It’s the second-most ancient form of governance humanity knows, described in detail in works both modern and ancient, dating all the way back to ancient Sumeria, China, Mesoamerica & Europe…
Yes, I was vague. I was just trying to say that propaganda has done a great job of swaying so many people. It has worked like magic on so many uninformed voters.
Easy. Because Dear Leader runs a dog and pony show in which someone will hit the lottery and gain millions as Apprentice. It could be you! Keep your mouth shut and you might win a consolation prize: gold painted high tops in size 15, on remainder from recent sales. Or a bible bound with nationalist propaganda.
Pay attention, mate. You might win a case of Trump champagne. Or a pallet of frozen steaks, a complimentary round of golf at Bedminster, a fun night w Jr, or a billion $ from an unnamed sheikh from a Gulf State.
Monarchy may be the second oldest form of government, but doesn’t history show that autocracy is by far the most common form of it? Especially in diverse entities? Think of the Roman, Mongol, and the French and especially the British Empires. Perhaps there is a point at which a polity becomes too diverse for democracy to function, when its interests and fault zones are so varied that the morbidly rich and the craven find irresistible the opportunity to seize power. Until they overreach, and the subjugated populace or a significant enough segment of it rises up, rebels, and breaks loose to start the cycle over again.
It may be our misfortune to be at the end of a noble and aspirationally good experiment in that cycle. I have no other obvious explanation for why a person and a cult based on false victimhood, hate, anger, bigotry, cruelty and defiant ignorance could have taken such hold here. Yes, in the computer age there are foreign autocratic enemies stoking the flames, but there have been variations of that assaulting republics and democracies through history as well.
It will take a Herculean effort to hold back the forces of darkness in November. As each day passes, I lose more hope. Especially as I see even people very close to me embrace the darkness. I take no solace in the knowledge that until my much desired and if I am lucky near demise, me and my family will not suffer much. We will stay in the Dickensian 3%. But I have never thought much of material things for myself. I have always had this weakness, by the standards of those others, that I care to much about the plight of others less fortunate, having been in their ranks during my first 25 years.
If we are to fall, let us fight to the end. And know that if we lose in November, our work is just changing to one of resistance, with all that entails. It is sad to regret that our grandson, the adored center of our lives since his birth, was ever born. He will have a blighted future, or none at all if our species finally destroys itself and the planet. We cannot yield. No matter what. Whatever happens, the morbidly rich and the corrupt must never be allowed to rest easily or peacefully in their beds if the worst befalls us. I pray it does not come to that.
Those who can are fleeing the USA. Here in Costa Rica more and more expats are arriving every day. The same is true for a lot of other countries where there is not as much hatred or division.
There are those "ghosts" of our future visiting all of us these days. All their belongings are in a shopping cart, and they don't know where they will be sleeping tonight.
The bottom-line mentality you describe leads right to the bottom that Dickens experienced and later wrote so beautifully about. Always loved his books. The fool on the hill was the wise-man, and the poorest people had grit and worked hard.
The villains of our time come packaged much differently, but they are carving out their own kingdoms all the same. They are stealing the lives and labor of the less fortunate while messaging that they create opportunity and fairness for them. The lies are exactly the same.
Dickens would recognize these soulless entitled people. You recognize them Thom and so do the majority of Americans. I believe WE can create a happy ending. This time THEY wrote a book---that might have been a big mistake.
Do the majority of Americans recognize these soulless entitled people, Alis. I have my doubts otherwise they wouldn't be idolized and worshiped as the rich and famous
I would have said the same a few years ago, probably prior to Bernie.
Things have changed. Recycle-repurpose-reuse is something young people have embraced. Me too. Socialism is no longer a disease as long as it comes with a heavy dose of democracy. I can say I am one out-loud and hear a positive response. Making memories are the reason for making money.
Jesus, we are are slow-learners! However, we are moving in the right direction. Many of the rich have taken the pledge. Taylor gave her crew $100,000 bonuses. Oprah didn't make rockets, she built a school, Melinda is amazing, MacKenzie is irritating people with her no-strings attached when giving away what used to be Jeff's money.
We are getting there, and I do believe a bit more than half of us will help. The homeless have everyone thinking about what went wrong.
When you put it that way I agree, I keep thinking of the 40% of America that is locked into MAGATry.
Yet we still idolize the indolent, the rich, the famous, the sociopaths. Sit in a dentists office waiting room and look at the magazine selection, especially those of Advance Publications (the Newhouse family which also owns CNN),like Conde Nast and what do you see, People magazine. Home and Garden (not joe six packs home and garden either).
Reality TV shows set in "paradise", America is maybe trending towards altruism, and there always has been altruism. But worship of the rich and famous is a money maker and is a multi million dollar a year industry.
Let me tell you about Oprah my mother was enamored of Oprah, she was also a poet of sorts. She wrote a poem about love and how she thought that it would cut down on divorces. She mailed it to Oprah, a couple of times, but not even a post card acknowledgement or reply. That hurt her. Mom was kind of simple, lived in a world of her own, wanted acknowledgement of her existence. She would write letters and send poems to people she admired and got many a response. I knew that they were form letters, autosigned or signed by someone hired to answer the thousands of letters they receive daily, she even received one from Queen Elizabeth (I dared not tell her that the Queen doesn't read the mail or sign letters), but not even a post card from Oprah.
That's what they are still telling them at the CONvention. One has to wonder why they must remind them every damn time. Oh wait, Professor Olmsted, I must have forgotten how propaganda works.
