tv Fareed Zakaria GPS CNN November 2, 2014 7:00am-8:01am PST
7:00 am
watching requesti"state of the power play i. i'm candy crowley in washington. it's voting day on tuesday, get out there and vote. "fareed za kzakaria gps" start right now. >> this is gps, the global public square. welcome to all of new the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria. on today's show, my first guest says over 300 million muslims are either jihadists or want to foist islam on the world. really? sam harris' recent appearance on bill maher's show got me to offer my thoughts on islam in the past weeks. today sam and i will hash it out directly. also, the fight against isis. should america and the west even be involved? or is it a local sectarian
7:01 am
conflict best left alone by the world? we'll have a great debate. and what do the protesters in hong kong and the people of america have in common? a lot says my guest, lawrence lessig. indeed, the americans, he said, should be even more upset than the umbrella protesters. i'll let him explain. then anthony bourdain on his trip to iran. the food, the people, the culture behind the politics in the islamic republic. but first here is my take. can arab countries be real democracies? well, one of them, tunisia, just did well on a big test. more than 20 years ago the scholar samuel huntington established his famous two-turnover test for fledgling democracies. he argued a country can only be said to be a consolidated
7:02 am
democracy when there have been two peaceful transitions of power. tunisia passed huntington's test after last weekend's election when for the second time a ruling establishment agreed to hand over power. tunisia's relative success is in marked contrast to the abysmal failure of egypt. the arab world's largest and once most influential country. as in tunisia egyptians also overthrew a dictator three years ago, but after egypt's brief experiment with democracy in which the muslim brotherhood was elected and then abused its authority, today the country is ruled by a repressive dictatorship. i recently asked a secular liberal egyptian from cairo who was involved in the uprising against hosni mubarak whether the current regime feels like a return of the old order. oh, no, he said, this one is far more brutal, repressive, and cynical than mubarak's. why did tunisia succeed where egypt failed? analysts of the two countries
7:03 am
have offered lots of answers, but the most common one is that tunis tunisia's islamists were just better than egypts. in both countries islamist parties won the first election, but as many have pointed out, tunisia's party, which is a rough equivalent of egypt's muslim brotherhood, sought to share power while egypt did not. the author of a fascinating new book on islamists and elections accounting "counting islam" suggest that is tunisia's success and egypt's failure had less to do with the quality of its islamists than with deep differences in those countries' political environments. tunisia is more developed, more urban, more literal, and more globalized than egypt. it has a more die verse civil society than egypt, stronger labor unions, civic associations, professional groups, and so there was relative parity between islamists and their opponents.
7:04 am
tunisia's islamic party shared power, in other words, not because it was nicer than the muslim brotherhood, but because it had to. tunisia had more of the preconditions that have historically helped strengthen democracy than did egypt. of course, tunisia faces many economic challenges. it's youth unemployment rate is around 30%. the arab's world only democracy is also the biggest exporter of fighters to join isis. though this may be because tunisia is relatively open and not a closed police state like egypt. but tunisia's relative success does suggest there is nothing inherent in islam or arab society that makes it impossible for democracy to take root there. you need favorable economic and political conditions for sure in the arab world as elsewhere. you need good leadership, and you probably need some luck. for more go to cnn.com/fareed
7:05 am
and read my "washington post" column this week. and let's get started. one month ago the celebrated atheist, author, and neuroscientist sam harris appeared on "real time." the conversation about islam that ensued created quite a bit of controversy. harris said, among other things, that, quote, islam at this time is the mother lode of bad ide , ideas ."he said -- that comes out to 300 million people. i beg to differ and said as much when i responded with my own thoughts on the show. but i wanted to talk to mr. harris in person so here he is. he's the author of a new book "waking up," and we might get to it.
