tv The Dylan Ratigan Show MSNBC January 4, 2012 1:00pm-2:00pm PST
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>> do you call that the homeland? >> we call it blighty. back to blighty. >> and did you have tea? did you go like to mason's and have crumpets. >> we did have plenty of tea, as i do in new york. i have plenty of tea here as well. do you like tea, dylan? bangers and mash? >> your mockery of british cuisine has been well made. let us move forward. >> i am a connoisseur of the british lifestyle. i would even consider myself and anglofile. you would notice a british tea pop the where i make my tea and my container. >> i thought you told me you sit at home all day and drink cove and write books. >> yeah, while drinking british tea wearing a sherlock holmes cap pretending i'm british. that -- that doesn't happen, but it's nice to see you and you make me feel more sophisticated because i goat talk to you. >> i'm glad that i can be of service to you, but your show, it starts now. >> actually about 40 seconds ago.
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>> well, good wednesday afternoon to you. i am dylan ratigan. knight nice to see you here in new york. of course the landslide that was not. eight votes, my friends, eight votes separating mitt romney from rac rick santorum in last night's iowa calk yeses. so close, a million metaphors, make it up at home. the real auction season has now begun. unfortunately, this auction may be a foregone conclusion with 80% of the trades on intrade saying mitt romney is guaranteed to be the republican nominee. round two, however, in, well, the primary season, auction season, farce, whatever you want to call, it does kick off next week in new hampshire with the nation's first actual primary. that is an actual thing, a distinction that's important because a primary obviously is for actual delegates, real potatoes. we learned today that at least one candidate will not be going to that particular race. >> last night the people of iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so i have decided to stand
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aside. >> bachmann, of course, coming in fifth last night in the calkus. rick perry who also finished neither bottom of the tack not ready to throw in the towel despite saying he was returning to texas to reassess his campaign. then this morning he tweeted it was full steam ahead for the battleground state of south carolina. everybody wants to fight, if only they were fighting about something that was actually relevant to our future. first off to new hampshire where we found nbc's ron mott in manchester for us. if you look at numbers on these, the gambling numbers and where the action, is 80% of the people say mitt romney is going to be the presidentiam nominee for the republican party. the next closest person is newt gingrich who has only 5%. do you get a sense that new hampshire is reflective of the national numbers in the marketplace that are sort of looking past of the tick talk of a given state and say listen, when mitt romney shows up, call me.
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>> reporter: exactly. good day to you, dylan. mitt romney has had a huge lead in the polls here, 25 to 30 points, but the real drama we might find this week might come from newt gingrich. after that speech last night, still shaking my head about it, because it was part concession. it was part i'm coming there to fight with everything i've got. he was very angry about what happened to him in iowa. just a month ago he was on the air saying that he didn't see any way that he couldn't win this nomination, and then just yesterday before the caucuses opened, he was defeated. he was deflated saying there was no way he would win that caucus and, of course, last night when he took to the microphones to address his group of supporters the there, he wanted everyone to know that he was going to continue what he terms as positive campaigning, but that -- that he was going to keep the truth in his -- in his options, that he wanted to go out and tell people about the real mitt romney, wants the mitt romney to run as real mitt romney. the interesting thing is you've got rick santorum coming here after a final finish and surge
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to the finish nine iowa that he's going to hope to bring here to new hampshire with some momentum, but jon huntsman is lying in wait here. he's essentially employing the same strategy. this is his hail mary pass here in new hampshire. he's pulling in 13%, 14%. 35 points behind mitt romney, so it will be interesting to see if jon huntsman will be able to grab ahold of any attention here from the electorate here in new hampshire. it's going to be interesting. today, of course, mitt romney getting john mccain's support, his endorsement. not sure how much that will help him. he still has to figure out a way to connect with the far right and so far he's not been able to do that. that's the wild card for him. >> what a difference four years makes from a wide open race. there is no incumbent running obviously. the drama of barack obama and hillary clinton, this was the coverage of the day after iowa in 2008. >> those young iowans showed up big time for barack obama. >> last night was an historic night. barack obama delivered an
