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| Questions & Answers - Thom Hartmann |
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| Author |
Message |
    
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 314
Registered: 06-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Monday, August 29, 2005 - 5:01 pm: | 
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Hi Thom, thank you for participating.
Since the Tillman Act has not been ruled unconstitutional, since there were reasoned dissents about 'Belloti',since it would appear that giving corporations First and Fourteenth Amendment rights amounts to 'double representation', what do suggest as steps to be taken to overturn the Supreme Court rulings?
Do you think it worthwhile to start a 'grassroots' campaign for a constitutional convention?
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_acon.html
Can Rep. Jesse Jackson get his 'right to vote' amendment through Congress?
How do you interpret "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative" given that the first two 'enumerations' http://clerk.house.gov/histHigh/Congressional_History/congApp.html
would indicate that that the intent was one representative for every 30,000 citizens who had the right to vote? AND the Constitution STILL states such an enumeration despite Congress passing statutes fixing the number at 435, so 'what gives'? |
John Gideon
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Johngideon
Post Number: 135
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 1:06 pm: |
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Thom, I look forward to sharing a panel with you in Portland late next month.
As you are aware, I hope, a spokeswoman for the EAC announced that lever machines are not outlawed by HAVA. (Actually she told the reporter that they were not outlawed but Penn. had already accepted their HAVA Title I funds.) I then wrote an article on this issue and accused the EAC of not doing their job by allowing the media, vendors, elections officials and others to continuously misrepresent HAVA as far as lever, paper based and punch card voting systems.
The Elections Assistance Commission, in this case, seems to have been assisting the vendors and not the voters. What say you?
Information Manager, VotersUnite.org
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 1689
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 1:55 pm: |
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Thom,
I am interested in your passion for involving "The People" in our own governance. I'd like to share some very good insights from another of our guests, Jennifer Hamilton, a young woman who has done some fine work (and raised a few hackles) as a poll worker.
When asked why young adults are not more involved in activism, she made some very good points. She pointed out that many of today's youth are more interested in DOING than "blabbing and chest-thumping" and urged us to make opportunities to bring young people into tasks that really mean something.
Instead of giving them envelopes to stuff, for example, recruiting them take on the equipment hauling and table-moving components as poll workers, tasks that elderly poll workers have difficulty with. I thought these were useful ideas, that can lead to empowering actions.
You're in touch with the media infrastructure. Do you think it would be healthy for our country to make it a real focus to bring more young adults and college students on as guests, choosing those who HAVE overcome the "multiple roommates, two jobs + school, no health insurance and car that breaks down" challenges to engage in democracy first hand?
If so, I'd like to suggest some of those young adults involved in The League of Pissed Off Voters, and others who, I think, we can really learn from.
What do you think? |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 1
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:25 pm: |
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hi, Bev! |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 2
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:32 pm: |
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Bruce,
I would personally strongly argue against a constitutional convention, as this would open the door for all sorts of mischief from the Reich - er, Right Wingers. I think the first step in this is public education. Some great groups have already begin this - http://www.wilpf.org and http://www.poclad.org and http://www.celdf.org and http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org among others.
It's important to note that the Supreme Court almost never leads, but nearly always follows public opinion. Without the civil rights movement, there would have been no Brown v. Board of Education. Without the women's rights movement, no Cavanaugh <sp?> v. CT (birth control decriminalization) or Roe v. Wade. Etc. So the first and most important step, IMHO, is public education.
Thus, "tag, you're it!" Pass the word along!
Thom |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 3
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:34 pm: |
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WRT the constitutional enumeration of representatives and all, that's beyond my area of research/knowledge. And I haven't read Jackson's proposed amendment in over a year, and, frankly, don't remember what it contained. I know I thought at the time it was a great idea! <g>
Thom |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 4
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:37 pm: |
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WRT lever machines and all, and HAVA serving as surrogates for the computerized voting machine industry, I think in retrospect it's pretty clear to many of us that what HAVA was really all about was privatizing our vote, and making sure that a few big, Republican-connected companies were the primary beneficiaries of that privatization.
Privatizing the principal commons by which all other commons are administered is the most terrible crime against democracy that can be done!
