♪ what's it all about when you started out alphie ♪ >> what's it all about? that's our big story today the day after super tuesday. shall we call it analysis wednesday? let us take you back to what everyone is saying before the moment. >> the road to the white house goes through ohio. >> ohio, the biggest prize of the night. >> ohio is still very, very close. >> southwest ohio is crucial. >> the big prize of ohio. >> this is the biggest prize of the night. >> they may or may not win ohio. >> the ohio race is still in doubt. >> ohio is way too close to call. >> ohio. >> ohio. >> ohio. >> apparently ohio was important. when the votes were counted late into the night and early this morning from the buckeye state mitt romney won it by a hair. in fact, in his column ohio and five other states from alaska to virginia, rick santorum, a close second in ohio, he won three states over all and newt gingrich did win his adopted

home state of georgia. this may be information you already have. but to answer the question dionne warwick posed to us this afternoon, what's it all about? we have two top political names in america. politico's editor-in-chief john harris and michael hirsch chief national correspondent at "the national journal." first off from a political perspective, john, did anything change with the super tuesday results as far -- in other words in terms of the trend and/or expectations around any of these candidates? >> no. i think nothing did change. i think there had been an expectation. certainly on governor romney's part. a hope that super tuesday would represent a change. that is sort of a decisive pivot in the race where he's no longer just ahead but is clearly recognized as the presumptive nominee. so that change did not take place. instead what we had was stats quo. yes he's leading. yes there's widespread expectation that he will be the nominee. but his weaknesses, the coolness

of key constituencies in the party toward him got undermined. rather than being erased it got amplified. >> what has struck me, michael, so far, is the increasing number of people who seem to be what i would call awake. they know that they don't know. they know that they can find answers to problems and any of these political parties that believe they do know, the democrats believe they know and if you do our list it'll be okay and the republicans if you do their list it'll be okay but it seems that everybody in the political theater and in the organizational theater, the occupier, tea partiers, all just want to fight. there doesn't seem to be a lot of folks in the leadership postures that seem to want to actually solve anything. is that an unfair analysis on my part? >> no. i don't think that's unfair at all, dylan. i think that you have particularly on the republican side which is what we're watching a leadership that doesn't understand its base any i more. this is encapsulated in the problem that romney is having winning any of them over.

you know, you just look at the snap shot of ohio. santorum took almost every traditional republican district. romney was able to only gain the metro, urban areas that traditionally go to democrats which he's almost certainly not going to get in the fall. and it just showed that here is the champion of the party, the guy who is quickly becoming the presumptive nominee, who seems to have almost no connection with the base of his party. >> the interesting dynamic, and it sets me up perfectly to make my next point, so thank you, we clearly have a situation where those who vote for politicians are largely disconnected from the politicians they vote for. in other words we don't have competitive primaries. 80% to 90% of the time the incumbent wins no matter what. obviously you can talk about money and politics. there are all these variables basically disconnecting the voter from the people they vote for at least insofar as they

have fewer choices and it's a race to the bottom. i discussed this with lawrence lessig from harvard last night in a podcast and he addressed this dynamic. i want you to listen and then comment. take a listen. >> the people who have destroyed this democracy by selling it to the highest bidder. we have to get people to recognize -- not that we have to have a kumbaya moment where we all believe we're one and agree on everything -- we don't -- but a moment where you recognize we have to be able to put aside some of the differences and focus on the common enemy that we have if we're ever going to get to a place where we can do something about it. >> the common enemy as professor lessig defines it is the inability for the voter to effectively communicate to those that they elect. >> i would put the -- with respect to him -- i would certainly take a different view of the situation we're in right now. in other words it's not that the people are alienated. maybe some people are.

