Let’s hope the damage Republicans have done over the last four decades isn’t so severe that America can’t be brought back from the brink of chaos and desperation…
This is the very best article,if read by many, to raise our middle class to a hopeful reason to fight the politics of our billionaire class that disdains growth of our middle class. So informative of the history of the who’s and whys of the top 1% percenters purposefully holding back the inevitable growth of the middle class. The’ve used deregulation and even our sense of fairness against us. EVERY ONE must read this!!
We elect Democrats, and build union membership. This is the base on which the middle class is built, and we need to get back to the true values of democracy. We the People are the government, and we must elect leaders who are willing to lead us back into the ideals laid out in all of the speeches last evening.
We obviously need to elect anti Capitalists. Those that understand that how Capitalism is currently practiced does not promote a Democratic society.
Wall street is a cheater Gamblers haven many things: short selling included is corruption at its finest. Socialism needs to be elevated as a means to distribute wealth equality and this would include raising the tax rates on wealth. WIth the billionaire class paying 90% tax rate. Multi millionares paying 80%. in tax on income
Much of the taxes from these super rich will pave the way for healthcare for all
and Tuition rates dropped to the 1960's. With serious students receiving yearly reductions in tuition costs. Taxes can be used for housing and assisting lower income. and homeless
We elect Democrats and then we revise the tax code in a way to get the obscenely wealthy to pay for the tax gifts that made them rich. We also reform the always pro-business, anti-everyone else, especially minorities and women, Supreme Court.
Vote blue! Send postcards to Swing state Dems. I am in a red state traveling, and have a reply ready if anyone accosts me about my "Lotus for POTUS" cap: 45 is not a Christian, he was not chosen by god, and he has you all fooled. I have good friends who are Saints (LDS) and Christian relatives in Kansas, and they see 45 for who he is: a swindling rapist who cares only for power and money.
WOW — that is a needed history lesson and dose of clarity!!
I knew Reagan and his handlers {Heritage Soc types} constantly demonized government, but I didn’t not realize that Paine’s THE RIGHTS OF MAN was a direct refutation of a philosophy that said the peons need to be kept down for the GOOD of all — I figured it was just the venal privilege of power that didn’t want to be challenged. How could I not have known that some jamokes were dressing that attitude up in “righteousness” and “the good”?
When I heard Biden say that line about realizing that “Government is US, the people!” I just nodded my head and kept listening. Because I thought it was common knowledge — or it should be! It is a line I have been harping on in commentary threads for a couple of years.I wrote it to President Biden in comments I often send to HIM on the White House web site {we can DO that, people — go to the White House web site and click on “contact” and direct your own message to the President!}.
How clever were these people who believe in the elitism of money — they framed protests against the horrors of Vietnam as a consequence of letting the hoi polloi earn too much money!! Rather than the people objecting to having been exploited and lied to and sent to their deaths. Sadly, Mr. Hartmann, there was actually NO noble intent in what Reagan did to destroy the middle class. It was not to preserve order and governability — the idea was “Keep ‘em poor and desperate, so they don’t dare resist their ‘betters.’ “
Disgusting.
Thanks SO much for the excellent lesson in the history of political philosophy and the American social and political experience.
"Keep ‘em poor and desperate, so they don’t dare resist their ‘betters.’ “
The folk that need this the most are watching Fox or worse..... confront them there. Can comment on their websites, attach Thom's articles. Let then know that Trump hates dogs. Stole from kids with cancer, etc.
Hit their websites, They are sure hitting progressive websites. New right wing trolls keep showing up every day, especially on Robert Reich's, because one can post on his substack without a subscription.
Pat Sez: "they framed protests against the horrors of Vietnam as a consequence of letting the hoi polloi earn too much money!! Rather than the people objecting to having been exploited and lied to and sent to their deaths. "
The Lewis Powell memo, is what got the ball rolling. Thom has written about it many times
I am not Pat. A couple of years ago I would engage, just to pull chains, on the comment section of the Hill, it's moderators were right wingers. they eventually shut down the comment section and move it to Facebook. I don't have a FB account.
Mediaite is the same, polluted with right wing morons, and yes they are morons, It is hard to believe that people can be so stupid.
I don't read them, because I know what they are going to say, it is the same five or six things over and over. There is absolutely nothing to learn from them, and if someone is bored, has time on their hands, they are a great place to troll, but be wary, you will probably get banned after one or two posts.
I don’t read Mediaite much. Read scads of things. Find NYT outrageously aggravating. And WAPO and Globe. I expect rightist claptrap from the editorial pages of the WSJ, but would at least like not to see so many weasel words and weighted comments in the NEWS sections of all the papers everywhere.
I try to at least know what the “arguments” are for the conservative way of thinking, but it’s not really conservative any more. It’s Right Cult Thinking.
But, hey, that is how I see it, and THEY say the same sort of thing about MY thinking. That I’m drinking the KoolAid on the LEFT?
I need to know what the points of contention are. I need to try to remember {or l learn} the history that feeds into people’s ideas about how the world works — the philosophies, world views, and values that underpin all these “opinions” floating around.
When I go deep into their ideas, the Right to me is just so f-ing illogical. It’s more desire and wishful thinking about the world they want to shape than it is related to real things.
And they’re principles are not founded on the real facts of history, when we check that out, too. {Much of it I lived, so I can remember stuff and see how they misrepresent it. JD Vance is one of the worst on that score — up there with Ayn Rand in the dumbass “pseudo-philosopher” category. Only, even she was smarter than he is.}
It’s just getting so hard have a discussion {we could use the words “argument”, or “debate,” but I am talking about rational conversation to organize and refine and understand thoughts …} with people currently. First, they form their opinions based on fallacies; second, they insist WE are fallacious; third, they don’t want to find common ground, because they insist they are in the God-Given-Right! {pun intended}.
I subscribe to the Bulwark. Never Trumpers founded by Charlie Sykes,now an "analyst" on MSNBC.
Not at all rabid right, them and the Lincoln Project, but they are Reagan conservatives. I tried to ask Charlie what brief do they have against progressives?
Is it diversity? Is it equity? Is it inclusion? I can't get an answer.
Scratch them and it is economic libertarianism, so called free market, no regulation. small government. And where we would be if there were such.
No hiways, no internet, no defense, no public utiliies, no parks, a perpetual wild west or a Somalia.
But I am glad to have them as allies,however they are now becoming Democrats (it is a movement actually)
On the subject of kool aid, there is in fact, a problem, that is non ideological, or shall I say transideologic.
To be thought of or think of my self as left or progressive one is expected to drink the Strawberry kool aid,my analogy is to eat the whole pie (or pizza) I prefer to eat slices, and even a slice from the rights PIZZA, but with my own special topping.
The right wing is the same, they all drink the Orange kiool aid, all of them without a second thought or hesitation. And there are many of the left that do the same with strawberry kool aid.
With hidebound ideologues they expect ideological purity.I am not ideologically pure, and from the comments I've seen in my time on Reich's substack I am not alone.
Back to the Trump humpers accusing you of drinking the left's kool aid, they are projecting as you well know.
