Joining us Sunday at 8AM ET on MSNBC as we discuss Trayvon Martin, the JOBS Act, and more:
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) (@carolynbmaloney), chair of the Joint Economic Committee.
Alexis Goldstein (@alexisgoldstein), member of Occupy the SEC and former Wall Street information technologist.
Kai Wright (@kai_wright), editorial director of Colorlines.com and an Alfred Knobler Fellow of The Nation Institute.
Karen Ho, author of Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota.
John McWhorter, Columbia University professor of linguistic and American studies and contributing editor at the New Republic and TheRoot.com.
William Black (@williamkblack), associate professor of economics & law at University of Missouri - Kansas City and author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One.
Richard Benjamin, senior fellow at Demos and author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America.
-Brett Brownell (@brettbrownell) is video and web producer for Up w/ Chris Hayes which airs Saturday and Sunday mornings on MSNBC.
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Fair, balanced and boring.
This is probably not the show for you, not enough up-skirt shots.
Dieter, if you're driven to personally insult someone you have never met, simply because you don't like a four word criticism of a television show, you have serious psychological problems. Projecting your own sick desires onto others is a sign of right wingitis, probably contracted during your last visit to the DLC.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/31/trayvon-martin-shooting-911-call-screams_n_1394224.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D148249
EXPERTS SAY THAT IT IS TRAYVON MARTIN ON THE 911 CALLS !!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/31/trayvon-martin-shooting-911-call-screams_n_1394224.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D148249
Post hoc, ad Proper hoc...
A logical fallacy that confuses Cause and Effect...
The Effect is that Trayvon Martin was shot to death...
The Cause the Right would have you believe is, Trayvon must have been doing something wrong, otherwise Trayvon wouldn't have been shot to death...
They ignore any other possible cause, like George Zimmerman was a bigoted sociopathic time bomb with an itchy trigger finger just looking for a convenient target to shoot at...
None of this changes the fact that Zimmerman was on a NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH patrol WITH A GUN, and that he IGNORED the directive from the police dispatcher NOT TO FOLLOW him! All this character assassination of Travon is just smoke and mirrors!
Another way to look at this: think about how women are blamed for being raped. "She asked for it." Her clothes, her attitude, her behavior--all are used to excuse the rapist.
Omg, these people on here are idiots!! The demonizing of Zimmerman? Are you serious? We all heard the 911 tapes..We heard the "@!$%#ing coon" comment..We heard Zimmerman say that Trayvon was running away.. You have a panel full of uninformed apologist. I'm turning the channel until Melissa Harris Perry comes on!
I missed the first hour. What was said that made you turn off the channel?
Since the law seems to be "if you feel threatened" well the inaction of the police to arrest has the effect of hmmm. If a "white guy" can legally shoot a black kid, then what is really going to stop the black gangs who already don't respect the laws, in all of our cities from saying, WTF and returning the favor on white kids. Americans own over 375 million guns. Is it possible that this action is what the gun lobby is looking for, more sale?
Is this the future we want? Chris rock said it best, you can have guns but one bullet costs a million dollars.
I believe the "Stand your Ground" law does apply here in the case of Trayvon Martin.
Here we have a cowardly man with a gun that is now brave brcause of his gun that perused a courageous boy with some skiddles who ran from the coward then decided to " STAND HIS GROUND" with his skiddles and iced tea but lost the battle and lost his life to the cowardly man with a gun...
Black teen in Jax, FL held in jail since 2009 for exercising stand your ground rights under the law. And, the gun he used belonged to the attackers:
Let's not forget on Monday night Sharpton interviewed the national director for Neighborhood Watch and he said Zimmerman was not registered with any NW group. He further went on to say that under their bylaws you are prohibited from carry a weapon when on watch, even if you have a permit. And, the bylaws prohibit pursuing someone. If you hear, or see something, you are to call the police and then - your job is over.
Go to jacksonville dot com for the story. It is on the front page today.
I'm surprised the story is even there. They regularly ban progressive posters from their message boards.
We need a extensive and fair investigation of the Treyvon Martin shooting and then the results whether Zimmerman is charged or not should be made public so all can see if the inbestigation was fairly done.
I agree that guns are defined as an individual right, not a right of militias, in the 2nd amendment. But that does not give Americans a right to carry them on public streets and anywhere they want. states should limit who can carry a gun in public by tests and examinations of a person mental ability to deal with the responsibility to act rationally and safely in public.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
I thought it was clearly in case a militia was formed. The states/fed gov't wouldn't have to wait for manufacturing, shipping, or pay for firearms (use your own tools). I could even stretch it to mean guns are for hunting, and self-defense in the home or on one's property.
But since we pay through the nose for a standing military and its succubi...
Let citizens keep and bear arms. The constitution doesn't mention any right to discharge them. This may not be the spirit of the constitution, but since the conservative rationale is to stick to the letter of the law, fine. Let's lean into it.
The constitution mentions nothing about right to use arms.
Or am I missing something?
The unspoken issue I feel is that if you are born in America why are you labeled a African-American or Asian-American, Hispanic-American when your skin is any color other then "white". This division should be reserved for those people who move to America from other countries. THis way we who are born here, live here no matter what color can be one nation, not a country still stuck in racial division.
