Thom Hartmann: Corporations are the new kings - and their agenda is to radically remake America

[WhoIsNumberNone]

Run time: 04:47 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw0zYag85zA   Posted on YouTube: March 28, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 74   Posted on DU: March 28, 2011 By DU Member: WhoIsNumberNone Views on DU: 4273

 

[ooglymoogly]

1. Truth to tell.

and proof 501's make even the middle aged look good.

[silverweb]

2. Right to the heart of it.

This should be mandatory viewing.

Thank you once again, Thom.

[RKP5637]

3. How will this get changed in this plutocracy? Sadly excellent media like this

does not hit prime time over and over again like the MSM dribble we get. Even the supreme court fights the people (Citizens United). And many of the masses choose to be willfully ignorant.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Pretty soon it will be the US of A that everyone looks at in disgust...

All the rest of the world will have to be limiting the number of immigrants from here to there...

[RKP5637]

7. Quite true! Who would want an American as an immigrant. PS: Many already look

at Americans in disgust.

[sasquuatch55]

35. Many Americans look at Americans in disgust. n/t

n/t

[RKP5637]

36. Yeah, that's very very true. n/t

[reggie the dog]

39. France and the UK

they love our tv shows, fashion, movies, music and mcdonalds anyways. there is a popular song here in france with the woman singing in french accented english "U.S. boys are french girls dreams" and that seems pretty accurate to me ;)

[RKP5637]

40. That's great to hear!!!

:)

[cprise]

5. He's only partly right. The class warfare mentality

...of the wealthiest and most powerful are a big part of the picture.

That's why small corporations run by 'outsiders' often pay the full tax rate, while large powerful corporations may pay zero (or less).

The extent to which the corporate/finance class has entrained the political class to their own interests has more to do with how much tax these corporations pay.

Frankly, it would be much more fair to get rid of corporate income taxes (along with personhood): This would allow smaller corps to compete better and provide less incentive to merge whenever possible (helping to preserve competition). We could make up the difference with taxes on greenhouse gasses.

[Swampguana]

6. we the people

can't stop fighting

[Dirigo]

8. Business Attire

For Godsakes Thom ditch the 70's look with an ill fitting jacket and those blue jeans! You're to brilliant and to much of an asset to diminish yourself by dressing so haphazardly. Get your wife to get you a nice pair of slacks for Fathers Day and a new sports jacket. You'll look better and more people will want to watch, listen and absorb more of what you have to say which merits everyones attention.

You're not on the radio when you're on YouTube!

Best wishes,

[reggie the dog]

9. please, he could say the same thing in a tie dye and shorts

and it would still be accurate. Do you really need to see someone dressed like a rich person in order to trust them? He looks like an ordinary member of the american white collar class already with his sportjacket.

Many people do not trust people in suits at all.

I get the respect of university students i teach and i often wear earth tone clothing made in hemp and never wear a suit or jacket and often wear jeans. I really do not think that most people watching things on youtube are looking for a polished professional look anyway.

[drokhole]

10. You're a professor and your avatar is a pot leaf?!

I wish I could've been one of your students. (oh, and well put!)

[reggie the dog]

24. lots of TA's and professors do smoke

they just never ever let their students know, but on the net we are sort of in cognito enough that we can have a leaf avatar...

[Populist_Prole]

13. Down with suits!!

Let us forever de-link formal clothing from pithiness of a message.

I think of "suit" and I think of empty headed corporate robot airhead.

Decades ago people wore suits to baseball games. Never went out without a fedora hat on. Those days are gone. Good.

George Will recently ranted about the fact jeans were worn so much today instead of slacks. That's good enough reason to dress down IMO.

I told my family: If they try to bury me in a tie and pants with pleats or creases: I'll wake up from the dead just to kick their asses.

[Enthusiast]

29. Nice post!

I'm in 100% agreement, here in my sweats, socks with sandals and a sweatshirt. :hi:

[kag]

31. Jammies here!

Haven't changed yet, but when I do it will be into sweats and a t-shirt. And I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person. (At least I know the difference between to, too and two.)

[Enthusiast]

37. You wouldn't qualify as a Teabagger.

:rofl: In the Teabagger world there is only one to.

