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.
After about a twenty day respite where I prayed, center prayed, contemplated, and meditated, I now realize that as an American citizen, I am part of the problem in our killing and maiming of God’s children by committing war crimes against humanity. As an American citizen I am now also part of a people and a nation that lusts and craves for wars, war crimes, torture, and human blood.
I beg my God for mercy in judging me. I tried but I failed to return our country to fill their hearts with love, mercy, and forgiveness.
With a merciful God we have a chance for salvation; with a just God very few of us will have a chance for salvation.
Dear God, please have mercy on me for my failure in trying to help our citizens and our nation to understand the importance of love, mercy, and forgiveness in their hearts. – Gerald Socha
The whole of our life is God, love, compassion, and peace. We must reject hatred, corruption, and lies and accept the nonviolence voices of Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.
This respite was quite helpful. I need to stand away from my computer to comment and post for a period of time. Why should I try to seek truth, justice, and the American way? In the USA there are only lies, injustices, and a disastrous American way. The following statement is an eternal truism. THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY REMAIN THE SAME!!!
Even though I did not comment for about twenty days, I was reading articles and seeing and hearing three documentaries. From this hiatus I have several (eight or so) comments to post. Some comments are short, somewhat short, somewhat lengthy, and lengthy. But, the length is relative to every person. We have different ideas as to what maybe short comments and what maybe longer comments.
A twenty day hiatus or respite is quite lengthy but a five, ten, or fifteen day hiatus may be better. I need these hiatuses and respites. During the twenty day respite there were articles, issues, ideas, and thoughts that I wanted to share but I said I would not comment or post until after New Year’s Day so I kept my word.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin
We are not slaves but we are not free. We are like indentured servants. We can't leave where we are unless we are let go by our master. Unlike a slave, we pay for our own food, clothing and shelter. We can't afford to lose healthcare so we don't leave a bad job. We must work hard to do well because the corporation holds a carrot in front of us, just out of reach, that we think we will get to if we just try a bit harder! We are buffeted from all sides while various corporations take our earnings and increase costs while no pay increase keeps us from falling.
We've given up many of our freedoms, and we are still not "safe".
Looks like we will just have to give up even more of our freedom!
Tom Palmer,
'Will do. Thanks for that.
I for one am tired of the cheney,I urge all to call Eric Holders office and tell them you want the bush crime family invetigated.the # is 202-514-2001.Tell them this can not go unanswered.As a country we need it to start our healing.
Dave, Re: If JC returned
That's assuming that Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure, rather than a mythological figure.
Regardless, I agree that most fundamentalist Christians pay little attention to the Sermon on the Mount.
Chicken McNuggets? I never ate them because all I could think about was what part of a chicken would you think a McNugget would come from?
when rahm says that progressives will ultimately cave because they have no place to go, their conduct proves him correct each and every time.
which is exactly why they have no power.
and exactly why much smaller groups - blue dogs, for instance - have lots of power.
it is really the simplest rule in negotiations.
you have to be willing to walk away from the table in any negotiation. progressives have repeatedly shown that they will NEVER walk away from the table, if they really want something, anything in a particular bill.
until and unless progressives walk away from the table because the requested sacrifices are just too great, they will continue to get rolled and they will never be an effective negotiating block.
they need to get up and walk away from the table now.
if they do not, on this bill, they will see a repeat of this fiasco, over and over again in the next 3 years.
what is great about drawing a line at this point is that it does not sabotage obama. he still has other options - breaking the bill up, doing reform via regular rules, a public option or medicare by-in via reconciliation.
they would simply be flexing their muscle and forcing him to do what he promised to do. and what they want him to do.
negotiations 101.
if Jesus Christ returned to earth, do you think the evangelicals and the anti-homosexuals and the Christian Right would really accept his message if he told them they were all wrong?
would they really want to stop selling their prayer crosses?
D Richards,
Paul goes right next to Peter (the misogynist) on my "bad boys" list!
rewinn,
You are SO right! It's hard work. If people are interested in finding Dem. groups in their states, this might help:
http://www.democrats.org/local.html
Quark
Re: Old Testament Christians.
