Yes!
65%
No!
35%
Comments
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.
Images of Thom
Thom & Louise at a "private audience" with His Holiness Pope John Paul II at his summer palace, Castle Gandolfo, Italy
From Screwed:
"If we are going to live in a Democracy, we need to have a healthy middle class. Thom Hartmann shows us how the ‘cons’ have wronged this country, and tells us what needs to be done to reclaim what it is to be American."
From Unequal Protection, 2nd Edition:
"If you wonder why and when giant corporations got the power to reign supreme over us, here’s the story."
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"Through compelling personal stories, Hartmann presents a dramatic and deeply disturbing picture of humans as a profoundly troubled species. Hope lies in his inspiring vision of our enormous unrealized potential and his description of the path to its realization."
Citizens United was the end of democracy. I appreciate Thom's willingness to speak out. Here is the point I have been trying to make and wake people up to:
Wealthy elites first wielded their influence as part of the John Birch Society, that formulated many of their current objectives and ideals. The Birch Society however lost influence, primarily due to their supremist views, and as a result these elites found solace in our tax code that encourages charitable organizations, who could be financed with tax deductible contributions, to help them re-formulate their ancestral ideals into more palatable political positions.
These plans started back in the 1970s when Koch and Scaife and others started new think, that replaced the John Birch Society's failures to accomplish its objectives, and devised and revised game plans for expanding their influence and control over our democracy.
Their think tanks, subsidized by taxpayers, could afford the best minds, to help them gain political acceptance of their ancestral ideals. Koch, Rove, Scaife and others have amped up the rhetoric, funding the Tea Party, and with Citizens United now own and influence Congress and Regulatory agencies. They use the power of distraction and influence, by espousing falsehoods, whether on Fox news, or the Senate floor, or in a right/left debate on CNN, when we must ask, why does truth have to share the same forum and debate falsehoods? However, where there is smoke there is fire, and notwithstanding the false truths and lies of a Limbaugh or Fox, there is a following of believers, as with any cult, and those in the middle then become more confused, which was the objective in the first place.
Thom speaks about how CEOs are stealing America's wealth and the money needed to create jobs. However, they are also with Citizens United diverting their corporate money control Congressional opposition. Some of these wealthy elites may really want a collapse of the US Economy, to gain a political win for a Republican administration who will PRIVATIZE prized government agencies, that they will capitalize, profit from and administer like the insurance companies administer health care.
There is and has been a frontal assault on democracy, that came to a head with Bush granting these same interests Regulatory control over their industries, Citizens United that gave them unlimited financial opportunities to own Congress, ALEC to lobby and generate legislation (in a nonprofit), and since Reagan, the vetting and placement of federal judges to promote (Alito, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts) who now make a majority on our Supreme Court that expands their corporate control over our system.
RANK AND FILE AMERICANS, are being devastated by these political plans and manipulations of our democracy, judiciary, Congress and state legislatures. As other nations compete with America, we risk becoming a feudal 3rd world society and economy.
Farid Zacharia in his recent book speaks of how economic growth has historically occurred, typically through education, immigration and an infrastructure that promotes new ideas and competition. The power elites that now control our nation are denying any chance that RANK AND FILE AMERICANS can succeed now or in the future.
I should add:
The distraction technique, that is used most widely by magicians (such as David Copperfield) and works well, as people are thinking negatively about George Soros and liberals, when the real trick is to steal away American wealth and democracy, in favor of the wealthy elites who throughout history have usually backed a leader (Alexander the Great, Rome, Kings of Europe and Russia, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, among others). However, today, there is no real visible leader for them to back, but they are still the money and power behind what is now a non-existent leader. The sad thing is that it is almost like the movie TRADING PLACES, where it is a "game". They destroyed the life of Dan Ackroyd (who represents the RANK AND FILE AMERICANS), just to win a bet.
Unfortunately, in the face of global competition from China and India, and fundamental based terrorism, America is at a threshold, and can lose very big. The loss can be irreversible, as much of what we have accomplished in the past 300 years, is on the table, and will be destroyed by this greed and global competition.
This is the inherent agenda of wealth and corporate interests, to win at any cost. We see this in historical treatises, and even contemporary books and plot lines about Wall Street. It is all about winning at any cost. Americans and our RANK AND FILE need to wake up to these looming realities and disasters.
No - its not the end - but it shows more clearly (and this is the way with things) the agenda of the radical right (there really ARE no republicans anymore, and republicans were bad enough-its ALL Radical Right - another term you could use to describe the movement is FASCIST but actually? Even that doesn't quite describe what is going on). Corporate and banking interests have ALWAYS been deeply entrenched in this country - this is nothing new - its not like this just happened, even going back 50 years - but they're obviously exerting themselves more and more, and as they become more confident they become bolder, and as they become bolder their machinations become more apparent to the observer who is paying attention. I AM afraid though that it is going to take a crisis (and there are already SO many crises going on in this country) of huge proportions to wake the people up to how much the country is compromised by these corporate, banking and other interests, including but not limited to foreign interests that hopefully will make the people aware that they are NOT in charge, but are more like slaves or indentured servants within the present system.
A possible solution is to allow most of the sane and moderate Republicans abandon their party, and move to the Democratic party, that will become too big to house them. Then the Democratic party will split into two parties, possibly the Conservatives and the Progressives, leaving the Tea Party to live in the shell of the former Republican Party, and hopefully go away.
In an effort to bring things into greater clarity, I ask:
How much money and what percent of each person's income is spent to benefit the below named industries. Then multiply that by 300 million US citizens. Talk about taxation without representation, if and as we keep these interests in power, they will continue to squeeze our economy for greater profits, at the expense of our household budgets.
The real magic trick has been to distract Americans from the real power players, who have infected and maniuplated the REGULATOR AGENCIES, formed to protect our economy and our people:
Big Energy (who American to remain dependent on their oil and coal); Pharmaceutical Companies (who want the Americans and Medicare to pay top dollar for their drugs); Banking (who borrow at nominal interest rates from the Fed and from our checking accounts, to gamble on international investments and fabricated securities most of which are are hedges or arbitrages that consume America's capital and yet invest little to no money in jobs, equipment or productivity); Agribusiness (including Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midlands, who have monopolized farming and forced consumers to consume their unhealthy corn products that are subsidized by our US Treasury and through other companies influence FDAs regulatory failures); Medical Insurance Industry (that retains monopoly power from Congress, and makes major profit by consuming our insurance premiums to maintain a beurocracy that denies medical coverage and the repair and expansion of Medicare); among others.
The magic show that is now running 24/7 in broadcast and cable media, is designed to distract the electorate and voting public, as these vested interests steal away America's wealth and democracy.
I'm not sure but my husband's thought is: "It's only a single position made at a specific time in history."
Louise, what really concerns me as I listen to Thom centers around the fact that the Supreme Court, a non-elected body, reigns over our country.
Unless there is public financing of elections and all candidates are running clean, every election will have increaingly escalating costs.Every year the cost of candidacy will double.What a waste of money-it only keeps the advertisers happy.It's terrible for democracy if only rich people can run on their own vast fortunes.