Any-who, they will believe it when Trump says it.
The majority and popular vote are just a novelty when it comes to the presidency. I get what you are saying.
spell over the low information voters. If we could figure out how to break the spell with factual information about how
our economy grew faster in earlier periods when higher marginal tax rates on upper incomes resulted in more investment in plant and equipment as well as higher wages , regulations limited monopoly power by striking
down horizontal and vertical mergers & union activity
Every day in school we recited "for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever," the Lord's Prayer. We didn't sing "God Save the Queen" but "America" used the same melody. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKj7FLg3WVA
The donminionists want to impose a theocracy. It's ironic that we didn't have a king until imposed by SCOTUS' immunity decision. King Don 1.
As my brother said in Tree of Life and Other Poems, as non-Anglo-Saxons and hasnot Protestants, our whiteness was only "honorary," and not of the kind that made America "great." Most of us knew that the robber barons put us in our places and kept us down. They imposed taxes. Controlled the means of production for "the masses." One had to beg to get a loan at their banks. They imposed quotas in their schools. They taught us that we were inferior. They set up a system where trees and cows often had an electoral advantage over us rabble. Where SCOTUS can impose immunity despite no textural basis.
However, that was their big mistake. By outworking them and by persistence, we can prevail. We still have democracy and can expand the vote. We can reform SCOTUS so that we no longer have kings, especially an immoral criminal orange antichrist.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, the abortion issue is primary. We can flip this state.
Swamp Republicans. Millions of unregistered trend Democratic.
FT 6 has texted well over a million in the past several days. Thanks to a donor, texts to Arizona yesterday and today. https://www.fieldteam6.org/
And the billionaires who think they can control the king/dictator/autocrat are fools. From Hitler to Stalin to Putin to MBS, if they loose favor, criticize the king, or if he just decides he wants their assets, they will disappear, fall out a window, or if they're lucky end up in a jail cell.
So here we are, "scudding before the gale" (love that Jefferson quote) for daring to suggest that maybe a "loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires" (Paul Simon's phrase) pay taxes, instead of systematically drain the treasury. Look at Arizona, where "school choice" is all the rage (should be all the outrage). Instead of paying taxes to support public education, private for-profit education corporations (educorps) are sucking out taxpayer dollars, leaving the state $1.4bn in the hole. The state is now cutting back on everything, including much-needed water projects.
They are working hard to expand the working poor by making education less excessible. health care unaffordable and debt unavoidable. It's working. And the rich are getting richer to the tune of $50 trillion since Reagan. We'll see how far they can push this agenda before people wake up.
Mr. Hartmann, it sounds as though you have read Marx and understand him. There are two locations of power in society: 1) the government 2) the economic system. The economic system is the underlying engine of all else. In an unconstrained Capitalist system which is coupled with private ownership of the means of production everything is subordinated to the desires (greed) of the owners. When are we going to admit this simple truth?
We need cooperative ownership of the means of production. Ownership which is shared by everyone who works to produce the system's output of goods and services. With private ownership even human beings are owned. Workers who receive a wage for their output but have no decision making power in this process are , as Abraham Lincoln said "wage slaves." Prior to Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, human beings were literally owned and bought, sold and used like tools, machinery and animals. Historians refer to this as chattel slavery. It was the most evil, cruel, repulsive, system of human exploitation in world history. It was the inevitable result of unrestrained Private Enterprise under a Capitalist system.
I guess it doesn't matter whether you are an owned slave or a wage slave, when you get worked to death? This ideology predates the building of the pyramids, and has gone by many names. I like the name, "let's screw the poor", over feudalism, Kingdom, monarchy, autocracy, Reaganomics, dictatorship, theocracy or capitalism! 😭🤬😭🤬😭🤬...
Excellent writing very informative but what happens when the Republican states refuse to follow the will of the voters.
What actions should be taken to stop MSM from purposely spreading disinformation, what do we do to combat elected leaders that are fomenting hate and anti-american speach, what do we do about the BILLIONAIRES funding anti-democratic think tanks.
Democracy can't survive without checks and balances against people and organizations openly attacking the Rule of Law.
Are you saying that all we need to do is vote, we did that in 2020?
My wife is the president of our progressive democrats club, I'm a regional delegate, we give money local and out of state, we canvase, our club phone banks, post carding, we'll continue to work hard to save our democracy, without some form of push back against this huge Ultra Right DARK MONEY faction, the constant pressure and stress will eventually become more than we can stand.
We need solutions and actions coming from those of leadership and standing, we stand on the Bear Valley overpass holding signs but it is only a whisper in a strong wind but nationally together it becomes a thunderous roar we must connect the people somehow, its obvious that the MSM isn't going to push our message.
We don't need more history lessons we need solutions/ we need leadership / we need action (NON VIOLENT ACTION) so we don't become another kingdom, where there will be untold suffering.
Mark I think with as little as $3 million we could win the election by buying up antenna TV commercials at A cut rate price and interrupting the right wingers favorite old westerns, NASCAR... television stations. We could point out to the cult that a dictator can take their guns away, give their jobs to illegal immigrants who will work for 1/4 the pay, end the minimum wage, end social security, end Medicare and Medicaid, torture them, turn their whole family into slaves and sex slaves, take away their freedom of speech and thought, point out that their economic system will cause the greatest depression of all time for America and probably the entire world.... I think we could do that with about 10 different commercials and if we aired them about 250 to 500 times a piece we could get our message through to the ignorant brainwashed Cult. They would have to explain to their children why they voted for Trump if they do not. I think many of them will just not show up to vote I know they won't vote for Biden. I hope some group can step forward and at least give this a try. I think with about 1 million dollars we could get it off the ground and solicit for contributions using 1/4 of the screen saying, "if you like this commercial and want to see more like this please donate to blah blah blah blah! Hopefully enough powerless feeling Democratic voters will come through and it could be a self-supporting snowball? Anyway that's my idea, I've been trying to push it for over a year now!
