dr. eric dyson, sociology professor.ked the question -- are we in the midst of a moment or a movement? >> i hope it's a movement, i hope it will ignite a greater degree, whether it's voter i.d., whether it's racial profiling and sometimes unfair police tactics. all the way across the board. we are up against a right wing resurgence in this nation. we have got to recognize that there's an element there that wants to repeal the 20th century, turn the nation back to the 1890s and i think we have a duty and a responsibility to educate and inspire and motivate people to push back and resist this yesterday vision of america and i think we have to replace it with a future vision. >> do we have the strength, dr. dyson, though to turn into a full fledged movement? we have seen troy davis, tooky williams, we have seen black people executed by the state without a full-fledged response. is this a different time? >> well, i think it is the potential to be as the mayor just indicated. the moment is luminous, but the movement has to be

dr. dysonrself. and is the strategy with 9-9-9, $2.50, is to try to have things simple, thinking it will stick in someone's mind and brain, that you've really come up with a formula they can remember, even though it absolutely has no connection to any sound policy? >> no sound policy at all, reverend sharpton. and as miss finney said, i'm glad to see the president indulge in some rhetorical luxury there, to really spurn the advances of the darned gop. what does that sound for? giving oil to people? well, they don't have any to give. the only reality is that the only gas in the room is the gas they're leaking from the other end of their face, and it's not their mouth. the reality is, look, they're talking about the president, his policies blocking the domestic production of oil. well, what about bio fuels? what about solar power? that's the reality here that they don't want to deal with. and the president is right, they are anti-scientific. they've been well-known to be anti-civ anti-scientific,

dr. dyson, are republicans using code words to attack the ambassador? >> very clearly so. this woman is an undergraduate of stanford, as you said. a doctor of philosophy besides a scholar at oxford at the age of 26. so clearly she is an intellectually brilliant woman who is quite capable. it's ironic and tragic that john mccain, who nominated or at least put sarah palin on the ticket as vice president would dare call into question anybody's intelligence. sarah palin's intelligence could fit into the left fingernail of dr. susan rice. but beyond intelligence, there's a racial hostility that's unchecked here. and the aggression toward people of color here has been unleashed as a kind of compensatory aggression against obama's win. you see all this stuff going on. this is racial code words and we know the manipulation of racial feeling and sentiment here. >> nobody in the intelligence community has come out and said these things about rice. karen, what about this? why is she a target? >> i worked with dr. rice in the clinton administration. she is a brilliant woman and a gift

and the tragedy of this, this is the real tragedy, dr. dysonfits don't cost us, they benefit us, the whole of the country. for every dollar that goes to long-term unemployment benefits, because these people put it right back in the economy, it creates $1.10 in economic activity. so this is one of the best ways to continue to improve the economy. cutting these benefits will do severe damage to rural counties in mitch mcconnell's home state, to counties in john boehner's home district in ohio, which is a terribly high and unfortunately high child poverty rate. this is one of those issues where everybody should come together. this shouldn't have a political hue to it. also, i think we do talk a lot about the economics, we talk about the money. there's a moral component to this. a civil society in a functional, western, well-developed economy should be able to take care of the people who, through no fault of their own, as you suggest, have fallen out of the economic system, for a period of their fe

. >> dr. dyson, i think coming from the tradition where i grew up as part of the organization dr.g founded, one, we respond when called. i responded when the parents and the attorney asked us to come. in many cases i never got involved and was criticized for not getting involved in. second, we must adhere to nonviolence. early in my career i would leave things open and i have learned the hard way to be clear that we are not going to have violence. is that not the overall tradition that we have represented in this case and that we have learned from dr. king's teachings? >> absolutely, reverend. you have upheld that tradition. first of all, don't be disheartened because martin luther king, jr., was subjected to the same insults and slander you have been subjected to. when he went to birmingham they said, you're bothering us. wherever he went when people called him they said, look, our blacks are getting along fine without you. the blacks and whites are fine. we knew jim crow was flying in a powerful fashion over the lives of african-american people in the south. you are in a powerfu

