tv The Dylan Ratigan Show MSNBC May 16, 2012 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT
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sn and as such, hope have you a wonderful afternoon. we will kick things off right now. good afternoon to you from los angeles. i am dylan ratigan, we are out west this week working to ramp up the defense energy product, a concept helping veterans returning from our wars, wars often fought over foreign oil. and california, as you may know, has more war veterans than any state in america and leads america in clean enertechnology. the process helps solve serious problems. last night we sat in on the vet ren entrepreneurship class, who paired vets up with jobs, focused on energy efficiency, renewable energy and other startups. they hope to roll out the
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project on military bases. the first perhaps being km. pendleton, starting to solve the energy crisis, create be jobs for veterans and provide a better environment for military families living there. talk about a few birds with one stone. perhaps the most famous icon of the families back at home. rosey the riveter, representing women who worked in factories during world war ii. we caught up with one of the original rosees at keeping the promises after veteran. working to create something of value by seizing our ability to interact constructively in our own communities. that, of course, the goal we set out to achieve with 30 million jobs. and today a progress report, and what more we need to do and learn in order to get closer to our goal. david is back with us today. his firm has been helping us crunch the numbers. david, where do we stand today?
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>> we stand today where you say we have been standing all along. between now and 2025 we need to create 30 million jobs for people unemployed, underemployed or out of work force. the problem is there are a bunch of people out there trying to lower the bar a little bit. >> what do you mean? >> the burebureau of labor stat saying maybe we only need 23.5 million because they use inflated numbers for people going into retirement, store example. and actually people are going into retirement later. or immigration numbers, staying low. but when the economy recovers, immigration numbers will come back up. or young people entering the work force later. but when the economy get better, they will enter the work force earlier. kind of like setting ourselves up for grade inflation on this 30 million jobs thing. and actually, we're not getting
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much closer to where we need to be. >> if you were the wizard of oz or whoever is in charge of everything in fantasy land, what would be the debate right now? >> how do we create big chunks of jobs. because we need big chunks of jobs. for example, we haven't yet had a serious discussion in out about the difference between spending and investing. but as you know, if we invest in infrastructure which we haven't done for 50 years in this country, we can create millions and millions of jobs and right now the cost of money is essentially free. other thing to do for example on the energy front is instead of focusing on what congress will pass because they're not going to pass anything, have the executive branch focus on how they can excel rate project like pipe lines and approvals for power plants. just by accelerating projects up four or five years we can pick up 4, 5, 6 million jobs over the course of the next decade. >> if you look at issues, energy
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issue for instance, manufacturing issue, the infrastructure issue, these are not just job issue use, these are national security issues, are they not? >> absolutely. the weaker we get, less money with tax bait, less money to spend on defense, more vulnerable we are overseas. the system itself, begins to slow down. we turn inward. rest of the world becomes a more dangerous place. so this is national security, economic security, all rolled into the same thing. >> if you look at the current political debate and are forced to engage with what exists and not in what you wish existed, where would you even begin to approach the current apparatus and what would you lobby for? >> well, i would approach in current debate, i would approach the political candidate for each party because for the next seven, eight months, this is what the discussion is going to be about. washington, the rest of it, the
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building behind me, that's essentially shut down with the exception of this threat the other day from boehner that he will have a showdown on the debt ceiling and you know, have financial market running scared for us -- from us at some point later this year. but the candidate themselves, you know, aught to be out there, laying out a vision for how we recreate, revitalize, reenergize the u.s. economy. there are basic building blocks, a new energy paradigm. energy self sufficiency for the united states, which is also national security issue as well as economic issue. that is around the corner for us. rebuilding our manufacturing base. rebuilding infrastructure. with three-part plan, one of these guys could launch himself out from the political masses because none of them are there yet. >> if you were to looking with just in the past couple of days, with. returning marine corps veterans, navy veterans and others, air
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force, army, out here, they are remarkably enthusiastic, anecdotely. remarkably aware of the national security opportunity. in fact, i had a number of marines say to me i want to be involved for my entire life with perpetuating and creating security for america and that's not a matter of war, that is a matter of energy security. that's a matter of food security. that's a matter of high integrity culture, of rule making and of governance. do you get the sense that anybody is really willing to stop -- is willing to ask these veterans what they want which is to -- to engage in a high level as opposed to a low level? >> i don't know whether they are or not. they certainly aught to be, the veterans are coming back, experienced, people we can put to work for us now. and they do understand the cost of not engaging on these issues. you know, this is something that's been -- the need to do this has been apparent for 50 or 60 years.