Keep in mind that Paul was anti-homosexual as well.
Thom,
The anti-gay, pro-homophobe people you mentioned are "Old Testament Christians," a contradiction in terms.
They should be called "Christianists."
Gandhi and The Dalai Lama Are Not Opposed to Guns
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
I was raised to be against guns. My parents hated guns, and believed that they only lead to crime and to accidental shootings.
Sure, I knew that the Constitution includes a right to bear arms, but I believed that it was no longer relevant and only applied to a previous era when there were "well-regulated militias". I was also taught that the government would protect us, and that private gun ownership was the danger. guns,
And I have long been deeply influenced by leading voices for non-violence, such as Gandhi and King. And I still hope that their non-violent methods prevail.
What the Founding Fathers Said About Guns
A little research showed me that the Second Amendment had more to do with freedom than historical militias. Here's what the Founding Fathers actually said about arms:
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms, disarm only those who are neither inclined, nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1764
What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.
-- Thomas Jefferson
Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who didn't.
-- Ben Franklin
Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them.
--Thomas Paine
A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.
-- George Washington
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.
--Patrick Henry.
Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
-- Patrick Henry, 3 Elliot, Debates at 386.
The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.
--Samuel Adams, debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87.
The right of the people to keep and bear…arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country…
--James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).
(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
--James Madison.
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government...
-- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (#28) .
The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
--Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-B.
To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.
-- George Mason
The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.
--Noah Webster, “An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (1787) in Pamplets on the Constitution of the United States (P.Ford, 1888)
[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or the state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People.
-- Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
More...
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
A Terminal Cancer
There is a parasitic, systemic cancer that is running unchecked in the world and is, thus-far -- terminal! The original source of this cancer is the United States and it's creeping and unrelenting growth now permeates every aspect of not only the lives of our U.S. citizens, but the rest of the citizens of the world, as well.
The original, very minor and virtually undetected, tumor began developing in 1886 and has now grown to not merely infect, but to severely and continually metastasize throughout our political, legal, capitalistic/financial, military, educational, media, medical, environmental and social bodies -- just to name our most critical systems. Even if one is to diagnose the majority of our personal problems, one can surely trace this mindless cancer back as the original source.
It's detection, and thus treatment, is particularly insidious in that it remains relatively undiagnosed, due to a massive state of uneducated and willful denial by a vast majority of the patients thus afflicted. Unless we break through our denial about this cancer and return the vastly under-regulated and perpetually endowed corporations to their pre-1886 status, the entire world will surely and slowly die a cruel and inhuman death.
The caller just now who urged a march on Washington but didn't like to do local politics is part of the problem.
I certainly have empathy for her preferences, but it's time to grow up. The easiest thing in the world is to have a big march in D.C. with a big crowd and lots of people who agree with you. And it'll get ignored; marches didn't stop Bush's wars after all. The corporate media know how to cover them for entertainment purposes and then go on defining the issues in the same-old way. Thinking that a huge march will do anything other than make you feel good is just magical thinking.
The hard work is local, going to meetings talking with neighbors assembling a group of 1 vote or 5 votes at a time. It's hard. That's why people don't like it.
The hopeful thing about localness, however, is that it works. You can build a community of friends to keep you going while working on the vastly slower process of national change.
I had meant inconsequential CHANGES on my post a few minutes ago! Thom you need to provide us with a way to edit the entries that we post!
2) Red or Yellow? South of the Border, Underwear Says All
From the flurry of New Year’s Eve sales at some market stalls in Mexico City, one might wonder if those living south of the border are going through tough economic times at all. They are, reports the Economix blog of The New York Times. Just look at what they have been buying.
It is a New Year’s Eve tradition in many parts of Latin America to ring in the new year wearing new underwear. There’s more: The color of the underwear signifies what resolution one is seeking for the year ahead. Red means love. Yellow means money.
At Mexican markets, according to one published report cited by Mr. Lacey, yellow undergarments are flying off the shelves at a far greater pace than red ones as Mexicans seek to rebound financially.
