Download or read book The Hidden History of American Oligarchy written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the history of the battle against oligarchy in America—and how we can win the latest round. Billionaire oligarchs want to own our republic, and they're nearly there thanks to legislation and Supreme Court decisions that they have essentially bought. They put Trump and his political allies into office and support a vast network of think tanks, publications, and social media that every day push our nation closer and closer to police-state tyranny. The United States was born in a struggle against the oligarchs of the British aristocracy, and ever since then the history of America has been one of dynamic tension between democracy and oligarchy. And much like the shock of the 1929 crash woke America up to glaring inequality and the ongoing theft of democracy by that generation's oligarchs, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has laid bare how extensively oligarchs have looted our nation's economic system, gutted governmental institutions, and stolen the wealth of the former middle class. Thom Hartmann traces the history of this struggle against oligarchy from America's founding to the United States' war with the feudal Confederacy to President Franklin Roosevelt's struggle against “economic royalists,” who wanted to block the New Deal. In each of those cases, the oligarchs lost the battle. But with increasing right-wing control of the media, unlimited campaign contributions, and a conservative takeover of the judicial system, we're at a crisis point. Now is the time for action, before we flip into tyranny. We've beaten the oligarchs before, and we can do it again. Hartmann lays out practical measures we can take to break up media monopolies, limit the influence of money in politics, reclaim the wealth stolen over decades by the oligarchy, and build a movement that will return control of America to We the People.
Download or read book The Hidden History of American Healthcare written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why attempts to implement affordable universal healthcare in the United States have been thwarted and what we can do to finally make it a reality. "For-profit health insurance is the largest con job ever perpetrated on the American people—one that has cost trillions of dollars and millions of lives since the 1940s,” says Thom Hartmann. Other countries have shown us that affordable universal healthcare is not only possible but also effective and efficient. Taiwan's single-payer system saved the country a fortune as well as saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, enabling the country to implement a nationwide coronavirus test-and-contact-trace program without shutting down the economy. This resulted in just ten deaths, while more than 500,000 people have died in the United States. Hartmann offers a deep dive into the shameful history of American healthcare, showing how greed, racism, and oligarchic corruption led to the current “sickness for profit” system. Modern attempts to create versions of government healthcare have been hobbled at every turn, including Obamacare. There is a simple solution: Medicare for all. Hartmann outlines the extraordinary benefits this system would provide the American people and economy and the steps we need to take to make it a reality. It's time for America to join every industrialized country in the world and make health a right, not a privilege.
Download or read book The Hidden History of Neoliberalism written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how and why neoliberalism became so prevalent in the United States and why it's time for us to turn our backs to it. With four decades of neoliberal rule coming to an end, America is at a crossroads. In this powerful and accessible book, Thom Hartmann demystifies neoliberalism and explains how we can use this pivotal point in time to create a more positive future. This book traces the history of neoliberalism-a set of capitalistic philosophies favoring free trade, low taxes on the rich, financial austerity, and deregulation of big business-up to the present day. Hartmann explains how neoliberalism was sold as a cure for wars and the Great Depression. He outlines the destructive impact that it has had on America, looking at how it has increased poverty, damaged the middle class, and corrupted our nation's politics. America is standing on the edge of a new progressive era. We can continue down the road to a neoliberal oligarchy, as supported by many of the nation's billionaires and giant corporations. Or we can choose to return to Keynesian economics and Alexander Hamilton's American Plan by raising taxes on the rich, reversing free trade, and building a society that works for all.
Download or read book The Hidden History of Monopolies written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This is the most important, dynamic book on the cancers of monopoly by giant corporations written in our generation.”—from the foreword by Ralph Nader American monopolies dominate, control, and consume most of the energy of our entire economic system; they function the same as cancer does in a body, and, like cancer, they weaken our systems while threatening to crash the entire body economic. American monopolies have also seized massive political power and use it to maintain their obscene profits and CEO salaries while crushing small competitors. But Thom Hartmann, America's #1 progressive radio host, shows we've broken the control of behemoths like these before, and we can do it again. Hartmann takes us from the birth of America as a revolt against monopoly (remember the Boston Tea Party?), to the largely successful efforts of both Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt and other like-minded leaders to restrain corporations' monopolistic urges, to the massive changes in the rules of business starting during the “Reagan Revolution” that have brought us to the cancer stage of capitalism. He shows the damage monopolies have done to so many industries: agriculture, healthcare, the media, and more. Individuals have taken a hit as well: the average American family pays a $5,000 a year “monopoly tax” in the form of higher prices for everything from pharmaceuticals to airfare to household goods and food. But Hartmann also describes commonsense, historically rooted measures we can take—such as revitalizing antitrust regulation, taxing great wealth, and getting money out of politics—to pry control of our country from the tentacles of the monopolists.