7:06 am
first i want to ask you about that number which it struck me as sort of pulled out of a hat. if you do have, you know, something in the range of 20% of all muslims who are either jihadists or islamists and, you know, which implies condoning violence and such, i'm just doing the math, that comes to about 300 million. >> correct. >> so there were 10,000 terrorist events last year. let's assume that 100 people -- let's assume all of those were muslim. let's assume each event was planned by 100 people, neither of those assumptions is right but i'm being generous. that comes to about a million people who are jihadists. so that still leaves us with 299 million missing muslim terrorists. >> there are a few distinctions we have to make. one is there's a difference between a jihadist and an islamist. there i was talking about islamists and jihadists together. islamists are people who want to foist their interpretation of
7:07 am
islam on the rest of society and sometimes they have a revolutionary bent, sometimes they have more of a normal political bent, but they do want -- >> but the fact that somebody may believe that, for example, sharia should obtain and women's testimony should be worth half a man's in court doesn't mean that they want to kill people. being conservative and religious, which by the way is not my orientation at all, but it's different from wanting to kill people. >> yes, yeah. again, tough parse this on specific points like do you favor killing apostates. do you think adulterers should be killed. even among islamists you'd find more subscribing to one versus the other depending on the poll you trust. but i didn't just pull the number out of a hat. there's a group at the university of north carolina chapel hill that looked at 40 years of parliament tear elections in the muslim world. literally every election that's occurred and found islamists got 15% of the votes. so i would say that -- if you take that number 15% who will
7:08 am
vote for islamist parties and then you look at the poll results on specific implementation of sharia law, so do you want adulterers and thieves given the traditional punishments or should apostates be killed, you never find the number with very few exceptions you never find the number as low as 15% voting in favor of those punishments. it's often 60% depending on the society. so i was -- i believe nudging that up to something around 20% is still a conservative estimate of the percentage of muslims worldwide who have values relating to human rights and free speech that are really in zero sum contest with our own. i just think we have to speak honestly about that. >> clearly islam has a problem today but there have been periods when islam was at the vanguard of modernity. you know, it was the place that preserved air stotcle and preserve preserv preserved science. if it was islam that was the problem, how come then it was
7:09 am
okay. it would suggest it was the political and ocean conditions within muslim societies or the people -- in other words clearly islam has been compatible with peace and progress and it is compatible with violence i would argue just like all religious. >> well, up to a point. i would say that specific ideas have specific consequences, and the idea of jihad is not a new one. it's not an invention of the 20th century. many people are now spreading a very pc and sanitized history of religious conflict. islam has been spread by the sword for over 1,000 years, and, yes, there are -- there's been an intensification for obvious political reasons of intolerance in the 20th century, but the idea that life for christians and jews as dimming under muslim rulers for 1,000 years was good doesn't make any sense and certainly life for jews when you -- >> wait a second -- >> when you compare it to immediate evil christendom --
7:10 am
>> but that was the main alternative. that's why when the jews left spain and were expelled they went to the place they thought was most hospitable to them which was the ottoman empire, the caliphate. >> i criticize christianity as much as anyone. i wrote a book "a letter to a christian nation" it's a vilification of the history -- >> i would have thought having written that book you would recognize there are elements of christianity that, as you point out in that book, that are compatible and celebrate slavery and violence and all these very, very bad attitudes, yet there are time when christianity represented that and at times when it represented peace and modernity. >> there's a few things we have to distinguish. specific ideas with specific consequences. when you ask why jews aren't living out of leviticus and deuteronomy and they're not sanctioning killing people for working on the sabbath, there are several answers to that question. one is there is no sanhedrin.
7:11 am
but the fact they don't have a sanhedrin -- >> explain what this is. >> it's a consecrated body of elders in the community that can judge whether or not somebody should be killed for working on the sabbath. so the details matter. one of the details here is that a belief that in islam that the one true faith has to conquer the world through jihad essentially and that free speech -- >> but jihad means different things to different people. >> i agree with you that we have to convince the muslim world or get the muslim world to convince itself that jihad really just means an inner spiritual struggle. that's the end game for civilization but the reality is an honest reading of the text and an honest reading of muslim history makes jihad look very much like hopefulliy war. >> the problem is you and osama bin laden agree. you're saying his interpretation of islam is correct. >> this is the problem. his interpretation of islam is
7:12 am
very straightforward and honest and you really have to split hairs and do some interpretative acrobatics in order to get it to look noncanonical. >> but do you really think that the path to reforming islam is to tell muslim that is their religion is the mother lode of bad ideas, that they should become atheists or symbolic followers or nominal was the word you used, nominal followers. do you really think 1.6 billion devout muslims are going to go, oh, damn, of course sam harris is right. my religion is crap and i should just abandon it. >> and i slightly misspoke. i didn't mean nominal followers in the sense that only muslim atheists could reform the faith. what i meant is followers who don't take these specific dangerous beliefs very seriously and want to interpret jihads a an inner spiritual struggle. >> do you think you're helping them or making it harder for them by adopting the osama bin laden interpretation? >> i'll tell you who is making it harder for them? liberals who deny the problem.