A person who as a need to believe (in anything), thinks everyone else has the same need, the notion that one could hold opinions (arrived at not acquired) is beyond their ken.
Reagan wasn't a devil, but he definitely was a sell-out. He went from being the head of The Screen Actors Guild to being a company man for GE.
His career had turned to crap, and he was redeemed and well compensated by his hosting job on General Electric Theater. His daughter recently recalled that their ultra-modern house had something to do with the company. Sure sounded like they provided that home for him.
I remember exactly what he did to bust unions, turn the mentally ill out of facilities without other options, tried to make sick drug addicted people into enemies and criminals, and gave student loans to the bank sharks. EVERYTHING I just listed affected me, my family, and my friends. How I feel about him is intensely personal.
Classic. He Got His. No empathy. An inflated ego. Just like Hillary said, sounds familiar. Whether it's the Reagan Revolution or Project 2025, We The People are not going back. WE formed a government, not a damn corporation. In my mind, I see Sally Field as Norma Rae holding up that UNION sign.
Preach Brother Thom---the devil IS in the details.
Reagan read his lines well and was loved by many . Tax cuts and Star Wars exploded the annual federal deficit. In the wake of Ronald
Ray Gun and the risk of a nuclear holocaust- I didn’t think revitalizing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was a bad thing . Well thinking people believed that after two nasty world wars in Europe, it would be better to trade than to continue to blow each other up . A common currency was a dream for a long time
and reduced friction at the borders in Europe makes trade easier. Not sure blaming it for the problems with NAFTA is fair . Personally I failed to
comprehend the extent to which North American factory jobs would
be closed and sent to lower wage countries. We had a border industrialization program way before
Reagan . I did my graduate Economics Thesis in Mexico in the early 1970’s . By the time the majority of the US plants were completely shut down ( as opposed to just sending some labor intensive steps to the border for processing before sending them back home for most of the value to be added ) the Chicago
School had taken over with the concept of “ shareholder value “
and earnings per share metrics
about the only thing corporate CEO’s
looked at . So I guess it wasn’t such a surprise that so many US plants closed - but the concept of free trade ( correctly administered) should not parish because of the
general agreement to worship profits
above community and to claim that greed is good no matter what the consequences are for working families.
And yet, as the avuncular host of “Death Valley Days” he shaped the public image he wore as President. SNL skewered this sleight of hand mercilessly…https://youtu.be/b5wfPlgKFh8?si=fAmBtF_KCU4kLPM7
I'm glad that at last there seems to be a realization that in every civilization there is an accumulation of wealth; and as wealth accumulates, it becomes badly maldistributed in favor of the owners/rulers. This maldistribution is the basis of class warfare, as the wealth grabbers assume their superiority is normal and natural. Well, no it isn't. But their greed appears to be natural to them.
It used to be that there was a depression every 20 years just like clockwork before government regulation. The wealthy middle class were sowing the seeds of their own destruction. The upper wealthy class were just fine. I wonder if the upper wealthy class allowed wealth to trickle down to their lower class wealthy?
Chris, the rich upper class did well during the depression, all of those expensive, well made classic cars that fetch up to a million dollars, like the Cord, Dusenberg, Packard, Cadillac were sold at a time when men were lining up for a tin of soup, or join the WPA.
I was very pleased to see the reports of voter turnout for the WI primaries recently, record breaking numbers despite no statewide races on the ballot, and solid republican losses across the board.
The perspectives on where we've been and where we are going (hopefully) could not be made any clearer. But the damage done should not be underestimated. The memes of big bad government and indolent and wayward youth, along with self-indulgent liberals with too much permissiveness and license are all around us and indelibly impressed in the minds of many. The right wing will not fade away and die quietly or peacefully. Bet on it. This is no time to let our guard down.
Agreed, but since before WWII, the Scandinavians have been working on it, and it seems to be working. Recently I read a piece on how Finland has all but eliminated homelessness and successfully reintegrated the homeless population into society.
I would be more inclined to think that self-selection is going on and that people with certain proclivities and rudimentary or deep core beliefs find a home with right wing groups rather than being created by them. Right/left distinctions are somewhat arbitrary but those leaning toward the right are typically more extremist because they harbor greater personal fears and moral certainty, usually around religious dogma and probably because of childhood trauma or fanaticism.
And so Trump continues with the rhetoric of the past exhorting that the US will become a failed state under Democratic control. And as usual he is projecting. Under Republican control he will bring the country past the tipping point and slide more and more of us closer to the poverty line. Hopefully we have learned our lesson from the previous two attacks on the middle class in the last century. Even if we win this election we need to remain vigilant because they will try again to subvert the middle class. We need to implement programs that will take away their financial weapon. Let's return to a 90% tax on excessive income. Anything under, say $400,000 would be subject to the same rate as the rest of us. This shouldn't be too much of a burden on the super wealthy, they probably wiil be able to keep one of their mega-yachts.
Nobody forgets that it was Clinton who signed NAFTA (I don't care whose idea it was) and Obama who bailed out Wall Street while crying austerity for everyone else. Obama also lied blatantly about his health care plan which funneled our collective well-being into the hands of the health care conglomerates (you can keep your doctor, your premiums won't go up etc). So this violence towards the working class and service to the billionaire class led to the rise of Trump, which now you are trying to fight by hiding the Democratic Party's continued neoliberal (really neoconservative) behavior so that they can "beat Trump" in the next election. How much does the Democratic Party need to do to subvert democracy before you will call them out as you do the Republicans (and rightfully so)? Does the concealing of a president's Parkinson's Disease for YEARS (with your able assistance) leading to his removal by the party elites (which is portrayed as a heroic action by Biden) although he was "elected" in a Soviet-style sham primary only to have Kamala Harris anointed without a single vote concern you in the least? Probably not, just as you minimize Gaza and Yemen and say they are not genocides. Not standing up for justice and human rights on one side while assaulting the other for its abuses just gets us another Trump next election cycle. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/the-democratic-partys-last-walz
Just have to add this factoid - Parkinson’s is NOT part of dementia. Michael J Fox was not demented. Nor was my father, diagnosed at age 39 with it - had a long, busy career in music in public schools till he experienced blindness in one eye and couldn’t drive anymore!! Get it STRAIGHT!
You sound like my wife. Fortunately we live in Massachusetts so her protest vote won’t affect the outcome. If you live in a swing state, I urge you to hold your nose if you must and vote for every Democrat on the ballot….for all the reasons William ably gave!
Could you give a citation for the alleged Parkinson’s cover up? And the Soviet-style sham election?
I was very pissed off that Israel was allowed to compete in the Olympics despite being called out as an apartheid state by the ICC. As bad as Russian invasion of Ukraine is, Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is far worse, but Israel gets to send athletes while Russian and Belarusian athletes had to compete under a refugee banner. Deplorable.
And the genocide in Sudan. There is horror all over the world, but for some reason only HAMAS is getting attention. Why would that be? Arab money and financial influence in American Universities maybe, nostaligic Marxists that are still attached to Russia.. Maybe a media that thrives on sensationalism and blood.
