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I'm a Vermonter and Bernie gets 71% of the vote. In the last gubernatorial election neither party got 50%. That should give you an idea about our split. The turnout is always greatest when Bernie's on the ballot. And I have a vet friend in Florida who is conservative, and he likes Bernie. The DNC doesn't get that Bernie has a better chance of beating the Republican nominee than Hillary. Hillary has way too much baggage, not the least of which is the role of Monsanto and Goldman Sachs in her campaign.
Thom,
You left out one VERY IMPORTANT reason why most Americans will support Senator Sanders for President:
Senator Sanders has submitted legislation to eliminate the subsidies for Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power. That corporate welfare queen THEFT is a HUGE millstone around the neck of America that AIDS the polluters and HINDERS the 100% Renewable Energy transition that would provide jobs and a chance to survive Climate Change.
“At a time when scientists tell us we need to reduce carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, it is absurd to provide massive taxpayer subsidies that pad fossil-fuel companies’ already enormous profits,” said senator Bernie Sanders, who announced on 30 April he is running for president.
Sanders, with representative Keith Ellison, recently proposed an End Polluter Welfare Act, which they say would cut $135bn of US subsidies for fossil fuel companies over the next decade. “Between 2010 and 2014, the oil, coal, gas, utility, and natural resource extraction industries spent $1.8bn on lobbying, much of it in defence of these giveaways,” according to Sanders and Ellison.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/12/us-taxpayers-subsidising-worlds-biggest-fossil-fuel-companies
Many conservatives are keenly aware of this. People get tired of being ripped off by the fossil fuel government. They can add and subtract.
For example, gasoline prices have not been cut anywhere near what they should have been cut.
The amazing way a pipeline here, or a refinery shut down there (accompanied by copious crocodile tears about wanting to provide us a "service"), manages to keep gasoline prices "inelastic" (on the way down, OF COURSE - they have a hair trigger on the way up!) so they go up at a moment's notice despite that bla, bla about all the "good, prudent, business" reasons they don't go down is more mindfork as per Orwell speak and Machiavelli.
One must know how to color one’s actions and to be a great liar and deceiver. – Niccolo Machiavelli
"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato
Joe Mauk called BS on a recent crocodile tear piece by an oil industry shill titled "Why don't gas prices fall?":
"At $80 a barrel being 42 gallons of gas at $1.60 a gallon, then $49 dollars a barrel should be at about .95 to $1.30. The figures for a barrel of oil to a gallon of gas is over a $1.50 more per gallon than it needs to be so, they are making profit, what they report losses on is anyones guess."
An interesting outcome but hyper evolution of physical traits is orders of magnitude removed from sentient evolution, from evolution of the collective conscieness from one that believes our species apart from life to one that can engage and accept our species position in life. It is a position as one amidst a multitude of species, each a unique reflection of life, as one species arising from life not apart from it.
Sanders needs presidential secret service security protection. If Sanders gets too close to getting the Democratic nomination, don't be surprised by some freak accident that takes him out like they did with Kennedy, King, Karen Silkwood, etc. And who would be indirectly responsible for that "tragedy"....Just asking, Chuck Todd, MSNBC, and other media and political apologists for Hillary Clinton.
Thom, you're wrong about one thing. Socialism is not the welfare state, it is the workers' state, a society where workers are in charge and in control. Even democratic socialists are in favor of nationalizing industry, common public ownership of many resources, functions and istitutions and democratic control of them by the people.
Democratic socialism distinguishes itself from authoritarian socialism by its democratic charachter and doesn't dispense with democracy - which means that if the people at some point weary of socialism they can vote for something else and the socialists, then, accept the results of the elections.
It is therefore more possible in systems of parliamentary proportional representation that lack a constitution - or have one that does not preclude or limit public ownership - where the people vote to elect an idea or party rather than an individual.
For more essential information on democracy and socialism and some of its history check out my blog post http://www.thomhartmann.com/users/mark-j-saulys/blog/2015/08/socialism-a...
Lloyd Lutterman -- "Climate Change" was brought to us by the fossil fuel barons.
To Lloyd and everyone else, the comments on this subject have been entertaining with depth. Thanks.
Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, not just U.S. nationals, according to the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917.
Here is a list of the page of the royalty free stock images library. All were used in some areas. You will find much more easily discover the Google search box. It tops the list of public libraries and other specialized areas such as Science Photo Library.
Give up on the notion that the two well-financed parties, an exclusive duopoly sharing power from 1853-present is something more than an ideal control mechanism for the ruling class. I say ideal because their money can have the greatest effect now that the career politician project and its attendant gerrymandering leaves very few competitive districts with the swing votes that matter with any legislative proposal. 30,000 K Street lobbyists can work over that small element of Congress, and also quite easily with the carrot or the stick. Before I hear about spending or taxes, I'd really like to see honest accounting ("generally accepted accounting principles") replace the inaccurate and misleading accounting that brings us the on-budget/off-budget shell game and things like so-called trust funds to support social benefit programs that don't meet the legal, accounting, or fiduciary definition of a trust. They're accounting gimmicks that don't mean a thing when cash accounting on one side of the budget isn't being reconciled with accrual accounting on the other side. This chaos is deliberate; when only cash is being accounted for in the open, unaccountable federal land grants, mining rights and timber rights created great fortunes in the 19th century and the concentrated wealth that was able to land the Big One. With the creation of the Federal Reserve, 100% privately-owned by its private member banks, the power to create money was assigned to a small and private group of powerful men. Their two-party toy is all about spin, a tool for the Harry Truman maxim: "If you can't convince them, confuse them."
