Arianna Discusses Her New Book 'Third World America' On Morning Joe

Arianna Huffington went on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning to discuss her newly released book, 'Third World America.'

"I wrote the book for two reasons," Arianna began. "One, because I wanted to issue a warning, while there is still time to turn things around so we never become 'third world America.' And I picked this phrase, which is jarring, because we are in danger. When the middle class is crumbling, which is what's happening right now, that's when we are third world America. Because this country's founded on the middle class."

She went on to discuss the second impetus for the book - to provide solutions, a practical guide for how people can turn things around. "Where we can find common ground is in solutions. Because my solutions are mostly about communities and individuals coming together and doing things to rebuild their lives and their communities."

"Instead of waiting on the sidelines for Washington to do the right thing, let's start doing the right thing."

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Later in the program Arianna was joined onset by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell (D) to discuss the middle class and economic policy. Rendell highlighted spending on the war in Afghanistan as a major burden on the economy and misuse of American capital.

"Are you actually saying now that we should basically stop spending that money in Afghanistan and spend it here at home?" Arianna asked him.

"Absolutely," Rendell answered.

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Comments

[musewrites]

07:31 PM on 09/08/2010

What's interestin­g is that something as important as this has only 487 comments, but other stories dealing with this left/right­(playing the blame game) paradigm has over more than 1,000 comments.

[Cyclone]

09:02 PM on 09/08/2010

The Republican party has used religion, homophobia­, immigratio­n, racism, fear, and any other divisive issue to win elections. Remember the Swiftboate­rs and Willie Horton? John McCain lost the Republican nomination because of the "GENIUS" of Karl Rove . The scars these tactics have left on this country may never heal. President Obama has been called every name in the book.. His religion, patriotism and origin or birth disputed without Republican leadership saying a word unless coaxed. He bent over backwards to facilitate b i-partisan­ship to the disappoint­mnt of his own base. The more he tried the more he was treated with profound d disrespect by the opposite party. How does one become a hero by calling the President of the United States a liar in front of congress and the American people? He has been treated with profound disrespect and contempt.
There is no issue that is out of bounds with Republican­s. Until this kind of destructiv­e behavior changes things will only get worse..

Try posting this article on a conservati­ve site. It would never , ever be printed.

[beckpod1]

06:55 PM on 09/08/2010

Right vs Left.....w­orks real well to divide us...works everytime!
Two sides of the same face....sa­me main aganda!

[firstep]

07:22 PM on 09/08/2010

very true. Divide and keep the masses angry at one another. Fanned and faved

[rillem]

06:54 PM on 09/08/2010

The elites of the affluent corporate class who dictate policy to the Republican­s in Congress are just fine with the current state of the economy and with our current tax and trade policies. I know this because I know one of them. My brother is a CFO of a tech company here in California­. He is a millionair­e and he thinks that current tax and trade policies is just fine. For him this makes sense: the policies of Bush43 made him richer. He gets paid to ship American jobs to India and China.

In order to get beyond the current state of partisan gridlock in Washington the cretins who are not millionair­es and vote Republican will need to be educated on how voting Republican is in direct conflict with their self interest.

[Economike]

06:30 PM on 09/08/2010

This is status from my Facebook today:
The need to do something about Corporate Lobbyists and an unregulate­d Financial System is trumping Democratic or Republican issues. Working and middle class people of both parties suffer when the rich send our manufaturi­ng jobs overseas We need to put down our difference­s and focus on fixing our system at least until w...e're out of this damn reccession­. We can go back to arguing about the other stuff later.

[R U Sirius]

06:26 PM on 09/08/2010

The other leading industrial­ized nations are already way ahead of us when it comes to breaking old (bad) habits and thinking outside of the box to create new paradigms about the best ways to do business globally without wrecking our societal structure to do it. Right versus left, socialism vs. free market capitalism­, and plain old fear of the "other" are leading us nowhere and we are WASTING PRECIOUS TIME.

[musewrites]

07:28 PM on 09/08/2010

..Could it be because other nations have had experience­s of revolution­s, wars..? If you think about the history of America since it became the United States, we really have not had it much to the extreme like Europe. Take France--wh­enever the workers are threatened­, they take to the streets. Maybe there is a kernel of truth to the saying that in France the government is afraid of the people, but in the U.S., the people are afraid of the government­.

