• Why does guest Pat Buchanan believe we have reached a day of reckoning, and does Thom agree?
• Should we make voting mandatory?
• The latest National Intelligence Report about Iran.
• Guest: Peter M. De Lorenzo, author of "The United States of Toyota: How Detroit squandered its legacy and enabled Toyota to become America's Car Company".
• Guest: Stephen Lerner of the SEIU Private Equity Project. Fisher Island Liberation Day.?

Details of what the show was about, upcoming events, and many links to articles, audio clips, quotes and bumper music.

Monday 03 December '07 National show

• Thom is back home.
• Guest: conservative Pat Buchanan, who was a senior adviser to 3 American presidents, and for the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. He was the Reform Party’s candidate in 2000. His new book, "Day Of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart".
  Book description: "America is coming apart at the seams. Forces foreign and domestic seek an end to U.S. sovereignty and independence. Before us looms the prospect of an America breaking up along the lines of race, ethnicity, class and culture. In Day of Reckoning, Pat Buchanan reveals the true existential crisis of the nation and shows how President Bush's post-9/11 conversion to an ideology of 'democratism' led us to the precipice of strategic disaster abroad and savage division at home. Ideology, writes Buchanan, is a Golden Calf, a false god, a secular religion that seeks vainly, like Marxism, to create a paradise on earth.

  While free enterprise is good, the worship of a 'free trade' that is destroying the dollar, de-industrializing America, and ending our economic independence, is cult madness. While America must stand for freedom and self-determination, the use of U.S. troops to police the planet or serve as advance guard of some 'world democratic revolution' is, as Iraq shows, imperial folly that will bring ruin to the republic. While America should speak out for human rights, the idea that we get in Russia's face and hand out moral report cards to every nation on earth is moral arrogance.

  While we have benefited from immigration and the melting pot worked with millions of Europeans, the idea we can import endless millions of aliens, legal and illegal, from every culture, clime, creed, and continent on earth, and still remain a country, is absurd. To save America the first imperative is to remove from power the ideologues of both parties who have nearly killed our country.

  In his final chapter, Buchanan lays out ideas to prevent the end of America. He calls for a bottom-up review of all of America's Cold War commitments, a ten-point program to secure America's borders, ideas to halt the erosion of our national sovereignty and restore our manufacturing preeminence and economic independence, and a formula for finding the way to a cold peace in the culture wars. Buchanan offers a radical but necessary program, for neither party is addressing the real crisis of America -- whether we survive as one nation and people, or disintegrate into what Theodore Roosevelt called a 'tangle of squabbling nationalities' and not a nation at all. IN THIS EYE-OPENING BOOK, PAT BUCHANAN REVEALS THE PERILOUS PATH OUR NATION HAS TAKEN:- Pax Americana -- the era of U.S. global dominance -- is over. A struggle for world hegemony among the United States, China, a resurgent Russia and radical Islam has begun.

  Torn apart by a culture war, America has begun to Balkanize and break down along class, cultural, ethnic, and racial lines.- Free trade is hollowing out U.S. industry, destroying the dollar, and plunging the country into permanent dependency and unpayable debt.- One of every six U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished under Bush. - The Third World invasion through Mexico is a graver threat to U.S. survival than anything happening in Afghanistan or Iraq....IS OUR DAY OF RECKONING JUST AHEAD?

  "

  There's a lot that Thom agrees with, and a lot that he agrees with. He loved the chapter comparing the Bush doctrine with historical doctrines. Buchanan suggests closing bases overseas, etc. He repudiates everything Reagan did? He said the New Deal was a failure; Thom disagreed.

• Bumper Music: Rebuild America First, Merle Haggard (free video online).
• Bumper Music: Move Along, The All-American Rejects (video).
• America's history with immigrants, culture. The New Deal was a considerable improvement, and would have done more if money had not been diverted from building infrastructure to making bombs, etc., for World War Two. It saved capitalism from itself.
• Clip:
  "We stand for a living wage. Wages are subnormal if they fail to provide a living for those who devote their time and energy to industrial occupations. The monetary equivalent of a living wage varies according to local conditions, but must include enough to secure the elements of a normal standard of living--a standard high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit a reasonable saving for old age.

  Hours are excessive if they fail to afford the worker sufficient time to recuperate and return to his work thoroughly refreshed. We hold that the night labor of women and children is abnormal and should be prohibited; we hold that the employment of women over forty-eight hours per week is abnormal and should be prohibited. We hold that the seven-day working week is abnormal, and we hold that one day of rest in seven should be provided by law.

