America is now the most unequal society in the developed world. Our billionaires are the richest, and our poor people are the poorest of any functioning democracy on Earth…
This is not sustainable. My wife and I both work full-time, raised three daughters, who are now college graduates, and cost burdened with school debt and barely make it. my parents are in an assisted living that is draining their assets so there will not be anything left for the family. The cost of housing, medical care, and education is destroying the middle-class.
You're one of the lucky ones then. Children are through college, parents cared for. It only takes one unexpected and unavoidable catastrophe to turn the whole apple cart over. My generous middle class father died young.
Thanks Billy. I believe that the most basic characteristics of liberals is the ability to care about the less fortunate and the lack of envy for the more fortunate. We have work to do now.
Don't agree! The whole point of Thom's column is that you are a legitimate victim of this corruption, too! I had near-free tuition at UC Berkeley before the history Thom relates! So me, I can say I was lucky, but you have a RIGHT to be mad!
I reject your "settling-for" disrespect for the point being what was supposed to be The American Dream! Billy was supposed to have hopes to lay a foundation for his family to do better! You are falling into the class resentment trap of the victims calling the victims "lucky!"
My three daughters say they probably will never be able to buy a house, nor if they get married, will they afford to have children. So the “family values” of the Republican Party have actually destroyed the family.
If I were targeting change, I'd publish Thom and Robert extensively throughout the red states that have the most income inequality. Offer Thom's article free to every media outlet in those states.
Watching U.S. television ads with an open mind (as though you were an anthropologist studying an unknown civilization or just landed in a flying saucer) is definitely a different experience then just sitting there absorbing the words.
Personally I like the singing, dancing lady who is excited to have diabetes and then educate her physician about the wonderful new drug she heard about. But then selling prescription pharmaceutical products to patients is a huge business which, when you think about it, really makes no sense. (Of course neither do most political ads, with their endless repetitions of innuendo and fear, something we can look forward to for the next 9 months.)
And to measure how out of whack inequality has become there's the Gini coefficient. Wikipedia explains this well by saying, "A Gini coefficient of 0 reflects perfect equality, where all income or wealth values are the same, while a Gini coefficient of 1 (or 100%) reflects maximal inequality among values, a situation where a single individual has all the income while all others have none." Not surprisingly in the U.S. this has been getting worse over time. The World Bank gave us a number of 0.346 in 1979 and 0.398 in 2020 (some sources put it as high as 0.42 today).
Just for some comparisons, South Africa has the highest number at 0.63, Colombia is at 0.51, Iceland is 0.26 and Norway is at 0.23. We have a long way to go.
This is why I am mainly living in the EU. I do not want to normalize that our country does not take care of us. This is what excited me about Biden, because he is the first president to try to dismantle what Reagan created. It takes so little effort to destroy, and so much to rebuild. Putin knows all about this, as he uses massive destruction to destroy the Syrian and Ukrainian peoples, and also the Chechens. Trump knows all about destruction too, and was trying to carry on what Reagan began. One has to get away from the USA to really understand what things are and what they could be.
Beautiful post. My only quibble would be, one doesn't have to get away from the USA, just one has to have some background to be open to evidence as to what could be. Wait! that would be coming across Thom Hartmann input! I think you assign too much sophistication to Trump. My take is, "collateral damage" is irrelevant to him; if somebody notices, he will know it was somebody else's fault, anyway. Although yesterday, come to think of it, he did portray himself as the (Quisling?) destroyer of a treaty ally who "didn't pay." Sometimes words fail for the projection/ obliviousness when this is from a guy notorious for not paying his workers. But his worshippers don't know that.....
His worshippers do not know in the way of knowledge. That is to understand. They may know in having heard about these facts, but they do not register in their brains in any meaningful way. Sort of in one ear, and out the other. What I meant by living elsewhere you understand that things can be different, is that living in Germany I have examples of things I did not know about from living in the USA. In Germany I am required to have insurances that don't even exist in the USA, and it is why Germans, who make for the most part less than Americans, can still live a fairly safe life. People generally have millions of dollars of personal liability insurance. A friend of mine's first grader was playing at school and threw a rock at a tree and then it bounced off the tree onto a car, and broke a window. His insurance paid the 450€ to replace it. Then many have legal insurance, so if one is to use a lawyer, it is covered. Well not exactly. There is a set rate for legal fees, and some firms charge above that. You would have to pay their additional fees. Everyone is legally required to have health insurance, which covers medical, dental and vision, and long term care insurance. If you do not have a private insurance you can be part of the national health and long term disability insurances. People here have work insurance. If you get burned out, and your doctor writes a note you get paid by insurance for your time off, which from what I can tell usually includes a spa. Also, if you can't work for mental health reasons, it would cover you. People who own guns are required here to have 1.1 Mil € liability insurance for that. There are multiple kinds of house insurances. If you are building or remodeling you might have 2-3 kinds of liability insurances. All of these insurances are affordable. My daughter is studying in Berlin. Her 312 € semester fee means that her ID card is also a semester ticket on all transportations, and now with a 14€ additional fee turns into a Germany wide ticket where she can use regional trains and all public transport. In Vienna, during the entire summer break children 15 and under ride all public transportation free. In Germany all 18 year olds get a 200€ ticket that gets them into skating rinks, movies, museums, amusement parks, etc... for free until they use it up. In University the semester fee covers all learning materials too, and the student ID gets one discounts in many places. In Germany parents get 292 € a month for each child instead of a tax credit. That is what I mean by living elsewhere. These are not things one figures out by being a tourist to a place but are structural differences that exist that make life easier, and more safe for people, that you would have no idea about if you just lived in the USA.
That is true. Everyone I know here, be they blue or white collar is going on family vacations every school break to some other place. Most of my friends here are professionals, but only a few are academics like my friends in Chicago. My friend's daughter is in Berlin for 6 weeks working in a refugee center for women refugees. She was partnering one-on-one to help the women with their English. Then, last week, Berlin had school vacation, where one earner families that I know of went on skiing vacations with the whole family. The daughter meantime took over teaching for 2 English teachers at the refugee help center as they went on vacation with their families. Contractors and their workers too go on vacations. Parental leave at the birth of a child can be accessed by both parents. For 3 years you can take off, and then return to your job. You get paid for some of it, but you have job insurance which kicks in then too. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Labour/Labour-Market/Quality-Employment/Dimension3/3_9_PersonsParentalLeave.html#:~:text=Parents%20have%20a%20right%20to,be%20taken%20by%20one%20parent.
A friend who is a therapist took off 3 years with her first, and 3 with her second because he was born 2 years after his sister. So, she had off 5 years. They are now both in university, so that was a while ago. Still, it takes the stress off. I see mom's and sometimes both parents with their young children in cafes, on the streetcars and buses, and everywhere. There is also a child care facility next door to me, where most of the children are 3-5. Still, there is a lot that relieves the stress of life. Child care at this age is supposed to be free for the 3-6 year olds. If you pay a fee, like a friend of mine does, which is 70€ a week per child, that covers the excellent quality food that they are eating. There is also a move to make school lunches universally free, like they do in some other countries. I heard that Berlin was trying a pilot program on this.
Of course, and a lot of this goes back to Nixon and his Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz. They made deals to add corn syrup to lots of foods, thereby unleashing all sorts of sicknesses on the American consumer.
Talking of Ag secretaries. Biden Skipped over Martha Fudge, a black woman with congressional experience and an advocate for small family farmers, , especially black farmers, and made Tom Vilsack, a former lobbyist for agribusiness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Fudge, for Sec AG. He appointed Martha to the token office of HUD, an office previously occupied by the incompetent Ben Carson, another token appointee.
Regardless of whether it is Republican or Democrat, tokenism is us, is what rules in cabinet appointments, be ethnic, sexual identity or the latest flavor..
Presidents don't really pick their staff and cabinet members, that requires god level omniscience, I wish to know how does the vetting and choosing.
Even the would be orange emperor doesn't have that level of knowledge, and will have to rely on someone or someones, and I would like to know who has his ear.