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amazing speech. >> more women voted for barack obama, the youth vote went to barack obama. independents went to barack obama. >> this race on the republican side is wide open. >> interestingly four years later on the last point from joe scarborough, it might be true, though not according to intrade. even mitt romney seems to be a foregone conclusion for a lot of folks. let's bring in msnbc political analyst jonathan alter who not only was in the thick of it in 2008 but perhaps brings some of the best perspective we can get. as you know, jonathan, i sit and rant and rave my mad path forward and try to persuade people to come to my waive thinking and some do and some don't. we certainly have seen the narrative change over the past few years, but backing away, you know, a given point view, in the reality of the political theater as it actually exists, not as i might wish it to exist but as somebody might wish it to exist, is it -- is the cake as baked as the statistics make it to be, specifically with romney sitting
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with 80% of the market. if you look at intrade markets, the speculative markets, is the financial speculation around romney's candidacy in your opinion reflective of the political theater? >> the intrade folks should stick to making money. >> you think? >> they are all wet on that. >> but it's not nearly as locked up as that suggests? >> not even as close to locked up as they suggest, not even close. >> which will make it far more interesting. >> i don't want to sound like an old guy. >> please do. >> this is what they call my seventh cycle, so i've been doing this, you know, going back to the '84 campaign, and there are a lot of twists and turns to could. rick santorum is very much in this. doesn't have any money now, but that doesn't mean he won't have any money a few weeks from now. as we speak, there are conservative activists meeting in texas. it's likely that they will decide that they are going to back rick santorum, and he will
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be the conservative horse in a conservative party, so the idea that he only has a 5% chance which intrade says is absolutely ridiculous. >> contexturalize this race in the context of bush where the country was unhappy and -- and president bush surely was aware that there was a dissatisfaction that was brewing and was able to win re-election and put the election on john kerry and make it about him. president obama knows that there's certainly an unrest around the overall direction of america and the polling and all the rest of it. does mitt romney or whoever the republican maybe, rick santorum or whoever it is, is that person going to be the president's john kerry? >> yes, and that's what they want in chicago. they want this to be 2004, and they are actually kind of explicit about it. and they want, you know, to to mitt romney what bush and karl
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rove did to john ker, and they have some of the same material to work from, kind of a stiff massachusetts guy, you know, flip-flopper. >> rich guy, not that approachable. >> not that approachable. a little on the kind of cold -- not cold at least not somebody who is in the hearts of his -- the members of his party. >> right. >> and so in that sense i think they would kind of prefer to run against romney. that's what they have planned on. the polls show that it would be easier for them to beat newt gingrich, easier for them to beat obviously at this point rick santorum, but their game plan is to focus on romney. >> something that happened late last night that most people missed, that those of us who look at horse flesh, political horse flesh for a living took very seriously. chris matthews, for instance, took this very seriously. side by side victory speeches by
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rick santorum and mitt romney, after midnight eastern time. they tied in the iowa caucuses, so each gave a victory speech. santorum, as steve schmidt who had been john mccain's chief of staff think the out of the park. it was sincere. it connect canned on almost every level. there were points at which it was almost reaganesque which is a strange thing to be saying about a guy named rick santorum who is dined of a doer, not likeable campaigner, but last night he was superb. mitt romney was awful. he gave a warmed over version of his stump speech, phoned in, mechanical, didn't connect. he seemed off his game. now it's not at all clear that that will continue, but if it does, if -- if somehow santorum kind of finds his voice now, and, remember, he's won twice statewide in pennsylvania.