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when george wrote the long pell gram that began the cold war. he concluded by saying that the secret to america's success against the soviet union is strength at home. focusing on our economy at home. we have known this stuff far long time and yet for the past ten years we 1r neglected it, watched jobs fall off, watched inequality grow. watched social mobility fall and had a clown show in washington. food fight between both parties instead of addressing the low hanging fruit. look at today's usa today. there's a story on the cover of usa today saying america can be energy independent. that's a view by big banks, big energy companies. that's a miracle. that would be something anybody would have run towards and embraced over the course of the past couple of decades and we can't seem to get our heads around putting our money into investing in infrastructure. hiring veterans, hiring others. making this all happen. but you know, there are miracles going on. i think yesterday north dakota
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passed alaska to be the biggest oil producer in the u.s. after texas. which is a sea change economically. >> when you get out of new york and washington, it is much easier to become inspired because you meet and see, whether north dakota or down in san diego or texas, you see people are actually working to achieve these things despite new york and washington as opposed to because of new york and washington. you tend to see the debate in washington revolve around tax cuts, tax cut, tax cuts or tax hikes, tax hikes, tax hikes. how do we get stuck on tax cuts versus tax hikes. and how much is that preventing us from being able to have the other conversations about direct spending, about loan guarantee, about infrastructure bank. >> well when you get into the four legs good, two legs bad and one side is blaming everything on wall street, you won't have a productive conversation at all. we need to change our tax code.
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but that doesn't mean just cuts. it means reforms. it means simplification. it means making it easier for people to invest. we need to spend less in areas both like defense and entitlements and understand the difference between spending and investing so we can put the money into the big projects that will bear the big return. fortunately for us, wall street and new york have always ridden on the back of efforts of the rest of the country. and just as in europe last week with you saw that frozen politicians are being kick need action by votes in france and votes in germany and greece. it is up to american voters over the course this year to show that they are up to sending a message to leaders as much as it is easier for us to blame these guys and the building behind me or people who are going to be spending billions on annoying personal campaign ads as opposed to focusing on the real issues like you are doing on the show. >> it is on us. the nice thing is, there is no shortage of us. just a matter of organizing
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ourselves in our own communities and communicating. david, thank you for being not only a teacher an analyst but somebody who helps to find the path forward. we appreciate that. david rothkopf, thank you. live out of l.a., grab yourself from popcorn my friend, it is shaping up to be a summer of sequels. that's right. the fake debt ceiling debate is back. plus, a real action star. from fighting on the battlefield himself to starring in the new blockbuster out this weekend, "battleship", colonel greg gadson is our guest. and the space station is a go. we are just getting started on a beautiful afternoon. [ female announcer ] e-trade was founded on the simple belief
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>> you don't need proof when i have instinct. i ignored it before, but no more. >> you lost your [ bleep ] mind. >> you're making a terrible mistake. i'm not going to let you make it. >> come on, guys. nobody wants this. we're supposed to be [ bleep ] professionals. >> well, a summer sequel that's hard it watch, but coming yes it a political theater near you. "debt" showdown 27. election edition. >> the president made clear as i just said, that we're not going to recreate the debt ceiling debacle of last august.
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>> even though it is election season, even though understand gridlock, even though there's partisanship, take some actions right now that would really make a difference. >> when the time comes, i will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than debt limit increase. this is the only avenue i see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance. >> the mega panel with their popcorn ready. rob cox, i'm told, is wearing a stanley cup beard. i didn't realize that facial hair and hockey had such an association, robert. a quick survey of the panel, does anybody on the panel think we're going to end up in a situation anything like what we saw last year, starting with you, rob? >> yes, we will. a bit worse because we are going to be going into it probably around the end of the year. we are going to have a lame duck
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congress. potentially a change in the white house. who the heck knows, and also other things happening at the end of the year or beginning of the year like the end of the bush tax cuts that will complicate the whole debate. >> jonathan? >> i agree with rob. after being here in this town during the last debt ceiling craziness, i have to agree with rob 100%. >> and imogen? >> well, obviously, i agree. i'm in britain at the moment. i'm finding it all quite extraordinary that the speaker came out today saying he welcomed showdowns basically. america doesn't need the theatrics. they need people to get the job done. it is quite incredible, dylan. >> yeah. the interesting thing also when you look at the actual deficit, you look at its explosion, so much of it was caused by the collapse in revenue after the financial crisis. the spike in unemployment. the collapse in housing prices.
