Is this the right video... http://video.msnbc.msn.com/up-with-chris-hayes/46530634#46530634
to fix this one... http://videosift.com/video/Chris-Hayes-Has-A-Long-Talk-About-Bombing-Iran-Pub-Opinon
I wasn't sure.

Yes, an American election is coming up so we have to start talking about bombing Iran again. Only this time we are trying to drum up antagonism between Israel and Iran for the purpose of having Israel fight this one for us. Then we will have to go in and be "peacekeepers" because of the black stuff under the desert.

@dystopianfuturetoday

The points you made about Reagan are correct, but you left out the most insidious--and pertinent to this conversation--action of the Reaganites*.

When they found they couldn't abolish a department, or regulatory body, they appointed a lap dog to oversee that department. Reagan's head of the Department of Education was William (come on number 7!) Bennett (who went on to be the Drug Czar under Bush the First). Bennett implemented "reforms" to the Dept. of Ed. such as:

Competency testing for teachers
Opening the teaching profession to "knowledgeable" individuals who have _not_ graduated from "schools of education"
Performance-based pay
National examination of students
Holding educators accountable for how the children do on tests.
Parental choice of schools

These all sound innocent enough--but are all terrible ideas. These "reforms" are what opened the "teach to the test" mentality and started the decline of American Education.

These actions (not only in the Dept. of Ed.) also set up the guvment=bad meme.

As to @Grimm's statement, "Why do you have a problem with putting that power back in the hands of the states?" What would have been the result of letting Mississippi set it's own standards on letting Black people vote?

BTW, Dr. Paul kicked Schieffer's ass over the, "Nobody is saying Bomb Iran" fuck-up.

*I don't directly blame Ronnie.
At this point he was playing with Jelly Beans and asking, "What day is it, Mommy?"

>> ^marinara:

Could Israel bomb Iran without escalation? I suppose so.

I guess I feel like naked aggression (like bombing) ought to be punished... by something or other.


Israel has a knack for eluding punishment. They repeatedly bombed civilians with white phosphorus in 2006 and, as far as I'm aware, the worst punishment they endured was a few people saying, "Hey, that's fucked up."

Could Israel bomb Iran without escalation? I suppose so.
Could we execute a regime change in Iran without putting China in a defensive stance, Sure.

I guess I feel like naked aggression (like bombing) ought to be punished... by something or other.

Nowadays the drones do the flyin'. Even Comic Book Guy could bomb Iran.

>> ^Stormsinger:
As disgusted as I am with Obama's failure to follow through on any of his campaign promises that were important to me, I still have to believe we dodged a bullet when we avoided a McCain presidency.


My thoughts exactly. Obama may not be the savior some people were hoping for, but at least he hasn't dug us into Bush's hole any deeper. (i.e. "bomb, bomb, bomb... bomb, bomb Iran")

^ Obama is talking about bombing Iran? Obama is so comfortable with the idea of bombing Iran that he makes jokes in public about it?

I'm more concerned about the torture thing, but I don't necessarily think either of those things are torture without information about frequency, duration, and some knowledge of the history of legal opinion. I know previously they were doing weeks of sleep deprivation, and months of sensory deprivation, both of which I would deem torture, even if the law said otherwise.

That said, I don't think Obama is sitting in these meetings pushing for more torture. I think he's fighting with an institution that got built up for torture, and is being a bit more conciliatory than I'd like.

Giving him the Nobel Peace prize seems like an attempt to shame him into being less conciliatory, and I think there's plenty of reason for people to believe that he is susceptible to being shamed, unlike the previous administration (or a prospective McCain/Palin administration).

>> ^chilaxe:
However, conservatives generally didn't object to the election of Bush, to the invasion of Iraq (indeed, they felt even questioning it was beyond the pale), to McCain joking about bombing Iran, to enhanced interrogation/torture, or to the GOP's general anti-science attitude (fruit flies, honey bees, etc.), so it doesn't seem reasonable to say conservatives didn't support these things and it was only Bush's fault. Most conservatives are neocons under that definition.


Uh, no. A neocon is a conservative on some topics (say, taxes) who believes in big government. It has nothing to do with anti-science (which is an embarassment to me) or the other topics, I guess, beyond the fact that normal conservatives agree with neo-cons on some of the topics.

Part of the problem is that our society is so highly polarized into an us-and-them mentality that people think that if you agree with President Bush on one topic, you do/should agree with him on all topics. And to a certain extent it's true - a lot of conservative senators voted for Bush's stimulus bill, but voted against Obama's (when they suddenly rediscovered they were for small government, because Bush was gone).

^I think it's used as a general term for the conservatives who give reasonable conservatives a bad name.

However, conservatives generally didn't object to the election of Bush, to the invasion of Iraq (indeed, they felt even questioning it was beyond the pale), to McCain joking about bombing Iran, to enhanced interrogation/torture, or to the GOP's general anti-science attitude (fruit flies, honey bees, etc.), so it doesn't seem reasonable to say conservatives didn't support these things and it was only Bush's fault. Most conservatives are neocons under that definition.

"Bomb bomb bomb.. bomb Iran" -McCain

Intelliguntly desined strategee devized by intellektualz

Nah - Hamas, PLO, Hezbollah, whatever. Name your Palestinian terrorist regime du' jour. They're all the same animal. The objective is the removal of the state of Isreal by whatever means necessary. Isreal could be as armed with only drinking straws and gentle as a Kleenex and it wouldn't matter beans to the Palestinians or other terror states.

