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Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
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I don’t listen to right-wing radio, although I sometimes listen to “Coast-to-Coast” to keep updated on the latest pseudo-science, conspiracy theories and what the lunatic fringe in general is up to; this show, unfortunately, is deposited on a radio station that specializes in the lunatic fringe on the right, and sometimes when I’m dial-surfing I hear some predictably wild claims. One recent episode was a nauseating hypocrite earnestly enjoining his listeners to buy into his theory that Barack Obama was a power-mad dictator, whose ultimate goal was to Steal Your Wealth. One’s natural suspicion is that the core audience of such talk is Joe and Jane Six-Pack, since those who see their existence as the maintenance of material gain and white privilege formed this opinion long ago. Joe or Jane isn’t wealthy or powerful, so why would they listen to inflammatory pundits who speak for the fear, paranoia and greed of the wealthy and powerful corporate and political elite?
Why? Because underlying all is the fact that Obama is black (or half-so); being president he has the “power” to take away what is rightfully the white man’s and give it to those “other people.” Joe and Jane, who are not wealthy or powerful, need someone to blame for their subsistence-level life. For those wallowing in self-pity, convinced that because they are white they are naturally superior and thus wrongfully unfulfilled by unnatural forces, the choice of blaming the BLACK president is an easy one to make. Anything of a visceral nature requires no critical thought; realizing that working people who produce wealth are under-compensated (as opposed to the over-paid pretty people who sit in front of computer terminals all day) has nothing to do with race requires too much thinking.
Even if Obama appears to be seeking more power, it is not due to power for its own sake, but out of frustration of fact that so many entrenched interests oppose changing the status quo, which means relinquishing some of their power to maintain or expand their own agendas, based on personal cupidity.
we need some new ones, two trap system...6 month elections, low funding with truth as a core value.
Publicly funded ethical research is at the core of the future of this planet. We have been left with a non discussion of the ruling class dynamic. Money as the OLIGARCY!
‘Bob Geldof humiliates Berlusconi’ for failing to give all the charity he promised to give these poor countries
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/g8/5753934/G8-summit-Bob-Geldo...
RE: Thom's segment on PEACE
Thanks. That was great!
I found the speech.
Here it is:
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/S...
[excerpt]
...a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived--yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.
Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles--which can only destroy and never create--is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.
I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war--and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.
Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament--and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude--as individuals and as a Nation--for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward--by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.
First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable--that mankind is doomed--that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.
We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade--therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable--and we believe they can do it again.
I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.
Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace-- based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions--on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace--no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process--a way of solving problems.
With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor--it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.
So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.
[end excerpt]
ALSO--
Kennedy's "secrecy" speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WSGwnz7XpY
»
A PALIN THEORY INVOLVING THE DOMINIONISTS
I have a Palin theory: Could the Dominionists be putting her out there as a possibility for the first woman president? Remember, it didn't matter that Bush II was stupid, a dry drunk and went AWOL; the media backed the team behind Bush. SO WHO IS THE TEAM SARAH REPRESENTS? Is it the Dominionists? I think it would fit if the Dominionists put a woman's face on their anti-woman, supremacist , pro-slavery, 'crusading' theocratic team!
Can't wait to hear Bill Ayers speak, a man who actually walked the talk....in regard to Monday's conversation with Carrie Lukas, I wonder how anyone can make with a straight face the claim that you can have a healthcare INDUSTRY of which the principle variables are profit, faux- innovation, skyrocketing costs and a quarter of the population uninsured or under-insured—and not describe it as dysfunctional. Expensive machines cost money to build for sure, but many people would not need them until late in life if they had access to preventative care (or ate healthy, unprocessed food, or worked in a safe environment). The “mini-medical” insurance plan my company offers discourages preventative care by paying minimal up-front “benefits,” forcing holders of the policy to pay most of the cost of preventative “procedures”—or rather in the insurer’s lingo, a $75 “office” visit—like say, for a colonoscopy, or even a simple check-up that requires more than what the doctor charges you for taking up space in the waiting room. Of course, the idea of this type of insurance is to build-up a cash fund when the insured has a catastrophic illness; but then again, most of the employees where I work are relatively young and healthy, and the so the insurer is banking on that the consequences of the lack of preventative care will not come to roost for years or decades down the road--by which time the employee likely will no longer be on the plan. One also gets the idea that the reason why insurers discourage preventative care is that there is more money in major illnesses; it is not out of the question to suspect that the cost of major procedures that run in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars is over-inflated, because when a person’s health is on the line, the patients rarely deem it necessary to request a cost audit.