Palestinians are Arabs are they not? And Muslim Arabs at that?
A nation of 10 million Jews and 2 million Arabs, can hardly commit genocide against a nation of a billion.
The Jews are surrounded by Arab Muslims, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Jordan and yet you and others claim they are committing genocide.
Committing genocide against Arab Muslims while a billion neighbors stand by and watch.
Apartheid you say. Black Africans did not have the right to vote, couldn't serve in the Afrikaans Parliament. Arab Israels do have the right to vote and have even served in the Knesset, and their are Arabs in the IDF.
I will, genocide is about wiping out a people, the Palestinians are a people. Many are not Muslim (small numbers, granted). Israel is an apartheid state and right now they are committing genocide. Lumping them in with Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis, et al, doesn’t change anything. Hitler could do nothing about British Jews or American Jews, South Africa couldn’t do anything about Africans outside their borders, doesn’t change anything.
Yes, there is horror all over, but in this nation if it’s not about protecting Israel or other white Europeans, we don’t seem to care.
Israeli Arabs are Israeli. Palestinian Arabs are not. (Not entirely accurate, but the point is valid.)
Palestinians are a member of an ethic group of billions. Hitler tried to wipe out all European Jews.
They are not a separate entity, they are Arab Muslims.And there are a billion of them
The Orthodox settlers are indeed guilty of heinous crimes,no excuse, no rationalization. But do you think it would have happened if the Arabs had left Israel in peace, let themhave theirl iittle ethnostate, rather than constantly trying to wipe them off the face of the map, now that is genocide. The Muslims have 57 ethnostates, but one Jewish ethnostate is one too many, especially if it sits on sacred Muslim soil.
Thanks for admitting my point. Israeli Arabs and {Palestinian Arabs are one people under different polities.
Polities don't fit into the definition of genocide.
The rapidity with which the left gravitates towards the word genocide in relation to the Palestinians, while ignoring the real genocide going on in the rest of the world, esepcially the Ukraine, tells me that the real reason behind is Jew hatred.
I don't use the word antisemitic, because it is a 19th century construct, and based on a biblical myth, that the Jews in the world descend from Noah's son Shem. And includes the Northern Atabs. But Arab is an identity based solely on the native tongue. There are Christian Arabs, Jewish Arabs (the Druze), Caucasian Arabs, Negroid Arabs, mixed race are the dominant.
Using the word Palestine implies that there is a people named Palestine, because there is a nation called Palestine, there is not, there never was.
The Romans called the area Syria Palestiania. It was part of the Turkish Empire until WWI. T
The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine,. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria.
Jordan occupied and subsequently annexed the portion of Mandatory Palestine that became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The territory remained under Jordanian control until it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and eventually Jordan renounced its claim to the territory in 1988
None of this would have happened, not even the 1948 naqba (catastrophe) had not the Arabs tried to obliterate the Jews and their state.
The Arabs attacked the Jews first in 1948, 1956, 1967,1973, 2006 and Oct 7th., each time with the intent of genocide, yet the left is moot, only the Jews are the culprits.
There is indeed left and right wing Jew hatred.The great horseshoe. where left and right meet.
You ignored my point completely, either by willful ignorance or an utter disregard for actual history.
“…historical Palestine.” Your words William, completely going against your prior comment that they are ONLY part of a bigger group. The whole region was at most caliphates and fluid tribal areas, until European colonialism. You are defining the Palestinians by modern Western standards. Israel was created and given to zionist rule in 1947, displacing millions of Palestinians in the process. I don’t blame those Arabs that were displaced, and their allies, for being rather pissed off. Maybe if Israel had just tried to live peacefully instead of suppressing the Palestinians it would have gone much smoother.
Prior to and after the 6-days war many Arabs and Jews lived harmoniously in and around Israel, particularly the West Bank. It isn’t THAT there is a small Jewish religiostate (not ethnostate) but how they administer it and how they treat Palestinians.
Historical Palestine has been occupied for millenia by Jews and Bedouins and Arabs.
There was no European colonialsim in the area,It was all Arab and Turk colonialism. The Brits came in because of a UN Mandate to administer the area after WWII, before that there was no European presence.
The Arabs were not displaced in 1947 either.
Theodore Herzl, toured Europe to recruit Jews to move to the Palestinate Mandate. They bought land.
Jews were living side by side with the Arabs and Bedouins for thousands of years, and even before the Palestinate Mandate, there were pogroms agains the Jews, even before Zionism.
\There has always been Arab hostility towards the jews. Muhammad hd 600 members of the Jewish Quaryza tribe beheaded in the Medina marketplace, 6 at a time, because he desired their wealth. Quranic verses 33:26-27 and 33:9-10
The hadiths are sacred Islamic texts,so sacred that Mullahs and Mufti's use them for Islamic jurisprudence and fatwa's.
Verse 1295/1295, book 56, hadith 139 al Bukhari says: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).. The day of Judgement is the Muslim end times, when Allah will decide the fate of all Muslims, living and dead.
The above is also in the HAMAS covenant, para 7, article 7, along withIsrael will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
Which has never been repudiated, though the Covenant has been updated for PR purposes that part has never been repudiated.
I just finished reading the Democratic Platform. It's not a platform. It's a series of excuses for why we can't have "the nice things" Thom Hartmann refers to that other countries have. Their excuse is, you know, Republicans.
The system doesn't work anymore. Bragging that more people are insured with whatever kind of insurance than ever before is not an achievement. How do we eliminate the Electoral College and Citizens United by working within the system? Don't say overwhelmingly voting for the Democratic ticket. Nobody I talk to believes that.
For example, in order to have Medicare Advantage pay for part of a continuous glucose monitor, I went through two appeals with a contractor paid for by the insurance to deny me. Then, Maximus, another contractor, finally said I was wrongfully denied, but the pharmacist is still withholding the prescription. Much money is wasted denying healthcare in this sick, wasteful mess that has been created to earn money for people who can't do much else since we de-industrialized.
As soon as my youngest grandchild's mother gave birth, she went back to her life of addiction with a former addicted boyfriend, leaving my son to raise the child alone. He has been unable to afford childcare to work in construction, so he resorted to food delivery to take the child with him. DoorDash turned off his app for "fraud" without reason, forcing him to apply for SNAP and Medicaid. He qualified for Medicaid, not SNAP because they said they needed more information. He is earning less for Uber, and we help watch the four-year-old during lunch hours.
He could make it if we had subsidized childcare and people could afford to build homes so that his siding business would flourish. He wants to home-school his little boy because his memories of how he was treated in the public school system are horrific. I remember trying to keep him in school against the system that wanted him to take medication for ADHD, even defying a judge who said he gave his son that medication. Many children who took that medication became drug or alcohol addicts, and some committed suicide.
I am too discouraged after reading the so-called Democratic Platform that I am not going to a Democratic meeting 30 miles across the Stateline into Wisconsin tonight as I had planned. I might cry when I try registering a voter or encouraging someone to vote.