Superb discussion, thank you
In the 1960's David Rockefeller sponsored a group called The Worker's Socialist Alliance. Its goal was to discredit the entire Peace Movement. Nunca novum sub sol.
Roland
Paul it is recent, not resent. Although they (the propagandists) may be described as resentful. May all the remaining white trash Ray-Gun Republicans go down with Trump as did the crew of the Pequod.
Roland
I know who some of the mutants are....they go surfing during global warming hurricanes, and are happy as hell doing it...LOL
Thom: This is great. Always publish the segments seperately which are most important so we can all share them via Fb and other social media networks! It's important to keep them seperate from the rest of the show because people often don't want to take an hour to weed through to find the "bumper stickers" such as this one segment.
i am surprised to read this post. there are so many blog available in the oneline, so me are entertaining, some are for doing fun etc. but in this blog lots of informative things about FDR. it's fulfil the deman of people and its reader. best of luck. Layfield Wallace
Humanity is not by definition a virus, since the definition is a one-cell organism that must use another cell to reproduce, but it could metaphorically be one.
On the other hand, most viruses don't kill their host organisms. There's no biological analogy for the destruction humans have caused, except maybe that video of the hippo using its tail to fling its crap in every direction.
I don't think it will hurt the GOP as much as people expect (or hope). The resent disclosures about Planned Parenthood will only re-enforce the opinions of those who opposed already. It will also likely push those who had been on the fence more toward the oppose column. In the long run, the only ones hurt by these revelations will be Planned Parenthood, however, I expect they'll weather the storm provided they make some internal policy corrections.
Yes definitely like as as model for the whole country.
We humans can do the opposite, instead of mass extinction we can create a Genesis Event. Mars sits there barren & lifeless and yet it is in fact a life bomb waiting to explode and only we lowly humans can light the fuse. Acheive what no other species can do, the procreation of Mother Earth.
Giving birth to a Living Mars would be the greatest event in the history of terrestrial life since the Cambrian explosion of life 540 million years ago. The most selfless and creative act in the history of human civilization as well as the most wonderful act of environmental stewardship that any species have ever done on this Earth. Our success with Mars terraforming and rebirth would compensate for the damage we have done to Mother Earth by a thousand fold.
All we need to do is release some super greenhouse gases in Mars atmosphere, made from Martian soil, and the thin atmosphere of Mars will quickly rise 10 degC in temperature which is sufficient to cause runaway global warming, releasing vast quantities of liquid water onto the Martian surface & frozen CO2 into the atmosphere. Seeding carefully selected terrestrial plants & bacteria and thereupon the Martian biosphere is born, or some may claim resurrected, unquestionably the greatest achievement in the history of human civilization.
There are chlorofluorocarbons that are thousands of times the GHG potential of CO2. With plenty of the raw materials in Martian soil & atmosphere. And with a very thin atmosphere = low heat capacity, it doesn't take much to raise the temperature 10 degC.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to see our governments focused on a grand mission of ultimate creativity instead of spending $trillions on destruction: Oil wars, Pipeline Wars, Banking Wars. And $trillions more on bailing out greed crazed private banksters.
Robert Zubrin shows how we can Terraform Mars in a few decades:
www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm
"...In a matter of several decades, using such an approach Mars could be transformed from its current dry and frozen state into a warm and slightly moist planet capable of supporting life. Humans could not breath the air of the thus transformed Mars, but they would no longer require space suits and instead could travel freely in the open wearing ordinary clothes and a simple SCUBA type breathing gear. However because the outside atmospheric pressure will have been raised to human tolerable levels, it will be possible to have large habitable areas for humans ..simple hardy plants could thrive in the CO2 rich outside environment, and spread rapidly across the planets surface. In the course of centuries, these plants would introduce oxygen into Mars's atmosphere in increasingly breathable quantities.."
By definition, man is virus. We are not a healthy part of a living Eco system. The planet will no doubt eliminate the cancer within it. We have decided our own fate by our own stupidity as a mass. to act the way we do. It's a shame we destroyed so much besides ourselves. All the innocent life we had to take down with us to justify ourselves. We don't even deserve to know what is next. I just hope it loves and lives in balance with the planet so it doesn't have to find out like we will have to deal with. Maybe it will be an Artifical intelligence made by man.
There is a you tube of an A. I. And they ask it questions. One haunting question is what would you do about or with mankind. Answer- I would keep them in a zoo so they don't hurt themselves it answers. As a mass we act we don't think then act in a healthy coexistence with our surroundings. We failed, it's simple.
What if you made an A.I. To protect mankind from destroying himself. It might work but it start with eliminating the population to a healthy balance the planet can handle first.
Who knows. But I'm pretty sure it will have its chance. I wish it the best.
Humans require a multi-species environment; the less diversity, the less are the chances of humans beating the odds.
Mass extinction events in the past have killed off the dominant species and let weaker creatures step in to fill their niche. An unusual characteristic of this die-off event is that the dominant species (humans) is the one creating the extinction. A big component of the extinction is that humans are taking over the niches of all these weaker species. There will be no void once the extinction is done, unless humans themselves become a victim of the extinction. Otherwise, humans will become all the more dominant and no new species can take hold.
dianhow, Israel is a tool of the CIA to make war for the MIC.
If a mass extinction is going to wipe out most of humanity, I say "let it happen". After all, we haven't treated Mother Earth very well, and we've treated each other even worse; maybe, whatever sentient life form follows us will be more compassionate towards Mother Earth and each other.
I appreciate the term, global change, it's not just climate