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so while spending has been increasing without question and is out of control by many measures and many categories, it is disingenuous to suggest that our debt problem is merely a spending problem when there has been a massive collapse in revenue that is directly tied to the consequences of the financial crisis in 2008. and jonathan, i never understood, i still don't understand politically why the revenue collapse that really exposed how expensive our country is to run is never even part of the debate. >> well, because the republicans don't want it to be. >> what about the democrats? >> well, i mean, the democrats will talk about it. but there is something else you have it add on top of the revenue collapse. and that's costs that were born by the country that people didn't pay attention to. such as the bush tax cuts. which are a huge chunk of that, i think you showed $16 trillion pz. >> yeah. >> then on top of that,
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president obama did something that bush never did with the wars of iraq and afghanistan. obama in february 2009 put both of those wars on the books. that also added to the deficit. >> rob, the politics of revenue and the absence of a growth strategy as a component, i'm all in for a debt cutting and cost savings and there's a lot of ways for fraud, abuse, misallocation all day. i have been confused since 2008 about the absence of a growth strategy. >> there isn't one. but there is a very simple one if you think about it, which is to remove, as imogen was just referring to, the markets of consumers over ceos, over normal people, that they don't know what will happen at the end of the year. we have so many uncertainties. the fiscal cliff that people talk about tp. if you were to solve it alone, i animal inthe uplift.
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it might be the greatest growth strategy. >> right. >> but you don't solve it by saying we will deal with one little knit picky part here on spending and use this normal process of governing to hold everybody ransom. you have to have a grand bargain. >> yeah, no question. man who would love a grand bargain is buddy, didn't get enough signatures. in fact, nobody did while buddy was by far the lead candidate on americans elect. ultimately americans elect at this point appears to be a noncandidate platform. you do wonder though, jonathan, whether it's buddy roemer or a third party candidate and if what you are saying bears to fruition, whether buddy roemer or not, only continues to increase between now and laborer day, let's say. >> it could increase. i don't know if it will be enough for someone to compete against barack obama and mitt romney in the november election.
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and it could be the situation where we hit that fiscal cliff in january 2013 and that where -- that is when the rage of the american people, at the dysfunction in this city and inaction in this city will boil over to the point where someone other than a democrat or republican can break through and bring about the ideas that people say they want to solve the country's problems. >> yeah. it sim possible to answer the questions but i will ask you anyway imogen and rob. when you look at the inability for something like americans, like spending $35 million, lots of marketing, all the rest of it, to secure a candidate in their parameters or fine parameters, how much of that is a function of the lack of an appetite for these particular candidates. how much is a function or lack after third party and how much it is just that mechanics at this point haven't been worked out to do it?
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rob, what do you think? >> well, if we were in the same room would you kick me. because as much as i love buddy roemer, i would have thought it is better to focus on the congressional elections where the insidious influence of money is so much greater and where he and 35 million bucks they are spending on the presidential election or they have raised for this could be used for so much, to counteract all that awful money going around in counter elections. i would have thought that would be a better thing to do. once have you a grass roots movement of third party movements and hundreds around the country, then you will have the appetite at the level you are talking about. >> but starting congress is your advice to the management. imogen, your thoughts? >> it is a start. we're about to have the worst election that money can buy. we will have that fiscal cliff that jonathan was just talking about. so i think at that moment a third party can really happen. we have seen a third party can date, with a game changer. we saw it with pe row in 1992
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and he helped clinton to a certain extent. it didn't happen this time around but 2016, who knows. >> all right. straight aheading with mega panel. we talked about problems but our next specialist has one very significant solution. right after this. [ male announcer ] if you think tylenol is the pain reliever orthopedic doctors recommend most for arthritis pain, think again. and take aleve. it's the one doctors recommend most for arthritis pain.