Gloria — Do you KNOW that “The Affordable Care Act” would have been a far different set of laws if it did not have to get past Republicans in Congress who INSISTED on keeping insurance companies in the mix, instead of creating a universal coverage system? YOU KNOW HOW YOU ARE BEING MISTREATED, BUT YOU DON’T SEE WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DOING IT.
Yes, I put that in caps, not to holler it, but to emphasize that it’s the crux of the problem. It’s like this situation with the border legislation that was negotiated recently with Dems and Repubs — they argued and debated and came up with a bill {one that our people patrolling our borders said they WANTED}, but the Republicans who held too many votes in Congress dumped the bill, even though their own people negotiated it, so they could continue to complain about migrants.
YES, you have hit the nail on the head about how our rules are hurting people like your family {I am so sorry your son is going through all that — I hope we manage to make a BETTER health act in the near future}, but you need to know that it’s not just whining and excuses to point to who is keeping us all down.
This history lesson from Mr. Hartmann is straight on the point. They WANT your son to struggle to take care of his child, so he can’t risk opposinig the guys with all the money when they walk off with even more of it.
I know what happened. Obama did not negotiate starting with a single-payer universal system. He started somewhere in the middle and ended up helping a for-profit system that is now so entrenched in the economy that it will be even more challenging to get what the population needs.
That's true Gloria, but if we keep banging on the negatives until Nov 5th, all we are doing is helping Trump.
Wait till the election is over, and if Kamala Wins (a big if) then press forward for change.
All the protesters are doing is feeding the Republican grist mill.
A TV camera picked up a large banner, Feminists and LGBT+ for Palestine.
Really, feminists and LGBT for Islam. Do they think the Palestinians are Christians, or Atheists.
How about a feminist or a queer trying to live free and unmolested in Palestine, much less a Muslim country. How about an Abaya, Chador, Niqb, Burga, what some call a bee keeper suit, Iran has killed young girls for not wearing the Hijab, and Queers, well thrown off roofs, beheaded, burned, and Iran forces gays to undergo sexual reassignment surgery.
Feminists and queers for Islam, sure. Chickens for KFC, Cows for McDonalds.
As you know Gloria, I have a long bitch list about what I want the Democrats to do, but I will be damned if I am going to feed the feces throwing MAGAt monkeys.
Pat, as regads he ACA. Rahm Emanel saw to it that only insurance company lobbyists and reps got into the White House, and even Bernie Sanders was not allowed in to make his case for Medicare for All.
The insurance company experts actually wrote the ACA, Nancy oversaw the process.
Rahm stepped in and called progressives "fucking retards" and coined that agitprop phrase of "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good".
Bernies plan would have involved one page, one paragraph,instead of a 1,000 pages. Simply amend the Medicare enabling act to say "eligible from birth", nothing more complicated than that, but it would have pissed off AHIP (Association of Health Insurance Providers) cost the jobs of tens of thousands who work for the insurance companies, but they could have been hired by CMS or Medicare.
The Democratic party is like the Republican party in one major aspect, they are terrified of incurring donor hostility and thus losing donor cash.
Both parties are pigs that slop at the trough, and the Democrats ignore the Bernie example that you don't need billionaire cash.
That said, I will crawl over broken glass to keep Trump and Heritage Foundation/Federalist Society off the levers of government.
After Nov 5th and all the votes are counted, then it is time to hold the Democratic parties, feet to the fire. If this shit moaning about Harris and the Democrats continue, if Muslims and black males follow through with their threats, then they will reap their reward... Trump.
Don’t loose hope. Democrats want to make important changes but we NEED to vote in a democratic Senate and House. You get what’s wrong but just think what could change if we all stand up and vote the insanity and perverted unfairness out and get started turning this ship around!
But unlike many diehard ideologues. I am at present a single issue voter, and that issue is
To do whatever I can to keep Trump and Project 2025 out of the White House.
I don't care if there isn't a real Democratic Platform, hold your nose, keep quiet and vote, then put pressure on the party after they win the White House, because all you are doing is feeding the machine gun of the MAGAts, ammunition.
Do you think there will even be a Democracy if all the disappointed, disgusted, leftists, Muslims and blacks, progressives, sat on their hands or voted for RFK and Jill Stein.?
It is trench warfare. The enemy is running at us en masse, flooding the zone Not time to bitch about the company or battalion commander, that you didn't get a promotion, or some else got the fries, or the coffee is lousy.
We've not heard the last of Reagan in this election cycle.
As a symbol and motivator for conservatives and Republicans, "Reagan" is about to again be resurrected and pushed into THIS election's discourse! A MOVIE will soon be released (gag, choke),
PS, Here's my rebuttal a too often repeated claim about the "fall of communism". The "defense build up" and "peace through strength" activity of the 80s involved spending a whole lot of money on military weaponry. This caused the USSR to collapse.
But that's so very wrong.
We outspent every other nation on earth in buying weapons, but no other country collapsed!
Look who are still around - China, North Korea, Iran, are just a few of the many countries we outspent.
It was telling that you said it began to end with Biden. Obama had a double majority and still let minority republicans maintain the Reagan Revolution. It amazes me as a Canadian and avid fan of the US that your history has demonstrated over and over again that if you give the money power an inch they will try to take it all. 1800 slave/cotton trade, 1885 financial collapse, 1910's robber barons, 2008 financial collapse. Friedman, Laffer et al need to be out and out demonized and chucked on the garbage heap of history. Macro economics for democracies is easy: John Maynard Keynes solved it. Geez even f'n Henry Ford said his workers should make enough to afford what they are building. More income=more and better customers but only if the products are made within the economy. I will never understand why the US isn't "heaven on earth".
Unfortunately, We can’t relax even after Election Day ! They will undoubtedly try to overturn the results using legal subterfuge or violence! They right wing infrastructure is not going to just go away ! They will continue to attack Democracy and attempt to impose their economic and religious beliefs on the country!
This is the very best article,if read by many, to raise our middle class to a hopeful reason to fight the politics of our billionaire class that disdains growth of our middle class. So informative of the history of the who’s and whys of the top 1% percenters purposefully holding back the inevitable growth of the middle class. The’ve used deregulation and even our sense of fairness against us. EVERY ONE must read this!!
I think understanding what happened is a start. But how do we turn it around?
We elect Democrats, and build union membership. This is the base on which the middle class is built, and we need to get back to the true values of democracy. We the People are the government, and we must elect leaders who are willing to lead us back into the ideals laid out in all of the speeches last evening.
To do that, we register more Democrats, make blue waves a blue tsunami.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
We obviously need to elect anti Capitalists. Those that understand that how Capitalism is currently practiced does not promote a Democratic society.
Wall street is a cheater Gamblers haven many things: short selling included is corruption at its finest. Socialism needs to be elevated as a means to distribute wealth equality and this would include raising the tax rates on wealth. WIth the billionaire class paying 90% tax rate. Multi millionares paying 80%. in tax on income
Much of the taxes from these super rich will pave the way for healthcare for all
and Tuition rates dropped to the 1960's. With serious students receiving yearly reductions in tuition costs. Taxes can be used for housing and assisting lower income. and homeless
We elect Democrats and then we revise the tax code in a way to get the obscenely wealthy to pay for the tax gifts that made them rich. We also reform the always pro-business, anti-everyone else, especially minorities and women, Supreme Court.
