40 Comments
May 21Liked by Thom Hartmann

And ironically Trump is that “agent of Moscow” the Birchers warned about…..

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When Gorbachev undid the USSR, Trump complained that he wasn't strong enough to keep communism in power. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book

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Not that it is relevant, but in the 1980['s when pursuing my masterxs I was on the mailing list of quite a few central banks, including the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. I received their annual reports, paperback affairs with gold covers, I still have them in storage

In one report it said that the USSR was a failed experiment and needed to be reorganized.

Apparently it took at least 5 years to find the right candidate, and Gorbachev was richly rewarded. He was given a dacha on Lake Geneva, a healthy retirement income and they created for him his own NGO, the Green Cross.

When Reagan uttered those lines, Mr Gorbachev tear down these walls, he or rather his handlers knew what was in the offing, so he could grab some credit.

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Our Congressman is a second generation Bircher. Darin LaHood is the son of Ray from Peoria, Illinois. As you know, The John Birch Society is considered to be far, far right and rated Ray at 40 percent on their scale in 1998. I believe he was appointed by Obama to the department of Transportation after a long career as 18th district House of Reps! Kinzingers Rep district disappeared and was gerrymandered into Darin's 18th district. They carefully carved around dem cities like Rockford and left us just north and in his district where he is running unopposed in this election. He still hasn't answered whether he will vote to certify the election when Biden wins.

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This is simply the best history lesson written by anyone lately based absolutely on fact/reality. This should be taught in schools. I have long wondered why the rich in America have such a poor understanding of everything except the getting of money. Maybe they should read history?

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Gallup says 62% of Americans have bought into the Ponzi scheme of stock ownership and the GQP shills (Trump, etc.) are rewarded and groomed as the palace guard of the uber-rich. What impresses this old doc (also a former SDS member in Madison and MSU med school faculty member) is the iron clad control of the national narratives in service of the billionaires' agenda of endless growth and environmental destruction. Many thanks to Thom for these inciteful history lessons, especially the one about Fred Koch and where he got his money in Russia (from Stalin!). The meta-narrative that I'm watching is their control of the "climate change" narrative putting the date for 3 degC increase of pre-industrial far into the future, when any youngster (I'm 78) can see from going to C3S (Copernicus.org) and looking at their "Climate Pulse" page, where we can see 18 mo's of steadily increasing air-land and sea temps year over year and over the 1991-2020 baseline. If that trend continues, we could see 3.0 degC by about 2032. This is what they do not want us to see, as that terrifying truth will change everything, as were are really burning-up, running back from our rising seas, enduring endless cloudy skies here in the eastern US, and watching our utility infrastructure collapse, like those poor devils in Houston suffering through 100 degF heatindex without AC due to the destruction of electrical feeds to 400,000 (?). The masters of industry are squeezing out every last dime and cent before we catch-on and dramatically reduce our individual carbon footprints/ecological footprints, or join a peaceful (?) revolution to retake our country. BTW, I can no longer "like" many of the other wonderful comments here. Am I blocked?

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When my "likes" stop working, I restart my phone and find my place again, and it works.

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No you are not blocked Doc, but for some reason I can't like you or anyone else.

Fred Koch left the USSR with a fascination for at least four things, Authoritarianism, control of women's bodies, a gold standard (100% in Russia) and art 12, of the 1926 Soviet Constitution which says "if you don't work you don't eat".

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Thanks for that! I love what Thom is doing here, including your intelligent and enlightening comments. Have a blessed evening!

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Greeley.. The are very specific causes why the Earth is heating at such a rapid speed. Scientists keep upgrading their estimates based on haIf truths. They've never considered one very critical human impact. This specific human impact, located in the subarctic regions, has been flying under the radar for 70+ years. And to this day continues unabated

There are three regions on this planet where you cannot manipulate the natural environmental order of things without having severe repercussions for climate .

I'd Iove to send you a copy of our research.

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Thanks for that! My email: gmiklashek435@gmail.com. Love to see your data, as clearly the arctic/Barent's Sea are heating much faster than other regions, although Europe is at 2 degC already.

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May 21·edited May 21

Absolutely nailed it again Thom.

The billionaires and the big corporations never know when to stop maximizing profits and using the profit to suppress the workers, women, the young and the poor.

The engine that drives those Scandinavian and other healthier and happier countries is democracy. That is our tool to get there---just say no to the a dictator. Trump has refined his inner circle. Project 2025 shows this disorganized criminal is going to surround himself with the organized criminals. They will find out just how much he is like Stalin when he turns his paranoid gaze on them and blames them for everything.

Another common denominator is they are psychopaths. Stalin's, Trump's, and Putin's vision ends in the mirror; others are not people and countries are but objects to be used. Putin is walking in Stalin's footsteps. Revenge is his god.

