E-mail I received. Has a very very important message for us all...

[acmavm]

The Future May Not Suck
by Greg Palast

Check out the podcast of Palast on Thom Hartmann's 5/29 show here: http://www.mythical.net/screwed/index.htm

We're not asking for much: a Social Security check that won't bounce, schools for our kids that won't make them dumber, a fighting chance for a job that will let us take the tykes to Disney World, health insurance, and, when the waters rise, a government that will have some kind of plan to pluck us from the flood.

Fat chance.

Thom Hartmann's written a killer new book, "Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class — And What We Can Do About It." Here's the Afterward I wrote for it. Read this, listen to Thom and I today on your local Progressive Talk/Air America station. Then get the book, get the point, get active.

Since Thom first wrote this alarm-ringing book, the war has turned severely, senselessly brutal. I'm talking about the Class War -- and if you're in the middle zone, No Man's Land, well, Good luck, Jack!

Since Thom's book hit the street, 38,000 workers at Ford Motor lost their jobs. Add that to the Delco Auto Parts bankruptcy and all of Michigan is busted. In the Bush years, the average annual income in that state declined by $9,000 per family.

You didn't have to move to Michigan to get it in the neck. Average income in the U.S has fallen $2,000 per household since the last days of Bill Clinton.

Hartmann once told me that Thomas Jefferson said his greatest accomplishment was the founding of the University of Virginia -- establishing the right of Mr. and Ms. Average Income to a decent, free education. "Universal education." That's what made this nation King of the Planet -- a conquest of ideas, ideals and inventions that no imperial army could have accomplished.

Jefferson thought free universal education so important he had his university presidency, not the U.S. presidency, carved on his tombstone.

But I think that behind Jefferson's seemingly over-the-top enthusiasm for educating the country was an unstated fear that, unless Americans stayed continually informed, knowledgeable and alert, we'd end up a nation of knuckleheads and pea-brains ruled by dangerous, pompous pinheads who would take away our rights on the way to taking our wealth.

Jefferson was right: education's the key. I had feared that the 2004 presidential election, recording a Republican plurality, was an intelligence test that America flunked. But, by the end of 2006, the Great American Middle rose up in revolt and voted the scoundrels out.

Generally, we've done OK. FDR expanded our Bill of Rights with the Four Freedoms, including a New Deal guaranteeing our economic security. They don't dare take that away -- in the open. I know our nation has sometimes fallen into the Bushes, but we always seem to get back up on our hind legs and follow our populist scent back to the True Path.

Of course, the story's not over. Whichever party is in the majority in Congress, it remains a millionaire's club where Average Americans, plucked of their vote, are soon carved into chewable pieces for the corporate carnivores.

Like I say, we aren't asking for much: Hartmann's prescriptions to cure America can be summarized on a photo of Laura Bush's fake smile. That's the point. Ultimately, it's not up to the new congressional Democratic majority to save the Great American Middle -- it's up to us, to hold them to their promises.

I want you to photocopy Thom's conclusion, The Road to Victory, and check off each task as you complete it, from joining a union to calling into a radio talk show.

Then, years from now, when your kids ask you, "What did you do in the Class War, daddy?" you can point to the list and say, "My share."


*******
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone WILD. For more info, or to hear Brad Friedman, Ed Asner and other troublemakers read from Armed Madhouse, go to www.GregPalast.com

To read an excerpt from Hartmann's book go to http://www.mythical.net/screwed/excerpts.htm

[OHdem10]

1. Thanks indeed a great post and informative.

May I suggest abother book.

THE GLOBAL CLASS WAR by Jeff Faux
" How America's Bipartisan ELite Lost our futures--and
what it will take to win it back".

Jeff Faus President Economic Policy Institute
EPI.org (Website has some good articles from time to time.

I heard both Thom Hartman give a presentation along the lines
of his book. I do not believe the book was completed at the
time. He was excellent.

Jeff Faux also gave a presentation of his book on another
occasion. It is worth reading.

Did you catch the phrase "Bipartisan Elite"???

[havocmom]

2. Thanks

[Decruiter]

3. I love this man. Greg Palast, you rock and have rocked for justice for a

real long time. I'm so proud to have met you one morning in Austin, 2003, at the front desk of the hotel we were all staying in, with you in your PJ's.

I just wish you received the respect you deserve.

Thank you.