Review THE HORACE MANN
Volume XXIV - May 2015
RETROSPECTIVE
VIETNAM TO PRESENT
Issue
8
Letter From the Editor
Review THE HORACE MANN
Lauren Futter Executive Editor
Jenna Barancik Laszlo Herwitz
Managing Design and Web Directors
Matthew Harpe Adam Resheff Brett Silverstein
D
Managing Content Editors
uring the school year, members of the ninth grade read George Orwell’s 1984 in which one man attempts to defy a totalitarian government that controls all information, individual thought, and memory. Towards the end of the novel, the main character is arrested and forced to repeat the state motto, “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” The recent fortieth anniversaries of the end of the Vietnam War, the indictments of those involved in the Watergate scandal, and the landmark Roe v. Wade decision provided an opportunity to explore this concept. The Review staff always asks its writers to consider current events in a historical context; however, this issue offers the opportunity for writers to specifically examine the events of an era that profoundly shaped our culture and political system. Although it has been over forty years since North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates of the Independence Palace, the ghost of the Vietnam War looms large over US foreign policy in the form of “Vietnam Syndrome.” It has come to express the fear that the US will enter a war without a clear objective as a writer in this issue notes. Watergate, as well, has contributed to our collective consciousness by not only providing the suffix “-gate” for every political faux pas, but more significantly, by fostering the insistent demand for transparency in government dealings, as another writer notes in this issue. Our writers are using history not only as a means of discovering who we are but what we hope to become. As the trimester draws to a close, it is only natural that we reflect upon the past year. This year, more so than ever before, The Review has drawn unique and diverse perspectives on issues ranging from gun control to renewable energy. Despite these differences, writers and editors come together every month to contemplate the most pressing conflicts of our time within the pages of this magazine and succeed in producing an award winning publication. With each succeeding issue, our staff continues to improve its writing and analytical skills. I know that next year and beyond The Review staff will continue to confront topical issues, lend their insights, and express their opinions. Thank you to Mr. Donadio, Dr. Delanty, Dr. Schiller, and Dr. Kelly for your continued support of the Review’s work. We appreciate everything that you do to make The Review possible. Most importantly, a special and personal thank you to our junior and senior staff members who stayed late during press nights on the night before the SATs, pulled together as a team, and worked tirelessly to make this and all of the issues this year happen. I am truly grateful for all of your hard work. Thank you all for a great year!
Emily Kramer
Senior Editor - Domestic
Neil Ahlawat Senior Editor - International
Elizabeth Xiong
Senior Editor - Features
James Megibow Mitchell Troyanovsky Senior Editor - Economics
Alexander Newman Abigail Zuckerman Senior Editor - Science and Technology
Edmund Bannister Charles Cotton James McCarthy Harry Seavey Samantha Stern Senior Contibutors
Ben Alexander Daria Balaeskoul Maria Balaeskoul Gabriel Broshy Daniel Jin Cassandra K-J
Anna Kuritzkes Natasha Moolji Anne Rosenblatt Daniel Rosenblatt Peter Shamamian Eric Stein
Junior Editors
Miranda Bannister Evan Greene Ray Fishman Alex O’Neill
Matthew Parker Aditya Ram Spencer Slagowitz Evy Verbinnen
Associate Editors
Gregory Donadio Faculty Advisor
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The Horace Mann Review is a member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the American Scholastic Press Association, and the National Scholastic Press Association. Opinions expressed in articles or illustrations are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board or of the Horace Mann School. For more information, please visit www.hmreview.org.
Table of Contents Karen Jiang
page 4
The Legacy of the Oklahoma City Bombing Kyra Hill
The Legacy of the Soviet Union
page 6
Stephen Phillips
Annie Liu
Neo-Liberalism
Sydney Katz
page 10
page 12
Combating ISIS Zoe Mavrides
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page 14
Chris Shaari
The Cyclical Nature of Euro-zone Failure Henry Shapiro
page 36
China: Unprepared to Lead Krystian Loetscher
page 38
China’s New Anti-Corruption Measures Peter Shamamian
page 40
Politics for Purchase Ray Fishman
page 42
College Football Profits
page 16
Jacob Chae
page 44
Our World’s Female Leaders Zarina Iman
page 18
The Pope on Free Speech Alexis Megibow
page 20
The Lasting Impact of Vietnam Gabe Broshy
page 22
Cuban Embargo: Breaking Barriers Sophie Maltby
46 SCI-TECH
INTERNATIONAL
Yemen: A Volatile State
FEATURES
page 34
page 8
Hillary Clinton: Future President
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page 32
North American Union
Daniel Lee
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Eva Steinman
ECONOMICS
DOMESTIC
4
The Evolution of US Foreign Policy
The Fault in Indiana’s IFRA Bill
ISIS and Social Media Tim Hoang
page 46
China’s Technology Connects Brian Song
page 48
America’s Renewable Energy Alex Karpf
page 50
page 26
Watergate: Cleaning Up Politics Evan Megibow
page 28
Roe v. Wade Lexi Kantor
page 30
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Karen Jiang
THE FAULT OF INDIANA’S RFRA B F
reedom of speech is restricted: you can’t scream “fire” without a fire, and you can’t obscenely slander someone in a public speech. It is inherently understood that the freedoms granted to us by the Bill of Rights have limits. Likewise, freedom of religion cannot extend beyond the point at which religion is used to justify malicious actions. There is no question that this line exists; the real dispute lies over where the line is drawn. It is ethically clear, however, that exercising our freedoms should not allow us to hurt others. This inherent moral principle is what keeps American society from spiraling out of control while still maintaining individual freedoms. In 1993, President Clinton signed the
original Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) based on such grounds. As the official Act states, the purpose of the RFRA was to “ensure that interests in religious freedom are protected.” It would guarantee that the government would not burden religious practices without compelling justification, such as the use of religion to hinder other members of the community. At the time, the Supreme Court had ruled against Native American use of peyote, a prohibited drug-like substance, for religious rituals. Considering the U.S.’ dismal track record with respecting Native Americans, it seemed unreasonable for the government to thwart highly sacred religious practices. In response to the Supreme Court ruling, Congress quickly
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passed the RFRA. Evidently, the act was created to protect Native American religious ceremonies, ones that posed absolutely no danger to the rest of the nation. The intention of the Act was to safeguard innocuous religious practices and beliefs, not to protect malicious applications of religion. The RFRA was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1997 by the City of Boerne v. Flores decision. However, since then, 19 states have passed their own versions of the RFRA. When Mike Pence, governor of Indiana, signed Indiana’s RFRA bill into state law in the final days of March, a national firestorm erupted. Liberals attacked the law from all sides; Apple CEO Tim Cook protested it on behalf of the world’s most valuable company, basketball fanatics questioned whether or not Indiana was fit to host the NCAA’s Final Four, shoppers stated they would boycott goods from Indiana-based WalMart, and business leaders claimed they would cancel meetings within the state. Indiana newspapers’ headlines shouted, “FIX THIS NOW,” in what Time Magazine called “World War III-font.” One look at the original bill, and it’s not hard to see that it is a thinly veiled protection for bigotry. The bill is blatantly directed at discriminating against the LGBTQ community, and it aims to “protect” the miniscule number- one that can literally be counted in the double digits- of business owners who have refused to serve homosexual customers. Because this number is so small, the bill in Indiana is frivolous and ineffective. What it is really doing is sending the message that the Indiana government is granting its citizens legal protection for, and in a sense approving of, discrimination against LGBTQ community. Thus, the Indiana bill is clearly
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A BILL infringing upon the civil rights of greater community while allegedly protecting the religious freedoms of a smaller group. Admittedly, the law is not actively endorsing discrimination, and yes, some proponents of the bill say that its purpose is to combat gay weddings, not gay people. However, there are no excuses for the specific intentions of the passing of this bill: to infringe upon LGBTQ rights in the name of religion. The bill clearly extends beyond what the original federal RFRA bill intended to do; the Indiana bill is not just protecting harmless religious practices, it is granting justification for hurting others. If a group were to create a religion tomorrow that publicly endorsed the discrimination of Asians, federal action would be taken immediately. Likewise, religion cannot be used to actively discriminate against any group of people, which includes groups based upon race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. Bigotry is ethically and morally wrong, and it should not be tolerated. Furthermore, Indiana doesn’t have any statewide LGBTQ protection laws to balance out the RFRA bill. The collective fear is that discrimination is going to extend from gay weddings into the workforce. The question of “Can bakers refuse to make gay-wedding cakes?” could potentially escalate to “Can gay workers lose pay or even jobs because of their sexuality?” Pence could have avoided this entire episode had he taken a different path. Just a few weeks before the Indiana uproar, Utah passed a RFRA bill and an anti-discrimination bill together. The RFRA bill expanded exemptions for religious purposes and increased government protection for religious expression. On the other hand, the anti-discrimination bill prohibited
sexuality and gender identity discrimination in employment and housing. It was a win-win situation for both sides: religious leaders won religious freedom protections, while LGBTQ supporters were ensured that enhanced religious protections wouldn’t infringe on gay rights. While Indiana played a game of God’s laws vs. human laws, where there could be only one winner, Utah proposed a solution where the two could effectively collaborate. Had
moderate stance on these issues. Granted, the RFRA bill in Indiana was later amended to state that any person or business could not refuse services for religious regions based upon gender identity or sexual orientation. This amendment, in fact, marked the first time the words “gender identity” and “sexual orientation” have ever appeared in Indiana state legislation. However, this fix does little to solve the problem: Indiana still does not have
“Indiana’s RFRA bill is a prime example of a malicious conservative response to a changing world.” Indiana legislators followed in Utah’s steps, they could have subdued the backlash and saved themselves humiliation. As a nation, we have reached a kind of turning point for the LGBTQ movement. Twenty-five years of work have culminated to this age. After striking down samesex marriage bans in several states, the Supreme Court is soon likely to make a sweeping decision to legalize same-sex marriage across the nation. Major politicians have switched sides and announced their support for same-sex marriage in the past few years. Liberals are gaining legitimate traction, and conservatives are left in the dust. Until recently, Democrats were divided over LGBTQ rights; but now, only the Republicans are really split. It’s clear that any presidential nominee from the GOP will need to take an, at the least,
May 2015
separate law dedicated solely to anti-discrimination. Thus, anyone who violates the clause can be sued only on the basis of sections of smaller laws. Anything short of a larger, more comprehensive, separate anti-discrimination law is vastly less effective in preventing discrimination. Regardless of what Indiana does in the future, legislators have already made their point. Indiana’s RFRA bill is a prime example of a malicious conservative response to a changing world. It is becoming ever more apparent that they are on the losing end of the LGBTQ revolution, which in no way justifies vicious actions. Both religious freedoms and civil rights are integral to American life and deserve adequate debate. But it is absolutely un-debatable that creating a law to protect bigotry is immoral and unethical. HMR
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the legacy of the okLahoma city b KRYA HILL A
constant topic that is beginning to take over daily conversation is terror. With the growth of ISIS and extremist attacks worldwide, terror has permanently woven its way into American lives. As social media increases its size, so does the ability of radical societies like ISIS to attract new members that live in places like the United States. Terror is not something that is new to us, but it is now becoming a recurring issue that we are still trying to understand. With the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma Bombing only a couple weeks ago, we have now realized how our fight against terrorism has slowly escalated in the span of two decades and continues to escalate. In looking back at the escalation of terrorism in America, it is easy to skip over the Oklahoma City Bombing and look at more modern or publicized events. However, as the anniversary of the tragic event
approaches, it is important to remember this momentous event and the legacy that it has left on United States terrorism. On April 19th, 1995, a truck bomb exploded at 9:02 AM outside of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 168 people died, over 650 were injured, and over 300 buildings were damaged within the 16-mile radius of the explosion. The Oklahoma City bombing was the first full-scale terrorist attack in the United States and marked the beginning of a long road of terrorism to follow. After the bombing, the main goal of the country was to focus on the prime suspect of the bombing, who had disappeared from the explosion site. It took two days for law enforcement to capture Timothy McVeigh, a former American soldier who was arrested for a traffic violation and found to be carrying a handgun. Before he was released, law enforcement was able to locate him and officially name him as the prime suspect of the attack. On the same day, Terry Nichols, one of McVeigh’s friends and associates,
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was arrested after surrendering to police for aiding with the explosion. Both were members of a radical right-wing group based in Michigan. The Oklahoma City Bombing was an attack that shocked America, as such hostile terrorism was something that most of the population was unfamiliar with at the time. Before 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing was considered to be the worst terror attack seen on American soil. Many argue that 9/11 was the first real attack to change the way that Americans and the United States think about terror; yet, despite the severity of the 9/11 attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing planted a seed of terror in America that slowly began to grow. One of America’s own, a soldier who had fought in the service of his country, had begun to radicalize the way he thought and performed an act of terror in his own country, killing almost two hundred people and wounding almost seven hundred others. It was this act of terror that would begin a trail of many more to follow.
