If you want to understand what's going on in Baltimore right now, just ask John Angelos, the COO of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

Seriously, I'm not kidding.

On Sunday, one day after his team's stadium was locked down to protect fans from nearby protests, Angelos took to Twitter to respond to Brett Hollander, a local sportscaster angry at protesters for "violat[ing] the basic freedoms of non-protestors."

While he agreed with Hollander that the "principle of peaceful, non-violent protest... is of utmost importance in any society," Angelos said that he was ultimately more concerned with the root cause of this week's unrest: the obliteration of Baltimore's middle and working class by decades of so-called free trade deals.

"[M]y greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case," he said,

is focused neither upon one night's property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American's civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.

As Angelos then went on add, 

while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don't have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.

That really is about as good of explanation about of what's going in Baltimore right now as you're going to get.

Riots and violent protests do not occur in a vacuum. They are the natural, if unfortunate, outcome of poverty and failed policy.

There is a long history of this from Roman times to the French Revolution forward. In this case, though, the failed policy in question isn't, as it was in 1789, France's war debt. Today, it's so-called free trade.

 

Read more here.

 

-Thom

  

Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10pm... Reclaiming the American Dream for Baltimore... (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)

 

Be sure to check out our newest video: RESTORATION - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio & Thom Hartmann, directed by Leila Conners / Visit GreenWorldRising.org to check out all the videos: CARBON, LAST HOURS & GREEN WORLD RISING - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio & Thom Hartmann, directed by Leila Conners

 

 

Need to Know: Reclaiming the American Dream for Baltimore...
- Manila Chan, RT Correspondent    
- Dr. Clarence Lusane, American University / The Black History of the White House  

 

Big Picture Politics Panel:
- Hughey Newsome, Project 21      
- Ben Cohen, The Daily Banter  
- Jennifer Kerns, Washington Times / The Blaze  

 

Best of the Rest: Transgender...a turning point?
- Joe Wenke, The Human Agenda: Conversations about Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity  

 

 

Tuesday's Daily Stack 

Hour One: Baltimore...the new Detroit?
- Karen Hunter, The Karen Hunter Show, SiriusXM Urban View  

Article: "11 Stupid Reasons White People Have Rioted" by Kali Holloway.

Article: "Orioles VP Angelos Makes Profound Statement Following Baltimore Protests".

 

Article: "Baltimore riots: Troops deployed as cleanup begins" by BBC.

Article: "Report on the Subject of Manufactures" by Alexander Hamilton.

Article: "Since 2001 we have lost over 60,000 factories in this country" by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The good: "Chipotle Becomes First Major Restaurant Chain To Serve Only GMO-Free Food" by Dominique Mosbergen.

The bad: "Oklahoma Lawmakers Vote To Outlaw Fracking Bans As Earthquakes In The State Spike" by Ari Phillips.

The very, very ugly: "On Fox, Franklin Graham Warns: "We Have To Be Careful Of The Muslims In This Country"" by Media Matters.

Article: "Gay Marriage Arguments Divide Supreme Court Justices" by Adam Liptak.

Article: "Good Parliament", 1376 by Wikipedia.

Article: "Wat Tyler", 1381 by Wikipedia.

Article: "Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton" by Judith E. Harper.

Article: "America's Real Criminal Element: Lead" by Kevin Drum.

Article: "Epigenetics" by University of Utah.

Hour Two: The Lessons of Vietnam and Kent State
- Alan Canfora, May 4 Movement. 

Site: Kent May 4 Center.

Article: "Port Huron Statement" by Tom Hayden (1962).

Event: May 1-2, Washington DC "Lessons of Vietnam".

Documentary: The Day the '60s Died premieres Tuesday, April 28, 2015.

Article: "1999 Seattle WTO protests" by Wikipedia.

 

Talk Radio News Segment:
- Ellen Ratner, Bureau Chief 

Article: "Watch: Cholene's ThankList" by Ellen Ratner.

Site: Thank List.

Article: "TRNS News Notes- 4/28" by Victoria Jones.

Article: "TRNS News Notes- 4/27" by Victoria Jones.

Article: "SLIDESHOW: Supreme Court Weighs Same Sex Marriage" by Midori Nishida and Mary Jarvis.

Article: "Baltimore Faces Curfew" by TRNS.

Article: "Audio: Defenders And Opponents Spoke With TRNS At The Supreme Court" by William McDonald.

Article: "Obama Condemns Baltimore Violence, Calls For Soul Searching" by TRNS.

Article: "Obama, Abe declare progress, but no breakthrough, on trade" by Jim Kuhnhenn.

Hour Three: Introducing the "We the People Amendment"
- David Cobb, Move to Amend 

Article: "First Amendment to the United States Constitution".

Article: "14th Amendment, July 9, 1868 (citizenship, representatives, public debt)

Book: "Unequal Protection: The Battle to Save Democracy" by Thom Hartmann (read online).

Book: "Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" - And How You Can Fight Back" by Thom Hartmann - new updated version out now!

Case: "Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission" (2010).

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976.

Case: "First National Bank Of Boston V. Bellotti", 1978.

 

Book: The American Revolution of 1800: How Jefferson Rescued Democracy from Tyranny and Faction - and What This Means Today by Dan Sisson with Thom Hartmann.

Book: "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine.

Article: "North American Free Trade Agreement" (NAFTA) by Wikipedia.

Article: "General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade" (GATT) by Wikipedia.

Site: World Trade Organization.

Article: "Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement" (TPP) by EFF.

 

What's going on in Baltimore
- Kymone Freeman, We Act Radio    

Quote: "a riot is the language of the unheard" - Martin Luther King".

Facebook: "Rebecca Eisenberg".

Site: #DCFerguson.

Quote: "The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress" - Frederick Douglass".

 

Article: "Nonviolence as Compliance" by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Law: "Taft-Hartley Labor Act", 1947.

 

Article: "Giant Waves Quickly Destroy Arctic Ocean Ice and Ecosystems" by Mark Harris.

Article: "The FDA Considers Cracking Down On Untested Alternative Medicine Treatments" by Tara Culp-Ressler.

Article: "Solar Power Battle Puts Hawaii at Forefront of Worldwide Changes" by Diane Cardwell.

Article: "With EPA Lawsuit, Environmental Groups Step Up Fight Against 'Super-Toxic Chemical Cocktail'" by Nadia Prupis.

Article: "Man gets tired seeing trash on riverbank during his morning commute-does something about it" by Walter Einenkel.

Wednesday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET 

 

I'll be talking to Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress Justice about the Supreme Court's deep divide over gay marriage.

 

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

 

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"

 

And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...

Free excerpt, read book for free at Truthout, buy the book!

    

Please support the Hunter School, a unique therapeutic boarding school for young children diagnosed with ADHD, Anxiety, Sensory, Mood and related conditions...

Thank you for being part of our ever growing community for News, Debate and Opinion on the Thom Hartmann Program.

 

Click here to subscribe to the Thom Hartmann Newsletter.
 

Sincerely,