Thom Hartmann: Democracy is hanging by a thread because of plutocrats and their paid ass-kissers

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 10:27 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_x34FbG9xU   Posted on YouTube: April 12, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 171   Posted on DU: April 12, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 2838

 
The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[Plucketeer]

1. As many Recs

as US industry barons got billions in bonuses. :grr:

[Jefferson23]

2. How Unequal Are We?

Inequality Index


· Percentage of U.S. total income in 1976 that went to the top 1% of American households: 8.9.
· Percentage in 2007: 23.5.
· Only other year since 1913 that the top 1 percent’s share was that high: 1928.
· Combined net worth of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans in 2007: $1.5 trillion.
· Combined net worth of the poorest 50% of American households: $1.6 trillion.
· U.S. minimum wage, per hour: $7.25.
· Hourly pay of Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, for an 80-hour week: $27,034.74.
· Average hourly wage in 1972, adjusted for inflation: $20.06.
· In 2008: $18.52.

in full: http://extremeinequality.org/?page_id=8

[DeSwiss]

3. K&R n/t

[midnight]

4. 400 families in America have never had it so good, and the rest of us

have to pay for it... We need economic justice...

[Mosaic]

5. There is no true economic justice

Without socialism, democratic of course. They hate what is good. Why? Because they are evil.

[chervilant]

17. AND,

greedy! Some of them (Cheney, et al), might even be considered sociopaths.

[democracy1st]

6. K & R

[SkyDaddy7]

7. I bet they do not air this in Russia! LOL!

or someone might get a dinner that makes them glow!

[Enthusiast]

8. Thom is fantastic.

The problem is the entire remaining media. It's "Too much spending!" all day long on every channel. "We have to cut cut cut!" All day long on every channel. Very few alternatives are discussed and tax increases are never seriously considered.

This is the exact reason so many of us are so fucking disappointed in Obama. We knew those Bush tax cuts had to end, we knew it. No matter what, extending those tax cuts should have been a line in the sand. No matter what else happened the tax cuts had to end or we were fucked. The GOP deficit hawks could not have joined with their media allies in this poison rhetoric without the extension of those damn Bush tax cuts. So, because Obama CAVED all we hear now is deficit deficit deficit. I think this was the plan all along.

[MedicalAdmin]

9. Thomas is wrong about this one.

Democracy is not hanging by a thread. It's alive and well, just not in the USA.

USA = democracy is no more true than the world series is a world series or the stupor bowl is super. Hyperbole, no?

[dotymed]

13. You are correct. go to Germany, many other

European and even Latin American countries. They all have Democracy and most of the thriving nations have a Socialist Democracy. Workers own a major stake in their factories, make decisions and their compensation is voted on. That is really a Democracy. In America, our votes are not even verified by a receipt. We have become a Fascist nation. All of the other nations realize this.

[MedicalAdmin]

19. And yet - I so wish I was wrong. I really do.

I am hopeful but not very ... and that is a true pity. Noam Chomsky in the late 1990's predicted that the USA would become the greatest threat to democracy in the world in this century. Are we seeing that prediction come true?

I think there is a case to be made that NC was right.

[tsuki]

10. Livestream is now on Roku with RT. nt

[PopeRatzo]

11. Too late

I'm surprised Thom is this optimistic. I think the "thread" that democracy has been hanging by broke some years ago. Probably for good in 2000.

I'm starting to think that the only solution is to get ready to hunker down or move away. It's not going to get better in the lifetime of anyone reading this, I don't think. There are more of them than there are of us and they are much stronger, wealthier. Look at Wisconsin. Even if you figure there were 7000, 10000, 50000 stolen votes. There were still nearly 700,000 people who voted for Prosser. On the Progressives best day with the wind at their backs and the conditions perfect they couldn't defeat a guy who calls women "bitch" and admits to being a crooked judge "complimenting" the governor.

I've been looking at the past decade and I'm trying to find a big win for Progressives (among whom I count myself). I don't see it.

I think we're about done, folks.

[L0oniX]

18. Welcome to DU.

[realFedUp]

12. There isn't that much time left to get our acts together

The time is now and feeling late, to right things in this
country and the world. Obama needs to be that
audacious leader who so many believed in. He may
be a one-timer, whatever he does, so he might
as well do as much as he can with the powers he has.

[Wednesdays]

14. I had to do a double-take at the headline

At first, it sounded like it was the plutocrats who were the last bastions of democracy!
:crazy:

[florida08]

15. absolutely

They've been chipping away at our Constitution for almost 80 years,beginning with Smedley Butler's testimony about the Business Plot to overthrow FDR. Today we have a group called ALEC working with our legislature to marginalize the middle-class and promote corporate hierarchy. As Grover Norquist stated "to shrink government down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub." We're pretty damn close to it now.




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/alec-states-unions_b_832428.html

[davidthegnome]

16. Thanks for posting

Thom is awesome, as always. K & R.