Richard Adlof,
That's probably a great ticket (for Dems. to run against) but OMG...I'll start screaming now! LOL
Thom,
Sean Hannity isn't known as "Mr. Mensa," yet he's worth over $100 million:
http://wonkette.com/401283/sean-hannity-becomes-a-hundred-millionaire
Palin-Bachmann 2012
Palin is working to avoid the FBI by bailing . . .
Re. the "conservative" caller ...
His parting shot was the notion that he had won the argument. Seems like most conservatives (nowadays) believe that "volume", "repetition" and getting the last word are the criteria for winning arguments. They must be real difficult to live with.
@Quark: I agree... week after week... she sits in Austria pumping out the same talking points.
An additional segment of Berlosconi-Watch would be more informative.
I have yet to meet an 'Independent Woman' that knows or agrees with the IWF.
If my doctor or surgeon is practicing only for the money, then I don't want he or she treating or operating on me! We have two MD friends who moved to Nebraska in the 90's to practice medicine and both have moved back to Canada.
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
The Post Office is SNAFUd financially cuz a group of folks with R's after their names threw a war against folk that did not care that we were on the face of the planet just to drive up the price margins on oil AND refused to let them rise rates until they could squelch fourth class media mail to level the playing field for TIME Magazine and other Corporate Media outlets.
Thom,
Listening to Carrie Lukas is becoming harder and harder to do. I'm beginning to agree with KMF by turning my sound off 'til that segment is over. 'Sorry.
'Reminds me of the Jack Nicholson line, 'Go peddle "crazy" somewhere else. We're full up here.'
HELLO? Anyone have a source of the JFK SPEECH on PEACE Thom played between second segment of the first hour? Thanks!
Thom,
There's no anit-war movement because the corps. own and control everything. I think things will have to get very bad for most people before they (we) will rise up against the present structure (including wars we're fighting.)
We already tried to make changes the peaceful way, with the last 2 elections. The bureaucrats don't hear the anger of the American people (listen to the video clips I posted above.)
I think it will take more desperation and destitution that will, in turn, produce physical force before changes will occur.
I hope I am wrong.
Thanks for the reference of the dictionary source of "system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership...". I had searched for this definition but evidently in the post-Reagan propaganda era that embarrassing fact was scrubbed from dictionaries. Once again Nazism was accused of being Fascist when in fact they were Totalitarian.
Mark S,
You are right! We pay twice as much as other industrialized countries (who have single-payer healthcare or similar program) and have worse outcomes:
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm
Video clip #2:
Shorter version (~2 min.) of previous video clip:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/31709411#31709411
I don't have the numbers to be sure that I am right, but I have a gut feeling that if everyone who now has health insurance would pay their premiums to the federal government it would be more than enough to provide comprehensive health care for everyone in the United States.
Well duh, Mr. Biden...
Video clip #1 from today's MSNBC "Morning Meeting" on administration's "misreading" of the economy. Discussion by fmr. N.Y. attny. gen'l. and gov'r. Eliot Spitzer, Yale economist Robt. Schiller, hedge fund mgr. Bill Fleckenstein:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/31761994#31761994
Obama is looking more and more like a Clintonian corporate democrat. **sigh** I just need to move to Sweden because change is never going to come fast enough or be significant enough to catch up with European socialist democracies which are 30+ years ahead of us in developing a healthy society.