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he lost by 18 points in 2006, but in -- in 2000 and 1994 he won in a blew state statewide, something that newt gingrich, for instance, has never done, so he is a pragmatic politician when he needs to be. he's not going to have any trouble moving over toward the center, sounding more economic themes. he already has some natural appeal to working class voters as grandson of a coal miner, so you're going to see rick santorum kind of reintroduce himself to the republican party. they are going to give him a look. whether they buy or not, we don't know, but he's going to get a good look in the next few weeks. >> wow. >> it's important to -- to take that into consideration. >> and it explains your comment to the outset about intrade and understanding the potential dynamic of somebody like rick santorum to spread beyond the silo that people may perceive him to be in. i've run the clock but wonderful to benefit through your analysis
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and hope you'll join us through the rest of the year to keep crazy people like myself up to speed. john alter, msnbc political analyst. thanks so much. coming up here, as we witness the power of money in politics, we're also seeing the poverty movement to get money out of politics. the states now fighting back, escalating things against the supreme court's citizens united decision. plus, our specialist explains why monopolies are not just dangerous as a business structure. they are deadly. and on a light note, what this cartoon is all about. yes, that is my face. we'll explain. on my journey ac, i've learned that when you ask someone in texas if they want "big" savings on car insurance, it's a bit like asking if they want a big hat... ...'scuse me... ...or a big steak... ...or big hair...
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well, as we head to the official start of the auction season, we call them presidential primary, twint bring in our political mega panel. nothing ruins a good auction, rob, like not having action on the floor. if mitt romney can can make this a foregone conclusion, there won't even be any bidding, and then they will be able to sell the seat off awfully cheap, it would seem >> i mean, if you believe the status quo is the auction system. >> yes. >> the auction system is alive and well today. the status quo, as far as i can tell, won by eight votes. we'll have this moment in the sun right for rick santorum and the sweater vest, but ultimately this is more good news, even though he squeaked by, more good news for mitt romney. >> and he -- and the status quo. >> don't you find the eight-vote
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thing utterly inspirational, isn't that incredible. doesn't that show that if you vote you make change. i think it's fantastic. >> hold on a second. here's where i take issue with your character kaigsization. >> yes. >> it shows a vote can be very close. if everybody involved believes in a massive bank, a massive military, dysfunctional health care system and dysfunctional education system and given the choice people who want to screw me the exact same way, one screwing me in a sweater vest and those in a bowtie? >> we need to be campaigning for better politicians who are campaigning for politics that matter. i'm sorry, eight votes, that's fantastic democracy at work. let's try to take lemons and make lemonade here, a little sglit appreciate your optimism. when i'm forced to choose between two piles of horse
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manure and one pile is slightly smaller it's hard for me to be enthusiastic between the piece of horse manure i was forced to choose. >> wow. >> what a segue for you. it's the horse picture in the papers got me thinking about horse manure. >> go ahead. >> i'm glad i'm not wearing a bowtie and not wearing a sweater vest. it's a full sweater. it's freezing down here. >> you'll get your moment in the sun, too. >> i think imogen is right in response to your question. in order for the status quo to change and for all those things that you want to have happen happen, you're going to need candidates in the race on both -- in the republican party and the democratic party who are going to come to the table with concrete ideas and with the backing -- and with the backing of voters to come to washington and do all those things that need to be done, and it's not going to be solved, you know, over one caucus night in iowa. this is, as i've said, many
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times before a multi-decade prospect. >> yeah. >> list en, part of that prospet of change to maybe get more diverse candidates and get a more complex and interesting debate begins with at least being -- becoming aware of how the current system actually works how the funding system works and then talking about how you want to change it. we call it the get money out movement here and it it has three new allies today inspired by that resolution passed in l.a. last month. the new york city council today passing its own resolution declaring indeed the obvious fact that corporations are not people. this is -- anyway. it means that america's two most influential cities are on board the obvious fact that corporations are not people. they are tools invented by people to do things. they can be useful or not good, but obviously not a person. anyway, the entire state of california now poised to do the same thing calling for a constitutional amendment there to overturn citizens united and