Thom, For thé past two weeks, I’ve been ill with my first infection of Covid. Today, I tested negative.
When I tired of reading, I revisited watching the now famous television series BREAKING BAD shown during the mid-2000s. What I had not recalled but realized immediately, is that the premise of what sent an career high school chemistry teacher into life of crime and a murderous quest for survival at all costs was saving his family from financial bankruptcy because of the costs of his oncology drugs and surgery for his cancer care. Then, his DEA agent brother-in-laws’ medical rehab far exceeded the federal network limits of the doctor’s skill levels that he required to regain mobility. So, his criminal brother-in-law paid the cost of his pursuer’s rehabilitation.
Nothing has changed. The conservatives want to privatize Medicare and Medicaid by luring naive seniors into buying Medical Advantage private medical coverage that puts them the mercy of insurers who promise them more benefits and then deny them that coverage. It is three card monte bait and switch perfected by the likes of Rick Scott and other billionaire thieves who got rich stealing from their policy holders and were protected by attorneys. They now are hiding in the Sunshine State.
Rewatch Brian Cranston in his award winning performance in BREAKING BAD. No one survives the greed of corporate corruption.
Thanks for the synopsis! To the extent that it apparently had an audience, maybe somebody was thinking about something relevant to personal experience, or maybe not only them......
"In the next commercial break, actor Jeff Bridges popped up on my TV screen pitching for a charity called No Kid Hungry. Jeff is a brilliant actor and a great guy, and No Kid Hungry is a highly rated charity, but remind me why we have hungry children in the wealthiest nation on Earth"?
I didn't watch the super bowl so I will assume the ad did not mention the states that refused federal dollars to feed hungry children during summer, or the cuts to the child tax credit, or the states who refused to accept or expand Medicaid leaving Americans of all ages without any healthcare options. The list of billionaire focused atrocities against Americans goes on and on and on with no end in sight.
America can no longer call itself the "greatest country on earth" as long as people of all ages are unhoused, go to bed hungry, have little to no medical coverage and seniors take out reverse mortgages or return to work to be able to pay their medical bills.
It’s very simple the rich get richer, the middle class struggles and pays the taxes and the poor get the blow back and end up on the streets. I grew up in a past war economy that allowed for my father to have some upward mobility so we had Two cars, a decent house, a vacation once a year, and both myself and my brother earned a college education. My parents had none of these things before. Fast forward to me. I am from a Southern state, unmarried female- one down-Jewish born-2 down-gingered as white-actually Jew is a race as well as a religion-secular, intellectual Ph.D by the upwardly mobile American dream illusion I should be in good economic shape. Now realities not roseate illusions. Graduated with some debt, got a job back home in Miami at a start up university at an absurd salary, became involved in women’s liberation after a Cuban abortion because abortion was illegal and at 19 my first sexual experience hit the jackpot and I was not ready for a child. A typical young woman’s trajectory in the 1960s. Several of my friends died from coat hanger abortions. We marched for civil rights, against nukes, for childcare, against the Vietnam war and so on. I founded some of the first women and art initiatives in the state paid a price for it and managed to get another mediocre job at a college in South Carolina where I was tenured. I earned a Smithsonian and I was discriminated against at my university when it came to gaining leave for my research so I decided to leave. I moved back to NYC where I had gone to school and managed to cobble together enough gig work to survive. I published several books hoping to get a job. But I was not a good enough ass kisser and no Marxist. So I took a certificate in appraisals. Now after 8 decades the sum total of the American Dream. I am as poor as a church mouse, can barely afford my medical expense on a minuscule SS because of being underpaid all the years I’ve worked like all second class citizens who are women. And like all working class Americans my SS is double taxed.
I relate this saga to you only to reiterate Thom’s points about how really ripped off by the failures of American government to give us the bang for our hard earned bucks we pay into taxes. When Dumpf says the system is rigged he is simply fingering the problem that Thom hits on-rigged by billionaires, CEO shills, political candidates who lie, and a criminal class of operators that have brought us to where we are today. Add to this that many voters have given up because of gerrymandering, and other tactics that negate any push back on the part of we the people. The only hope we have is an overwhelming turnout of Democratic and independent voters with a few disgusted centrist republicans to keep what’s left of a reformist democracy
Hi there, fellow typical young woman's trajectory of the 1960s. I hit the jackpot when I was raped at 17. Then my generous middle class father died of the wounds he got in Normandy on D-Day. Lucky for me my mother was working, college was cheap then and close to home, so off I went, baby and all. One of my last conversations with my Dad was about why he would never vote for a Republican. "....because I don't want to live in Calcutta."
I assume that when your Dad uttered those words, *never life in Calcutta) it was when the two parties were, culturally, the opposite of what they are now. The Democrats in the 1960's were a party of southern racists and blue collar workers, and Republicans were a party of billionaires, and what we would consider " cultural liberals".
That all changed when a Democratic President (LBJ) signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. The racists registered as Republicans, save for a few Dixiecrats, that safely enjoyed support of their base.
As a Goldwater conservative (no longer am) I remember the America will be Calcutta charge, along with talk of mud people. It was a verbal manifesto of the Aryan Nations.
When did your father die. My Dad was the adjutant for the 1st JASCO in the Pacific, then the 1st Sgt of Easy Company 2/7th 1st MarDiv in Korea, where he was wounded severely by a 61 mm Chicom mortar, he managed to live another 11 years.
In case anyone questions how an officer in WWII was an NCO in Korea.
There was a reduction in force after the war, dad was a Warrant officer in the Pacific, went to Platoon Leaders Class (officers training) in preparation for the invasion of Japan, was RIFed (reduction in force) to highest Permanent rank which was E-7, and assigned as cadre fro the 1st Division which had been demoblized to reserve status, with the outbreak of the Korean war., it was reactivated, Dad was still on active duty, with combat experience and placed as Cadre for Easy Company.
Dad was New Deal Democrat and 1st lieutenant on a destroyer in the Atlantic, WW2. He believed that people should be taxed what they could afford to create a solid safety net and a ladder to the middle class. He was also a strong supporter of equal rights. For that reason we all loathed Goldwater. And Wallace. Marched with MLK. Dixiecrats were way different.
An aside, who knows, your Dad might have kept my husband alive in the Pacific.
A JASCO was an acronym for Joint Assault Signal Company, their mission was to provide liason between ground troops, air craft and naval gun fire in support of ground troops on the islands. Dad was assigned 4th Marine Division, 5th Amphibious Corps that assaulted and captured Roi Namur (two co located Islands) Saipan and Tinian.
JASCO is the parent of ANGLICO's, Air Naval Ground Liaison Companies.
Saipan scarred him because he witnessed women and children leaping from cliffs.
Dad hated, absoluttely hate Gen MacArthur and loved Truman for firing MacArthur, Dad survived the advance to the rear of the Inchon Reservoir, which only happened because of MacArthurs bright idea of taking the fight to China.
MacArthur was an asshole, an arrogant, narcissistic self aggrandizing asshole, he would fit perfectly with Trump.
There were two plans for ending the war in the Pacific, Admiral Nimitz was island hopping, by passing islands that would starve without supplies from Japan, but MacArthur wanted to be able to grandstand about returning to the Philippines and petitioned (politicked) for his plan of a ground assault, starting with the Philippines. When he ran off from the Philippines when the Japanese invaded he proclaimed "I shall return".
MacArthur was also the officer in charge of attacking and breaking up in the Bonus Ar,my in DC.
The government had offered men bonuses to enlist for WWI, but reneged on that offer, and veterans gathered in DC to demand that the government redeem their pledge
All true and accurate. My husband was one of those ground troops on Guadalcanal, a la Henderson Field, etc bloody etc. Light a candle for your dad and tell him thanks.
I am a student of the war in the Pacific, Henderson field was indeed bloody. The Joint
Assault Signal Companies were created after the experience of Guadalcanal.
My Dad passed on May 1962, two months shy of retiring.l He got through WWII without a scratch, but wounded three times in Korea, the third he caught a ChiCom 61mm between the legs, survived that but the stress took a toll on his heart and he died in open heart surgery at Camp Pendleton, CA
One exception Takeway, Jew is not a race, nor is it a religion, it is an ethnicity based on tradition.
