This was easily one of the most profound documents (TESTIMONY) to the current state of our union and should be seen by everyone .It could not have been presented any better in my opinion .A big shout out to you Thomas as our friend and mentor to those on the side of democracy and fair play in America and around the world.
This is really informative. Learned a lot. It also highlights how impactful excluding viewpoints can be. When I see pictures depicting the ice age, they always have hunters. When I think of the ice age, I think of someone who is eight months pregnant carrying a two-year old. If you asked most women, the first thought about the deer going to the watering hole would not be a stag, but mother deers agreeing because they would be looking after their young (individually and collectively). Neither seems to be the case, but it's interesting that it is assumed that "we all" would think of the stag leading. No, we don't. So concepts of collectivity in humans is not so much our assumptions are inaccurate, but that they 1) represent only a few viewpoints and 2) they are an assumption (of "our" view) of an assumption.
History requires the pivotal event....1871 when the Republic was traded for a corporation due to the debt from the Civil War. For freedom of sovereign citizen are allowed to expand and accumulate assets under a republic; no income taxes.
Friedman was taken seriously in economics because he had some new and useful insights into economics like "velocity", treating money like any other good or service, and demand added by timing. It doesn't get mentioned enough though, how he also helped develop weaponized economics. Many of these austrian- like ideas like trickledown that are obviously wrong, don't need to be real. The idea is to sell other people on thinking it's real economics so that you can take advantage of them. Naomi Klein fleshed out the case around chicago boys pretty well in that disaster capitalism book. We shouldn't assume that economic concepts are always believed, nor believed to be in everyone's best interest by the econonomists proposing them.
Though I rarely fully agree with your proposed solutions--always informative. After I listen to you I come away knowing more than I did before. Thanks, and Happy holidays to you and yours.
Countries with parliaments are in fact oligarchies (few lead). In order to be a true democracy, the decisions of the Parliament should be submitted to the approval of the citizens. The democratic aspect is a side effect in societies where economies have a strong competitive aspect, where the interests of those who hold economic power in society are divergent. Thus, those with money, and implicitly with political power in society, are supervising each other so that none of them have undeserved advantages due to politics. Because of this, countries with large mineral resources, like Russia and Venezuela (their share in GDP is large), do not have democratic aspects, because a small group of people can exploit these resources in their own interest. In poor countries, the main resource exploited may even be the state budget, as they have converging interests in benefiting, in their own interest, from this resource. This is what is observed in Romania, Bulgaria, when, no matter which party comes to power, the result is the same. The solution is modern direct democracy in which every citizen can vote, whenever he wants, over the head of the parliamentarian who represents him. He can even dismiss him if most of his constituents consider that their interests are not right represented
Thanks for the very compelling story that you've put together here. However, I think it's a complete mischaracterization to say that the socially corrosive and oppressive effects of oligarchy have ever been quelled at various times throughout American or English/European history. Tell that to the various Indigenous Peoples across the America's and elsewhere who have had their lands taken from them, and their cultures and worldviews targeted for destruction. Processes that have continued throughout the last 300-400 years. Sure, you could say that if you were working or middle class, then you were relatively better off at certain periods relative to others in terms of how much the squeeze was put on you. But the underlying imperial (now corporate-imperial) nature of the vast majority of "democracies" around the world practically ensures that entrenched wealth/power hierarchies will always be oppressing and exploiting people and/or the environment somewhere. These hierarchies of wealth/power couldn't exist except through these processes. So tweaking American democracy to be less influenced by wealth/power will better society overall, but in the long run of forging a sustainable, equitable society (now looking like a shorter run as environmental and social pressures are feeding back off each other and de-stabilizing larger chunks of mainstream society), we need to seriously challenge the mechanisms that enable wealth/power to be entrenched in the first place. So I disagree with Thom Hartmann entirely when he says he doesn't mind if someone gets filthy rich. What difference does it make whether a billionaire is buying politicians or buying an army? (I personally prefer them to buy the politicians for the moment at least). And of course, it is completely immoral, unjust, and against our nature (a crime against life, I'd argue) for one human being to be "worth" and have access to and consume literally billions more resources and/or have that much more influence than another. Any system ceases to function well and looses the ability to self-regulate when it can no longer respond to internal or external feedbacks. And when wealth/power becomes entrenched for long enough (e.g. spanning generations), and/or hierarchies of wealth/power become wide/tall enough, human groups inevitably form social groups (tribes) and identities along these axes of wealth/power (social diversification is fundamental to human nature I'd argue - not power seeking or hierarchy forming). That's what puts imperial societies in the position where what's happening at the bottom of the social hierarchy remains completely external to the knowledge/values of the people at the top of the hierarchy and vice versa, whereupon the socio-ecological system itself will stumble about till it falls off of a social or environmental cliff). Power needs to be fluid and easily concentrated and dispersed again for human groups to function harmoniously with each other and the environment. I would argue that many Indigenous societies past and present (e.g., societies that were able to persist culturally intact for thousands of years) likely have some pretty key insights into governance institutions and ways of being in the world that could sign point some promising directions for mainstream society to follow.
