Yes! First Greece – now the UK. Next...America?
72%
No! The Banksters always win.
28%
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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
At Mondragon - both the mountain and the cooperative city - in Spain (written about in "Threshold" book)
From Unequal Protection, 2nd Edition:
"Hartmann combines a remarkable piece of historical research with a brilliant literary style to tell the grand story of corporate corruption and its consequences for society with the force and readability of a great novel."
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"Right through the worst of the Bush years and into the present, Thom Hartmann has been one of the very few voices constantly willing to tell the truth. Rank him up there with Jon Stewart, Bill Moyers, and Paul Krugman for having the sheer persistent courage of his convictions."
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."
I don't know about other nations, but we will be lectured on how the "US is a republic, not a democracy" as if that were a justification for any act in defiance of the majority will.
Revolutions are happening every day now, they are happening all over the world. When we surfed on the north coast of California we would count and watch the waves, (all the little revolutions) in order to try and predict when the best wave to catch was coming. But no matter how long we looked for patterns or how we changed our perspectives to try to predict them, we would only have seconds before the sleeper waves would rise out of the chaos to clean off the beach. On the north coast the waves come from lots of different directions and at different speeds all at the same time and it's very chaotic. Every once in a while the waves will combine and stack up into a big beach cleaning wave. I don't think anyone has what it takes to predict how far the revolutions will cascade, how big they will break, or how much will be washed out to sea when they recede again. All we can do is be prepared for not being prepared.
Americans are too dumb. Anti-banking sentiment will be co-opted channelled into anti-semitism or anti-government or anti-whatever effectively taking the heat off the bankers and putting it on their chosen scapegoat.
I will admit US has a very large share of low information voters who are ignorant of actual facts Much of it due to corp media's lack of serious professional reporting- keeping us well informed Talking heads give opinions Who cares ? Fox faux news sways Tea Baggers GOP daily but .not much by way of facts or truth. Same with Rush Fox's Hannity & Beck ..Bachman has her own version of US history.. Rick Perry may run which is great Another smirking Evangelical TX governor is just what US needs NOT .
as Tom says We must all hammer reps &BO till they listen www.whitehouse.gov www.congress.gov speal out now
End wars End Bush cuts End corp loopholes End SS tax cap asap Not in 2 - 3 yrs Afghan war is Obama;s Nam
What disturbs me about these riots is that it is being "branded" as youngsters and misfits rabblerousing and causing trouble. In other words and not that I am terribly surprised (frustrated, but not surprised), they are down playing the connection between poverty, helplessness and the links to the austerity measures and just a growing, global unrest. Student/teacher riots in Chile, the North African spring, Greece. The world is waking up.
With 99% of the citezenry of Canada either impoverished or well on their way to such a state of deprivation, the govt is losing it's legitimacy.In 27 yrs, I voted Liberal (in name only) once, NDP 20 times and Marxist Leninist twice. With the NDP having considered labeling the word socialist as passe and drop it's usage.They changed their minds, but I am so angry that I will join the 42% of Canadians who no longer vote.It would be more humane to give us all cyanide capsules if we can't make enough through work or welfare to have a decent, dignified life.I am half past fed up-down with kaputalism!!!!
these riots are all about hopelessness for those kids.this was a poor area economically and it was just killed by the austerity measures taken by the conservative british govt.youth centers closed and the ones left open began charging admission even though these centers are supposed to be free at all times.trade schools were closed and social programs slammed.i hate to say it but we may be seeing a dress rehearsal for such a series of events in the U.S.all it will take is a spark to start the flame.I DO NOT support this type of lawlessness but i can understand how it can happen.i mean it seems so clear to me that an austerity program is absolutely the wrong way to go and am very certain they will do more harm than any possible good to the vast majority of WE THE PEOPLE .i am also certain that having the rich pay their fair share on taxes,particularly large corporations that pay nothing would benefit all of us for decades to come.i am certain that if we pull out of all these insane free trade agreements that have cost us 50 thousand factories and millions of jobs just in the last 10 years it would give a big boost to U.S.employment coast to coast and i mean-OUR COAST!!but yet we have the tea bagg/tea party/republicon party that says-hell no we cant do any of this-it harms the job creaters!!!God better help us because the republicons wont!!
A question for John Defalque......
I can't make heads or tails out of what you say. Please explain.....
Cheers!
It is actually worse than that. The initial riot was about the death of a black teenager shot by police. A policeman was also shot but by another policeman, accidentally, but that information came out after the riots were over.
The first nights riots were down to anger and incompetance by the police. They failed to answer the demonstrators questions and after the demonstrators left the riot started. The subsequent riots were copycat riots with the prime intention of looting, so an element of poverty was involved. The areas affected were small and well apart. Though from press coverage you would have thought that the entire city was ablaze. The riots in other cities were also criminally motivated.
The cuts announced by the coalition have only recently started and are less than a few months in. In a couple of years as the austerity measures fail to work then if there are riots it will be because of austerity. In fact the coalition are so out of touch that they are already discussing cutting the top rate of tax, only brought in to address the deficit, and that only impact those earning more than $250 000 per year.
Greece and Portugal are most likely to have an European Spring event. Anger in Ireland is growing and might spill over, though since they elected a new government recently they might give them time before rioting.