Download or read book The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In this precise primer on firearms practices and policies, progressive talk-show host Hartmann examines the history of routine gun usage and extreme gun violence and assesses the influence of gun ownership on contemporary political, economic, and social norms…A brief but powerful analysis of a searing national crisis.” —Booklist Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, looks at the real history of guns in America and what we can do to limit both their lethal impact and the power of the gun lobby. Taking his typically in-depth, historically informed view, Hartmann examines the brutal role guns have played in American history, from the genocide of the Native Americans to the enforcement of slavery (Slave Patrols are in fact the Second Amendment's “well-regulated militias”) and the racist post–Civil War social order. He shows how the NRA and conservative Supreme Court justices used specious logic to invent a virtually unlimited individual right to own guns, which has enabled the ever-growing number of mass shootings in the United States. But Hartmann also identifies a handful of powerful, commonsense solutions that would break the power of the gun lobby and restore the understanding of the Second Amendment that the Framers of the Constitution intended. This is the kind of brief, brilliant analysis for which Hartmann is justly renowned.
Download or read book The Hidden History of the War on Voting written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2020-02-04 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hartmann's history of voter suppression in America is necessary information given current news about voter registration purges and redistricting...a particularly timely topic for an election year, and anyone who is seriously concerned about the survival of American democracy will want to read this book and apply its lessons."—Booklist America's #1 progressive radio host looks at how elites have long tried to disenfranchise citizens—particularly people of color, women, and the poor—and shows what we can do to ensure everyone has a voice in this democracy. In today's America, only a slim majority of people register to vote, and a large percentage of registered voters don't bother to show up: Donald Trump was elected by only 26 percent of eligible voters. Unfortunately, this is not a bug in our system, it's a feature. Thom Hartmann unveils the strategies and tactics that conservative elites in this country have used, from the foundation of the Electoral College to the latest voter ID laws, to protect their interests by preventing “the wrong people”—such as the poor, women, and people of color—from voting while making it more convenient for the wealthy and white. But he also lays out a wide variety of simple, commonsense ways that we the people can fight back and reclaim our right to rule through the ballot box.
Download or read book The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America written by Thom Hartmann and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hartmann delivers a full-throated indictment of the U.S. Supreme Court in this punchy polemic." --Publishers Weekly Thom Hartmann, the most popular progressive radio host in America and a New York Times bestselling author, lays out a sweeping and largely unknown history of the Supreme Court of the United States, from Alexander Hamilton's arguments against judicial review to modern-day debates, with key examples of cases where the Supreme Court overstepped its constitutional powers using the excuse of judicial review, and possible solutions. Hartmann explains how the Supreme Court has spilled beyond its Constitutional powers in a series of rulings, including how it turned our elections over to American and foreign oligarchs with twin decisions in the 1970s, setting the stage for the very richest of that day to bring Ronald Reagan to power. You'll hear the story of a series of Republican presidents who used fraud and treason to secure their elections, and how the GOP knew it but looked the other way because "the Court is hanging in the balance." A court that then went on to gut hundreds of pieces of progressive legislation, as Republicans had hoped. Ironically, Hartmann points out, John Roberts (now the Court's Chief Justice), when he worked for Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, came up with a novel theory about how Congress could go around the Supreme Court. His goal was to effectively reverse Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board, but in the process provides us with an elegant legal argument and legislative solution that could, in an emergency, be used by a progressive Congress and president to clean up much of the damage the Court has done in past decades. Thomas Jefferson argued it is not the role of the Supreme Court to decide what the Constitution means, but rather the duty of the people themselves (and how they can do it). America may soon be forced to decide if it's going to continue to be governed as a constitutional monarchy, with nine unelected royals who have final say on everything, or if we are to revert to being a democratic republic as was largely the case before the late 1800s when America's first industrial era oligarchs corrupted the Court.
Download or read book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man written by John Perkins and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2004-11-09 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.
Download or read book The True Flag written by Stephen Kinzer and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The public debate over American interventionism at the dawn of the 20th century is vividly brought to life in this “engaging, well-focused history” (Kirkus, starred review).