There are black Jews, (Ethiopians), European Jews, Ashkenazim, Sephardim. my great grandmother was born of a Sepharidic mother and a Catholic Father. I am not a Jew, not by the Talmud, not by the Israeli Law of Return and not by upbringing.
By Rabbinical law, and the Israeli Law of Return, one has to have been born of a Jewish mother to be a Jew. Were you?
Isn't there a "Cohen" gene that has actually been identified? Yeah it's Wiki'd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron So that's ethnicity based on DNA. So outsiders can be pinpointed, like Elizabeth Warren, who actually did have kinship, vs my husband, who hailed from OK, but had family tradition and LOOKED the part, not a trace! Incidentally, not me Jewish either.
My sister’s next door neighbors up in Maine just moved back to their home country of Russia. They may have had other reasons (!), but what they told my sister was that they couldn’t live with how difficult it was to get health care in America. A peripheral issue: the part time and gig economy because small businesses can’t take on the health care cost of full timers. Our local Village Board could only take on a part time bus driver instead of the full time one they needed because the health care cost was prohibitive. Beyond absurd!
Stories abound. The ambitious young man and his crew took out a large about-to-fall tree. He explained he would love to take his small business full-time and quit his job at the Frito Factory, but he couldn't afford the health insurance.
Sorry, dear Thom, but the CDC states that we have 37% unintended/unwanted children, and they are very, very expensive. We live on a massively overpopulated planet with millions of migrants escaping less glamorous nations, where they weren't wanted. Yes, trust me, a retired physician, our healthcare "industry" is an abomination and even at its best only extends our often miserable lives, when a quiet painless death might well be more desirable. Basic problem we choose not to face is massive human overpopulation: 3,000 times more of us than our ancestral migratory Hunter-Gatherers, now suffering through the climate collapse our numbers and overconsumption have brought to our door step. Dig deeper. Find the truth. Thank you for your fine work!
Points to ponder. But . . . . "Overconsumption" is not the issue for migrants. Not infrequently, "extraction" of labor and minerals from those countries by western corporations have created abysmal living conditions.
The religions being opposed to rational thinking and birth control, is what causes most of the suffering in those third world Nations. The left has supported environmentalism for the last 60 years. The right took down the solar panels from the White House and have pushed this into several wars for oil and no mileage standard on vehicles.
So, you would prefer the sickness and suffering that I go through at 79, with Long COVID and prostate cancer, as well as all the ever increasing stresses of constant change in the most economically imbalanced society in history, driven by the lowest forms of greed and hatred? I hang around solely for the higher purpose of saving humanity and the biosphere, but ever less so for the former and more so for the latter. I assure you, as a retired physician, i am fully aware of "Nature's way" and we are not on it.
Thanks to the plutocrats, our only good is money, our only virtue greed. Poor white people in particular have been fooled into believing they too can become billionaires with hard work and just a little luck. At this juncture, it may take the impoverishment of enough people that a critical mass decides anything is better, and rise up against their oppressors. They may fail, and millions will die, but it may be necessary to try. Because our institutions are not functional for the vast majority of us. I cannot accept a new feudalism for my grandson. Better he should die and take a few plutocrats with him. That I have lived to come to this position is tragic and painful. I curse the day my earliest ancestors came here in the late 1600’s. I have become ashamed to call myself a citizen of the United States. And I fully expect that November will bring total disaster to us, when the Orange Excremental seizes power again with his small hands and tiny reptile brain.
I share ur sentiments in last paragraph. Keep fighting and talk to those who will listen. I've gotten over a dozen folks to vote for Biden. They're all telling their families and friends. We can do this. And if we fail, I know I'll proudly tell the younger gens how I fought back until the end.
What, neoliberalism hasn't created the best of all possible worlds? Don't we owe unfettered capitalism great gratitude for the creature comforts and security we all have? Were it not for the oligarchs/billionaires, who would have a job? Sarcasm of course.
Thom's essay is powerful and spot on. Where's the wide outrage! The shame that should drive us to action. True patriots would be raising voices and taking nonviolent actions to correct these stains on American aspirations.
From another post I just made: The "welfare queens" or "kings" are the unspeakably rich. Yes, persons who work hard, take risks, sacrifice, develop products that improve out well being, demonstrate exceptional management skills, etc., do deserve ample compensation. They've EARNED IT. (Read: Limitarianism by Ingrid Robeyns, for example.) But beyond a certain point, the vast wealth simply is a massive market failure, as I think Adam Smith would agree.
The externalities created by market failures are a heavy tax on the majority of us by passing those costs on to our own backs. Yet most of us direct our frustrations elsewhere.
These distortions of market economics should be heavily taxed and invested in or returned to those whose contributions are the basis for the real economy and to help others who need the safety net for simple human decency and the benefits to all.
BTW, I just read Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson. I highly recommend it for her insights into why our country is as it is. I only wish I had read it sooner. Another great book of insight: "Fluke," by Brian Klass.
Many decades ago when I was young and hopeful I was offended by Plato's Republic. Now I concede, he was right about democracy. The tyrants will not allow an educated informed electorate that votes.
Thanks. I made a note to check the library or buy those books. Richard Wolff had a good episode explaining "externalities" and how market failures hurt us on his Democracy at Work show about a month ago.
Perhaps the most damning treatise you have authored Mr. Hartmann. I can relate to many of the stark, and pathetic, realities you mention...and some you did not/cannot.
However, of the litany of realities your piece explicates this one is what was most painful for me, as a father and as a member of the human family. It, with brutal precision tells the tale that I continue to tell (though it does nothing for my popularity) and that is that the United States is a vicious nation. Some of us are more aware of this than others; and there will be a price to pay.
“America’s hunger crisis is not due to a lack of food production or scarcity in food supply. Rather, hunger and food insecurity in the United States are symptoms of policy choices and an economic system that prioritizes the needs of corporations and the wealthy over those of the general population.”
Yet, grocery stores throughout the nation have erected fences and locked dumpster bins so that the hungry, the destitute and the homeless cannot get the perfectly edible, and often fresh, food that they throw away by the thousands of tons every, single day.
Rohn: A nation can not be vicious, nor benevolent. Those qualities are those of the people who pull the levers of power. It was greedy men who destroyed the original inhabitants and their food supply, the bison.
There is an evil force that dictates the policies and thus behavior of the nation. That evil force is the reigning elite, and they war amongst themselves for primacy.
Racism is an evil, but it is only a subset of a greater evil, and Bernie put his finger on it,: Classism.
The elite, those who funded people like Marx as The League of Just Men, and who today fund every thing from the KKK to Moms for Liberty, can only maintain their position of exclusivity, and primacy only by keeping us plebes, us proles, at each others throats.
BTW, where I live, a small county sustained by tourists and well to do retirees, our sole supermarket as such, takes all unsold food, except expired food for legal reasons, to the local Food Bank which is across the street from the supermarket.
Food banks, for legal reasons, cannot accept foods that are past their sell by dates. I can imagine that, because we live in a litigious society, that grocery stores lock their dumpsters because they are afraid of law suits.
I blame our greedy litigious society and ambulance chasing attorney's.
The closer the service is to the public they more responsive and socially conscious they are.
Kroger and Albertson's are far removed from the public and are profit centers, nothing less, nothing more.
I am a "mixed bag" here. "Vicious" is not too much: my upbringing was "vicious" in particular about Jews and "sluts." (two long stories) but in your context, also I inherited abhorrence for waste. How did a whole continent of people become a massive civilization of waste?
"And along comes maga". "MAGA"- A bunch of thugs and losers who think the rich will feed them for protecting their wealth.
Building a democracy without limits on wealth, media ownership, or campaign contributions and without corporal punishment or at least floggings for white collar crime, is incredibly delusional, and could only happen where the majority of the people are delusional. That's where religion and poor parenting always comes in.
It ain't rocket science. The manipulators of a wide swath of public sentiment have persuaded their (dare I say) weak-minded audience that there is no such thing as the COMMON good and that any attempt to pursue such a thing is, by its very nature, (wait for it) socialism.