but they're more frustrated. it's not that money is distorting the process. it is. but that's not the central factor behind our situation right now. the central factor is that we have unresolved, big questions, questions of principle i would say. the 2008 election pointed dramatically in one direction. the 2010 election pointed dramatically in the other. so we've got basic, fundamental ideological questions about what direction the country should take that are unresolved. the way you resolve those isn't by huddling in some back room on capitol hill. the way you resolve them is by having a big, consequential, at times argumentative election. the voters will eventually decide. >> so the only reason -- the only place i have a significant disagreement with what you just said, john, is this. if you have a culture of problem solving, if your public debate to solve the big questions has a culture that is lacking in

transparency, riddled with lies and lack of integrity and has limited choice for who the candidates are and who runs that the quality of that debate gets worse not better. so if you have a vigorous public debate about people's point of view but it is done with the high levels of visibility, full integrity in terms of the behavior relationship of the information and actual choice for the voters, which doesn't exist right now, you would be right. but because of the lack of transparency, because of the lack of integrity in the candidates and the information, and because of the restriction of our choices, our ability to manifest the incredible benefit of the debate that you would so wonderfully advocate and i would agree with has been encumbered by those rupting influences, but michael, i'm interested to hear your perspective on this particular component of our debate. >> well, look. dylan, you have two big phenomena going on now on the right and the left. you had the tea party moment --

movement which continues to basically hold the republican party and agenda hostage on the right. the occupy wall street movement on the left which is ehas expressed a broad based discontent with what is perceived to be much too little too late by the obama administration in terms of not restructuring wall street and dealing with the income inequality levels which are at record proportions. as you documented on your show so often. and i think that says it all. >> right. >> you basically have the power structure is not expressing the discontent of the people. >> but if we all agree, listen, a vigorous debate is a healthy way to figure out what we want to do which is john's point that he just made. >> right. >> but if you accept my point, which is that the nature and quality of that debate is determined by the level of transparency, the level of integrity, the level of real choice, and we know that we've got, are at all-time lows for transparency, integrity, and choice, why are we not seeing

anybody in the media and, you know, why are we not seeing the politicians? we're not seeing demands for super pac transparency immediately. forget money and all the rest of it. we know secret money jacking around the back of commercial ad buys is no possible way that helps the debate. we know that limited choice through gerrymandered political districts that lack any primary challenges for incumbents inherently reduces the actual quality of the debate and yet on the one hand john harris we love to follow your grand, democratic mission for noerk have a vigorous debate in public to solve its problems we are not addressing the underlying corruption of that process through the lack of transparency and integrity or choice. we're not even talking about that. >> dylan, if you and i have a disagreement i would say it is only one of emphasis or a degree not a fundamental disagreement with what you are saying. i don't think we're living in some kind of athenian democracy or having some kind of a

dialogue. clearly we're not. politics has always been a rough and tumble business. we've never had that sort of pure ideal. i do think the process right now, the debate right now is distorted. it's distorted by some of the things that you mentioned. i'd say it's distorted even more by political and media culture which does tend to reward behavior on the extremes and actually penalizes this kind of problem solving behavior that you advocate just now. >> which is the end of the day -- isn't that a cultural failure? isn't the answer, we can come up with all the systems we want. if the people of any given culture want to fight, and the mechanism is oh, we just got to fight. i'm an occupier. i'm going do-to-fight with you, a tea partier, i'm a democrat, i'm going to fight, fight. i'm a republican. i want to fight. that is a different culture. people would say i don't want to fight with michael. i want to figure out what we agree to and what we can enhance

what we're trying to accomplish. i don't want to fight with john harris. i want to talk to john harris and see where i agree to try to advance that. that is not really good politics or media business these days. we all know that. >> exactly. >> i think that, dylan, one of the problems back to lawrence's point is that the republican base in many republicans in the leadership have decided their common enemy as it were is barack obama. i mean, you know. >> they want that fight. >> they want that fight. they see him as dangerous. we keep hearing from newt gingrich and others in the campaign trail, incredibly over the top rhetoric. you just can't have a dialogue with that degree of extremist gulf. >> and we've all been to sports games where you see people fighting and you certainly can't walk up to two people in the middle of the fight and ask them to talk to each other when they've already decided they want to fight. the nice thing is there are 311 million of us and a lot of us don't want to fight. the more people find each other on independent networks to