Thom |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 63
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:38 pm: |
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Hi Thom,
Greedy executives have mastered the game of enriching themselves with little regard for the long-term viability of their companies, the interests of shareholders, employees, and other affected stakeholders. Executives and directors fudge profits, hide debt, and make misleading predictions, all of which cause the stock to rise so that they can cash out on their massive stock options (can you say "E N R O N"?). This leaves ordinary investors and workers, who have no knowledge of these shenanigans, to suffer tremendous losses when the stock inevitably tumbles and the company falls apart.
What are some of your "recipes" for reform in the area of corporate personhood?
Kathleen |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 5
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:42 pm: |
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Bev,
WRT activism, I don't know that there's such a generational divide in "talking" versus "doing." A large part of "doing" *is* talking. Without the Declaration of Independence, there would have been no War of Independence.
As the parent of kids in their 20s and 30s, my biggest concern is that so many of that generation have not yet lived through "truly difficult times" (we saw over 50,000 of our peers killed by LBJ and Nixon; our parents lived through WWII; our grandparents through the Great Depression; our great-grandparents through WWI). There seems to be a pretty widespread notion that things are fine and will always stay that way. My biggest fear - which ironically may be the thing that will galvanize the younger generation to words and actions - is that we're teetering on the edge of a massive economic collapse, driven by Bush's mind-boggling deficit spending, Clinton's insane trade policies pushing NAFTA and GATT/WTO on us, and Greenspan's irresponsibly driving interest rates down into negative territory (relative to inflation) in order to make the economy look good enough to get Bush elected in 2004. Time will tell, but some of those among us in the younger generation are waking up, and waking up fast. Peak oil seems to be a galvanizing issue. All of these things will bring them back to political action, which then brings people to the ballot box, which then brings them face-to-face with - oops - privatized voting machines!
Wake up time is near, IMHO...
Thom |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 6
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:45 pm: |
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Very simple, Kathleen. We attack it on all fronts. Legislative - do what CELDF is doing in Pennsylvania and help communities outlaw corporate personhood. Judicial - keep bringing cases like Kasky v. Nike to the Supreme Court (Roberts WILL vote in favor of corporate personhood - a huge danger of this guy). Broadly, educate, educate, educate. Get into our schools and discuss this. Colleges. Letters to the editor. Call into radio talk shows. Tell your friends and neighbors. Step by step is how every change happens!
Thom |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 382
Registered: 06-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:50 pm: |
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I've spoke with Mr. Linzey at celdf about a democracy school and done some research for the Poclad folks on a court case in CA; Jeff Milchen's group is 501 etc and as such can't engage in political lobbying. One difficulty in 'educating' people I've not overcome is their sense that corporations 'provide jobs',etc.. Another difficulty is that the word 'corporations' encompasses a broad range of economic activity ranging from multinationals to sole proprietors. So much of the industrialized world is tied up with 'corporations' that peoples eyes glaze over when one starts talking about corporate personhood.
Which is why I bring up the representation issue. THAT they seem to understand but feel powerless against.
And people keep telling me how hard it would be to show how I've been harmed by the double representation thesis that I've almost given up on it.
And you know as well as I how the media is owned so getting the 'word' out, so suggestions would be useful. |
Kathleen Wynne
Moderator
Username: Admin_ii
Post Number: 64
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:51 pm: |
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For three generations after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, citizens governed corporations by setting their rules and operating conditions through both state laws and corporate charters. Corporations were chartered for a set purpose for a set number of years, and citizen governments could revoke those charters if they were displeased with the corporation's behavior. In the middle of the 19th century, the laws began to shift in favor of corporations. In the 150 years since, corporations have been greatly empowered through limited liabilities, unlimited life span and size, and other powers that have made them the masters, not the servants, of the people.
The last and most dangerous grab for power is in controlling the outcome of elections in order to continue this "pigs at the trough" scenario we have been witnessing with the corporations for some time now.
Obviously, this has got to stop NOW, not years from now, or we may never be able to change the course we are now on. Many ideas are being passed around on these forums for potential solutions in putting the elections back into the hands of the people.
What would be some of your suggestions in our being able to accomplish this lofty goal?
Kathleen |
Paula Bushkoff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Plumb
Post Number: 75
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:56 pm: |
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Sorry this isn't about corporations, per se.