Vote blue! Send postcards to Swing state Dems. I am in a red state traveling, and have a reply ready if anyone accosts me about my "Lotus for POTUS" cap: 45 is not a Christian, he was not chosen by god, and he has you all fooled. I have good friends who are Saints (LDS) and Christian relatives in Kansas, and they see 45 for who he is: a swindling rapist who cares only for power and money.
WOW — that is a needed history lesson and dose of clarity!!
I knew Reagan and his handlers {Heritage Soc types} constantly demonized government, but I didn’t not realize that Paine’s THE RIGHTS OF MAN was a direct refutation of a philosophy that said the peons need to be kept down for the GOOD of all — I figured it was just the venal privilege of power that didn’t want to be challenged. How could I not have known that some jamokes were dressing that attitude up in “righteousness” and “the good”?
When I heard Biden say that line about realizing that “Government is US, the people!” I just nodded my head and kept listening. Because I thought it was common knowledge — or it should be! It is a line I have been harping on in commentary threads for a couple of years.I wrote it to President Biden in comments I often send to HIM on the White House web site {we can DO that, people — go to the White House web site and click on “contact” and direct your own message to the President!}.
How clever were these people who believe in the elitism of money — they framed protests against the horrors of Vietnam as a consequence of letting the hoi polloi earn too much money!! Rather than the people objecting to having been exploited and lied to and sent to their deaths. Sadly, Mr. Hartmann, there was actually NO noble intent in what Reagan did to destroy the middle class. It was not to preserve order and governability — the idea was “Keep ‘em poor and desperate, so they don’t dare resist their ‘betters.’ “
Disgusting.
Thanks SO much for the excellent lesson in the history of political philosophy and the American social and political experience.
SO enlightening!!! SO important!
"Keep ‘em poor and desperate, so they don’t dare resist their ‘betters.’ “
The folk that need this the most are watching Fox or worse..... confront them there. Can comment on their websites, attach Thom's articles. Let then know that Trump hates dogs. Stole from kids with cancer, etc.
Hit their websites, They are sure hitting progressive websites. New right wing trolls keep showing up every day, especially on Robert Reich's, because one can post on his substack without a subscription.
Pat Sez: "they framed protests against the horrors of Vietnam as a consequence of letting the hoi polloi earn too much money!! Rather than the people objecting to having been exploited and lied to and sent to their deaths. "
The Lewis Powell memo, is what got the ball rolling. Thom has written about it many times
https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/
And months after he wrote that memo to the US Chamber of Commerce, Nixon appointed him to SCOTUS.
This memo was the opening shot on the assault on the middle class.
Yes.The history WE are aware of … So, I have to visit their web sites and conversations/
I read info from the right, but I’m not sure I’m up to writing on their sites …
I am not Pat. A couple of years ago I would engage, just to pull chains, on the comment section of the Hill, it's moderators were right wingers. they eventually shut down the comment section and move it to Facebook. I don't have a FB account.
Mediaite is the same, polluted with right wing morons, and yes they are morons, It is hard to believe that people can be so stupid.
I don't read them, because I know what they are going to say, it is the same five or six things over and over. There is absolutely nothing to learn from them, and if someone is bored, has time on their hands, they are a great place to troll, but be wary, you will probably get banned after one or two posts.
I don’t read Mediaite much. Read scads of things. Find NYT outrageously aggravating. And WAPO and Globe. I expect rightist claptrap from the editorial pages of the WSJ, but would at least like not to see so many weasel words and weighted comments in the NEWS sections of all the papers everywhere.
I try to at least know what the “arguments” are for the conservative way of thinking, but it’s not really conservative any more. It’s Right Cult Thinking.
But, hey, that is how I see it, and THEY say the same sort of thing about MY thinking. That I’m drinking the KoolAid on the LEFT?
I need to know what the points of contention are. I need to try to remember {or l learn} the history that feeds into people’s ideas about how the world works — the philosophies, world views, and values that underpin all these “opinions” floating around.
When I go deep into their ideas, the Right to me is just so f-ing illogical. It’s more desire and wishful thinking about the world they want to shape than it is related to real things.
And they’re principles are not founded on the real facts of history, when we check that out, too. {Much of it I lived, so I can remember stuff and see how they misrepresent it. JD Vance is one of the worst on that score — up there with Ayn Rand in the dumbass “pseudo-philosopher” category. Only, even she was smarter than he is.}
It’s just getting so hard have a discussion {we could use the words “argument”, or “debate,” but I am talking about rational conversation to organize and refine and understand thoughts …} with people currently. First, they form their opinions based on fallacies; second, they insist WE are fallacious; third, they don’t want to find common ground, because they insist they are in the God-Given-Right! {pun intended}.
I’m exhausted.
I subscribe to the Bulwark. Never Trumpers founded by Charlie Sykes,now an "analyst" on MSNBC.
Not at all rabid right, them and the Lincoln Project, but they are Reagan conservatives. I tried to ask Charlie what brief do they have against progressives?
Is it diversity? Is it equity? Is it inclusion? I can't get an answer.
Scratch them and it is economic libertarianism, so called free market, no regulation. small government. And where we would be if there were such.
No hiways, no internet, no defense, no public utiliies, no parks, a perpetual wild west or a Somalia.
But I am glad to have them as allies,however they are now becoming Democrats (it is a movement actually)
On the subject of kool aid, there is in fact, a problem, that is non ideological, or shall I say transideologic.
To be thought of or think of my self as left or progressive one is expected to drink the Strawberry kool aid,my analogy is to eat the whole pie (or pizza) I prefer to eat slices, and even a slice from the rights PIZZA, but with my own special topping.
The right wing is the same, they all drink the Orange kiool aid, all of them without a second thought or hesitation. And there are many of the left that do the same with strawberry kool aid.
With hidebound ideologues they expect ideological purity.I am not ideologically pure, and from the comments I've seen in my time on Reich's substack I am not alone.
Back to the Trump humpers accusing you of drinking the left's kool aid, they are projecting as you well know.
A person who as a need to believe (in anything), thinks everyone else has the same need, the notion that one could hold opinions (arrived at not acquired) is beyond their ken.
Reagan wasn't a devil, but he definitely was a sell-out. He went from being the head of The Screen Actors Guild to being a company man for GE.
His career had turned to crap, and he was redeemed and well compensated by his hosting job on General Electric Theater. His daughter recently recalled that their ultra-modern house had something to do with the company. Sure sounded like they provided that home for him.
I remember exactly what he did to bust unions, turn the mentally ill out of facilities without other options, tried to make sick drug addicted people into enemies and criminals, and gave student loans to the bank sharks. EVERYTHING I just listed affected me, my family, and my friends. How I feel about him is intensely personal.
Classic. He Got His. No empathy. An inflated ego. Just like Hillary said, sounds familiar. Whether it's the Reagan Revolution or Project 2025, We The People are not going back. WE formed a government, not a damn corporation. In my mind, I see Sally Field as Norma Rae holding up that UNION sign.