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i'm like, what is this, a drainpipe slipknot? wherever your business takes you, nobody keeps you on the road like progressive commercial auto. [ flo speaking japanese ] [ shouting in japanese ] we work wherever you work. now, that's progressive. call or click today. country, we have found america has an overwhelming appetite for new impactful ways to influence our collective fate and seize a culture of visibility and integrity to create choice and ultimately solve our problems and that is exactly how basically every problem on the list can be addressed. two words describe it. collective collaboration. it's the idea behind today's specialist, undercover economist
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and tim harper is a columnist for the new york times and his book "adapt ", is now out on paper bark. tim, the most absent component is a culture, a culture that says it is okay to fail, a culture that says here is how you adapt, a culture that says this is how you collaborate, this is how we find each other. which cultures would you point all of us to that do this the best? >> i look at successful institutions, successful organizations. they're not organizations that don't make mistakes. they are organizations that are very, very good at fixing the mistakes when they occur. i mean, fun example is a serious example but interesting to contemplate. pixar make all these wonderful movies. in p ai xar, the whole process of making a movie is one long feedback session. where people are saying, well, you know, we need to improve
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that, improve that, improve that. and they've developed a culture where they can correct each other's mistakes and admit to mistakes and move on. that a sort of trivial example because of course, it is all just you know, toy story and toy story 2. but i think that far more important institutions, whether we are talking about the u.s. army, congress, the european union. we need to learn from this ability to fix our own errors. too often we have the assumption that we won't make any. that assumption is always proved wrong. >> imogen? >> well, hello, another british voice, overloading now with brits. you talk in your book about iraq and success and failure there. i'm wondering if you could expand on that for us now. >> absolutely. it would have been -- let's
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leave the decision to go into iraq. i think everyone has strong viewes about that. what interests me about the situation in iraq was you add large organization, professional organization, very brave men and women, trying to do the job that they had been given. and they had been given a strategy that wasn't working. and i was fascinate had by the process of actually figuring out the strategy wasn't working and trying to do something about it. and that change didn't come from the top. didn't come from donald rumsfeld or from the senior generals. it came from middle managers. people further down the organizational hierarchy. who were incredibly brave, took risks with their lives but also to their careers which i think for soldiers perhaps a harder thing to do. to actually almost launch an internal rebellion inside the u.s. army and say, we can do it differently. and these new ideas, this is where we are talking now 2006,
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2007, 2008, they didn't spread by going to the top. they spread horizontally. colonels, majors, they knew they could save lives if they learned what was working. so they are very keen to learn from each other, even from a while, the top brass wasn't interested in all in what was being done. >> jonathan? >> tim, listening to what you are saying, i'm trying to figure out how this adapting and admitting failure and correcting failure, how that would apply here. in washington. and to admit failure requires, you know, strength of character but also a bid of courage. how would you advise, if you had 535 members of congress on a couch before you, how would you advise them to, one, admit failure, and two, go about making the decisions to change what's failing?
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yeah, it is a really important question. i think one thing i would love to see members of congress do is to admit uncertainty before they act. it is tough to admit that you failed. it is easier to say, we've got ideas for saying improving education or prisoner reform or whatever it is. we've got ideas. but we can't guarantee those ideas will work so we will republican pilots, run randomized control trials, the same way drugs are tried out. can you run a randomized control trial. we will try the new ideas out. and if they work we will use them and apply them more widely. if they don't work, we will stop. and there's no shame in that. i think part of this culture of admitting failure is admitting you don't know ahead of time. but it is tremendously difficult to do. the very polarized culture and
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politics in general where people are just encouraged to offer very simple solutions with certainty and they know those are the kind of people we vote for. so we voters sometimes have get the politicians we deserve p f we don't allow them to admit hugh humanity. >> it is like catholicism without hell or something like that. last week j.p. morgan comes out and says they lost $2 billion trading in credit default swaps of some sort in london. jamie dimon, ceo, comes out and says, we screwed up. a big mistake. failure. we will learn from it. should we say, okay, jamie, we are all happy. if you walk around wall street or washington, there's a lot of people for blood or retribution or changing leadership of the
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bank. let's think of this in that context. >> sure. i think that the broader context, i think that in itself is not significant. what is significant is that this money was lost by a part of the bank that was supposed to be hedging risks. saving the bank from making, you know, from losing money. it is supposed to be really safe. it is not easy to see how they lost $2 billion. the broader context is the volcker rule and other in world, the vicker's report, they are trying to make the banking system safer by making it more modular. by saying, look, parts of the banking system may fail but we can't allow the failure of a single part it bring down the whole. and of course j.p. morgan chase was campaigning vigorously against the volcker rule and i think that demonstrated why it is such a good idea in the first
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place. >> the book is called "adapt." the author, the man you hear speaking. tim harper. check him in the financial times. there's the book out on paper back. thank to the mega panel. he invite all of you to join us at 92nd street y in new york at 8:15. russell simmons with the topic, you guessed it, collective collaboration it fix america's problems. head to dylan ratigan.com for more details. also the y has a variety of information. as a prime example of experimentation before us, long-awaited space exhibition finally set to blast off. details, next. [ male announcer ] this was how my day began.