I think we can learn a lesson from the "right wing talking points" and that is simplicity of message and purpose. Paper ballots. Paper ballots. Paper ballots. Video monitering, simple ideas, cheap ideas, easy to understand ideas - etc. and pound away at those relentlessly. This way the MOST important issues don't get lost in a barrage of stuff. I understand this think tank as a way to winnow the field to the simple, obvious ideas - and the anwers to any objections we see raised about them.
Even corporate "rights" issues could be narrowed to the idea that citizenship (even corporate) involves responsibility - at least as far as being held accountable in the court of public opinion. And the public has the option of boycotts. If you look back on how we got to the state that things are in today - dating back to the Goldwater era - these were the tactics of the conservative movement. The tactics were not morally wrong and they were effective in the long run. |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 7
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 2 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 4:58 pm: |
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We need to educate people about the commons - the notion that government is "us" and that we form governments to administer the commons. Those things we all need for survival - clean air, safe food, clean water, sanitation, commerce, communications, energy. And that the most important of those commons is the vote, which is used to administer all the rest of them.
The biggest problem we're facing, in my humble opinion, is that for pretty much the past 30 years or so our schools have not been teaching about the commons. Ever since Reagan led the assault on government, setting up the privatization of the commons.
When we wake people up to this, then everything becomes evident. That's our first step, education-wise.
Thom |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 383
Registered: 06-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:00 pm: |
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Here's Rep. Jackson's legislation:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.J.RES.28:
died in 107th;reintroduced with 45 co-sponsors in the 108th. |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 8
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:07 pm: |
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for some reason, that link doesn't work. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 1693
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:10 pm: |
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Thom,
In your book, "Unequal Protection," you point out that corporate personhood really evolved out of a clerk's note on a Supreme Court decision, not the decision itself, but then a body of law built upon this supporting the concept of corporate personhood with decisions that set precedent.
Do you have any hope that corporate personhood can be reversed? |
Paula Bushkoff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Plumb
Post Number: 77
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:14 pm: |
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The Commons seems like such an obvious idea - yet the current administration does not seem to think that they breathe the same air, take the same medicines, etc. as the rest of us. Do they think they will be able to hunker down somewhere in Idaho when the pollution gets to be too much? Do they think their money will be able to build them a town under a bubble that will clean their air and decontaminated their water while the rest of us make do in a polluted world? This is what makes no sense to us. We have always relied on the fact that our leaders were humans who wanted to also live in a safe world. I'm sorry but the ONLY explanation I can come up with to explain the unCommon decisions of this government is a belief by them in the "coming Rapture" - where these things won't matter. Of course, what will money matter either? It just makes no sense to me. Please, can anyone make sense of this? |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 9
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box?
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:30 pm: |
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I think that if enough people are awakened to the reality and consequences of corporate personhood, then there will be a swing back in the direction of Roosevelt's thinking. Remember his speech in 1936 in Philadelphia:
That very word freedom, in itself and of necessity, suggests freedom from some restraining power. In 1776 we sought freedom from the tyranny of a political autocracy-from the eighteenth century royalists who held special privileges from the crown. It was to perpetuate their privilege that they governed without the consent of the governed; that they denied the right of free assembly and free speech; that they restricted the worship of God; that they put the average man's property and the average man's life in pawn to the mercenaries of dynastic power; that they regimented the people.
And so it was to win freedom from the tyranny of political autocracy that the American Revolution was fought. That victory gave the business of governing into the hands of the average man, who won the right with his neighbors to make and order his own destiny through his own Government. Political tyranny was wiped out at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.
Since that struggle, however, man's inventive genius released new forces in our land which reordered the lives of our people.. The age of machinery, of railroads; of steam and electricity; the telegraph and the radio; mass production, mass distribution-all of these combined to bring forward a new civilization and with it a new problem for those who sought to remain free.
For out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital-all undreamed of by the fathers-the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service.
There was no place among this royalty for our many thousands of small business men and merchants who sought to make a worthy use of the American system of initiative and profit. They were no more free than the worker or the farmer. Even honest and progressive-minded men of wealth, aware of their obligation to their generation, could never know just where they fitted into this dynastic scheme of things.
It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.
The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor-these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age-other people's money-these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.
Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities.
Throughout the Nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.
An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are not free men." Liberty requires opportunity to make a living-a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.
For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor-other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business. They granted that the Government could protect the citizen in his right to vote, but they denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live.