7:13 am
i get e-mails every day from atheists and secularists living in the muslim world who say i can't -- >> forget about others. >> i'm telling you that the only metric i have for you is i hear from people living in pakistan, for instance, who say if a liberal like you can't even speak honestly about the link between ideology and violence, what hope is there for me? i can't even tell my mother what i believe about god because i would be afraid of my own family or village killing me. >> sam harris, thank you very much. stimulating conversation. when we come back, we will stick with the theme of islam and have another debate. this one about isis. should the u.s. and the west even be fighting the islamic terrorists in iraq and syria or is this a local sectarian battle that we are better off staying out of? when we come back. when heartburn comes creeping up on you... fight back with relief so smooth... ...it's fast. tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue ...and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. ♪ tum, tum tum tum... smoothies! only from tums.
7:14 am
and sometimes i struggle to sleep at night,nd. and stay awake during the day. this is called non-24, a circadian rhythm disorder that affects up to 70 percent of people who are totally blind. talk to your doctor about your symptoms and learn more by calling 844-824-2424. or visit your24info.com. don't let non-24 get in the way of your pursuit of happiness. should the u.s. and the west
7:15 am
an unprecedented program arting busithat partners businesses with universities across the state. for better access to talent, cutting edge research, and state of the art facilities. and you pay no taxes for ten years. from biotech in brooklyn, to next gen energy in binghamton, to manufacturing in buffalo... startup-ny has new businesses popping up across the state. see how startup-ny can help your business grow at startup.ny.gov
7:18 am
let's take a step back from the machinations and the fight against isis in iraq and syria and ask some very important questions. why is the west involved at all in this sectarian islamic struggle? and how can we fight jihadis who are moved by religious passions? i want to bring in two people who have very strong feelings and knowledge on these matters, bernard is an author and activist, perhaps france's most important philosopher. he famously pushed his own government and the broader west to intervene in libya back in 2011. rasheed is a professor of modern arab studies. bernard, what is the answer to that question, why should the west be involved in a dispute between the sunnis and the shias in iraq and syria about who should rule? >> because it is not a dispute
7:19 am
between sunni and shia. it is a dispute between democrats and nondemocrats. it is a dispute between enlightenment and obscurism and this battle concerns, of course, the world of islam first, the moderate muslims are on the front line, but it concerns also all of us. we are on the second line. it is the real huntington clash of civilization which was a stew wid idea but the real class of civilization is inside the islam, the battle between moderates and islamic state, jihadism and so on, and this battle is a world battle identify logical battle and in syria and in iraq, alas, not only ideological. >> do you see it the same way?
7:20 am
>> i don't actually, fareed. there is a battle going on, and it is a battle that the united states and other countries are going to be involved in. but it's a battle i think we have to understand the roots of if we're going to deal with it correctly. one of the roots of this is western intervention. you did not have al qaeda in iraq which is the root of the islamic state before you had an american invasion of iraq. you do not have the kind of rage and anger at the united states except as a result of western interventi intervention. so if the problem is partly a muslim problem or a middle eastern problem, part of the problem is also western intervention. the american invasion of iraq created this situation. this was the seed bed for this sways. yes, you had differences in the i was islamic world but there was no such thing as this movement in iraq before 2003. >> when i went to iraq during the american occupation i would try to see things in terms of democrats and dictators just as you were saying, but on the ground what i found is that all the sunnis said, well, you have
7:21 am
put in place a shia government and the shia would say now it's our turn -- >> which the united states did. that's accurate. >> but they read what we were trying to look at in ideological terms they read entirely in sectarian terms. >> the arab world and the muslim world cannot continue until the end of the times to say that everything is a fault of america. one has to face also his own responsibility. so let's stop with this primary anti-americanism. america is not guilty of all the sins of the world. >> the first thing to say is, of course, the united states isn't responsible for all these problems, but whereas many people in the muslim world, in the arab world blame everything on everybody else. in this country we never examine ourselves. we americans fail to look at the things we ourselves have done and the kind of impact those things have. i mean, when we use drones to
7:22 am
kill people we want to kill for whatever reason, we also kill other people. what is the collateral effect of that? nobody talks about that. when we intervene and destroy a state as we did in iraq, we destroyed the entire iraqi state. we took out the baathists. we did more in iraq than was done in nazi germany and in nazi germany you took the top of the pyramid out. they took anybody who had anything to do with governance out. >> are you comparing what america did with what nazis did? >> no, i'm comparing the failure of the occupation in iraq with the success of the occupation in germany. >> thank you. >> where the entire structure of government was not uprooted. the entire structure of government in iraq was uprooted. we have to look at those things ourselves. >> what do we do now? >> you solve a political problem with political means. the problem in iraq is a political problem. it's the nature of the regime installed after 2003. that has alienated the sunnis. you cannot go on that way.