The Crooks Get Cash While the Poor Get Screwed
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090706_the_crooks_get_cash_while_t...
Posted on Jul 6, 2009
By Chris Hedges
Tearyan Brown became a father when he was 16. He did what a lot of inner-city kids desperate to make money do. He sold drugs. He was arrested and sent to jail three years later for dealing marijuana and PCP on the streets of Trenton, N.J., mostly to white kids driving in from the suburbs. It was a job which saw him robbed at gunpoint and stabbed in the chest. But it made him about $1,400 a week.
Brown, when he got out after three and a half years, was done with street life. He got a job as a security guard and then as a fork lift operator. He eventually made about $30,000 a year. He shepherded his son through high school, then college and a master’s degree. His boy, now 24, is a high school teacher in Texas. Brown would not leave the streets of Trenton but his son would. It made him proud. It gave him hope.
And then one morning in 2005 when he was visiting his mother’s house the cops showed up. He saw the cruiser and the officers standing on his mother’s porch. He hurried down the block toward the home to see what was wrong. What was wrong was him. On the basis of a police photograph, he had been identified by an 82-year-old woman as the man who had robbed her of $9 at gunpoint a few hours earlier. The only other witness to the crime insisted the elderly victim was confused. The witness told the police Brown was innocent. Brown’s friends said Brown was with them when the robbery took place.
“Why would I rob a woman for $9” he asks me. “I had been paid the day before. I had not committed a crime in 20 years. It didn’t make any sense.”
He was again sent to jail. But this time he was charged with armed robbery. If convicted, he would be locked away for many years. His grown son and his three young boys would live, as he had, without the presence of a father. The little ones—11-year-old twins and a 10-year-old—would be adults when he got out. When he met with his state-appointed attorney, the lawyer, like most state-appointed attorneys, pushed for accepting a plea bargain, one that would see him behind bars for at least the next decade. Brown pulled the pictures of his children out of his wallet, laid the pictures carefully on the table in front of the lawyer, looked at the faces of his children and broke down in tears. He shook and sobbed. It was a hard thing to do for a man who stands nearly 6 feet tall and weights 210 pounds and has coped with a lot in his life.
“I didn’t do nothing,’ ” he choked out to the lawyer.
He refused the plea bargain offer. He sat in jail for the next two years before getting a trial. It was a time of deep despair. Jail had changed since he had last been incarcerated. The facilities were overcrowded, with inmates sleeping in corridors and on the floor. The gangs taunted those who, like Brown, were not affiliated with a gang. Gang members knocked trays of food to the floor. They pissed on mattresses. They stole canteen items and commissary orders. And there was nothing the victims could do about it.
“See this,” he says to me in a dimly lit coffee shop in downtown Trenton as he rolls up the right sleeve of his T-shirt. “It’s the grim reaper. I got it in jail. I was so scared. I was scared I wouldn’t get out this time. I was scared I would not see my kids grow up. They make their own tattoo guns in jail with a toothbrush, a staple and the motor of a Walkman. It cost me $15, well, not really dollars. I had to give him about 10 soups and a package of cigarettes. On the street this would be three or four hundred dollars.”
Under the tattoo of the scythe-wielding, hooded figure are the words “Death Awaits.”
He had a trial after two years in jail and was found not guilty. The sheriff’s deputies in the courtroom said as he was walking out that they “had never seen anything like this.” He reaches into his baggy jeans and pulls out his thin brown wallet. He opens it to show me a folded piece of paper. The paper says, “Verdict: Defendant found not guilty on all charges.” It is dated Jan. 31, 2008.