Preach Brother Thom---the devil IS in the details.
Reagan read his lines well and was loved by many . Tax cuts and Star Wars exploded the annual federal deficit. In the wake of Ronald
Ray Gun and the risk of a nuclear holocaust- I didn’t think revitalizing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was a bad thing . Well thinking people believed that after two nasty world wars in Europe, it would be better to trade than to continue to blow each other up . A common currency was a dream for a long time
and reduced friction at the borders in Europe makes trade easier. Not sure blaming it for the problems with NAFTA is fair . Personally I failed to
comprehend the extent to which North American factory jobs would
be closed and sent to lower wage countries. We had a border industrialization program way before
Reagan . I did my graduate Economics Thesis in Mexico in the early 1970’s . By the time the majority of the US plants were completely shut down ( as opposed to just sending some labor intensive steps to the border for processing before sending them back home for most of the value to be added ) the Chicago
School had taken over with the concept of “ shareholder value “
and earnings per share metrics
about the only thing corporate CEO’s
looked at . So I guess it wasn’t such a surprise that so many US plants closed - but the concept of free trade ( correctly administered) should not parish because of the
general agreement to worship profits
above community and to claim that greed is good no matter what the consequences are for working families.
Reagan named names. https://todayinclh.com/?event=reagan-names-names-before-huac
And yet, as the avuncular host of “Death Valley Days” he shaped the public image he wore as President. SNL skewered this sleight of hand mercilessly…https://youtu.be/b5wfPlgKFh8?si=fAmBtF_KCU4kLPM7
At last!!! Thank you, Thom Hartmann, for all you do!!!
I'm glad that at last there seems to be a realization that in every civilization there is an accumulation of wealth; and as wealth accumulates, it becomes badly maldistributed in favor of the owners/rulers. This maldistribution is the basis of class warfare, as the wealth grabbers assume their superiority is normal and natural. Well, no it isn't. But their greed appears to be natural to them.
It used to be that there was a depression every 20 years just like clockwork before government regulation. The wealthy middle class were sowing the seeds of their own destruction. The upper wealthy class were just fine. I wonder if the upper wealthy class allowed wealth to trickle down to their lower class wealthy?
Chris, the rich upper class did well during the depression, all of those expensive, well made classic cars that fetch up to a million dollars, like the Cord, Dusenberg, Packard, Cadillac were sold at a time when men were lining up for a tin of soup, or join the WPA.
They do need a well-educated class of courtiers (engineers, accountants, lawyers, medical specialists) to create their own social welfare.
Man, I hope you are right, and I think you are. I'm 85+ and I've "seen all". Thanks!
Bofus Gene. (Both of us, for those who might think that was a slur)
Operative phrase: “if we show up this fall.”
I was very pleased to see the reports of voter turnout for the WI primaries recently, record breaking numbers despite no statewide races on the ballot, and solid republican losses across the board.
The perspectives on where we've been and where we are going (hopefully) could not be made any clearer. But the damage done should not be underestimated. The memes of big bad government and indolent and wayward youth, along with self-indulgent liberals with too much permissiveness and license are all around us and indelibly impressed in the minds of many. The right wing will not fade away and die quietly or peacefully. Bet on it. This is no time to let our guard down.
Agreed, but since before WWII, the Scandinavians have been working on it, and it seems to be working. Recently I read a piece on how Finland has all but eliminated homelessness and successfully reintegrated the homeless population into society.
The right create more liars and psychopaths than the left! Just because a person votes dem doesn't make them left either!
I would be more inclined to think that self-selection is going on and that people with certain proclivities and rudimentary or deep core beliefs find a home with right wing groups rather than being created by them. Right/left distinctions are somewhat arbitrary but those leaning toward the right are typically more extremist because they harbor greater personal fears and moral certainty, usually around religious dogma and probably because of childhood trauma or fanaticism.
I just took the online ideology test, It typed me as progressive left, but it didn't ask the right questions or enough of them. Bob.
And so Trump continues with the rhetoric of the past exhorting that the US will become a failed state under Democratic control. And as usual he is projecting. Under Republican control he will bring the country past the tipping point and slide more and more of us closer to the poverty line. Hopefully we have learned our lesson from the previous two attacks on the middle class in the last century. Even if we win this election we need to remain vigilant because they will try again to subvert the middle class. We need to implement programs that will take away their financial weapon. Let's return to a 90% tax on excessive income. Anything under, say $400,000 would be subject to the same rate as the rest of us. This shouldn't be too much of a burden on the super wealthy, they probably wiil be able to keep one of their mega-yachts.
Nobody forgets that it was Clinton who signed NAFTA (I don't care whose idea it was) and Obama who bailed out Wall Street while crying austerity for everyone else. Obama also lied blatantly about his health care plan which funneled our collective well-being into the hands of the health care conglomerates (you can keep your doctor, your premiums won't go up etc). So this violence towards the working class and service to the billionaire class led to the rise of Trump, which now you are trying to fight by hiding the Democratic Party's continued neoliberal (really neoconservative) behavior so that they can "beat Trump" in the next election. How much does the Democratic Party need to do to subvert democracy before you will call them out as you do the Republicans (and rightfully so)? Does the concealing of a president's Parkinson's Disease for YEARS (with your able assistance) leading to his removal by the party elites (which is portrayed as a heroic action by Biden) although he was "elected" in a Soviet-style sham primary only to have Kamala Harris anointed without a single vote concern you in the least? Probably not, just as you minimize Gaza and Yemen and say they are not genocides. Not standing up for justice and human rights on one side while assaulting the other for its abuses just gets us another Trump next election cycle. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/the-democratic-partys-last-walz
Just have to add this factoid - Parkinson’s is NOT part of dementia. Michael J Fox was not demented. Nor was my father, diagnosed at age 39 with it - had a long, busy career in music in public schools till he experienced blindness in one eye and couldn’t drive anymore!! Get it STRAIGHT!
Dana, I knew a guy with parkinson, poor guy, he shook a lot and took small steps and could fall. But he was sharp as a tack.
Boris Kaufman is a Putin troll, he doesn't outright defend Putin, he does so by attacking Biden, Democrats and now Harris.. wait for it.
Barry,
You sound like my wife. Fortunately we live in Massachusetts so her protest vote won’t affect the outcome. If you live in a swing state, I urge you to hold your nose if you must and vote for every Democrat on the ballot….for all the reasons William ably gave!
Could you give a citation for the alleged Parkinson’s cover up? And the Soviet-style sham election?
I was very pissed off that Israel was allowed to compete in the Olympics despite being called out as an apartheid state by the ICC. As bad as Russian invasion of Ukraine is, Israel’s genocide of Palestinians is far worse, but Israel gets to send athletes while Russian and Belarusian athletes had to compete under a refugee banner. Deplorable.
And the genocide in Sudan. There is horror all over the world, but for some reason only HAMAS is getting attention. Why would that be? Arab money and financial influence in American Universities maybe, nostaligic Marxists that are still attached to Russia.. Maybe a media that thrives on sensationalism and blood.