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y bombing Following the Oklahoma City bombing were a string of continuous acts of terror: on February 24th, 1997, 69-year old Palestinian Ali Hassan Abu Kamal opened fire atop the Empire State building, killing many visitors and a Danish national. On September 11th, 2001, two planes hijacked by Al-Queda terrorists crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center located in the financial district of Manhattan, in which 2996 people were killed. Following the crash, a third plane hijacked by another terrorist crashed into the Pentagon located in Arlington County, Virginia. 125 people in the building were killed, as well as the 64 flight passengers and crew. A fourth plane also hijacked was deliberately flown towards Washington D.C., but crashed in the fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Passengers successfully prevented the terrorists from flying the plane and deliberately crashed the plane to stop the attack, in which all 44 people on board died. After 9/11, America was very much
shaken and took many steps to try to prevent similar attacks from ever happening again. Despite these preventative measures, a number of terrorist attacks followed. On July 4th of 2002, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a 41-year old Egyptian national, killed two and wounded four after opening fire at a ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport. In October 2002, over a span of three weeks, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo killed ten people and critically injured three others in Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Virginia. Suspected of earlier shootings in Maryland, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, and Washington State, the pair was then arrested after their road trip around several states. No motivation was given at the trial, but evidence presented by the prosecution presented that the pair had an affinity to the cause of the Islamic Jihad. On March 5th, 2006, Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar drove an SUV into a group of students at UNC Chapel Hill to “avenge the deaths of Muslims.” On November 5th of 2009, Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army Major serving as a psychiatrist, opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and wounding 29. In August of 2013, Hasan was convicted by a Military tribunal. Hasan acted as his own attorney and took full responsibility for the attack stating that his motive was jihad. On April 15th, 2013, two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The bombs killed three people and injured over 250 others. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev were the prime suspects of the explosion. In their escape to the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, they killed a campus officer, and hijacking a car. A shootout took place and Tamerlan was killed. Days later, Dzhokhar was captured and arrested. The motive of the bombings was later discovered; the brother, enraged by the country’s actions against Muslims, felt that such drastic action was necessary in response. Many more terror attacks have taken place in the past twenty years, but there has been an increase in the presence of terror from mid1990s onwards.
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Although all of these attacks were deeply involved in some form of terrorism, their causes differ. Timothy McVeigh, the mastermind behind the Oklahoma City bombing, was determined to take revenge against the United States federal government, as he strongly opposed the initiatives and decisions made by the newly elected Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Clinton was able to push a platform of gun control forward, which angered McVeigh. McVeigh was also extremely frustrated in the way the United States had handled the Waco Siege, in which a compound belonging to the religious group Branch Davidians was seized by the U.S. Military. The 9/11 attacks were fueled by Al Qaeda. As one of the most feared terrorist groups in the world, this Islamist organization has been determined to plot revenge against Western countries who have participated in the killings of Muslims or who go against the Muslim religion’s beliefs. The Tsarnaev brothers, guilty of the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, were motivated by extremist Islamic beliefs and the aftermath of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that the brothers found the U.S. solely guilty of. These terror attacks were all motivated, planned, and created by different ideas, figures, and beliefs; yet, they are all considered to be acts of terror. These attacks have promoted motivation for others to continue on the same path. Despite the fact that the Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic attack, it has been followed by many more defining terror attacks that have shaped this country. With terror present in our lives more than ever now, it is possible to forget that attacks of terror in the United States started before the attack on September 11th. It is important that Americans do not forget our past—even that of suffering and pain. As awareness increases throughout the country as the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing approaches, it is important to remember how the bombing has influenced this nation and affected the majority of terrorist attacks in U.S. history. HMR
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North American Union: A new alliance
Stephen Phillips
T
he North American Union (NAU) is a conceptual political and economic combination of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, possibly including some Central American states. This group would operate under rules similar to those adopted by the European Union, with no true national borders and completely free trade. A more aggressive unification plan would introduce a common currency, the Amero, which would replace the peso, US dollar, and Canadian dollar. The United States should lobby for the creation of a North American Union with Canada because its resource wealth and small population would mesh well with the United States’ vast resource consumption and large population. The United States is already Canada’s top economic partner; therefore, even closer political and economic ties are the next logical step. Mexico, on the other hand, has too
many internal conflicts to currently be a viable member of the North American Union. Canada and the US would not be willing to commit enough resources to suppress drug production there, and opening up economic and political pathways between Mexico and the US and Canada would facilitate the import of drugs into the aforementioned countries. The US and Canada are economically interdependent, but Canada relies more on the trading relationship than does the United States. The United States and Canada share the longest international land border in the world, stretching 5,525 miles from the At-
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lantic to the Pacific and then between Alaska and the Yukon Territory. The vast majority of Canadian citizens live within 185 miles of the border. The North American Free Trade Agreement of 1995 (NAFTA) encouraged increasing trade between the two countries. The US Census Bureau reports that America exported USD $312 billion worth of goods to Canada in 2014, while the Canadians sent USD $346 billion in goods south of the border. Despite these statistics, the trade relationship is not equal: the Canadians rely much more on the US than the US does on them. In 2010, trade with the United States represented 63% of all of Canada’s international trade. In that year, international trade accounted for almost 50% of Canada’s GDP but only 21% of US GDP, indicating that Canada is much more heavily reliant on international trading partners. The Congressional Research Service summarized the trend, stating, “While Canada is an important trading partner for the United States, the United States is the dominant trade partner for Canada…Canada is relatively more exposed to the world economy and to the fortunes of other economies, foremost to that of the United States, than most other countries.”
While Canada may be a junior partner in the trade of goods with the US, the former country supplies a vast amount of oil and other energy resources to the United States. Canadian oil imports accounted for around 1.24 million of the 3.37 million barrels (36.8%) brought into the US in 2014. In 2006, oil imports from Canada outpaced those from the entire Persian Gulf and have continued to do so in every subsequent year. Even more impressive, in 2014 for the first time, imports from Canada were greater than those from all of the OPEC countries (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran [although the US has embargoed it], Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela) combined. In the past 20 years, Canada has doubled the amount of oil it sends to the US. The sharp increase in US oil production due to new techniques like fracking has led to a decline in imports of oversees oil, yet Canada’s contribution continues to grow steadily. With constant instability in the Middle East, Canada is the safest and most reliable supplier of oil. With a population of over 120 million, Mexico is a growing market and shows great potential. However, the current instability surrounding the conflict between the Mexican government and the drug cartels would make it extremely difficult to integrate into a North American Union. When countries build closer relationships, they also expose each other to their own internal problems, be they political, economic, or military. It is in the interests of the US to continue to support Mexico’s war on drugs, but bringing it into a new Union could expand the drug market by loosening economic restrictions and might ultimately be counterproductive for Mexico. Instead of merging politically with Mexico, the United States and Canada should offer it an enhanced military and economic partnership with the new North American Union. Providing NAU troops, counter-narcotics resources, and trade opportunities will speed the defeat of the drugs trade in Mexico and stabilize the country. Once the NAU is comfortable with the political and military situation in there, it can easily extend an invitation to Mexico to join the Union. A totally stable Mexico would increase the NAU population from 340 million to 460 million and bring the final large North American state into the fold. One of the original purposes of the EU was to prevent warfare between the Euro-
pean states by bringing them together, a successful mission for which it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. While the potential NAU member states have only a very limited history of conflict, the NAU would certainly be a powerful force for defense of the North American continent and promoter of peace throughout the world. US military expertise and hardware would strengthen the defenses of Canada and Mexico. NAU forces would present a unified, insurmountable deterrent to any aggressor. Missile and airspace defense would be unified under a true government rather than an organization like NORAD, which could have unclear jurisdiction or leadership during a crisis. With the combined power of all of North America, NAU forces could act as a stabilizing force in Central and South America. Each of the three countries discussed have distinct national cultures, and the Union would comprise major areas of both English and Spanish speakers. Thus, the NAU would resemble the European Union, but would actually have fewer distinct political, economic, cultural, and linguistic systems to integrate. The individual states need not give up their existing political frameworks, but would have to submit to the authority of an overarching NAU government. National borders would be dissolved, NAU passports issued, militaries integrated, and new inter-state infrastructure projects begun. Similar to the EU, the NAU could pool resources to fund great projects like nuclear fusion reactors or manned missions to Mars. While each nation joining the Union would cede some autonomy to the NAU government, the objective of the organization would be primarily economic and military. Each nation would continue to maintain its own government and decide on its own policy. However, certain overarching regulations, like legal civil protections, would be common throughout the Union. Implicit in the agreement would be closer cooperation and integration, including exchange of people and ideas, one of the reasons that ideas like the NAU are often unpopular with individual national governments that want to retain their uniqueness and importance. A North American Union, first confined to the US and Canada and then extending throughout the North American continent, would create an incredibly powerful composite political and economic entity. Energy resources, manpower, infrastructure, and military might would be unified under one government that served the interests of the entire continent. HMR
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IT IS IN THE INTERESTS OF THE US TO CONTINUE TO SUPPORT MEXICO’S WAR ON DRUGS, BUT BRINGING IT INTO A NEW UNION COULD EXPAND THE DRUG MARKET BY LOOSENING ECONOMIC RESTRICTIONS AND MIGHT ULTIMATELY BE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE FOR MEXICO. 9
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Neoliberalism in Third-World Countries Daniel Lee
T
he expansion of global powers and domination of less developed nations have been emerging trends since the eighteenth century. Often acting under the pretext of providing humanitarian aid, superpower countries have pursued ulterior goals of extending their political influence and accessing low-cost resources. Most prominently seen during the wave of international trade liberalization in the 1980’s, the introduction of
large corporations, in conjunction with increased political intervention, continues to hinder the development of Third World countries even in out present day. The chronic failures in regulating the uneven global distribution of power confers upon the United Nations the duty to limit unilateral involvement and promote democratic representation in poorer nations. The neoliberal nature of economic globalization has incentivized
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multinational companies to decrease wages and lower labor standards internationally. Large-scale industries continue to search for the optimum investment conditions, and the governments of developing nations reciprocate these endeavors by competing to provide cheaper and more affordable labor. Likewise, the Economist countries concludes that countries “compete by enforcing labour laws less vigorously than they might—
Domestic leading to increases in violations of labour rights prescribed in local laws.” As global powers have expanded their domain into poorer South American and African nations, the severity and frequency at which foreign laborers are exploited have significantly risen in recent years. According to Mark Weisbot of the Center for Economic Policy and Research, since European corporations were introduced in 1979 in Africa, per capita income in local sectors began to fall at 0.7% annually. He also observes that the increased privatization of Africa in past decades has caused the number of Africans in basic poverty to double since 1980. Similarly, the emerging presence of European corporations in South America has had devastating consequences for local trade and inhabitants alike. As re-
ment into Third World countries is only reinforcing the chronic trap of poverty. In addition to the financial ramifications of unregulated trade with economically more stable countries, completely open forms of commerce with foreign nations often undermine the national sovereignty of developing countries. Multi-national corporations and companies often pressure local governments for political terms to best meet their needs and interests in expanding their own market. However, the pre-existing economic crises which most African and Latin American face, bring them to accept and yield to these inhumane conditions. As a result, a progressively open market strips developing countries of their management capability and legitimate authority to run their
to the extensive economic harms of privatization of national resources, failing to address the central cause of perpetual underdevelopment. While absolute poverty rates surge and access to basic needs declines in West African nations such as Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Mauritania, global organizations have offered loans to developing nations for the reconstruction and new groundwork for economic planning. Unfortunately, the provision of temporary loans is an approach of evidently flawed reasoning, as it imposes significant economic burdens on to the pre-existing national debt the country has already amassed. Moreover, the World Bank has supported the implementation of new programs aimed towards stabilizing stagnating economies, many of which
“Multinational companies relenetlessly pursue their economic interests at the expense of the welfare of local residents.” ported by the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network, the growth of multinational firms in Ecuador coincided with the closing down of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, which composed the vast majority of the country’s enterprises and employed the majority of their workforce. In particular, from 1990 to 1996, 4,600 businesses went bankrupt, with the average real income of workers in urban areas dropping by 18 percent between 1987 and 1997. The inhabitants in poorer regions including Sub-Saharan Africa and Bolivia are left with no other choice but to accept employment in abusive and inhumane working conditions. The abysmal quality of the conditions in which they labor is reflected in the numerous cases of industrial disasters and accidents. The repercussions of negligence by multinational companies are exemplified in the 2013 Savar building collapse in Bangladesh, which tragically resulted in 1,129 deaths. Lowering trade bar riers to invite large enterprises and new sources of commerce are often portrayed as means to uplift the poor from utter destitution; however, our current reality is quite the contrary, where foreign invest-
respective economies. The deregulation of the economy by local administrations includes the reformation of land use and tax laws, designated to increase access to national resources and attract foreign investment. The consequences of a nation dependent on foreign direct investment can be seen in the Russian Far East, where foreign companies with mining and forestry interests are pressing the Russian government to relax envi ronmental standards. In addition to gaining exemptions from environmental standards, multinational companies relenetlessly pursue their economic interests at the expense of the welfare of local residents. Companies such as the Western Mining Corporation are also entitled to the right to gentrify concessionary regions and resettle local inhabitants. Becoming increasingly dependent upon foreign companies for revenue to address national agendas, Third World governments are continuously being deprived of their autonomy and their statuses as independent and respectable administrations. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank have only pursued inadequate measures in response
