tv Fareed Zakaria GPS CNN June 26, 2011 10:00am-11:00am PDT
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"getting to know segments," as well as interviews, articles on our website. that's a lot of dots but it was worth the key strokes. thanks for watching "state of the union." i'm candy crowley in washington. tune in next sunday for a special edition of "state of the union," making it in america. we'll talk about the state of the american dream with an all-star lineup. that's next sunday at 9:00 a.m. eastern. up next for our viewers here in the united states, "fareed zakaria: gps." this is "gps," the global public square. welcome to all of our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. we have a very important show for you today. the world heard president obama's afghanistan plan this week. but what is the afghan response? we will find out in just a moment. i have an exclusive interview with the president of afghanistan, hamid karzai. then we'll introduce to you a nation that will have only 364 days this year while the rest of
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us enjoy 365. "what in the world" indeed. after that, is greece on the brink of bankruptcy? does it matter? is america? we'll ask the man who should know the answers to all these questions, the ceo of the world's largest bond trading firm, mohamed el erian. next up, crime sourcing the u.s. constitution. i asked for your idea for amendments. we got an extraordinary response and we'll talk to jeff toobin about the realities of amending the u.s. constitution. all that and more, but first, here is "my take." this week we got a look into the way barack obama's mind works. from his campaign on, obama has clearly felt that the united states has a lopsided foreign policy with too large a military commitment to certain crisis points on the globe. he has wanted to rebalance american foreign policy to shift the focus away from the problems the focus away from the problems
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the focus away from the problems the focus away from the problems of the past iraq, afghanistan, and focus on the challenges of the 21st century, the rise of china and asia more generally. this week, he announced a significant drawdown of troop, effectively reversing the surge that began 18 months ago. when he came into office, the united states had almost 200,000 troops engaged in combat in iraq and afghanistan. by next year, it will be half that number, most in noncombat operations. some would wish the drawdown was slower, others faster, but obama has basically matt right call. the united states cannot disengage instantly from a war it has future for a decade with allies from dozens of other countries, international institutions and commitments made to those allies and the afghanistan people. henry kissinger once said getting out of a war is not like switching off the channel on a television set. i understand general petraeus and other key advisers wanted a
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smaller drawdown to consolidate the gains that american forces have made in afghanistan. but there will never be the perfect time. afghanistan is a troubled country in which some progress has been made, but parts of the country remain unsettled beyond kabul's control and with some taliban control. that will be true now, it will be true two years from now. the taliban cannot be defeated purely militarily. they will reconstitute. at some point, you will have to find a way to bring them into the governing structures of the country. they are an indigenous force in afghanistan representing part of the large pashtun community. the much bigger problem with stabilizing afghanistan is that the solution does not lie in the number of american troops or afghan troops. it lies with getting pakistan, specifically the pakistani army, to cooperate in this endeavor. and right now, the signs in that direction are troubling. there are signs everywhere that the pakistani military has been infiltrated by radical islamists who view the taliban as their natural allies and the united states and the west as their
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natural enemies. this week, a brigadier general was arrested for his ties to the extremist group. last month, well-armed militants stormed an important naval base, in karachi, an operation that clearly required internal help. also last month, a brave journalist was tortured and killed almost certainly by the pakistani intelligence services, which does deny it. and of course osama bin laden could not have been happily ensconced in a villa in an army can tonement without some help from some elements of the pakistani military. the pakistani military has been trying to deflect attention from these problems by stoking anti-americanism at home, it has been trying to cozy up to china and thwart and sabotage any serious investigation into its problems. if it continues on this path, a path of conflict, isolation and geopolitical games, it will mean backwardness for pakistan. and it will mean no peace for
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afghanistan. let's get started. president karzai, thank you so much for joining me. >> well spoken. >> you know, mr. president, there was a big debate in the united states about what exactly the president should say, and there were some who felt he should have announced a slower withdrawal, some a faster withdrawal. if you had a magic wand, would you have preferred this to be a slower withdrawal? >> the announcement that was made last night by president obama is welcome by the afghan people. the number of troops that he has announced to be withdrawn this year and the rest next year is a
