"Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class" - NEW Hartmann book

[Bozita]

This ought to at least get Thom on Lou Dobbs.

Thom's email:


Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class

by Thom Hartmann


Read Free Excerpts from Thom's new book Screwed at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/screwed/


The American middle class is on its deathbed. Ordinary folks who put in a solid day's work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their kids to college, or even get sick. If you're not a CEO - you're probably screwed.

In my latest book, I show how the American middle class that was so carefully constructed by our country's founding fathers has been systematically dismantled over the past quarter-century, and, under the guise of "freeing" the market, replaced by a system designed to line the pockets of the super-rich and corporations.

It's not too late to return to the America our founders envisioned. Democracy requires a fair playing field. It will survive only if We the People stand up, speak out, and reclaim our democratic birthright.

--Thom

[fasttense]

1. Thanks for posting

Some really good information on his site. I sent an e-mail to Lou about his book and some of his articles.

[HughBeaumont]

2. I'll be purchasing this one.

Sadly, there are some so-called progressives that buy into the "free market" ruse without ever thinking how much of an unsubstantiated cop-out it is for right-wing, former "Reagan Democrat" pundits that masturbated over Ronnie's labor-hating economic policies nightly.

[Bozita]

3. Publisher is sending him on a book tour in 2 weeks

I'm listening to his morning show from Portland. He just announced the tour.

http://www.620kpoj.com/pages/listenlive.html

[paparush]

4. Woot! Woot! Keep preaching that POPULISM and CLASSISM!!

Love it! Keep it coming.

I keep seeing new bumperstickers - "I'm Too Poor To Vote Republican"

[MysteryToMyself]

17. I would buy a bumper sticker

If it said, "If you make below $300,000 you are too poor to vote republiCON.

[MysteryToMyself]

19. Actually, I don't believe that

It is those who make below $100,000 who can't afford to vote Republican. And anyone who makes below $60,000 and votes DLC New Democrats or Republican are idiots.

I have had people tell me that $600,000 is not well to do, that in fact their cost of living is so high. ??????????

A bumper sticker would sell big time if it said:

If you make below $60,000 you can't afford to vote Republican.

Maybe $75,000 since the buying power of our income is down 60% since the Bushites took office.

[Armstead]

5. He is so articulate I wish he'd be a regular on the talking head shows

An attractive guy who is outspoken and passionate but polite and reasonable.

Seems like he'd be a natural as a talking head. And a great spokesperson for the truth, to counter all the Beltwat and Rovian memes that dominate the MSM.

I hope his book tour gives him the visibility to get noticed by the likes of Tweety and Dobbs and the rest of those yab fests.

[EVDebs]

6. Also read Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston and Dean Baker's book

about the conservative 'nanny state'

http://www.conservativenannystate.org/cnswebbook.pdf

available online no less !

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. K&R

[Bozita]

8. Book Description from Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1576754146/sr=1-2/qid=1156350912/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-6210075-9792053?ie=UTF8&s=books

Editorial Reviews

Book Description
The American middle class is on its deathbed. People who put in a solid day's work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their kids to college, or even get sick. If you’re not a CEO, you’re probably screwed. 
 
As Air America Radio Host Thom Hartmann shows, this death is no accident.  Like the Founding Fathers, patriots such as Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower knew that economic opportunity and democracy go hand-in-hand. They believed in maximizing the public good and they worked tirelessly to build the strongest middle class the world has ever seen.  But now, under the guise of “freeing the market,” conservative and corporate forces are waging a covert war against the middle class, dismantling policies like Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage, and fair labor laws — the very safeguards that foster economic opportunity and citizen engagement. The result is an economic system designed to line the pockets of the super-rich, the impending extinction of the middle class, and a very real, very dangerous threat to democracy itself.
 
By exposing the systematic efforts to destroy the middle class, Screwed empowers readers to stand up, speak out, and reclaim their democratic birthrights.

[focusfan]

9. We can hurt them quite easily

If everyone would worrying about credit scores and stop paying credit card bills and other unsecured loans everyone all in the same month,then only buy what you can actually afford and only pay CASH.The rich would tumble fast,if we don`t put money in banks there is nothing they can do.

