2005 Archives

Posted at Buzzflash on Dec. 12, 2005

"The Doorbell Rang" -- Thom Hartmann's Independent Thinker Review

I confess. I'm a Nero Wolfe junkie, and have been for over 30 years. And, like Nero Wolfe's creator, Rex Stout (1886-1975), I have an extensive FBI file, having been considered a "troublemaker" back in my late-1960s SDS days in East Lansing, Michigan and San Francisco, California, just as he was when he agitated against the Republican establishment in the early 1940s in favor of stopping fascism in Europe. Both of us faced the Executive Branch of government before it was restrained in the post-Watergate era.

Posted at Buzzflash on Nov. 14, 2005

"Ishmael" By Daniel Quinn

The story we're told about the human race is that our population was relatively stable for over a hundred thousand years, then slowly grew to around a quarter-billion about the time of Christ. A thousand years later, deep in the "dark ages," it hit around a half-billion. And, finally, in 1800, we hit our first one billion humans.

Posted at Thom Hartmann on Nov. 13, 2005

Losing Habeas Corpus - "A More Dangerous Engine of Arbitrary Government"

The oldest human right defined in the history of English-speaking civilization is the right to challenge that "power of the executive" through the use of habeas corpus laws. Habeas corpus is roughly Latin for "hold the body," and is used in law to mean that a government must either charge a person with a crime or let them go free. And last week, U.S. Senate Republicans (with the help of five Senate Democrats) passed a bill that would begin to take down that right.

Posted at Buzzflash on Oct. 10, 2005

"They Thought They Were Free" By Milton Mayer

"They Thought They Were Free" is an intensely personal book for me. Although I was born after Hitler was five years dead, the horrible dance between fascism and democracy has fascinated me since childhood. And, through a series of odd coincidences, my adult life has been heavily intertwined with those of both Nazis and the victims of Hitler's Nazis.

Posted at Buzzflash on Sep. 6, 2005

The Trap by Sir James Goldsmith

When Sir James Goldsmith died in 1997, one of the more prominent obituaries of him appeared in the conservative National Review. On the other hand, a right-winger wrote a negative blast of Goldsmith's book "The Trap" on Amazon. That he could be hated and loved by conservatives -- and embraced by progressives -- is a testament to the breadth and brilliance of this man.

Posted at Thom Hartmann on Sep. 5, 2005

"You Can't Govern if You Don't Believe in Government"

In a May 25, 2001 interview, Grover Norquist told National Public Radio's Mara Liasson, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Norquist got his wish. Democracy - and at least several thousand people, most of them Democrats, black, and poor - drowned last week in the basin of New Orleans. Our nation failed in its response, because for most of the past 25 years conservatives who don't believe in governance have run our government.

Posted at Buzzflash on Sep. 1, 2005

Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich

Walking through a park on a sunny summer day in Portland, Oregon last week, I got a glimpse of the world Barbara Ehrenreich so brilliantly chronicles in her new book "Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream."

Posted at Thom Hartmann on Aug. 28, 2005

George W. Bush's Noble Cause - 'Political Capital'

It's becoming increasingly clear that the way Bush lied us into invading Iraq, particularly the timing of it all (ginning it up just before the 2002 midterm elections), was done largely so Republicans could win take back the Senate in 2002 after losing it because of Jim Jeffords' defection, and so Bush could win the White House in the election of 2004.

Posted at Thom Hartmann on Aug. 14, 2005

Jefferson Would Have Stood With Cindy Sheehan

Often history tells us how the future may turn out.... But most relevant to today's situation were John Adams' version of Bush's Saddam stories when Adams sent three emissaries to France and criminals soliciting bribes approached them late one evening. Adams referred to these three unidentified Frenchmen as "Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z," and made them out to represent such an insult and a threat against America that it may presage war.

Posted at Buzzflash on Aug. 2, 2005

Leo Strauss and the American Right by Shadia B. Drury

How is it, some have wondered, that the Republican Party has been taken over by a relatively small band of radical ideologues who don't believe in democracy or honesty or any specific religion, but relentlessly flog the language of "freedom," "honor," and Christianity? How is it that people who run the government into deficit can campaign on fiscal responsibility? Or that people who campaign on a "pro life" position can be responsible for lying us into a war that has killed well over 100,000 human beings, nakedly advocate torture, and openly promote the death penalty in American?