7:23 am
the first step was removed maliki. there are many, many more steps that have to be taken. the second is to talk about syria realistically. the hor rfic regime in syria is one of the problems. another problem is that regime has powerful external backers. the united states has to deal with that, has to deal with russia and deal with iran and it has to deal with those countries in not a rhetorical fashion. >> in syria there is really two forces which are sort of twins and which bred each other, which is the dirty state of bashar al assad guilty of 200,000 dead -- >> you keep feeding -- >> and the beheaders of the islamic state. >> both of them are awful but you keep throwing around 200,000, according to an
7:24 am
opposition group over 100,000 dead are a regime forces. butchers, butchers. they have done it before. but -- >> 200 -- >> let's not throw around those numbers. >> in syria, which is a great country with a great civilization, a great people, 200,000 people died before of the dictatorship of bashar al assad. today in syria bred by bashar al assad who took out of his jail and his -- >> and his father. >> and his father, but at the beginning in 2011 bashar al assad opened the gates of his jails, put out the worst islamists. built the islamist state which we are facing today who behead -- >> okay. we will have to continue this conversation another time. maybe off camera. when we come back, in today's world you can get a cab or a car in minutes using your smartphone. you can find a place to sleep almost anywhere in the world.
7:25 am
you can even book somebody for emergency hairstyling. but what happens when all these new apps meet old laws? we'll take a look. [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 million people. [ susan ] my promotion allowed me to start investing for my retirement. transamerica made it easy. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. transform tomorrow. transamerica. ugh... ...heartburn. did someone say burn? try alka seltzer reliefchews. they work just as fast and are proven to taste better than tums smoothies assorted fruit. mmm... amazing. yeah, i get that a lot. alka seltzer heartburn reliefchews. enjoy the relief.
7:26 am
i found a better deal on prescriptions. we found lower co-pays... ...and a free wellness visit. new plan...same doctor. i'm happy. it's medicare open enrollment. have you compared plans yet? it's easy at medicare.gov. or you can call 1-800-medicare. medicare open enrollment. you'll never know unless you go.