But innocence and guilt are funny things in America. If you are rich and guilty, if you have defrauded banks and customers and investment firms of billions of dollars, as AIG or Citibank has, if you wear fancy suits and have degrees from elite universities that cost more per year than Brown used to make, you get taxpayer money. You get lots of it. You maintain the lavish lifestyle of jets and spas and million-dollar bonuses. You live a life of unchecked greed and have too much in a world where most have too little. If you are moral scum in America we take care of you. But if you are poor, if you are, say, Tearyan Brown and African-American and 39 years old with four kids and no job and you live in the inner city, you are in trouble. No one comes to help you. You don’t get a second chance. This is what being poor means.
Brown found that life had changed when he got out. He had lost his job as a fork lift operator. And there were no new jobs to be found. He had faithfully paid child support until his arrest but, with no income, he could not pay from jail and now he was being hauled into court by the state every few weeks for being in arrears for $13,000. The mother of his three youngest boys goes to court with him. She explains that he paid regularly while he had work. She explains that when she works on the weekends Brown takes the kids. She asks that he be forgiven until he can get a job and begin paying again. But there are no jobs.
“I would not be in arrears in child support if I had not been incarcerated for something I didn’t do,” he says. “I will never get above ground owing $13,000. How can I pay $120 a week when I don’t have a job?”
Brown lives on $200 a month in food stamps and $40 in cash. Welfare will pay his apartment for another four months. He is barely making it. I ask him what he will do when he loses the rent subsidy.
“I’ll be homeless,” he says.
“My son says come down to Texas,” he adds. “Start a new life with me. But what about my three little boys? I can’t leave them. I can’t leave them in Trenton. They need a father.”
Brown works out every day. He does calisthenics. He is a vegetarian. He volunteers at a food pantry. He attends the Jerusalem Baptist Church with his little boys. “They are church kids,” he tells me proudly. “They are pretty much raised by the church.”
He is trying to keep himself together. But he lives in a world that is falling apart. The gangs on the streets of Trenton carry Glock 9-millimeter pistols and AK-47 assault rifles. When the Trenton police stop a car or raid a house filled with suspected gang members they approach with loaded M-16s. A local newspaper, The Trentonian, reports the daily chronicle of crime, decay and neglect. The lead story in the day’s paper, which Brown has with him, is about a young man named James Deonte James, whose street name is “Lurch.” James was charged in the death of a 13-year-old girl during a gang shooting. He is reputed to be a “five star general in the Sex Money Murder set of the Bloods street gang.” In another story an ex-con and reputed mobster, Michael “Mickey Rome” Dimattia, was arrested in his car after a woman behind the wheel was seen driving erratically. “Mickey Rome,” dressed in a black bathrobe with a red scarf around his neck, was found to be wearing a bulletproof vest, with three guns stuck in his waistband, and had a crack pipe, crack cocaine and prescription pills in his pockets. He had been convicted in 1990 of killing a 17-year-old boy with a shotgun blast to the head. He served less than three years for the murder. A feature story on Page 4 of the paper is about a man with AIDS who raped his girlfriend’s son 55 times and infected the boy with the virus. The boy was 9 when the rapes took place.
“There are thousands more guns out there than when I was on the street,” Brown says. “It is easier to buy a gun than get liquor from a liquor store.”
He says he rarely goes out at night, even to the corner store. It is too dangerous.
The desperation is palpable. People don’t know where to turn. Benefits are running out. More and more people are out of work.
“You see things getting worse and worse,” he says. “You see people who wonder how they are going to eat and take care of themselves and their kids. You see people starting to do anything to get food, to hustle or rob, to go back to doing things they do not want to do. Good people start doin’ bad things. People are getting eviler.”
He pauses.
“All things are better with God,” he says softly, looking down at the tabletop.
He is reading a book about the Bible. It is about Jesus and God. It is about learning to trust in God’s help. In America that is about all the poor have left. And when God fails them, they are on their own.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/3-reasons-we-need-an-econ_b...
Well this reflects a very serious position for average people. You can bet
the Bears Stens guys won't change thier advice to the President. They will
bury him.