Progressive Voices

I speak with talk show host, THOM HARTMANN, about the newest book in his “hidden history” series. THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY. I’d heard the Founders drew inspiration from political systems of Native Americans, to which Hartmann adds, so did Europe’s Enlightenment thinkers. He quotes Thomas Paine: “To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe.” In addition to these revelations, Hartmann clarifies some myths of the Constitution and offers a 21-point agenda to restore US democracy.