back to the big picture i'm tom hartman coming up in this half hour just hours after the attack in benghazi last week pundits proclaimed that all the muslim or over was to blame for the tragedy not just a few islamic radicals but they didn't say or even address is why those who committed the attacks hate america in the first place and incidents daily take that ronnie's off the cuff comments caught on tape are the latest proof that he and paul ryan are consumed by the selfish needs society preached by iran how can we stop the selfishness from taking over the white house and destroying our country.

in the best of the rest of the news anti-american protests in the middle east began to wane over the weekend ending a deadly and tragic week in the region but all of the violence doesn't mean the mainstream media is done giving its take on why our embassies were stormed and why ambassador chris stevens and three other american diplomats or murder yesterday newsweek put the words what is the rage front and center on the cover of this week's edition of the magazine igniting a firestorm of reaction from the social media universe also yesterday imus had b.c. conservative pundit joe scarborough argued that every muslim in the world hates the united states but you know why they hate us yet i talk to intelligence people all weekend they hate us because of their religion they hate us because of their culture and they hate us because of peer pressure if you gave every street vendor from street film. prime minister and that leaves you a chance to throw

a rock at the u.s. embassy they would so this is there and those who are busy casting a shadow on all of his long life scarboro are instead busy asking why islamic radicals hate america so much even after an airstrike killed eight innocent afghan women this weekend joining me now to discuss more on what the media is missing is jeff cohen founder of the of the media watch group fair and an associate professor of journalism at ithaca college he's also the author of the book cable news confidential jeff welcome to the program you're welcome back. thank you great to you're with you tom jeff what do you see as the core causes of muslim rage against the united states to the extent that it exists and then i want to get into to what extent does that exist but first of all let's start with that i mean let's face it the thousands and thousands of civilians have been killed in the so-called u.s. war on terror from iraq to afghanistan and we've propped up dictators

we've tortured all sorts of people from the muslim world many of them are innocent . if there was a real debate in the mainstream media in our country about us foreign policy the propping up of dictators the taking the oil the killing of civilians which is always buried when the us military kills civilians in iraq in afghanistan as they just did with all these women and bachmann province it's always a footnote but if we had that kind of coverage then meet maybe people would understand that one of the reason is that you know that that the segment of muslims that hate us it might have more to do with these policy issues than the fact that women in our country sometimes go to work or are women wear miniskirts and you know some of the debate in the mainstream media has become frankly absurd yeah it's become

a caricature of itself in many ways why do you think the media refuses to address the real reasons why some members of the muslim world are so upset with us i think that there is an elite the elite media are embedded with the military and foreign policy establishment you know we had this incident over the weekend and lockman province where eight women collecting fire were firewood were killed and seven more hospitalized all women collecting firewood it's happened repeatedly in afghanistan and it got covered big in england it's been covered around the world in our country it's a footnote and when it was covered in the new york times this recent killing of the civilians in the new york times the headline is karzai denounces coalition over air strikes and the focus of the article isn't that we killed all these innocent civilians the focus of the article is the acrimony between the karzai government

and the you know and his american benefactors how they don't yell you know what we need in this country is a full debate. in the media about the war on terror or about the fact that every time general mcchrystal admitted who used to run the afghan operation you kill one innocent civilian and you get ten enemies if we had three media focusing on the actual practice of the war on terror and the civilian deaths the torture of innocent people that might give us a bigger clue to why they hate us then miniskirts on american women why why is it that the american media i mean isn't that simple that there is that association with the military industrial complex that that the american media and if for example you're using the example of these eight afghan women who were killed last week totally innocent women out you know gathering would by a drone strike if if you know somebody from afghanistan to come to the united

states and killed eight women who were you know at a shopping mall or walking down the street or whatever maybe in the united states it would be so green in headlines across the united states across the world i mean you know it's and an army to completely ignore this story. largely ignored and we we would have heard in this scenario you're giving we would have heard all about the people that were killed all of their families we never hear about the afghan families you know these women these families that will now be deprived of their mothers are and you know what when they went to the governor's this is bachmann province in eastern afghanistan over the weekend they went to the governor's office third chance in death to america it's it's possible that these people didn't hate america prior to us killing them but i think what you have to understand it it's not just general coziness between the elite media in our country and the military in the foreign policy establishment in the end at the beginning of the invasion of