dr. dysonnd others, many others, would join in the resistance to austerity, the resistance to war. apparently, they cannot muster the energy to do that under a democratic president, under the first black president. it is their behavior that does in fact facilitate these austerity assaults and this warmongering. because they don't resist it, and they accept it as something that is an inevitability. what our obligation is to resist austerity. i do not accept that obama has to make these so-called compromises cou. i don't think there compromises, but part of his overall plan with the republicans. but if you accept that, the worse than the democrats could not on their own stop these assaults on social security. and that is just not true. they cannot be expected to stop these assaults on entitlement programs if there is a democrat president in office who is putting his bully pulpit and its prestige within the party itself toward these compromises. that is what obama has done. that is how he facilita

that's the experience that dr. dyson is talking about. as black woman, i get it too.f i'm dressed up in any workout clothe, i've had the door slammed in any face by neighbors that will talk to me in a suit. the point being the suspicions that we have, the prejudices, there's an opportunity to have a glimpse into where some of that comes from and why some of that is a burden that people carry. >> john, is this not a horrendous example of why vigilante justice is a bad idea and when coupled with racial profiling, racial stereo typing, it's a horrific mixture. >> this is a tragedy on so, so many levels. when you listen to the zimmerman 911 call and the officer, you can hear him get out of his truck or his car and the police officer tells him we don't need you to do that and yet he goes forward. not only he chases down trayvon martin, but he's bringing a 9 millimeter handgun to whatever confrontation there is. one chilling thing in the interview that his mother gave to matt this morning on the today show, she said you can hear trayvon screaming for help. that was my baby

dr. dyson, also nice to see you. >> always great to see you.e" is doing a great, bang up job. >> thank you much. >> good afternoon. i'm sitting in for martin bashir on a busy thursday, july 12th. and we will have the latest on the penn state response, but we begin with much more back and forth over bain and after weeks of being pulmoledded by the obama campaign, mitt romney is taking conservatives' much offered advice and hitting back with a new ad, calling the president a liar. >> the obama outsourcing attacks. misleading, unfair and untrue. there was no evidence that mitt romney shipped jobs overseas. obama's dishonest campaign. another reason america has lost confidence in barack obama. >> now in a bit of incredibly inconvenient truth for mitt romney, new reports suggest he has been less than truthful about when he left bain capital. he has claimed he broke from bain in february 1999 to defend himself from charges he laid off workers and outsourced jobs overseas, but new reports are making waves on a "boston globe" piece today, finding that

dr. dyson, also nice to see you. >> always great to see you.e" is doing a great, bang up job. >> thank you much. >> good afternoon. i'm sitting in for martin bashir on a busy thursday, july 12th. and we will have the latest on the penn state response, but we begin with much more back and forth over bain and after weeks of being pulmoledded by the obama campaign, mitt romney is taking conservatives' much offered advice and hitting back with a n

. >> now, dr. dyson, we have seen very ugly attacks on the president.ber of the senate, chuck grassley that's been in the senate for over 30 years sent that tweet out. constituents ask why i am not outraged at president obama's attack on the supreme court independence. it's because american people are not stupid as this exprofessor of constitutional law. calling the president stupid? >> it's utterly ridiculous. it's disrespectful. if you will, it's dog whistle racism. it's an attack on obama to make him appear as if he is some other person from another planet. and to call him stupid, when the man is very intelligent, even those who have opposed him in the past have recognized his fundamental decency and his high quality of intellect. so to call him stupid is to get base and get involved in mud slinging politics rooted in some of the most vicious instincts in american politics. the right wing wants to define something as un-american and they're not part of the main stream. they have talked about his relationship to the supreme court and called him a bull