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prompt government administrations to undergo significant policy changes to further liberalize trade. Though not necessarily deliberate, this procedure has paradoxically promoted the interests of multinational firms “which are often authorized to buy up public assets, bid on government contracts and repatriate profits at will,” as concluded by David Harvey of Oxford University. Most would contend that the current neocolonial scenario calls for a decrease in foreign involvement in national affairs. On the contrary, a more promising solution is the unconditional alleviation of debt by the World Bank, in addition to a multilateral commitment to secure the autonomy and long-term welfare of developing countries. The participation of various nations in addressing chronic poverty will serve to responsibly regulate the operations of multinational firms and ensure sound economic systems for Third World countries. The rampant abuses of workers’ rights and failures to enforce labor standards mandate multilateral intervention to police foreign firms to guarantee democratic interactions between politics and trade. HMR
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Hillary Clinton: Presiden t
Future Sydney Katz
E
ight years ago, Hillary Clinton entered the White House race as the favorite to win the Democratic nomination and was initially viewed as the candidate most likely to be elected president. However, she was ultimately defeated by Barack Obama. Hillary has thrown her name in the hat again and is seeking to become the 45th President of the United States. Competing headlines appear every day in national newspapers either giving “Hillary a strong chance of becoming President” or stating that “History Shows that Hillary Clinton Is Unlikely to Win in 2016.” The stakes are very high, and Republicans are mounting a very costly campaign to capture the presidency. Hillary is presently the strongest candidate from either party, and it does not appear as if a strong formidable Democrat will run against her in the Democratic primary. However, as in the last election, Hillary may have too many obstacles to overcome and might not be able to establish her own political brand as being different from both her husband and President Obama. Is the fact the Republicans did so well in the recent mid-year elections part of an emerging trend indicating how people will vote in 2016? Overall, it appears that unless the country goes into a recession (the fear for Democrats is that if the economy weakens prior to the election, then voters will not want to elect a Democratic president) or Hillary makes a big
mistake on the campaign trail, she will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Unlike in 2008, the Democrats do not appear to be divided over their party’s candidate. In less than one month since announcing her intention to run for president, Hillary has been endorsed by over 100 leading Democratic members of Congress. Her campaign staff includes some of the most experienced strategists in the Democratic Party, and President Obama and his political circle have all but anointed her as Obama’s successor. In her 2008 presidential bid, she only received a total of 99 endorsements from members of Congress. In 2008, congressional leaders such as Senator Harry Reid and Senator Chuck Schumer were privately working behind the scenes to endorse Obama over her. Early indications were that Obama would win in the South, making it impossible for Clinton to emerge as the winner in the primary. Now the Democratic Party appears energized to nominate and support Hillary Clinton for President. Early endorsements have already come from Senators Patrick Leahy, Charles Schumer, and Bill Nelson, among others. No one can claim that Hillary lacks the resume to become the next President as she has been the First Lady, a U.S. Senator, and a Secretary of State. Polls have already shown the country is ready and appears eager for a woman to be in the Oval Office.
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Fundraising has and probably will continue to come easily for the Clintons. Hillary is already campaigning and amassing a huge, record-breaking war chest from Democratic donors. Unlike Sydney the Republicans, who Katz are challenging each other and will end up competing for funds as a result of running in a very costly primary, Hillary, as the forerunner, will receive sizeable donations from corporations and individuals supporting the Democratic ticket in 2016. Hillary is also very well known as the wife of a former President, as well as from her prior positions in government. CNN, Quinnipiac, and FOX polls show Hillary winning the Democratic Primary by a landslide if the election were held today. The polls also show her defeating all of the Republican candidates in head-to-head elections in the majority of states across the country. Her biggest potential opponent based on the polls is Jeb Bush. According to a very recent CNN poll, Bush would win the electoral votes over Hillary in New Hampshire, Florida, Iowa, and Virginia. Other polls have Hillary ahead in most other states; however, everyone is aware that Jeb Bush just declared his intention to run, and other candidates like Marco Rubio are gaining in the polls, so Hillary will not face an easy election after the primaries are over. Republicans will try to use the momentum from the mid-year elections to convince Americans that change is necessary. Obama
Domestic did not spend a lot of time on the campaign trail on behalf of Democratic candidates during the mid-year elections due to his low approval numbers, so it is not clear what his role will be after the primaries are over. According to a May 1st Associated Press GfK poll, Hillary will have another problem, as Americans appear to be suspicious of her honesty. Republicans like former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney claim she is a creature of Washington, who will bend the rules for her own benefit. Recent polls also show that Americans do not think she is inspiring or likeable. For years, Republicans have questioned her actions both prior to and after the terrorist attack in Benghazi. A congressional committee headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has requested an op-
speaking fees to Bill Clinton? Peter Schweizer, author of the book “Clinton Cash,” which will be available for sale soon, investigated the staggering amount paid to the Clinton Foundation by countries like China and the countries of the former Soviet Union. The New York Times also recently reported that Clinton’s State Department signed off on a deal that gave Russian companies control over one-fifth of the United States’ uranium production capacity after millions were given in donations to the Clinton Foundation by the corporations involved. In addition, it appears the Clinton Foundation deceived the IRS by reporting that it received zero funds from foreign governments. The foundation is now correcting five years of tax returns. Is this an example of Clinton politics? How much
current tax code. Hillary supports abortion rights for women but has made it clear she wants to make abortions rare by standing behind foster care services and making it easier to adopt. Hillary is campaigning across the country and letting voters know she will work hard to tackle serious issues like affirmative action for both women and minorities. As the former Secretary of State, Hillary is viewed as having the experience and background to maintain strong foreign affairs initiatives while in office. Lastly, Clinton’s strong support of gay marriage and rights for immigrants will be a strong contrast to the GOP nominee, who will most likely not support creating a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. This could result in a lot of votes for Hillary in 2016.
“No one can claim that Hillary lacks the résumé to become the next President as she has been the First Lady, a U.S. Senator and a Secretary of State.” portunity to interview the former Secretary of State. Questions about what Hillary Clinton knew before and after the attack about possible threats and lapses in security are the subject of the investigation. Hillary has also opened herself up to further attacks by acknowledging that she had conducted a lot of her government business on a personal email account while serving as Secretary of State. She subsequently destroyed the server along with thousands of emails she claims were not related to her official business as a government official. This may turn into a major scandal for the Clinton campaign, as it appears she handpicked the e-mails she turned over to be examined by a committee. This type of questionable political behavior makes people wary of electing another Clinton as President, especially since no one has forgotten the problems and controversies which arose during the Bill Clinton years. The burning question is whether voters can trust Hillary. Will voters grow tired of her lack of transparency? In the first few weeks of her campaign, Hillary has already been put on the defensive because of the startling allegations that the Clintons were benefiting from huge donations made by foreign governments and foreign corporations during her time at the Department of State. Were foreign governments able to get preferential treatment from the U.S. government by donating and paying exorbitant
Hillary really knew will be the subject of attacks by Republicans and the press in the upcoming election. Hillary is trying to distance herself from the prior problems faced by her husband and does not want to be seen as a candidate who will follow the policies of Barack Obama. She is trying to get across the message that she has her own platform and vision for the country. Hillary is travelling the country trying to convince people these so called issues of “honesty and trust” are not true and are merely attempts by the Republican Party to discredit her during the election. At the top of her list are plans to address and correct the widening wage gap between the upper and lower classes. Hillary has also announced plans to reform the
May 2015
The key issue for Hillary is whether she will be able to convince the American voters she can be trusted. The other single most important factor as to whether Hillary Clinton will be the next president is who runs against her in the election. Will Jeb Bush win the Republican nomination? If so, will Americans want a Bush or a Clinton in office? It appears that unless the economy goes into a recession, evidence is uncovered showing Hillary was involved in a scheme with the Clinton Foundation, there is a very low voter turnout (which never helps Democrats), or there is an undeclared formidable candidate who will arise like Barack Obama in 2008, Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. HMR
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International
sofrep.com
Combating ISIS: Why We Shouldn’t Commit Boots on the Ground Zoe Mavrides
D
aily headlines detail the war against ISIS in both Syria and Iraq. The relevance of this conflict extends beyond regional borders, as the brutality of the attacks conducted against civilians has shocked the world. On February 15, 2015 President Obama asked Congress to authorize new war powers in order to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, th brutal terrorist group that has beheaded American journalists and aid workers. “This is a difficult mission, and it will remain difficult for some time,” Obama said at the White House. “ISIL is on the defensive, and ISIL is going to lose.” The real question is, in what capacity should the US should participate
in this global war against ISIS? Currently, coalition forces, including the Iraqi army, have been able to contain, and some may even argue fatally cripple ISIS, but is the status quo enough to prevent the future expansion of this egregious terrorist organization, and is committing ground troops the only alternative to completely decimate ISIS? Based on the efficacy of our current tactics and the possible harms to come from an invasion, American boots on the ground should not be committed in the Middle East. ISIS was born out of a perfect storm of political vacuums, sectarian conflicts and nefarious interests in the region. In 2011, the regional devolution in Syria
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provided ample opportunity for ISIS to grow. In addition to the 2014 Syrian crisis, the US withdrawal from Iraq created a ripe environment for terrorist groups to thrive. Furthermore, Iraq’s Shiite government couldn’t reconcile with Baathists and Sunnis, creating sectarian divisions that contributed to recruitment and support of ISIS. The weakness of Al Qaeda’s prime leadership and transnational capabilities also supported ISIS’s evolution, as have other regional players including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Hezbollah, who have provided assistance to the Syrian government. To act against ISIL’s threat, the US has committed to train the Iraqi army and provide air-strike support. Furthermore,
International it has deployed combat advisors with strict instructions to not be on the front lines and provided logistical and military support to Iraqi and international forces fighting ISIS in the region under Operation Inherent Resolve. The latest news from the region shows that strategy employed to date to combat ISIL has significantly contributed towards the organization’s deterioration. The Associated Press confirms that air strikes have slowed the group’s momentum, squeezing finances and killing thousands of fighters, even eliminating 50 percent of the group’s leadership. Airstrikes and international cooperation therefore have and will continue to be successful in stopping ISIL, as the discipline and expertise of the local indigenous forces backed by the US, Iran, and the broader international community measures up to that of the organization. Despite the apparent progress against ISIS, the Atlantic confirms that 57% of Americans support the usage of ground troops in the fight against the group. Influential Republicans, including Armed Services Committee Chair and former presidential candidate John McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham, and House Speaker John Boehner, insist that the U.S. cannot prevail in the conflict without a substantial commitment of ground forces to root out and destroy ISIS. “We may be able to ‘contain,’ but to actually defeat ISIS is going to require more boots on the ground, more vigorous strikes, more special forces, further arming the Kurdish peshmerga forces and creating a no-fly zone and buffer zone in Syria,” said McCain at Pacific Council on International Policy conference in October. This reaction from congressional leaders is shortsighted because it fails to acknowledge both the progress that has been made without the use of troops and the potential harms that could come from deploying them on the ground in Iraq and Syria. The cost of sending ground troops without a long-term plan may again cripple the US economy, just as it did during our latest wars in the region. The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are estimated at $ 6 trillion dollars. Furthermore, anti-American sentiment in the region is predicted to rise in the wake of an intervention. According to the Journal of Peace Research, “a[n] increase in the measure of military aid” would raise “anti-American terrorism” by 24%.” Looking back, historical data shows a strong
correlation between U.S. involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States. Examples of this include US military presence in Lebanon in the 1980s and in Somalia and Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, as well as the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, a Meta Analysis by the Cato Institute corroborates. Aside from the drawbacks of implementation, it is important to remember that ISIS does not have the capability or intent to attack the US mainland. As stated by Harvard University’s Sydney Freeberg, “ISIL largely lacks heavy weapons to support its fighters’ advance, armored personnel carriers to move the forward under fire, or tanks to spearhead the advance”. Many leaders in US security such as the Pentagon, the National Counterterrorism Center, the FBI and the Department for Homeland Security believe that the group poses no threat to the US homeland. While lone wolf attacks against western targets are a concern, and the recruitment of foreign fighters is a cause of anxiety for all, ground troops will only fuel the rhetoric and propaganda of this group. There is no doubt that ISIS will use the fact that Americans troops are fighting in the region to recruit and brainwash more disillusioned youth. Let’s not forget that while the current situation has had extreme success, ground troops have empirically failed as an option for counterterrorism. The Rand Institute found in a meta-analysis
of 648 terrorist groups that military forces were only effective as a tactic of counterterrorism 7 percent of the time. Many advocates for grounds troops point to the human rights violations that ISIS is committing on a daily basis and the urgency to stop their violent rampage. There are also concerns about innocent civilians killed during airstrikes, as the bombs may be less precise than ground attacks. While these considerations are valid, they don’t outweigh the loss of many more lives that could come from escalating the conflict to a full on war. Aside from the effects on backlash on to US homeland, Pentagon planners say 50,000 troops would be needed to break ISIS’s hold, which would make employing them a major financial and military investment. As the situation in Iraq and Syria is constantly changing, one has to keep in mind that there are evolving answers to the conflict. Airstrikes and coalition forces seem to be currently working. The Coalition has secured 30% of the land that was captured by ISIS in Iraq earlier this year and 75% of oil revenues have been cut from ISIS by bombing key oil refineries. More importantly, American lives are not at risk. It’s time to realize that our country needs to have a long-term, strategic vision in the world, and that committing ground troops around the globe is inconsistent with successfully achieving peace and prosperity. HMR
reuters.com
May 2015
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International
YEMEN:
A VOLATILE
STATE
he Republic of Yemen is situated on the Arabian Peninsula, just south of Saudi Arabia. Yemen has a population of 26 million and is roughly the size of Wyoming. Although it is a relatively small country, concern over Yemen has grown rapidly due to the country’s http:// www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/news/july42799201/3/ political instability and the possibility that this instability could lead to international acts of terrorism being carried out. The political situation in Yemen is so unclear that it is officially considered an “uncertain state” by the United Nations. The United Nations is trying to combat the terrorist groups in Ye http:// www.nbcnews.com/slideshow/news/july42799201/3/ men in order to establish peace. Once peace is established, then the United Nations can begin to encourage stronger forms of government in Yemen. In order to comprehend the political situation Yemen is presently in, and understand the solutions to Yemen’s current problems, it is important to understand the evolution of power in Yemen over the past half-century.