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just last week the montana state supreme court upheld a 99-year-old law banning corporations from donating to political campaigns in that state. that's a big deal, as the expected appeal of that ruling, putting money in montana politics may become the vehicle that people are looking for to take this issue back to the supreme court because does the state have the right to override the supreme court? well, that will become the debate. that is lawsuit. we may be heading back to the big court. john bonifaz leading on the battle to get money out. joins us on the hotline to share in the exciting developments. let's start a celebratory if you could. got to love new york stepping up aside l.a. and monitoring the municipal engagement imperative in the short term for people to be heard. >> absolutely, dylan. great to be with you. a great victory for democracy today to have the new york city council pass this resolution, and it shows that this movement is only going to continue to
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build as people across the nation stand up to protect our public and our constitution. >> the tipping point it would seem to be is a real cascade of municipal resolutions start to develop. not just new york or l.a. but biloxi and burlington and st. louis and akron and austin and all down the line. i know that the folks at united republic are working on a stack of municipal resolutions. i know you're doing this. other folks, a move to amend. what is your sense of the national momentum inside of municipalities to -- to continue to care they momentum beyond new york and los angeles? >> well, i think it's taking off, and you're absolutely right. it needs to go to parts of country where people wouldn't necessarily expect this kind of campaign to go, but we're already seeing the traction across the political spectrum for wanting to stand up and saying it's time to get money out of politics and time to make
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corporations people with constitutional rights. the legislature is about to consider in their 30-day session starting in a week this very question of whether to pass a resolution calling on congress to enact -- pass a constitutional amendment and sent to the states for the enactment. but the montana supreme court ruling is really the biggest new development on this because here you have out of five-justice majority make clear that they are not going to let their century-old ban on corporate money be every overturned. they are going to defend it and they are going to uphold it, as they did last friday, and i think that's a significant new development that is going to force the u.s. supreme court potentially to take this up question yet again >> you say potentially. what's the variability in the potentiality? how do you increase the probability that the montana ruling does go to the supreme court? >> of course, those who lost, the corporate interests that lost this care, they will have to seek review. if they -- if they get scared
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about the prospect of seeking review and decide not, to then what it's going to mean is every other state in the union is now allowed to enact these kinds of limits or defend their existing limits, and there are 23 other states beyond montana that had bans on corporate money elections besides citizens united so that would be enorm house in and of itself but it's very likely that the court will -- the supreme court will take this case if the petitioners seek review because if they don't, then they are effectively the supreme court would be giving a green light to all the states in the country experiment this way. >> and very quickly, the timetable for all of this. >> this year. i mirngs know, this is going to be a ruling that now goes into effect, and there's a hotly contested senate race in montana, as we know and if this ban is in effect that means all that corporate money can cannot come into the montana election cycle this. will go to the supreme court this year. >> had the pleasure of meeting with some old collaborators of
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yours. i understand, ben and jerry from ben & jerry's ice cream. >> collaborating with them as well as many other people on this question around the nation. >> a lot of people are rallying around this. i know if buddy rome ker get 5% in the polls in the new hampshire primaries, he can actually make it into the debates. you think there's any chance he can pull 5% with a get money out message? >> possibly. we certainly need that voice in both political arenas to make it clear that this is something people want to hear. >> congrats and thank you for support. the spanl still with us. monopolies is something we see formed when government and money merge as a result of rules that allow for fewer competitors nor an industry to preserve the incumbent interests. our specialist on the corporate takeover of life itself here after this. and during the four course feast,
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we all know death and disease, things that we all fear, or at least many of us. they are, however, a gold mine or the fear of death and disease, i should say, is a gold mine for the health care monopolies. not just in our country but throughout the west. most notably in our country. our specialist today in fact has spent years researching what we've been talking about for a long time here on "the d.r. sho show." big pharma's interest isn't curing what ails us but banking on big problems and what's good for big pharmais no way aligned with what's in the interest of our health. that's the problem. you see, for the past decade the top pharmaceutical companies have raked in $690 million of10
