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Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
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But it will not stop them from attacking him on every word that he says, or how he says it. Very much like the attacks that were made on Howard Dean. It will be up to all of us to counteract the Spin machines and let the media know that we are watching them... and demand the bias stops.
Republicans use fear because it shuts down the higher functions of the brain, which ordinarily allow people to think like liberals--weighing options rather than making hasty decisions, feeling the pain of people on both sides of an issue rather than treating the out-group as subhuman. Drunkenness also has that effect, but fear acts as a zombie disease, where each person infected by it tries to pass it on to others.
Check out the 26th annual renewable Energy Fair coming up in Central Wisconsin near Steven's Point on June19-2. Info at www.midwestrenew.org. Some 15-20,000 people are expected for the three day weekend, Amy Goodman is keynote speaker on Saturday. Tickets are moderately priced - only $35 for the whole weekend. Camping available. Free classes, lots of info and networking, family friendly. Please spread the word!
The funny thing, stecoop1, is that some of that flood has to be from all the rain we've had in Colorado--2 or 3 weeks straight where it rained every day, helping with our normally arid conditions. Seems to be a case of God using his weird pulley system to simultaneously open a door and close a window.
Oh yeah, it would also prevent the market rigging via stock buy-backs (which Thom has recently talked about) that gives the illusion of a good economy.
I've often thought that the existence of non-dividend stock should be outlawed. It's not ownership of the company; it's a collectors' item, a baseball card. It has value only if you can convince some other schmuck to buy it from you. If companies had to let the little people have a say in the running of the company with their stock, they wouldn't issue it so freely, and we wouldn't have had this 401(k) craze that lets the financial sector steal our retirement funds so easily.
We'll always need some method of investment to create new enterprises, so lending and dividend stock are okay by me.
Loren bliss, hi it's karagirl,
I Love what you say, and I must admit that while I have some good points on the generalization on how to fix things, I fear that now we are delveing into the realm of educated -OK how do we fix this shit - and I concede that Im not as smart as the rest of you. I've only just started blogging, and I've only just started in the last year to actively participate in canvasing campaigns like environment Colorado, and Colorado fair share, so though Im no stranger to the political differences of Democrats and Republicans, I find that the real solution to -fix- all of our problems gets more and more complicated the farther in-depth we look. In my mind the more we look at it, their are good things as well as bad with, socialism, communisum, and republic democracy. You notice that I leave out facisom, of course their is nothing in my mind that is good that comes from it.
However with regard to the other three. Is their any way that we can Take the good of those three and weed out the bad, and combine that good into a new cohesive new system that will work for us all?? That is my question.
Wake up, chuckle8: forget all the deceptive definitions you learned elsewhere. Capitalism reduced to its essence is infinite greed elevated to maximum virtue -- the deliberate rejection of every humanitarian precept our species ever set forth. Capitalism is therefore manifest moral imbecility -- the mindset of the serial killer expressed in economic terms. That is why it cannot be reformed. As to the distribution of our (increasingly scarce) resources, nothing says it better than this: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need."
https://www.facebook.com/jeffrey.sachs/videos/vb.145054128892970/1015048...
Loren B -- It seems among the first steps would be to have some notion of an economic system to replace "capitalism".
If by capitalism one means use other,s (e.g. Goldman Sachs) capital to grow the wealth of the nation, then I suggest raising the capital requirements for investing to above 50%. In Greece before the euro that number seemed more like 95%. They were doing fine in their society. However, they were looked down upon by Europe, including themselves, because their airport was aged, they did not have many interstate freeways, etc. -- c8
If by capitalism one means using the marketplace to determine the distribution of limited resources, I would like to know the alternative before I abandoned the marketplace of supply and demand.
Freedom1 -- Have you tried various web browsers? I know Chrome was not letting me into the chat room.
Do you know that phrase "Give me liberty or give me death" was said by Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry was the largest slave holder in Virginia. I equate Pat H saying that to a "billionaire" saying I do not want any government regulations.
Chuckle8: Argue as you will, nothing changes the ugly truth that all our previous efforts to liberate ourselves from capitalism have failed. Period. End of sentence.
In this context, suggesting the New Deal could again become a vehicle of liberation makes about as much sense as suggesting a horsewhip could be used to re-start a stalled automobile.
"The best tools available" -- including the electoral process that enabled the New Deal -- are all nullified by hopeless corruption. The fact of the matter -- I say again FACT -- is the U.S. experiment in representative democracy is dead. Its fatal weakness was its failure to recognize that without economic democracy, political democracy is meaningless.
Thus we are imprisoned by circumstances from which there is no apparent exit.
That's why, if we are to liberate ourselves from capitalism, we must first acknowledge the bitter truth of our abject powerlessness.
Only then -- when we have at last set aside our selfish, self-pampering Norman Vincent Peal conformity and its attendant opiate of PollyAnna optimism -- will we be sufficiently grounded in reality to (perhaps) begin to evolve an effective response to the present crisis.
Clearly Mr. Hartmann has at last realized that capitalism is literally the enemy of all life on earth -- that if we are to survive, capitalism must be recognized as the cancer it is and removed accordingly.
Many of us already know this as the ultimate, pivotal truth of this the darkest most hopeless era in all the 200,000 years of our species' experience.
Verily then we are challenged by three questions: (1)- how are the capitalists to be overthrown? (2)- how is capitalist governance to be eliminated? (3)-what eradication measures will ensure capitalism is never again able to threaten our rights to life and liberty?