Well I hate to be blunt but many American's vote against themselves . I have never been able to understand if stupidity is involved or just plain old punishment of the left. It is so clear that the Republican party has always believed in trickle down which is the way it was in Europe for centuries. It is a trickster scam to fund those that have enough while others die on the vine. The GOP does not care. It is that simple. Guns...same thing.
Those who have often look upon those who don't have as much as leeches. The greatest share of those who vote republican are not really wealthy enough to vote republican. They vote that way because they arescared of the so called leeches.
And the rich right wingers are the biggest leaches of all thanks to Reaganomics, libertarianism, and neoliberalism the last 60 years, stealing about 100 trillion dollars from the middle class with their failed right wing wars and policies. Which continue till this day. Such as, free trade, offshore banking, capitalist healthcare, corporate welfare, savings and loan and bank bailouts, Vietnam and Iraq wars, interest on the national debt, poverty which causes crime and medical expenses, union busting immigration, global warming, toxic plastics and chemicals...
Which gets us back to Ayn Rand, but even she was reflecting feudal "values" that God anointed the Superiors and serfs were also "dependants." Not to mention what good females were. Seductive, manipulative leeches. But you are so right, that the magic spell is to make the leech who has a roof over his head fear and loath the leech who doesn't.
A country that looks to dominate the world cannot take care of its own. As you and other nationalist liberals pound your chests about Putin and Ukraine, doing everything within your power to ignore the potential for diplomacy by framing Putin as a madman in order to make Biden look like a hero, your hero helps to bomb Gaza and Yemen (breaking yet another campaign promise) to oblivion. Maintaining 800 military bases in 70 countries and having both parties cheerlead wars for profit based on lies shows the merging of the amorality of both political parties into unmitigated morbidity and mortality for the average person here and abroad.
Aside from your swipe at Thom Hartmann ( a man I greatly admire, but not due to his politics) I applaud your candor and intelligence. Most of all, I applaud and respect your courage. Many try to intimidate divergent thought in socio-political forums and I have observed the ad hominem attacks you endure (I do as well, but they are different in nature...more racially oriented). Nonetheless, you have the intellectual horsepower and intestinal fortitude to remain nonplussed. A most admirable quality.
Anecdotally, allow me to remind you that it is evidence of Thom Hartmann's astounding intellect and courage, that he possesses the confidence in his beliefs to let ALL voices be heard.
And you are doing Putin;s work. You defend a vicious, imperialistic, war criminal, and Putin's historical context is bullshit. Putin has, as a matter of policy to subdue and conquer Urkaine engaged in an act of ethnic cleansing, attacking hospitals, children schools, raping women, kidnapping children, waging, as a matter of policy, a war of total destruction.
Russia is named for the Rus. The Rus were Swedish vikings and traders, they founded Kiev (Kyiv), and the civilization moved eastwards. Putin has it exactly backwards.
Didn't hear the exchange, but I have two connections to Ukrainians who clearly identified as Ukrainian, AS DISTINCT FROM "Russian." going back multiple generations.
Thanks for your respectful remarks. Not to argue the point but Thom has changed drastically over the past 10 years or so. When he tells me that Nancy Pelosi is a progressive, Hillary Clinton was a "brilliant" Secretary of State, and that Joe Biden is FDR (among too many other things including that what is happening in Gaza is not a genocide), it is apparent that he is fronting for a political party in lieu of seeking solutions. But of course he is a very smart person and knows history inside and out, which is why I still tune in until I can't take the Trumpaphobia and McCarthyism anymore.
Last I checked Biden was the president who deported and imprisoned more migrants than Trump (and denied asylum to more), so he owns that part of it. He expanded Trump's Title 42 twice so yes he does many things just like the GOP. As for Gaza the GOP did not circumvent Congress to send hundreds of millions to Israel to aid and abet a genocide. Biden did that himself. Today he even called it "our military actions" in Gaza. It is Biden who has sent tens of billions in aid to Ukraine so that nearly half their country is destroyed. Not certain how the GOP owns all that, so please quit blaming the Republicans.
It's called obstruction Barry. Since the 1970s or maybe even JFK assassination, the GOP has gone on strike against the American citizens. George Bush Senior spoke of a new world order, he never got too specific though. It must be this current war between autocracy and democracy though. Reagan was not all there with Alzheimer's and Bush Senior probably negotiated the New World order covenant of a few rich running the world. Biden is very old and so is Trump, we have to keep democracy going till these old fools and traitors go away. Biden would still be running the border if Trump had not told the Republicans in Congress to oppose any progress towards the border, or peace in the Middle East or Ukraine. The GOP chambers of commerce are the big winners on the border issue.
Barry, the reason America cannot take care of its own is because the Putin lovers have been running the Republican party and most of the dem parties the last 40 years.
I would urge you to look at the history of Democrats and Welfare Reform, bank deregulation, cuts to social programs including your hero Obama, legislation to feed Americans to health care conglomerates (the ACA), and their propensity for dropping tens of thousands of bombs on poor black and brown people around the world. Last time I checked there were two parties. Perhaps Republicans exist in a vacuum as it seems their opposing party is awfully ineffectual.
The progressive caucus is all that is left of the FDR liberals. Most of the dem party are just Republicans now. Capitalism that even Putin supports allows the rich to oppress the poor. Even Obama opposed single payer healthcare. What is your solution? Surrender to Putin or just keep on complaining?
I don't for a minute believe that Obama opposed single payer. It was just off the table politically because of "COMMIECOMMIE" hysteria. P.s. Barry's solution definitely is surrender to Putin. You are "working" on that side with your weak "whataboutism" that most of dems are Repubs now. Even Repubs are not Repubs anymore. Dems just won another one tonight.
Hey Boris, there is only one country which wishes to dominate the world, and that is your Mother land, Russia and it's tyrant Putin.
You can't help yourself can you. You would be better off peddling your Putineque propaganda on a right wing substack, but it is no food preaching to the choir, when you can turn liberals against each other.
Barry says A country that looks to dominate the world cannot take care of its own. . Does your lord and master Putin, and his puppet Trump, know you think such about him>
This is not sustainable. My wife and I both work full-time, raised three daughters, who are now college graduates, and cost burdened with school debt and barely make it. my parents are in an assisted living that is draining their assets so there will not be anything left for the family. The cost of housing, medical care, and education is destroying the middle-class.
You're one of the lucky ones then. Children are through college, parents cared for. It only takes one unexpected and unavoidable catastrophe to turn the whole apple cart over. My generous middle class father died young.
Mac, I totally agree with you. I have much to be grateful for no complaints here.
Thanks Billy. I believe that the most basic characteristics of liberals is the ability to care about the less fortunate and the lack of envy for the more fortunate. We have work to do now.
We are the most Christ-like in our actions, even atheists like me, than any CINO ‘conservative’ Republican in existence.
I was just reading about (don't know what to call them: "self-styled Christian jackasses"???) being outraged at "Jesus gets us" Superbowl ad.
Me too, caring about humans atheist.
Don't agree! The whole point of Thom's column is that you are a legitimate victim of this corruption, too! I had near-free tuition at UC Berkeley before the history Thom relates! So me, I can say I was lucky, but you have a RIGHT to be mad!
I reject your "settling-for" disrespect for the point being what was supposed to be The American Dream! Billy was supposed to have hopes to lay a foundation for his family to do better! You are falling into the class resentment trap of the victims calling the victims "lucky!"
My three daughters say they probably will never be able to buy a house, nor if they get married, will they afford to have children. So the “family values” of the Republican Party have actually destroyed the family.
All politics (as opposed to economics) is local. We have 759 billionaires. The array is pretty much limited to certain states.