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that comes in is invested in finding cures for 90% of the world's disease. the fact of the matter sunday the current structure in the fee-for service model or health insurance model or in the tax structure that we have globally right now, making things like little blue pills for rich white men is vastly more profitable than curing disease in third world countries. it's no wonder that our health care system, despite being the most expensive, it ranks 37th globally when it comes to quality of care. all of this medical extractionism, something our next guest examines in her critically acclaimed book called deadly monopolies. former fellow in the medical ethics group harvard medical school and author of deadly monopolies, a shock corporate takeover life itself and the consequences for your health and the medical future, a pleasure to well dumb this set. nice to see you. >> i'm thrilled to be here. >> so it's clear that we -- the thing that people don't understand is american
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pharmaceutical companies historically have invested vastly more in research and development to create base research and development for the west over the past 50 years than other private pharmaceuticals around, period, in collaboration with the universities and now the incentives for these drug companies to invest in the problems that you talk about or that i talk about aren't there, and the ability to make money doing things that are not that, deal making, selling things, it's much's yes, and i guess my question for you is how do you reconcile the misaligned interest between how a drug company in the modern day can make money easily and the need to incentivize anybody who is going to be in the health business to have to work to actually provide health benefits, not to prey on rob cox's fever restless leg syndrome to sell him something or whatever these things are that we get. >> right. that is the $64,000, and the problem is these are corporations in business to
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maximize business. they do so by exploiting their patents. this mission is completely incompatible with the mission of haempingt befo haempingt. before 1980 this task was left to medical centers. >> which task? >> the task of devicing medications consonant with our needs and the people who devoted their lives to that were not motivated by money. >> rob and imogen would say we'll do a bunch of research and come to the drug companies and saying this is the five or six or ten things we really need significant advancement in drug response. >> it's actually more dramatic than that. it was the medical institutions who made the decision about what drugs would be pursued and which ones would be developed and there were laws in place that forbade these medical centers from licensing or selling their patents to corporate entities because the government and other
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people long feared that if corporations were in the driver's seat money would dictate what happened. >> very easy money playing patent games and this sort thing, and it's hard money and long money to cure cancer or something like that. go ahead, imogen. >> drug companies are fundamentally spending -- they love viagra, for instance, it's very profitable for them and they are basically not developing drugs for the greater good, for saving millions of lives. how -- how do you stop it? how do you make a change and move forward with this? how do you make it better, as it were? >> several ways that have to be dofnl the first thing to look at is the model wherein corporations have control over pursuing research. they buy a patent or a license and then the researchers at the universities work for them. they decide when the plug will be pull. they decide which medications will be pursued and once the medications are devised they decide what will be done with it. your example is very good, erectile dysfunction. don't have enough drugs for ma layer yeah, a major global kill
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canner. in fact, we have drugs that we're using from the 17th century, but we have had -- don't want to exage rate. we've had 16 new drugs for erectile dysfunction for 1996, that shows where our priorities lie. even worse than that, there's a drug which was developed and found to be very efficacious, very safe, a blessing for people in africa who were threatened by african sleeping sickness. the first and best drug to have work well against it. for five years the company did indeed market it for that use before deciding it it that poor africans didn't have enough money, that there was no profit in it. >> yeah. >> now can you still buy it though, you can buy it in the west and in little tubes. it's for the removal of your hair and chin. western women can pay $50 to have clean hair-free faces but poor africans cannot afford it for sleeping sickness. >> isn't there a way to have
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less restless legs, whatever it is, and less hair on our chinny chin chins, and at the same time find a way for to foster the kreefgs drugs that help people with whatever it is, african sleeping sickness, you know, deng fever, things that don't actually dish mean, the case that these things, malaria, are not problems that we have here in the united states or in europe or all the development where it takes place, but what's the right way? we can't say that you have to stop make money and have you to stop making drugs that are basically lifestyle drugs. >> right. >> but you have to say we need to -- >> right. >> we need to stop malaria. >> need to separate lifestyle drugs from -- >> can we have or non-less restless legs and stop our children from dying from malaria? >> what will provide the best incentive for that mold where we have the best drugs. not the one now, not one where the corporations, only interests and have no checks on them.