Palestinians are Arabs are they not? And Muslim Arabs at that?
A nation of 10 million Jews and 2 million Arabs, can hardly commit genocide against a nation of a billion.
The Jews are surrounded by Arab Muslims, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Jordan and yet you and others claim they are committing genocide.
Committing genocide against Arab Muslims while a billion neighbors stand by and watch.
Apartheid you say. Black Africans did not have the right to vote, couldn't serve in the Afrikaans Parliament. Arab Israels do have the right to vote and have even served in the Knesset, and their are Arabs in the IDF.
So tell me about Apartheid and Genocide again.
I will, genocide is about wiping out a people, the Palestinians are a people. Many are not Muslim (small numbers, granted). Israel is an apartheid state and right now they are committing genocide. Lumping them in with Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis, et al, doesn’t change anything. Hitler could do nothing about British Jews or American Jews, South Africa couldn’t do anything about Africans outside their borders, doesn’t change anything.
Yes, there is horror all over, but in this nation if it’s not about protecting Israel or other white Europeans, we don’t seem to care.
Israeli Arabs are Israeli. Palestinian Arabs are not. (Not entirely accurate, but the point is valid.)
Palestinians are a member of an ethic group of billions. Hitler tried to wipe out all European Jews.
They are not a separate entity, they are Arab Muslims.And there are a billion of them
The Orthodox settlers are indeed guilty of heinous crimes,no excuse, no rationalization. But do you think it would have happened if the Arabs had left Israel in peace, let themhave theirl iittle ethnostate, rather than constantly trying to wipe them off the face of the map, now that is genocide. The Muslims have 57 ethnostates, but one Jewish ethnostate is one too many, especially if it sits on sacred Muslim soil.
Thanks for admitting my point. Israeli Arabs and {Palestinian Arabs are one people under different polities.
Polities don't fit into the definition of genocide.
The rapidity with which the left gravitates towards the word genocide in relation to the Palestinians, while ignoring the real genocide going on in the rest of the world, esepcially the Ukraine, tells me that the real reason behind is Jew hatred.
I don't use the word antisemitic, because it is a 19th century construct, and based on a biblical myth, that the Jews in the world descend from Noah's son Shem. And includes the Northern Atabs. But Arab is an identity based solely on the native tongue. There are Christian Arabs, Jewish Arabs (the Druze), Caucasian Arabs, Negroid Arabs, mixed race are the dominant.
Using the word Palestine implies that there is a people named Palestine, because there is a nation called Palestine, there is not, there never was.
The Romans called the area Syria Palestiania. It was part of the Turkish Empire until WWI. T
The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine,. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria.
Jordan occupied and subsequently annexed the portion of Mandatory Palestine that became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The territory remained under Jordanian control until it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and eventually Jordan renounced its claim to the territory in 1988
None of this would have happened, not even the 1948 naqba (catastrophe) had not the Arabs tried to obliterate the Jews and their state.
The Arabs attacked the Jews first in 1948, 1956, 1967,1973, 2006 and Oct 7th., each time with the intent of genocide, yet the left is moot, only the Jews are the culprits.
There is indeed left and right wing Jew hatred.The great horseshoe. where left and right meet.
You ignored my point completely, either by willful ignorance or an utter disregard for actual history.
“…historical Palestine.” Your words William, completely going against your prior comment that they are ONLY part of a bigger group. The whole region was at most caliphates and fluid tribal areas, until European colonialism. You are defining the Palestinians by modern Western standards. Israel was created and given to zionist rule in 1947, displacing millions of Palestinians in the process. I don’t blame those Arabs that were displaced, and their allies, for being rather pissed off. Maybe if Israel had just tried to live peacefully instead of suppressing the Palestinians it would have gone much smoother.
Prior to and after the 6-days war many Arabs and Jews lived harmoniously in and around Israel, particularly the West Bank. It isn’t THAT there is a small Jewish religiostate (not ethnostate) but how they administer it and how they treat Palestinians.
What is your point Reader.
Historical Palestine has been occupied for millenia by Jews and Bedouins and Arabs.
There was no European colonialsim in the area,It was all Arab and Turk colonialism. The Brits came in because of a UN Mandate to administer the area after WWII, before that there was no European presence.
The Arabs were not displaced in 1947 either.
Theodore Herzl, toured Europe to recruit Jews to move to the Palestinate Mandate. They bought land.
Jews were living side by side with the Arabs and Bedouins for thousands of years, and even before the Palestinate Mandate, there were pogroms agains the Jews, even before Zionism.
\There has always been Arab hostility towards the jews. Muhammad hd 600 members of the Jewish Quaryza tribe beheaded in the Medina marketplace, 6 at a time, because he desired their wealth. Quranic verses 33:26-27 and 33:9-10
The hadiths are sacred Islamic texts,so sacred that Mullahs and Mufti's use them for Islamic jurisprudence and fatwa's.
Verse 1295/1295, book 56, hadith 139 al Bukhari says: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).. The day of Judgement is the Muslim end times, when Allah will decide the fate of all Muslims, living and dead.
The above is also in the HAMAS covenant, para 7, article 7, along withIsrael will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
Which has never been repudiated, though the Covenant has been updated for PR purposes that part has never been repudiated.
Your solution then Boris is vote Trump?
Get off it, you don't give a shit about Gaza or Yemen, they are a distraction from the ongoing genocide in Ukraine which you purposefully ignore.
What did you do to celebrate Putin's birthday? Iran helped HAMAS launch an attack on the Jews.
Oct 7th Putin's Birthday and the HAMAS slaughter of Jews.
Thom! reach out to the democratic leaders, you have so much research already done for them to PASS ON TO THE PUBLIC... is it possible?
I just finished reading the Democratic Platform. It's not a platform. It's a series of excuses for why we can't have "the nice things" Thom Hartmann refers to that other countries have. Their excuse is, you know, Republicans.
The system doesn't work anymore. Bragging that more people are insured with whatever kind of insurance than ever before is not an achievement. How do we eliminate the Electoral College and Citizens United by working within the system? Don't say overwhelmingly voting for the Democratic ticket. Nobody I talk to believes that.
For example, in order to have Medicare Advantage pay for part of a continuous glucose monitor, I went through two appeals with a contractor paid for by the insurance to deny me. Then, Maximus, another contractor, finally said I was wrongfully denied, but the pharmacist is still withholding the prescription. Much money is wasted denying healthcare in this sick, wasteful mess that has been created to earn money for people who can't do much else since we de-industrialized.
As soon as my youngest grandchild's mother gave birth, she went back to her life of addiction with a former addicted boyfriend, leaving my son to raise the child alone. He has been unable to afford childcare to work in construction, so he resorted to food delivery to take the child with him. DoorDash turned off his app for "fraud" without reason, forcing him to apply for SNAP and Medicaid. He qualified for Medicaid, not SNAP because they said they needed more information. He is earning less for Uber, and we help watch the four-year-old during lunch hours.
He could make it if we had subsidized childcare and people could afford to build homes so that his siding business would flourish. He wants to home-school his little boy because his memories of how he was treated in the public school system are horrific. I remember trying to keep him in school against the system that wanted him to take medication for ADHD, even defying a judge who said he gave his son that medication. Many children who took that medication became drug or alcohol addicts, and some committed suicide.