America can do better and the majority wants to. It's time for us to stop doing all the work just to serve the rich and corporations; let's put the profits to use for the "general welfare" of We The People. AND, that's not communism---it's the Constitution.

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Perhaps not politically correct to mention here, but Norway, Denmark, Sweden are going through their own troubles, because of the rise of the right, and it is because of immigration from the south and their variation of the culture wars., only these are two diametrically different cultures in collision, got nothing to do with abortion, gay rights, and the other culture war touchstones of America.

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So true. We have probably seen much of the same info. There is a conservative percentage of the population in every country. With the vast media and social landscape, they have managed to organize and get out there. Also, parliamentary systems can cause strange alliances, they have power.

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I try to stay abreast pf Europe and indeed the parliamentary systems breed some strange alliances.

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That's right, Alis.

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The morbidly rich are on a runaway train they can’t or won’t stop. We are at a tipping point where a Leninist fate for them is increasingly conceivable. If that is what it takes to break their power, horrific as it would be, they will have brought it on themselves and few not in their rarified wealth zone will mourn. Human history does not repeat. But it does recycle.

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Ironically, many of them would be liquidated if Trump's white supremacist allies get their way.

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It’s interesting that a similar argument was used to oppose the abolitionists. “They say they want equality, but they really want to make whites subservient to blacks.” Authoritarians have a hard time comprehending Equality. Their brains are wired to status.

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founding

This piece by Thom Hartmann should be read by every single billionaire in the United States - preferably before November.

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How do we get them to read it along with those in the media? I'm outside planting vegetables and may have many typos on my phone.

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Typos on your phone, I can relate to that! I have deleted many blogs because of it.

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I was thinking the same thing about what our lives will be like if Trump wins while watching "Russian in Moscow." How do you keep writing these excellent essays that describe and educate about our moment in history? You are a good man and a genius. I'm glad you're on the side of humanity.

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Right on target, but we have another, deeper malaise: visceral, gut-churning hatred of liberalism per se for its support of civil rights. Had there been no Rosa Parks and MLK Jr. we would not be in the position we are today. White male racist America is the bedrock underlying ALL of our failures to be the leader the world needs so badly now. America is on track to become the Oceania of Orwell's 1984, except without Britain, which will be folded into Eurasia. There will not be perpetual war either -- only the illusion of war to maintain the hate.

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May 21·edited May 21

For "flouride" substitute "Trump:"

For "precious bodily fluids" substitute "American society."

For "commie" substitute "Putin."

How They Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Donald.

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk... ice cream. Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Lord, Jack.

General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.

General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

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I wish I could get my billiantsmart grandson to read this, Thom. I grew up following this and you didn;t miss anything. The kid just finished his freshman year at UW Madison after changing his major to business from history. He didn't like how hard his dad and grampa had to work and didn't think enough tenure track history professorships would be available, so he figured going for the money would get him to where the money was. I forward serious substacks to him and he doesn't respond. He has a summer internship at BMO bank in Chicago that pay him $2,500 per week. Thats right, per WEEK, as an intern. The banks get that kind of money to throw around from their outrageous fees, and then lavish salarys on lots of interns and employees that are a deducable business expense.

A brilliant piece, Thom. I grew up railing aganst the Birchers and Baptist fear mongers,(one in the same).

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It is frustrating and fruitless Ransom to try and break through. People get lost in their own little world whether it be ideological or financial self interest.

Even so called liberals war with each other over purity. a commentor on another substack exorcised Sen Fetterman because he was pro Israel., it doesn't matter that he is 100% progressive when it comes to domestic and financial issues, but he failed the purity tests these retards put up

And just who is the arrogant ass that defines what is and what is not liberal, and who belongs and who doesn't.

If fools want to exorcise Fetterman or anyone else who doesn't eat the whole pizza, then I am sure the opposite side would welcome new recruits

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That's a good one time. A paranthetical "(and to some extent, Democratic)" when it comes to the neoliberal policies that enable the rise of fascism. Obama bailed out Wall Street, failed to substantively reimburse Americans who got screwed by Wall Street, and then cut billions from the food stamp program and transformed our health care system into a provate equity playground while lying about it to the American people (you can keep your doctor, premiums won't go up etc). Meanwhile, Biden spends record amounts enriching war contractors and you revive McCarthyism. If you really think there is that much of a relationship between Putin and Trump, I suppose you will be equally horrified that Israel is currently running our government as we speak. Democrats enthusiastically passed the Antisemitism Act silencing political speech against Israel and our police forces who trained with the IDF are brutalizing pro-humanity protestors that Biden is slandering as antisemitic and violent. So which brand of fascism worries you most Thom?