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with nasa's government funded shuttle need grounded, a successful private mission could offer new partnering opportunities. the bad news, the dragon cannot yet handle human passengers like for instance your friendly afternoon msnbc tv host. which makes me believe my best bet is still with branson. next, our assignment here in california. reinforming the potential of our returning vets and the need for national security after the war. and after the break we'll meet one wounded warrior, even aliens don't want it mess with. with the spark cash card from capital one, olaf's pizza palace gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! pizza!!!!! [ garth ] olaf's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! put it on my spark card! [ high-pitched ] nice doin' business with you! [ garth ] why settle for less?
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it has more of seven antioxidants to support cell health. that's one a day men's 50+ healthy advantage. from the battlefield to "battleship," the movie. colonel greg gadson taking it to the aliens in a summer blockbuster, based on the old school board game and produced by nbc sister company universal pictures. wounded warrior turned actor with 20 years military service.
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he lost both legs to an ied in iraq. can you see him in action this friday on the big screen when "battleship" opens nationwide. colonel greg gadson joins us from back in new york. how did you end up in the movie business, colonel? >> it is really pretty simple. got a call from peterburg in april 2010, and he explained to me what the proj waekts about and asked me if i was willing to be in his movie. and i said, sure. little context through that, is peteburg is, you know, a new yorker and big giant fan. so he had been following my story and my relationship with the giant. and then, in early 2010 i was a small part of an article that national geographic did on advancements in prosthetics and it featured a photo of me and i think that's where pete got the inspiration to cast me in the
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movie. >> in the military, you served in literally every major global conflict over the past two decades. kuwait, bosnia, afghanistan, and iraq. what do you understand when you bring that back to your domestic live in america about our national security that we need to understand better because we simply don't have your perspective? >> well, every time on every deployment, you are really humbled and blessed by what we have in america, freedoms that we have to do the things that we want to do and live a life without worrying about, you know, some government infringing on your life or having the road blow up under you. it is -- i'm glad americans don't have to worry about that. i just feel really rich from seeing how bad the world can be and really just gives me so much
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more depth and understanding than what we have here in our country. >> i think all of us, could appreciate the need for a bit more gratitude for what we do vb, myself included, in the context after conversation about the problems we are trying to solve. give us a sense of the wounded warrior project. what you are doing. what you would like to be doing that you need more resources to do. it's not the wounded warrior project, it is wounded warrior program. wounded warrior project is a veteran administration and very good one, but the wounded war yar program assists the severely injured and ill. we recognize there is significant challenges for those who are dealing with significant injuries and we want to make sure whether they decide it stay in the military like myself o transition to veteran status that they land on their feet and they are getting all the help
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that they need. and if you were to look, i will say, in keeping the promise benefit on monday night and i met another marine, young man whoed he had been through 53 years after an ied attack. and probably not unfortunately that dissimilar it your own. why and how are we paying for and how are we dealing with the trauma of all of this care after the fact? who is paying for it? and is there enough money to take care of the people that we really need to take care of first? >> i'm confident that our military medical system is doing a wonderful job. you're right, look at it from my perspective at the macro level. we are there not only saving lives of some of the sickest ill and wounded people in the world, but they are really giving you a chance to survive and have a
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meaningful life and quality of life that allows you to go after and pursue your dreams and not just, you know, not just live but live a quality of life. that's really exceptional. and you know, i'm living proof of that. >> now let's get to serious stuff, colonel. did you do any scenes with rihanna? >> i'm in one scene with rihanna. i won't -- i won't -- it's a very short scene. we are on stage together, and being recognized. so i will just leave it that. i want you to see the movie. >> and what about brooklyn decker? >> brooklyn, i spend probably 99% of my time in the movie with brooklyn. we really got to become great friends and still stay in touch. besides, the obvious beautiful woman that she is, she is really a kind and mature woman, and it
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was really neat working with her. >> if you were to look -- is it true that 3,000 veterans worked on this film? >> i'm not sure if it's 3,000 veterans. i know that active duties, sailors, worked on this film as well as some korean and vietnam veterans that served along the battleship missouri. >> and let's finish up here, how much of a star of the show is the actual battleship, which as you mentioned, the uss missouri, which is out of commission, that is the battleship from which you fight the aliens, i presume. >> we eventually get there. it is again, without ruling the story, we eventually get there and it does play a profound role in our ability to fight the alien force. >> so i was a big fan of battleship, the game, at like
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summer camps when i was ten. and i'm interested, how similar is the battleship, the movie that you've made to the game that many of us remember playing. >> there is a very great scene between nigada, japanese captain, and hopper, played by taylor, that will definitely remind you of the game battleship and how we played it. >> wonderful. >> colonel, congrats on the release of the film and your contribution to it. and most importantly, thank you for your ongoing leadership in this country to remind all of us just how strong we can be and are as a country, and how grateful we aught be and can be considering the difficulties that are experienced around the world.