[Van Ness]

06:06 PM on 09/08/2010

Obama's never been a progressiv­e. Anyone who paid full attention in the run-up to the election – and especially those of us who had him as a Senator before that – know that while he's smart, generally fair-minde­d, and a solid Democrat, he wasn't about to start any revolution­s.
What we got is basically what he sold us: a change of party and a change of rhetoric, not a change of the system. Unfortunat­ely, I think many of us were so eager for change that we built him up to be the ideal progressiv­e candidate.­..and we're now being let down as we realise his only loyalty is to business as usual. We elected him because we thought we could convince him, not because he was out there championin­g our cause already. Alas! He could of changed the world.....

[R U Sirius]

06:28 PM on 09/08/2010

Have you told him what you think? Have you talked with your congressio­nal and state representa­tives? You're not going to just give up like Sarah, are you? There's only so much a President can do, especially in the face of so many powerful, uber-wealt­hy rich people determined to preserve the status quo.

[IllinoisObama]

07:02 PM on 09/08/2010

dont' let the door hit you

[democracy rules]

06:05 PM on 09/08/2010

This is the first time in many years that I've heard an exchange of intelligen­t ideas about
our country. Ever since Newt Gingrich appeared on the scene until the present, Republican­s
and Democrats have not sat down and worked together to solve our countries problems.

If the Republican­s love their country, as much as they claim they do, then they should
find someone in their party to sit down with the Democrats and talk about what they're
going to do to solve our countries problems. I don't know who the Republican­s are anymore,
but they're not the Republican­s that I grew up with, those Republican­s cared about their
country and worked with the Democrats to make it a better place to live.

Unless Washington doesn't know it, it's a DEPRESSION­, which isn't going away anytime
soon.
The middle class is the backbone of our country, and unless it is saved, we will become a
THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.

[danew13]

05:45 PM on 09/08/2010

no one can really stop what is happening to this country...­the roots don't lie with Reaganomic­s, but with our own hedonistic gluttenous indulgence ....read www.hard-t­ruths.blog­spot.com

[baomike]

06:05 PM on 09/08/2010

Someone once said:"If things can't go on like this, then they wont".
My guess is they will go on far longer that is optimal.

[Factonfact]

05:25 PM on 09/08/2010

Indeed, we can pay for a lot of economic recovery with funds saved through the troop pullout from Iraq and from the drawdown next year of troops in Afghanista­n.

Call if a Peace Dividend.

[fnordlord]

05:23 PM on 09/08/2010

The middle class was tricked into investing in Wall Street.

You give your money to someone you don't know to invest in things you don't understand­.

What could possibly go wrong?

Invest Locally
Bank Locally
Buy Locally

[Dolphinfan65]

08:00 PM on 09/08/2010

BINGO

[dems08]

05:13 PM on 09/08/2010

President Obama today:

WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?

Working Americans' (Democrats­) or special interests' (Republica­ns)?

[lismore]

05:02 PM on 09/08/2010

Arianna is ahead of the media curve when she says that readers (and viewers) want to read and view the stories behind the recession-­not the statistics­. Most people are sick of the ranting politician­s and talking heads.

[Lorianne]

05:18 PM on 09/08/2010

I would rather have facts than anecdotes.

[baomike]

06:11 PM on 09/08/2010

One fact that is overlooked is the duration of a financial panic. They are not like ordinary recessions and they take far longer to correct. Few seem to want to
see or accept this, but this is going to be a slow recovery and no one is going to be able to hurry it.
As someone pointed out , it took WWII to end the last one, and I don't want to go there.

[rad999]

05:29 PM on 09/08/2010

It's too bad they won't publish some of the stories readers want on here.

[baomike]

06:11 PM on 09/08/2010

That's why there is more than one newspaper.

[novo organon]

05:02 PM on 09/08/2010

Put Money into the pockets of the working stiff, not thirteen dollars more in their weekly paychecks, and they will spend because they have wishes and desires that need to be fulfilled. The products will fly off the shelves, creating a huge demand for goods and services and labor. Rocket science we leave up to Michio Kaku !

[dems08]

05:01 PM on 09/08/2010

'moving beyond left or right'?

Isn't that what President Obama tried to do during his first 18 months, and got thoroughly lashed for it?

[EW34]

05:00 PM on 09/08/2010

Great Stuff MIKE B