decide to solve problems rather than indulge in the pro wrestling theater of d.c. politics we may actually get less fighting. thank you for indulging my conversation and my -- we call it the awake narrative, john. it's the once you're awake -- here's how you please. you know you don't know. the people asleep all think they know. they're like i know and we got to fight but people who are awake and think i don't know but i'm going to access modern networks to get information and i know the stronger that network is the better the information is i'll get, right? i mean that's what we're seeing around us from all of our problem solvers in our country. we just haven't seen it happen in washington, d.c. yet. john, michael, thank you both for your analysis and your time. you heard a bit from professor lessig a few moments ago. listen to the entire conversation. while the gop feuds, america looks for one way forward is the title. it's up on dylan ratigan.com right now and do not forget to check out lessig's new e-book,

one way forward. the link is there on the site. coming up, while the candidates pro wrestle an unexpected voice calls out a real issue that is really damaging american communities. the criminal justice system. plus war and peace. the author, who says we're fooling ourselves if we're waiting for a return to peace time. she says peace time will only exist if the people of the earth access their communities and their networks and demand it of their governments. we'll tell you what's lighting up the sky and creating these. more to come on a wednesday afternoon.

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became sort of a hero of the hippie culture i guess when i said i think we ought to decriminalize the possession of marijuana. i think it is shocking how many young people wind up in prison and get turned into hard-core criminals because they have possession of a very small amount of a controlled substance. the whole thing is crazy. >> he sounds like me. put aside what he said about muslims or gays, even tornado victims which may offend certain sensibilities but pat robertson is being dubbed for the afternoon a hippie hero for his recent call to decriminalize marijuana. on a more serious note the televangelist pointing very simply to the culture of incarcerating low level offenders for marijuana possession and putting them in extraordinarily expensive,

budget-busting prisons that ultimately result in the adaptation of more prison culture that we then reintroduce into our communities wondering why the community quality continues to diminish. for millions of folks, these petty crimes have simply become actual toxicity for themselves and their communities and our budgets. the megapanel is here. imogene lloyd webber, jonathan capehart, i'll start with you. pat robertson not necessarily the greatest friend of a lot of folks with a lot of views on civil rights and these other issues for very obvious reasons but it seems like an interesting moment to recognize that even people who you may think of and rightly so disagree with about significant issues may agree with you on other issues that you didn't realize. >> well, i'm not exactly sure where i am on the whole legalization. >> fair enough. >> you know, so pat robertson and i are still on the opposite

sides. you know, sort of loathe to give him credit for a reasonable point of view given, you know, years and decades worth of horrible observations about people and what they have done he thinks to society. but that being said, he does raise a good point about the prison industrial complex being a place that turns low level offenders thrown into it and spits them out as hardened criminals, people devoid of, i'm generalizing here i know. >> sure. >> -- emotions or caring about their communities, where they live, and the crimes that they may go on to do. so in that regard, he does raise a good issue. i just think he is a horrible, horrible messenger for it. >> at the same time, and i do that on purpose, because one of the points that i'm trying to make with this show in general and with my journalism in

general is that it is remarkable how people that you think you may have nothing in common with and nothing you could agree with that if you look for where you could agree with them you sometimes can find things like this. certainly i found i agree with him on the issue of prison industrial complex. your thoughts on pat robertson as messenger and the art of finding agreement. >> it is unfortunate he is the messenger because fundamentally he won't be a politician, it should be one of your presidential candidates talking about that. i was talking to you earlier about the french at the moment having this weird argument about meat slaughter when they should be talking about the euro. instead they're saying too much meat is being slaughtered in france for kosher purposes and this is very anti-french and here all the republican candidates are going crazy about contraception. pat robertson is making sense and that's not right. something has gone fundamentally wrong in all political systems worldwide. >> with the political debate in