Excellent idea, or if we could start a People Owned network that could be a platform for journalists that can speak truth to power, I listen to Sirius XM channel 127, and watch Free Speach TV, but a National TV and Radio station that would rival the MSM would go a long way to change the NARRATIVE being controlled by DARK MONEY BILLIONAIRES.
Hi Thom thanks for the great analogy using Dickens! The word kingdom brings to mind the previous ruler of my country the Shah of Iran. This explains why majority of Iranians especially in California support Trump! They wish the return of the Shah as portrayed by the monarchists in the marches in California
The Iranians replaced a secular autocracy with an even more oppressive theocracy, and woke up with a massive hangover. If Trump is elected those who elected him (directly and indirectly), and us, are going to wake up with a huge migraine.
There will be a massive orgasm, but no after glow, when the reality of what happens when the dog catches the car, sets in.
America is productive, Americans are comfortable, because all Americans enjoy the fruits of their labor, all Americans black, brown, queer, Asian, Hispanic, male, female are in involved in the process and derive benefit from that process.
This will not happen under Kevin Roberts Project 2025.. Project 2025 will deconstruct us politically, and the political is economic.
These chauvinistic white Christian straight males may think that they built the powerhouse called America, but that is delusion of chauvinism. It won't take long for them to realize that they have been living in fantasy.
There is a vivid example of what chauvinism does, Just look South of the Border, all of Latin America.
The culture of Latin America is shaped by the homogeneity of the culture of the nations of central and south America. Patriarchal, misogynistic, Catholicism., racially diverse, yes, but culturally homogeneous.
Diversity is the strength of America and empowered religion is fearful of diversity, diversity is the fragmentation, the dissipation of power.
The very thing that made America great multiculturalism, is that which the Kevin Roberts and Donald J Trump's, the American Bishops Association, the Southern Baptist Convention, Opus Dei and the Dominionist fear and have organized to subdue and obliterate.
Should they succeed they will destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs
A demoralized population is not a productive population.
This is not Russia. The Russians know only subjugation and terror, from the mongols through the Tsars and the Bolsheviks, and that is the culture that Putin controls.
Russia is not innovative, not entrepreneurial, neither is China, and it is not because of capitalism that is the difference, it is because of culture.
Chinese culture is not diverse, it has been homogenized and the process has been thousands of years long, and the final work was done by Mao Tze Dung (purposeful spelling)
The Russian Federation is multi lingual, multi ethnic, multi religious, but homogeneous in one important regard the cultures of the federation are those of persons accustomed to rule by terror, fear, authoritarianism be it a Jenghis Khan and his heirs, or religious authority.
Chechnyans are Caucasian, and Muslim. their bitch with Russian rule was that it was Christian, infidel. Puin laid waste to the country, as he is doing in Ukraine, and still they resisted and chewed up the Russian army.
He found his solution in granting autonomy, but keeping it with the federation as to have access to it's resources, like cannon fodder, and appointing a satrap, a ruthless warlord, son of a mufti, Ramzan Kadyrov as President.
The individual nations of the Federation are stagnant, stuck in time, including Greater Russia.
The same is true of any homogeneous nation,, even the oil rich Arab nations. They would not be able to build Riyadh, Abu Dhabi with their own intellectual and physical resources, they hire the expertise, import the workers
Here is something to ponder. The surgeons, the architects, the engineers, the professionals that are keeping America afloat, are not White Anglo Saxon Christians, they are Iranians, Turks, Indians
Let's see here...A Democratic presidential nominee appointed in a sham primary without any debate (or public debates) who is only nominally oriented to person, time and place. A party that is about to hold a virtual nomination of that nominee not even going through the motions of a "public" nominating convention. A president who has circumvented Congress to send billions of dollars in bombs to a right-wing dictator in order to massacre poor black and brown people held in an open air prison. A president who spreads Red Scare propaganda and lies (with your help unfortunately) and eschews peace to use Ukrainians as grist for the mill for his elite circle's aspirations for global domination. A president who enabled his paramilitary to throw Jewish peace activists down the stairs, breask the ribs of college professors and spray them with rubber bullets, and then slandered them for his own political advantage. I could go on, but I think the point is made that each party is completely owned by the donors and transnational corporations and without major systemic change that will NOT come from either party our downward spiral will not stop. And let's not forget that Thomas Jefferson owned the most slaves of any of the self-serving elites who founded this country on the principles of rape, human bondage and power and influence for the very few. I would not quote any of them anymore, perhaps you should turn to Martin Luther King Jr or Malcolm X for your quotes, only those would certainly not favor the Democratic Party either.
I think you have it wrong about "grist for the mill." I would have to say that the comment applies to Putin, more so than the Biden administration (if I'm understanding you right).
Thomas Jefferson had slaves, yes, but that in way now negates his contribution to the development of the Constitution and its foundational role. The man himself may have been flawed, but it's the idea -- the enduring idea of freedom from oppression -- that, in the end, counts. I'm sure, throughout history, many progressive ideas have been promulgated by individuals who led less than exemplary lives. But those individuals passed on, though their ideas remained.