Download or read book Summary of Thom Hartmann s The Hidden History of American Oligarchy written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-04-26T22:59:00Z with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The economic crisis caused by COVID-19 was used by Trump and the GOP to push a new, $3 trillion corporate tax giveaway. Meanwhile, Trump worked to limit the media and instill distrust in fact-based news. #2 The Trump administration, well stocked with people who were alumni of Koch-funded groups or regular visitors to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News channel, did nothing to help the situation. They believed in the magic of the free market, and if there was a shortage of test kits, it would eventually drive up their price and generate money. #3 The first billionaire president, Ronald Reagan, was supported by America’s oligarchs. They have used this rationale to hamstring government at the state level since the collapse of Reconstruction, and have impoverished the rest of America since 1981. #4 Oligarchy is the result of a takeover of Congress, the presidency, and the courts by the wealthy. It is defended by total police powers of the government, which are used to prosecute and defend those challenging the oligarchy.
Download or read book Rebooting the American Dream written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If we are going to live in a democracy, we need to have a healthy middle class . . . tells us what needs to be done to reclaim what it is to be American.” —Eric Utne, founder, Utne Reader America does not need an “upgrade.” For years the Right has been tampering with one of the best political operating systems ever designed. The result has been economic and environmental disaster. In this hard-hitting book, nationally syndicated radio and television host and bestselling author Thom Hartmann outlines eleven common-sense proposals, deeply rooted in America’s history, that will once again make America strong and Americans—not corporations and billionaires—prosperous. Some of these ideas will be controversial to both the Left and the Right, but the litmus test for each is not political correctness—but whether or not it serves to revitalize this country we all love and make life better for its citizens.
Download or read book The Hidden History of Big Brother in America written by Thom Hartmann and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America’s most popular progressive radio host and New York Times bestselling author Thom Hartmann reveals how the government and corporate America misuse our personal data and shows how we can reclaim our privacy. Most Americans are worried about how companies like Facebook invade their privacy and harvest their data, but many people don’t fully understand the details of how their information is being adapted and misused. In this thought-provoking and accessible book, Thom Hartmann reveals exactly how the government and corporations are tracking our every online move and using our data to buy elections, employ social control, and monetize our lives. Hartmann uses extensive, vivid examples to highlight the consequences of Big Data on all aspects of our lives. He traces the history of surveillance and social control, looking back to how Big Brother invented whiteness to keep order and how surveillance began to be employed as a way to modify behavior. As he states, “The goal of those who violate privacy and use surveillance is almost always social control and behavior modification.” Along with covering the history, Hartmann shows how we got to where we are today, how China—with its new Social Credit System—serves as a warning, and how we can and must avoid a similarly dystopian future. By delving into the Constitutional right to privacy, Hartmann reminds us of our civil right and shows how we can restore it.
Download or read book From Oligarchy to Republicanism written by Forrest A. Nabors and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 4, 1865, members of the 39th United States Congress walked into the Capitol Building to begin their first session after the end of the Civil War. They understood their responsibility to put the nation back on the path established by the American Founding Fathers. The moment when the Republicans in the Reconstruction Congress remade the nation and renewed the law is in a class of rare events. The Civil War should be seen in this light. In From Oligarchy to Republicanism: The Great Task of Reconstruction, Forrest A. Nabors shows that the ultimate goal of the Republican Party, the war, and Reconstruction was the same. This goal was to preserve and advance republicanism as the American founders understood it, against its natural, existential enemy: oligarchy. The principle of natural equality justified American republicanism and required abolition and equal citizenship. Likewise, slavery and discrimination on the basis of color stand on the competing moral foundation of oligarchy, the principle of natural inequality, which requires ranks. The effect of slavery and the division of the nation into two “opposite systems of civilization” are causally linked. Charles Devens, a lawyer who served as a general in the Union Army, and his contemporaries understood that slavery’s existence transformed the character of political society. One of those dramatic effects was the increased power of slaveowners over those who did not have slaves. When the slave state constitutions enumerated slaves in apportioning representation using the federal three-fifths ratio or by other formulae, intra-state sections where slaves were concentrated would receive a substantial grant of political power for slave ownership. In contrast, low slave-owning sections of the state would lose political representation and political influence over the state. This contributed to the non-slaveholders’ loss of political liberty in the slave states and provided a direct means by which the slaveholders acquired and maintained their rule over non-slaveholders. This book presents a shared analysis of the slave South, synthesized from the writings and speeches of the Republicans who served in the Thirty-Eighth, Thirty-Ninth or Fortieth Congress from 1863-1869. The account draws from their writings and speeches dated before, during, and after their service in Congress. Nabors shows how the Republican majority, charged with the responsibility of reconstructing the South, understood the South. Republicans in Congress were generally united around the fundamental problem and goal of Reconstruction. They regarded their work in the same way as they regarded the work of the American founders. Both they and the founders were engaged in regime change, from monarchy in the one case, and from oligarchy in the other, to republicanism. The insurrectionary states’ governments had to be reconstructed at their foundations, from oligarchic to republican. The sharp differences within Congress pertained to how to achieve that higher goal.