france about how you kill the cow. >> yeah. >> with the political debate in america about birth control and pat robertson is the only one talking sense about prisons. >> i applaud pat robertson for at least focusing on a priority or a clear problem with the priorities of this nation. law enforcement, courts, this is really what he is getting at. now of course going back to the messenger in the same program i think he was talking about how folks in the midwest who looths their homes in these tornadoes possibly didn't pray enough so as a result, i guess by extension if these folks who have been arrested for -- with a bit of -- had prayed more. >> by his logic. >> the problem is of course if you've smoked weed you forget what you're praying for. the point is, this is, you know, there is common ground on all sorts of issues. we can't find this in washington with the two political parties so we end up grasping at -- >> you can see how the modern

art as folks look not to fight but to actually solve issues, it's not to figure out what you disagree to but what you agree to as a cultural practice, as way forward. very quick and then i'll throw some iran and israel at you for the fun of it. >> right. i was going to say that what you say is right but the credibility of the person you're talking to or having a conversation with comes into play as well. >> yes. in this case i do, somebody who i know has very low credibility to really just emphasize the point that even a terribly low credibility individual can say things that you may agree with in the case of prison reform. take a listen to our friend jon stewart and his perspective last night on the interests of the people of israel, people of america, people of iran, and the governments and political climate and how there may be some misaligned interests. >> oh, right. it's an election year. candidates are obviously talking tough.

i'm sure iran knows not to take those guys literally. they would know that, right? iran, meet me at camera three. hey, greetings. so the talk of war is not actually meant for you. it's meant for florida. it's an election season. our rhetoric gets somewhat distorted. it's probably a cultural thing. iran is also getting ready for pretty important domestic elections. this explains your rhetoric. you're having an election, too. that's why you're so -- israel, meet me at camera two. [ speaking in foreign language ] between us, i know being called the cancerous zionist tumor is upsetting. believe me, i used to hear it every night when i was doing standup. but i don't think iran's really gearing up to nuke tel aviv. it's just crazy, over blown election rhetoric. and when i say crazy, i don't mean crazy like --. >> you get the point, the real

genius of what he presented was obviously the observation that talk of conflict, talk of tough talk, action, whether it's iran against israel, whether it's israel against iran, or america against iran, is political currency for the individuals involved and obviously the concern is people exploiting political currency in iran and israel or in america amply fis at the very least the price of oil and people's fears and at the very worst the path to war. >> yeah. >> absolutely. >> but it doesn't excuse a cavalier approach to putting men and women soldiers at risk and their lives at risk anywhere around the world which i think is, you know, i mean it's sort of this week i get the sthaens the president marched into the republican, you know, debate with his discussion about his basically painting them as being cavalier on foreign policy. he's done this on other things. namely, you know, his talk, he

has reached out to sanity dra f. there as problem when you go to the part where the electorate thinks it is an okay thoing sacrifice men and women on the political altar. >> are all of our -- all of our concern that is we are sacrificing or risking the sacrifice, obviously watching human life sacrifice at the political altar in syria right now and we see the elevated risk of the loss of life for political reasons. >> it's easier to campaign than govern. fundamentally the republican candidates, whoever it is going to be, will start getting intelligence briefings after the convention. i think then we'll see a shift in rhetoric from the gop. at the moment they're not taking it seriously enough and it is frightening, absolutely. >> jonathan, the last word on this. sort of words of wisdom how to not get sucked into the incredible anxieties surrounding this conversation? >> this is perfect. i do think jon stewart is getting on to something, which

is a lot of this, and this has been my question, how much of this is theater? how much of this is sabre rattling to ensure the other guy doesn't do the thing that you desperately hope they don't do? welcome to the world of international diplomacy and craziness. a lot of the hot rhetoric could just be theater. yeah. >> could. >> it's good for oil prices if you're an oil trader. whatever it is. bad for consumers who use oil. straight ahead, who is more powerful? large multi nationals or entire nations states? our specialists with a view after this. americans believe they should be in charge of their own future. how they'll live tomorrow. for more than 116 years, ameriprise financial has worked for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning.