7:29 am
now for what in the world segment. several weeks ago the ceo of uber was a guest on the show. he told me that the biggest development in technology today is that the world of bits is bumping up against the world of atoms to which you might say what is he talking about? he was highlighting a crucial trend. for years the technology revolution was operating within the digital world changing the way we got words, music, movies, or products that can be produced and consumed in digital form. in other words, in bits. but now software and the big data revolution have moved into every aspect of life. getting a taxi or hotel room, groceries, and other kinds of physical products. and that's causing friction. what the bits and bites of the digital world meet the atoms of
7:30 am
the raeld world. >> once you get into the physical world, you are now in the realm of the mayor, and so there's a lot of regulations that go way back that didn't contemplate what the future was going to look like. >> kalanick's company is taking on the world's taxi cartels and xh commissions. airbnb is battling zoning laws and bitcoin is fupuzzling financial regulators. they raise fascinating questions about whether some of the functions governments have taken on over the past decades or centuries are necessary, but new technology should not become simply a mask to avoid paying taxes or abiding by standard rules. look at airbnb, a service which allows people to rent anything from a apartment to a castle to a tree house for a week or a month in 190 countries. just a few weeks ago new york state's attorney general said that 72% of airbnbs rentals in
7:31 am
new york city appear to violate the law. what's more, the attorney general contends that a small percentage of airbnb users between 2010 and 2014 accounted for a disproportionate share of the revenue. from the private rentals overall, the ag said, new york city may be owed some $33 million in unpaid hotel tacks. car services like uber and lift have also been met with resistance. germany recently issued the first nationwide ban of uber. to help navigate this regulatory minefield the techies turned to a poll liticpolitico. they hired david plouffe. steven strauss, a visiting professor at princeton said while some aspects of this technology are troubling, these companies are forcing society to confront its regulations and to
7:32 am
ask whether they make sense. we would probably all agree that people who we hire to drive us around ought to undergo background checks, but should the local taxi union really be able to limit the number of drivers and cars on the road in a city like new york asks strauss? that is about restricting competition. indeed, many of the regulations in place today have created many monopolies that allow cartels to limit competition and raise prices. that's, of course, bad for it's consumer. i think we do need regulations, but we need smart regulations that allow for innovation, new enterprises, and growth. the greatest problem with government regulations is not that they're good or bad, but that they are eternal. once in place lobbies form to sustain them and they're rarely modified or eliminated. but governments will have to come to terms with the wave of technology that is creeping into every aspect of life. even in germany, which takes pride in its highly regulated
7:33 am
system, officials recently overturned the nationwide uber ban and have created a compromise that is complex but workable. advanced economies like germany and the united states always face the danger of getting sclerotic, jammed up over time with an accumulation of regulations and rules. the interests of the past and the present are well represented in politics by special interests formed to protect them. but the future has few lobbies for its cause. perhaps technology will change that representing the future, injecting some dynamism into the economy and shaking up the old way of doing things. when we come back, my next guest will tell you why he thinks the american electorate should take a cue from the protesters in hong kong. big day? ah, the usual. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked. made sure everyone got their latest gadgets.
7:34 am
what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern. can run in high heels. must be a supermodel, right? you don't know "aarp." because aarp is making finding the career you love, no matter what your age, a real possibility. go to aarp.org/possibilities to check out life reimagined for tools, support, and connections. if you don't think "i've still got it" when you think aarp, then you don't know "aarp." find more surprising possibilities and get to know us at aarp.org/possibilities. man: [ laughs ] those look like baby steps now. but they were some pretty good moves. and the best move of all? having the right partner at my side.
7:35 am
7:37 am
i'm spending too much time hiring and not enough time in my kitchen. [ female announcer ] need to hire fast? go to ziprecruiter.com and post your job to over 30 of the web's leading job boards with a single click; then simply select the best candidates from one easy to review list. you put up one post and the next day you have all these candidates. makes my job a lot easier. [ female announcer ] over 100,000 businesses have already used zip recruiter and now you can use zip recruiter for free at a special site for tv viewers; go to ziprecruiter.com/offer5. over a month ago protests began in hong kong.
7:38 am
the so-called umbrella movement was started because the citizens wanted to be able to pick their own candidates for the city's leader or chief executive rather than have the candidates preselected for them. my next guest, larry lessig says that voters in the united states who go to the polls on tuesday should take a page from these hong kong protesters. he's a professor at harvard law school and the director of the safra center for ethics. why do you make this comparison to hong kong? >> look at what's going on in hong kang. they want to have a two-stage election and in the first stage a small committee of 1200 people get to pick the candidate. so 1200 out of 5 million is about 0.24% of hong kong picks the candidates who get to run in the general election. well, compare that to the american system. any candidate who wants to run for congress in america knows he has to raise an incredible amount of money to be able to run for congress. who were the funders of that campaign? it's a tiny, tiny fraction of america. maybe about 0.05% are the
7:39 am
relative funds. in america we have a two-stage process and at the first stage a tiny fraction of our democracy chooses the candidates who get to run effectively in the second stage. so it's just like that two-stage process in hong kong. >> and why is that in your view so corrupting? why is it that having to raise all this money from a small sliver of the public is corru corrupting? >> just imagine you spend 30% to 70% of your time calling these funders, this tiny fraction of the 1%, to raise the money you need to fund your campaigns. as any of us would, it would develop in you a sixth sense, a constant awareness about how what you do will affect your ability to raise money. your focus is on the funders and not on the people, and the point is if the funders are not the people, which they are not when they are in tiny fraction of the 1%, it can't help but corrupt the way our government