Download or read book The Great American Stickup written by Robert Scheer and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2010-09-07 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Asserts that Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Phil Gramm and others colluded in the fundamental corruption of the U.S. economic system that led to the financial crisis and sounds the alarm over the Obama administration consulting some of these very same men to fix the problem they created. Original.
Download or read book The Crash of 2016 written by Thom Hartmann and published by Twelve. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States is more vulnerable today than ever before-including during the Great Depression and the Civil War-because the pillars of democracy that once supported a booming middle class have been corrupted, and without them, America teeters on the verge of the next Great Crash. The United States is in the midst of an economic implosion that could make the Great Depression look like child's play. In THE CRASH OF 2016, Thom Hartmann argues that the facade of our once-great United States will soon disintegrate to reveal the rotting core where corporate and billionaire power and greed have replaced democratic infrastructure and governance. Our once-enlightened political and economic systems have been manipulated to ensure the success of only a fraction of the population at the expense of the rest of us. The result is a "for the rich, by the rich" scheme leading to policies that only benefit the highest bidders. Hartmann outlines the destructive forces-planted by Lewis Powell in 1971 and come to fruition with the "Reagan Revolution"-that have looted our nation over the past decade, and how their actions fit into a cycle of American history that lets such forces rise to power every four generations. However, a backlash is now palpable against the "economic royalists"-a term coined by FDR to describe those hoarding power and wealth-including the banksters, oligarchs, and politicians who have plunged our nation into economic chaos and social instability. Although we are in the midst of what could become the most catastrophic economic crash in American History, a way forward is emerging, just as it did in the previous great crashes of the 1760s, 1856, and 1929. The choices we make now will redefine American culture. Before us stands a genuine opportunity to embrace the moral motive over the profit motive-and to rebuild the American economic model that once yielded great success. Thoroughly researched and passionately argued, THE CRASH OF 2016 is not just a roadmap to redemption in post-Crash America, but a critical wake-up call, challenging us to act. Only if the right reforms are enacted and the moral choices are made, can we avert disaster and make our nation whole again.
Download or read book Unequal Protection written by Thom Hartmann and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2010-06-07 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies.” —Paul Hawken, New York Times-bestselling author NEW EDITION, REVISED AND UPDATED Unequal taxes, unequal accountability for crime, unequal influence, unequal control of the media, unequal access to natural resources—corporations have gained these privileges and more by exploiting their legal status as persons. How did something so illogical and unjust become the law of the land? Americans have been struggling with the role of corporations since before the birth of the republic. As Thom Hartmann shows, the Boston Tea Party was actually a protest against the British East India Company—the first modern corporation. Unequal Protection tells the astonishing story of how, after decades of sensible limits on corporate power, an offhand, off-the-record comment by a Supreme Court justice led to the Fourteenth Amendment—originally passed to grant basic rights to freed slaves—becoming the justification for granting corporations the same rights as human beings. And Hartmann proposes specific legal remedies that will finally put an end to the bizarre farce of corporate personhood. This new edition has been thoroughly updated and features Hartmann’s analysis of two recent Supreme Court cases, including Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which tossed out corporate campaign finance limits. “If you wonder why and when giant corporations got the power to reign supreme over us, here’s the story.” —Jim Hightower, national radio commentator and New York Times-bestselling author “Tell[s] the grand story of corporate corruption and its consequences for society with the force and readability of a great novel. ”—David C. Korten, bestselling author of When Corporations Rule the World
Download or read book Legacy of Secrecy written by Lamar Waldron and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2010-05 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Legacy of Secrecy tells the full story of JFKs murder and the tragic results of the cover-ups that followed, as revealed by two dozen associates of John and Robert Kennedy, backed by thousands of files at the National Archives. The result of twenty years of research, it finally tells the full story long withheld from Congress and the American people.