According to a 2020 Pew poll (the most relevant and authoritative I can find) Democrats are nearly twice as likely as Republicans to say there’s too much economic inequality in the U.S. (78% vs. 41%). https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/most-americans-say-there-is-too-much-economic-inequality-in-the-u-s-but-fewer-than-half-call-it-a-top-priority/
In most flyover (Red) states there are proportionally few oligarchs. For example, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, and South Carolina only have 1 billionaire per state. https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/visualizations/which-us-states-have-the-most-billionaires/
Thom and Robert Reich have been on top of this issue. https://www.inequalitymedia.org/how-wealth-inequality-spiraled-out-of-control?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAw6yuBhDrARIsACf94RX2S5Y6LrvxKhXClPmyLcR5dxwBC81FPW8FSz2sNsRwf5BaLwbIn-0aApEyEALw_wcB
If I were targeting change, I'd publish Thom and Robert extensively throughout the red states that have the most income inequality. Offer Thom's article free to every media outlet in those states.
Watching U.S. television ads with an open mind (as though you were an anthropologist studying an unknown civilization or just landed in a flying saucer) is definitely a different experience then just sitting there absorbing the words.
Personally I like the singing, dancing lady who is excited to have diabetes and then educate her physician about the wonderful new drug she heard about. But then selling prescription pharmaceutical products to patients is a huge business which, when you think about it, really makes no sense. (Of course neither do most political ads, with their endless repetitions of innuendo and fear, something we can look forward to for the next 9 months.)
And to measure how out of whack inequality has become there's the Gini coefficient. Wikipedia explains this well by saying, "A Gini coefficient of 0 reflects perfect equality, where all income or wealth values are the same, while a Gini coefficient of 1 (or 100%) reflects maximal inequality among values, a situation where a single individual has all the income while all others have none." Not surprisingly in the U.S. this has been getting worse over time. The World Bank gave us a number of 0.346 in 1979 and 0.398 in 2020 (some sources put it as high as 0.42 today).
Just for some comparisons, South Africa has the highest number at 0.63, Colombia is at 0.51, Iceland is 0.26 and Norway is at 0.23. We have a long way to go.
This is why I am mainly living in the EU. I do not want to normalize that our country does not take care of us. This is what excited me about Biden, because he is the first president to try to dismantle what Reagan created. It takes so little effort to destroy, and so much to rebuild. Putin knows all about this, as he uses massive destruction to destroy the Syrian and Ukrainian peoples, and also the Chechens. Trump knows all about destruction too, and was trying to carry on what Reagan began. One has to get away from the USA to really understand what things are and what they could be.
Beautiful post. My only quibble would be, one doesn't have to get away from the USA, just one has to have some background to be open to evidence as to what could be. Wait! that would be coming across Thom Hartmann input! I think you assign too much sophistication to Trump. My take is, "collateral damage" is irrelevant to him; if somebody notices, he will know it was somebody else's fault, anyway. Although yesterday, come to think of it, he did portray himself as the (Quisling?) destroyer of a treaty ally who "didn't pay." Sometimes words fail for the projection/ obliviousness when this is from a guy notorious for not paying his workers. But his worshippers don't know that.....
His worshippers do not know in the way of knowledge. That is to understand. They may know in having heard about these facts, but they do not register in their brains in any meaningful way. Sort of in one ear, and out the other. What I meant by living elsewhere you understand that things can be different, is that living in Germany I have examples of things I did not know about from living in the USA. In Germany I am required to have insurances that don't even exist in the USA, and it is why Germans, who make for the most part less than Americans, can still live a fairly safe life. People generally have millions of dollars of personal liability insurance. A friend of mine's first grader was playing at school and threw a rock at a tree and then it bounced off the tree onto a car, and broke a window. His insurance paid the 450€ to replace it. Then many have legal insurance, so if one is to use a lawyer, it is covered. Well not exactly. There is a set rate for legal fees, and some firms charge above that. You would have to pay their additional fees. Everyone is legally required to have health insurance, which covers medical, dental and vision, and long term care insurance. If you do not have a private insurance you can be part of the national health and long term disability insurances. People here have work insurance. If you get burned out, and your doctor writes a note you get paid by insurance for your time off, which from what I can tell usually includes a spa. Also, if you can't work for mental health reasons, it would cover you. People who own guns are required here to have 1.1 Mil € liability insurance for that. There are multiple kinds of house insurances. If you are building or remodeling you might have 2-3 kinds of liability insurances. All of these insurances are affordable. My daughter is studying in Berlin. Her 312 € semester fee means that her ID card is also a semester ticket on all transportations, and now with a 14€ additional fee turns into a Germany wide ticket where she can use regional trains and all public transport. In Vienna, during the entire summer break children 15 and under ride all public transportation free. In Germany all 18 year olds get a 200€ ticket that gets them into skating rinks, movies, museums, amusement parks, etc... for free until they use it up. In University the semester fee covers all learning materials too, and the student ID gets one discounts in many places. In Germany parents get 292 € a month for each child instead of a tax credit. That is what I mean by living elsewhere. These are not things one figures out by being a tourist to a place but are structural differences that exist that make life easier, and more safe for people, that you would have no idea about if you just lived in the USA.
Fascinating! My understanding is that workers also get much more paid vacation and maternity leave than dreamed of here?
That is true. Everyone I know here, be they blue or white collar is going on family vacations every school break to some other place. Most of my friends here are professionals, but only a few are academics like my friends in Chicago. My friend's daughter is in Berlin for 6 weeks working in a refugee center for women refugees. She was partnering one-on-one to help the women with their English. Then, last week, Berlin had school vacation, where one earner families that I know of went on skiing vacations with the whole family. The daughter meantime took over teaching for 2 English teachers at the refugee help center as they went on vacation with their families. Contractors and their workers too go on vacations. Parental leave at the birth of a child can be accessed by both parents. For 3 years you can take off, and then return to your job. You get paid for some of it, but you have job insurance which kicks in then too. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Labour/Labour-Market/Quality-Employment/Dimension3/3_9_PersonsParentalLeave.html#:~:text=Parents%20have%20a%20right%20to,be%20taken%20by%20one%20parent.
A friend who is a therapist took off 3 years with her first, and 3 with her second because he was born 2 years after his sister. So, she had off 5 years. They are now both in university, so that was a while ago. Still, it takes the stress off. I see mom's and sometimes both parents with their young children in cafes, on the streetcars and buses, and everywhere. There is also a child care facility next door to me, where most of the children are 3-5. Still, there is a lot that relieves the stress of life. Child care at this age is supposed to be free for the 3-6 year olds. If you pay a fee, like a friend of mine does, which is 70€ a week per child, that covers the excellent quality food that they are eating. There is also a move to make school lunches universally free, like they do in some other countries. I heard that Berlin was trying a pilot program on this.
Doc, that singing dancing lady that is glad to have diabetes is obese and obesity is A cause of diabetes..
All drugs are processed through the liver, and to solve one problem, the drug creates another.
Drugs and processed foods, the foods with chemical additives.
Of course, and a lot of this goes back to Nixon and his Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz. They made deals to add corn syrup to lots of foods, thereby unleashing all sorts of sicknesses on the American consumer.
Talking of Ag secretaries. Biden Skipped over Martha Fudge, a black woman with congressional experience and an advocate for small family farmers, , especially black farmers, and made Tom Vilsack, a former lobbyist for agribusiness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_Fudge, for Sec AG. He appointed Martha to the token office of HUD, an office previously occupied by the incompetent Ben Carson, another token appointee.
Regardless of whether it is Republican or Democrat, tokenism is us, is what rules in cabinet appointments, be ethnic, sexual identity or the latest flavor..
Presidents don't really pick their staff and cabinet members, that requires god level omniscience, I wish to know how does the vetting and choosing.
Even the would be orange emperor doesn't have that level of knowledge, and will have to rely on someone or someones, and I would like to know who has his ear.
Gini or Ginni (as in Thomas) <s>
Thom, For thé past two weeks, I’ve been ill with my first infection of Covid. Today, I tested negative.
When I tired of reading, I revisited watching the now famous television series BREAKING BAD shown during the mid-2000s. What I had not recalled but realized immediately, is that the premise of what sent an career high school chemistry teacher into life of crime and a murderous quest for survival at all costs was saving his family from financial bankruptcy because of the costs of his oncology drugs and surgery for his cancer care. Then, his DEA agent brother-in-laws’ medical rehab far exceeded the federal network limits of the doctor’s skill levels that he required to regain mobility. So, his criminal brother-in-law paid the cost of his pursuer’s rehabilitation.
