• Are conservative policies producing generations of damaged Americans?
• Poverty.
• Guest: Robby Schrum. Should the Post Office be privatized?
• It's Presidents day.
• Guest: Tim Newman, International Labor Rights Forum, stopfirestone.org.

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Monday 18 February '08 National show

• Thom had a great weekend. Thanks to KJFK, Reno and Mensa.
• Are conservative policies producing generations of damaged Americans?
• Article: And The Happiest Place On Earth Is...
• Happiness. 60 Minutes last night covered surveys over the past 30 years showing that the people of Denmark are happiest. They put it down to low expectations. All education is free up to Ph.D. level, they even get paid. 100% maternity or paternity leave. 100% health care. Subsidized child care. Elder care. They pay about 50% in taxes. Average 37 hour work week. 6 weeks vacation.
• Article: Poverty Is Poison, Paul Krugman.
  "L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969."
• Book: Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, Allan N. Schore.
• Book: The Edison Gene, Thom Hartmann.
• Thom quoted from "Affect Regulation" in "The Edison Gene", about how a baby in the womb is continuously asking, "is the world I am going to be born into safe?" measuring the mother's cortisol levels, which affects how the brain develops, and therefore later development of the child. It's not just through gestation.
• Article: Poverty mars formation of infant brains.
  "Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain, the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston heard on Friday.

  Neuroscientists said many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development. That effect is on top of any damage caused by inadequate nutrition and exposure to environmental toxins.

  Studies by several US universities have revealed the pervasive harm done to the brain, particularly between the ages of six months and three years, from low socio-economic status.

  Martha Farah, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s centre for cognitive neuroscience, said: “The biggest effects are on language and memory. The finding about memory impairment – the ability to encounter a pattern and remember it – really surprised us.”

  "
• Bumper Music: Gunslinger, John Fogerty.
• Poverty rant. What kind of future generations are we creating? Fast to flight or violence, or high intelligence? The American dream is to get rich? It wasn't so before Reagan. Dag Hammarskjöld used to be a hero; now it's Bill Gates. The Bush administration is taking down web sites that tell about poverty rates.
• Bumper Music: Blaze Of Glory Bon Jovi (video).
• Callers' experiences of Canada, Denmark; comparison with the USA.
• Article: More suicides under Conservative rule, 18 September, 2002.
• Bumper Music: Say What You Need To Say, John Mayer (video).
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Clip:
  "I have long told you, for example, Undeniable Truth of Life No. 24, written back in 1987: Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society. And even to this day, people pooh-poohed this and say it's insensitive: "How can you possibly say something like that?" Well, because I mean it, because I believe there's something to it."
  The "Truth" according to Limbaugh: Feminism established "to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society".
• Clip:
  "Ugly people, if you're a guy, you can get past it. I don't think you can as an ugly woman. I don't -- no, I don't. If you're an ugly woman, I apologize. Oh, you've got a double cross, because if you're an ugly woman, you're probably a progressive as well. Oh, jeez. I'm sorry. Today's just not your day. But you know what? If you believed in God, you'd know that there's going to be another chance for you. You don't have to be ugly in heaven. You're going to be your perfect self, and there will be another perfect somebody waiting for you on the other side. Until that time -- "
  CNN's Beck: "If you're an ugly woman, you're probably a progressive as well".
• Guest: Robby Schrum. Should the Post Office be privatized? According to Thom's blog:
  

  Today I challenged Lexington Institute Fellow Robby Schrum about why he thinks America should privatize the US Postal Service. I like the idea of keeping union workers in union jobs knowing they have a career, a pension and a vested interest in what they do. I also like the idea that they are accountable to "we the people." Robby says the postal service isn't that accountable, their books are being cooked just like an Enron or WorldCom. I responded by saying "let's clean it up then!" Why should we throw out a system that works so that corporate America can make some money on it...the system ain't broken! Robby argued that we need competition. I say no...police, fire and the postal service should remain in the hands of the people.

• Bumper Music: End of the World, Blake Lewis (video).
• Clip: "I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'." Ronald W. Reagan.
• It's time to stop dismantling the commons.
• Clip: Fox News Radio's Tom Sullivan aired "side-by-side comparison" of speeches by Hitler and Obama.
• Bumper Music: In the Air Tonight, Phil Collins (video).
• It's Presidents day, when we remember in particular George Washington, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln loved to quote the Declaration of Independence, and George Washington fought for it.
• Quote: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

  "
  Declaration of Independence.
• Bumper Music: The Heart of Life, John Mayer (video).
• McCain only talks about war and borders. How can Democrats exploit that? The European dream is the old American dream. Cuba is exporting doctors, America is exporting weapons. Hope, change, competence, specifics.
• Site: handsoffiraqioil.org. Events this weekend.
• Article: FDA never inspected Chinese plant making Baxter's heparin.
• The insanity of the pharmaceutical Medicare Part D program, brought to you by Bill Townsend before retiring early to take advantage of the revolving door. The government cannot negotiate drug prices so pharma makes a huge profit, and we can't import drugs into the United States. Thom's dad was on heparin. A couple of people died from it in the last couple of weeks. It was made in China, unlicensed. In India, you cannot own multiple stores. major rant. Landed gentry.
• Bumper Music: Belief, John Mayer.
• Guest: Tim Newman, International Labor Rights Forum, stopfirestone.org. Unsafe drugs from China? Bridgestone Firestone using child labor? Why is the world being run for transnational companies instead of people? We never ended slavery, just exported it. Chocolate industry uncomfortable. Coffee. Firestone/Bridgestone. Berkeley has done a resolution, take it to other cities.
• Bumper Music: Learning to Fly, Tom Petty.
• Article: USDA Officials Pull Beef From School Menus.
• How not buy poor goods made by unhappy workers? Buy local, small.
• Article: Child Labor.
• Bumper Music: Fields of Gold, Sting.