After the British began to withdrawal in 1967, Yemen was split up into Northern and Southern Yemen. Southern Yemen, which no longer exists today, was known as the People’s Republic of Yemen. In 1971, thousands of citizens from the People’s Republic of Yemen fled north due to a political repression of dissidents, resulting in a border clash between Northern and Southern Yemen. After years of conflict, the two countries united to form the Republic of Yemen, under the presidential authority of Ali Abdullah Saleh. Although Yemen was now unified, tension between Northerners and Southerners continued to exist. As Saleh entered office, a rebel group known as the Houthi movement began trying to overthrow him. In February 2008, President Saleh negotiated a ceasefirse with Houthi. Nevertheless, the ceasefire lasted for only a few months and fighting soon broke out between the two parties. In 2009 the Yemeni military launched a full-fledged offensive against the rebels that led to over 50,000 casualties. Furthermore, an estimated 150,000 died as
a result of homelessness from the battles. In 2010, the Houthi militants and President Saleh reached a ceasefire agreement to end the six-year war. The rebels agreed to open road blocks, to withdraw themselves from civilian areas, to return detainees, and to refrain from launching attacks on Saudi Arabia. In 2011, the Arab Spring protests reached the streets of Yemen. President Saleh promised not to use force against the protesters.Yet, in March of 2013, government forces killed 50 protesters, causing riots and a growing sentiment against President Saleh. In May, President Saleh stepped down, handing power over to the Gulf Cooperation council. Only weeks later, President Saleh was nearly killed in an assassination attempt by the Ahmar family. After this attack, Saleh fled and the Ahmar family assumed control of the government. Amidst President Saleh’s absence, fighting continued and a humanitarian crisis emerged as a result of high food prices and a short supply of electricity and fuel. In 2011, Saleh returned to Yemen and called again for a ceasefire, which didn’t
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Christopher Shaari
International work. The Gulf Cooperation Council forced Saleh to step down in 2012. After Saleh left, power was handed to former vice-president Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Just around this time, Al-Qaeda was beginning to show a strong presence in the area. Al-Qaeda had been responsible for multiple terrorist and military threats over the past decade in Yemen, killing thousands. The UN proposed that a new constitution be drafted; however, the Houthi rebels rejected the offer. In January 2015, President Hadi officially resigned after Houthi rebels took over the capital. Since then, the Houthi rebels have had control over Yemen; while, the terrorist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has now moved into the area as well. The current political situation in Yemen is known as the Yemeni Civil War. The Houthi rebels are fighting with forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh against Southern separatists loyal to former vice-president Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The United States supports the Southern separatists, and has been pro-
viding them with intelligence and logistics to support the airtstrike campaign against the Houthi rebels. Sunni Arab countries and the United States believe that Houthi rebels get their weapons from Iran; however, Iran claims they do not support the rebels. Simultaneously, the ISIS has been carrying out attacks while Al-Qaeda has control of the Arabian Peninsula. Put simply, the Houthis control Western Yemen, Al-Qaeda controls most of northern Yemen, while the Southern separatists control central, eastern, and southern Yemen. Most recently, Southern separatists conducted airstrikes against Houthis in Saana, killing 19 people. This attack happened at the same time as the USS Theodore Roosevelt was moving towards the waters off Yemen to join American ships, prepared to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying weapons for the Houthi rebels. According to a report by the United Nations, Tehran has been providing the Houthi rebels with weapons since 2009. One particularly strong piece of evidence the UN provides is the investigation of an Iranian warship, the Jihan,
which was found to be carrying weapons. This ship followed a similar sea route to Yemen that ships carrying weapons have been using since 2009. Furthermore,as part of a UN resolution from 2007, Iran is prohibited from selling weapons to any country. Yemen’s complex political past is most likely the result of how young of a country it is. Yemen has technically only existed since 1990; though, previous states were established in the same geographical area. Being a young nation, Yemen is still in a stage of political unrest and governmental experimentation, which is likely to continue for years to come. As long as terrorists groups and the Houthi rebels are in the country, Yemen will be a unstable country. If the United Nations desires to solve Yemen’s instability, they should first continue their efforts to combat the terrorists and Houthi rebels. Once political stability is established, the United Nations can begin to implement different forms of government. Nonetheless, the United Nations’ current focus should be to rid Yemen of terrorists. HMR.
www.global-gateways.com
May 2015
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International
Our World’s Female Leaders Zarina Iman
wikimedia.com
O
rogerswebpoint.com
ver the past several decades a number of important female leaders have emerged throughout the world. A majority of these women has led their country through times of crisis as each of them has overcome obstacles. Though these leaders are without a doubt brave, it is a fallacy to assume that their positions of power have not been controversial. Often deemed stubborn for adhering to their beliefs, female leaders have proved their capability while attempting to help the people they serve. In hindsight some of their actions may be considered radical, but in conclusion, these women did what they believed was necessary to improve their countries. A number of female political leaders rose to power in times of turmoil; the chaotic state of each country forced the people to consider revolutionary leaders, who could potentially restore order. Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the midst of an economic decline. The 54-yearold conservative, dubbed the “Iron Lady” by Soviets for condemning communism, believed proactive measures needed to be implemented. She closed down unprofitable government industries, checked inflation, and began an economic recovery in 1981. Thatcher tried to better the economy by increasing indirect taxes, decreasing direct taxes, and
as a result, cutting interest rates. Her actions, while insensitive to some, were efficient and extremely beneficial, proving her already apparent competency. Soon faced with her second challenge of Argentina’s invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982, Thatcher took the military measures needed in order to quickly regain control of the islands. Thatcher’s firm resolve and display of military strength was a strategic move on her part. She accounted for the morale of her people and the prestige of Britain, something so rarely considered by other leaders. By pursuing what some would call a trivial matter, Thatcher had effectively impressed the British people, and she subsequently entered a second term, during which she helped to defeat striking labor unions that did not agree with her reforms. Though harsh, her repression of the strikers was necessary to prevent further instability. In October of 1984, nearing the end of her second term, the Irish Republican Army bombed Thatcher’s hotel room at a conservative conference in retaliation for her refusing to meet their political demands. Thatcher condemned the terrorism, a well planned reassertion of her power, and continued to divert her attention to Britain’s economy and began to privatize land, as she encouraged people to buy their own homes and invest in the stock market. Her focus on the individual wealth of the
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timeturk.com
population greatly increased personal wealth in the long term. Thatcher’s visionary moves led to the beginning of her third term, when she further fortified the economy. Thatcher took this opportunity to introduce unconventional reforms, such as the institution of a national school curriculum and a Community Charge. The tax, referred to as the poll tax, was extremely unpopular, as it forced each adult to pay the same amount of money for his or her local tax, and if one failed to pay this tax they were disenfranchised. The tax was extreme, even for Thatcher, but it was characteristic of Thatcher’s self help politics, which encouraged people to support themselves. She continued to support the tax, in spite of riots occurring throughout the country. This was a fatal move for her career, as this tax was relatively uncalled for given that the economy was doing well. Thatcher never fully accepted that she was wrong with this issue, though she finally resigned after a former member of her cabinet, Michael Heseltine, challenged her for the lead of the Conservative Party. In the face of riots, assassination attempts, and even war, Thatcher was committed to her beliefs. Her legacy is unfading, including a political philosophy called Thatcherism that endorses self-dependency. Some years following the ascension of
International Margaret Thatcher, Corazon Aquino rose to power as the President of the Philippines, during a turbulent time in her own country. Following her husband’s assassination, Aquino took her husband’s place as leader of the opposition against the current authoritarian president, Ferdinand Marcos. In 1986, Marcos called for a snap election. Marcos was declared the winner, but supporters of Aquino believed that the system was rigged. After three days of peaceful protests by the People’s Power Revolution, Corazon Aquino finally became the country’s president. Aquino’s rise is admirable, considering she took control without a violent uprising. She began her presidency by working on a new constitution, for the old one enforced martial law. The new constitution, ratified in February of 1987, created a new congress, limited presidential terms to one, and formed a series of civil laws.