Nothing has changed. The conservatives want to privatize Medicare and Medicaid by luring naive seniors into buying Medical Advantage private medical coverage that puts them the mercy of insurers who promise them more benefits and then deny them that coverage. It is three card monte bait and switch perfected by the likes of Rick Scott and other billionaire thieves who got rich stealing from their policy holders and were protected by attorneys. They now are hiding in the Sunshine State.
Rewatch Brian Cranston in his award winning performance in BREAKING BAD. No one survives the greed of corporate corruption.
The problem is that we have an entire society that is conditioned from birth to believe, obey and even worship authority.
If authority speaks, then it must be true.
Question authority, the best phrase that came out of the hippie movement.
Thanks for the synopsis! To the extent that it apparently had an audience, maybe somebody was thinking about something relevant to personal experience, or maybe not only them......
"In the next commercial break, actor Jeff Bridges popped up on my TV screen pitching for a charity called No Kid Hungry. Jeff is a brilliant actor and a great guy, and No Kid Hungry is a highly rated charity, but remind me why we have hungry children in the wealthiest nation on Earth"?
I didn't watch the super bowl so I will assume the ad did not mention the states that refused federal dollars to feed hungry children during summer, or the cuts to the child tax credit, or the states who refused to accept or expand Medicaid leaving Americans of all ages without any healthcare options. The list of billionaire focused atrocities against Americans goes on and on and on with no end in sight.
America can no longer call itself the "greatest country on earth" as long as people of all ages are unhoused, go to bed hungry, have little to no medical coverage and seniors take out reverse mortgages or return to work to be able to pay their medical bills.
It’s very simple the rich get richer, the middle class struggles and pays the taxes and the poor get the blow back and end up on the streets. I grew up in a past war economy that allowed for my father to have some upward mobility so we had Two cars, a decent house, a vacation once a year, and both myself and my brother earned a college education. My parents had none of these things before. Fast forward to me. I am from a Southern state, unmarried female- one down-Jewish born-2 down-gingered as white-actually Jew is a race as well as a religion-secular, intellectual Ph.D by the upwardly mobile American dream illusion I should be in good economic shape. Now realities not roseate illusions. Graduated with some debt, got a job back home in Miami at a start up university at an absurd salary, became involved in women’s liberation after a Cuban abortion because abortion was illegal and at 19 my first sexual experience hit the jackpot and I was not ready for a child. A typical young woman’s trajectory in the 1960s. Several of my friends died from coat hanger abortions. We marched for civil rights, against nukes, for childcare, against the Vietnam war and so on. I founded some of the first women and art initiatives in the state paid a price for it and managed to get another mediocre job at a college in South Carolina where I was tenured. I earned a Smithsonian and I was discriminated against at my university when it came to gaining leave for my research so I decided to leave. I moved back to NYC where I had gone to school and managed to cobble together enough gig work to survive. I published several books hoping to get a job. But I was not a good enough ass kisser and no Marxist. So I took a certificate in appraisals. Now after 8 decades the sum total of the American Dream. I am as poor as a church mouse, can barely afford my medical expense on a minuscule SS because of being underpaid all the years I’ve worked like all second class citizens who are women. And like all working class Americans my SS is double taxed.
I relate this saga to you only to reiterate Thom’s points about how really ripped off by the failures of American government to give us the bang for our hard earned bucks we pay into taxes. When Dumpf says the system is rigged he is simply fingering the problem that Thom hits on-rigged by billionaires, CEO shills, political candidates who lie, and a criminal class of operators that have brought us to where we are today. Add to this that many voters have given up because of gerrymandering, and other tactics that negate any push back on the part of we the people. The only hope we have is an overwhelming turnout of Democratic and independent voters with a few disgusted centrist republicans to keep what’s left of a reformist democracy
Hi there, fellow typical young woman's trajectory of the 1960s. I hit the jackpot when I was raped at 17. Then my generous middle class father died of the wounds he got in Normandy on D-Day. Lucky for me my mother was working, college was cheap then and close to home, so off I went, baby and all. One of my last conversations with my Dad was about why he would never vote for a Republican. "....because I don't want to live in Calcutta."
Interesting response from your Dad Mac.
I assume that when your Dad uttered those words, *never life in Calcutta) it was when the two parties were, culturally, the opposite of what they are now. The Democrats in the 1960's were a party of southern racists and blue collar workers, and Republicans were a party of billionaires, and what we would consider " cultural liberals".
That all changed when a Democratic President (LBJ) signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts. The racists registered as Republicans, save for a few Dixiecrats, that safely enjoyed support of their base.
As a Goldwater conservative (no longer am) I remember the America will be Calcutta charge, along with talk of mud people. It was a verbal manifesto of the Aryan Nations.
When did your father die. My Dad was the adjutant for the 1st JASCO in the Pacific, then the 1st Sgt of Easy Company 2/7th 1st MarDiv in Korea, where he was wounded severely by a 61 mm Chicom mortar, he managed to live another 11 years.
In case anyone questions how an officer in WWII was an NCO in Korea.
There was a reduction in force after the war, dad was a Warrant officer in the Pacific, went to Platoon Leaders Class (officers training) in preparation for the invasion of Japan, was RIFed (reduction in force) to highest Permanent rank which was E-7, and assigned as cadre fro the 1st Division which had been demoblized to reserve status, with the outbreak of the Korean war., it was reactivated, Dad was still on active duty, with combat experience and placed as Cadre for Easy Company.
Dad was New Deal Democrat and 1st lieutenant on a destroyer in the Atlantic, WW2. He believed that people should be taxed what they could afford to create a solid safety net and a ladder to the middle class. He was also a strong supporter of equal rights. For that reason we all loathed Goldwater. And Wallace. Marched with MLK. Dixiecrats were way different.
An aside, who knows, your Dad might have kept my husband alive in the Pacific.
A JASCO was an acronym for Joint Assault Signal Company, their mission was to provide liason between ground troops, air craft and naval gun fire in support of ground troops on the islands. Dad was assigned 4th Marine Division, 5th Amphibious Corps that assaulted and captured Roi Namur (two co located Islands) Saipan and Tinian.
JASCO is the parent of ANGLICO's, Air Naval Ground Liaison Companies.
Saipan scarred him because he witnessed women and children leaping from cliffs.
Dad hated, absoluttely hate Gen MacArthur and loved Truman for firing MacArthur, Dad survived the advance to the rear of the Inchon Reservoir, which only happened because of MacArthurs bright idea of taking the fight to China.
MacArthur was an asshole, an arrogant, narcissistic self aggrandizing asshole, he would fit perfectly with Trump.
There were two plans for ending the war in the Pacific, Admiral Nimitz was island hopping, by passing islands that would starve without supplies from Japan, but MacArthur wanted to be able to grandstand about returning to the Philippines and petitioned (politicked) for his plan of a ground assault, starting with the Philippines. When he ran off from the Philippines when the Japanese invaded he proclaimed "I shall return".
MacArthur was also the officer in charge of attacking and breaking up in the Bonus Ar,my in DC.
The government had offered men bonuses to enlist for WWI, but reneged on that offer, and veterans gathered in DC to demand that the government redeem their pledge
Herbert Hoover was president https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
All true and accurate. My husband was one of those ground troops on Guadalcanal, a la Henderson Field, etc bloody etc. Light a candle for your dad and tell him thanks.
I am a student of the war in the Pacific, Henderson field was indeed bloody. The Joint
Assault Signal Companies were created after the experience of Guadalcanal.
My Dad passed on May 1962, two months shy of retiring.l He got through WWII without a scratch, but wounded three times in Korea, the third he caught a ChiCom 61mm between the legs, survived that but the stress took a toll on his heart and he died in open heart surgery at Camp Pendleton, CA
"Our billionaires are the richest, and our poor people are the poorest of any FUNCTIONING democracy on Earth…" Thom Hartmann
We aren't a "functioning" democracy if it ever was one.