However, if we are to find effective answers to these terminal questions. we must first recognize the absolute evil at the core of capitalism. Stripped of its seductive rhetoric, capitalism is in fact the ultimate malevolence of infinite greed elevated to maximum virtue -- literally the conscious rejection of every humanitarian precept our species has ever set forth.
Once we have acknowledged that fact and its terrifying corollary -- that our Earth is now ruled by moral imbeciles whose sole purpose is fulfillment of their own serial-killer fantasies of limitless wealth and power -- then at last we will have positioned ourselves to rationally evolve the answers to the above questions.
And these answers -- or rather their effectiveness -- will then determine whether our species lives or dies.
As a gay man I remain steadfast in my commitment not to use my powers to control the weather for arbitrary or capricious purposes.
Hi Thom, On a recent show the " Rumble Group" hesitated when discussing the morality of wages. IPerhaps it would be better to focus on the realization that all wealth is created by people working. Wages are the reward for doing so. The morality of wages involves sharing the wealth created by those creating it. I have heard a figure of approximately 15%. Management's function is to keep people motivated to continue creating wealth. If wages are too low then employees tend to do " half a job". If wages are too high then employees tend to want more time off to spend it. Management have to keep employees at the sweet point. Maybe because of the people " glut " management think they don't have to that anymore, with horrific consequences. e.g. 32 million cars recalled with airbag problems. And many other examples, of course. Best regards Peter Drennan
Thom I am a watcher of your program and agree with your views on large corporations and what these people in Washington are doing to this country and the US citizen, mainly the middle class. I try to post my views on different issues but when I try my computer will blink and my comment is not there any longer. I first thought it was just a problem with my computer but when it does this four to five times I do not think it is my computer and I finally have to give up.If by chance you see this comment I want to tell you to keep up the great work and someday maybe we could talk with each other. I tried to call the phone line and comment but the recording said there was no room and it was full.
AIW -- Is it that obvious? My wife is the president, program chairman and newsletter editor of our Unitarian fellowship.
Loren -- What you are describing is the eternal struggle between the billionaires and the rest of us. What I am suggesting is that we use the best tools available to help our side. The New Deal and the Great Society revealed to our side some very useful tools.
My view is that for the 7000 years of western civilization the "billionaires" have been the winners in 6500 of those years. I suggest we use the history of the other 500 years to improve our chances.
Freddy k, I don't think that'll work. Republican opponents of TPP tried calling it "Obamatrade" but it didn't do that much.
There needs to be publc education on the matter.
How do those Senators who voted for FT of TPP know it's any good? Members of Congress aren't privy to what's in it.
Must be on a "need to know" basis, they only need to know where to pick up the money.
patrick H.T. paine -- Thanks for the links. Naomi's title is a misleading. She wants capitalism to solve the climate problem. I think tax and rebate would solve global energy capture (AKA global warming) faster than the most optimistic can imagine.
To make tax and rebate happen we need movetoamend.org or Bernie.
I read about all the flooding in Texas and how Texans are still gay-bashing, and denying climate change, and being religously arrogant, and I just have to do a 'Pat Robertson' response to it all:
"God has removed his protective hands from the people of Texas and now tries to wash away their hatred, cleanse their souls of their arrogance, and flood their ignorant minds with the truth of climate change. Let us pray for their salvation and may they see the truth before it is too late."
Climate deniers are not as stupid as I first thought many years ago. Well, maybe some are. The wealthy deny global warming because it suits them. Off the record, they know better. You can't argue the point with them because they already know you're right. They just can't afford to admit to it, and so they don't. They don't worry about the future either because ordinary people will keep coming up with fixes which they can readily afford, but you can't.
These greedy money people are destroying our planet. We need to stop them.
China is the biggest carbon emitter but we are the biggest carbon emitter per capita by far. China also is the biggest user of renewable energy. What Thom points out is that it will not change overnight but can change faster. Kilo seems to think that we should just drive off of the cliff. Kind of hard to be a denier in Texas when your home is floating down the river and it is not a houseboat. Ways that we can change:
We have about 60000 MW of wind power with another 20000 planned or under construction. That 60 re[laces 120 coal plants. Keep building.
Ships are being built to run on LNG which is much cleaner than the bunker C oil that they currently use.
Look where we have gone in 10 years with electric cars. Imagine the next 10 years. If NASCAR was electric we could sell electric cars in the South. That is a joke but it would help in research. Every electric car should be charged with renewable energy.
Solar panels are everywhere. Places like Arizona should be operating all air conditioners with solar panels. Every doctors office (example) only open from 9 to 5 should be solarized. Lots of business offices fit that mold. There are lots of applications for solar without night time storage involved. Now Tesla wants to have night time storage with batteries. This is an exciting concept to watch for the next 10 years.
I live near a train track that carries coal trains. Each train car carries 200000 pounds of coal. The trains are about 100 cars and 4 locomotives. 24 trains per day. Coal burns down to about 47% ash. All of that to a few coal plants. One newer large one and several older small ones. Each car on the return trip empty weighs 44000 pounds (they gross at 244000 pounds), A lot of energy just for the empty ones to return. Every windmill and solar panel will help to reduce this.
It is sad that there are people like Kilo that would rather drive off of the cliff rather than listen to science and innovate on ways to save energy and switch from large carbon emitters to renewables. But we have Congressment that bring snowballs into Congress.