. >> now, dr. dyson, he has given, mr. romney, possibly something else to worry about. of his advisers raised the question today, why is mormonism off the table? why is mormonism off limits? i'm not saying it's a similar issue in the campaign. but we're having to spend days answering questions about rick's faith which is then an open -- which he's been open about, but romney will turn on a dime when you talk about religion. that's a quote. so is he trying to do a bank shot to the president and really trying to bring in some mormonism and some anti-mormonism feeling in this? >> absolutely. this is devoutly anti-mormon. it seems to me. it's really trying to call into question the character and integrity of mitt romney's faith. mitt romney has indicated that, look, we're the church of the latter day saints. we believe in jesus christ. we believe the bible and accept jesus. we have our own book in the like. others say they don't consider them part of christianity. they've seen squabbles within relidgeios tribes and traditions. no doubt he's trying to hit at the president an

and if you add to what dr. dysonaid, part of the question here is whether that's are ftds, fox transmitted diseases. . >> that's possible. you have an echo chamber that said a lot of things. mitt romney wasn't conservative enough for fox and now he is. they're trying to convince everyone he's this different person. i think outside of the echo chamber and the national media, what you get on the ground is a very different story. gallup polls and national tracking polls are more volatile because they poll a lot of areas that are irrelevant. ft. we're headed to election day and trying to make sense of it, if you're living in ohio, you're getting a lot more local feedback, a ground game from the obama campaign, local press from these visits. you're not swung as much by a single debate performance even though romney had a good one. in iowa and ohio, we're seeing over five-point leads, beyond the margin of error for obama. there's a good reason to think if he sews up the midwest, this thing won't be that close. >> yeah. dan

dr. dyson black communities in this country, in poor neighborhoods in this country, we are seeing the penetration of guns and ruining lives. and now we're at elementary schools. >> you're right. >> what do we have to do? this is a culture now of violence. >> you see, drinking and smoking didn't have attached to them the immediacy of a constitutional amendment that would support their ostensible advocates. so when you've got this gun lobby, it's so deep and so profound. and i thank congressman ellison for reminding us that there are those who are heroic in congress who will stand up. but the reality is that gun lobby is so deep, their pockets are so procfound, and they've gt the ability to bully people that we've got to stand up to them and say this is enough. it happens at every level, in white communities, in brown communities, in asian communities, latino communities, we have to deal with it in america, because it's an american problem. >> seven nfl players -- i just want to point out to you,

dr. dyson from georgetown university and an msnbc political analyst.scuss a very important story out of colombia. first, dick cheney refers to the president as an an unmitigated disaster. was it the president who repeatedly said that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction even though nothing was ever found? was it the president who repeatedly tried to connect saddam hussein with 9/11 even though such a connection had been entirely dismissed by the cia? or is mr. cheney accidentally referring to himself? >> martin, you speak for me. the reality is that dick cheney has been himself an unmitigated disaster as the vice president who sought to be the commander-in-chief. a man who was a soberingly, i think, and incredibly offensive as a person who can't understand that you can disagree with somebody else without making them the evil action it is of our civilization. his words about president obama are inadvertent confessions about the failed policies of the bush administration. even more so, they lack the kind of graciousness and the generosity of sp

because there's something wrong with the black and hispanic students but communities where -- >> dr. dyson thank you. the appropriate acknowledgement. >> when you have poverty, i've talked to people in education who say i cannot get kids to pass a standardized test when they're falling asleep on their desk in the morning because they're hungry, haven't had breakfast because they went to bed at 11:00 last night not because the parents are bad parents but mom is working overnight to pay the rent, parents are working two and three jobs. not the 47% because they're lazy. they're not able to make a living. all the factors that ignores. >> affirmative action has become a dog whistle for getting this takers makers thing. rush limbaugh said something last week that was -- he's always inflammatory but this was sort of beyond. almost beyond. let's take a listen. >> the part is if he got a "c" at harvard somebody gave him an "c" if he needed in harvard law somebody greased the skids. he's a black man and favored because he's a black man and the way has been paved for him. >> yeah. >> that notion whet