It's aspirational.
Hanging by a gerrymandered and voter purged and access-restricted thread!
One exception Takeway, Jew is not a race, nor is it a religion, it is an ethnicity based on tradition.
There are black Jews, (Ethiopians), European Jews, Ashkenazim, Sephardim. my great grandmother was born of a Sepharidic mother and a Catholic Father. I am not a Jew, not by the Talmud, not by the Israeli Law of Return and not by upbringing.
By Rabbinical law, and the Israeli Law of Return, one has to have been born of a Jewish mother to be a Jew. Were you?
Isn't there a "Cohen" gene that has actually been identified? Yeah it's Wiki'd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron So that's ethnicity based on DNA. So outsiders can be pinpointed, like Elizabeth Warren, who actually did have kinship, vs my husband, who hailed from OK, but had family tradition and LOOKED the part, not a trace! Incidentally, not me Jewish either.
My sister’s next door neighbors up in Maine just moved back to their home country of Russia. They may have had other reasons (!), but what they told my sister was that they couldn’t live with how difficult it was to get health care in America. A peripheral issue: the part time and gig economy because small businesses can’t take on the health care cost of full timers. Our local Village Board could only take on a part time bus driver instead of the full time one they needed because the health care cost was prohibitive. Beyond absurd!
Stories abound. The ambitious young man and his crew took out a large about-to-fall tree. He explained he would love to take his small business full-time and quit his job at the Frito Factory, but he couldn't afford the health insurance.
Bless them, just hope Russian health was as cracked up to be. Surely American system is shameful!
Sorry, dear Thom, but the CDC states that we have 37% unintended/unwanted children, and they are very, very expensive. We live on a massively overpopulated planet with millions of migrants escaping less glamorous nations, where they weren't wanted. Yes, trust me, a retired physician, our healthcare "industry" is an abomination and even at its best only extends our often miserable lives, when a quiet painless death might well be more desirable. Basic problem we choose not to face is massive human overpopulation: 3,000 times more of us than our ancestral migratory Hunter-Gatherers, now suffering through the climate collapse our numbers and overconsumption have brought to our door step. Dig deeper. Find the truth. Thank you for your fine work!
Points to ponder. But . . . . "Overconsumption" is not the issue for migrants. Not infrequently, "extraction" of labor and minerals from those countries by western corporations have created abysmal living conditions.
The religions being opposed to rational thinking and birth control, is what causes most of the suffering in those third world Nations. The left has supported environmentalism for the last 60 years. The right took down the solar panels from the White House and have pushed this into several wars for oil and no mileage standard on vehicles.
You raise horrible, but valid issues. Terrible to contemplate, that "quiet painless" is not nature's way of balancing "carrying capacity."
So, you would prefer the sickness and suffering that I go through at 79, with Long COVID and prostate cancer, as well as all the ever increasing stresses of constant change in the most economically imbalanced society in history, driven by the lowest forms of greed and hatred? I hang around solely for the higher purpose of saving humanity and the biosphere, but ever less so for the former and more so for the latter. I assure you, as a retired physician, i am fully aware of "Nature's way" and we are not on it.
Thanks to the plutocrats, our only good is money, our only virtue greed. Poor white people in particular have been fooled into believing they too can become billionaires with hard work and just a little luck. At this juncture, it may take the impoverishment of enough people that a critical mass decides anything is better, and rise up against their oppressors. They may fail, and millions will die, but it may be necessary to try. Because our institutions are not functional for the vast majority of us. I cannot accept a new feudalism for my grandson. Better he should die and take a few plutocrats with him. That I have lived to come to this position is tragic and painful. I curse the day my earliest ancestors came here in the late 1600’s. I have become ashamed to call myself a citizen of the United States. And I fully expect that November will bring total disaster to us, when the Orange Excremental seizes power again with his small hands and tiny reptile brain.
I share ur sentiments in last paragraph. Keep fighting and talk to those who will listen. I've gotten over a dozen folks to vote for Biden. They're all telling their families and friends. We can do this. And if we fail, I know I'll proudly tell the younger gens how I fought back until the end.
What, neoliberalism hasn't created the best of all possible worlds? Don't we owe unfettered capitalism great gratitude for the creature comforts and security we all have? Were it not for the oligarchs/billionaires, who would have a job? Sarcasm of course.
Thom's essay is powerful and spot on. Where's the wide outrage! The shame that should drive us to action. True patriots would be raising voices and taking nonviolent actions to correct these stains on American aspirations.
From another post I just made: The "welfare queens" or "kings" are the unspeakably rich. Yes, persons who work hard, take risks, sacrifice, develop products that improve out well being, demonstrate exceptional management skills, etc., do deserve ample compensation. They've EARNED IT. (Read: Limitarianism by Ingrid Robeyns, for example.) But beyond a certain point, the vast wealth simply is a massive market failure, as I think Adam Smith would agree.
The externalities created by market failures are a heavy tax on the majority of us by passing those costs on to our own backs. Yet most of us direct our frustrations elsewhere.
These distortions of market economics should be heavily taxed and invested in or returned to those whose contributions are the basis for the real economy and to help others who need the safety net for simple human decency and the benefits to all.
BTW, I just read Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson. I highly recommend it for her insights into why our country is as it is. I only wish I had read it sooner. Another great book of insight: "Fluke," by Brian Klass.
Many decades ago when I was young and hopeful I was offended by Plato's Republic. Now I concede, he was right about democracy. The tyrants will not allow an educated informed electorate that votes.
Thanks. I made a note to check the library or buy those books. Richard Wolff had a good episode explaining "externalities" and how market failures hurt us on his Democracy at Work show about a month ago.
Perhaps the most damning treatise you have authored Mr. Hartmann. I can relate to many of the stark, and pathetic, realities you mention...and some you did not/cannot.
However, of the litany of realities your piece explicates this one is what was most painful for me, as a father and as a member of the human family. It, with brutal precision tells the tale that I continue to tell (though it does nothing for my popularity) and that is that the United States is a vicious nation. Some of us are more aware of this than others; and there will be a price to pay.
“America’s hunger crisis is not due to a lack of food production or scarcity in food supply. Rather, hunger and food insecurity in the United States are symptoms of policy choices and an economic system that prioritizes the needs of corporations and the wealthy over those of the general population.”
Yet, grocery stores throughout the nation have erected fences and locked dumpster bins so that the hungry, the destitute and the homeless cannot get the perfectly edible, and often fresh, food that they throw away by the thousands of tons every, single day.
God bless America.
Rohn: A nation can not be vicious, nor benevolent. Those qualities are those of the people who pull the levers of power. It was greedy men who destroyed the original inhabitants and their food supply, the bison.
There is an evil force that dictates the policies and thus behavior of the nation. That evil force is the reigning elite, and they war amongst themselves for primacy.
Racism is an evil, but it is only a subset of a greater evil, and Bernie put his finger on it,: Classism.
The elite, those who funded people like Marx as The League of Just Men, and who today fund every thing from the KKK to Moms for Liberty, can only maintain their position of exclusivity, and primacy only by keeping us plebes, us proles, at each others throats.
BTW, where I live, a small county sustained by tourists and well to do retirees, our sole supermarket as such, takes all unsold food, except expired food for legal reasons, to the local Food Bank which is across the street from the supermarket.
Food banks, for legal reasons, cannot accept foods that are past their sell by dates. I can imagine that, because we live in a litigious society, that grocery stores lock their dumpsters because they are afraid of law suits.
I blame our greedy litigious society and ambulance chasing attorney's.
The closer the service is to the public they more responsive and socially conscious they are.
Kroger and Albertson's are far removed from the public and are profit centers, nothing less, nothing more.
I am a "mixed bag" here. "Vicious" is not too much: my upbringing was "vicious" in particular about Jews and "sluts." (two long stories) but in your context, also I inherited abhorrence for waste. How did a whole continent of people become a massive civilization of waste?
I am a Black Man in the United States with Alkebulanian and Choctaw ancestry.
"Vicious" is mild.