  "
  Theodore Roosevelt. "Social and Industrial Justice", Oyster Bay, New York, c. August, 1912.
• Bumper Music: Tap Three Times, Capitol Steps. (video)
• Article: Paper: 8 men claim encounters with Craig.
• Clip:
  "Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome. Good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Paul Weyrich (mp3).
• Illegal employer problem.
• Article: Congratulations, Citizen!. What would have happened to $10,000 invested in 2001.
• Article: You Must Vote. It's the Law..
• Article: Is It Time To Consider Mandatory Voting Laws?
• Article: Vote — or Else. August 10, 2006.
• Should we make voting mandatory? February's Hustler has an op ed by Larry Flynt about it. Other articles. The Republicans will never agree to this of course. Voting is mandatory in Australia. Missisippi tried a poll tax if people did not vote, but the Mississippi Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court has not heard the case, and it is not in the constitution. People were sent letters telling them to go to different precinct, or on different day. Caging. If it is mandatory, voting should be over more than one day. Postal ballots?
• Bumper Music: Magic, Pilot.
• Article: Down-to-Earth Solutions: The Past, Present, and Future of Climate Change, Larry Craig. "scientists are not certain how much man contributes to climate variability compared to nature".
• Article: Embattled Larry Craig Escapes To Bali To Stall Global Warming Treaty. Australia's new administration will sign the new treaty to follow on from Kyoto, so the USA is the only major hold-out.
• Bumper Music: One Piece At A Time, Johnny Cash.
• A lot of quotes and links to articles and bumper music, etc. are posted on the daily stack on the .org site. We will be integrating it into the thomhartmann.com site.
• Article: Breaking- Latest NIE says Iran stopped nuclear weapons work in 2003.
• Bumper Music: We've Got To Get Out Of This Place, The Animals.
• Victoria Jones of Talk Radio News. The president made remarks in the Rose Garden, so the press froze waiting for him. Unusually they got an email saying there is a press conference tomorrow at 10:10, usually 2 hours notice is the most they get. Then they were told today's briefing was moved back an hour, then it was cancelled, and Stephen Hadley, Assistant to the President For National Security Affairs, would do a briefing at 3:15 pm, they were not told what on. The NIE report just released says there has been no nuclear weapons program in Iran since 2003. Craig going to Bali. he White House is blocking Fitzgerald from handing over his own documents to Waxman. Congress is back in session today, lots to do. Wolfowitz is the new chairman of the international security advisory board - a prestigious panel, with access to highly classified intelligence.
• So how did Detroit get into so much trouble? Thom's dad's tool and die work was mostly for Oldsmobile.
• Article: As Toyota Goes ... , Thomas L. Friedman, June 17, 2005.
• Guest: Peter M. De Lorenzo. "The United States of Toyota: How Detroit squandered its legacy and enabled Toyota to become America's Car Company". Thomas L. Friedman: "So I have a question: If I am rooting for General Motors to go bankrupt and be bought out by Toyota, does that make me a bad person?" Complacency, a belief that the sun would never set on the Detroit empire, ignoring inroads of competition. Also legacy employees - pensions to be paid. The oil crisis 30 years ago was the beginning of a long slide. Attention to detail and quality fell off. They lost a generation of American car buyers; they won't look at the good stuff. Tariffs, lack of protection devastating. Japan treats their auto industry as a strategic asset, gives advantages, even manipulates the yen. Solutions? Reduce dependence on foreign oil from hostile regimes. Fingersnapping environmentalists are too quick. Detroit has got a bad rap. Toyota makes no- green vehicles too, so their green image is overblown. Detroit doesn't need a handout, it has some outstanding vehicles, government should assist not fight.
• Mike in Detroit said most blame it on lack of leadership.Detroit CEOs focused on big trucks instead of 4 door family sedans. Japan MITI. No industrial policy in the USA.
• Bumper Music: Have You Had Enough?, Rickie Lee Jones, Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher.
• Guest: Stephen Lerner, SEIU Private Equity Project. Fisher Island Liberation Day. The island is a two minute ferry ride off Miami, has the richest zip code. Millionaires. Workers are segregated on the ferry. Stories about staff not making eye contact. The beach public, but you can't get there, so people took boats and swam there in protest.
• Bumper Music: Logical Song, Supertramp.
• Upcoming Event: Dec 6, Portland Oregon. The Willamette Store, 900 State Street - Salem, Oregon 97301 Contact: (503) 370.6772. 2 PM.
• Upcoming Event: Dec 14, Minneapolis MN. University of Minnesota Bookstore 7p - at Coffman Memorial Union. Show live from AM950.
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Thailand has a tradition of buying votes. Now there's a new tactic: instead of cash, a politician is giving out Viagras.
• Article: Get Ready for Rightwing Blowback. Larry Johnson on the National Intelligence Estimate report on Iraq, nuclear weapons.
• Jeff in Denver said that there is a Colorado deadline in 2 days to register to vote, or to register party affiliation. They have caucuses. He's creating a caucus guide web site, it will be up in next few weeks. A vote is more powerful in a caucus because there are fewer voters, you help chose the platform, and can become an officer. It's the biggest door to power in a party. Red alert. The same for other parties, states. You can register now, and change back before nationals. Most people there are against mail in ballots: centralization magnifies problems.
• Bumper Music: We Deal in Dreams, Live.
• Article: Johann Hari: The plot to rig the 2008 US election.
• The LA Times at the weekend suggested that they don't have enough signatures, downplayed it. But they have lots of money, that might be a story to make papers downplay it. If passed, it would mean Republican presidents for years, would need Texas to do the same to counterbalance California. Thom thinks it will pass, go to the Supreme Court. He thinks Democrats will win the popular vote, but not the electoral if Calif does this. We need to be so involved that the Supreme Court does not dare. It could be the next Dredd Scott.