In my opinion, Biden is trying to affect an upward spiral, as opposed to a downward spiral. I think you probably want to closer look at the Republican agenda -- Project 2025 -- to determine which party offers the best outcome for America. True enough, both parties are beholden to a donor class and transnational corporations, but the Republican offering is more of the same -- on steroids. At least Biden offers a relative degree of selflessness demonstrably more beneficial to a greater number of Americans. For proof of that, stack his record against Trump's record of his time in office. While you're at it, keep in mind that if Trump gets elected, we'll have to decide whether to refer to him as "Mr. President" or "Your Majesty."
Patrick, the commenter who goes by the screen name of Barry O Kaufman, is (IMO) insincere, there is a playbook that Putin works off, there are keywords and triggers for liberals and conservatives, and they inartfully employ them for the purpose of peeling off support from Putin's worst enemy (of the moment) Joseph Biden.
They really know how to play on liberal sentiments. Favorite phrases and words include imperialism, colonialism, genocide, racism, which screen names like Barry frequently use in association with Democrats and Biden.
You need to educate yourself with firsthand information in lieu of pro-Democratic Party propaganda. Here is an interview with Ian Proud, a UK diplomat who has worked closely with Ukraine and Russia in peace talks and has direct experience. He dispells every single absurd piece of Cold War propaganda being promoted by Thom and the likes of Rachel Maddow. Biden is far from selfless, he has been a mercenary right-wing politician his entire life, bragging about prosecuting black people for possessing a piece of crack cocaine the size of a quarter for a mandatory five year sentence and joining Strom Thrumond in his campaign to keep schools segregated. He has supported the Hyde Amendment up until the 2020 presidential campaign. He was to the RIGHT of George HW Bush when it came to criminal justice and is responsible for our for-profit prisons and carceral state. He's a monster just like Trump, and if you'll notice every Demcorat has to say what a wonderful man he is before saying anything else. Hail to the king indeed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8BqC5VgXJc
And your alternative Boris is Trump. He is the only alternative, and Putin's lap dog.
You are not so clever Boris. Agitprop knows that liberal Americans are suckers for trigger words and ideas, and hardly a comment of yours is made that does not sprinkle those trigger words freely.
I, and others, are not fooled, you don't give a rats about Peaceful Jewish advocates or suffering Palestinians, or for that matter the racial divide and inequalities, but they can be and not so artfully used to sway the less than perceptive, to your cause which is that of Putin.
I know the words of a US diplomat who has been directly involved in the Ukraine negotiations will not be as potent to you as a radio host selling dog food, but you should rely on more firsthand information sources.
What does that Video prove? Europe has more Putin sympathizers, agents and spies than America.
One can take any facts and twist them to one's purpose. But here is some facts you can't twist
Putin is a murderer, He has his opponents assassinated, jailed, then assassinated
He is a war criminal, bomb hospitals and children as a matter of policy to terrorize, he has attacked a neighboring country for no reason other than to rebuild the Soviet Empire.
He has laid waste cities and killed civilians to achieve his goal.
He kidnaps children, transports them into Russia to raise them as brainwashed Russians to hate their own country and culture.
The reason he acts this way are irrelevant. As the kid says that is getting beaten by their parent, "I don't care why you are beating me, stop it".
The Tucker Carlson and Oliver Stone interviews are fluff jobs.
Berry, I can tell you lean far right when you neglect to mention that Garland never prosecuted the ringleaders of the insurrection and Biden never fired Garland! You want to keep pushing that theory that the planners of the insurrection are all innocent, more than proving that Biden is a wolf in sheep's clothes!
Reelecting a maleficent sausage-wallet (to wit: King Don Don the First,) is the same as pulling the trigger of a skull-adjacent revolver, hearing the loud click of the hammer as it strikes an empty chamber.
Then, being brainwashed, daily, by a putid (not putRid, but: putid) series of Fox/OAN/Sinclair TV morons, to put a second round in the "upcoming" chamber which will be hammer-struck.
Additionally: NOT spinning the cylinder (n.b.: a cylinder consists of empty chambers to hold your bullets.) thereby "guaranteeing" that you shoot yourself in the head this time.
Finally, (and I do mean "Finally") playing Russian Roulette, again. But, this time with 2 live rounds, including the new one which WILL be fired after the trigger is pulled; yielding an America, a nation which look's not unlike Jim Jones' Jonestown AFTER the Kool-Aid is chugged..
And please tell me why the Middle Class and poor fall for this
Right wingers own the media and social media.
Propagandists are winning!
I don't think so...."seeming" is not reality. We're still the majority and can exercise our prerogative.
Yes, I was vague. I was just trying to say that propaganda has done a great job of swaying so many people. It has worked like magic on so many uninformed voters.
Easy. Because Dear Leader runs a dog and pony show in which someone will hit the lottery and gain millions as Apprentice. It could be you! Keep your mouth shut and you might win a consolation prize: gold painted high tops in size 15, on remainder from recent sales. Or a bible bound with nationalist propaganda.
What the heck have you been smoking?
Pay attention, mate. You might win a case of Trump champagne. Or a pallet of frozen steaks, a complimentary round of golf at Bedminster, a fun night w Jr, or a billion $ from an unnamed sheikh from a Gulf State.
Monarchy may be the second oldest form of government, but doesn’t history show that autocracy is by far the most common form of it? Especially in diverse entities? Think of the Roman, Mongol, and the French and especially the British Empires. Perhaps there is a point at which a polity becomes too diverse for democracy to function, when its interests and fault zones are so varied that the morbidly rich and the craven find irresistible the opportunity to seize power. Until they overreach, and the subjugated populace or a significant enough segment of it rises up, rebels, and breaks loose to start the cycle over again.
