Thom Hartmann: Screwed = The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class

[L. Coyote]

Run time: 10:04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwMQ0VTS2c8   Posted on YouTube: June 14, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: June 15, 2008 By DU Member: L. Coyote Views on DU: 1863

 
The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class -- And What We Can Do About It

II = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGzsdmlfLpc

III = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGzsdmlfLpc

IV = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuapSzfnaUQ

V = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doz7o_iwyyU

VI = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-mOR0Lc5UA

[Mojambo]

1. That guy is my hero.

Never miss his show.

[Phred42]

2. Thanks Coyote - Excellent

Hartmann is the Big Brain on the Radio.

[CrispyQ]

3. My right wing mother once heard Hartmann on a local radio show.

I told her he was one of our best & brightest liberal voices. She commented, "He seems so reasonable." I think many right wingers would find Thom reasonable. I wish he had a bigger audience.

"Screwed" was good, but "We the People: A Call to Take Back America" was better. Written in a comic book fashion, it is sort of a fifth grade civics class primer - lots of facts about our government & corporate personhood that many of us have forgotten & perhaps these days, not even taught. A couple of free excerpts here: http://www.we-the-people-book.com/main/free_excerpt.htm

[gateley]

4. I know it's a bad name to bring up,

but Lou Dobbs wrote an excellent book, the title was War On The Middle Class.

Regardless of how looney he is in some areas, the book was right on.

[truedelphi]

5. As someone who has seen the wages for work

Go from $ 13.50 an hour (or more!) to "You are lucky to get a job, accept $ 7 an hour,"

I really think the world of much of what Lou Dobbs does.

Too many workers equals too low the wages. Good old supply and demand.

[truedelphi]

6. A k& R for thom Hartmann n/t

[petwlkr]

7. I try to never miss a chance to give Hartmann his due

I love this man and very rarely miss his radio show. Of all the liberal/progressive radio hosts that I have heard he is the most knowledgable and the most respectful of his on air guests. In addition to the books of his mentioned above I would highly recommend "What would Jefferson Do?"

[Mojambo]

8. Your second and third link are the same. n/t

[gateley]

9. I send thee to The Greatest -- We all would benefit from watching. nt

[ihavenobias]

10. K & R for Thom Hartmann and...

Thanks for posting this.

I actually won a signed copy of Thom's book Screwed and I loved it so I can't wait to watch all of these clips.

[pnorman]

11. Thanks for that! I'll Google-bookmark it for later viewing of all the other segments.

I'm about halfway through listening to the Audible.com version of that book, and it's really hard to hit the stop button. Some non-fiction books are presented better by text than by the spoken word. But I don't think that would apply to this book. I have his (paper) book, "Unequal Protection", by my bedside, for random rereading. I wish that book was also available at Audible.com, but it isn't so far. I see no "wild extravagance in having both versions available, when the book is truly worthwhile.

I too, greatly esteem his broadcasts, and he's the main reason that I maintain my XM subscription. In particular, I enjoy his "Friday with Bernie Sanders". I'm constantly amazed at how many "Right", including "FAR-right" people, appear on his program. He invariably treats them with courtesy. They in turn, are compelled to respond in a like manner. The result is that ALL walk away a little more informed, particularly the listener.

pnorman
Edited to mention that I also have Bugliosi's book (http://www.prosecutionofbush.com/excerpts.php) in Audible.com format. In my opinion, that book too does very well in that format; perhaps even better than the written version. That would probably be because he, being a crack courtroom practitioner, would well understand the POWER of the spoken word.

[pstans]

12. I learn so much from listening to Thom's show

[pnorman]

13. Here's an interesting comment on that book:

Democracy
*
*
*
Back to Hartmann. He talked about challenges to received wisdom, one being the culture's predominant view of nature (we confuse the breeding function of hierarchy within animal groups -- think alpha male/alpha female -- with a generally nonexistent social function -- leadership). Hartmann discussed studies done by Dr Larissa Conradt and biology professor Tim Roper (University of Sussex), studies of red deer populations. Red deer herds do have alpha males, but the research demonstrated that herd decisions were not made top-down by the alpha, but were made democratically. We're not talking voting booths, naturally: When three different watering holes were available to a grazing herd, the herd chose one over the other two based on this form of observable democracy -- at the point when 51% of the herd was facing in the direction of a certain watering hole, the herd moved together to the watering hole in that direction. The alpha male? He was somewhere in the back of the group. Similar studies in different animal groups have revealed similar results for democratic decision-making within animal populations. On a media page at the web site of the University of Sussex, we learn this about the research of Conradt and Roper:

Their model, reported in the journal Nature today (9 January <2003>), suggests that a social group in which all members contribute to a decision will be better equipped to survive than one where despotism reigns - even when the despot is the most experienced group member.

Despot seems a pretty strong word when associated with red deer, or queen bees, but when it comes to humans we don't have such a hard time seeing despotism in our leadership, or at least top-down leadership gone bad.

As for the current political environment in the US, Hartmann predicts that we'll have another stolen election in November and another one after that in 2008. He makes some strong cries for US citizens to wake up, smell the coffee, and show up at the polls despite the situation. We have to show up, he says, to help drive a wedge into the denial that many of our brothers and sisters are still living in about the Bushocracy. It's pretty easy, apparently, to ignore the realities of black-box voting irregularities, and Republican Party hijinx, but it might be harder to ignore a huge herd of visible voters whose presence continues to be underrepresented in the vote counts.

For lasting change, Hartmann says we have to take back democracy, starting by showing up and getting involved in the Democratic party at the local level.

http://www.goddessmystic.com/2006_10_01_archive.shtml

pnorman

[ghostsofgiants]

14. Capitalism is structured in such a way that the erosion of the middle class is inevitable.

I'm surprised more people don't realize this, but it's nothing new.

[DUlover2909]

15. part 3 is the same as part 2, where is part 3?

[Greyhound]

16. Kick, rec, & bookmarked for later. n/t

:kick: & R

[DailyGrind51]

17. Thank you!

I enjoy listening to Hartmann now that he was moved up to 2:00PM over WCPT.