• Immediately after his own show, Thom stood in for Randi Rhodes.
• Guest: David Sirota. America's race chasm.
• Guest: Carrie Lukas, Independent Women's Forum. What is causing the "Middle Class Squeeze"?
• Conservative economics.
• Guest: Larisa Alexandrovna, Managing Editor of Investigative News, Raw Story. Has Alabama become the new Soviet Union?

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

Monday 07 April '08 Randi Rhodes show

• Immediately after his own show, Thom guest hosted for Randi Rhodes.
• Article: The race chasm, David Sirota.
  "Barack Obama has won in states that have large white or large black populations, states where race politics don't play out on a daily basis."
• Guest: David Sirota. America's race chasm.
• Article: Our Racist, Sexist Selves.
• Thom did a show from CPAC, with 3 days of Republican guests. Several said they were delighted to run against either an African American or a woman. Thom would like Hillary to face sexism straight on the way Obama did race.
• Clip:
  "Notice what this double-talking slut just did, this mind-slut Barbara Walters... And I stick by those words. She's an empty mind-slut. She'd peddle anything for a ratings point." ... That mental prostitute, Bra-buh-buh-buh Walters? It sickens me... I think that the woman is vermin, I think she's dirt." Michael Savage going off on Barbara Walters interviewing Hugo Chavez.
• 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".
• Bumper Music: Talk to me, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac.
• Clip: Savage on Sawyer: a "lying whore" who "in essence, is agreeing that the Holocaust didn't occur". (Michael Savage is playing clips of Diane Sawyer and commenting on them):
  "SAWYER: I understand that it's confusing sometimes what we do and why we're there, but even, even your adversaries have their own point of view, and how can you tackle this part of the world if you don't understand why they say --

  SAVAGE: You lying whore.

  SAWYER: -- they're doing what they're doing. Even --

  SAVAGE: You lying whore.

  SAWYER: -- can teach you something about why they are doing what they're doing.

  SAVAGE: You lying whore, you.

  SAWYER: And we are trying to bring back real information in this critical time for these people who live in that part of the world. It is so complicated.

  SAVAGE: You're full of crap. Who do you think you're fooling? You're a liar, and the reason you gave this interview about that interview is because you realized what you have done. You're being told that the people hate your guts.

  I don't know how this goes on in this country, that a witch, a whore like Diane Sawyer -- and I'm going to stick to those words -- to me she's a whore, she's a whore for selling out her intellect like this, whoring herself for ratings. She goes and visits the Hitler of our time, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, does not challenge him on one of his statements, not one, and she does it just for ratings. And she has the nerve to come back here and pretend that it's confusing on what we do and why we're there. Who do you think you're talking to?

  "
• Thom retold the following story:
  "I was reading the story of Cinderella to my own daughter. About halfway through the book, I suddenly realized what I was "teaching" her with this story. The "good girl," Cinderella, was also the one in the story who was beautiful. The "bad girls" - Cinderella's stepsisters - were physically unattractive. But one level deeper, the story became really bizarre. Cinderella was compliant and uncomplaining, and spent much of her mental life in a fantasy world, while the ugly stepsisters were young women who had a goal and a mission and were trying to reach it. In other words, assertive women were ugly, and compliant women were attractive. Assertive women lived in the real world of power and competence, but eventually would lose out; pretty, compliant women lived in a world of fantasy, but if they kept doing what they were told, even if told so by a fantasy fairy godmother, then everything would work out. And the prize in this competitive psychodrama? A man. And not just a normal man, but a man who was so self-absorbed that he spent an hour or more dancing with Cinderella but afterwards couldn't remember what she looked like and could only identify her by her shoe size! I remember walking into the living room and saying to my wife, "I think I've just participated in a cultural brainwashing experiment," as I described my observations about the story I'd just read to our daughter."
  It's Time to Empower Our Girls, Thom.
• Sexism is to misogamy as racism is to what?
• Clip:
  "You know, when I see a woman walking around with a burqa, I see a Nazi. That's what I see -- how do you like that? -- a hateful Nazi who would like to cut your throat and kill your children. Don't give me this crap that they're doing it out of a sacred ritual or rite. It's not required by the Quran that a woman walk around in a seventh-century drape. She's doing it to spit in your face. She's saying, 'You white moron, you, I'm going to kill you if I can'. That's how I see it! What do you want me to do, mince words with you? I'm not going to mince words. We're too far gone in this country." Michael Savage.
• Statistics from Bernie Sanders. Since Bush has been president:
  • over 5 million people have slipped into poverty;
  • nearly 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance;
  • median household income has gone down by nearly $1,300;
  • three million manufacturing jobs have been lost;
  • three million American workers have lost their pensions;
  • home foreclosures are now the highest on record;
  • the personal savings rate is below zero - which hasn't happened since the great depression;
  • the real earnings of college graduates have gone down by about 5% in the last few years;
  • entry level wages for male and female high school graduates have fallen by over 3%;
  • wages and salaries are now at the lowest share of GDP since 1929.
• Article: U.S. Economy Shed 80,000 Jobs in March.
• Guest: Carrie Lukas, Vice President for Policy and Economics, Independent Women's Forum. Author, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism". What is causing the "Middle Class Squeeze"? What is the story that conservatives are telling themselves, in the light of job losses?
• Bumper Music: Oh Mastercard, Will Barkley.
• As people became more productive, were able to produce more wealth for their employers, they could demand more money. For thousands of years productivity and wages tracked each other. But not now.
• Article: Mortgage Bankers Association finding it harder to pay its own mortgage.
• Neoliberalism. Reaganomics. Conservative economics. Milton Friedman economics. Friedrich von Hayek's economics. Margaret Thatcher. Tony Blair. Now Germany. "Reform" is conservative code for economic policies that destroy the middle class and make the rich richer and working people poorer.
• Article: Germany: The shrinking middle class and the rise of inequality.
  "The study concludes that the middle class in Germany has shrunk from 62 percent of the population in 2000 to just 54 percent in 2006."
• Article: German upturn seen as threat to reform drive.
  "Chancellor Angela Merkel had plenty to celebrate yesterday when she passed the symbolic milestone of her 100th cabinet meeting.