[Dirigo]

16. Business Attire

Reggie, I am truly a proud liberal democrat and have been all my life. I respect everyone and have a high level of tolerance. I do have this one quirk that one must look professional when in the public eye. I guess its something I learned in the US Navy where I always took great pride in my uniform and appearance. Then as a state trooper I kept up the military bearing and conscieniously looked professional. It has served me well in a career with a Fortune 500. I have a problem with police officers who appear slovenly and I also have the same opinion of teachers/professors who present themselves slovenly. It detracts from their credibility whether they know it or not or whether they care of not. My teachers in the 1950s and 60s always looked professional and I never saw anything else but professionally attired teachers. Therefore, I am reticent in letting the standard get dilluted because someone thinks its appealing or its OK to look poor and "not rich". Thom in the cited video continues to look ridiculous and I for one think he's fantastic, brilliant and deserving of a prominent place in political thinking.

I don't believe I am alone with my thoughts. I have complained to the president of a state police chiefs organization about officers looking more like Table Talk Pie route salesmen than professional police officers and I will continue to help those who don't know or see their appearance as a distraction.

I sure hope you are not one of those who thinks its OK to wear God Awful denim jeans to school and presenting yourself as a professional instructor. You owe it to yourself and your family to squeeze the most out of your position as humanly possible. If an employee on a picket line protesting looks no better and makes the same appearance he makes at work then I think the mountain he has to climb may be too high and he'll fail to win the day.

[reggie the dog]

20. I wear hemp denim jeans, and earth tone hemp sweaters and shirts

which have small pot leaves on the tag/logo of the companies braintree hemp, hempys, and ecolution. i wear this kind of clothing when i teach at the jr. high school, the high school and the university i teach at and have never had a problem with it. the kids often knew about pot but not about hemp so more than once the little tag has gotten a question and then an answer about how hemp is legal in France and that my clothing is made out of that legal product. If people want teachers to look "professional" then they should pay us what most people with similar degrees earn. i honestly cannot afford suits with the salaries they pay to teach these days be it my university job or my middle/high school job.

I think that we have a generational difference, as well as your history in jobs with uniforms. I never had to wear a navy uniform whereas you not only had to but took great pride in doing so. you also took pride in wearing your police uniform which included slacks. (had i been a cop i would have loved to have been an undercover busting up corporate fraud and the like so i would have indeed worn suits for that job, but alas cannabis is illegal so i commit one crime and cannot be a cop because of that though i would have loved to because i was one of those nerds at school who hated when people cheated off of him and loved to help the teacher enforce the rules against cheating and the like)

you also grew up in the 50's whereas i grew up in the post hippie liberated 80's in which many, nearly all indeed, of my male teacher role models wore jeans and khakis and very rarely wore slacks. If you cannot see that people in generations coming after yours simply have a different style then it is your loss. notice that i have also worked on my own prejudice against people in suits. i used to consider "suits" my enemy until i came to grips with the idea that people dress how they are comfortable and some people like wearing suits, slacks and dress shirts. I go for the dress shirt (albeit in hemp)or a sweater (not sweatshirt) and either jeans, cargo pants, or khakis all made in hemp. i have never worn a tie to work and did not even wear one at my wedding but i think it is perfectly fine that other collegues wear suits to teach (at the university i see this, not at the jr high or high school). indeed the uni i teach at is a law school and the lawyers who come in to teach are used to having to "look the look" when they go into court.

[HankyDubs]

21. you should probably

be less shallow.

[HankyDubs]

22. and really

this was your contribution here? This was the momentous insight you had after watching this? Denim? Honestly?!?!

For fucks sake!

[Dirigo]

27. Nope!

Thoms insights are important! To important to be distracted by slovenly attire. That is only an afterthought. We have a responsibility to help those who are the champions among us and Thom is one of those. Shape up or forever be seen and thought of as some neardowell. Thom is more deserving of the publics interest and he can get more by relating more to the general public at large and appearance HELPS in that effort.

Would you buy a used car from someone slovenly dressed? Would you want your physician to look that way? It may be OK on the battlefield but not in the arena of ideas!

Sorry old timer, shape up for FUCKS SAKE!

[reggie the dog]

32. for what its worth i buy my weed from slovenly looking people

i bought my last 2 cars online the last one we asked for a test drive at a local garage affiliated with a dealership so the guy who actually "sold" the car and explained about it was a mechanic wearing his worker blues.

How is the general public turned off by jeans when most of the general public wears jeans and buys them for their kids too?