of which she managed to squash. As her term ended, her supporters urged her to run again, but she honorably refused, as the constitution she created only allowed one term per president. Aquino restored democracy to the Philippines and then supported her Defense Secretary’s candidacy, contributing as an active member of the government she expertly founded. Like Corazon Aquino, Benazir Bhutto, called the Iron Lady by her opponents, became the Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988 to succeed an assassinated family member. She entered politics after her father’s government was overthrown by a coup as General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq declared martial law in Pakistan. Bhutto’s father was soon hung for murder, leaving her and her mother in control of the Pakistan People’s Party or PPP. In 1988 Zia-ul-Haq, along with many of his top
acted quickly and prudently, as she disbanded the unions and gave workers incentives. Her expert handling of the situation, forced her opponents to acknowledge her power. As her second term continued, Bhutto braved through an assassination attempt and an unsuccessful coup d’etat. Extreme religious groups wanted to overthrow her government believing it was not Islamic enough. Bhutto, however, remained moderate, and rightly so, for she realized that a democracy could not survive well when tied closely with religion. Bhutto addressed the downturn of Pakistan’s economy by raising 42 million Pakistani Rupees with privatization, drawing inspiration from past successful models like Aquino . Pakistan also gained $20 billion dollars from investments by the U.S. as Bhutto strived to align Pakistan with socialist countries and strengthen its ties with Libya and North Ko-
“These women work tirelessly to better their countries and do what they believe is in the best interest of its people.” It was a wise decision to model the constitution off other functioning constitution, to ensure that the Pilipino people were headed towards a democracy. Aquino was then tasked with dealing with the $26 billion US of debt amassed by her predecessor. Believing that it was best for her country’s standing in the international community, Aquino chose to pay off the debt and paid back $4 billion her first year in office. Her actions were shrewdly successful and reflected to other countries that large reforms would be made in Philippines. She then worked to dismantle monopolies set by Marcos in order to increase competition and provide farmers with more income. Much like Thatcher, Aquino found the liberalization of the economy to be important, another example of her using tactics that were already proven to help. Aquino also directed her efforts to land reform, and in 1988 she enacted the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. The law redistributed land to tenant farmers and compensated the land’s owners. The implementation of this insightful law fully reflected Aquino’s capabilities, and the influence she held over her people. As a matter of national prestige, she then demanded that the U.S. withdraw from their bases in the Philippines; furthermore, with the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, which covered the American bases in ash, the Americans withdrew in 1991. Over the course of her term from 1986 to 1991, Aquino had over half a dozen coups staged against her by Marcos’ supporters, all
commanders, died in a plane crash. There was a void in leadership that allowed Bhutto to become Prime Minister. She allied with the U.S., though she rightfully did not condone their support of the Afghanistan Mujahedeen that would eventually fracture into extremist groups, such as the Taliban. She aggressively destroyed communist sentiments in Afghanistan—notions influenced by the Soviet Union. Bhutto attempted to not only stabilize her country, but the region around her, sensibly assuming that regional stability was vital to advance Pakistan. The insightful Bhutto then worked to enhance Pakistan’s science and nuclear programs. She invested funding in an array of projects dedicated to protecting the country as well as launched Pakistan’s first satellite Badr-I. She astutely understood that Pakistan needed to establish itself as powerful, in order to remain unchallenged by other countries. Bhutto worked to improve human rights, permitting freedom of the press and the gathering of labor unions. She strategically restored the vital facets of liberalism, which were necessary to implement the democracy she envisioned. However, Bhutto’s first term abruptly ended with charges of corruption and nepotism. She was sent into exile and returned once again in 1993, when the PPP won parliamentary majority. In her second term, Bhutto encountered far more challenges. Her opponents had persuaded labor unions to strike just to undermine her authority. Bhutto
May 2015
rea. It is clear that Bhutto was gathering allies to assure her country would be protected, a wise course of action. Bhutto also supported the Taliban, viewing it as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, but by 2007 she denounced the terrorist organization. In 1997 Bhutto was dismissed again for her and her government’s alleged corruption and she left the country. Bhutto continued to lead the opposition, and was assassinated days after she returned to Pakistan in 2007. These women only represent a fraction of the past and present female heads of state. Additionally, women leaders are not as uncommon as believed. Since the late 1970s, female leaders have seized control of their countries in desperate times and are often able to propel their countries forward. Each of these women has proven to be a capable leader and a force to be reckoned with. Staying true to their morals and instituting reforms to rehabilitate their respective countries, these women have also inspired women around the world. Female leaders continue to exist today, from Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia to Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark. These women work tirelessly to better their countries and do what they believe is in the best interest of its people. Female leaders in the last several decades are equally as inspiring and controversial as all other leaders; they each leave behind unique legacies to be discussed and reviewed for generations to come. HMR www.global-gateways.com
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International
The Pope on Free Speech Setting Proper Limitations
Alexis Megibow
P
resident George Washington once said, “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental principles upon which the United States was founded, and without it, our country and other countries would not have experienced even close to as much progress and change as we have up until today. Although there are innumerable benefits to freedom of speech, there is certainly a fair amount of detriment. Some disadvantages include hate speech, racism, and discrimination based upon a wide variety of traits. Do these disadvantages warrant serious limits? Pope Francis says yes. In a recent interview on January fifteenth, the Pope said, “There is a limit… in freedom of expression there are limits.” He argues that one should not be allowed to provoke others or insult their faith. This statement is moral and representative of good character; however, if put into action within the government it would contradict the entire premise of freedom of speech. Free speech should not limit language that is considered
emotionally offensive, but it should protect against language that puts others in physical harm. When the Pope says that one cannot “insult” or “make fun,” freedom of speech becomes based on the emotional perception and sensitivity of certain people rather than on potential dangers. In most cases, the people of society will moderate each other’s free speech if it is offensive. Without a threat of danger, it would be infringing upon one’s rights to truly limit his or speech. Freedom of speech is also emphasized nationally. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 19, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” As a technicality, since this is a resolution of the UN General Assembly rather than a treaty, it is not legally binding for all members of the UN. Nevertheless, Across the world different countries have varying regulations on freedom of speech. For example, in South Africa (a predominantly Christian nation) the
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policy is that everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right, however, “does not extend to: propaganda for war, incitement of imminent violence; or advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm,” according to the South African Bill of Rights. Regarding the European Union, The European Convention on Human Rights, which binds all EU states, ensures “the right to freedom of expression” and “the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority.” The lack of clear-cut specifications and details in this broad statement demonstrates the opportunity for European countries to have different regulations within freedom of speech. Some countries, such as Belgium, have stricter regulations than others in the EU and implement bans on hate speech that align with the Pope’s opinion. The Pope’s comments and outspoken opinions on freedom of speech have drawn a lot of attention from the general public and from the media. Justin Haskins, an editor at the Heartland In-
International
stitute, criticized the Pope for his comments. He said, “the idea that freedom should be limited whenever there is a chance deeply held beliefs could be ‘insulted’ is an idea far more dangerous to a free society than anything cowardly terrorists could ever do... The logical end result of Pope Francis’s comments is the majority population subjugating minority groups to whatever standards the majority determines acceptable.” He then goes on to say that limiting free speech would be giving radical groups like Al Qaeda what they want: the creation of an environment in which people are afraid to speak their opinions. On the other hand, Jim Wallis, a New York Times bestselling author, disagrees with the Pope. He offers a different suggestion of what Christians should do in response to the Paris attack by saying, “Jesus tells us to bless those who persecute us, to return love for hate and good for evil, and even to love our enemies. Loving your enemies certainly includes supporting the foundational commitment to free speech, and defending the right of free speech, even, or especially, for those who offend you.” Wallis argues that although freedom of
speech warrants offensive comments, it is still a necessary right to maintain. If free speech were regulated too strictly by the government, there would be a much higher chance for the occurrence of corruption in the government or other organizations. This is because people would be afraid to speak out about the issues, or in some cases it could even be illegal. Too many restrictions on freedom of speech would also hinder social, political, and educational progress within society. Without a threat of danger, regulated free speech by the government would be a complete societal hindrance. To some extent, it is the responsibility of the people to take action against offensive or immoral comments and not that of the government. Although there are some disadvantages to free speech, the benefits certainly outweigh them. Some people misinterpreted one of the Pope’s remarks, which prompted a defensive and explanatory response from the Vatican. In an attempt to further his point about insulting comments, the Pope said, “if Dr. Gasbarri here, a great friend of mine, says a curse word against my mother, then a punch awaits
May 2015
him.” Many took this message to mean that the Pope was advocating for violence and even justifying the attack on Charlie Hebdo. Pope Francis clarified that he actually said that such a horrific violent attack could not be justified, but he expected such a response from at least some people. Representatives of the Vatican press office explained that the comment in no way justified violence, and that it was spoken hypothetically in an informal manner. Although the Pope is right in saying that insulting one’s faith or being provocative is immoral, this does not mean that these issues are the government’s responsibility. There is a very fine line between protecting the people from danger and infringing upon their rights when considering where to limit freedom of speech. In the United States, we have found a satisfactory balance of freedom of speech regulations in which our fundamental rights are protected as well as our safety. Our current restrictions are sufficient, as they protect the people without overstepping. HMR www.global-gateways.com
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Features
Vietnam’s LASTING IMPACT L
ast month marked the 40th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, the capture of South Vietnam’s capital city that marked the end of the Vietnam War. Despite ending 40 years ago, the Vietnam War had an immense impact on both Vietnam and the United States, though, not necessarily a positive one as we still have not learned our lessons regarding the commitment of troops and the
funding to foreign conflicts. Japan seized and occupied Vietnam, a French colony is southeastern Asia, during World War II. Immediately after the end of the war, leader Ho Chi Mihn and his forces took over the city of Hanoi declared Vietnam an independent, communist nation. While Japan withdrew its troops, France fought to keep its colony, fighting for nine years until Vietnam finally gained its inde-
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pendence in 1954. Treaties split the former colony into two governing bodies separated by the 17th parallel, with Ho controlling the north. A year later, vehemently anti-communist Ngo Dinh Diem took over South Vietnam. The U.S. President at the time, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was a firm believer in containment, the foreign policy strategy of containing the spread of communism. Like
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Gabe Broshy many Americans, he was fearful it would spread to Laos and Cambodia and, eventually, nations like India. To prevent this spread, he supported Diem’s regime by providing training and supplies to anticommunist forces, which arrested about 100,000 North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese communists (known as the Viet Cong). His successor, John F. Kennedy, bolstered American support by sending a
small number of soldiers. Despite US efforts, Diem was assassinated in 1963, generating political instability. As a result, Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, decided to further increase the number of troops and funding provided by the U.S. In 1964, North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly attacked American warships stationed nearby at the Gulf of Tonkin. As a result, conMay 2015
gress authorized Johnson to expand the scope and pace of military intervention through the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. By June 1965, there were 82,000 American troops in Vietnam, and Johnson sent 100,000 more later that year as well as in 1966, respectively. These forces employed the strategy of attrition, which meant that they tried to wear their opponents down by killing as many of them as possible 23
Features rather than trying to directly gain anything militarily. However, with Soviet and Chinese support, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops killed large numbers of American troops through guerilla warfare tactics, decreasing domestic support for the war. In 1968, communist forces launched an all-out surprise attack on South Vietnam known as the Tet Offensive. In addition to being unsuccessful in ending the war, it proved to Americans that they were no closer to winning it, fomenting a strong degree of anti-war sentiment. Richard Nixon took over as president a year later and instituted the policy of “Vietnamization” which consisted of reducing the number of troops and utilizing more aerial attacks. Nixon then authorized assaults on Laos and Cambodia as the war grew even more unpopular, and finally reached an agreement
to end American intervention in 1973. In 1975, North Korea captured the city of Saigon, ending the war and unifying the nation under one communist government. When the U.S. vacated Vietnam, it left a country and region in shambles. The millions of bombs dropped by American air forces decimated Vietnamese infrastructure. The U.S. employed chemical warfare in order to reduce the effectiveness of the Viet Cong’s guerilla warfare tactics and to cut off the group’s food supplies, dropping approximately 20 million gallons of a toxic chemical herbicide called Agent Orange in South Vietnam. Inhabitants of these areas, particularly children, remain vulnerable to diseases and disabilities to this day, as the substance has been linked t-tissue sarcoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, and chloracne.