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if they have the choice of making a great deal of money or make very little money for more effort by selling the product in the third world, they will go with the profit. i'm not saying they shouldn't make profits, of course, they should make the profit. i'm not blaming the corporations as much as i blame the government. the corporations exist to make money and the problem is they should never have had the fate of american -- medical fate of americans in their hands in the first place. they should not be controlling medical research. the government has neglected its responsibility to affect laws other do, for example, to put a cap on the price of drugs, for example, to -- to step in when a company is not marketing an effective and say we're going to take that paent from you and -- >> it's a failure of government regulation in large part. >> but it's manifesting it self is by the uncontrolled entities
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controlling medical research and they are not delivering innovation that they promised. american people initially agreed this, as far as they were able to agree, you know, that we would have petter medications, but if you look at innovation, there are fewer drugs every year. we had 150 drugs every year a decade ago. now it's 20. 15 drugs per year. the pipeline is drying up. their innovation is not work, and the pharmaceutical companies themselves, one of the points i make in the books is this system is not working well for americans or people in the third world and not working well for the companies either. >> nobody is happy, and even the scientists who frequently come to the companies hopeful and ambitious to be able to cure malaria or do these things find themselves that they are not given the opportunity to work on certain projects. there's a lot of disfaction which means there must be a way to improve the system. i outline a few ways to improst system. one of them is quite dramatic.
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>> you've got to the right place. >> we should repeal a law in 1980 that fostered the cozy relationship between pharmaceutical companies and universities. put the companies in the driver's seat. that law should be resgleeld if we repeal that law would w.h.o. would be in charge of medical debate? >> that's something we would decide. the system we had before 1980 worked quite well, a system under which which developed penicillin, polio vaccine t.worked really well. these -- these modalities that were developed by researchers who often refused to take a patent on it. jonah salk would not take a paent out. some researchers took out patent and reneged because they were afraid of the what the public would think. i like that system. i like the fact they were afraid to. but the fact is these researchers were not motivated by money. they wanted nobel prizes and
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wanted to be seen as ben factors. i like that system. i think it fills our needs much better. >> you want to fulfill the ego through the manifestation of the greatness of the science and not the ego through the accumulation of a bunch of money. >> those motivations dovetail well with what i think we need, what the world needs and there are other models and answers as well that i think are very promising. some of them are already bearing fruit. collaborations between drug companies, and non-profit organizations such as the gates foundation. he knows something about a good business model, right? >> he's put together these conglomeration, all these unlikely bed fellows who are successful in developing vaccines in africa that are sold for 70 cents rather than the $50 we pay here so the point is it can help a lot. >> we need to create more variables to encourage more of it to happen. thank you for your journalism. thank you for your authorship and teaching. thank you. thank you guys for being with us today. see you soon.
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well, you know the old saying a picture is worth a thousand words. take a gander at this picture. that's your afternoon host, dylan ratigan, dressed as one of my favorite new yorkers and one of favorite presidents, teddy roosevelt. the launch of my book "greedy bastards," comes out next week. we're obviously thrilled about that. mostly i'm thrilled about this cartoon, are you kidding me? i'm going to be unbearable? got me as a cartoon of teddy roosevelt riding a horse. anyway. enough. if you're interested in learning more about all this non-sense
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pre-order a copy of the book in the greedy bastards link or check out the article at observer.com. there's question whether the stark raving madman has found enlightenment or gone off the deep snend what do you think in the next few action-packed weeks with the relieves our book and launch of our $30 million jobs tour for this winter we'll all find out together. fueling the fires of frustration around the world. how technology is poised to make the protester in 2012 a force, an even greater force, i might add, to be reckoned with. we should get him a present. thanks for the gift basket. you're welcome. you're welcome. did you see hr just sent out new... ...office rules? cause you're currently in violation of 6 of them. oh yeah, baby? ...and 7. did you guys hear that fred is leaving? so 30 seconds ago. [ noisemakers blow ] [ both ] we'll miss you! oh, facecake! there's some leftover cake. [ male announcer ] the new htc vivid. stay a step ahead with at&t 4g lte, with speeds up to 10x faster than 3g.