Today we stand committed to the proposition that freedom is no half-and-half affair. If the average citizen is guaranteed equal opportunity in the polling place, he must have equal opportunity in the market place.
These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the Flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.
The brave and clear platform adopted by this Convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that Government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster.
But the resolute enemy within our gates is ever ready to beat down our words unless in greater courage we will fight for them.
For more than three years we have fought for them. This Convention, in every word and deed, has pledged that that fight will go on.
The defeats and victories of these years have given to us as a people a new understanding of our Government and of ourselves. Never since the early days of the New England town meeting have the affairs of Government been so widely discussed and so clearly appreciated. It has been brought home to us that the only effective guide for the safety of this most worldly of worlds, the greatest guide of all, is moral principle.
We do not see faith, hope and charity as unattainable ideals, but we use them as stout supports of a Nation fighting the fight for freedom in a modern civilization.
Faith- in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships.
Hope-renewed because we know so well the progress we have made.
Charity- in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.
We seek not merely to make Government a mechanical implement, but to give it the vibrant personal character that is the very embodiment of human charity.
We are poor indeed if this Nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude.
In the place of the palace of privilege we seek to build a temple out of faith and hope and charity.
It is a sobering thing, my friends, to be a servant of this great cause. We try in our daily work to remember that the cause belongs not to us, but to the people. The standard is not in the hands of you and me alone. It is carried by America. We seek daily to profit from experience, to learn to do better as our task proceeds.
Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales.
Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
In this world of ours in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.
I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.
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Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 10
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:33 pm: |
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Keep in mind, this was 1936 - the war he was talking about was NOT against Hitler, but against the corporate powers in the United States... |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 384
Registered: 06-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:33 pm: |
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Some links for people regarding 'privatation of the commons':
http://www.cuc.ca/social_responsibility/environment/reclaiming_commons.htm
http://www.nancho.net/newchau/corplabr.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1 2952681&dopt=Abstract
http://www.larryflynt.com/notebook.php?id=5
The below is what REALLY gets me; why does the Supreme's keep up the pretense?
Is it because "corporations no longer need to buy our politicians with campaign contributions, because they have already infiltrated the highest levels of public office. "
But try this one: In 1886 the U.S. Supreme Court went further, declaring that corporations were actual, natural persons protected under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which was passed to guarantee the rights of the emancipated slaves. Sixty years later, Justice William O. Douglas stated that "there was no history, logic or reason given to support that view [that corporations are persons]." Yet it is today the conventional wisdom: we call corporations "they" and recognize their rights. |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 385
Registered: 06-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:37 pm: |
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The Rep. Jackson link isn't working because the ":" at the end of it is getting cut off on the search when clicked on; cut and paste into a different browser window and it's ok.
 |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 11
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:43 pm: |
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Yep, Bruce - "conventional wisdom" is the problem. And until we begin enforcing the Sherman Act again, and applying it to media corporations, we'll never have an educated populace. It's all about bread & circus now... |
Paula Bushkoff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Plumb
Post Number: 79
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:44 pm: |
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Thank you for reminding us that this war has been fought before and much progress made. Now we have to fight it again - as you say it goes in cycles. I look forward to a new morals debate where the morality of poverty, ecology, etc. are the debate and not those things best left to religion. We really do need a separation of church and state and we need it also in our public morality discourse! (Even though, as I understand it, the Bible of the dominant religion in this country, Christianity, already espouses these moral principles I have noted and does not espouse those currently in vogue among many national "Christian" leaders. |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 12
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:49 pm: |
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Well, speaking of Christianity, here is the most significant place in the Bible where Jesus told his disciples what they have to do to get into heaven. It was the basis of FDR's notion of American Morality. It's Matthew 25, and somehow the cons always seem to forget it:
31
14 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne,
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and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33
He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34
Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
35
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,
36
naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.'
37
Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?
38
When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?
39
When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?'
40
And the king will say to them in reply, 'Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'
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17 Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
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For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
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a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'
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18 Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?'
45
He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.'
46
And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
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Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 13
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:50 pm: |
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Not posted for evangelical purposes, but for you to share with any con who tries to justify Republican theories with Christianity, which openly refutes Christianity (and all other major religions)... |
Samuel Scharff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Abacus
Post Number: 15
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:51 pm: |
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Hi Paula
“Please, can anyone make sense of this?”