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gay people cause hurricanes, remember. >> this is about politics, not principle. >> this is about getting re-elected. >> from a political standpoint, it smells bad. >> this is about politics and money. >> and this is the true measure of how far we've come as a nation. in like five years, the prime talking point from republicans about people who support gay marriage has gone from, it will destroy society to oh, of course you're for it. you'll say anything popular to get re-elected. and that is progress. >> oh, jon stewart with a brilliant take on the president's recent support for same-sex marriage. now ari has his crack at it. the floor is yours. >> thanks, dylan. a lot of people say president obama endorsed gay marriage for political reasons. like that's a bad thing. but i do think that if you look at obama's shift on gay rights, as a craven political move for election year politics, that
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would be great news. now let me explain why. but first, let's look at some nones and the context. yesterday the new york times reported that 67% of people surveyed thought obama changed his position mostly for political reasons. as you all ne the political class is obsessed over the same question. was obama really moved by his daughter or gay friend or his faith? and of course the president did invite this kind of discussion by emphasizing his personal evolution. but i think focusing on politicians personaleelings here really misses the point. republicans like dick cheney and ken melman famously reversed this opposition to marriage equality. so did the president who literally signed the 1996 defensive marriage act into law, bill clinton. this year, he was busy campaigning against amendment 1 in north carolina. now in both parties politicians are able to take these positions because public opinion changed. the graph you see on the screen says it all. opposition has fallen from about
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70% in '6 when clinton signed the law. this is not about obama, it is about us. increasingly open to marriage equality because we have been listening and learning from our friend from pop culture and strides 345i made by the gay rights community. i don't think the president's personal narrative will be remembered. america was ready for this to be put in the center after major political party in fact a position that none of the pred shl candidate held just last cycle will now be in the party platform. yet in american politics we have this mythology about courageous politicianes who will do the right thing against their political interests and sometimes that might be nice but stnt even more encouraging when doing the right thing has just become good politics? dylan? >> i certainly agree to the argument that you're making ari, which is that poll tiliticians
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respond together electorate, which is not necessary aa bad thing, your point. how big after lag do you think there is between our politicians, in other word, america would say break up the banks. america would say, you know, ep gauge the military and national security issues around energy independence and food security, not on randomized war mongering around the world. i'm interested in what the think the gap is. is there an 18-year gap. are we 18 more years until we break up the banks? >> great point. as you and i have discussed on the show, dylan, we have areas with 80/20 or 90/10 political positions and they still pub public opinion. i think there is also a an action gap. what i mean by that is when symbolism is what we are looking for and it matters in kul tier
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and discrimination and equality, it is easier for politicians to wake up, as i said, bill clinton did ten years later that people want this and to do some symbolic measures towards equality. that is in a sense easier and faster than more structural reform. but i don't think it means less important. i just think when you look at equality issues, symbolism playes a larger role. >> how much do you believe the connectivity, community connectivity, the networking, if you will, of our own country is increasingly a political currency that will force more and more politicians to become more responsive faster? >> well, i mean, you hit it. there are so many stories about people in positions of power. supreme court justices who said they never met a gay american when in fact they had clerks who were gay but closeted because of the culture and because of the pressure we're in. now we live in a world where you can be an organ donor and put it
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on facebook. can you be gay and put it on twitter. i do think that matters a lot. we have a connected culture an communicative culture. while there are many short cummings, we are in an area that is exciting because this is pushing politicians way past what they were prepared to do even three years ago. >> i love it. thank you, ari. >> thank, dylan. >> mel ber's minute. but i think those are four or five minutes. which i think are good ones. we have to reflaname the segmen. well see ari later. thank you for invefrting your time with us. i'm dylan ratigan and "hardball" with chris matthews is up now. >> even destruction, lets play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris
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