7:40 am
functions. >> and leave aside presidential elections where people may have grand, lofty motives. when you're funding a congressman, often you have a very specific quid pro quo. there's something you want to return, some change in the tax code, some regulation. >> absolutely. we've seen, for example, wall street take the number one lead now in funding candidates for congress. we've seen many people who want special tax breaks or renewals of special tax breaks take the lead because theny understand this is how you get the attention of members of congress. you step up with your check, and that check is what gets you entree into the policy making process in washington. >> you come to this unusually. you're a reagan republican. you clerked for justice scalia. so what got you to the place you are now? >> this is not a democratic issue or a republican issue. this is an american issue. every american has got to recognize the way the system has corrupted our democracy and makes it impossible for
7:41 am
republicans and democrats alike to get what they want out of their government. look, if you're a republican and you want to simplify the tax code, there is no way to simplify the tax code as long as this is the way we fund campaigns. if you're a democrat and you want climate change legislation or real health care reform, there is no way to get those reforms until you change the way you fund elections. so we're pushing the idea that we've got to get beyond the left/right, democrat/republican gigs a division and recognize there's a fundamental problem and it will not be changed until we change the which we fund elections. >> this election we will find $4 billion. as i think i saw the last british general election the entire election cost something like $100 million. i may be wrong but some tiny fraction of what we're spending. >> so that's right, and if you look at the ads and the way campaigns are run, it's a terrible, terrible system. but, look, in my view the problem is not the spending. the problem is the fund-raising. and if we could spend that
7:42 am
amount of money but raise the money from small dollar contributions of everybody so that candidates were not beholden to this tiny, tiny fraction of the 1% that would be infinitely better than the system we have. >> so how would you do it? there are two proposals, one a democratic proposal, one a republican. the democratic proposal john sarbanes government by the people act would make it so small contributions are matched up to nine to one. like the way new york city runs its elections. so small contributions become effectively big contributions. the republican idea is to basically give out vouchers, vouchers to all voters for small contributions so that if you get a voucher, you can give it to a candidate who agrees to fund their complains with small contributions only. what they do is radically increase the number of funders of a campaign so that we don't, like hong kong, outsource the funding of campaign to this tiny, tiny committee of countriers who are country
7:43 am
e -- funders. >> how likely is this to happen? i think we actually are seeing incredible progress, especially among republicans recognizing they need this change before we get back to a government that can actually work. so i think we are at a moment where we can get progress with both democrats and republicans and i think we can actually see 2016 as ultimately an election about this issue so that we find a way to get a government that can work again. >> blepleasure to have you on. >> thanks. >> inside iran with anthony bourdain. the politics, the food, the people. the american muscle cars. what? life inside the islamic republic when we come back. and stay awake during the day. this is called non-24, a circadian rhythm disorder that affects up to 70 percent of people who are totally blind. talk to your doctor about your symptoms and learn more by calling 844-824-2424.
7:47 am
7:48 am
iran's relations with america and its allies were at one of their many low points. ahmadinejad seemed to get great pleasure from spouting his anti-western rhetoric. it's possible that in less than a month's time iran will sign a nuclear deal with the west. but what does iran look like beneath all this high politics? that is what anthony bourdain went to find out when he visited the country for an episode of "parts unknown" that airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. we sat down recently to compare notes. so you did the thing most american negotiators haven't yet done, which is actually go to iran. >> yeah. and an incredible experience. what we saw inside iran was extraordinary, heartbreaking, confusing, inspiring, and very, very different than the iran i expected from always -- from looking at it from afar, from a geopolitical sense, what we read on the news, what we know about that long and contentious
7:49 am
relationship we've had as nations. >> what do you think was the most surprising thing to you? >> to walk down the street as an american and have total strangers constantly saying where are you from? america? have you tried our food? thank you for coming. i'm so -- just outgoing, friendly, welcoming to strangers to a degree that we really experience very, very few places and i'm talking western europe and allied nations. we'd been told to expect that but you're thrown by it when you face it everywhere. our producer was -- it was his birthday and we all went out with our local crew to a very crowded restaurant, traditional persian music and iranian families eating and someone found out that my producer -- it was his birthday, the entire restaurant sang happy birthday to him and they presented him with a cake. it was a very different iran than i had been led to expect or
7:50 am
could have imagined. >> the thing that struck me was how well run tehran was. it's clean. everything works. it's bustling. you think of it as this sanctioned outpost of the evil empire, and were you struck by that? it's a bustling city. >> it's there, and you see how careful people are, of course, and they are very cognizant that the -- what's okay right now might not be okay in five minutes as far as behavior. but it feels a lot like barcelona for a few minutes at a time, and we went at one point -- hung out in a parking lot in tehran late at night with all these young iranian kids who collect american muscle cars and hang out and order pizza and rev their engines and collect mustangs and challengers, and for a minute you can be forgiven for thinking it's southern california. it's a very young country, of course.
