THOM HARTMANN'S INDEPENDENT THINKER REVIEW OF THE MONTH FOR BUZZFLASH

Each month, BuzzFlash is privileged to have Air America progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann review a progressive book or DVD exclusively for BuzzFlash. See other progressive premiums at BuzzFlash Progressive Marketplace.

Thom Hartmann's Review for December, 2008:

Bill Ayers is doing interviews with Chris Matthews, John McCain based his campaign on his Vietnam War service, and Barack Obama is constantly compared with JFK or RFK. As much as time has passed, the Sixties are still with us.

It was a time when the Middle Class in America experienced the peak of its power. My wife worked her way through college working as a waitress in a Howard Johnson's restaurant; I did the same with a $2.35 (as I recall) an hour job at a radio station. College was accessible, jobs were plentiful, the economy worked, and "60 Minutes) actually did investigative reporting that had corporate American quaking in their boots. It was a time of prosperity for the "middle" not seen since the 1770s, as well as a time of social ferment that bore striking parallels to the Founders' generation.

Along those lines, although right-wingers had a disconcerting habit of murdering progressive icons (and shooting students, as at Kent State), youth and minorities were demanding rights, one of the most popular things going was to recite Jefferson's words from the Declaration of Independence (particularly that part about our having an "oblitaion!" to over throw oppressive governments, and the established power structure of the day seemed totally clueless.

The power attained by the middle class (and their children - it was those 15-30 who were driving the whole thing, in large part) was unprecedented. As was the conservative backlash, with people like William F. Buckley openly pointing out how "dangerous" such an enpowered middle class apparently was, setting up the 1997 words of Alan Greenspan to the Wall Street Journal about how his job as Fed Chairman was, in large part, to keep the economy from getting so good that a strong (and, thus, challenging to the establishment) middle class would re-emerge. (Greenspan said he had to maintain a certain "minimum threshold of worker insecurity" to keep society stable.)

Please click below to read the full review.