Most of the world, which is 88% non-European/so-called "white, appears to share my assessment.
Pertinent to your final query, my short answer would be something like, uh...greed.
"And along comes maga". "MAGA"- A bunch of thugs and losers who think the rich will feed them for protecting their wealth.
Building a democracy without limits on wealth, media ownership, or campaign contributions and without corporal punishment or at least floggings for white collar crime, is incredibly delusional, and could only happen where the majority of the people are delusional. That's where religion and poor parenting always comes in.
It ain't rocket science. The manipulators of a wide swath of public sentiment have persuaded their (dare I say) weak-minded audience that there is no such thing as the COMMON good and that any attempt to pursue such a thing is, by its very nature, (wait for it) socialism.
Well I hate to be blunt but many American's vote against themselves . I have never been able to understand if stupidity is involved or just plain old punishment of the left. It is so clear that the Republican party has always believed in trickle down which is the way it was in Europe for centuries. It is a trickster scam to fund those that have enough while others die on the vine. The GOP does not care. It is that simple. Guns...same thing.
Re: voting against themselves. John Dean: "Conservatives Without Conscience," a seminal book about "authoritarian" mentation.
Those who have often look upon those who don't have as much as leeches. The greatest share of those who vote republican are not really wealthy enough to vote republican. They vote that way because they arescared of the so called leeches.
And the rich right wingers are the biggest leaches of all thanks to Reaganomics, libertarianism, and neoliberalism the last 60 years, stealing about 100 trillion dollars from the middle class with their failed right wing wars and policies. Which continue till this day. Such as, free trade, offshore banking, capitalist healthcare, corporate welfare, savings and loan and bank bailouts, Vietnam and Iraq wars, interest on the national debt, poverty which causes crime and medical expenses, union busting immigration, global warming, toxic plastics and chemicals...
Agreed!
Which gets us back to Ayn Rand, but even she was reflecting feudal "values" that God anointed the Superiors and serfs were also "dependants." Not to mention what good females were. Seductive, manipulative leeches. But you are so right, that the magic spell is to make the leech who has a roof over his head fear and loath the leech who doesn't.
A country that looks to dominate the world cannot take care of its own. As you and other nationalist liberals pound your chests about Putin and Ukraine, doing everything within your power to ignore the potential for diplomacy by framing Putin as a madman in order to make Biden look like a hero, your hero helps to bomb Gaza and Yemen (breaking yet another campaign promise) to oblivion. Maintaining 800 military bases in 70 countries and having both parties cheerlead wars for profit based on lies shows the merging of the amorality of both political parties into unmitigated morbidity and mortality for the average person here and abroad.
Aside from your swipe at Thom Hartmann ( a man I greatly admire, but not due to his politics) I applaud your candor and intelligence. Most of all, I applaud and respect your courage. Many try to intimidate divergent thought in socio-political forums and I have observed the ad hominem attacks you endure (I do as well, but they are different in nature...more racially oriented). Nonetheless, you have the intellectual horsepower and intestinal fortitude to remain nonplussed. A most admirable quality.
Anecdotally, allow me to remind you that it is evidence of Thom Hartmann's astounding intellect and courage, that he possesses the confidence in his beliefs to let ALL voices be heard.
Barry's comment is an ad hominem attack as well as false. (No one is "framing Putin as a madman in order to make Biden look like a hero.)
Not to mention US has casualties, fired on first, and not to mention innocent! international shipping under ongoing bombardment.
Thom told me that directly before he hung up on me for framing the Ukraine situation in historical context (after accusing me of doing Putin's work).
And you are doing Putin;s work. You defend a vicious, imperialistic, war criminal, and Putin's historical context is bullshit. Putin has, as a matter of policy to subdue and conquer Urkaine engaged in an act of ethnic cleansing, attacking hospitals, children schools, raping women, kidnapping children, waging, as a matter of policy, a war of total destruction.
Russia is named for the Rus. The Rus were Swedish vikings and traders, they founded Kiev (Kyiv), and the civilization moved eastwards. Putin has it exactly backwards.
I did not know that. Fascinating stuff, history.
Didn't hear the exchange, but I have two connections to Ukrainians who clearly identified as Ukrainian, AS DISTINCT FROM "Russian." going back multiple generations.
Hartmann did the right thing. You're just trolling for laughs.
Hartmann is right about the Republicans, but he does not tell the truth about Democrats.
Misery loves company, doesn't it Rohn. Boris has been exposed, and exposes himself as a Putin lap dog, and you join company with him.
Very enlightening.
BTW there is only one racially oriented commenter on this site, and that is you Rohn.
You would be great and asset if you didn't have a chip on the shoulder and suffer from myopia.
Thanks for your respectful remarks. Not to argue the point but Thom has changed drastically over the past 10 years or so. When he tells me that Nancy Pelosi is a progressive, Hillary Clinton was a "brilliant" Secretary of State, and that Joe Biden is FDR (among too many other things including that what is happening in Gaza is not a genocide), it is apparent that he is fronting for a political party in lieu of seeking solutions. But of course he is a very smart person and knows history inside and out, which is why I still tune in until I can't take the Trumpaphobia and McCarthyism anymore.
The GOP owns the border, Gaza and the Ukraine now Barry, so please quit blaming the Democrats.
Yay!
Last I checked Biden was the president who deported and imprisoned more migrants than Trump (and denied asylum to more), so he owns that part of it. He expanded Trump's Title 42 twice so yes he does many things just like the GOP. As for Gaza the GOP did not circumvent Congress to send hundreds of millions to Israel to aid and abet a genocide. Biden did that himself. Today he even called it "our military actions" in Gaza. It is Biden who has sent tens of billions in aid to Ukraine so that nearly half their country is destroyed. Not certain how the GOP owns all that, so please quit blaming the Republicans.
It's called obstruction Barry. Since the 1970s or maybe even JFK assassination, the GOP has gone on strike against the American citizens. George Bush Senior spoke of a new world order, he never got too specific though. It must be this current war between autocracy and democracy though. Reagan was not all there with Alzheimer's and Bush Senior probably negotiated the New World order covenant of a few rich running the world. Biden is very old and so is Trump, we have to keep democracy going till these old fools and traitors go away. Biden would still be running the border if Trump had not told the Republicans in Congress to oppose any progress towards the border, or peace in the Middle East or Ukraine. The GOP chambers of commerce are the big winners on the border issue.
Respect is earned. Boris, you have not earned respect. Of course you can't take the Trumpaphobia anymore, thanks for revealing yourself.
What, Trump and McCarthy signify good things?
Barry, the reason America cannot take care of its own is because the Putin lovers have been running the Republican party and most of the dem parties the last 40 years.
I would urge you to look at the history of Democrats and Welfare Reform, bank deregulation, cuts to social programs including your hero Obama, legislation to feed Americans to health care conglomerates (the ACA), and their propensity for dropping tens of thousands of bombs on poor black and brown people around the world. Last time I checked there were two parties. Perhaps Republicans exist in a vacuum as it seems their opposing party is awfully ineffectual.
Oh, they were effectual, all right. Made sure Obama and Pelosi could not dream of "single payer!"
The progressive caucus is all that is left of the FDR liberals. Most of the dem party are just Republicans now. Capitalism that even Putin supports allows the rich to oppress the poor. Even Obama opposed single payer healthcare. What is your solution? Surrender to Putin or just keep on complaining?
I don't for a minute believe that Obama opposed single payer. It was just off the table politically because of "COMMIECOMMIE" hysteria. P.s. Barry's solution definitely is surrender to Putin. You are "working" on that side with your weak "whataboutism" that most of dems are Repubs now. Even Repubs are not Repubs anymore. Dems just won another one tonight.
Hey Boris, there is only one country which wishes to dominate the world, and that is your Mother land, Russia and it's tyrant Putin.
You can't help yourself can you. You would be better off peddling your Putineque propaganda on a right wing substack, but it is no food preaching to the choir, when you can turn liberals against each other.
We are on to you
Barry says A country that looks to dominate the world cannot take care of its own. . Does your lord and master Putin, and his puppet Trump, know you think such about him>