7:51 am
so the disconnect between the hardliners and the people who run and control the country and the iran you see and feel on the street is very jarring and i think it will blow people's minds when you see it. >> you obviously draw some conclusions or inferences from the cuisine of a place and how people eat and the broader culture. so when you looked at iran and you tasted the cuisine in the country, what inferences did you draw? >> it's a big cuisine. persian empire was big, and icol over as part of the trade -- international trade going back to ancient times. they had chinese, indian, arab, every type of influence but what's particularly interesting since it's an eat at home culture as many cultures in the region cull narly, what is
7:52 am
interesting is that they intermarry in iran ethnic groups and tribal groups from different former regions of the persian empire intermarry, so every house you go to has a cuisine and a repertoire passed from generation to generation that is unique to that family, so it's quite extraordinary when you eat in people's home how different and how that mix of influences creates and is constantly evolving. >> when people think about great cuisine, they say french, chinese, maybe japanese kind of the top. >> it's right there with turkish and -- china is sort of a grandmother cuisine but it's right up there, and i wish i knew enough about the cuisine at this point to give you an intelligent answer. i only got a few bites of it, and enough to say i want more. >> thank you so much, anthony bourdain. >> thank you. next on "gps," why the
7:53 am
7:54 am
7:57 am
more than 40% of internet users oce errs social media acc googling a barometer which surveyed close to 50 countries around the world. it brings me to my question, which of the following questions online populations has the highest percentage of social media users? is it, s, turkey. b, the united states, c, china, or d russia? stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer. this week's book of the week a walter isaacson's "the
7:58 am
innovators." everything a writes a compulsory readable and this book does not disappoint. there's chapters on the rise of the computer, the microchip, the transiters, the internet. this is the one history to read about our age of technology. and now for the last look. despite the ugly discord of the recent midterm campaigning it's heartening to hear democrats and republicans share some surprising common ground. according to some new analytics from facebook. facebook looked at everyone who liked pages of candidates and examined tha ed their other pag. the more an artist or author is liked by one side or the other the farther it appears to the left or right. republicans' taste in music skewed toward country artists
7:59 am
while democrats, also not surprisingly, love the beatles and bob marley. members of both parties like taylor swift. as does my 6-year-old daughter who as far as i know has no party affiliation. i'm scratching my head over this one. the empire state building was disproportionately liked more by democrats. the destination both dems and republicans could agree on was the jersey shore. perhaps it was all that chri christie/obama bonding on the boardwalk. 92% of turkey's internet users are on social media. as foreign policy.com points out, the president's government has created what has been called a social media army of sorts to take on online activists as part of a broader social media
8:00 am
crackdown. turkey's people need an army to protect them from many threats, including isis right next door, but freedom of speech is surely not one of those threats. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. good morning. i'm brian stelter. it's sunday, november 2nd, and it's time for "reliable sources." ahead this hour, a storm hitting the weather channel. a co-founder disavows climate change and then the channel disavows him. both sides are here to talk with me. also, 'tis the season for campaign ads. politicos have thrown $3 billion at the screen so far. yet the media is still not paying much attention to this election. former senator allen simpson is here to explain why. >> you lying s.o.b. later, it is the scariest movie of the year, and all of it is true. glen greenwald has introduced us to edward snowden, but now he has a
198 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
CNN (San Francisco) Television Archive The Chin Grimes TV News Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on