afghanistan memos were sent out by the bosses at c.n.n. to all of the anchors and the reporters to play down any civilian casualty and when those memos were leaked to the washington post walter isaacson who was the chair of c.n.n. was asked about these memos he'd written one of them and he said i think it would be perverts to focus too much on casualties or hardship in afghanistan it's a standout. it's where we're out of time but here is your point is so well made with the vet example jeff cohen thank you so much for joining us thank you. you know it is beyond the economy this presidential election will also be a debate over the social safety net a particular medicare and social security that became obvious when mitt romney picked paul ryan as his vice presidential nominee paul ryan you know the guy who wrote the republican budget that ends medicare as we know it ryan has repeatedly to plan and defended his plans for voucher izing medicare on the campaign trail

assuring republicans that this is a debate they want to have and a debate they will ultimately win but ryan's been a little less vocal about his plans to privatizing social security which was a major initiative by george w. . wish even though he ultimately failed when he tried it in two thousand and five back in two thousand and ten paul ryan wrote the republicans roadmap for america's future calling for social security to be handed off to wall street in the form of private retirement accounts president obama has been more than willing to hammer mitt romney and paul ryan over medicare he's been oddly quiet about social security and that maybe because he has his own skeletons in the closet when it comes to social security after all the president has thrown support behind the simpson bowles deficit reduction plans which call for cuts to social security so can progressive's who are trying to defend social security at all costs trust the president or the democratic party for that matter not take a knife to it here and so that is nancy allman co-director of social security works

in co-chair of the strengthen social security coalition and campaign she's also the author of the book the battle for social security from f.d.r.'s vision to bush's gamble ansi welcome thank you so much for having me you know that was a big gamble on george bush's part was well it's a double entendre because it would also be the gamble in the stock market oh yes two kinds of gamble and he lost badly in the back in ninety nine he had told his biographer mickey herskowitz that if he became president he was going to war in iraq to get enough political capital to privatise social security and he did it he tried and it didn't quite work so this is let's talk about some some bowles simpson bowles everybody. makes me crazy of the media when people talk about the simpson bowles commission recommendation there were no commission recommendations can you that was part of that a little bit there were co-chairs this was a commission that was set up by president obama and if they had was it was actually a take that if they if they were but if they had received those kind of supermajority their proposal would have gone to congress what they proposed for

social security was the overall budget deficit and of course we argued social security shouldn't be part of that because it doesn't add to the doubt but they they would have decimated social security and that's not hyperbolic to say that they really would have destroyed. over a number of you knows that is one of the reasons why jan schakowsky just b.c. he refused to vote for it the president and other leading democrats have very obliquely talked about praised the bowles simpson proposal after after the the whole larger suggestions imploded mr simpson mr bowles ok here's our unofficial suggestion that was that was that identical to the original proposal or was that different so it was identical yes so when people talk about some symbols they're actually talking about some symbols. and it's very destructive to social security and too many democrats have talked about a very fave now in the meantime the president has suggested just listed lifting the

cap on people with income over two hundred fifty thousand dollars for social security and people who make over one hundred ten thousand dollars pay zero and social security taxes on that income isn't that a repudiation of simpson bowles and should that encourage us yet well he said that before during the election two thousand and eight it would be very popular with the american people poll after poll shows that but something happens when people get to washington and there is a kind of and in an effort to compromise you have. a candidate romney as you showed earlier on the show talking about social security is kind of a government handout it's not it's an earned benefit those benefits should not be cut the democrats should be strong about saying no cuts but president obama has not yet drawn that line in the sand and that's what we're looking for that's fast and has this is an election year to yes and you would expect that he would particularly now that mitt romney is basically thrown i mean you know that forty seven percent half of them are senior citizens who are you know on the dole i guess that will be

in the social security money that they paid in for twenty thirty forty years. why does no bomb pick that up that's that's an easy one well has vice president president president biden said said i flat out guarantee we're not going to cut social security and we cheered and we would like to hear the president say that. we want to make sure that's the president to visit you like biden's gay marriage position could he be kind of leading the president in that you're hoping that's the case but immediately after that they again say oh we're not going to slash benefits and of course he said oh no you're not going to slash them at something i have them call it or we'd like them slightly don't cut them at all we're facing a retirement income crisis we should be talking about increasing social security because it works so well and it does work so well nancy thank you so much for being with us thanks so much for having closure and. coming up mitt romney doesn't care about forty seven percent of america and rest assured paul ryan feels the exact same way how can we restore america to the nation that our founding fathers envisioned a nation about the we society and not about the republicans me society i'll tell

you in tonight's daily. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hardy welcome to the big picture.