My dear man ; You've put the. Cart before the hoarse, and this is a prime example of your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime .Your issues cannot be addressed until those described initially in this document are settled .
@@harrykersey3181 Could you elaborate a bit? I'm all for "quelling oligarchy", but I disagree that one could say it was ever usefully quelled in America as Thomas states. I think there was a large process of social re-organization in America, let's call it a "growth phase" that was relatively equalizing due to the fact that millions of Indigenous were displaced from a continent's worth of land and resources, enabling many Europeans to develop economically (and relatively equally all at the same time), which drowned out the effects of oligarchy variously over let's say a hundred years. Oligarchy was not quelled, it was just overshadowed for a period as many more people were able to jump on to the bandwagon leading to oligarchdom. As these new resources were variously accumulated and concentreated amongst fewer and fewer people, the very same dynamics experienced in Europe that drove people to leave their homes and come to the "new world" are beginning to traction again. That's my main point, and when Thomas said he doesn't mind anyone getting filthy rich, (i.e. much more power than others), well I think that is the very mechanism by which oligarchy arises. This is a primary issue that requires "settling".
The founders also looked west in astonishment, as the Anti-Federalist papers show, how could this republic be saved from itself from becoming a leviathan and endangering the enlightenment itself.
TX has outlawed anagrams to show their anti-metric bonafides. The Anagram Act was passed before Magna Carta. King John had to deal with the Catholics who were the only litrerate besides the royals and they used latin so Anagram Act was forced to adopt a latin anagram of itself and Magna Carta was born. [I was raised on Rocky and Bullwinkle's Fractured Fairy Tales narrated by Edward Everrett Horton.]
Iroquoian nations showed the harmony of man and mother earth.... The founder's adopted the Iroquois "constitution" as a template for the Constitutional Republic.
I am a science and engineering guy. Lately I have extended my interests into UFO phenomena. But know this I have been spending a great deal of time in the southwestern US since 1988. We get very clear sky at night with scant cloud covet. We see things that our physics and mathematics coupled with biological knowledge cannot explain. The further studies into the beliefs of aboriginal peoples as well as our own biblical beliefs lead us to new, for us Western people, into new territory of study. The principles of Gaia and the possibility of the Universe itself being conscious leads us to knowledge that is not science and also not quite religion. But a hybrid of the two explains things that were mysterious in prior times. What is this new area? It is Quantum Phenomena. Action at a distance and telepathy cannot be understood and believed at your first exposure. But once you have had a telepathic experience and the subject is eventually, against all probability, proven to become revealed truth, it gives you a new insight into your life's beliefs.
Gore Vidal once said the south is more like an 'interior colony' and that Lincoln lied in the phrase 'a more perfect union' in the Gettysburg address.that might be the problem with our democracy
At the back of a slim book of essays by Gore Vidal, he lists all the CIA covert operations that he knew of. Is that list available elsewhere? Others have made the same info available, but he was early because he came from the ruling class.
You got to think about the Indians you don't say anything about the Indians. We are on stolen land because of the white man. Now it just a hand full trying to take over the US. The REP is the lead of all this take over for the rich. If all the leaders have a nought balls to stand up to these ones that want to destroy the US let's get them ,we are now surrounded by Russians ships and Chinia ships, submarines, so tell the people to wake up.