It may be our misfortune to be at the end of a noble and aspirationally good experiment in that cycle. I have no other obvious explanation for why a person and a cult based on false victimhood, hate, anger, bigotry, cruelty and defiant ignorance could have taken such hold here. Yes, in the computer age there are foreign autocratic enemies stoking the flames, but there have been variations of that assaulting republics and democracies through history as well.
It will take a Herculean effort to hold back the forces of darkness in November. As each day passes, I lose more hope. Especially as I see even people very close to me embrace the darkness. I take no solace in the knowledge that until my much desired and if I am lucky near demise, me and my family will not suffer much. We will stay in the Dickensian 3%. But I have never thought much of material things for myself. I have always had this weakness, by the standards of those others, that I care to much about the plight of others less fortunate, having been in their ranks during my first 25 years.
If we are to fall, let us fight to the end. And know that if we lose in November, our work is just changing to one of resistance, with all that entails. It is sad to regret that our grandson, the adored center of our lives since his birth, was ever born. He will have a blighted future, or none at all if our species finally destroys itself and the planet. We cannot yield. No matter what. Whatever happens, the morbidly rich and the corrupt must never be allowed to rest easily or peacefully in their beds if the worst befalls us. I pray it does not come to that.
Those who can are fleeing the USA. Here in Costa Rica more and more expats are arriving every day. The same is true for a lot of other countries where there is not as much hatred or division.
https://youtu.be/l0ca5Zbi9s0?si=TtDNoxALKnEp1vom
It was the Ghost of Christmas Future that freaked old Ebenezer out the most.
Ponder.
There are those "ghosts" of our future visiting all of us these days. All their belongings are in a shopping cart, and they don't know where they will be sleeping tonight.
Heh-heh.
The bottom-line mentality you describe leads right to the bottom that Dickens experienced and later wrote so beautifully about. Always loved his books. The fool on the hill was the wise-man, and the poorest people had grit and worked hard.
The villains of our time come packaged much differently, but they are carving out their own kingdoms all the same. They are stealing the lives and labor of the less fortunate while messaging that they create opportunity and fairness for them. The lies are exactly the same.
Dickens would recognize these soulless entitled people. You recognize them Thom and so do the majority of Americans. I believe WE can create a happy ending. This time THEY wrote a book---that might have been a big mistake.
Do the majority of Americans recognize these soulless entitled people, Alis. I have my doubts otherwise they wouldn't be idolized and worshiped as the rich and famous
I would have said the same a few years ago, probably prior to Bernie.
Things have changed. Recycle-repurpose-reuse is something young people have embraced. Me too. Socialism is no longer a disease as long as it comes with a heavy dose of democracy. I can say I am one out-loud and hear a positive response. Making memories are the reason for making money.
Jesus, we are are slow-learners! However, we are moving in the right direction. Many of the rich have taken the pledge. Taylor gave her crew $100,000 bonuses. Oprah didn't make rockets, she built a school, Melinda is amazing, MacKenzie is irritating people with her no-strings attached when giving away what used to be Jeff's money.
We are getting there, and I do believe a bit more than half of us will help. The homeless have everyone thinking about what went wrong.
Did you notice that three people you mentioned happen to be women? Just a thought!
When you put it that way I agree, I keep thinking of the 40% of America that is locked into MAGATry.
Yet we still idolize the indolent, the rich, the famous, the sociopaths. Sit in a dentists office waiting room and look at the magazine selection, especially those of Advance Publications (the Newhouse family which also owns CNN),like Conde Nast and what do you see, People magazine. Home and Garden (not joe six packs home and garden either).
Reality TV shows set in "paradise", America is maybe trending towards altruism, and there always has been altruism. But worship of the rich and famous is a money maker and is a multi million dollar a year industry.
Let me tell you about Oprah my mother was enamored of Oprah, she was also a poet of sorts. She wrote a poem about love and how she thought that it would cut down on divorces. She mailed it to Oprah, a couple of times, but not even a post card acknowledgement or reply. That hurt her. Mom was kind of simple, lived in a world of her own, wanted acknowledgement of her existence. She would write letters and send poems to people she admired and got many a response. I knew that they were form letters, autosigned or signed by someone hired to answer the thousands of letters they receive daily, she even received one from Queen Elizabeth (I dared not tell her that the Queen doesn't read the mail or sign letters), but not even a post card from Oprah.
Do the voters that have made red states - red , still believe that giving
lower taxes , less regulations and
busting union efforts to the rich
will trickle down to them ?
That's what they are still telling them at the CONvention. One has to wonder why they must remind them every damn time. Oh wait, Professor Olmsted, I must have forgotten how propaganda works.
Any-who, they will believe it when Trump says it.
The majority and popular vote are just a novelty when it comes to the presidency. I get what you are saying.
They have cast a wicked
spell over the low information voters. If we could figure out how to break the spell with factual information about how
our economy grew faster in earlier periods when higher marginal tax rates on upper incomes resulted in more investment in plant and equipment as well as higher wages , regulations limited monopoly power by striking
down horizontal and vertical mergers & union activity
uplifted the middle class ;
maybe we could destroy their
fascination with trickle down
( Voodoo Economics) .