It does make a sort of sense; but you need to tighten your seatbelt. Try this.
Just consider the ‘neo-conservative’ perspective. This is the group dominating the Bush administration’s strategy. In case it hasn’t come up over your radar horizon, or the whole thing has seemed too recondite to tackle, here’s a short summary.
It is based on the work of an academic named Leo Strauss. Main ideas:
# Perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them...;
# Those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right, the right of the superior to rule over the inferior..;
# religion is the glue that holds society together, ...separating church and state was the
biggest mistake made by the founders of the U.S. republic;
# Secular society...is the worst possible thing
...leads to traits that encourage dissent, which
in turn could dangerously weaken society's ability to cope with opposition, external or internal...
’You want a crowd you can manipulate like putty’;“
# a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat, ..,if no external
threat exists, then one has to be manufactured...
...
Bill Moyers, Interviewing Norquist, the neo-cons’ field marshal: “You're on record as saying, my goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bath tub.” Norquist concurred; and he has said “... we intend to bankrupt the government to the point where they can basically only have the function of collecting taxes to run a national defense system.”
This leads to the wholesale privatization or termination of social security, medicare, prisons, schools, clean air and water, safe food, the Federal Aviation Administration, Amtrak, welfare services, public power utilities, the federal postal service, help for police and firemen, etc., etc., etc.”
In other words, the return of the corporate state.
References:
Drury, S., “Leo Strauss and the Grand Inquisitor”
Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 24, Number 4. Shadia B. Drury
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/drury_24_4.htm
Also Drury, S., “Leo Strauss and the Neoconservatives”
Evatt Found’n Undated; downloaded 6/10/05 Shadia Drury
http://evatt.org.au/publications/papers/112.html
Drury, S., “Leo Strauss and the American Right”
Reviewed by Thom Hartmann - Buzzflash, 8/4/05
http://www.buzzflash.com/hartmann/05/08/har05008.html
YAY THOM!
Moyers, B., “Transcript: Bill Moyers Interviews Grover Norquist”
PBS NOW 1/10/03
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_norquist.html
Abacus
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Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 1694
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 5:56 pm: |
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This wonderful speech you have contributed, Roosevelt's 1936 Philadelphia speech, deserves more publication today.
I have never read it before. It speaks eloquently of the challenges we face, and it is clear that they were anticipated.
I am interested in the comment you made that "a large part of doing is talking."
I travel around quite a bit meeting with community activism groups. Some meet weekly, many meet monthly, and some "as needed." I did so many speaking engagements with the monthly meetup types, and I began to agree with Jennifer, that much of what is done seems to be talk, not action.
I see much faster progress among activists -- at least, in the election reform movement -- when they get out of the coffee circles and go pay visits to public officials, asking questions, requesting records, meeting, persuading, tattling, videotaping, and then telling the newspapers.
Talking seems best suited to developing sound logic, talking points, rebuttals, sound bytes. But don't you think people become educated more quickly when they are taking action?
It's like getting a new software manual -- you can spend a month reading the manual or you can jump in and try to make it do something. You get educated quickly when you jump right in.
Didn't mean to make a speech, but I didn't expect to see a point of disagreement with you, and I'm hoping you can fill me in more on the value of talk.
Of course, this forum is talk, and I realize that, and I think disagreement is healthy as it helps us clarify thinking.
At what point do you see talk turning to action? |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 1695
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:00 pm: |
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Thanks for the scripture. Excellent passage.
By the way, for those who aren't aware of it, Thom has a new book out, "What Would Jefferson Do?"
Love it. |
Paula Bushkoff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Plumb
Post Number: 80
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:04 pm: |
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Bev - thanks for justifying my habit of not reading the manual!
Samuel - thanks for trying to help me make sense, however, don't these people also breathe the air and drink the water? Do they think they are supermen immune to emphysema and cancer? How do they justify our breathing unclean air - when they have to breathe the same air? Isn't this sort of the definition of insanity on their part? |
Paula Bushkoff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Plumb
Post Number: 81
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:10 pm: |
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P.S. Doesn't this breathe the same air, etc. also apply to corporate executives in the electric power industry, etc? When the consequences apply to you and your family and you still put money and profits above your own and your family's health....What am I (a sane person) to make of this? |
Bruce Sims
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Ubetchaiam
Post Number: 386
Registered: 06-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:11 pm: |
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Actually Samuel, from what I have read and heard, there is a fight between the neo-cons and 'big oil' inside the Bush Administration/Republican Party(also think evangelical 'christian' when you think 'neo-con'); and,beleive it or not ,Robertson is more 'big oil' than neo-con.