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well, as we enter 2012 it appears that the worldwide waves of social unrest unseen for more than three decades will not let up as 2012 emerges from last year's arab spring, through a summer of sit-ins and riots in europe, india and israel, to obviously the occupy movement in new york, and america this fall, the turbulence has raised awareness of some of the world's most pressing problems. most notably the tool sets of rules for the 2% that wield power and the absolute breach of those rules for the 99% in every negotiate around the world who lack that power. our next guest has examined every last one of these movements and says that with the help of social media, the social unrest is poised to become even more powerful in 2012. with us now is bill wasik, senior editor of "wired"
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magazine. his new article, the new revolutionaries coming to a city near you is in the latest issue of "wired" magazine. and how do you move from the noise of social media, that feedback loop of rage and passion into what i would think of as like harmonization, where there's actually sounds coming through -- that go beyond the raw resistance that is manifest to this point? >> well, i think what social networks have been able to do is take all the virtual connections between people that exist sort of as part of our daily lives, and when people are mad enough, sort of make them physical, get people come out into the real world and get together in physical gatherings that can be, you know, incredibly transformational. >> and if you were to look at what happens now, social media thrives on content, and if you have good content, good little snippets and blushes and words and videos and images, that that really is the currency of the virtual universe and now a tremendous. a it has been produced over the
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past year at global protests, and there's all this sort data, if you will. how does the currency of moving the content of the recent protest cycle help accelerate whatever is to come or influence it. >> well, you know, i wouldn't focus on the content so much on the connections. you know, all of these tools, whether it's our smartphones or facebook and twitter, really what they are are -- are, you know, a group of interconnections among people and, you know, if i am angry about something and i post about it, you know, my friends or my associates or people that are connected to me are going to take that seriously, and you multiply that out over, you know, millions and millions of people and you look at the anger that's out there and what you start to see are these eddies of anger of organizations sort of spread in this very decentralized way of people in their networks and that can take the form posting some video okay, you know, some piece of content that really galvanizes people, but more important than
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the content are the connections. >> and -- and when you look at the connections that are built online, and then you look at connections that are built in zuccotti park, or in a physical location on the emerald necklace in boston, in front of city hall in los angeles, how much more powerful are connections that have been built in the virtual universe and then are validated through the physical action like these protests themselves. how much more currency do these connections take on? >> well, you know, i think one of the -- one of the ideas that i get into in the book is the way that social media can help to sort of create the identity of a crowd before they actually come together. you know, one thing -- people who study riots or social unrest tend to focus on the way that, you know, the anger of a crowd can be a very unpredictable thing and sometimes, you know, people come to a protest with a very different idea about how much should we respect authority
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of the police, you know, how much should we -- what do we real believe about this stuff. one thing that social media can do is by the time people come out to the space there's already been a certain amount of agreement or a certain. a organize a sense that they have already come together around a shared purpose, you know, and i feel with occupy wall street, you know, that tumbler about we're the 99% helped to do that, and all the ideas about who the 99% is and what the 99% want, people come out and there's -- there's already a sense of, you know, we have a shared set of grievances. we have a shared set of action. >> yeah. that's an incredible point, too, in terms of -- i would imagine it would -- it certainly gives you hope that physical protests are less likely to become violent. how do you compare -- i'll lead this as a last question, the cliched question. compare whur seeing in the protest sense compared to what we've seen in the 1960s, and is this 1962 by comparison?