here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that you might call a. far left doesn't want the usa to defeat terrorism. to sell neighbor. the old liberal and the christian. want to hold. your beliefs about this but you know the corporate media distracts us from what you and i should care about because they're profit driven industry that sells a sensational stick garbage he calls it breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break the back. of.

our first comments and i come to mrs b.j. leave you post on the thom hartmann dot com message boards she had this take on oil companies and the tax breaks that they receive because the oil companies don't steal money either they don't even need the tax breaks they get why don't they voluntarily help the cash strapped schools since their future engineers are somewhere in those classes that used to be the social contract that we had in the united states we all knew you know people in business knew people in government knew the average voters knew that the next generation of engineers and scientists and you know was a big deal and we put a lot of money into our schools and we supported our teachers and we supported our

students there's a huge push back in one nine hundred fifty whatever to fifty seven and there was one spot it went up and i as an hour just started throwing money at education kennedy continued that it was until the vietnam war that we actually saw money for education contract. and then of course after that the after the once the reagan administration came in and put bill bennett in charge of the education department a guy who had run for president on the on the on the platform of ending the education department that we've seen now thirty years of the destruction of our education system our final comment the night comes from diane oh don here's what they had to say on the national debt who's going to take a bullet for reducing the debt let's see tax reform eliminate the mortgage deduction middle class rich complain eliminate the health insurance write off for businesses employees and employers complain raise capital gains upper income tax rates the rich complain they have the influence to fight it cut defense spending defense contractors claim loss of jobs cut government spending government employees complain about job loss cut in title months recipients complain initiate automatic

cuts by sequence duration claims of recession so tell me who is white willing to bite the bullet well first of all there are places in our government where we could cut and save money the biggest and most obvious is the defense department whose dudgeon has tripled since one thousand nine hundred ninety eight tripled so you know we're winding down our wars we could cut that but one of the things that you didn't mention is how about do a bill clinton did and raising taxes on rich people he raised just three percent i mean we're not even talking about undoing the reagan tax cuts reagan took it from seventy four percent down to twenty eight percent that's what i would like to see i'd like to see our top tax rate our top marginal tax rate back up to seventy four percent but you know obama's just trying to take it back up to thirty eight percent thirty nine percent like it was under clinton and that produced a balanced budget let's talk about that.

crazy alert with age comes experience of these two have a lot of it say hello to identical twins martine and louise foka at seventy years old they are the oldest prostitutes in amsterdam referred to as the oldest window girls in amsterdam the two have nearly a century of combined prostitution experience or no words they've been giving them their jollies for a very very very long time and to first start in the red light district decades ago they specialize in threesomes something that's fairly uncommon for that time and there was a huge hit with the men but we recently retired from being a window girl due to arthritis telling a british reporter that she could no longer do the sexual positions however martine is still going strong and enjoying the fame that comes with being the oldest sex worker in amsterdam and she has no plans to retire and time soon so next time you go to amsterdam and take a stroll through the famed red light district maybe you'll have

a chance to meet the fockers. by mitt romney tells a roomful of multi-millionaires that half of the nation forty seven percent away think of themselves as victims that they can't take responsibility for themselves and that his job as president isn't to worry about them i'm reminded of this woman . it was iran who popularized the idea that the weak and the poor are moochers takers who should be cared for this idea that mitt romney seems to be embracing her she was talking about it in one thousand and fifty nine to mike wallace. every important leader in man's history has told us that we should love one another why is this kind of love in your mind it borrow it is the moral it is

our place about one and then if a man is weak or a woman is weak then she is beyond he is beyond love he said he does not deserve it he said needs be young and there are very few of us spent in this world by your standards so while group b. of law unfortunately yes they feel that was fifty three years ago back when i honor and her philosophy of selfishness was considered the far right crazy french. people at william f. buckley said that she's knots today however iran is represented in absentia on the republican ticket today mitt romney subscribes to her philosophy both in closed door meetings with millionaires and billionaires and out the open on the campaign trail as does romney's running mate paul ryan in iran more than anyone else this fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism the morality of

individuals and so if we're here today i think she would do a great job in showing us just how wrong what government is doing is because it's that kind of thinking that kind of writing that is sorely needed right now. so the question is how in the last half century as i honor and destructive philosophy migrated from the fringes to now being a core value in the republican party's presidential ticket the answer is pretty straightforward it's what john kenneth galbraith famously said about two generations ago the modern conservatism gauged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. iran's message attacking the poor very seductive to rich people who want to believe that they got there on their own they know that if a government is focused on helping the poor focused on distributing wealth more evenly to everyone and that means less money for the top one percent