  Germany's economic recovery remains strong despite global financial turmoil, and jobless figures showed a fall to 3.2m - compared with 4.7m at her first cabinet sitting in November 2005.

  Ironically, such good news is making it harder, not easier, for her and Peer Steinbrück, the finance minister, to stick to one of their core goals: to curb spending in order to achieve a balanced federal budget by 2011. Because of this, economists are worried that - ahead of the September 2009 general election - the government will drift even further from its economic reform path.

  Senior conservative and free-market politicians, who usually speak out for budget cuts, are changing their tune, calling recently for new subsidies for commuters and for cuts in consumption taxes on energy bills.

  "
• Bumper Music: Fire It Up, Modest Mouse.
• Book: "The Chalice and the Blade", Riane Eisler.
• People drop off unemployment statistics after 18 months.
• They don't pay social security on dividends. Do corporations pass the cost of business on to consumers? No, to stockholders. For example, Nike did not cut the price of their product when they cut the sot of production by outsourcing to China.
• Bumper Music: I'm The Man That Built the Bridges, Tom Paxton.
• Article: It's official, Alabama is the Soviet Union..., Larisa Alexandrovna.
• Article: The US Attorney who wasn't fired: How Bush pick helped prosecute top Democrat-backed judge.
  "In 2003, a Bush-appointed US Attorney, Dunnica Lampton (above right), brought federal charges against one of those lawyers, plaintiff’s attorney Paul Minor, alleging that he had bribed a Mississippi Supreme Court Justice, Judge Oliver E. Diaz, Jr."
• Guest: Larisa Alexandrovna, Managing Editor of Investigative News, Raw Story. Has Alabama become the new Soviet Union? Don Siegelman. The attorneys who did not get fired. Alabama subpoenas of Democrats in the legislature. She just did an article on Missisippi, which is similar. Alice Martin has been investigating Democrats since she began in office. She subpoenaed at least 9 Democrats by Federal marshals in the session, which is illegal. Intimidation. In Mississippi it is more complex, the case of tobacco investigator Paul Minor; judges were indicted for bribery, one is Oliver Diaz, acquitted twice. Homes broken into. Arson. Jill Simpson, a Republican whistleblower, had her house burnt down. It's happening all over, through a corrupted Department of Justice. Where is Congress? She has an interview with Diaz running tomorrow. It's not just the people whom they are targeting, but also anyone who raises questions. One who questioned, an accounting specialist, was reassigned to Guantanamo. People are intimidated. Bob Riley is still governor. There needs to be action.
• Bumper Music: Kryptonite, 3 Doors Down.
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Gnarls Barkley.
• Article: Market Tumbles on News That Bush Is Still President. White House Appearance ‘A Painful Reminder,’ Experts Say.
• Article: A Good Name Dragged Down. Consumers Get Tangled In Terrorist Watchlist.
• Mussolini: fascism is the merger of corporate and state interests.
• Article: Every Click You Make. Internet Providers Quietly Test Expanded Tracking of Web Use to Target Advertising.
• Article: Big Brother: Radio frequency identification (RFID). Putting "Radio Tags" on Americans.
• Article: Spy My Ride: Somebody may be tracking your vehicle and you don't know about it!
• Bumper Music: Let's Go To Mars, Lenny Solomon.
• Clip:
  "Roosevelt is dead, his policies may live on, but we're in the process of doing something about that as well." Rush Limbaugh.
• National strike May 1? No job security, people are terrified to lose their job and/or health care. They have us right where they want us. We need a new New Deal. We need to get highly politically active and...
  • roll back the Taft-Hartley Act
  • turn the Labor Department back into a Labor Department
  • re-empower the Wagner Act
  • resume enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
  • roll back Bill Clinton's signature of the Telecommunications Act of 1996

  We have to build the political infrastructure first. The generation that remembers this stuff is dying off.

• Bumper Music: Hold on tight to your dreams, ELO.
• Conservative economics. The German World War reparations were in Marks, so the value of the mark was brought down to make it easy to pay off. This was bad for the economy. Savings were wiped out. Insecurity. Rise of Nazism, racism, pointing blame at others.
• Republicans want rights and Democrats want money? It's been Republicans since 1980; deficits. They are paying off debt by selling off American assets. Outsourced jobs used to pay into social security. Statistics of foreign-owned industries from Economy in Crisis.