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>> i think one of the paradoxes of this stuff is our technology works really hard to keep us out of crowds. we have so many other ways, you know, to organize with each other and so many other ways to -- to express ourselves. i feel like what's really was remarkable about 2011, you know, especially here in the u.s. and in other western countries is that people's anger, you know, they -- expressing themselves wasn't enough and they use these tools to come together in physical space and create just this very visceral, very powerful set of protests and in some case riots, so i don't think that we're seeing the 630s again, but i do believe that as people learn to use these tools more effectively you will see more and more and more and more effective of these crowd gatherings happening. >> wonderful observations. great insight as everybody right down in zuccotti park to those figuring out what's going on try to anticipate and participate i think over the next few years.
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bill wasik, senior editor at "wired." check it out. i thought somebody wrote on my magazine for a second. i was like who did this, which means you've got a good cover. thank you, bill. >> thanks. >> coming up on hail, out of iowa and into ham, chris live there talking about santorum's surge and romney's problem with the conservative base, but next ari melber gets his minute. a daily rant when we return. financial advice is everywhere. real, objective investing help?
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what happened in iowa. >> thanks, man. look, the presidential race began last night so you know what that means? everything you've heard before today was not about the election, not about voters. it was basically a voterless preseason of insiders, donors and reporters talking amongst themselves were. they right? we finally have some facts. let's take a look at them. number one. it turns out the media was wrong about the front-runners. according to voters in iowa, the early front-runners are romney, santorum and paul. you know the funny thing about that list. not a single supposed front-runner from last year's preseason is on it, not michele bachmann who pundit dick morris would be the nominee. she dropped out today. not herman cain who drew the most media coverage all candidates for a five-week period in december. as you know, he dropped out before anyone voted and not newt gingrich or rick perry who were reported to be republican saviors. the campaigns weren't doing the first thing you need to do to
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wings, like getting on to state ballots. moving on to number two, the media was wrong about ron paul. i think ron paul's ideas scare the establishment, and i think some of his ideas are questionable, but that doesn't mean the news media should minimize the campaign he's built, but i think paul's support has been underestimated, caveat and distorted from the start. did you know that he did bert among evangelicals last night than every other candidate than santorum? can you see it on the graph there. that means he did better than per who was running gay baishing religious ads and better than bachmann quoting scripture all the time. a religious libertarian coalition for this politician ron paul, that doesn't fit the narrative so it makes him sound formidable and we can't have that. if you looked at fox news last night, they even cut away in the middle of paul's speech thinking, hey, if republicans don't see all those supporters, maybe they will just go away. and finally, number three, the media was wrong about mitt
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romney. romney claimed he didn't want to win iowa and this was taken as evidence that expectations should be lower. i've served in a presidential campaign and still amazed me that this thing kind of thing works, and it does. for months media decided romney didn't need to win iowa because he wasn't doing events. meanwhile the campaign was phone banking the entire state under the radar and in the end 31% of republicans in iowa said they had heard from his campaign, higher than the rest of the field. he had a pac spending $4 million in iowa, couple that with what they did last cycle, and it's no wond their romney could pull 25% in a narrow victory air, lot more money per vote than santorum, by the way, but there's no price fixing in politics. in the end if the narrative is wrongt question you might be asking will this get any bert and i think the answer is yes. it's harder to distort the race once you guys, the voters, are actually involved. santorum was undercovered, but i think he's about to be overcovered and some day actual candidates like ron paul might get as much attention as
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imaginary candidates like herman cain. >> how much do you think the decision is made, the decision before the primaries is made based on who can rate? right, like if i can get an audience talking about the person, or an energy on the internet around them, you talk about them, herman cain, michele bachmann, whatever. now that the primaries are going, have you to talk about who accumulates voice. >> an answer on topic and off topic. >> on topic it goes to the sexiness of herman cains or donald trumps who don't run because people want to talk about it. off topic, i read this article in "the oh," today. i like the cartoon. >> look at the cartoon. >> here's my thought. it says you want to lose weight. >> what i said -- >> you want to be happy. >> i said i've gained weight which means i need to lose weight and you want to be happy and you may be insane and enlightened. did that happen at the same time? >> hats stark raving man man found
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