Thom Hartmann: The Memo That Started a Corporate Heist of Our Government

[marmar]

Buzzflash at TruthOut / By Mark Karlin, Thom Hartmann

Thom Hartmann: The Memo That Started a Corporate Heist of Our Government
New documentary 'Heist' explains how the American Dream was stolen in broad daylight.

December 10, 2012 |


Narrated by Thom Hartmann, and produced and directed by Donald Goldmacher and Frances Causey, Heist: Who Stole the American Dream in Broad Daylight? is a comprehensive dissection of the evolution of corporate control over the federal government. Stephen Holden of the New York Times wrote that Heist "has the virtue of taking the long view of a crisis that recent films like Inside Job and Too Big to Fail have only sketchily explored. It makes a strong case that government regulation of business is essential for democracy to flourish."


Mark Karlin: What attracted you to narrating the documentary, Heist, which details the increasing corporate control of our national governance over the past half century?

Thom Hartmann: It was such an extraordinary summary of how bad things are and how we got here, that I was very excited to do it.

Mark Karlin: To me there's an interesting irony to the title of the film: Heist: Who Stole the American Dream in Broad Daylight? Progressives come from a position of assuming that oligarchs and white-firsters have stolen the American dream of a Constitution that guarantees (with its amendments) equality and equality of opportunity to all citizens. The likes of Pat Buchanan and the majority of the Republican Party believe that pluralism has stolen the American Dream from the original white patriarchal founding fathers, with the notion of this being a Christian nation to boot. Aren't these two irreconcilable notions of what the American Dream is?

Thom Hartmann: I think one of the big starting points for that conversation is defining the phrase "the American dream" itself. Ever since the Reagan revolution of the 1980s, a large number of Americans - particularly conservatives - have defined the American dream as "the opportunity to get really, really rich." But from the early days of the dirt farmers, through the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the assembly-line working class, the American dream instead has meant making a decent enough living to raise a family, buy a house, take an annual vacation and have a reasonable bit left over for retirement. Conservatives don't like to talk about this because essentially it's a description of a union job. But it really astounds me the number of conservatives who will call into my radio show and in a very casual, almost unconscious way refer to a vision of the American dream that is symbolized by Mitt Romney. It's like we've become a lottery mentality society, and it's really tragic. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/thom-hartmann-memo-started-corporate-heist-our-government

[cbrer]

1. Truer words...

Were never spoken. Our struggle to take our nation back from the GOP and their masters and cohorts has just begun. DO NOT give up the fight. Or allow our struggle to get bogged down. It's our nation. We have to get it back.

[marmar]

2. Not just the GOP, but also the corporate forces that have infiltrated the Democratic Party.

nt

[antigop]

3. +1000 nt