I am too discouraged after reading the so-called Democratic Platform that I am not going to a Democratic meeting 30 miles across the Stateline into Wisconsin tonight as I had planned. I might cry when I try registering a voter or encouraging someone to vote.
Gloria — Do you KNOW that “The Affordable Care Act” would have been a far different set of laws if it did not have to get past Republicans in Congress who INSISTED on keeping insurance companies in the mix, instead of creating a universal coverage system? YOU KNOW HOW YOU ARE BEING MISTREATED, BUT YOU DON’T SEE WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DOING IT.
Yes, I put that in caps, not to holler it, but to emphasize that it’s the crux of the problem. It’s like this situation with the border legislation that was negotiated recently with Dems and Repubs — they argued and debated and came up with a bill {one that our people patrolling our borders said they WANTED}, but the Republicans who held too many votes in Congress dumped the bill, even though their own people negotiated it, so they could continue to complain about migrants.
YES, you have hit the nail on the head about how our rules are hurting people like your family {I am so sorry your son is going through all that — I hope we manage to make a BETTER health act in the near future}, but you need to know that it’s not just whining and excuses to point to who is keeping us all down.
This history lesson from Mr. Hartmann is straight on the point. They WANT your son to struggle to take care of his child, so he can’t risk opposinig the guys with all the money when they walk off with even more of it.
I know what happened. Obama did not negotiate starting with a single-payer universal system. He started somewhere in the middle and ended up helping a for-profit system that is now so entrenched in the economy that it will be even more challenging to get what the population needs.
That's true Gloria, but if we keep banging on the negatives until Nov 5th, all we are doing is helping Trump.
Wait till the election is over, and if Kamala Wins (a big if) then press forward for change.
All the protesters are doing is feeding the Republican grist mill.
A TV camera picked up a large banner, Feminists and LGBT+ for Palestine.
Really, feminists and LGBT for Islam. Do they think the Palestinians are Christians, or Atheists.
How about a feminist or a queer trying to live free and unmolested in Palestine, much less a Muslim country. How about an Abaya, Chador, Niqb, Burga, what some call a bee keeper suit, Iran has killed young girls for not wearing the Hijab, and Queers, well thrown off roofs, beheaded, burned, and Iran forces gays to undergo sexual reassignment surgery.
Feminists and queers for Islam, sure. Chickens for KFC, Cows for McDonalds.
I
I should shut up and hang my head until after the election? Then who will listen?
As you know Gloria, I have a long bitch list about what I want the Democrats to do, but I will be damned if I am going to feed the feces throwing MAGAt monkeys.
Pat, as regads he ACA. Rahm Emanel saw to it that only insurance company lobbyists and reps got into the White House, and even Bernie Sanders was not allowed in to make his case for Medicare for All.
The insurance company experts actually wrote the ACA, Nancy oversaw the process.
Rahm stepped in and called progressives "fucking retards" and coined that agitprop phrase of "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good".
Bernies plan would have involved one page, one paragraph,instead of a 1,000 pages. Simply amend the Medicare enabling act to say "eligible from birth", nothing more complicated than that, but it would have pissed off AHIP (Association of Health Insurance Providers) cost the jobs of tens of thousands who work for the insurance companies, but they could have been hired by CMS or Medicare.
The Democratic party is like the Republican party in one major aspect, they are terrified of incurring donor hostility and thus losing donor cash.
Both parties are pigs that slop at the trough, and the Democrats ignore the Bernie example that you don't need billionaire cash.
That said, I will crawl over broken glass to keep Trump and Heritage Foundation/Federalist Society off the levers of government.
After Nov 5th and all the votes are counted, then it is time to hold the Democratic parties, feet to the fire. If this shit moaning about Harris and the Democrats continue, if Muslims and black males follow through with their threats, then they will reap their reward... Trump.
Pat, if I recall, the dems had a majority in congress, the senate and the executive.
Don’t loose hope. Democrats want to make important changes but we NEED to vote in a democratic Senate and House. You get what’s wrong but just think what could change if we all stand up and vote the insanity and perverted unfairness out and get started turning this ship around!
Also think about how much worse it will be if we don’t!!
Don’t give up now. I’m BEGGING you. Register and vote, please!
I'm registered, and I never fail to vote. Now, working for the Democratic Party with enthusiasm is my problem.
https://voterizer.org/
Thanks for the link. I checked again and I'm still registered.
I have to agree with you Gloria.
But unlike many diehard ideologues. I am at present a single issue voter, and that issue is
To do whatever I can to keep Trump and Project 2025 out of the White House.
I don't care if there isn't a real Democratic Platform, hold your nose, keep quiet and vote, then put pressure on the party after they win the White House, because all you are doing is feeding the machine gun of the MAGAts, ammunition.
Do you think there will even be a Democracy if all the disappointed, disgusted, leftists, Muslims and blacks, progressives, sat on their hands or voted for RFK and Jill Stein.?
It is trench warfare. The enemy is running at us en masse, flooding the zone Not time to bitch about the company or battalion commander, that you didn't get a promotion, or some else got the fries, or the coffee is lousy.
Thank you, Tom. Your analytical mind and wordsmith skills knocked it out of the park again.
We've not heard the last of Reagan in this election cycle.
As a symbol and motivator for conservatives and Republicans, "Reagan" is about to again be resurrected and pushed into THIS election's discourse! A MOVIE will soon be released (gag, choke),
"Reagan": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_(2024_film)
Sitting through 2 hours of conservative propaganda is not my cup of Jo.
Meanwhile stay aware and be wily because, you can never take the "CON" out of conservative.
What is the conservative mission? It is self evident, "They are conning you - into serving them!"
PS, Here's my rebuttal a too often repeated claim about the "fall of communism". The "defense build up" and "peace through strength" activity of the 80s involved spending a whole lot of money on military weaponry. This caused the USSR to collapse.
But that's so very wrong.
We outspent every other nation on earth in buying weapons, but no other country collapsed!
Look who are still around - China, North Korea, Iran, are just a few of the many countries we outspent.
It was telling that you said it began to end with Biden. Obama had a double majority and still let minority republicans maintain the Reagan Revolution. It amazes me as a Canadian and avid fan of the US that your history has demonstrated over and over again that if you give the money power an inch they will try to take it all. 1800 slave/cotton trade, 1885 financial collapse, 1910's robber barons, 2008 financial collapse. Friedman, Laffer et al need to be out and out demonized and chucked on the garbage heap of history. Macro economics for democracies is easy: John Maynard Keynes solved it. Geez even f'n Henry Ford said his workers should make enough to afford what they are building. More income=more and better customers but only if the products are made within the economy. I will never understand why the US isn't "heaven on earth".
Unfortunately, We can’t relax even after Election Day ! They will undoubtedly try to overturn the results using legal subterfuge or violence! They right wing infrastructure is not going to just go away ! They will continue to attack Democracy and attempt to impose their economic and religious beliefs on the country!