Every day in school we recited "for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever," the Lord's Prayer. We didn't sing "God Save the Queen" but "America" used the same melody. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKj7FLg3WVA
The donminionists want to impose a theocracy. It's ironic that we didn't have a king until imposed by SCOTUS' immunity decision. King Don 1.
As my brother said in Tree of Life and Other Poems, as non-Anglo-Saxons and hasnot Protestants, our whiteness was only "honorary," and not of the kind that made America "great." Most of us knew that the robber barons put us in our places and kept us down. They imposed taxes. Controlled the means of production for "the masses." One had to beg to get a loan at their banks. They imposed quotas in their schools. They taught us that we were inferior. They set up a system where trees and cows often had an electoral advantage over us rabble. Where SCOTUS can impose immunity despite no textural basis.
However, that was their big mistake. By outworking them and by persistence, we can prevail. We still have democracy and can expand the vote. We can reform SCOTUS so that we no longer have kings, especially an immoral criminal orange antichrist.
Here in Baghdad By the Sea, the abortion issue is primary. We can flip this state.
Swamp Republicans. Millions of unregistered trend Democratic.
FT 6 has texted well over a million in the past several days. Thanks to a donor, texts to Arizona yesterday and today. https://www.fieldteam6.org/
Thursday is Florida day on FT 6 Textarcade. https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ft6arcade24bamk.
Also Florida day on FT 6 phonebank. https://www.fieldteam6.org/actions
This is the undeniable genius and unrelenting humanity of Thom Hartmann.
Absolutely fucking brilliant. Pass it on.
And the billionaires who think they can control the king/dictator/autocrat are fools. From Hitler to Stalin to Putin to MBS, if they loose favor, criticize the king, or if he just decides he wants their assets, they will disappear, fall out a window, or if they're lucky end up in a jail cell.
A Utopia for the rich and a dystopia for the poor! Just like the olden days! Thank God for FDR!
So here we are, "scudding before the gale" (love that Jefferson quote) for daring to suggest that maybe a "loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires" (Paul Simon's phrase) pay taxes, instead of systematically drain the treasury. Look at Arizona, where "school choice" is all the rage (should be all the outrage). Instead of paying taxes to support public education, private for-profit education corporations (educorps) are sucking out taxpayer dollars, leaving the state $1.4bn in the hole. The state is now cutting back on everything, including much-needed water projects.
They are working hard to expand the working poor by making education less excessible. health care unaffordable and debt unavoidable. It's working. And the rich are getting richer to the tune of $50 trillion since Reagan. We'll see how far they can push this agenda before people wake up.
Mr. Hartmann, it sounds as though you have read Marx and understand him. There are two locations of power in society: 1) the government 2) the economic system. The economic system is the underlying engine of all else. In an unconstrained Capitalist system which is coupled with private ownership of the means of production everything is subordinated to the desires (greed) of the owners. When are we going to admit this simple truth?
We need cooperative ownership of the means of production. Ownership which is shared by everyone who works to produce the system's output of goods and services. With private ownership even human beings are owned. Workers who receive a wage for their output but have no decision making power in this process are , as Abraham Lincoln said "wage slaves." Prior to Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, human beings were literally owned and bought, sold and used like tools, machinery and animals. Historians refer to this as chattel slavery. It was the most evil, cruel, repulsive, system of human exploitation in world history. It was the inevitable result of unrestrained Private Enterprise under a Capitalist system.
I guess it doesn't matter whether you are an owned slave or a wage slave, when you get worked to death? This ideology predates the building of the pyramids, and has gone by many names. I like the name, "let's screw the poor", over feudalism, Kingdom, monarchy, autocracy, Reaganomics, dictatorship, theocracy or capitalism! 😭🤬😭🤬😭🤬...
For a real American, having a "genuine" king is horrific enough.
But, having a genuinely "demented" king is utterly absurd.
(See: Russia.)
And if the loopy gun-nuts think that they are going to be allowed to keep their firearms . . .
esp. after last weekend's attempt, they have another think coming.
Excellent writing very informative but what happens when the Republican states refuse to follow the will of the voters.
What actions should be taken to stop MSM from purposely spreading disinformation, what do we do to combat elected leaders that are fomenting hate and anti-american speach, what do we do about the BILLIONAIRES funding anti-democratic think tanks.
Democracy can't survive without checks and balances against people and organizations openly attacking the Rule of Law.
Are you saying that all we need to do is vote, we did that in 2020?
My wife is the president of our progressive democrats club, I'm a regional delegate, we give money local and out of state, we canvase, our club phone banks, post carding, we'll continue to work hard to save our democracy, without some form of push back against this huge Ultra Right DARK MONEY faction, the constant pressure and stress will eventually become more than we can stand.
We need solutions and actions coming from those of leadership and standing, we stand on the Bear Valley overpass holding signs but it is only a whisper in a strong wind but nationally together it becomes a thunderous roar we must connect the people somehow, its obvious that the MSM isn't going to push our message.
We don't need more history lessons we need solutions/ we need leadership / we need action (NON VIOLENT ACTION) so we don't become another kingdom, where there will be untold suffering.