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we're going to solidify the middle class and growth economy, make sure everybody has a fair shot, everybody's doing their fair share. >> we want our economy to work not by having the heavy hand of

government trying to guide our economy but let it free people and free enterprise focus on the best things they can do to create better products for america. >> ah, the stump speeches. they'd have you believe that in order to get this economy back ontrack down 30 million jobs, largest wealth inequality since the gilded age and highest number of people in poverty since the history of the census we have to make a choice between fairness even though it's not that fair because everybody gets a different deal from the tax code. if you give them money it'll be okay and the future of capitalism which is screwed up because there is no capital requirement on the banks and the whole thing is made up anyway. according to our next guest it is these very false debates, these two bad choices that we continue to be sort of sucked into that is actually our greatest risk when it comes to losing america's economic footing to countries like india, china, brazil, even russia who are at the very least aware and attempting in some cases to balance their private interests,

their local oil company, their local drug company, whatever it might be, with what is in the best public interest with a culture that respects the public's interest in some capacity. our next guest says that by letting gigantic corporations make the decisions and lead any nation we ultimately allow the existence of corporate super citizens to ultimately take power from the actual citizens and their government. joining us now is our friend david rothkopf, author of "power, inc., the epic rivalry between big business and the government and the reckoning that lies ahead." he is also one of our great allies in our crusade for 30 million jobs. what would you say is the best indication that companies have more power than government or are acquiring more power than government? what is the evidence that suggests the power shift is happening? >> there's tons of indications. on the global stage there is probably 2,000 big companies

that have more economic resources than the hundred smallest countries. so, you know, if you -- >> just by dollars. >> just by dollars or land they control or people they control, you know, who's going to have more influence over the future of a climate debate? exxon or sweden? they're roughly the same size gdp in sales but exxon is operating, you know, twice as many countries practically as sweden has embassyies. they have more political influence. look here. look at citizens united and where that has taken this country. it's part of an institutionalization the power of money that's distorting democracy and the country. >> what is to be done about it apart from reversing the decisions? you look back and think about the robber barron era, the industrial revolution in the 1880s and '90s. ultimately government stepped in and tried to stop the trust from wielding too much power over the

consumer and the markets. what is the antidote to the problem that you propose? >> well, there are two levels, right? at the national level we have institutions that can do it if they'd be allowed to do it. the problem is those institutions have been corrupted by money. you have to take money out of the system. but you have a bigger problem, one akin to the one you're talking about with the robber barre barrons on the global stage because there aren't institutions to reign you in. what happened in the robber baron era, national economy was created, they took advantage, and there were no regulatory mechanisms to offset it. now in the global era we have the same thing. a global economy. they're able to take advantage of it. who is there to regulate derivatives? >> on a global scale. >> there is no global authority. >> that's right. >> is private power, though, always bad? say the gates foundation, they can now spend more on international health care than the world health organization. it's a great thing that you have these huge -- this huge power from these people. >> the key is balance.

when we lose balance, as we have in the united states, we see the playing field tilt, the benefits roll down the hill. the last year of gains in the u.s. economy, 93% of the gains went to the top 1%. the other 7% were left behind. the other problem with say the gates foundation gaining all of this influence is they're not accountable to anybody. so it's great to have them out there. it's a wonderful thing that they're doing. but who is setting their priorities? a few people. the people that have the money. and there are a lot of issues where democracy and democratic values say we want the people at large to be setting the priorities and that's not what's happening in those cases. >> jonathan? >> i'm still a little confused here by how exactly, because we talk about this on the show all the time, about getting the money out. i understand it from dylan's perspective how he wants to get money out but when it comes to corporations and the premise of your book, how do we get

