, to get ConseraDems to vote for it.
The priests of the different religious sects....dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight, and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subdivision of the duperies on which they live.
--Thomas Jefferson
No Thom it's "I'm from a corporation, pay me to help."
Thom, Republicans believe that colleges "influence" or "indoctrinate" students into becoming "Liberal" because so many come out Liberals. Ipso-facto.
As a college graduate, I can assure you colleges and professors typically do NOT try to "influence" or "indoctrinate" students into becoming "Liberal". It is simply that educated people are more likely to become Liberals while uneducated reactionary people are attracted to Conservatism (no mystery there.)
When I was in the Army, I was amazed at all the new hardware being built. Ronald Reagan had declared that he was going to restore the prestige the military had lost after Vietnam, and instituted a crash construction frenzy that included the M-1 tank, the Bradley fighting vehicle, the Patriot missile system, the Black Hawk and Apache helicopters. Meanwhile, back home my dad lost his job when the Caterpillar tractor plant in Milwaukee shut down. There was a time when I thought that massive military spending on hardware made-up for losses in domestic manufacturing—although it was not necessarily a good thing, since the market for military hardware should be more limited than for products for the domestic market.
But does military spending adequately replace jobs that would otherwise be lost in the domestic economy? I uncovered a study dated October 2007 conducted by two UMass researchers, Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier, who suggested otherwise. They wanted to find out how many jobs were created from government spending in six separate categories, with $1 billion as the base point for each. With one billion dollars, they concluded that military spending creates 8,500 jobs; one billion in tax cuts for personal consumption creates 11,000 jobs; one billion in health care spending creates 13,000 jobs; one billion in education spending creates 18,000 jobs; one billion in mass transit spending creates 20,000 jobs, and one billion in “weatherization” and infrastructure spending creates 13,000 jobs.
Obviously what is of interest here is that military spending and tax cuts are the least likely government “projects” to stimulate the economy, while spending on what should be the more pressing domestic priorities are more likely to stimulate the economy. The report pointedly denies the effectiveness of tax cuts, stating that “There is no reason why expanding personal consumption expenditures—particularly of the already affluent, whose level of expenditures have risen sharply since the early 1990s—should be considered as a primary focus of social policy”—or economic policy, for that matter. This is a lesson the Obama administration has yet to mislearn from the Republicans.
Please explain how "the Administration is apparently waking up."
"Yes" very much if US Tax dollars are used then it should be American Labor!
When people talk about global warming and energy, the discussion is always framed in terms of meeting the demand for energy. Meeting the demand for energy will always tip the scales in favor of nuclear energy (nutso idea because of the by product; and there is no "real" way to deal with this waste).. So, one more important thing people need to be talking about is using "less" resources in our daily lives..
RIDE A BIKE (the rest of this email):
I for one would love to bike ride to work (its 10 miles away).. I would be using less energy and getting exercise at the same time.. The singlular reason I have not started riding, is that the cars will run me down (AND IM NOT KIDDING)!.. I have to share the road with cars.. In a national park I had as car almost run me down and I told a cop who said I needed to ride on the side of the road (in the little strip with rocks and broken glass).. I also have been hot by vehicle mirrors while riding my bike.. I cannot emphasize enough, that you feel your mortality when on a bike, and a car zooms past you close enough to hit you with the mirror..
On a 7 mile stretch, of my possible bike route; they repaired the roads (Obamas put America to work initiative).. It was already a pretty good road though, and didnt really need repairing.. I was hoping the might add a place for bikes.. We got 2 wide lanes in each direction and a middle lane 100 percent dedicated for turning.. There are white lines on the side, leaving an area that might be for bikes, but I think this is just to mark the car lanes.. In any case with no street cleaners that area wuill remain unsuitable for bikes (because all the little rocks and broken glass end up there; and the cars still might run you down)..
bobbler
Freethought Society
> I would hope that a viable party in 2012 would be The Jesus Party. Jesus is the party’s founder. The central theme of The Jesus Party was given to us at the Last Supper. It is the Eleventh Commandment. LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.
>
There are many interpretations of the bible. If there were a Jesus party, the ones who would be in control would be the most politically powerful. This among other reasons (IE: not everyone is Christian) is the reason the Founders chose to seperate church and state (to create freedom of religion).. I wish liberals, like Thom and Berne, to be in power, no matter what their religion, or lack of religion.
bobbler
Freethought society
(The friendly neighborhood atheist)..
Oops I posted this on Monday's page
Lorne March 3rd, 2010, 9:58 am
We need to find alternatives to our lifestyles in the US and show the world we were wrong with our gaining of supposed wealth. We modeled our lives for other countries like China and India, and they saw how we lived and now they want it and they are getting it. If we reduce our gas consumption either by taxation or other constraints, it will cheapen the gas for every other developing country, greenhouse gasses will not be reduced. What we need to do, is reduce consumption world wide, and we need to learn to do it while living a “rich” lifestyle.
Ultimately I would like to see solar, wind and tidal power production for our needs. A huge tax on gas would be regressive and people would turn to electric cars which until a new alternative infrastructure was developed, we would burn coal at full capacity. Don’t forget gas can power generators as well which power-plants could take advantage of unless gas was taxed for that.
Our lives have become car centric and we spend too much of our earnings on it. I’d rather have more time to live and experience life than work for driving.
re: parents dying: when my mother was dying, I told the nurse to just keep her comfortable. Luckily, that was all that was needed. She died without pain.
Thom,
I wanted to shed some light on what I think that caller was referring to when she talked about disassociating yourself with your legal or strawman identity. I believe she was referring to trusts and IPC's, Inviable Private Contracts. IPC's and IBC's, International Business Company, are essential legal instruments of UBO's, UBT's, and MBT's. These are Unincorporated Business Organizations, Unincorporated Business Trusts, and Massachusetts Business Trusts. My business partner came to me, gung-ho about this new business model, about a year ago. He hadn't done his research. I took a month and thoroughly researched these trusts. The UBO is essentially the most legally complex tax dodge scheme known to man. It is predicated on the clause in Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution referring to the obligation of contracts. You basically create the organization as a series of IPC's and IBC's. One places a lien on the other. The other makes payments to the former. Because of the right of first something or other codified in Common Law, no one can sue you and seize personal assets. You cannot be taxed on your property, because you don't own anything in name and have draconian liens that you've actually placed on yourself through the organization. It's a scam.
In regards to trusts and disassociating yourself from your strawman identity, it's just a scam. Disassociate yourself all you want, you are who you are, the law knows who you are, you have legal obligations, and the law will find you. You cannot go off the grid as appealing as it may be.
@Gene,
THX- worried about the condition of my thinking!
I do not remember talking about anyuthing for which would segway into anything that would regard high school with money though. Still not making the connection. Not that it would be the first time :)
I had a sale date of Nov 9, 2009. Found a company that specializes in making the trustee company verify that they have followed all of the legal procedures. This strategy has kept my family and I in our house. The average customer can remain up to 40 months in their home depending on the violations found in their trust sale documents. Everyone should know about it. When the house is sold the customer gets their monthly payment back. I can get their website's info. All I have now is the email in my cell phone. For info people can email to contact@dontmoveoutyet.info. They have given us the ability to save up money and move when more convenient for us.
@kmh:
My reply to you was regarding "high school with money." Your @me followed that. The suicide attempt = hanging is a different story.
@Stacey-
If this has happened in China, as did with the pet food contamination, Mr Toyoda would have been put to death!