Mark I think with as little as $3 million we could win the election by buying up antenna TV commercials at A cut rate price and interrupting the right wingers favorite old westerns, NASCAR... television stations. We could point out to the cult that a dictator can take their guns away, give their jobs to illegal immigrants who will work for 1/4 the pay, end the minimum wage, end social security, end Medicare and Medicaid, torture them, turn their whole family into slaves and sex slaves, take away their freedom of speech and thought, point out that their economic system will cause the greatest depression of all time for America and probably the entire world.... I think we could do that with about 10 different commercials and if we aired them about 250 to 500 times a piece we could get our message through to the ignorant brainwashed Cult. They would have to explain to their children why they voted for Trump if they do not. I think many of them will just not show up to vote I know they won't vote for Biden. I hope some group can step forward and at least give this a try. I think with about 1 million dollars we could get it off the ground and solicit for contributions using 1/4 of the screen saying, "if you like this commercial and want to see more like this please donate to blah blah blah blah! Hopefully enough powerless feeling Democratic voters will come through and it could be a self-supporting snowball? Anyway that's my idea, I've been trying to push it for over a year now!
Excellent idea, or if we could start a People Owned network that could be a platform for journalists that can speak truth to power, I listen to Sirius XM channel 127, and watch Free Speach TV, but a National TV and Radio station that would rival the MSM would go a long way to change the NARRATIVE being controlled by DARK MONEY BILLIONAIRES.
Hi Thom thanks for the great analogy using Dickens! The word kingdom brings to mind the previous ruler of my country the Shah of Iran. This explains why majority of Iranians especially in California support Trump! They wish the return of the Shah as portrayed by the monarchists in the marches in California
Thanks for this excellent article 🙏
The Iranians replaced a secular autocracy with an even more oppressive theocracy, and woke up with a massive hangover. If Trump is elected those who elected him (directly and indirectly), and us, are going to wake up with a huge migraine.
There will be a massive orgasm, but no after glow, when the reality of what happens when the dog catches the car, sets in.
America is productive, Americans are comfortable, because all Americans enjoy the fruits of their labor, all Americans black, brown, queer, Asian, Hispanic, male, female are in involved in the process and derive benefit from that process.
This will not happen under Kevin Roberts Project 2025.. Project 2025 will deconstruct us politically, and the political is economic.
These chauvinistic white Christian straight males may think that they built the powerhouse called America, but that is delusion of chauvinism. It won't take long for them to realize that they have been living in fantasy.
There is a vivid example of what chauvinism does, Just look South of the Border, all of Latin America.
The culture of Latin America is shaped by the homogeneity of the culture of the nations of central and south America. Patriarchal, misogynistic, Catholicism., racially diverse, yes, but culturally homogeneous.
Diversity is the strength of America and empowered religion is fearful of diversity, diversity is the fragmentation, the dissipation of power.
The very thing that made America great multiculturalism, is that which the Kevin Roberts and Donald J Trump's, the American Bishops Association, the Southern Baptist Convention, Opus Dei and the Dominionist fear and have organized to subdue and obliterate.
Should they succeed they will destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs
A demoralized population is not a productive population.
This is not Russia. The Russians know only subjugation and terror, from the mongols through the Tsars and the Bolsheviks, and that is the culture that Putin controls.
Russia is not innovative, not entrepreneurial, neither is China, and it is not because of capitalism that is the difference, it is because of culture.
Chinese culture is not diverse, it has been homogenized and the process has been thousands of years long, and the final work was done by Mao Tze Dung (purposeful spelling)
The Russian Federation is multi lingual, multi ethnic, multi religious, but homogeneous in one important regard the cultures of the federation are those of persons accustomed to rule by terror, fear, authoritarianism be it a Jenghis Khan and his heirs, or religious authority.
Chechnyans are Caucasian, and Muslim. their bitch with Russian rule was that it was Christian, infidel. Puin laid waste to the country, as he is doing in Ukraine, and still they resisted and chewed up the Russian army.
He found his solution in granting autonomy, but keeping it with the federation as to have access to it's resources, like cannon fodder, and appointing a satrap, a ruthless warlord, son of a mufti, Ramzan Kadyrov as President.
The individual nations of the Federation are stagnant, stuck in time, including Greater Russia.
The same is true of any homogeneous nation,, even the oil rich Arab nations. They would not be able to build Riyadh, Abu Dhabi with their own intellectual and physical resources, they hire the expertise, import the workers
Here is something to ponder. The surgeons, the architects, the engineers, the professionals that are keeping America afloat, are not White Anglo Saxon Christians, they are Iranians, Turks, Indians
That is profound William!
Let's see here...A Democratic presidential nominee appointed in a sham primary without any debate (or public debates) who is only nominally oriented to person, time and place. A party that is about to hold a virtual nomination of that nominee not even going through the motions of a "public" nominating convention. A president who has circumvented Congress to send billions of dollars in bombs to a right-wing dictator in order to massacre poor black and brown people held in an open air prison. A president who spreads Red Scare propaganda and lies (with your help unfortunately) and eschews peace to use Ukrainians as grist for the mill for his elite circle's aspirations for global domination. A president who enabled his paramilitary to throw Jewish peace activists down the stairs, breask the ribs of college professors and spray them with rubber bullets, and then slandered them for his own political advantage. I could go on, but I think the point is made that each party is completely owned by the donors and transnational corporations and without major systemic change that will NOT come from either party our downward spiral will not stop. And let's not forget that Thomas Jefferson owned the most slaves of any of the self-serving elites who founded this country on the principles of rape, human bondage and power and influence for the very few. I would not quote any of them anymore, perhaps you should turn to Martin Luther King Jr or Malcolm X for your quotes, only those would certainly not favor the Democratic Party either.
I think you have it wrong about "grist for the mill." I would have to say that the comment applies to Putin, more so than the Biden administration (if I'm understanding you right).