Stephen Gould noticed South American ants species similarly knowing which ants were which and some type of similar trick going on in their movements as there are so many doing different jobs types, how do they sync any kind of movements that doesn't confuse each other or get other species mixed in who may be close by, quite similarly by noticing their neighbors. Are people in neighborhoods that are NOT keeping up with the Joneses? is it some other phenomenon? Regarding groups? crowds? etc?
And right in front of this humankind offering, Google TH-cam inserts a TEMU ad, a brand about as far from Cradle to Cradle circular ecology economy as you could imagine, a brand that has taken externalizing costs / "exploit the many" to a whole new level.
The overriding issue in the bedrock of democracy is that people vote. The essence of what, not who, Votes in a corporation is that Stocks vote. Therefore it is the control Of the Majority at 51 %. So we clearly see that democracy Is the One Man, One Vote Principle. Patrick Henry is our American Hero Executed by the British: I regret that I have but one life To give for my Country. Let us remember who we are And why we are The way we are.
Thanks for the very compelling story that you've put together here. However, I think it's a complete mischaracterization to say that the socially corrosive and oppressive effects of oligarchy have ever been quelled at various times throughout American or English/European history. Tell that to the various Indigenous Peoples across the America's and elsewhere who have had their lands taken from them, and their cultures and worldviews targeted for destruction. Processes that have continued throughout the last 300-400 years. Sure, you could say that if you were working or middle class, then you were relatively better off at certain periods relative to others in terms of how much the squeeze was put on you. But the underlying imperial (now corporate-imperial) nature of the vast majority of "democracies" around the world practically ensures that entrenched wealth/power hierarchies will always be oppressing and exploiting people and/or the environment somewhere. These hierarchies of wealth/power couldn't exist except through these processes. So tweaking American democracy to be less influenced by wealth/power will better society overall, but in the long run of forging a sustainable, equitable society (now looking like a shorter run as environmental and social pressures are feeding back off each other and de-stabilizing larger chunks of mainstream society), we need to seriously challenge the mechanisms that enable wealth/power to be entrenched in the first place. So I disagree with Thom Hartmann entirely when he says he doesn't mind if someone gets filthy rich. What difference does it make whether a billionaire is buying politicians or buying an army? (I personally prefer them to buy the politicians for the moment at least). And of course, it is completely immoral, unjust, and against our nature (a crime against life, I'd argue) for one human being to be "worth" and have access to and consume literally billions more resources and/or have that much more influence than another. Any system ceases to function well and looses the ability to self-regulate when it can no longer respond to internal or external feedbacks. And when wealth/power becomes entrenched for long enough (e.g. spanning generations), and/or hierarchies of wealth/power become wide/tall enough, human groups inevitably form social groups (tribes) and identities along these axes of wealth/power (social diversification is fundamental to human nature I'd argue - not power seeking or hierarchy forming). That's what puts imperial societies in the position where what's happening at the bottom of the social hierarchy remains completely external to the knowledge/values of the people at the top of the hierarchy and vice versa, whereupon the socio-ecological system itself will stumble about till it falls off of a social or environmental cliff). Power needs to be fluid and easily concentrated and dispersed again for human groups to function harmoniously with each other and the environment. I would argue that many Indigenous societies past and present (e.g., societies that were able to persist culturally intact for thousands of years) likely have some pretty key insights into governance institutions and ways of being in the world that could sign point some promising directions for mainstream society to follow.
This is a goldmine of information. Thank you.
I'm African living in Johannesburg but I appreciate the work of Thom Hatman, great 👍🏻 guy.
This was easily one of the most profound documents (TESTIMONY) to the current state of our union and should be seen by everyone .It could not have been presented any better in my opinion .A big shout out to you Thomas as our friend and mentor to those on the side of democracy and fair play in America and around the world.
Great discussion! Thank you so much for sharing!
This was a great discussion! Excited to tune into the next one :)
This is really informative. Learned a lot. It also highlights how impactful excluding viewpoints can be.
When I see pictures depicting the ice age, they always have hunters. When I think of the ice age, I think of someone who is eight months pregnant carrying a two-year old. If you asked most women, the first thought about the deer going to the watering hole would not be a stag, but mother deers agreeing because they would be looking after their young (individually and collectively). Neither seems to be the case, but it's interesting that it is assumed that "we all" would think of the stag leading. No, we don't.