[tbyg52]

10. Nice idea

the catch would be getting everyone to do it at the same time. Plus a bad credit score, unfortunately, can keep you from doing a lot more things than getting a loan or credit card. How about "pay off your credit cards and then use only cash"? It's what I did. (And I'm not talking just a few thousand either--long story.) I think credit cards, at least in their present form, are evil.

[rman]

11. "ordinary folks who put in a solid day's work" - i think that covers more

than only the middle class.
I think the working poor to are "ordinary folks who put in a solid day's work" - often they put in more than a solid day's work. Unless perhaps "a solid day's work" means "a job that pays quite a bit more than minimum wage".

[Gold Metal Flake]

12. So... you've read the book?

This couldn't be some sort of snap judgement based on one sentence taken out of context?

Have you heard Thom Hartmann speak about the working poor?

[rman]

13. "judgement"? no, just a comment

I don't think i am required to have read the book in order to comment on an article about the book.

[Gold Metal Flake]

15. okaaaaay...

:eyes:

[treestar]

14. Let's Declare War Against the Rich

They want us all dead!!

This is hugh!!!! I'm series!!!!1111

[MysteryToMyself]

18. They have all the weapons

They have 20 New DLC Democrats working with them and 40 DLC New Democrats too, besides the Republicans.

They also have FoxNews and their ilk, upholding all the evil the Bushites do, convincing the middle class to vote for them.

They have the money to pay/buy the lobbyists and those who work for our senators and congressmen. I read the other day that Democratic Lobbyists are in high demand since it looks like more of them will win. They are people who know the Democrats. Blanche Lincolns aides are in especially high demand because she is on the Senate Finance Committee.

And we have middle class and poor people that keep voting in the devious DLC and Republicans that have betrayed the middle class. The worse is yet to come. Just wait until after the elections.

How can we deal with that BS?

We need a book written on Lobbyists. We need our own 24 hour Democratic show like Fox News. One that will ridicule them like Fox ridicules us. We need Democrats that care about the plight of the middle class and the poor. We need leaders. That is what is missing big time.

I agree, it is hugh!!!! and series!!!!:-)

And we need to quit attacking Bill Gates. He is one decent person. So are the founders of Wal-Mart. Those who say they aren't are being DLC/Republiconned. It wouldn't be too hard to convince them to support the middle class, especially Walmart, since the middle class are their customers, if we weren't attacking them.

[MysteryToMyself]

16. The excerpt of Thom's book is about 25 pages

I almost missed it, because I thought it was the excerpt on the beginning of the link.

It is well worth the read. It is what many of us are realizing and finding it hard to put in words.

I hope the DLC New Democrat Lieberman type democrats read it too. I hope they will read a lot of different FDR books too.

We should strive to pay off our personal debts. We usually don't run up a credit card, but our heat and air broke down, I broke my shoulder and my husband had to have a foot operation and we maxed out the inflated out of pocket and deductible charges on our insurance in a couple of days, dear daughter and family moved home and we have had obscene heat and air bills since deregulation. Plus inflation is real even if they tell us it isn't...Even Walmart is very expensive. You get the picture.

One of the worst things they have done to the middle class is they have made what we consider necessities very expensive by putting them on the stock market and expecting the costs to go up every year. Think about how much every thing has to go up to feed the market. Utilities, insurances, homes, medical and nursing homes are a few of our necessities. College is considered a necessity by some. You know the cost of that. One new college book is $170 dollars.

They blame all the tax problems on the social programs, but Social Security has trillions in surplus and the rest are not that bad. It is the stock market profit that is causing taxes to be high. Everything the government does, they make sure one of their cronies make a big profit. Think Haliburten.

A lot of inflation and high medical is because the buying power of the dollar is going down because of our dear leaders in congress, the senate and the white house and their unfair deregulation and devaluation caused by their policies plus their groveling to the rich and businesses..

I am sick of corporate welfare and watching them drive around in their expensive foreign cars. while not paying their debts to society. They are no good outfits.

[Bozita]

20. book reviews from Powells ...

http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-1576754146-0

Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
The American middle class is on its deathbed. Ordinary folks who put in a solid day's work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their kids to college, or even get sick. If you're not a CEO, you're probably screwed.