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After the war, its communist victors instituted prison camps they euphemized as “re-education camps” in which they jailed South Vietnamese military officers and government officials without trials or formal charges. Hundreds of thousands of “boat people” died trying to escape the nation. To this day, Vietnam remains a united, communist nation. One early effect of the war on the United States was the enormous number of causalities as well as trauma suffered by its troops that it caused. The Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files found 58,200-recorded casualties on the American side. Furthermore, many of those who did survive suffered significant trauma. A recent study done by Columbia researcher Bruce P. Dohrenwend found that almost a fifth of Vietnam veterans suffered
Features from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after they returned and nearly a tenth still suffered from it 11 to 12 years later. Another consequence of the war in the U.S. was the economic crisis caused by the immense spending associated with it. According to a Defense Department report in 2003, in 1973, the U.S. government expended an estimated $173 billion ($982 billion in 2015 USD) funding the conflict and a total of $423 billion ($2.26 trillion) including veteran’s benefits and interest. The increased money and credit injected into the economy, compounded with the oil crisis of 1973, caused inflation to increase significantly in the mid-70s, hurting the economy. The Vietnam War spurred the mobilization of the anti-war movement and caused citizens to lose trust in their government. The anti-war movement began to gain popularity on college campuses early in the war through organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that embodied the New Left movement. As troops and casualties began to increase, so did opposition to the war, and it became a much more mainstream movement. 100,000 people voiced their discontentment with their government’s actions through a demonstration at the Lincoln Memorial in 1967, where Civil Rights protestors had gathered a few years earlier. A 1971 protest at Kent State University in 1971 turned violent, and police forces killed four and wounded eight students. The next year, the Pentagon Papers were published, which contained confidential information about the war strategy. These documents described secret bombings in Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam during Johnson’s presidency that
had never been released. The content of this information, aside from the fact that Nixon tried to hide them in order to be able to continue military invention as part of the Watergate Scandal, has forever lowered the American public’s confidence in their government. The country’s failures also decreased national pride, challenging the belief that the U.S. could successfully play the role of global policeman. Despite all these effects, we have failed to learn our lessons of the negative effects of military intervention and “defense” spending. After the war, democrats in particular challenged the principles of containment and military intervention. With a majority in congress, they passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973, which required congressional approval to send troops to war for more than 90 days. Despite these new ideas, we have continued to make the same mistakes, which have had similar consequences. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan employed the foreign policy strategy of “peace through strength.” As its name suggests, he never sent troops to combat, however he greatly increased military spending in order to project power in negotiations with the Soviet Union, causing a large federal deficit in the late 80s and early 90s. Similarly, the Iraq and Afghan Wars not only created immense debt and the loss of American lives but left the regions even worse than it had been before. According to a recent CBS Poll, 57% of Americans want the U.S. to send ground troops to combat ISIS. Despite the immense consequences and effects of the Vietnam War, we still have not learned our lesson 40 years later. HMR May 2015
$982 billion (2015 USD) oF US funding 58,200 rECORDED CASUALTIES
20 MilLion Gallons of Agent orange 25
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BREAKING BARRIERS O
SOPHIE MALTBY
n the evening of February 6, 1962 President John F. Kennedy ordered his aid Pierre Salinger to purchase 1, 200 Cuban cigars; the next morning Salinger was called to the Oval Office and confirmed that he had secured them. Immediately after, Kennedy took a long sheet out of his desk and signed the decree banning all Cuban products from the United States, rendering Cuban cigars illegal. When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, relations between Cuba and the United States quickly became strained and turned into bitter arguments, political grandstanding, and international crises. Although Cuba lies less than 100 miles from the shore of Florida, the United States has not had diplomatic relations with the nation since 1961. All discussion between the two countries has been done through Switzerland. Since 1960, the Cuban Embargo has barred Americans from trading with, investing in, and traveling to Cuba. President Eisenhower placed an eco-
nomic embargo on Cuba in October of 1960, and diplomatic relations were severed the following year. The legislation was intended to contain, if not decrease, communism and return the right of free trade and capitalism. The result of this dramatic legislation however is that it left the Cuban Regime in place and has only hurt the economies of both Cuba and the United States. The unilateral sanctions have done nothing to spur economic reform, improve human rights, promote democracy, or dismantle the Castro dictatorship. The Cuban Embargo is an antiquated and harmful piece of legislation; after more than 50 years of futility, it should be abundantly clear that the U.S. approach to Cuba has failed to help foster democracy. If we want to fulfill our duty as a superpower on the international stage, we should not continue the Cuban Embargo. What we must do instead is forge a new path and a new approach, one that values engagement and empowers the people of Cuba to be able to seize their liberty.
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To be fair, the embargo had a national security rationale before 1991, when Fidel Castro served as the Soviet Union’s proxy to the Western Hemisphere, but all this changed with the fall of Soviet Communism. Now, after losing the support of and billions in aid from its former sponsor, Cuba is little more than a poor and dysfunctional nation with the population of Ohio. During the initial stages of the Embargo, and even during the three decades that followed, there inlaid a legitimate concern of national security: that Cuba may have nuclear weapons, that they were feeding information to Russia, etc. However, not only did a 1998 report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency conclude that “Cuba does not pose a significant threat to the U.S. or to any other countries in the region” but also a 2005 State Department report found “no indication that the Cuban government provided weapons or paramilitary training to militant group.” If anything, the amount of money we are losing every year to the cost of the
Features this embargo spreads democracy when in reality it does nothing more than isolate the Cuban people from a future with true free trade and democracy. Trade increases not only the flow of goods and services but also the presence of diverse people with diverse idea. Free trade is the backbone of democracy, and shutting Cuba out of free trade is equivalent to shutting Cuba out of a democratic future. Furthermore, although economic sanctions do not normally work, unilateral sanctions have an even lower success rate. The United States has pursued these unilateral economic sanctions on the Cuban regime for upwards of five decades. During a Cold War, and before the era of World Trade Organization (WTO), these sanctions gained a lot of ground for national security and foreign policy. However, these unilateral sanctions have become increasingly difficult to justify given today’s economic realities. Cuba now trades openly with almost everyone—China, Canada, Europe, and Brazil
The only thing that can change the dire state of Cuba and its people is lifting these sanctions and allowing for free trade capitalism to flourish. Economic sanctions rarely work. In the past, we have seen trade and investment sanctions against Burma, Iran, and North Korea fail to change the behavior of any of their oppressive regimes; sanctions have only deepened the economic strife and deprivation of the very people we are trying to help. It is not economic deprivation and strangulation that will help the country; rather, it is trade and globalization that will till the soil for democracy. Nations open to trade are irrefutably more likely to be democracies. Trade and development create opportunities for people to gain access to the tools of communication, such as cell phones, television, and the Internet—all of which undermine oppressive authoritarianism. Right now, the sanctions on Cuba do not allow for people to gain access to these modes of communication. It is hypocritical of the United States to say
are among its top exporters, and trade with these nations generates $20 billion in revenue for the Cuban regime each year. In a time when steady economic growth is pivotal in the continuing success of the United States’ own democracy, it is irresponsible for the US not to trade with Cuba. The embargo has limited the prospects for the U.S.’s continued economic growth. Texas A&M estimates that the Cuban Embargo costs the U.S. economy between $1.2 and $4.84 billion annually; this is an incredibly large sum of money from which our nation could benefit tremendously. Finally, the Castro Regime has used the Cuban Embargo as a tool to cover up its own leadership failures. In a place where the Communist controlled government owns 90% of the economy, the average monthly wage of workers is an abysmal $19. On the world stage, Fidel Castro was able to blame the Cuban Embargo for the dire state of his own economy, and Raúl Castro has done little to relent this stance. Through lifting the Cuban Em-
May 2015
bargo, the United States will reveal that Cuba’s economic problems are the fault of the Castro regime, not the U.S. embargo. Numerous studies and organizations have pointed out the obvious: that this law, no matter its initial intentions, did next to nothing over the 52 years it has existed to change the totalitarian government of Cuba. The victims of the Cuban embargo are the two generations of Cubans that have been stripped of their access to the outside world and ability to see the ideals of democracy the United States yearns to put forth. HMR
“
Economic sanctions rarely work... it is not economic deprivation and strangulation that will help the country; rather, it is trade and globalization that will till the soil for democracy.
“
Cuban Embargo has diverted finite government resources from other, more serious national security threats. Indeed, one of the primary arguments made by those in favor of the Cuban Embargo is that we should not relax our sanctions on a regime that can cause major national security offensives and does not stand for democracy. However, the State Sponsors of Terrorism List’s brief report on Cuba stands in stark and shadowing contrast to the laundry list of violations undertaken by Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Furthermore, if we are placing these sanctions on Cuba because of its human rights violations, then as a matter of precedent this embargo should also be placed on every country from China and Russia to Egypt and Vietnam. Yet although these countries’ regimes violate human rights, we continue to trade with them. Furthermore, we continue to trade with them because we know that a harsh embargo would never change conditions in these countries.
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Watergate: Cleaning Up Politics ow
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Eva
ib Meg
Maggie Hugo
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atergate exposed the dirty side of politics for all to see and started a movement towards transparency and honesty that has rejuvenated our nation. Just over 40 years ago, President Richard Nixon was forced into resignation during his second term due to an unprincipled spying operation on his democratic opponents as he moved to win reelection. This action compromised our entire political system by preventing fair campaigning and in that right destroying the integrity of our democratic process and taking the right of the people to decide on a president based off of a fair campaign. After following of numerous leads and trails, investigators finally found
that the spying was directly linked to President Nixon during his second term. At that very second, our country was forever changed for the better. Corruption was stifled by shifting tides and a different view of “presidential” qualities among the populous. The people used to look for a strong opaque man who they believed could direct the country sternly; however, after Watergate, honesty and integrity were most valued by the people. This led to non-establishment candidates starting to succeed within politics. Additionally, a new wave of necessary distrust of political figures began after the scandal. A Gallup poll found that 75% of Americans viewed Watergate as “the turning point for
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trust in Presidents.” A general distrust of politicians is beneficial, as it is our job to assure that all figures’ actions match their words. Politicians are incentivized to lie in order to further their careers, so trusting them blindly would lead to the circulation of incorrect information. As corruption became a prominent fear of the people during elections, political hopefuls began to make sure their records were spotless. Candidates began rejecting political donations that they thought might have come from an illegal or even immoral place of origin. Transparency became a priority for candidates, as the most personable individuals were winning, and politicians naturally adjust to voter trends out of ne-
e Hugo
Features cessity to remain employed. Stanley Kutler, a prominent Watergate historian said, “[The scandal] consumed and convulsed the nation and tested the constitutional and political system as it had not been tested since the Civil War.” Increases in both the depth and breadth of investigative journalism furthered the movement towards transparency and full exposure of political activities. Journalists played a major role in the unfolding of the Watergate narrative. Today, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post journalists who followed the cover-up after the event are hailed as heroes within journalism schools across the country. Woodward and Bernstein decided to make the scandal a moral issue, a decision that was later followed by nearly every other
hundreds, so the president’s holding the majority of the political power can lead to chaos when a president hits turbulence, as Nixon did. This led the legislative branch to create and pass the War Powers Resolution, a bill that in effect limited the ability of the President to unilaterally start wars without congressional approval. This reinstated the checks and balances system that we rely on to assure good decision making within government. War became harder to enter, which benefits society at large as war unquestionably damages social and economic systems. Additionally, the Presidential Records Act established a culture of transparency within the White House by ensuring that any document that is not classified is eventually released to the people.
