Archives

  • James Risen, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War joins Thom Hartmann. 13 years after 9/11 - the War on Terror has turned into a massive moneymaking scheme for America's oligarchs. How did this happen - and what can we do to change it?


  • If the rise of Donald turmp and Bernie Sanders is any indication - Americans are sick and tired of the establishment and the powers that be. So how can we break through those powers and make a better country for all? I'll ask legendary consumer right advocate and 5 time presidential candidate Ralph Nader in tonight's Conversations with Great Minds. Check out BreakingThroughPower.org.

    For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!


  • Thom Hartmann talks to film director and political activist, Robert Greenwald noted in the 2000s for his documentaries critical of Fox News, war and the health industry. "Sick for Profit" and "Rethink Afghanistan" are his two recent films.


  • Marianne Engelman Lado, Earthjustice & Alexis Baden Mayer, Organic Consumers Association & David Murphy, Food Democracy Now
    This past week - two counties in Oregon passed laws banning GMO's - much to the dismay of genetically modified food companies like Monsanto. Where does the fight to ban GMOs stand today - and how can Americans fight back against mountains of corporate cash from the GM industry?


  • Anya Kamenetz, author "Generation Debt" and most recently "DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education" / staff writer for Fast Company magazine / Contributor-Huffington Post. As the costs of higher education continue to soar - what innovative and alternative ways are there for Americans to obtain a quality education at an affordable price?


  • For tonight's "Coversations with Great Minds" - Thom welcomes an authority on wealth inequality in America, Chuck Collins.He is the senir scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies here in Washington, DC - as well as the co-founder of "Business for Shared Posperity" - an organization that brings together business leaders to address wealth inequality in America and increased opportunites for everyone in our nation, He's worked with several of the welathiest people tliam Gates Sr. and Geroge Soros to advocate for taxing millionaires and billionaires. He's also co-authored several books including, "Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes" and "Robin Hood was Right." For questions about the effects of extreme wealth inequality in America - he's the guy to talk to


  • Pamela Haag PhD, The Gunning Of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture. Many Americans - even those who want more gun control - probably think that America's gun culture is something - well - uniquely American. Regulations might stop some shootings - the thinking goes - but they'll never undo the fact that Americans love guns - and have loved them ever since the pioneer days. Guns are just part of our cultural DNA - and there's nothing we can do about it. But is that really the case?

    For more information on the stories we've covered visit our websites at thomhartmann.com - freespeech.org - and RT.com. You can also watch tonight's show on Hulu - at Hulu.com/THE BIG PICTURE and over at The Big Picture YouTube page. And - be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter!


  • David Rothkopf, Author of the new book "Power, Inc.:The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government--and the Reckoning That Lies Ahead" joins Thom Hartmann. Striking a balance between private and public power is a major goal for society today - and correctly reaching it will help us prosper in the 21st century. So how do we achieve this balance?


  • In tonight's “Conversations with Great Minds" Thom discusses what a post carbon planet would look like with the Post Carbon Institute’s Richard Heinberg, author of the book "Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future.”


  • Frederick Kaufman, Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food joins Thom Hartmann. What do the malnutrition and starvation epidemics in Africa have to do with a decision made by big bank Goldman Sachs in 1991?


  • Dale is the founder and brainchild behind UnCollege - an organization that provides resources for those students pursuing a self-directed path to higher learning. A critic of the traditional higher education system - he left college during his second semester and has been "unschooling" himself ever since. He's also a recipient of the prestigious Thiel Fellowship and a frequent commentator on education at the Washington Post - New York Times - and the Huffington Post. His new book is called Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures - Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers Ever Will.


  • Alan Weisman, author Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth, the long awaited follow-up to his previous book "The World Without US" which also became a documentary for PBS' NOVA program.


  • In 1991, Anita Hill shed new light on sexual harassment when she testified during Clarence Thomas’ Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Thirty years later, while awareness is at an all-time high, society’s approach to dealing with gender-based violence—socially, legally, and legislatively—still falls far short of where it needs to be. In BELIEVING: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence Hill uses her decades of experience and breadth of knowledge to show the pervasive impact of gender-based violence and what needs to change.


  • In this week's Conversations with Great Minds Harriet A.Washington joins Thom. Her book Deadly Monopolies: The Shocking Corporate Takeover of Life Itself is an exposé of the medical industrial complex's rush to own and exploit the raw materials of human life - including your body tissue and DNA! Her book "Medical Apartheid" documents how people of color - particularly African Americans - have been subjected to everything from medical experimentation and vivisection to the denial of medical services from the days of slavery to today.


  • Kate Pickett joined Thom to discuss how inequality and equality can be changed to your advantage.

    This latest edition of Conversations with Great Minds talks about the new book 'The Inner Level' from Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson.

    Thom reads an excerpt from the book here: https://youtu.be/8JtNSIV-mRk

    The book is available from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2S4OtCs


  • Right now - the debate in Washington is over what can be done to help those in poverty - but that's not really the question that we should be asking. I'll talk to Ona Porter - founder of ProsperityWorks - about wiping out poverty altogether - in tonight's Conversations with Great Minds.