money -- get the corrupting influences of money out of government or at least to a point where government -- there is a balance between the business interests and the interests of the american people. >> at least to the point where you don't have regulatory capture so the existing institutions could do something. is there some sort of mitigating way to diminish that money making it transparent for instance. >> that is one way. i think the ways you typically talk about on the show are the right ways. there are a lot of countries in the world with federally financed elections that have shorter election periods that don't allow lobbying in the way we allow lobbying. those things end up corrupting the process. if those money interests are allowed to create super pacs and pick presidents they're going to pick supreme courts and you're going to get more citizens united decisions. >> right. >> you got to roll that back. >> i believe that the most challenging problem as difficult as dealing with our own internal politics are is the one that you found with rob which is that

there's this new phenomenon where a given company can be beholden to no nation because it operates without regulatory apparatus globally. we looked at walmart as a classic example. walmart does business in 27 different countries. if a given country doesn't want to do business with walmart or make some crazy rule for walmart the others would be okay. we just won't do business in our country. it doesn't affect our business. you have no power over us. how would you propose we even begin a conversation for global supervision of rule making for everything from the environment to capital requirements for derivatives, the sort of tools that are used globally but have variant regulation around the world which incentivizes factories in china because the pollution metrics are lower. it incentivizes no derivatives in certain countries, no swaps in certain countries because they're illegal in certain countries so you bring all the swaps to this country. how do you suggest we even begin to try to create uniformity in some of those global standards? >> well, there is a range of things you can do.

you can create global agreements among nations to set standards and enforce standards or actually create mechanisms, institutions that set those standards and enforce them. i think ultimately it's the latter. that's what we had within nation states but if you were a politician and running for office and you said, i want to see the little sovereignty to a global s.e.c. you'd be done. that's the third rail in politics. we've got to move beyond that. we've got to say the only way to actually preserve national sovereignty is to see the little bit -- cede a little bit upwards. if we don't we have no control over what is going on. >> so you have the illusion of control with no power if you keep it for yourself you may have more influence over the global architecture if you're willing to collaborate with other national leaders. >> countries are like, you know, those invisible fences that people have around their yards to keep their dogs in. >> yes. >> that's what borders are for countries. >> right. >> they can't go beyond it. they can't act outside of it. and we need mechanisms to protect our interests out

into -- project our interests out into that world. >> the human beings' interests of the earth. yours and mine. >> because if the derivative market blows up in europe. >> we pay. >> our lives are affected. exactly. >> it's rather outrageous. >> you know, you're right. >> the book is, "pow inc. "david rothkopf thank you for the time. i appreciate it. always a pleasure. like the pin stripes. the best joke of the afternoon. pat robertson. we all laughed. >> of course. >> and jonathan, managed to navigate the pat robertson segment with a plum, a bit of a compliment for the old man. thank you, john. after this, what storms on the sun mean for us here on earth. hey dad. see how the carrots i grow

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days do not blame your carrier. blame the big fire ball in the sky. we all like to call it the sun. two massive solar flares erupted yesterday on the sun. a busy day of storms in fact. both solar flares ranked as x class and no we are not talking about professor x and his mutants from the comics but x class the biggest most powerful flares that the sun is capable of unleashing. it put out a couple yesterday. so why should we care about the sun getting hot and bothered with the megaclass storm? well aside from the cool pictures we get to see, when the x class storms are aimed directly at the earth, they can endanger our astronauts, endanger our satellites in orbit. they are capable of disrupting our ground communications, even knocking out power grids. the good news on this one is that the scientists only expect we'll get a glancing blow. it is not a direct hit so to speak and so they say we're not really in any real danger of disruption which lets us enjoy this. the solar flares are expected to crank up the aurora light shows in both the northern and southern lights are supposed to be extra, extra special so the