Until we are all called only Americans we are not one people. Why I am called an American is due to my skin because it is white, yet really according to the way we label, why Am I not a German-American in paperwork?
What do you call a black spanish french citizen? a frenchman. not some hi breed mix of words but a single label of citizenship.
I AGREE very good statement.
Have to go to another country for that!
When a nation enslaves part of its population based primarily on race for 250 years and then spends another 150 years keeping that same part of its population in 2nd and 3rd class citizenship, that nation cannot expect an easy or short path to racial harmony.
I believe this was a "stand your ground" case
Here e have a cowardly man with a gun that is now brave because he has a gun chasing a brave teenage boy that is running because he is scared but decided to be brave and "STAND HIS GROUND" with his skiggles and iced tea... but the brave boy lost his life to the cowardly man with a gun.
Rep. Maloney knows far too well the power of the NRA. And they have only gained further influence of late. Democratic candidates here in the South are horrified of them.
After listening to a co-worker go off on a Right leaning hate filled rant last week on the Martin case it just confirmed to me there are at least three alternate realities at play in this case. The Far Left like Spike Lee and others who have already convicted Zimmerman, the Right who has already buried Trayvon Martin and exonerated Zimmerman, and the rest of us in the middle with little voice who see a total failure of the justice system and who simply want a thorough investigation conducted and the detailed results made public. Look at what the utter incompetence of a small city police force can cause!
The O'Reilly clip at the beginning was just laughable. He was doing nothing but fomenting his own division. Of course he does this purely for his ratings. Is there any less intelligent life form than a Right Wing pundit? YES, those who follow them!
I agree 100% with your comment. I am a 64 year old white woman with family from Eldorado Arkansas. All my life I watched that side of the family proudly display their racism with no fear of reprimand. My father, thank God ,didn't have a racist bone in his body. His life was threatened five years before his death because he rented one of his mobil homes to a black airforce officer & white woman. (1997) He called me to tell me if anything happened to him to contact FBI. I am very proud of the people of all colors, politically join in the cry for justice. My son is a police officer in Mi and I fear everyday someone will harm him. Guns should be like drivers license, renewable everyyear, after a test, and depending on complaints filed against you in that year. Post these license in the paper so people know who they are that own a gun like you would a bankruptcy. O'Reilly is a joke and not a reporter same as Rush is. We have meaness, stupidity, & corruption, in this country because people have not stood up against these kind of people. We will have more and more protest in this country because a few have the guts to peacefully speak out. Thank God for them and bless The Martin family.
What was the discussion like around the Trayvon/Zimmerman issue? I missed the first hour and there's no video available. Anyone? Im curious as to what John McWhorter's take is...
I think McWhorter hit the ball out of the park on this one, when he lifted up the conversation by articulating the basic injustice of typing and profiling of the young black man operating here in the US. This is where you have to have the replay because he just dropped it in as a fact that was indisputable and went with it where it needed to go. There is really no describing this in words. He was artful and changed the tenure of the conversation up to that point. He did this by simply stating that young black men are seen as more criminal than others because of their disproportionate arrest record, especially around drugs, when there is probably as much, and I would contend even more because of income, for example on college campuses that slips, conveniently and very intentionally in my opinion, under the radar. Obviously, Mr. McWhorter explained this much better, and I'm really starting to appreciate this gentleman, but with all of this said, even if there is this misconception or injustice, what ever you want to call it, it is a fact, BUT that does not the dead man make, was his message. Additionally, he made a distinction about about the irrelevance of typing Mr. Zimmerman as a bigot or a racist. It was not a necessity in terms of the dynamics that Mr. McWhorter saw being played out. I think they bleeped him a couple of times when he talked about the irrelevance of maybe Martin even possibly kicking the sh*t out of Zimmerman. Mr. McWhorter boilded it all down to a guy with a gun in search of a victim. No gun. No victim. Thank you Mr. McWhorter.
Rather than make another post, I will just say that I was some what surprised that the police tape, the initial 911 conversation between Zimmerman and the Police was not discussed more, since the police asked in that call if the suspect was black or white. I guess that will be left for another show.
And yes, where IS the VIDEO. I have a friend in Singapore, who can not see the show, but would appreciate it so much. I can tape it at home but I don't want to do anything illegal or to offend the producers. They really need to get on top of this. What did I learn today? McWhorter was cooking. He's such an honest dude, like all of the guests, and of course, Mr. Hayes, too. We should all act in life as if we are a guest on UP. Maybe, things would be better, everywhere.
I found myself getting a bit glossy eyed when talking about the financial problems, that's when I found myself looking at the pastry on the table. Those look sooo good. LOL
I went for the pastry, too, but I've got to say I want to hear more. There should be like "Closed Captioning" for the financially insane, or something. I know one thing, though, Alexis can forget about a job with Congresswoman Maloney, although she would be perfect as an assistant. Both the Congresswoman and Alexis left us in the dust and should be made to come back and explain themselves. This was a great show. I think they were getting to the point. All the guests were fabulous on both the Trayvon segment and the financial debate. Mr. Black just blew everything away. In essence, the show was depressing and not a calorie burner, but it was democracy in action, and for a change, it was democracy at it's best.
OK. Like we have speed limits on the high way, right? Not for you, I know, but I mean for everyone else. So, why do we allow people to drive recklessly on Wall Street? It's not even a highway. This is clearly a case of "we do it because we can do it, but we should just say no to it" and slam the clamps down on them. Man, it's worse than I thought it was.
I hope the fact that some people found the segment on Wall Street boring won't discourage the show from pursuing this kind of stimulating discussion. I was glued to the television set not wanting to miss one minute of the exchanges between Carolyn Maloney, Alexis Goldstein and Karen Ho. I look, listen, and learn. It was exciting to me.
Total agreement here. It was a fascinating show today. One of the best of Up so far I'd guess.
And if folks are bored all they have to do is pres that remote button. Don't even have to get out of their lazy boy.
Karen Ho's review of her research was fascinating! Don't we all know someone who is very good at one thing, yet completely challenged in other areas of life? I hope more in Congress watch Up! I thought those were important insights into the very human weaknesses of the self-generated "meritocracy".
I had to laugh when she explained that the corporate wing-dings had convinced themselves that they "knew best" how to do business, and all the dummy business schools/owners/managers followed their bad advice! It sure explains why counter-intuitive and dysfunctional "corporatism" is hated by workers and consumers all over the world! Sell, sell, sell; even if it's crap! It's the only thing they do well until they crash and burn. They're so frickin' predictable that it's astounding anyone let's them roam about the country off a leash; much less impact legislation.
McWhorter only scratched at the surface.
What if the Zimmerman problem of misusing tremendous power has nothing to do with lack of being smart or having the skills of observation to understand the nature of the situation in front of them. What if greater experience and technical knowlege does not affect the outcome? We saw the patrolmen, Chief of Police, and State prosecutor despite their far more extensive training and decades of experience were not up to the task.
Are we entitled to be surprized? If a person is genuinely not interested in protecting the well being of all the public entrusted to their care, then what level of expertice will change the outcome?
What if it wasn't just public safety that was dominated by individuals with personal motivations having little, or only cursory concern for the welfare of all citizens?
What if the staffs of Wall street firms were populated with George Zimmermans, and it was a free-for-all where society placed no restrictions over the weapons at the disposal of workers making life and death decisions over the financial well being of their clients? Common sense tells us that entrusting such responsibility to amateurs would quickly deliver undesirable fincancial results. But that is what armies of mortgage loan "experts" did in the sub-prime market.
Naturally, our technological country is built on the foundation of superior technique and training, so surely the front line Wall Street firms would deny dangerous powers to anyone except those with at least two years of community college and 14 weeks at an academy. On the other hand, maybe Wall Street executives would be skeptical that this level of competency could be sufficient to understand the true nature of complex situations confronting workers; causing them to fail even rudimentary information collection tasks required to determine the truth of a situation. The patrolmen assigned to investigate this shooting certainly did.
Surely if we could avoid such outcomes with maximum skills- so that patrolmen had a Masters degree in their field, with expert knowlege tempered by 27 years of practical experience. This is what Chief Bill Lee had, yet the basic information needed for an inquiry still was not collected after his involvement. Same story for the state prosecutor with a law degree and 28 years of practical experience had ample expertise.
Maybe it doesn't matter how stratospheric the skills of the experts are. Maybe these Zimmermans with their own private interests populate the staffs in Congress and White House, and the only difference with their downscale community watch cousins is there ability to mystify Presidents and Congressmen with complex arguments. All the staffs work to persuade/ educate the elected officials to make investments in their policies. The financial experts, the military experts, they will all reap the benefits of these investments when they return via the revolving door to private industry.
Really, we are a culture of cuttlefish with guns. It's not a question of arms, neurological capacity, or training. For those interested, more on the additional dimensions of our Zimmerman problem here.
What we are talking about with the Traevon Martin debate is what constitutes justifiable homicide? Our movies and TV shows are littered with justifiable homicides and so it is not astonishing that our culture as a whole would have varying lines of distinction over what would be considered justifiable and what is not. Traevon doesn't deserve the martyr burial because he had some problems. Or that since he had issues, it is justifiable to allow someone to take his life.
Not to only view this as a media driven issue, the comment from Kai that you have to be a victim in order to get (sympathy) justice is the same mentality that is in the abortion fight. The unborn child is totally innocent and therefore since it is more pure must be saved, and the woman who may die as a result of the pregnancy has (through living) become less pure, and therefore is an acceptable loss is the mentality that we are discussing. It is an acceptable loss (justifiable homicide) to lose the life of an adult female who likely has important experiences, wisdom and abilities that can be shared with the community, but it is not acceptable to lose the life of a yet to be born,yet to walk/talk/educate child. The lack of unmolded experiences/abilities are more important than the knowledge and wisdom gained. That tells you something very important about how we see life and of how we view other human beings. Emphasis on the importance of youth is not just in style/Hollywood, but also in our religious/ethical teachings. It is better to be young and inexperienced than older and wiser.