[peacetalksforall]

34. I think he should dress nicely casual. We should only have to take one second

to look at his clothes and go back to listening.

Instead, I studied what he was wearing. It was too jarring.

But, I've seen the female tv hosts with incredibly together faces, hair-dos, clothing with horrible shoes on - big running clunkers and worse. So we know that the aim is the upper torso, but this teacher-visual thing calls for something else.

His message is coordinated. I think his clothes should be also, but not uptight white shirt, ties. Clothes that are color and fabric coordinated that flow (as in words).

He is not doing it right if we are all talking about it like this.

I'm now thinking about Paula Jones - one of the big think tanks that was active in the Bill Clinton attempt to impeach him sponsored her for a makeover and a personal, full time coach for speaking, dressing. She ended up being nearly 100% groomed. We laughed because of the transition in the middle of her spotlight time. Who knows if anyone believed her more or less.

People used to go to church all dressed up - most don't do it anymore. I love to see southern Baptists all dressed up. You know they mean it for their God as well as tradition. Hooray!

But non-mainstream tv should not have to be suit and tie.

Nicely, flowingly coordinated gets my vote.

As long as we're going this far - I liked his hair before - kinda wild. Not so tightly combed.

[vanbean]

41. I think your cop years warped your viewpoint. There is absolutely nothing wrong with his attire.

I would be turned off he wore a suit.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

33. So you'd take Bill O'Reilly more seriously than Thom Hartmann?

Bill-o always wears a suit & tie on his show, so he must know better- There's some form over substance for ya!

[Enthusiast]

28. Thank you. I agree. nt

[dotymed]

25. Thom, to me you look great.

I am a 50 year old (straight) guy. My daughter has "made me over" for certain events. If it helps do it. I think it is shallow, but so are many of our young people.....thanks as always.

[Donnachaidh]

30. wow -- shallow much?

That's the problem with this country -- more concerned about *looking* like everyone else.

[reggie the dog]

38. Maybe that is why i get women so much easier in France than

in Chicago. My tie dye hippie thing seams to wow the ladies here in France and it seems to drive them away in Chicago. perhaps french girls dont look at mens watches before agreeing to talk to them like many women in the usa do? hell i had an american girl dump me in college when i chose to go to grad school to teach instead of going to law school to be a tax attorney.

[democracy1st]

11. K & R, K & R!

[drokhole]

12. I've thought as much for awhile now...

...except in regards to the obscenely wealthy individuals themselves. Especially with the slow repeal of the estate tax, meaning these "kings" can pass their entire fortune on to their "heirs."

[ErikJ]

14. Sorry Ben.

AT THE CLOSE OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Constitution was bringing into existence. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Sorry Ben.

[Marblehead]

15. Thank You Thom

I have been listening to him for years and wish more people could

[Courtesy Flush]

17. Someone explain the personhood thing to me.

People pay taxes. So why does personhood get them out of paying them? It sure never exempted me.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

18. Some persons are more equal than others.

[Confusious]

19. You have to look at it in a roundabout way

Personhood = right to free speech = "Giving money to politicians is free speech" ( bullshit ) = politicians cut taxes on corps, because that's what they want, and that's what they paid for.

[dotymed]

23. Of Course, Most of us know this implicitly,

yet we do not(can not) enforce it.
Our "proprietary voting system" is a huge obstacle and SHOULD be scrapped immediately.
Our SCOTUS (mainly 3 POLITICAL members who have ruined our country as much as any other governmental branch) should be impeached. We have the evidence to (at the very least) start a strong trial against them.
Our politicians , most of whom do not represent the majority of their constituents, usually only a tiny minority (corporate) get any patronage.
our President and his cabinet are a "WALL STREET GOVERNMENT" just as is our Congress, etc...
Please help me Thom, do you see any way except a mass peaceful "sit in" to redress these grievances?
Actually, these are just the tip of the iceberg, but a great start.
Thom, what is your Opinion as to how, WE can retake our government, For and By the People?

[Enthusiast]

26. It really is that simple.

There are forces amassed against us that are nearly unimaginable in size and scope. There remains only a meager handful of politicians that have not traded our interests for corporate favoritism. This betrayal is right in our face. The point is, we face a crisis. This crisis will not be corrected by action in Libya.

This is an excellent little video segment because it explains our big problem in simple terms.