into account that one out of five of the poor are children and the vast majority of the poor as dr. dyson pointed out are working poor, people who are working full time, disabled people, elderly people and they're children. when he's talking about the poor and demonizing them, even if he doesn't directly intend to, which i would argue he probably did, it is not going to help him come the general election. i don't think this is something he can talk his way out of. >> there say real big disconnect there for sure. what about trump's endorsement today? will this hurt the guy? if you look at the polling out there, a lot of people aren't go to be influenced by this and some negatively. >> well, not immediately, but i think in the long run the calculation here is that donald trump will go out there and be a force for mitt romney to put him in good standing with those who are suspicious of the bona fides of mitt romney, is he really conservative and since donald trump drummed up all of this madness about he's the true conservative out here, it might help with those on the fence. i doubt it is go

i want to come back to dr. dyson for a minute. the idea that zimmerman, and joy-ann, i want to get to you, is still out there. i don't hear a lot of people talking about that. we doengt what his mental state is. we know he has a gun. he may be seeing this attention coming his way. >> for his own safety. for your safety, mr. zimmerman, people may want to execute vigilante justice against you. we want to protect you and put you in jail and under cover of the law. nothing is reasonable here to suggest that mr. zimmerman should continue to go free. we don't know exactly where he is. he is out there with a gun. we don't know how much he is inclined to be self-destructive or to ultimately assault somebody else. it seems common sense to lock him up. >> hold on, hold on. >> quickly, we're running out of time i want to end with you. is anybody asking that question at these press konkconferences? we've talked about the police chief, we've talked about trayvon but i have not heard about the actual question, where is this man? >> believe me,

dr. michael eric dyson is here to talk racism in the republican party. >>> good to have you with us tonight, folks. thanks for watching. the first battle may be over, but republicans are vowing to continue the war. today, the senate voted to table the blunt amendment, 51 to 48. the measure would have given your boss a say in your health care. it would give an employer or an insurance company the authority to deny any essential or preventative care from contraception to cancer screenings for any reason. >> now mr. blunt is giving insurance companies a way to say, oh, we really feel sorry that you have cancer. we're really sad that you have diabetes. we're really torn apart that you might have a stroke. but, you know what, we have a moral objection to the kind of therapies that are out there today, so we're sorry. that's what the blunt amendment does. >> it's an effort to stop the obama administration policy that would require health insurance coverage to include birth control and emergency contraception. the president offered a compromise to religious institutions exempting them from the pol

dr. michael eric dyson are here with the latest. >>> continuing to slam the hard-hitting joe soptic ad. >> the president of the united states makes accusations -- >> you can talk about that, but i am not -- >> from what mitt romney did -- >> bill burton of "priorities usa" put the ad. he's here to respond. >>> the catholic bishops called his budget immoral, and the republicans want him as the vice president. >> i worship the ground that paul ryan walks on. >> richard vickery thinks the young gun has a laundry list of problems, and he's here to explain. >> this rumor, i think the science that we'll get is amazing. the pictures are beautiful. >> and the rover "curiosity" sends back stunning, color image of the martian surface. astronomer derek pitts has the latest on the most advanced spacecraft ever sent to another planet. >>> good to have you with us. the romney campaign is spending half its advertising resources on a commercial that is a total lie. romney's welfare attack on president obama is the latest false hood republicans are going to ride. today, the obama campaign hit back. >> see

dr. michael dyson on the air to talk about how exhausting and pain fful th feels that all of what we arearrest. at this point, we have spent weeks of media coverage, and marches and letter writing and pleas and if we step back to 1999, the diallo case, and she brings out sean bell and all of these other names, and what does this this do when you feel like the justices, and feel so hard and even the initiation feels like? >>le well, to me, it does feel like the diallo case, and i lived in new york under rudy giuliani as mayor. there was a constant fear of this, a young black man would be shot in this case, by undercover police officers and suddenly the victim's past with law enforcement would come out and a total justification of the shooting as if somebody deserved it, and never any sympathy of the families and the mayor would not go to the decedent and said, i feel your loss, but that era was so stark for those who lived under the giuliani era. it feels like or almost like black male life is undervalued and devalued unless as you said earlier, it is complete ly the ron goldman standard.