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Lawdy, lawdy Boris, you were doing so good, until you digressed into your oblique Pro Putin diatribe . It doth appear that your brand of fascism is Putinesque.

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Trump (still) behaving like a pro-Russia agent

Posting to his social media platform on Monday, former President Donald Trump once again supported Russian President Vladimir Putin over U.S. officials.

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/trump-russia-putin-ukraine-rcna68247

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The disunity mindset of the royal economists to take everything for themselves care not that the foundations of their own success are destroyed. Their insanity will destroy society and the economy. The role the news takes on the side of the royal economists against the masses destroys democracy.

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I think you missed the essence of today’s Libertarian brand of Fascism—spawned and nurtured through Charles Koch and economists like Milton Friedman and James Buchanan. The fascist billionaires who organized under Charles Koch leadership drew from LENIN’s teachings on how to make the masses accept policies contrary to their interests. They did a dry run in Pinochet’s Chile from which that nation has never fully recovered. They are currently looting Venezuela. The RNC arm of foreign shadow government paid for “Arthur Friedberg’s Kids: Manafort, Gates, Stone” to put Putin autocrats in power in Eastern Europe; currently, the RNC is running shadow foreign policy in the Caribbean, Central and South America, using the NRA to funnel weapons to cartels and stir unrest. This is NOT our parents’s political model of commies v fascists. This is about a coordinated thrust of oligarchs seeking to deploy Shock Doctrine policies and destroy democracies worldwide.

People assume the RNC is still a political party—it is not. It is essentially an organized crime syndicate funded and managed by the billionaire Libertarian fascists of Koch’s Mt Pelerin Society. They are dedicated traitors. They obfuscate and pervert laws to weaken the fabric of society and law. Corporations are NOT people; unfettered, deregulated business and conglomerated corporations aren’t “freedom”—they are metastasizing cancers that unravel democracy, stability, while destroying competition and the environment, WHILE SUCKING OUT THE WEALTH OF NATIONS INTO THE POCKETS OF FASCIST OLIGARCHS.

Who are these oligarchs? The Biggies are the billionaire fascists of the US who install puppets at every level of government—there is NOT ONE REPUG who doesn’t answer to a billionaire, Libertarian fascist Puppet Master of the RNC. And our treasonous Libertarian fascists are in league with the Russian and Saudi oligarchs. Trump answers to Putin, but Putin answers to the Mogilevich Russian Mob. These people, like the head-honcho of Saudi Arabia, are ruthless and murderous. And that includes the Koch Gang, our homegrown traitors who run the RNC crime syndicate.

“Democracy in Chains” Nancy MacLean

“The Shock Doctrine” Naomi Klein

“Dark Money” Jane Mayer

https://www.rawstory.com/how-republicans-keep-u-s-guns-and-ammo-flowing-to-latin-american-and-caribbean-carte/

https://www.justsecurity.org/92714/american-autocracy-threat-tracker/

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/donald-trump-crimes/

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/an-anti-biden-conspirator-ron-johnson-doing-bidding-russia/

https://trumpfile.org/

https://www.villagevoice.com/the-most-dangerous-mobster-in-the-world/

https://freebeacon.com/issues/lawsuit-trump-aide-ukraine/

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/27/764879242/nra-was-foreign-asset-to-russia-ahead-of-2016-new-senate-report-reveals

https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-fbi-putin-comey-2016-11

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joint-chiefs-chairman-feared-potential-reichstag-moment-aimed-at-keeping-trump-in-power/2021/07/14/a326f5fe-e4ec-11eb-a41e-c8442c213fa8_story.html

http://www.citjourno.org/page-2

https://www.villagevoice.com/the-most-dangerous-mobster-in-the-world/

https://www.villagevoice.com/the-most-dangerous-mobster-in-the-world/

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Koch even topped the 19th century Bush who made his fortune with the Colt revolver franchise.

I lived with a man decades ago who had escaped Stalin's gulag with his Dad in the 1930's It's a long story but suffice it to say he despised the Soviets who had also killed his mother when they were living abroad while his Dad was running the white Russian resistance overseas.

He always warned me that this country should not be so arrogant as to think it could never happen

here and would begin with heavy disinformation along with a "candy assed wimpy liberal opposition who falsely believed being nice would counteract the take over." I thank the stars he did not live to see the likes of today's GOP who he was suspicious of when they began supporting the antiabortion

morons.

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We really need to be clear that the Soviet system was a brutal state capitalism that functioned to reward a wealth class of functionaries. The results left millions dead, an economy in tatters, and unholy alliances with the Nazis who then attacked.

A healthy fear of Soviet communism is well founded. But, what the red-baiters are offering is the same thing.

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