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sign that afghanistan is taking over its own security and trying to defend its territory by its own means. so we're happy with the announcement. as for the number of troops, we have no opinion on that. >> no opinion, meaning you leave to the military commanders, but when you look at what the red cross says, security in afghanistan is at its worst point, the number of violent deaths are at their highest point. how could this be the optimal number given the security environment you're in? >> regardless of what the security situation in afghanistan is, it is the responsibility, it's the job of the afghan people to defend their country. having said that, i can confirm to you today -- and i've had this confirmed by the local means, not by government means
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or the means of nato -- that security this parts of the country has improved, that life is better now, of course not desirable, but better. >> but there is -- the afghan ngo points out, the ngo safety office in kabul points out that there has been a 66% increase in attacks by insurgents. why do you think this is happening? >> not the kind of attacks that would worry us. these are incidents. not the kind of attacks that would enable anybody to take a village or road. these are ied attacks and suicide attacks, which we cannot stop unless we have addressed the root cause of all of this trouble. so in terms of overall security of the country, in terms of mobility of the forces, things like the mobility of the people, things are better.
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>> there has been considerable worry in the united states about some of your recent comments, particularly you talked about the fact that the united states forces are in danger of becoming an occupying force in afghanistan, which prompted the outgoing ambassador, karl eikenberry, to say you are risking losing sup mort in the united states when we have troops there risking their lives to try to secure zbafghanistan d build it. to have you describe them as an occupying force is very unhelpful. do you regret having made that comment? >> no, i don't regret having made that comment. that comment was not seen in the full sentence that i spoke. it was after the incident of civilian casualties in afghanistan where children were killed in an aerial bombing and where i said no more of such
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aerial bombings on our residents. and the question was what it they continue. now, if afghanistan is a sovereign country, when afghanistan asks that these operations cease and if they then continue, it means we are not in charge of our country and that of course becomes an occupation. it is in this context that i spoke, and i stand by that. >> people worry that you might be playing a game of trying to whip up a certain amount of nationalist sentiment against an outsider like the united states, a game that has been played in pakistan, for example. are you trying to gain popularity by stoking a certain amount of anti-americanism? >> no. the united states and the rest of the world came to afghanistan after september 11, and the purpose of that was to bring security to the united states,
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to europe, and to the rest of the world. afghanistan cooperated in that in the fullest of terms. for a number of years we took casualties and we were silent, but then the war did not go in the direction that we advised, that we felt should go. but our casualties kept increasing. the afghans need a return to normal life. my statements are neither hostile nor inflammatory, nor designed to give anything but an understanding from our partners that the afghan people need to feel secure, that the afghan people need to see this war or this fight against terrorism take a direction in which they can see the end of the tunnel. >> one of the things that people worry with in terms of the legitimacy of the afghan government and forces, you talked about the growing
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acceptance of the afghan army, they worry about the legitimacy of your government and of corruption. some of it is directed toward you, your family, your brother. do you believe that you can claim that your government is less corrupt than it was before? >> i can claim that we're working harder than we did before. i can claim that we know a lot more of the corruption and the sources within afghanistan and outside of afghanistan than i knew before. i can claim that the afghan government is doing its best to handle this. i can also claim afghanistan would be a lot better place if our international partners cooperated with us on corruption and cleaned things at their own end, as well. >> you understand the frustration of the american
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taxpayer who sees that the united states has disbursed $16 billion to afghanistan in developmental aid over the last ten years and does not seem to see enough in return for it? the money does not seem to have achieved much. >> the money where it was invested directly has achieved. the united states has been growth for us. the united states has been clinics and schools for us. but the united states has not invested in major infrastructure projects for us like dams and electricity that we can produce for all. we have an argument about that. afghanistan has made its point of view very clear. for example, a project in kandahar for the production of electricity where the u.s. government spent $215 million on providing generators we disagreed with. we felt this money could be
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spent better by building a dam in that region. that will give a lasting sustainable economic environment to the people of the region. so if the investment of the united states is done in concertation with afghanistan and based on afghan priorities, it will produce a lot better result. we are grateful to every penny that the u.s. taxpayer has given to afghanistan. afghanistan will account for that part of the taxpayer's money that the afghan government has spent. where we are in charge, we are accountable, and we are grateful immensely for the u.s. taxpayer's money. they are hardworking people and that has to be respected. where we are not in charge, i hope the u.s. taxpayer would understand our predicament. >> we'll have to take a break. when we come back, i will ask president karzai whether talking
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with the taliban is the only way to get peace and if so, how he proposes to do it. only one calcium supplement does that in one daily dose. new citracal slow release... continuously releases calcium plus d for the efficient absorption my body needs. citracal. 42 miles per gallon on the highway. to get there, a lot of complicated engineering goes into every one. like variable valve timing and turbocharging, active front grille shutters that close at high speeds, and friction reducing -- oh, man, that is complicated. how about this -- cruze eco offers 42 miles per gallon. cool? very well qualified lessees can get a low-mileage lease on a cruze eco for around $169 a month. fuel economy based on epa estimates. ♪ ♪ gonna use my, my, my, imagination. ♪ the new blackberry playbook.
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hamid karzai talking about the region after president obama's speech. let me ask you about talking to the taliban. this has become one of the big issues. i'm now quoting your former head of national security, who says that this is a terrible idea, that there should be -- and that many afghans don't like the idea of talking to the taliban, that the strategy you should be pursuing is the complete disarming of the taliban. do you believe that's possible? >> the afghan people need peace. the afghan people want peace. they want their children sent to school. mothers want to be without worry when they have their children go to school or their husbands to job or when their women go out to work. this country needs to progress. this country needs to live like all other nations live. can you have an example in the history of mankind where people would not want peace?
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this is a desire, a human desire. we must reach this human desire through reasonable means, through realistic approach. and that is dialogue with a condition, that the gains of afghanistan the past ten years not be compromised, that the gains of a woman not be compromised, that our children must continue to go to school, that our constitution be respected and recognized, and that having fulfilled that, that the taliban, who agreed to this and the absolute majority of them agreed to this, will return to their homes in dignity. >> at what level are talks with the taliban going on? are they taking place at your level, at the highest levels? who is talking to people in the taliban? >> the high council for peace is
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authorized by the afghan people to talk with the taliban. they have been talking to the taliban, they're engaged in that talk with the taliban. these are initial contacts being made. but these contacts will not yield results, would not give us the results that we seek unless and until the united states and pakistan especially with our other allies back it with practical application of the means that they have at their disposal. >> so let's talk about the specific case of pakistan. pakistan's intelligence services and the pakistani military has influence with the haqqani faction. the haqani faction controls many of the insurgent attacks. what they seem to want is control over three or maybe four regions, provinces, in afghanistan. are you willing to cede parts of afghanistan to their control in
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order to get a peace deal? >> we are not going to make deals on behalf of the afghan people where a group or a segment, a political segment, is given a part of the country. that will not happen. afghanistan has a constitution. afghanistan has a state structure. those who join the peace process must respect the afghan constitution and the constitution does not allow that. >> why has it proved so difficult to bring the taliban in? is it that there is no central group, no central address or leader that you could negotiate with? what seems to be the obstacle? >> there are forces beyond the means of afghanistan that are interfering in this process that have power over the process. unless those forces begin to cooperate, the taliban will not be able to come forward as a
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group, as a unified structure. >> is pakistan the key there? >> pakistan is extremely important for a quick solution, yes. >> mr. president, i remember the many public disputes that you and president musharraf used to have as to where the looeeaders the insurgency, the leaders of the terrorism, the leaders of al qaeda were. and you insisted that they were in pakistan. he denied it. you once said to me when osama bin laden is found, he will be found in a pakistani city. it turns out you were right about osama. did you still believe the mull mullah omar fraction is in pakistan, that the leadership of al qaeda and the taliban are in pakistan? >> well, i don't exactly know where al marra is. talking about a peace process with the taliban, whether they are in afghanistan or whether they are across the border.
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we were jug in pakistan a few days ago. we had a very big sense of -- very detailed, very heart to heart, brother to brother dialogue. and i sincerely hope very, very much that that dialogue will yield results for the good of all of us. >> you sound like you're getting soft on pakistan because you're going to have to live with them as american forces draw down. >> well, we have learned to do things that we can do, that we find affordable for us. >> let me ask you finally, mr. president, back to the central question. if american troops drawdown and the security conditions in afghanistan worsen, if the afghan national army is not able to clear and hold and to maintain security in parts of
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afghanistan, would you go back to president obama and say -- and ask him to revisit the issue and perhaps reverse the drawdown? >> i will not do that. it is the responsibility of the afghan people to protect their country and to provide security for the citizens of the country. and if you fail in fulfilling our most important responsibility with regard to our country and our people, then somebody else should take over. >> powerful words. president karzai, as always, a pleasure and we hope to talk to you again soon. >> good to talk to you. >> and we will be back with the strange case of a disappearing date. there is a date this year that simply will not exist. we'll explain.
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welcome back. come with me now on a long journey to a far-off island nation about halfway between hawaii and new zealand, somoa. its lush volcano valleys make it a mostly agricultural nation. it has no military whatsoever and shouldn't be confused with its neighbor, american samoa. if you attempted to visit, do not plan a celebration there on december 30th because that day will simply not exist there. the calendar will jump from the 29th of december to the 31st. what in the world, right? why? it's actually a smart economic decision.
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you see, samoa is just 20 miles away from the enter national date line. as the name suggests, it's an imaginary longitude that marks a change in date when we fly or sail or steam over it. that line was created more than a century ago when it was decided samoa would be 11 hours behind greenwich meantime outside of london. that's three hours behind pacific time in los angeles. the theory went being on a similar time to the americas would benefit trade and commerce for samoa. but the times, quite liberally, are changing. samoa now does most of its business with its neighbors. but sidney in australia is ten hours ahead of london. and bear with me on the math here. that means samoa has been conducting most of its trade with a country that is 21 hours ahead of it. so when it's friday morning in samoa, australian clients are already at the beach on a sunny saturday.
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and when the aussies go back to work on monday, the samoans are still at sunday church or whatever they do on sundays. come december 29th, that will all change. samoa will leap forward a day and it will be just three hours ahead of sydney. samoans already made one historic change to align itself with australia in 2009. it switched from driving on the right side of the road as we do to the left side of the road. now they can import cheaper cars from next door. on the one hand, samoa's shift is a story about how economics dictates policy. but it's also a larger narrative about the quiet success of australia. australia's growth rate has averaged nearly 4% for the last two decades, higher than almost every other rich country. it may be on the bottom of the map, but it's on top of almost every livability index. the unemployment rate is low,
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deficit is almost negligible, strong education, universal health care. so how did it get there? self-deprecating aussies may put it down to good luck. they had good weather, abundant natural resources and a billion hungry chinese ready to mine metals and minerals. but that's not the whole story. australia's real economic rise dates back to the 1980s and a series of forward-thinking reforms. the government floated its dollar and made the central bank independent. it maintained a budget surplus and kept inflation in check. state-owned firms were privatized, industries deregulated. when the global financial crisis hit in 2008, australia's banks benefitted from a more conservative regulated approach. they were not overleveraged, so they weathered the storm. robust trade with china soaked up a potential drop in australian consumer command. australia's been smart on another issue that plagues american lawmakers these days, immigration.
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it has gone from 98% anglo celtic population after the second world war to having a quarter of its current population born abroad. asians make up 10% of the population. much of the real growth in australia's gdp can be attributed to immigration and population growth. there's much speculation about a lost decade for the united states economy. all samoa had to do to rev up its economy is lose a day. i wish we had that option. we'll be right back. are you selling u.s. treasuries because you worry the u.s. does not have the political will? >> we find better value in government bonds outside the u.s. right now. first bell. [ bell rings ] it's time for recess... and more pills. afternoon art starts and so does her knee pain, that's two more pills. almost done, but hang on... her doctor recommended aleve because it can relieve pain all day with just two pills. this is lisa... who switched to aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels.
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that can go the distance. that's why we gave the chevy equinox an epa estimated 32 miles per gallon highway. but do passengers appreciate making less stops at the pump? hey. want me to drive? we'll take that as a yes. the count on chevy event is going on strong with a full selection of vehicles to choose from.
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hello. i'm fredricka whitfield in atlanta. here are our top stories at this hour. new clashes and street fighting taking place in syria this weekend. security forces trying to shut down crowds of anti-government protesters. human rights activists say more than 1,100 demonstrators have been killed in the fighting since march. syria's military says more than 400 security forces have been killed. delegates from the african union are meeting again to try to hammer out a cease-fire in libya, and who's not at the negotiating table?
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libyan leader moammar gadhafi. an au official did not specify who, if anyone, is representing libya. previous peace talks that included gadhafi have fallen through. the worst seems to be over for minot, north dakota. the source river, which runs through the heart of the city, is finally cresting higher than ever before. but water levels are supposed to start falling this evening. at least 3,000 homes have been flooded. join me for more news at the top of the hour. will greece default? will portugal, italy, spain and other nations fall like dominos if greece does? does it matter? how about the united states? we don't really risk default, do we? let's hear from a man who should know know. mohamed el erian is the ceo of pimco, the world's biggest bond trader. he's written a superb book on markets and mayhem.
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he now joins me. thank you for joining us. >> thank you, fareed. >> let's start with just that question. for a long time, the europeans have tried to find some way that they could kick the can down the road, that they could provide some kind of assistance because i think they fear a lehman-like event, where if greece falls it causes a kind of shock to the markets. is it inevitable that greece will default? >> it is inevitable that greece would have to restructure its debt. you're absolutely right. europe has been kicking the can down the road, treating greek greece's problem not as a sol sen si issue but as a liquidity problem. i don't like the analogy of kicking the can down the road. i prefer a better one fashgs reed. think of rolling a snowball down a hill. two things happen when you do that. first, the snowball or the problem gets bigger. and secondly, the dynamics start accelerating and becoming more disorderly. that's exactly what's happening in greece.
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greece has two problems -- it has too much debt, and it cannot grow. and until these problems are solved, more and more of europe is going to be contaminated. we had a massive bailout a year ago in greece. massive. a year later, every single indicator in greece is worse off. >> one part of that reason, a substantial part of that reason, is it has had to adopt policies of austerity -- cutting spending, raising taxes -- and when you do it in a fragile economy, of course, you're taking money out of the economy. the government isn't spending on all the things it used to, it's firing people rather than hiring people, all that has a downward spiral effect on demand. does that mean in the u.s. as we think about these issues of should we have another stimulus, should we start cutting the budget, is the lesson that while the u.s. economy is fragile, don't cut budgets substantially? >> the united states is fundamentally different from greece in a number of respects. first, it has a lot more time.
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because the u.s. supplies global public goods. it supplies the dollar as a reserve currency. it supplies the deepest markets financial markets, which means other countries are willing to outsource the savings. this gives the u.s. much more time to deal with its fiscal policy issues. the second issue is that the u.s. actually is a much more vibrant economy. the problems facing the u.s. are not an engineering issue as much as a political issue. you need political will, you need democrats and republicans to come together to deal with four structural impediments. and they should be able to do that over time. so when we look at the u.s., yes, this is a public finance issue, but it's certainly nothing like greece. >> so when pimco looks at this situation, are you selling u.s. treasuries because you worry
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that the u.s. does not have the political will? as you say, in our case, there are many solutions. greece's case, there isn't a good solution. we have many solutions, just not political will at least, nor apparent political will to deal with it. does that make you despair enough that you're selling u.s. treasuries? >> we find better value in government bonds outside the u.s. right now. so it's an issue of valuation. you should buy or sell based on price. u.s. bonds have benefited enormously from the federal reserve buying them under the qe-2 program, which ends at the end of june. put another way, the fed has been buying about 70% of how much the treasury issues. a basic rule is don't buy something unless you know who else is going to be buying. so when we look at treasury, we see the big buyer stepping away from the market for certain. and we ask the question, who else is going to be buying at
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these levels? and we can't identify another buyer of the size of the fed. >> huch time do you think the u.s. has to put its house in order? >> in terms of immediate valuations, i think the end of the qe-2 program is a major event that the market is underestimating. longer term, i think two to these years. fareed, as an investor, it's very important to recognize what your alarm clock is. you know, all of us would like to wake up just as the alarm clock is going off, but a lot of us cannot. a lot of us have type one an type two errors. type one is you wake up before your alarm clock and you sit there and you're early, but at least you don't miss the alarm clock. the other alternative is you oversleep and you sleep through the alarm clock. our preference has always been wake up earlier than later. >> do you think that a defall, even if it is temporary and there's a six-month extension,
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but an actual defaeult on the debt limit would be a big event for the markets? >> it would be simply because of the technical linkages. so if the u.s. would not only fail to get agreement on the debt ceiling but end up cutting more than just expenditures on transfers on federal workers but actually not meet a debt payment, then we would be in the land of the unpredictable. >> so your advice to the american political system would be do not play with this issue. >> my advice is please try and get together and solve this issue in the context of a medium term reform package. if you can't do that and you're going to kick the can down the road, kick the can rather than face something that could be catastrophic in terms of legal
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contracts being triggered. >> mohamed el erian, a pleasure. we have to have you on again. we'll talk about all the other things we didn't get to. thank yo you so much. >> thank you, fareed. >> and we will be right back. i just did the math. wyoming has 400,000 people and two senators and california has 36 million people and two senators. it is hard to justify that. my doctor told me calcium
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last week we brought you the story of ice land crown sourcing its new constitution using facebook, twitter and youtube on determine what the icelandic people want to see in their new all-powerful document. so we thought we'd experiment in crowd sourcing some amendments for the american constitution. that inspired perhaps the strongest reaction that we have ever gotten here at gps. thousands and thousands of e-mails, tweets, facebook messages and posts on our message board. about one-third of you thought no revision was necessary and some expressed that opinion rather colorfully to say the least. among the other two-thirds, there were some very popular ideas for amendments. eliminating the electoral college, probably at the top of the list. other popular amendments included a ban on corporate donations in elections.
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a six-year presidential term with no allowance for re-election. a fat tax on unhealthy food, an upper age limit on elected officials, a ban on discrimination of left-handed people. i wasn't aware that there was a big problem. and my personal favorite was limit zakaria to two stupid comments a month. i took that to mean i was over already. to dig deeper on this and the legalities of amending the constitution and whether or not it's really feasible, jeffrey toobin, senior cnn legal analyst. jeff, we're unusual as a country. we're a very young country, but we have a very old constitution and political system if you think about it. our constitution, our political system is older than every european country. >> we have the oldest written constitution of any democracy in the world. and it's only been amended 27 times. and it stood us in very good staid. but i think, you know, it is not sacrosanct. it is a good idea to think about what shouldn't have been done in the first place and how you can improve it.