a strong social safety net free healthcare free education housing assistance all those things require the government to spend money which means that the collect taxes which means the wealthiest among us those who can afford it are going to pay more in taxes it's hollow our economy was organized in the days of abraham lincoln the first president to impose a progressive national income tax all the way through the one nine hundred eighty s. when america boomed in the middle class thrived but despite the good times the corporate elite are unhappy they saw a bigger and bigger share of the pie going to the middle class rather than to their own already fat swiss bank accounts not only that a comfortable middle class can get rowdy and demand even more from the elites like civil rights for all better working conditions peace instead of war to the corporate elite that era of the sixty's to the eighty's that was a disaster so when a second rate novelist began talking about how the poor don't deserve care from the

rest of us and that the rich should never be asked to sacrifice a penny for the well being of others romney's very rich buddies and their parents found exactly what they needed that's a period superior moral justification for selfishness the only thing they had to do is get the american people to buy into this fringe philosophy of selfishness and that's what they set about to do. first there were those who knew exactly what they were doing people like billionaire fred koch the koch brothers dead fred koch was tired of seeing his money distributed to the poor surround the same time and rand was pushing her philosophy koch founded the john birch society it was an organization devoted to free markets and limited government code words for rolling back protections for the poor john birch society opposed any attempts to redistribute wealth to working americans through higher taxes or social safety net programs and called things like social security and unemployment insurance forms of communism it opposed any sort of economic help by the government it opposed the

civil rights act it opposed virtually everything in franklin roosevelt's new deal it worked to translate iran's rand's philosophy into legislation that would transform america and undo the new deal for ed koch's sons david and charles would carry this mantle forward with david even running for vice president of the united states on the libertarian ticket back in one thousand nine hundred they also went on to fund similar think tanks like the david koch foundation later renamed the cato institute also devoted to libertarian government and maybe societies where the poor and working class are left to fend for themselves in one nine hundred seventy one the us chamber of commerce and corporate america got into the game that here lewis powell. those palm supreme court justices wrote actually this is a few months before he was appointed supreme court he wrote a memo to him his best friend next door neighbor the president of the u.s. chamber of commerce suggesting the businesses should start investing more money in

political lobbying in college curricula and in media to push a pro corporate agenda powell likely had no idea how influential his memo would become and the damage to america it would cause but his her gene corporate america went to work funding think tanks buying up the media and hiring sympathetic college professors to teach the values of the corporate run so-called free market. by the time i ran died in one thousand nine hundred two ironically on social security and be cared for with medicare for because of a lung cancer corporate elite had succeeded in injecting or a rationalization for selfishness into modern day conservatism and with ronald reagan in the white house it was time to start making things happen what followed were massive tax cuts for the rich deregulation for corporations a tax on labor unions and the shredding of the social safety net reagan succeeded

because he hid his agenda of attacking the poor and working class with patriotic rhetoric and promise to all americans that you know one day the rich even though i knew full well that the corporate elites ideal economic system depended on a vast class of the working poor but his message was embraced by the corporate media and future presidents carried forward was bill clinton newt gingrich who ended welfare as we know it in one thousand nine hundred six and president george w. bush tried to push it even further telling his biographer in one thousand nine nine hundred. that he planned to invade iraq if he became president to get enough political capital privatized social security to keep pillar of the new deal he succeeded in invading iraq but that privatizing social security although he did try in two thousand and five right after the election which brings us to today and mitt romney trying to finish the job that i and rand started to mitt romney is the culmination of this several decades long effort to remake america into

a i and rand libertarian paradise he's pushing an economic theory that's been tried for thirty two years now and has been proven to only cause misery for ninety nine percent of americans on rich in the top one percent mitt romney didn't make a gaffe when he said his job isn't to worry about forty seven percent of americans he was simply speaking to a core value of today's republican party a value traced back to iran promoted by the coax legitimized by billions of dollars in funding for corporate think tanks and universities and executed by bought off politicians like paul ryan. but the fact that there's outrage in response to his comments proves that americans are waking up to this scam let's hope it continues iran's superior moral justification for selfishness now carried as a banner by mitt romney and paul ryan must be called out and rejected whenever it's

heard and wherever it's the only way we can restore the we society our founders envisioned the works for all of we the people and not just the top one percent and that's the way it is the nights of temper eighteenth two thousand and twelve for more information check out our websites of thom hartmann dot com and free speech dot com and hulu dot com slash the big picture and don't forget democracy begins with you get out there get active take your. stories. like.

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