So concepts of collectivity in humans is not so much our assumptions are inaccurate, but that they 1) represent only a few viewpoints and 2) they are an assumption (of "our" view) of an assumption.
History requires the pivotal event....1871
when the Republic was traded for a corporation due to the debt from the Civil War. For freedom of sovereign citizen are allowed to expand and accumulate assets under a republic; no income taxes.
Friedman was taken seriously in economics because he had some new and useful insights into economics like "velocity", treating money like any other good or service, and demand added by timing. It doesn't get mentioned enough though, how he also helped develop weaponized economics. Many of these austrian- like ideas like trickledown that are obviously wrong, don't need to be real. The idea is to sell other people on thinking it's real economics so that you can take advantage of them. Naomi Klein fleshed out the case around chicago boys pretty well in that disaster capitalism book. We shouldn't assume that economic concepts are always believed, nor believed to be in everyone's best interest by the econonomists proposing them.
Though I rarely fully agree with your proposed solutions--always informative. After I listen to you I come away knowing more than I did before. Thanks, and Happy holidays to you and yours.
My take on humans is, whenever it is possible for anyone to concentrate too much power in it's hand become drunk with power; in other words: evil.
Awesome information & implications THANKS :)
Of course there's only 41 views. The poor too busy being pitted against each other
Countries with parliaments are in fact oligarchies (few lead). In order to be a true democracy, the decisions of the Parliament should be submitted to the approval of the citizens. The democratic aspect is a side effect in societies where economies have a strong competitive aspect, where the interests of those who hold economic power in society are divergent. Thus, those with money, and implicitly with political power in society, are supervising each other so that none of them have undeserved advantages due to politics. Because of this, countries with large mineral resources, like Russia and Venezuela (their share in GDP is large), do not have democratic aspects, because a small group of people can exploit these resources in their own interest. In poor countries, the main resource exploited may even be the state budget, as they have converging interests in benefiting, in their own interest, from this resource. This is what is observed in Romania, Bulgaria, when, no matter which party comes to power, the result is the same. The solution is modern direct democracy in which every citizen can vote, whenever he wants, over the head of the parliamentarian who represents him. He can even dismiss him if most of his constituents consider that their interests are not right represented
Thanks for the very compelling story that you've put together here. However, I think it's a complete mischaracterization to say that the socially corrosive and oppressive effects of oligarchy have ever been quelled at various times throughout American or English/European history. Tell that to the various Indigenous Peoples across the America's and elsewhere who have had their lands taken from them, and their cultures and worldviews targeted for destruction. Processes that have continued throughout the last 300-400 years.
Sure, you could say that if you were working or middle class, then you were relatively better off at certain periods relative to others in terms of how much the squeeze was put on you. But the underlying imperial (now corporate-imperial) nature of the vast majority of "democracies" around the world practically ensures that entrenched wealth/power hierarchies will always be oppressing and exploiting people and/or the environment somewhere. These hierarchies of wealth/power couldn't exist except through these processes.
So tweaking American democracy to be less influenced by wealth/power will better society overall, but in the long run of forging a sustainable, equitable society (now looking like a shorter run as environmental and social pressures are feeding back off each other and de-stabilizing larger chunks of mainstream society), we need to seriously challenge the mechanisms that enable wealth/power to be entrenched in the first place. So I disagree with Thom Hartmann entirely when he says he doesn't mind if someone gets filthy rich. What difference does it make whether a billionaire is buying politicians or buying an army? (I personally prefer them to buy the politicians for the moment at least). And of course, it is completely immoral, unjust, and against our nature (a crime against life, I'd argue) for one human being to be "worth" and have access to and consume literally billions more resources and/or have that much more influence than another.
Any system ceases to function well and looses the ability to self-regulate when it can no longer respond to internal or external feedbacks. And when wealth/power becomes entrenched for long enough (e.g. spanning generations), and/or hierarchies of wealth/power become wide/tall enough, human groups inevitably form social groups (tribes) and identities along these axes of wealth/power (social diversification is fundamental to human nature I'd argue - not power seeking or hierarchy forming). That's what puts imperial societies in the position where what's happening at the bottom of the social hierarchy remains completely external to the knowledge/values of the people at the top of the hierarchy and vice versa, whereupon the socio-ecological system itself will stumble about till it falls off of a social or environmental cliff).
