Thom Hartmann

At Suz's suggestion, I checked out Thom Hartman.

He's an interesting guy; what I would call an earnest socialist as opposed to a shrill one. Shockingly (heh), his messages are optimistic and positive although there isn't much he says that I agree with. For example, he writes:

In 1792, James Madison defined government's role in promoting an American middle class, "By the silent operation of the laws, which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence toward a state of comfort." To say that somebody who earns millions a year by arbitrage "works that much harder" than a middle-class wage earner is simple nonsense. We recommend restoring inflation-indexed income tax and inheritance tax rates to those that were extant from the 1930s to the 1960s - during the golden era of the American middle class. We also recommend that government become the "employer of last resort" by taking on public works projects and supporting the arts, as it did during that era, and establishing a truly livable minimum wage.

I think here he's misidentifying the period and causes of the rise of the middle class. The middle class arose in the postwar 1940's, not the 30's. It had little to do with high tax rates (that doesn't even make sense) and more with the engines of industry as the country militarized and industrialized to fight fascism, then communism.

As to public works projects and the arts, maybe he is talking about the 1930s. But the 1930's were a desperate, morbund period that led to global radicalization and a spate of political assassinations and hate groups here in the USA. Surely he doesn't want a return to that?

Elsewhere on his site he's pretty clearly anti-corporation. He sees them as a threat to democracy and desires a much more powerful government to enact laws to stifle the corporations. I dunno but given a choice between big business and big government, I choose business.

Last I looked, it wasn't Ford or Boeing rounding up and gassing people. Or invading Poland. Or turning Asian women into prostitutes.