Just Give Me Some Human Insight

Remember When by Sander Kleinenberg (Tapesh remix).

The Empty Branding Of The GOP

Among the many problems plaguing contemporary American politics is the proliferation of sound bite politics. The purpose of a sound bite is to capture the essence of a larger issue in the form of a single word or phrase; to simplify otherwise complex issues into quotable, easily-digestible buzzwords. Unfortunately, one need not look any further than the current GOP debates to see examples of this political pollution.

The recent GOP debates have provided fertile ground for the cultivation of various sound bites and buzzwords. Herman Cain branded himself with his “9-9-9” comprehensive tax reform plan and strategically plugged it into many of his speeches and debate responses. Championing the initiative not only for its simplicity and transparency but also for its effectiveness in reducing taxes, Cain and his litany-like recital of its principles actually ignored larger socioeconomic factors that necessitate a more nuanced tax code; in fact, economists have concluded that 9-9-9 would raise taxes for the majority of Americans .

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Jon Stewart On Corporate Personhood

I Know This For Sure: I’m Walking Out That Door

Last Nite by The Strokes off of Is This It?

Understanding Iran

The Article: If you lived in Iran, wouldn’t you want the nuclear bomb? by Mehdi Hasan in the Guardian.

The Text: Imagine, for a moment, that you are an Iranian mullah. Sitting crosslegged on your Persian rug in Tehran, sipping a cup of chai, you glance up at the map of the Middle East on the wall. It is a disturbing image: your country, the Islamic Republic of Iran, is surrounded on all sides by virulent enemies and regional rivals, both nuclear and non-nuclear.

On your eastern border, the United States has 100,000 troops serving in Afghanistan. On your western border, the US has been occupying Iraq since 2003 and plans to retain a small force of military contractors and CIA operatives even after its official withdrawal next month. Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation, is to the south-east; Turkey, America’s Nato ally, to the north-west; Turkmenistan, which has acted as a refuelling base for US military transport planes since 2002, to the north-east. To the south, across the Persian Gulf, you see a cluster of US client states: Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet; Qatar, host to a forward headquarters of US Central Command; Saudi Arabia, whose king has exhorted America to “attack Iran” and “cut off the head of the snake”.

Then, of course, less than a thousand miles to the west, there is Israel, your mortal enemy, in possession of over a hundred nuclear warheads and with a history of pre-emptive aggression against its opponents.

The map makes it clear: Iran is, literally, encircled by the United States and its allies.

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