“Before, we’d sell more red but today everyone needs money more than love,” Javier, who has sold underwear at the sprawling Martínez de la Torre market for a decade, told El Universal newspaper.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/weekinreview/03grist2.html?ref=weekinr...
A couple of interesting articles in yesterday's NYTimes Week in Review:
1) "the development of agriculture was the result of an irrepressible impulse toward drinking and intoxication" ?
Grist
The Stone Age Rocked, if You Liked Your Liquor
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: January 1, 2010
Maybe they were better off in the Stone Age than we think. As early as 9,000 years ago, long before the wheel was invented, inhabitants of a Neolithic village in China were brewing a type of mead, or fermented honey and fruit, with an alcohol content of 10 percent, the archaeologist Patrick McGovern discovered recently. The finding by Dr. McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, fits in with his thesis that the development of agriculture was the result of an irrepressible impulse toward drinking and intoxication, Spiegel Online reports. “Consuming high energy sugar and alcohol was a fabulous solution for surviving in a hostile environment with few natural resources,” said Dr. McGovern, a leading expert on ancient brewing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/weekinreview/03grist.html?ref=weekinre...
Looks out initial fear that the Senate version of the healthcare bill might actually be the one that gets passed thru with small almost inconsequential bill:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/04/dems-will-bypass-conferen_n_410...
Sea Lions: The sea lions left San Francisco 'cause they can no longer afford the rent.
Thom's remarks at the opening of today's show should bring to mind the concept that corporations are a new life-form of a type our Earth has never seen before. Just as animal cells make up multicellular animal life in a way that the individual cells cannot perceive, so too, corporations are made up by human individuals who do not easily perceive the corporate form of life. Corporations communicate, reproduce and most of all grow without much regard for that which makes it up or that which they consume.
There's nothing mystical or strange about it; it's pretty obvious if you look at corporations from a systems point of view. The corporate form of organization has many advantages to we humans but left uncontrolled, it can end us.
re: new decade: Any devout Catholic will tell you the 3rd Millennium began Jan. 1, 2001, not Jan 1, 2000. The 20th century BEGAN Jan 1, 1901. However, Bill Clinton gave us our 1st and only 99-year century. During the Summer of '99, he referred in a speech to Memorial Day '99 as "the last Memorial Day of the 20th century.". When I heard it I gasped 'cause I though the media would castigate Clinton for the gaffe. However, nobody in the media either knew nor cared. The only reporter I heard get it right was an Australian reporter from Sydney during the New Year Eve 1999 news coverage. The Australian reporter referred to New Years Eve 1999 as "the PENULTIMATE New Year of the 20th century." Still no news source brought up the subject. I guess I'm the only person left in America who knows what penultimate means. So, Clinton gave us our one and only 99-year century. I'll always remember him for that, and for his grossly mis-named autobiography. He named it 'My Life". He should have called it "My Bad."
Ethanol giant shifts focus
Interesting change in direction for ethanol industry. Excerpts:
Ron Fagen, the CEO of Fagen Inc., put this western Minnesota town (Granite Falls) on the national map by building 47 ethanol projects across the United States between 2006 and 2008. His family-owned company generated $2.2 billion in revenue in 2007.
But the U.S. ethanol building boom is over.
"It all came to a screeching halt when our friends on Wall Street manipulated the commodity market," Fagen said, commenting on the volatility of corn and oil prices. Others would argue that it was ethanol's friends and enemies in Washington and state capitals who did the manipulating over subsidies and mandates. The Environmental Protection Agency last month, for example, postponed a decision on a proposal backed by the ethanol industry that would increase the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline from 10 to 15 percent.
Regardless, Fagen has been retooling his business model. The company will finish one more U.S. ethanol plant in Pennsylvania, but Fagen's attention already has turned to other forms of renewable energy -- biomass and wind. Going forward, Fagen said he thinks his business mix will be about 60 percent biomass projects, 25 percent wind energy and the remaining share coming from building other types of industrial facilities.
Complete article:
http://www.startribune.com/business/80453572.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO...