Chris Hayes said it on Bill Maher last night.

[Graybeard]

The RWer on the panel was typically blaming everything on Obama, saying that "All hell has broken out in the Middle East."

Chris interrupted him right away and said that is not true."All hell has not broken out in the Middle East. It's small groups of protesters. What was real hell was "Shock and Awe", invasion and occupation of Iraq resulting in thousands of American dead and maybe a million Iraqis. That's hell."

The exaggerations in the media are another way of undermining President Obama.

[malaise]

1. The journalist from Egypt on Op with Chris Hayes pointed out

that there were very few protesters in Egypt and most people were going about their own business. She pointed out that it is the US media making these protests a big event.

[Graybeard]

2. I saw her this morning.

And then I remembered Chris Hayes saying the same thing last night.

[former-republican]

3. why is it when a few hundred protest in a country of millions.

the MSM loves to say the same thing?

[lunatica]

4. Because the media stirs up bullshit for ratings

[heaven05]

7. what??!!

not our free press

[valerief]

5. A handful of teabaggers is like a handful of Egyptian trash film haters. They all serve the GOP's

Last edited Sat Sep 15, 2012, 06:53 PM - Edit history (1)

needs and the GOP controls US media.

[hay rick]

11. Or the same people control the media and the GOP. nt

[Tumbulu]

28. good point (nt)

[freshwest]

22. +1

[The Wizard]

32. Ever notice that

the rioters in the middle east look like teabaggers but with a good tan?

[SemperEadem]

37. no, they're thinner

[Carolina]

38. younger and smarter, too

[BOG PERSON]

10. everywhere except here

if a few hundred protest in the US it's just a handful of outcastes and malcontents

[valerief]

12. Unless they're teabaggers. Millions can march in the US against war and it's a media blackout. nt

Last edited Sat Sep 15, 2012, 06:54 PM - Edit history (1)

[freshwest]

23. I noticed that. Damn that liberal media.

[barbtries]

21. not if they're teabaggers

if they're occupiers, well, yeah. malcontents, anarchists, unamerican and definitely not worth looking at, listening to, or covering on the evening news.

two dozen teabaggers gets huge coverage. self-fulfilling prophecies on the part of the right.

GOTV

[freshwest]

24. That's how they manfactured consent for the coup of 2000 and Ayn Rand's budget in 2010.

[oldhippydude]

14. keep in mind

this is the same media that tried to ignore OWS.. proven to be much larger in terms of percentage, as well as duration..

[JDPriestly]

27. Yet they poo-pooed and ignored and ridiculed Occupy Wall Street with many, many

protestors in cities across the US.

Seems they pick their protests by some mysterious criteria. Wonder what the criteria are.

[avebury]

6. K&R nt

[nradisic]

8. it's ignorance all over

Ignorant Conservatives in America vs. the ignorant Conservatives in the Middle East. It's our Taliban against theirs....in their last throws...wait didn't Dick Cheney say that?

[ewagner]

9. "...our Taliban against theirs..."

truest words spoken today!

[progressoid]

13. All hell has broken out in the GOP.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. He was awesome. I almost turned it off when John Legend was bashing teachers unions.

Then I remembered Chris Hayes was going to be on.

[fugop]

29. Me too!

Legend started out strong on voter suppression, but he lost me when he started suggesting teachers (basically) should be able to make up for shitty parenting - implying that it shouldn't matter if you have a classroom of kids who are on the wring track. As a parent who volunteers regularly in a school that doesn't get many volunteers and had a huge FARMS population, I can attest to the fact that even great teachers can't overcome kids who have no support at home. It's heartbreaking.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. You could have a dozen people in a protest over the delivery of apples,...

....and Glenn Beck would put a flaming graphic over the whole country.

[Utopian Leftist]

17. Hell is . . .

Reich-wing, Christian fundamentalists making films with the sole purpose of stirring enough hatred to bring about their long-awaited Armageddon.

[jimlup]

18. Way to hold the line Chris!

Hayes doesn't pull punches! It is so nice to see these yahoo idiot Reptiles being put in their place.

[Walk away]

19. This is so much worse than 9/11!!!

These jokers really do count on the stupidity of their base.

[Hamlette]

20. Chris Hayes was spectacular last night. He was my dream TV pundit

able to answer the lies with intelligent, well informed, logic responses.

I was sorry to see he was not hosting Up this morning.

I liked him before but I'm a true fan after last night.

[freshwest]

25. Not only being used by the GOP media to hurt Obama, but they want another big war.

A perfect response from Hayes, the obvious truth. The American people, at least those who aren't part of the Cult of Faux News, can tell the diference.

The cult members are ready to go and kill someone. Pavlov's pack of rabid dogs always react accordingly.

[Drunken Irishman]

26. Agreed. And let's not pretend this is unlike any other day there...

They've been protesting and rallying and hating on America for quite a long time ... going back to at least the last four administrations. It's awful that lives were lost, but this situation isn't all hell breaking loose. All hell breaking loose is thousands dead and even more injured.

[YOHABLO]

30. Instigators of Protests are from OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY!!

I'm just saying, this could be a "wag the dog" scenario being instigated / or used, by the right to change the focus of this election .. where Romney is so slumping in the polls. Just saying.

[Honeycombe8]

31. It seems to me like all hell is breaking out across the ME and other places.

So the groups are small. The fact that there's about 20 places, they've murdered people in one place, and are attacking and injuring people and burning embassies in other places....I think it's futile to try and have people believe Chris Hayes instead of their own eyes.

[Carolina]

39. The thing is

their hatred is justified. The US had meddled in their countries for years, ever since WWII... installing and/or propping up dictators, invading and stealing resources, and supporting Israel, right or WRONG. If any of us lived in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt and now droned Pakistan ... we would likely have a simmering hatred for the US that could easily erupt in protests or worse. With impunity and without concern, the US has killed untold innocents in other lands.

So, if all hell is breaking out in the ME, it's time a president give the people a history lesson about Iran in 1953, Iraq throught the 1980s (perhaps since the fall of the Ottoman empire) and Israel since 1948. It's time to STOP our militarized actions and knee jerk responses to what we have wrought. Period.

And it's time to take on the fucking media. Robert Parry wrote a beautiful piece that needs to be spread far and wide. I don't recall the link, but here are the salient points:

"One prominent strain shaping American reaction to the protests in the Muslim world is bafflement, and even anger... On Wednesday, USA Today published an article with the headline "After attacks in Egypt and Libya, USA Today asks: Why?"

On Thursday night, NBC News published a nine-minute report on Brian Williams' "Rock Center" program featuring its foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, [who] informed viewers that this was all so very baffling...

Beyond the long-term US support for Mubarak, Egyptians would likely find it difficult to reconcile Engel's claim ... with the "made in USA" logos on the tear gas cannisters used against them by Mubarak's security forces; or with Hillary Clinton's touching 2009 declaration that "I really consider President and Mrs Mubarak to be friends of my family"; or with Obama's support for Mubarak up until the very last minute when his downfall became inevitable; or with the fact that the Obama administration's plan was to engineer the ascension of the loathed, US-loyal torturer Omar Suleiman as Mubarak's replacement in the name of "stability"...

... it takes an extraordinary degree of self-delusion and propaganda to depict Egyptian anger toward the US as "ironic" ... Even in Libya, where it's certainly true that many Libyans are happy about the Nato intervention, this bafflement is misplaced. It's always the case that some portion of the populace of an invaded nation will be happy about even the most unjustified invasions. But it's also the case that such invasions produce extreme anger among the families of those killed by the invading forces, or who suffer from the resulting lawlessness and instability.

Engel also spent several moments explaining that the primary reason these Muslims have such animosity toward the US is because their heads have been filled for years with crazy conspiracy theories about how the US and Israel are responsible for their woes...
Let's leave aside the irony of the American media decrying crazy "conspiracy theories" in other countries, when it is the US that attacked another country based on nonexistent weapons and fabricated secret alliances with al-Qaida... to act as though Muslim anger toward the US and Israel is primarily the by-product of crazy conspiracy theories is itself a crazy conspiracy theory. It's in the world of reality, not conspiracy, where the US and Israel have continuously brought extreme amounts of violence to the Muslim world, routinely killing their innocent men, women and children. Listening to Engel, one would never know about tiny little matters like the bombing of Gaza and Lebanon, the almost five-decade long oppression of Palestinians, the widely hated, child-killing drone campaign, or the attack on Iraq.

And it's in the world of reality, not conspiracy, where the US really has continuously interfered in their countries' governance by propping up and supporting their dictators. Intense Muslim animosity toward the US... long pre-dates this film, and the reasons aren't hard to discern. That's precisely why the US supported tyranny in these countries for so long: to ensure that the citizens' views, so contrary to US policy, would be suppressed and rendered irrelevant.

It doesn't take a propagandized populace to be angry at the US for such actions. It takes a propagandized populace to be shocked at that anger and to view it with bafflement and resentment ... But to see why exactly such a propagandized populace exists in the US and has been led to believe such myth and conspiracies, simply read that USA Today article or watch the NBC News..."

[Honeycombe8]

43. There is NO justification for terrorism. None. Millions in M.E. are NOT angry that

Hillary Clinton said something nice about Mubarak (if that's even true). They don't care, frankly.

The violent uprisings were PLANNED because it was the 9/11 anniversary and someone made a video about their prophet. The history of prior alliances, etc....none of that plays into it.

It's not like it's SO unusual for the people in that area to rise up in violent protest. That's their history. If they had decent lives with good jobs, they wouldn't have the time, frankly.

It is also partly the fact that they don't have freedom of the press, so they don't have full knowledge of things. Their govt makes sure of that. They are raised in school with hatred of the west, not just the U.S. And they spout things like are in your post. That's not the full picture, is it? The US makes alliances with countries, whether or not they like their current leader. All countries do. And the US changes its leader every few years; its policies change.

The west HELPED Libya try to become a democracy, and the U.S. has provided a LOT of money to aid Libya. Many citizens of Libya consider the U.S. a friend.

The U.S. gives Egypt over 1.5 BILLION dollars a year in aid. It's not like we have that money lying around not being needed.

When we got rid of the AQ in Afghanistan, we freed women and girls to get an education and have hope for better lives.

The U.S. is not evil. And as you know, Obama HAS taken on Israel in a couple of instances, which puts him in the pickle he's in with Jews in this country right now.

The people there don't understand basics about the U.S. They are uninformed and easy prey for hate mongers. They don't understand that our leader changes every few years, and so does some of the policies. They don't understand the govt is not responsible for everything that every American says and does, because of freedom of speech.

Comparing past actions of Egypt, Libya, and other M.E. countries with the U.S., the U.S. has shown itself to be the one most concerned with human rights and working things out diplomatically. There are no govt sanctioned bombings of airliners filled with Libyan civilians, no state sanctioned kidnappings and murder of Olympic Egyptians, etc. The U.S. IS different, and they can not understand that without a free press, which they don't have. ALL they have is their upbringing in schools where hatred of the west is officially taught in some cases, and allowed to exist in others. There is no open discussion. There is no allowance of disagreement with the govt policies and allah.

[Carolina]

46. Were it not for the volume of your posts, I'd think you were a troll

YOUR comments in general, and especially those I have itemized below, sound straight out of the troll handbook.

1. "The violent uprisings were PLANNED because it was the 9/11 anniversary and someone made a video about their prophet. The history of prior alliances, etc....none of that plays into it."

My reply: WTF?! In case you have not noticed, 9/11 itself was blowback... Read Chalmers Johnson's excellent book by that name. Read Baer's Sleeping with the Devil and Steve Coll's Ghost Wars. Also, pick up Howard Zinn's history of the US. Whether YOU wish to admit it or not, the US was founded on genocide and slavery... and its history is full of bigotry and hatred toward other groups despite the lofty ideals expressed in the Declaration Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution. But of course, such history is whitewashed and bombings, invasions, covert and overt support of repressive regimes has kept ingenous people out of good jobs (how could you even write such blather), etc is not evil, right?


2. "It's not like it's SO unusual for the people in that area to rise up in violent protest. That's their history. If they had decent lives with good jobs, they wouldn't have the time, frankly."

My reply: WTF?! Nothing like painting with a broad, and rather ignorant, brush. US support of dictators like the Shah of Iran, Pinochet, Noriega, Saddam Hussein aas well as its covert training of other operatives like Osama bin Laden has played a large role in keeping indigenous people oppressed and in fomenting hatred. That was the whole point of the article! And that same repressioon has happened stateside throughout history as well, now most notably affecting the WHITE middle class

3. "It is also partly the fact that they don't have freedom of the press, so they don't have full knowledge of things. Their govt makes sure of that. ..."

My reply: WTF?! And we do? Multinational corporations own and have consolidated our major media outlets so there is no, or very little, diversity of thought and opinion. Plus, facts are skewed to fit the MIC agenda. Our corporate owned gov't makes sure of that!

4. "The people there don't understand basics about the U.S. They are uninformed and easy prey for hate mongers..."

My reply: WTF?! Many here now longer know the basics about the US. To whit consider the birthers vs the fact that Hawaii was a state in 1964 and a child born of an American parent anywhere in the world is American (consider our globally spread military personnel). Also, how do you know what THEY teach in schools over there? Surely you don't trust what our media tells you, and surely you don't see the daily examples right in this country of the uniformed who are easy prey for hatemongers in our media and political world (GOP, Teabaggers)... Sheesh

5. "the U.S. has shown itself to be the one most concerned with human rights and working things out diplomatically. There are no govt sanctioned bombings of airliners filled with Libyan civilians, no state sanctioned kidnappings and murder of Olympic Egyptians..."

My reply: WTF?! The US has done a lot worse than blowup airlines. Consider Drones in Pakistan and Shock & Awe of Iraq as ONLY the latest examples of the benevolent US.

Your response shows exactly how right Robert Parry is. Throw away the Koolaid and take your blinders off.

[Honeycombe8]

47. You need to try to keep an open mind. And grow up a bit.

When you get more experienced with forums, where reasonable people have different viewpoints, you will probably develop a resistance to hopping on the "you're a big bad troll" wagon.

Read my post again, and keep an open mind. It's full of facts, and worth reading. (put your Koolaid down first...all muslims and anti-Americans are not good, and America bad. Keeping saying that to yourself. It's true.)

Things are shades of gray. Not black and white.

[Carolina]

48. Problem is, I read your post

and its speaks volumes about you. Grow up yourself

[Graybeard]

44. +1000. Great post.

Thank you so much Carolina for one of the best

posts I have ever read in my years at DU.

[SayitAintSo]

45. Great Post Carolina!

[Stardust]

33. That was a righteous slap of reality from Chris. I've been thinking about it all day. Thanks

for posting it.

[j3161usa]

34. Maybe, Just Maybe

Is it possible that someone or some organization linked to romney financed the production and distribution of this so-called video? Because mitt seems to be getting alot of mileage out of it. Even if most of what they are saying is wrong! USEmbassies (spelling) were attacked 12 times under bush!

[NoMoreWarNow]

42. I'm sure this is a covert operation of some kind-- Romney's two-bit October Surprise

I don't know why more people aren't investigating this

[xxqqqzme]

35. Hayes was great. I

was cheering his jumping on the rethugs lies.

[stlsaxman]

36. link, please!?

[Warren DeMontague]

40. That guy was, what, Denny Hastert's ass-hair braider or something?

Yeah, he didn't make too many salient points. He did seem to acknowledge that Romney's campaign is being run into the ground, though.

[NoMoreWarNow]

41. you kind of get the impression that right-wingers WANT people to hate America right now

that would validate their world-view -- but it's pretty fucking pathetic.