Power needs to be fluid and easily concentrated and dispersed again for human groups to function harmoniously with each other and the environment. I would argue that many Indigenous societies past and present (e.g., societies that were able to persist culturally intact for thousands of years) likely have some pretty key insights into governance institutions and ways of being in the world that could sign point some promising directions for mainstream society to follow.
My dear man ; You've put the. Cart before the hoarse, and this is a prime example of your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working overtime .Your issues cannot be addressed until those described initially in this document are settled .
@@harrykersey3181 Could you elaborate a bit? I'm all for "quelling oligarchy", but I disagree that one could say it was ever usefully quelled in America as Thomas states. I think there was a large process of social re-organization in America, let's call it a "growth phase" that was relatively equalizing due to the fact that millions of Indigenous were displaced from a continent's worth of land and resources, enabling many Europeans to develop economically (and relatively equally all at the same time), which drowned out the effects of oligarchy variously over let's say a hundred years. Oligarchy was not quelled, it was just overshadowed for a period as many more people were able to jump on to the bandwagon leading to oligarchdom. As these new resources were variously accumulated and concentreated amongst fewer and fewer people, the very same dynamics experienced in Europe that drove people to leave their homes and come to the "new world" are beginning to traction again. That's my main point, and when Thomas said he doesn't mind anyone getting filthy rich, (i.e. much more power than others), well I think that is the very mechanism by which oligarchy arises. This is a primary issue that requires "settling".
The founders also looked west in astonishment, as the Anti-Federalist papers show, how could this republic be saved from itself from becoming a leviathan and endangering the enlightenment itself.
IF THE WORLD IS LORDED OVER BY THE DEVIL, HOW CAN YOU SAY THE RICH ARE FIT TO RULE MEN?
To keep it at an even 50 states, you could recombine the Dakotas and also undo some other extreme rightwing choice.
TX has outlawed anagrams to show their anti-metric bonafides. The Anagram Act was passed before Magna Carta. King John had to deal with the Catholics who were the only litrerate besides the royals and they used latin so Anagram Act was forced to adopt a latin anagram of itself and Magna Carta was born. [I was raised on Rocky and Bullwinkle's Fractured Fairy Tales narrated by Edward Everrett Horton.]
Love Thom
I'm unfortunately having trouble hearing this.
Iroquoian nations showed the harmony of man and mother earth.... The founder's adopted the Iroquois "constitution" as a template for the Constitutional Republic.
Blame it all on the South.!
I am a science and engineering guy.
Lately I have extended my interests into UFO phenomena. But know this I have been spending a great deal of time in the southwestern US since 1988.
We get very clear sky at night with scant cloud covet. We see things that our physics and mathematics coupled with biological knowledge cannot explain.
The further studies into the beliefs of aboriginal peoples as well as our own biblical beliefs lead us to new, for us Western people, into new territory of study.
The principles of Gaia and the possibility of the Universe itself being conscious leads us to knowledge that is not science and also not quite religion.
But a hybrid of the two explains things that were mysterious in prior times.
What is this new area? It is Quantum Phenomena. Action at a distance and telepathy cannot be understood and believed at your first exposure. But once you have had a telepathic experience and the subject is eventually, against all probability, proven to become revealed truth, it gives you a new insight into your life's beliefs.
Gore Vidal once said the south is more like an 'interior colony' and that Lincoln lied in the phrase 'a more perfect union' in the Gettysburg address.that might be the problem with our democracy
Constitutional Republic is not a democracy!!!! We are transitioning back to a New Republic..... Free from the CORPORATION.... UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
At the back of a slim book of essays by Gore Vidal, he lists all the CIA covert operations that he knew of. Is that list available elsewhere? Others have made the same info available, but he was early because he came from the ruling class.
@@SLF-o2w John Stockwell has better reportage of the intelligence apparatus on _Alternative views_
Thom we need a book on money
You got to think about the Indians you don't say anything about the Indians. We are on stolen land because of the white man.
Now it just a hand full trying to take over the US.
The REP is the lead of all this take over for the rich.