And I have to chime in regards Bev's experience of 'talk' because that is exactly my experience "I see much faster progress among activists -- at least, in the election reform movement -- when they get out of the coffee circles and go pay visits to public officials, asking questions, requesting records, meeting, persuading, tattling, videotaping, and then telling the newspapers. "
I mean just getting people to write letters is a major effort IF they can't just click on a pre-filled out petition and click 'send'.
Maybe the good thing that comes from Katrina is that everything really gets screwed up and people start asking questions....but then how do we overcome the media shills for the gummint? For instance if you pull up google news you get 'Bush promises hurricane aid, says recovery could take years' BUT:
DID NEW ORLEANS CATASTROPHE HAVE TO HAPPEN? `TIMES-PICAYUNE HAD REPEATEDLY RAISED FEDERAL SPENDING ISSUES
EDITOR & PUBLISHER (8/30/05) - ..At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it
coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
.. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay.
Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.". The cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."
One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.
The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana Congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House....In its budget, the Bush administration
proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."
Full story:
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=100105131 3
POLITICAL WINDS SHATTER FEDERAL DISASTER AGENCY
>> FEMA, ABSORBED BY HOMELAND SECURITY, LOSES RESPONSIBILITY
San Jose Mercury New (8/31/05) -- In the days to come, as the nation and the people along the Gulf Coast work to cope with the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we will be reminded anew how important it is to have a federal agency capable of dealing with natural catastrophes of this sort. This is an immense human tragedy, one that will work hardship on millions of people. It is beyond the capabilities of state and local government to deal with. It requires a national response.
Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, at this moment,the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the
Department of Homeland Security.
Apparently homeland security now consists almost entirely of protection against terrorist acts. How else to explain why the Federal Emergency
Management Agency will no longer be responsible for disaster preparedness? Given our country's long record of natural disasters, how much sense does this make? What follows is an obituary for what was once considered the pre-eminent example of a federal agency doing good for the American public in times of trouble, such as the present.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/12521521.htm
Posted by urrightto on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 at 12:56:15 PM PDT |
Paula Bushkoff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Plumb
Post Number: 82
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:19 pm: |
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"I mean just getting people to write letters is a major effort IF they can't just click on a pre-filled out petition and click 'send'."
I personally have felt very empowered by the fill in and click petitions. They have shown the strength of feeling about many issues.
Couldn't this method be used as an action method as well as a way to voice an opinion? There are already websites that encourage letters about paper ballots to local officials. Even better could be a campaign set up to fill out and click these forms. I would be happy to volunteer to collect the information needed about all the local officials and help post it (the scut work) but I have no experience in setting up websites, etc. |
Thom Hartmann
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Hartmann
Post Number: 14
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:19 pm: |
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thanks, Bev, and everybody else. We have a long way to go before we sleep, as they say...
Thom |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 1700
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 6:38 pm: |
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Thank you, Thom, for your insights and your eloquence.
Bev |
Samuel Scharff
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Abacus
Post Number: 16
Registered: 08-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - 8:26 pm: |
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Paula,
== Doesn't this breathe the same air, etc. also apply to corporate executives in the electric power industry, etc? When the consequences
apply to you and your family and you still put money and profits above your own and your family's health....What am I (a sane person) to make
of this?
The way this lot thinks is beyond me. I don’t know if they’ve ever thought that global warming is real. Maybe they see it as a wimpy thing, a bit of bother to their efforts to maximize profits? Maybe they just don’t want to think about it. Maybe they think that as the overlords they will be able to live in bubbles while the peons slave and get cancer.
The danger is that this maps too well to the Third Reich and to “1984.”
I do think that a sane person who believes in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights should stand ready to defend them any way she/he can. A lot of us took oath to do just that. Honest voting is clearly way up on the scale of what’s important.
How to take this to massive public recognition is way outside my experience. But there are a lot of citizens who have already begun to stumble over the need to act.
Boy am I worried about 2006 and 2008.
Abacus
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