And the Arabs DO 'help' the Palestinians... By arming them with rockets, rifles, and bombs. Iran, Syria, Lebanon - they're all funnelling weapons to the Palestinians. Maybe if the Isrealis can safely ignore the Arab gun to thier head, a peaceful solution can be found. Maybe the Arabs would be better off halting the weapons and giving more food & jobs. But the dirty secret is that the Arabs hate the Palestinians too. They just hate Isreal more and are keeping the Palestinians poor and angry so they can have a useful tool of angry terrorists to do the dirty work they're too afraid to do themselves after Isreal gave Egypt such a spankering.

Americans are a fiction. There's no such things as a American language or culture and no unique genetic American makeup.

The American language is English and its unique culture of freedom and commerce allows many disparate groups of people to live as one nation. Anyone can become an American. There are both Jewish and Arab-Americans and lo, they're not killing in the streets.

Observe the size of the Arab nations surrounding Israel. They do nothing to absorb or help their "brothers" the Palestinians; they'd rather use them as a thorn in Israel's side..

Arab nations have no interest in getting in a prolonged war with Israel, its political and economic suicide. Both Saudi Arabia and Eygpt have normalized relations with Israel through American policy of paying people off.

Arab nations could easily absorb ALL the "Palestinians" if they wanted to. Why would Israel object to people who want to kill them moving away? And if your cynical idea that the Saudis and Egyptians were "paid off" to have peace is accurate, isn't that better than the endless war and "Israeli cruelty" bemoaned here?

Palestinians have been allowed to flee into GCC states for years even though there is no firm Palestinian government or passport. There are huge Palestinian populations and refugee camps in every GCC state.

"Refugee camps" implies that the Palestinians aren't welcome in their new countries. They're still being used as pawns, victims of "Zionism". Seems a lot of Arab monarchs depend on hatred of the Jews to keep their power. Old habits die hard.

It's no great secret that Jews are reviled in many lands, yet no one seems willing to give them a land of their own, which was in fact THEIR land 5000 years ago.

By your logic you should move out and give back all the lands to American Indians which were murdered by colonists. The land of Jerusalem was occupied by every religious and ethnic denomination over the course of time, its fallacious to claim one ethnic group deserves the land more then the other. This isn't the time of the Crusades.

The American Indians were not "native" to the Americas but crossed the land bridge that used to exist between Russia and Alaska. Not only do American Indians have full American citizenship but their own nations. There is no mandate among the American Indian nations to attack and kill Euro and other Americans. Unlike the Jews, Indians of the Americas were not spread across 80 countries with no homeland to speak of.

Israel is surrounded by enemies on every side. They have no choice but to defend themselves.

Israel isn't surrounded by enemies on every side, a common myth peddled by Israel's apologists, American dollars have bought the tacit tolerance and indifference of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Lebanon simply wishes to be left alone to be able to rebuild after it was punished for the actions of Hezboallah. Syria was bombed by IDF planes about a possible nuclear site of which details are murky and under reported because there is no conclusive evidence of it. The only nation consistently bombing people using high tech is Israel, who wanted to go as far as bombing Iran and destabilizing the region further when no nuclear weapons have been developed.

Which is the only nation in the Middle East with nuclear weapons? Israel.

If "Palestine" had nukes they would've already have used them. There is no way a Palestinian 'state' can ever be allowed to exist, because it would become just another launchpad for hamas attacks.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Palestinians are a fiction. There's no such things as a Palestinian
language or culture and no unique genetic Palestinian makeup.

Americans are a fiction. There's no such things as a American language or culture and no unique genetic American makeup.

Observe the size of the Arab nations surrounding Israel. They do nothing to absorb or help their "brothers" the Palestinians; they'd rather use them as a thorn in Israel's side.

Arab nations have no interest in getting in a prolonged war with Israel, its political and economic suicide. Both Saudi Arabia and Eygpt have normalized relations with Israel through American policy of paying people off.

Palestinians have been allowed to flee into GCC states for years even though there is no firm Palestinian government or passport. There are huge Palestinian populations and refugee camps in every GCC state.

It's no great secret that Jews are reviled in many lands, yet no one seems willing to give them a land of their own, which was in fact THEIR land 5000 years ago.

By your logic you should move out and give back all the lands to American Indians which were murdered by colonists. The land of Jerusalem was occupied by every religious and ethnic denomination over the course of time, its fallacious to claim one ethnic group deserves the land more then the other. This isn't the time of the Crusades.

Israel is surrounded by enemies on every side. They have no choice but to defend themselves.

Israel isn't surrounded by enemies on every side, a common myth peddled by Israel's apologists, American dollars have bought the tacit tolerance and indifference of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Lebanon simply wishes to be left alone to be able to rebuild after it was punished for the actions of Hezboallah. Syria was bombed by IDF planes about a possible nuclear site of which details are murky and under reported because there is no conclusive evidence of it. The only nation consistently bombing people using high tech is Israel, who wanted to go as far as bombing Iran and destabilizing the region further when no nuclear weapons have been developed.

Which is the only nation in the Middle East with nuclear weapons? Israel.

Seven months ago, he was saying the same shit:
http://www.videosift.com/video/John-Bolton-We-Must-Bomb-Iran-Now

For someone who's never done it himself, he sure does like to kill a lot of people.