If all the leaders have a nought balls to stand up to these ones that want to destroy the US let's get them ,we are now surrounded by Russians ships and Chinia ships, submarines, so tell the people to wake up.
Stephen Gould noticed South American ants species similarly knowing which ants were which and some type of similar trick going on in their movements as there are so many doing different jobs types, how do they sync any kind of movements that doesn't confuse each other or get other species mixed in who may be close by, quite similarly by noticing their neighbors.
Are people in neighborhoods that are NOT keeping up with the Joneses? is it some other phenomenon? Regarding groups? crowds? etc?
I have this book signed
YOU GLOSSED OVER BRITISH INDENTURED SERVITUDE
And right in front of this humankind offering, Google TH-cam inserts a TEMU ad, a brand about as far from Cradle to Cradle circular ecology economy as you could imagine, a brand that has taken externalizing costs / "exploit the many" to a whole new level.
The gradual corruption and growing redemption of the Democratic Party... 🤞
@@geoffreynhill2833 yes lovely, but eyes so sad. She knows history.
OLIGARCHY IS RULE BY THE FEW. IT'S A GREEK POLITICAL FORM. PLUTOCRACY IS RULE BE THE WEALTHY
The overriding issue in the bedrock of democracy is that people vote.
The essence of what, not who,
Votes in a corporation is that
Stocks vote. Therefore it is the control
Of the Majority at 51 %.
So we clearly see that democracy
Is the One Man, One Vote Principle.
Patrick Henry is our American Hero
Executed by the British:
I regret that I have but one life
To give for my Country.
Let us remember who we are
And why we are
The way we are.
Um, when the hell was Patrick Henry executed by the British?
🌟♥️👏
Listening to this after Trump just won another term. Oh 💩💩💩
Not unexpected
Part of the club of Rome. 🤔 Hmm looking for double talk.
what about the 100th monkey theory
Thanks for the very compelling story that you've put together here. However, I think it's a complete mischaracterization to say that the socially corrosive and oppressive effects of oligarchy have ever been quelled at various times throughout American or English/European history. Tell that to the various Indigenous Peoples across the America's and elsewhere who have had their lands taken from them, and their cultures and worldviews targeted for destruction. Processes that have continued throughout the last 300-400 years.
Sure, you could say that if you were working or middle class, then you were relatively better off at certain periods relative to others in terms of how much the squeeze was put on you. But the underlying imperial (now corporate-imperial) nature of the vast majority of "democracies" around the world practically ensures that entrenched wealth/power hierarchies will always be oppressing and exploiting people and/or the environment somewhere. These hierarchies of wealth/power couldn't exist except through these processes.
So tweaking American democracy to be less influenced by wealth/power will better society overall, but in the long run of forging a sustainable, equitable society (now looking like a shorter run as environmental and social pressures are feeding back off each other and de-stabilizing larger chunks of mainstream society), we need to seriously challenge the mechanisms that enable wealth/power to be entrenched in the first place. So I disagree with Thom Hartmann entirely when he says he doesn't mind if someone gets filthy rich. What difference does it make whether a billionaire is buying politicians or buying an army? (I personally prefer them to buy the politicians for the moment at least). And of course, it is completely immoral, unjust, and against our nature (a crime against life, I'd argue) for one human being to be "worth" and have access to and consume literally billions more resources and/or have that much more influence than another.
Any system ceases to function well and looses the ability to self-regulate when it can no longer respond to internal or external feedbacks. And when wealth/power becomes entrenched for long enough (e.g. spanning generations), and/or hierarchies of wealth/power become wide/tall enough, human groups inevitably form social groups (tribes) and identities along these axes of wealth/power (social diversification is fundamental to human nature I'd argue - not power seeking or hierarchy forming). That's what puts imperial societies in the position where what's happening at the bottom of the social hierarchy remains completely external to the knowledge/values of the people at the top of the hierarchy and vice versa, whereupon the socio-ecological system itself will stumble about till it falls off of a social or environmental cliff).
Power needs to be fluid and easily concentrated and dispersed again for human groups to function harmoniously with each other and the environment. I would argue that many Indigenous societies past and present (e.g., societies that were able to persist culturally intact for thousands of years) likely have some pretty key insights into governance institutions and ways of being in the world that could sign point some promising directions for mainstream society to follow.