Thom Hartmann: A 99'er trashes the American dream and welcomes death

[thomhartmann]

Run time: 07:26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3wAOViOItg   Posted on YouTube: February 16, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheBigPictureRT Views on YouTube: 32   Posted on DU: February 16, 2011 By DU Member: thomhartmann Views on DU: 1254

 
The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[marmar]

1. I listened to Thom read that letter yesterday......

That was distressing.

[sasha031]

2. yes it was heartbreaking

[xchrom]

3. if this is real -- maybe this is our self immolation moment. nt

[dkf]

4. Isn't everyone eligible for foodstamps?

Why hasn't this man eaten for a week?

[Newest Reality]

5. You can understand being in that situation if

you have been or are there already. Otherwise it may just be yet another casualty or even a chance to moralize about suicide.

We might tend to think of people in some form of objective isolation and we have been encouraged to do so. Rugged individualists insist we are on our own. Yet, that means denying that environment is essential to any existence. While it has been convenient to use the notion of an absolute separation as a means to limit any social responsibility or liability, the results of the imbalance are becoming more clear. If there was any tenuous social contract, it was about some form of reciprocity. In fact, that may be the most significant and binding currency of the social realm that humans interact in.

We have come to a greater dependency on others for even our most basic necessities. Well, we may have once depended on the rest of our tribe, but now, it has become a vast and complex web of dependencies. Those who say they are independent are only speaking in relative terms and, compared to a hunter gatherer or indigenous tribe are more likely like infants in a crib by comparison.

When you get down to a life, in this Brave New World, that becomes merely a struggle for subsistence and when that struggle to survive becomes increasingly tenuous, it requires coping skills that your life or the current culture may never have provided. It is there that you can feel layers of ideas and ideology fade away, retreating like dreams do upon awakening. That is when the question of continuing to struggle can predominate, especially if you are able to extrapolate your odds and the potential to return from that stark and extremely grim edge where continuing becomes an option.

We are in a crises that affects us all regardless of how our circumstances afford us the luxury of feeling immune or impartial. The understanding of that boils down to the philosophical question of how intimately everything is interconnected or how literally and concretely separate everything and everyone is. Eventually, on this fast track to a neo-Fascism, we may find out.

Meanwhile, people fall down and euthanize themselves. Perhaps we should dare to consider that an act of self immolation in response to the environment we are collectively allowing to not only persist, but to grow and thrive in its predatory phase?

[daggahead]

6. It is sad that Mark saw no other alternative but death. n/t

[MahayanaLotus]

7. Love Revolution Solution?

What do you propose as a solution Luv? Do you believe the collective will begin to recognize itself?

[Downtown Hound]

8. Painful to watch, but in my opinion

EVERYBODY needs to see this. K&R!

[Overseas]

9. Thanks for sharing his story. //nt