c-span, which continuously plays government hearings and meetings. C-span has promoted voter understanding of our system. The Ethics in Government Act creates transparency by forcing members of Congress to release employment history. It also limits the influence of lobbyists in Congress, allowing congressmen to represent the people with less pressure from special interest groups. Through Watergate, we can effectively say that America has learned from its mistakes. The original robbery was disastrous for the country, but the long-term effects have been tremendous. In the upcoming 2016 presidential elections every facet of each candidate will be scrutinized. Journalists will find any potential corruption and will protect our highest office from
“Increased transparency means fairer politicians for decades to come. The media’s expansion placed the truth in a more accessible place for all Americans.” news source. Many historians believe that without their work, the American public would still not know the truth about Watergate to this day, and Nixon’s legacy would have remained strongly intact. The journalists were glorified in Hollywood movies and history books. These writers had the power to sway national opinion through the uncovering of facts, a story that not only sounds exciting but actually pulled a large quantity of young Americans toward a line of work that benefits the general public. This influx in young journalists has had two main effects: an overall increase in the quality of top newspapers, and an environment in which corruption has become harder to hide than ever before. Increased transparency means fairer politicians for decades to come. The media’s expansion placed the truth in a more accessible place for all Americans. In addition, journalism finally received the long-deserved recognition as a worthwhile career path that aids the public, and writers are now held in a higher regard throughout society. After Watergate, society at large realized that the executive branch held too much power in decision-making. The executive is the least stable branch given it is run by a single individual instead of
Further legislation drafted in response to Watergate worked to promote openness regarding government activities. The cleverly named Sunshine Act forced government committees discussing public issues to open their meetings to the public. This, for the first time, allowed for the people to see past the red tape and into the true inner workings of Congress. This expanded freedoms for all people and allowed for the creation of the television network
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underhanded action. As we see news come to light across the political spectrum, from Hillary Clinton’s emails and the sources of donations to her charity all the way to potential 2016 candidate Chris Christie’s “Bridgegate,” we have Watergate to thank for the massive amounts of factual information the voters have access to during election season in the coming year. HMR
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Roe v Wade Lexi Kanter
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n January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court gave the historic Roe v. Wade ruling, establishing that women have the constitutional right to an abortion. The 7-2 decision of Roe v. Wade would have an immediate and profound impact on lives of women throughout the country. Opening up the debate on reproductive rights, this ruling was one of the most controversial in the history of the United States. The debate over abortion continues today, as an increasing number of states attempt to restrict this constitutional right, slowly undermining the original court ruling. Littered with complex moral and biological questions about the definition of the beginning of life and the rights of an unborn being, the ruling has been challenged and debated many times over. However, over forty years later, Roe v. Wade continues to be the legal standard on abortion rights. Abortion has been a highly controversial issue for centuries, and reproductive rights legislation has a long history in the United States. Abortion was legal under common law in the United States up until the mid 19th century. Early laws passed during the second half of the 1800’s only prohibited abortions after “quickening,” or the first detection of fetal movement, usually four to five months into the pregnancy. Before the invention of more advanced and precise medical equipment and technology, “quick-
ening” was the point generally understood as the beginning of life. As a result of this belief, before Roe v. Wade, abortion was illegal in 30 states and highly restricted in the remaining 20 states, legal only in cases of rape and incest. Yet these laws did not stop women from having abortions. Instead, many women turned to illegal and unsafe methods of terminating their pregnancies. According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, it is estimated that before Roe v. Wade, “between 200,000 and 1.2 million illegally induced abortions occurred annually in the United States, and as many as 5,000 to 10,000 women died per year following illegal abortions.” In response to the tragedy caused by illegal abortion, women’s advocates spearheaded campaigns that challenged criminal abortion laws that were prevalent during the years preceding Roe v. Wade. This push for increased reproductive rights for women was concurrent with the sexual and feminist movements of the 1960’s. In 1970, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, Dallas County District Attorney, on behalf of a pregnant women and Dallas resident Norma L. McCorvey, otherwise known as “Jane Roe.” At the time Texas law banned all abortions unless necessary to save the life of the mother. The prosecution claimed that a Texas law criminalizing most abortions violated Roe’s constitutional right, and that
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although her life was not endangered, she could not afford to travel out of state, a factor that gave her the right to terminate the pregnancy in a safe medical facility. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Law violated Roe’s constitutional right to privacy. The Court established that the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth amendment protect an individual’s “zone of privacy,” which includes marriage, contraception, and child-rearing activities. The Court decided this “zone of privacy was broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision of whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” This statement is fundamental to protecting the right of women to have an abortion. The Court’s decision also addressed the ability of individual states to regulate abortions. After reviewing the history of abortion laws, the Court found that states used three primary justifications for criminalizing abortions: “A Victorian social concern to discourage illicit sexual conduct, protecting the health of women, and protecting prenatal life.” The court rejected the first justification due to its irrelevance within the context of modern gender roles. On the grounds that advanced modern medical technology allows for safe low-risk abortions, the Court rejected the second justification as well. The third justification is one that continues to be controversial today. However, because a fetus does not technically fit the definition of “persons” in
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the Constitution, the Court ruled that they are not entitled to the protections and full rights of U.S. citizens. The Court did introduce a point of viability, that is the point when a fetus can live outside the womb, after which the states are free to ban abortions as long as they yield to the essential right of the woman to have an abortion to protect her health and/or life. Since the Roe v. Wade decision there had been a significant effort on the part of “Pro-Life” activists, largely conservative Republicans and the religious right, to restrict abortion rights. Recently, there has been an increasingly aggressive push for restrictions. For example, from 2011 to 2013, a total of 205 abortion restrictions were enacted in the United States compared to only 189 restrictions going into effect between 2001 and 2010 according to the Guttmacher Institute. According to Elizabeth Nash of this reproductive rights group, the anti-abortion laws that have been enacted over the past few years have been some of the most burdensome seen since Roe v. Wade because they specifically target abortion providers and have put a focus on shutting down clinics. When women do not have access to clinics they do not have access to the care that they need and their rights begin to erode. There are various arguments used today to dispute the right of women to decide whether or not to have an abortion. There
are a few arguments that are not only factually incorrect but also offensive to all women, including the statement from former congressman Todd Akin, “If it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut the whole thing down.” He and many others imply that in cases of rape the female body has ways to prevent pregnancy, and therefore abortion is not a necessary measure. However, there are arguments that raise more appropriate points and questions. For example, three main arguments made against abortion rights are that human life begins at the moment of conception, and therefore abortion is the killing of an innocent child; adoption is a viable alternative; and abortions are physically and physiologically dangerous and can leave the mother with feelings of regret. Although these arguments do raise valid questions about abortion, it is important to understand why they do not override a woman’s right to choose. To address the first argument, determining the point at which life begins is highly contested issue. Even in the original Court ruling, abortions were not supported unconditionally, allowing the banning of abortions after the fetus reaches the point of viability. Until a consensus can be reached, the point of viability as defined in Roe v. Wade should be upheld as the standard. To address the second point, claiming that adoption is the alternative assumes that abortions are
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solely to avoid raising the child, which is not the case. Adoption requires a woman to carry the pregnancy to term, which can impede a woman’s ability to make a living or receive an education. There are also risks of pregnancy complications. Lastly, abortions today, when performed by trained professionals, are some of the safest medical procedures with a fatality rate less than 0.01 percent. In addition, it is not the role of government to prevent citizens from doing something they may or may not regret later in life. There are a countless number of things people regret, but individuals have the right to choose their own paths in life and make their own decisions regardless of whether they regret those decisions later on. Roe v. Wade was a landmark decision that, for the first time in American History, recognized and reaffirmed that the right of women to make childbearing decisions is integral to their lives and their ability to participate equally in society. The ultimate decision that the right to privacy encompasses the right of women to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy emphasizes that it cannot be the role of government to interfere with personal and intimate decisions HMR
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The Evolution of US Foreign Policy in the Middle East Eva Steinman
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uch has changed in the Middle East in the last 40 years; in ways that would have been difficult to foresee at the time. Yet, in spite of these changes, interesting parallels can be drawn between US foreign policy in the region then and today. Similar to today, the United States had completed a long foreign war and was weary of further involvement in conflict overseas. Likewise, the desire to quickly resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict was creating public tensions with the lone democracy in the region, Israel. The steward of our policy was a president who was regarded as inexperienced on the world stage. Yet unlike today, our foreign policy in the Middle East was
shaped foremost by our desire for stability and the dynamics of Cold War politics. While the situation in 1975 was complex, the situation we find ourselves in today is far more complicated. In 1975, Gerald Ford was President of the United States, having taken office in August 1974 following President Richard Nixon’s resignation in the wake of the Watergate scandal. From the moment Ford pardoned Nixon, he was immediately put into a disadvantageous situation. It is arguable that few, if any American presidents, entered office in a weaker position than the former Vice President and Michigan Congressman. His tenure as President was largely one of reacting to events, such as a
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poor economy and the fall of Saigon, rather than shaping them. His presidency lasted for only 895 days. During the years leading up to Ford’s rise to the presidency, the Nixon administration, amid diminishing military involvement in Vietnam, grappled with its policy in the Middle East. The British had decided to withdraw from the Suez Canal in 1972, and the United States, recognizing that it had interests in the region, was acutely aware of an increasingly assertive Soviet Union stepping into a vacuum. With a desire to maintain influence but avoid direct involvement in the light of events in Vietnam, the Nixon Doctrine was established largely in connection with the
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Similar to the Nixon Doctrine Obama’s actions in the Middle East suggest a similar weariness in involving the American military in foreign conflicts Vietnam War but had particular relevance to the Middle East. The essence of the policy was that the United States would provide “a shield if a nuclear power threaten[ed] the freedom of a nation allied with us…, [would] furnish military and economic assistance [but] shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility…for its own defense.” The pillars of US foreign policy in the region would be Iran and Saudi Arabia, along with Israel. In practice, the doctrine had the effect of significantly increasing the amount of military aid to those perceived as allies. Tensions did not cease in coming years. When Ford took office, tensions between Israel and the Arab states were still high following the 1973 Arab-Israeli or “Yom Kippur” War, in which a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria, and backed by the Soviet Union, attacked Israel. At the time, military strongmen generally ruled the Arab world, with General Anwar Sadat in Egypt, King Faisal in Saudi Arabia, the Shah Mohammed Pahlavi in Iran, King Hussein in Jordan, General Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, President Hafez al-Assad in Syria, and President Ahmed alBakr in Iraq (with Saddam Hussein as his strong-handed deputy). These were secular governments with totalitarian leaders who held these countries and their various religious factions together. It was in Lebanon only where a ruinous civil war between rival religious groups would break out in 1975. Ford, like current President Obama, entered office without any real diplomatic experience. He relied heavily on his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, to shape US policy in the Middle East. Kissinger’s failure to achieve peace between the Arab states and Israel led to frustration and, relying on Kissinger, President Ford decided in 1975 that the country’s policy in the Middle East would undergo a “reassessment.” The Pres-
ident went so far as to send a threatening letter to Israel, indicating that the “failure of the negotiations will have a far-reaching impact on the region and on our relations,” and then went on to postpone the delivery of weapons and defer certain foreign aid. As in President Ford’s time, President Obama inherited foreign conflicts on the other side of the globe. He entered office with a stated policy of winding down America’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Similar to the Nixon Doctrine, which “looked to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility…for its own defense,” Obama’s actions in the Middle East, including the removal of US combat troops from Iraq and “leading from behind” in the Libyan conflict, suggest a similar weariness in involving the American military in foreign conflicts. As in 1975 under Ford, the Obama administration’s relationship with Israel is at a low point. The issues go beyond the inability for the Israelis and Palestinians to strike a peace deal and include profound disagreements between President Obama and Israeli President Netanyahu on how to best approach negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. And, perhaps increasingly similar to the dynamics confronted by the Ford Administration, the United States is now being confronted with a more resurgent Russia decades after the end of the Cold War. Yet for the similarities, there are also key differences in policy. In 1975, the United States was able to rely on secular authoritarian allies in the Middle East and, indeed, based its policies around the survival and armament of such regimes. The fall of the Shah in Iran in 1979 shook one of the pillars of American policy in the region. And with the beginning of the “Arab Spring” in 2010, the fall of Mubarak in Egypt, with the apparent acquiescence of the Obama Administration, shook another of those
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pillars. Meanwhile, either American action or civil war has created a splintering of nations that, while historically hostile to the United States, contained radicalism in the region. Beginning in 2003 with the US invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam Hussein, there has been a domino effect. First Iraq crumbled between Shia and Sunni Arabs. Then, precipitated by events in Egypt and elsewhere during the Arab Spring, Syria and Libya fell into civil war in 2010 and 2011. The result is a picture that looks very different than what President Ford saw in 1975. This begs the question of whether the Ford Administration, operating under the Nixon Doctrine, would have done things differently. The conclusion, it would appear, is inconclusive. On the one hand, drawing a parallel between Mubarak in 2010 Egypt and the Shah in 1975 Iran, it is hard to imagine that the Ford Administration would define Mubarak as anything other than an ally and pillar of US foreign policy in the region – and therefore likely would have taken a different position to the opposition by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. On the other hand, just as a vacuum was created by the departure of the British that left the door open to the Soviet threat, the departure of US troops from Iraq similarly created a power vacuum. The Sunni minority was subject to the abuses of the Shia majority led government. In response to this oppression and the general instability that has characterized the nation, radical Sunni groups have been able to gain large swaths of territory. Currently Iraqi autonomy is also threatened by Iranian interference. The Obama Administration’s response was not to maintain military personnel but rather to supply of military equipment, which is something that Ford, operating under the Nixon Doctrine, may have (for better or worse) done. HMR