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>> when you look at -- i mean the german constitution apparently, i've read it once, is very similar to the american one but it's sort of more modern, more streamlined. it doesn't have some of the kinks. you know, for example, people point out that the second amendment is a grammatical mess, whatever you think of the right to bear arms. >> nearly incomprehensible as a sentence, yes. >> so are there things that constitutional scholars look at and say these have been problems for 222 years? >> certainly when it comes to the american constitution the two biggest controversies have always been in terms of the structure of the document, the electoral college and senate. both give powers to the states as states, as opposed to individuals. >> and the issue with the senate is you end up giving -- >> wyoming's 400,000 people. i just did the math. wyoming has 400,000 people and
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two senators, and california has 36 million people and two senators. it is hard to justify that. >> the justification for that and for the electoral college you said was states as states have some kinds of inherent quality that deserves representation. maybe that was true in the 18 e and may have been that true in the 18th century but if you drive from one state to another, it is hard to see why they should have political rights as states. >> the concern was at the time of the framing of the constitution that new york and virginia and massachusetts would overwhelm the smaller states. it's very hard to see how that applies today. particularly when it comes to the electoral college. the argument in favor of the electoral college used to be, will it give small states a certain amount of power. when was the last time you saw a
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presidential campaign in wyoming or vermont or delaware? we have presidential elections in four or five states, ohio, florida, a few other states in the midwest and that's it. all of the rest of the states are completely irrelevant, including the small states. >> no real conceivable way in which that will change? >> i think the electoral college, there is a conceive able way it will change. it's hard to justify this crazy system where people in new york and california and texas are irrelevant throughout all presidential campaigns except as fundraising sources, just the way contemporary american politics is, new york, california, are overwhelmingly democratic states, texas is a republican state. the states are ignored. and there are millions and millions of voters in these states who get no attention and it really does affect our politics, the substance of our politics as well. for decades we sub siddize
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products drk -- ethanol, iowa was such an important state. this has substantive impact as well as political science impact. >> would it be fair to say our senate is probably the most unrepresentative upper house of the advanced democracy with the possible exception of britain's house of lords? >> britain, ever since tony blair is more representative. he got rid of the her he had tri peers with we have the ludicrous disproportion. i think we're worse than the house of lords. >> it's interesting. i taught briefly and one of things i taught was a class on the american constitution and the debates that came out of the american constitution, which went on for 200 years to the present. america is unique in that it is
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founded not on blood and soil nationalism but political ideas and the constitution is the heart of that. that's why i think people are so sensitive to the idea of changing it. >> people are so sensitive. but -- and no one has greater reference than i do but it is worth remembering in 1787, this wonderful convocation that we celebrate, they also enshrined slavery. it took 100 years and a civil war to get rid of that in the constitution with the 13th and 14th and 15th amendments then took another 100 years for the amendments to mean anything. in 1860s they said black people could vote but no black people voted until the 1960s, when lyndon johnson got the voting rights act passed. yes the constitution is a wonderful document but infallible, it never was and still isn't. >> jeff toobin, fascinating, thank you so much. >> we will be right back. [ male announcer ] your hard work has paid off.
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re-election on tuesday and that leads to you're challenge question. ban ki-moon put his hand on original u.n. charter to take his oath. where is it chept? secretary general's office in new york, united nations archives in geneva, the united states national archives in washington, d.c. or herbst theater. stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. go to cnn.com/gps for ten more questions, while you're there, make sure you check out our website, the global public square where you find smart interviews and takes by our favorite experts. don't forget you can follow us on facebook and twitter. this week's book of the week is terrific. "the fear", it's a beautiful written har rowing account of the ruination of a country, the country is zimbabwe where he was born. the year is 2008 when the long
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time leader lost an election and brutalized his nation as punishment. now for the last look. it is the smash hit of the summer in norway, more than one and a half of the nation's population tuned in this week to see what is being billed as the longest tv program, 134 hours in length. it isn't some gripping drama with great cliff hangers and i guess you could call it a reality show. but humans were only bid players. it was a live camera actually, eleven of them showing the ocean, some trees and rocks from a cruiseship as it navigated around norway. really, this is what gets the norwegians to rally around their television sets. take a look an listen.
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