Haven't had breakfast yet, but I'll be back in an hour or so to elaborate on this: Thom's essay this morning needs to be broadcast as widely as humanly possible, and we dues-paying Hartmannistas (brilliant, thank you, Daphne) need to step up and help. More later...
Haven't had breakfast yet, but I'll be back in an hour or so to elaborate on this: Thom's essay this morning needs to be broadcast as widely as humanly possible, and we dues-paying Hartmannistas (brilliant, thank you, Daphne) need to step up and help. More later...
(Okay, back and well fed.) I've tried to be an effective activist. Got teargassed in 1968 in Berekely by Governor Reagan's helicopters, protesting the Viet Nam war. Got teargassed again in 1999 in Seattle, protesting "free trade" and the WTO. Read books by William Greider and David Korten about corporate hegemony--and then was electrified by Thom's "Unequal Protection." There was hope: corporate personhood is technically illegal: it was not established by the Santa Clara decision IN THE WRITTEN DECISION, but only affirmed in the headnote, and that does not legally establish precedent. Corporate personhood was vulnerable. So in retirement I took to the keyboard, cranking out over the next couple of decades 60-some essays--anti-corporate, anti-war, anti-Bush--for Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Alternet, AfterDowningStreet, OpEd News. Now I'm finishing a book, "Fraud and Apocalypse: the Backstory of George Bush's War on Terrorism" (with a nice blurb from Thom {thanks again, sir}).
Active? Yes. Effective? Probably close to zip, because my progressive preaching was heard only by a progressive choir: I can't honestly claim to have CHANGED a single mind.
Therein lies the challenge: we (progressives of any stipe) need to change minds.
Thom's frightening essay this morning couldn't be more unequivocal: we're on the cusp of fascism. (Corporate vulnerability has proven to be quite tolerable.) But as Thom points out today the "base" of Republican voters are more victims than villains--BUT THEY DON'T KNOW THIS. The Trumpers are either on the way out of the middle class, forced by neoliberal policy, or they've exited already. That SHOULD make them sensitive to relief--which is precisely what Build Back Better promises (and so, of course, does democracy). There's a huge messaging opportunity here, I believe.
"Legend" above has one superb answer: get Thom's thinking (and others of like mind) up and visible on right wing media. (NOT Common Dreams, CounterPunch.....).
How to do this? Let's brainstorm, right here, among the paid subscribers to the Hartmann Report. My aging brain is not as lively as it used to be, but for openers this just popped into mind.
We probably all have social media accounts. Suppose we search Facebook and Twitter and others for firmly right wing accounts and "friend" them. Then start reposting Tom's stuff, every day, and/or crank out material ourselves--in congenial, not confrontational terms.
Reinforcing our own convictions is always pleasant and ego-gratifying, but we need to help the Trumpers understand we're all in this crisis together, and the future is bleak.
We need a Left wing progressive media. Thom's show does not get the attention it deserves because the right wingers own the media. You have MSNBC but in the end it is owned by Comcast a mega conglomerate. Left wing billionaires unite! Free Speech TV isn't even high definition and has a limited budget. There are way too many people that should be Democrats and are Republicans. Look at the video in my post above. A bunch of Seniors booing Lindsey Graham. Do they not realize that the Republican Party would love to take away their Social Security and Medicare?
Remembering the comic/tragic Tea Party sign "Government hands off my Medicare!" Perhaps that's a hint: "they" think SS and Medicare are God's baseline, and only will be taken away from other (less-deserving) freeloaders. Or, all Mitch McC. has to do is say, the Democrats did it, like he just can say anything about anything, and the Pavlovians drool. My uncle thought "All in the Family" was a dramatic saga of a great patriot against (insert list: communism; uppity lazy coloreds; homos; too much education.......)(You'da thunk the laugh track was a clue, but.....) Old adage about, you can lead a horse to water....comes to mind. I think the susceptibility is congenital, and mere exposure to valid input is futile. Sorry.
Haven't had breakfast yet, but I'll be back in an hour or so to elaborate on this: Thom's essay this morning needs to be broadcast as widely as humanly possible, and we dues-paying Hartmannistas (brilliant, thank you, Daphne) need to step up and help. More later...
(Okay, back and well fed.) I've tried to be an effective activist. Got teargassed in 1968 in Berekely by Governor Reagan's helicopters, protesting the Viet Nam war. Got teargassed again in 1999 in Seattle, protesting "free trade" and the WTO. Read books by William Greider and David Korten about corporate hegemony--and then was electrified by Thom's "Unequal Protection." There was hope: corporate personhood is technically illegal: it was not established by the Santa Clara decision IN THE WRITTEN DECISION, but only affirmed in the headnote, and that does not legally establish precedent. Corporate personhood was vulnerable. So in retirement I took to the keyboard, cranking out over the next couple of decades 60-some essays--anti-corporate, anti-war, anti-Bush--for Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Alternet, AfterDowningStreet, OpEd News. Now I'm finishing a book, "Fraud and Apocalypse: the Backstory of George Bush's War on Terrorism" (with a nice blurb from Thom {thanks again, sir}).
Active? Yes. Effective? Probably close to zip, because my progressive preaching was heard only by a progressive choir: I can't honestly claim to have CHANGED a single mind.
Therein lies the challenge: we (progressives of any stipe) need to change minds.
Thom's frightening essay this morning couldn't be more unequivocal: we're on the cusp of fascism. (Corporate vulnerability has proven to be quite tolerable.) But as Thom points out today the "base" of Republican voters are more victims than villains--BUT THEY DON'T KNOW THIS. The Trumpers are either on the way out of the middle class, forced by neoliberal policy, or they've exited already. That SHOULD make them sensitive to relief--which is precisely what Build Back Better promises (and so, of course, does democracy). There's a huge messaging opportunity here, I believe.
"Legend" above has one superb answer: get Thom's thinking (and others of like mind) up and visible on right wing media. (NOT Common Dreams, CounterPunch.....).
How to do this? Let's brainstorm, right here, among the paid subscribers to the Hartmann Report. My aging brain is not as lively as it used to be, but for openers this just popped into mind.
We probably all have social media accounts. Suppose we search Facebook and Twitter and others for firmly right wing accounts and "friend" them. Then start reposting Tom's stuff, every day, and/or crank out material ourselves--in congenial, not confrontational terms.
Reinforcing our own convictions is always pleasant and ego-gratifying, but we need to help the Trumpers understand we're all in this crisis together, and the future is bleak.
We need a Left wing progressive media. Thom's show does not get the attention it deserves because the right wingers own the media. You have MSNBC but in the end it is owned by Comcast a mega conglomerate. Left wing billionaires unite! Free Speech TV isn't even high definition and has a limited budget. There are way too many people that should be Democrats and are Republicans. Look at the video in my post above. A bunch of Seniors booing Lindsey Graham. Do they not realize that the Republican Party would love to take away their Social Security and Medicare?
Remembering the comic/tragic Tea Party sign "Government hands off my Medicare!" Perhaps that's a hint: "they" think SS and Medicare are God's baseline, and only will be taken away from other (less-deserving) freeloaders. Or, all Mitch McC. has to do is say, the Democrats did it, like he just can say anything about anything, and the Pavlovians drool. My uncle thought "All in the Family" was a dramatic saga of a great patriot against (insert list: communism; uppity lazy coloreds; homos; too much education.......)(You'da thunk the laugh track was a clue, but.....) Old adage about, you can lead a horse to water....comes to mind. I think the susceptibility is congenital, and mere exposure to valid input is futile. Sorry.