sun's stormy days, the storm misses us and we get a natural star gazer's delight if you happen to be out there. after this forever at war back to our own terrestial issues. who our next guest says is actually truly to blame for a state of perpetual conflict. she says it is neither our lawmakers nor the taliban's fault. i'm al ways looking out for i'm al small ways to be more healthy. like splenda® essentials™ no calorie sweeteners. this bowl of strawberries is loaded with vitamin c. and now, b vitamins to boot. coffee doesn't have fiber. unless you want it to. splenda® essentials™ are the first and only line of sweeteners with a small boost of fiber, or antioxidants, or b vitamins in every packet. mmm. same great taste with an added "way to go, me" feeling. splenda® essentials™. get more out of what you put in. chocolate lemonade ? susie's lemonade... the movie.

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can you tell us how much longer the killing would have to coop tin? how many more have to die? 10,000 more? 20,000 more? how many more? >> can it happen today? can it happen now? no. it's going to take some work. it's going to take some time. but when we do it we'll do it right. >> back now breaking it down, in a senate hearing this morning, you just got a little clip, a heated back and forth there between the defense secretary leon panetta and former p.o.w. senator john mccain, the two gentlemen squaring off about the way forward in syria as the assad regime continues its brutal murder of its own people using its own military. from afghanistan to iraq to libya now potentially syria and even iran the saber rattling you'll hear, you could claim america is in a perpetual state of war. our next guest says that is exactly the case if you look empirically at the data.

she says even further that all of us share some of the blame for intervening to stop the state of perpetual war. our guest as law professor at the university of southern california, author of "war time, an idea, its history, and its consequences." there are sort of two parts that are connected. one is your assertion that we are indeed in a perpetual state of war and any thought of war as a temporary event is either a fantasy or political manipulation. can you elaborate? sure. my book takes up more tiwar tim concept. the idea of war time is doing a lot of work in american politics. as you saw in the previous segment war of words, sometimes words and concepts matter. what i do in the book is i look at ideas about time that are built into the way we think

about war. the way we think about history is history passes through two different kinds of time from war time to peace time to war time, etcetera. that's the way we learn about it in school. that's the way we imagine it. when we use the concept of war time, we assume that war time is by definition temporary because war time isn't our normal time. it's a rupture of the regular order of things that will go away once we go back to normal time which we call peace time. but one of the things that's interesting is if you sort of compare the kinds of war times that we often learn about in school with the u.s. military engagements that have happened over the past 100 years. what you see is there's just so much conflict across the time line so that what we see is that there aren't any breaks between different kinds of engagement, large and small. you know, here and there.

and so i think looking historically at the persistance of american military conflict helps us better understand what we seem to be facing now. >> right. so once we come to understand that the fantasy of our childhood education, which told us that the world lives in this peace time way and occasionally under acute circumstances we have to step up to the plate for war time in order to work together to win the war and after we work together to win the war we'll go back to peace time and we can enjoy that peace time. once you shatter that illusion by looking at the actual reality, which is that that is not how we function. it is not what our policy is, it is not how our budget works, how we operate our military, upon whom do you assign the responsibility for the willingness to accept or the oblivousness to this reality or however, whatever the -- everybody probably has a different explanation as to why it is but who do you hold responsible for the mission

creep if you will to drift into this acceptance of permanent war? >> well, i think that on some level we're all in this together and let me talk about three parts. our leadership, especially our presidents, but politicians generally, the media, including msnbc, and the american people. if you think of -- the american people know about war when they learn about it from the media and our political leaders. unless they're deployed, unless their family members are deployed, or unless they're contractors they are not in iraq and afghanistan. they learn about it from our leaders. and so when -- and post 9/11, the american people were encouraged essentially not to pay attention. what i mean by that, they were encouraged to go shopping, go on vacation, or the terrorists have