Thomas Jefferson had slaves, yes, but that in way now negates his contribution to the development of the Constitution and its foundational role. The man himself may have been flawed, but it's the idea -- the enduring idea of freedom from oppression -- that, in the end, counts. I'm sure, throughout history, many progressive ideas have been promulgated by individuals who led less than exemplary lives. But those individuals passed on, though their ideas remained.
In my opinion, Biden is trying to affect an upward spiral, as opposed to a downward spiral. I think you probably want to closer look at the Republican agenda -- Project 2025 -- to determine which party offers the best outcome for America. True enough, both parties are beholden to a donor class and transnational corporations, but the Republican offering is more of the same -- on steroids. At least Biden offers a relative degree of selflessness demonstrably more beneficial to a greater number of Americans. For proof of that, stack his record against Trump's record of his time in office. While you're at it, keep in mind that if Trump gets elected, we'll have to decide whether to refer to him as "Mr. President" or "Your Majesty."
The Superrich of America
Less for you means more for us
That's the new norm, so what's the fuss?
It'll trickle down to you at some point before the end of time
You've been waiting since Ronnies Reign, so you shouldn't mind
It's all in the game we play called The Malthusian Challenge
The strongest will prevail, the rest are collateral damage
Yet the ghost of Jacob Marley sometimes creeps up when we're dreaming
It's just a nuisance of a nightmare that makes us wake up screaming
We're the Superrich of America and if most of us stand united
We'll make out like bandits if we keep the folks divided
David Nile Chase
Now you need a sick beat to go with that, David!
Patrick, the commenter who goes by the screen name of Barry O Kaufman, is (IMO) insincere, there is a playbook that Putin works off, there are keywords and triggers for liberals and conservatives, and they inartfully employ them for the purpose of peeling off support from Putin's worst enemy (of the moment) Joseph Biden.
They really know how to play on liberal sentiments. Favorite phrases and words include imperialism, colonialism, genocide, racism, which screen names like Barry frequently use in association with Democrats and Biden.
You need to educate yourself with firsthand information in lieu of pro-Democratic Party propaganda. Here is an interview with Ian Proud, a UK diplomat who has worked closely with Ukraine and Russia in peace talks and has direct experience. He dispells every single absurd piece of Cold War propaganda being promoted by Thom and the likes of Rachel Maddow. Biden is far from selfless, he has been a mercenary right-wing politician his entire life, bragging about prosecuting black people for possessing a piece of crack cocaine the size of a quarter for a mandatory five year sentence and joining Strom Thrumond in his campaign to keep schools segregated. He has supported the Hyde Amendment up until the 2020 presidential campaign. He was to the RIGHT of George HW Bush when it came to criminal justice and is responsible for our for-profit prisons and carceral state. He's a monster just like Trump, and if you'll notice every Demcorat has to say what a wonderful man he is before saying anything else. Hail to the king indeed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8BqC5VgXJc
And your alternative Boris is Trump. He is the only alternative, and Putin's lap dog.
You are not so clever Boris. Agitprop knows that liberal Americans are suckers for trigger words and ideas, and hardly a comment of yours is made that does not sprinkle those trigger words freely.
I, and others, are not fooled, you don't give a rats about Peaceful Jewish advocates or suffering Palestinians, or for that matter the racial divide and inequalities, but they can be and not so artfully used to sway the less than perceptive, to your cause which is that of Putin.
Mother Russia thanks you for your service.
I know the words of a US diplomat who has been directly involved in the Ukraine negotiations will not be as potent to you as a radio host selling dog food, but you should rely on more firsthand information sources.
You are a radio host selling dog food? I thought you were a D.O.
By the way Putintroll, it was a UK Diplomat, not a U.S. Diplomat, you can't even get your own narrative straight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8BqC5VgXJc
What does that Video prove? Europe has more Putin sympathizers, agents and spies than America.
One can take any facts and twist them to one's purpose. But here is some facts you can't twist
Putin is a murderer, He has his opponents assassinated, jailed, then assassinated
He is a war criminal, bomb hospitals and children as a matter of policy to terrorize, he has attacked a neighboring country for no reason other than to rebuild the Soviet Empire.
He has laid waste cities and killed civilians to achieve his goal.
He kidnaps children, transports them into Russia to raise them as brainwashed Russians to hate their own country and culture.
The reason he acts this way are irrelevant. As the kid says that is getting beaten by their parent, "I don't care why you are beating me, stop it".
The Tucker Carlson and Oliver Stone interviews are fluff jobs.
Berry, I can tell you lean far right when you neglect to mention that Garland never prosecuted the ringleaders of the insurrection and Biden never fired Garland! You want to keep pushing that theory that the planners of the insurrection are all innocent, more than proving that Biden is a wolf in sheep's clothes!
Clumsy Analogy Warning !!!
Reelecting a maleficent sausage-wallet (to wit: King Don Don the First,) is the same as pulling the trigger of a skull-adjacent revolver, hearing the loud click of the hammer as it strikes an empty chamber.
Then, being brainwashed, daily, by a putid (not putRid, but: putid) series of Fox/OAN/Sinclair TV morons, to put a second round in the "upcoming" chamber which will be hammer-struck.
Additionally: NOT spinning the cylinder (n.b.: a cylinder consists of empty chambers to hold your bullets.) thereby "guaranteeing" that you shoot yourself in the head this time.
Finally, (and I do mean "Finally") playing Russian Roulette, again. But, this time with 2 live rounds, including the new one which WILL be fired after the trigger is pulled; yielding an America, a nation which look's not unlike Jim Jones' Jonestown AFTER the Kool-Aid is chugged..
Russian Roulette — American Style.