America wasn't meant to be like this. Air America Radio host Thom Hartmann shows that our Founding Fathers worked hard to ensure that a small group of wealthy people would never dominate this country — they'd had enough of aristocracy. They put policies in place to ensure a thriving middle class. When the middle class took a hit, beginning in the post-Civil War Gilded Age and culminating in the Great Depression, democracy-loving leaders like Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower revitalized it through initiatives like antitrust regulations, fair labor laws, the minimum wage, Social Security, and Medicare.

So what happened? In the last twenty-five years, we've witnessed an undeclared war against the middle class. The so-called conservatives waging this war are only interested in conserving — and steadily increasing — their own wealth and power. Hartmann shows how, under the guise of "freeing" the market, they've systematically dismantled the programs set up by Republicans and Democrats to protect the middle class and have installed policies that favor the superrich and corporations.

But it's not too late to return to the America our Founders envisioned. Hartmann outlines a series of commonsense proposals that will ensure that our public institutions are not turned into private fiefdoms and that people's basic needs — education, health care, a living wage — are met in a way that allows the middle class to expand, not shrink.

America will be stronger with a growing, prospering middle class — rule by the rich will only make it weaker. Democracy requires a fair playing field, and it will survive only if We the People stand up, speak out, and reclaim our democratic birthright
.
Review:
"If we are going to live in a Democracy, we need to have a healthy middle class. Thom Hartmann shows us how the 'cons' have wronged this country, and tells us what needs to be done to reclaim what it is to be American." Eric Utne, Founder, Utne magazine

Review:
"Thom Hartmann's book explains in simple language and with concrete research the details of the Neo-con's war against the American middle class. It proves what many have intuited and serves to remind us that without a healthy, employed, and vital middle class, America is no more than the richest Third World country on the planet." Peter Coyote, Actor and author of Sleeping Where I Fall

Review:
"The powers that be are running roughshod over the powers that OUGHT to be. Hartmann tells us what went wrong — and what you and I can do to help set American right again." Jim Hightower, National Radio Commentator, Writer, Public Speaker, and author of the bestselling Thieves in High Places

Review:
"Hartmann speaks with the straight talking clarity and brilliance of a modern day Tom Paine as he exposes the intentional and systematic destruction of America's middle class by an alliance of political con artists and outlines a program to restore it. This is Hartmann at his best. Essential reading for those interested in restoring the institution that made America the envy of the world." David C. Korten, author of The Great Turning and When Corporations Rule the World

Review:
"I think many of us recognize that for all but the wealthiest, life in America is getting increasingly hard. Screwed explores why, showing how this is no accidental process, but rather the product of conscious political choices, choices we can change with enough courage and commitment. Like all of Thom's great work, it helps show us the way forward." Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen and The Impossible Will Take a Little While

Review:
"Once again, Thom Hartmann hits the bull's eye with a much needed exposé of the so-called 'free market.' Anyone concerned about the future of our nation needs to read Screwed now." Michael Toms, Founding President, New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network and author of A Time For Choices: Deep Dialogues for Deep Democracy

more...

[JHB]

21. Other books to try to find:

Reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele have put out a series of books based on their reporting for the Philadelphia Enquirer and others. The out of print books tend to be pretty cheap (via Amazon, or others if you prefer), and the first chapter of their first book is available online (same subject as Tom's book. Chapter one's title is "DISMANTLING THE MIDDLE CLASS". They've been at this a while).

It may be useful to read these in conjunction with Tom's book: Tom can provide a current overview, while B&S were a little closer to the events in time and space. (Not to mention, the first couple of B&S books are pre-Clinton or based on largely pre-Clinton events, so there's room for some nice "before and after" perception analysis.

America: What Went Wrong? by Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele (1992)
(http://www.politicalindex.com/wrong1.htm)
America: Who Really Pays the Taxes? by Donald L. Barlett (1994)
America: Who Stole The Dream? by Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele (1996)
The Great American Tax Dodge: How Spiraling Fraud and Avoidance Are Killing Fairness, Destroying the Income Tax, and Costing You by Donald Barlett, James B. Steele (2002)