won. >> let me interrupt quickly. really the question is, right now 99% of us do not serve in any way, shape, or form in any relationship whatsoever with the wars that we love to talk about politically and kill them and get them and we feel tough and that means nothing and we send the same individuals five times, ten times over, over and over again into the theater of war in order to protect the american people from the experience we basically annihliate or really drive the penalty for war on to a small group of people. i just want to play a quick clip of an embedded reporter in afghanistan. we had the chance to interview him yesterday about this. >> afghanistan started with get bin laden, topple the taliban. those missions are complete. but every year there is a new mission. there is a term for it in the military called mission creep. what happens when a mission continually changes its objectives they call it mission creep. that's a problem because then

you never really know what you are fighting to do. >> is not mission creep the necessary prerequisite for perpetual war? >> yes. and let me just tell you the obama version of this. obama comes into office, having campaigned on ending two wars in iraq and afghanistan but that it morphs into a war on terror. he says we're at war with al qaeda. we've lost the limitation of countries and he's now formulated as a war without end. >> and it is only if we know what our missions are that we can then define their achievements and when we do not have missions then the door way opens for permanent war and it is upon the american people i presume to demand mission clarity to solve these things. i wish i had more time, professor. the book looks absolutely fascinating. "war time, an idea, its history, and its consequences." mary, dudziak. there you go. thank you. still ahead what became

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as you can see, our guest has prepared a rant for all of us. >> hello, dylan. slut, prostitute, elites, class warfare shall the war on women? seems that every year there is an ongoing arms race between the parties to come up with the most extreme and incendiary rhetoric. we all wonder at the breakdown in our political discourse. is it the politicians' fault? is systems' fault, or is it us? does our broken dialogue reflect who we are? i have a daughter ella who just turned 4 this weekend. sometimes my husband and i

wonder what impact my involvement in politics will have on her. she's been going to campaign rallies literally since she was inu inutero. is she going to grow up with some wwe sensibility? will she call her kick ball opponents sniffling cowards unworthy of the game? a few weeks ago i was having lunch with my little girl when the conversation about baby animals her favorite topic started to wind down, she looked at me very seriously and said, mama, i have something i'd like to talk to you about. i said, what would you like to talk about, sweetie? mitt romney was her answer. my god, what have i done, i thought? am i committing some sort of parental malpractice by working in politics and exposing my child to my work? two things happened to me this week while in the battleground state of ohio for super tuesday that have given me new hope that i haven't in fact ruined my daughter. it also has given me hope that the poison sewage of our politics doesn't actually reflect who we really are. america remains a fundamentally

decent and gracious nation. saturday was my daughter's birthday. we were in cleveland and as a special treat the tv studio miked her up and let her record a little video for her birthday. we let her talk for a while and then spontaneously my husband asked her what she thought of mitt romney. i cringed. what would she say? i'll play it for you now. >> what do you think of mitt romney? >> i think that mitt romney is nice. >> okay. so i'm not a total failure as a parent. on super tuesday morning i was in calcutta, ohio minutes from santorum's steubenville headquarters. i trudged to a local coffee shop with my family in tow to hear the partisan battle cries. gathered were a few groups of seniors enjoying morning coffee and breakfast. ella was immediately spotted by a group of older men. she is pretty adorable. what is your name, sweetie? ella she responded and chatted them up about breakfast and baby animals. all throughout breakfast i was busy tweeting about sluts,

prostitutes, rush limbaugh and potential war in iron. i listened with one ear while the restaurant patrons chatted while millions of dollars in negative ads bombed every available air wave. as we left the restaurant we overheard the older men who had chatted with ella doing their breakfast prayer hands class pleased. they couldn't see us. after they said thanks for their food they asked god to give my beautiful little girl a good life. someone they had just met. now that's america. all the rest of this is just theater. dylan? >> beautifully said. and wonderful story. >> thank you. >> thank you for sharing it. not just with me but with our audience and i think that's just a wonderful story. thank you very much. that's actually going to do it for us today. i hope you enjoyed the afternoon and i more importantly hope you'll stick around because i can look right across. i rarely get to do this because the man works in d.c. but i can see chris matthews' right