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THE LEGACY OF THE SOVIET UNION Annie Liu
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he dissolution of the Soviet Union officially began on December 26, 1991. Gorbachev’s resignation on the previous day resulted in the passage of the keys of power to the Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, who followed through with Gorbachev’s plans by finishing declaration no. 142-H. The declaration marked the end of the USSR, and the official creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS. Previously, the secession of eleven countries from the Soviet Union and the formation of the CIS fronted the declara-
tion of the end of the Soviet Union. The fateful day of December 26th also signified the end of the Cold War, which had lasted for some forty-five years. However, despite the end of this conflict, the legacy of the Soviet Union remains in the form of skewed relations within Eastern Europe, the redrawing of international policies and borders, and the rise of the US as the world’s leading power. The disintegration of the USSR into fifteen countries was first hailed by the west as a triumph of democracy over totalitarian-
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ism and offered clear evidence of the superiority of capitalism over socialism. In the beginning, the Bolsheviks aimed to create a nation unified with Communism, which molded nationalities and cultural differences within Russia. However, their goal to create a unified, centralized socialist state proved problematic for quite a few reasons. The Soviets failed to recognize the percentage of the population of non-Russian ethnic groups in the country (over 50%), and thus these groups would naturally resist assimilation into a Russianized State. Additional-
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“In reality, we have not overcome the Soviet age; while the USSR is gone, the Soviet mindset lives on, and unless real action is taken, threatens to inflame the world once again.” ly, their economic plans failed to meet the needs of the State, having been caught up in an aggressive race for arms against the United States. This led to gradual economic decline, eventually solidifying the need for reform. Finally, the ideology of Communism never took firm root in the minds of the Russian citizens, and over time it lost what little influence it used to have. Gradually, more and more states seceded from the Union, consequently forcing the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The fifteen new countries which have emerged independent from the Soviet Union are still faced with handling economics and frayed international relations. The newly created independent states’ transition to a market economy resulted in a severe transitional economic decline, with their GDPs dropping by more than 40% due to these countries’ efforts to rebuild and restructure their economic systems. Modern statistics show that only 10 of 15 formerly soviet countries have recovered to a GDP higher than their 1990-1995, leaving Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan with GDP prominently lower than its former levels. Additionally, the recovery in Russia was marginal, Russia’s GDP in 2006 was barely above the 1991 level. This could be professed as the failure of capitalism to improve living standards in Russia, and combined with the after-effects of the 1998 Russian economic crisis, a return of more “interventionist” economic policies by Vladimir Putin’s administration was implemented. As the years flew by, onlookers witnessed an extreme decline in order and clarity within the former Soviet states, as relations and events started becoming increasingly tangled and concerning. Eastern European nations have had a strong sense of being culturally different from the West and uphold aggressive nationalistic ideals; this, in fact, was a major reason for the World War I, and a major player in the dissolution of the USSR. Today, this attitude endures. Tensions between Ukraine and Russia have played a major part in present politics, as with the
crisis in Crimea, which has been in turmoil spurred by cultural differences and nationalism. Moldova, a country landlocked between Romania and Ukraine, has expressed recent disdain with their identification as being Romanian, with the rise of new popular slogans such as “I am Moldovan! I speak Moldovan!” as opposed to speaking Romanian. Additionally, the persisting Communist presence in Eastern Europe has caused some internal conflicts as in Moldova with the revolts of 2009. Belarus has also experienced some major unrest, with its people constantly uprising in unsuccessful attempts to force their tyrannous, formerly-Communist president Alexander Lukashenko, to resign. The same disturbance can be seen in Latvia, Bulgaria, and Lithuania. Most significantly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has resulted in NATO’s position at the edges of Eastern Europe, which is geared for the worst. Despite the ceasefire agreement reached between Russia and Ukraine in February of this year, fighting continues in Ukraine. Ukraine, split into three opposing movements, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the Ukrainian government, has been locked in armed conflict since the 2014 annexation of Crimea into Russia. The languid armistice settled between the two countries was clearly not enough to suppress the conflicting nationalistic sentiments in Ukraine. The events occurring there have a World War I and pre-USSR dissolution air about them, with the aggressive cultural division of Eastern Europe that brought down the Soviet Union still threaded into the thoughts and actions of those newly independent. The oppressive, overbearing nature of Russia—driven by Vladimir Putin—has yet to completely recover from its Soviet sentiments, and the frayed relations in all of Eastern Europe are not helping with the situation. The existence of Communism in Eastern Europe, combined with extreme nationalism, is enough to tear the whole region apart, all over again. What the former Soviet states need is assistance from each other, not speaking of the CIS, whose
May 2015
unity is insufficient and weak; these nations also need to completely reform, because it seems as if almost every Eastern European country has one foot stepped into progress, and the second foot stuck in the muddy past of the Soviet days. Russia’s authority, diminished by the disbanding of the USSR, is clearly trying to reclaim and reinstate itself as a leading world power. However, Russia isn’t recognizing past mistakes and instead, is simply repeating them—as with their continuous attempt to control Crimea. In general, if anyone were asked to name specific locations of certain Eastern European countries such as Lithuania and Belarus, he or she probably would not be able to pinpoint either correctly. This is concerning, since the events occurring in these nations and their vicinity are serious; but it may be inferred that this obscure status is due to the fact that most news in the region is focused around the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Yes, of course the latter is very important, but the world also needs to be concentrated on the various problems in the other former Soviet states, since their issues, too, are bleeding into global politics and markets. The persisting financial crises here pose a threat on Western Europe, since the integration of their markets obviously calls for a rounding blow on both economic sectors. And, as previously stated, violent protests which have erupted throughout Eastern Europe indicate the menace of political destabilization. Thus, these negative developments have dramatic effects on the junction of Eastern Europe with the Euro Area, as well as having become a major challenge for the EU as with the concern of the stability of the Euro. The concern is valid, as we have seen a quite large and recent decline of the Euro, partially attributed to the events in Eastern Europe. The world has claimed to have overcome the Soviet age and the Cold War. In reality, we have not; while the USSR is gone, the Soviet mindset lives on, and unless real action is taken, this mindset threatens to inflame the world once again. HMR
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Economics
THE CYCLICAL NATURE OF EUROZONE FAILURE In many ways the Eurozone is hurting its member states rather than helping them. The lack of enforcement of austerity measures pose a threat to the system as a whole and must be dealt with immediately.
By Henry Shapiro
T
wo decades ago, European nations began to embark on the greatest political experiment in European history. The Maastricht Treaty bound 28 member states all to one single federalist system, the European Union. After thousands of years of fighting, the European Union offered a sign of hope for unity and stability in Europe. This treaty was the silver-lined pathway for European nations to strip away nationalism and imperialism that had left the continent gridlocked for years and to allow them to become bound to each other economically. Unfortunately, this agreement only set the stage for one of the most catastrophic reforms of the 21st century, the Eurozone. The Eurozone has created a never-ending cycle of debt that has stripped nations of both their sovereignty and their ability to achieve prosperity. The largest problem with the Eurozone is that it is only as strong as its weakest link. If one nation were to fall behind, all other members would become responsible to pull it back up. This prevents stronger nations from growing. Coming out of the European debt crisis, Germany and a few other nations began to pull out ahead. At the same time, nations like Spain and Greece had grave economic problems and began to fall behind. Because they are all bound to one monetary system, Germany needed Spain and Greece to strengthen, but it was very limited in its power to enact reform. The Eurozone is a monetary union, not a fiscal union. Therefore, the Eurozone can’t dictate a nation’s fiscal policy and thus can’t solve the underlying problems that are
inhibiting the growth of any one nation. Instead the EU is limited to using tactics like lowering interests rates and providing large bailout packages. So naturally, the Eurozone provided extensive bailouts for Greece and Spain. Spain negotiated a 100 billion euro deal in 2012 to bailout out its own banks back home while Greece has managed to secure a 110 billion euro deal in 2010. In 2011, Greek received another 100 euro support package where banks would undercut 100 billion of Greece’s debt by 50% to lower the nations total debt from 340 to 240 billion euros. This sets the precedent that every time a nation falls behind it can expect to be saved by other nations and has little incentive to solve its own problems. As chief economist of Uni Credit Gorup in
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“This sets the precedent that every time a nation falls behind it can expect to be saved by other nations and has little incentive to solve its own problems.” London says, “ My debt problem becomes your problem (in the EU).” Not only has Greece continuously accrued significantly more debt than it can afford to pay back, but it hasn’t been held accountable to pay back the original debt. Some point a fin-
ger at the stronger European nations for allowing nations like Greece to continuously feed off their wealth, but they simply have no other option in the current system. They can’t let Greece fall behind because it will only be inflicting a wound on themselves. These bailouts have created a compounding effect of moral hazard. Not only are nations not held accountable for their actions but also their banks aren’t either. Greek banks can spew out risky loans and make huge amounts of money in the short term. Once things go bad, the banks tumble and so does the Greek economy. Greece responds by bailing out their banks, taking out loans from other nations to afford this expensive program. The banks now feel that can rely on the Greek government to bail them out, but at the same time Greece also feels that it can rely on the Eurozone to bail them out as well. Not only are the banks not adjusting to solve their problems, but the Greek government isn’t either. Naturally, stronger nations like Germany might want to try to push austerity measures on Greece. If Greece has no incentive to pay back their debt, then why not make it a condition of assistance that they take some measures to become more fiscally responsible? In the long-term, this will help Greece alleviate the debt that it has accrued, but in the short term, there economy is still in shambles. So while the public sectors start a long-term program to pay off its debt, the solution the ECB has come to in order to stimulate the economy is to have the nation rapidly acquire even more debt in the private sector. The ECB
Economics www.theguardian.com
is the central bank for all members of the Eurozone and thus control monetary policy for all members. The ECB has recently greatly expanded its quantitative easing program by 50 billion euros a month. The ECB will now spend a total of 820 billion euros a year on quantitative easing. The ECB will buy bonds, which are a form of debt, to lower interest rates so people will borrow even more money from the government because they can do so with relative ease and low pricing. The European debt crisis started when banks gave incredibly risky loans to people who could hardly afford them at a very low interest rate that encouraged reckless spending. Currently, people in Europe can take out a loan so cheaply that some loans now have negative interest rate. What this means is that you are paid to take out money and spend it. How does this not encourage the same reckless spending that put the Eurozone in crisis just a few years ago? When this inevitably causes a banking crisis in the upcoming years, the automated response will be only more of the same. In the meantime while the public sector is flooded with irresponsible loans and the Greek government is barely making a dent in their debt, the Eurozone is considering giving Greece even another bailout.
New Greek Prime minister Alexis Tspiras from the radical Syriza party announced early in May 1st that a deal is almost finished that will likely give Greece another 60 billion euros. Additionally, Greece now is refusing to comply with austerity programs, blaming their nations problems on the austerity measures as opposed to poor management. The political force behind this is the newly elected Syriza party, a radical socialist group. The Syriza party is known for their extreme leftist economic policies. John Milos, Syriza’s chief economists, said to the Gaurdian, “ I am a Marxist. The majority (in Syriza) are.” If Syriza follows up on their campaign promises to go against austerity and many of the other conditions set in their bailout agreements, they may trigger a series of change reactions that would end in Greece’s exit of the Eurozone and thus the destruction of the
EU.
Throughout the course of history, nations are faced with a challenge where they must choose between what is easy and what is right. The Eurozone has created a never-ending cycle of debt and fiscal irresponsibility that threatens to leave their economy in shambles. Though it is not easy, the survival of Europe depends on its ability to put an end to this toppling system before it is to late. A sudden Greek exit would only decimate the Euro, and even if lawmakers between the Eurozone’s member states could come to some sort of agreement, it would only delay the EU’s inevitable destruction. A thoroughly planned and timely end to the Eurozone would alleviate nation’s economies from their shackles and allow Europe to finally prosper. HMR
“Throughout the course of history, nations are faced with a challenge where they must choose between what is easy and what is right.” May 2015
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Economics
S
CHINA UNPREPARED TO LEAD
By Krystian Loetscher
ince the end of World War II, the United States has undoubtedly been the world’s primary economic power. The creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has centralized considerable power in the U.S. Both of said institutions, as well as the affiliated Asian Development Bank, have been at the core of governing global economic policy, promoting free trade and responsible governance. Recently though, it seems that one of the most rapidly growing economies, China, is looking to stake its claim as a great power. With the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Chinese government is seeking to end the trend of a super power that has enjoyed economic hegemony. Moreover, the US has recently struggled in its role as the global financial leader. Many economists agree on the root cause; Joseph Stigliz of The Guardian discussing the current U.S. situation explains that “the problem is a financial system that has failed at its core task: intermediating savings and investment on a global scale.” Indeed, a primary justification for China’s initiative for this bank, lies in the lack of funds flowing from U.S. controlled institutions. Despite the fact that these institutions are not operating optimally in the status quo, they still serve as the current best option. The World Bank’s fundamental purpose is to help the growth of underdeveloped and developing nations by giving them loans for heavy investments such as infrastructure. The AAIB, while formed with similar intentions, could give unprecedented influence to China, who has demonstrated they are not quite ready to responsibly handle such power on a global scale. In other words the issue doesn’t lie in the institution itself, but rather the intentions and ambitions of those directing it. The AIIB was launched last October, and was backed and funded by 20 other countries including Britain, and other Asian nations. It is about a third of the size the Asian Development Bank, as measured by total capital. The AIIB’s creation was based around the fact that the current U.S. led institutions are not quite covering the massive loans that are needed
annually by developing nations. For example, Prashanth Parameswaran, a writer for The Diplomat, writes that the combined 50 billion dollars that the World Bank loans annually is barely enough to cover Indonesia alone. China, as part of a group of rapidly developing economies such as Brazil, Russia and India, has been seeking a larger share of global influence partly thru the reform of International institutions. In a feeble attempt to accommodate for this growth, the IMF offered to increase China’s share from their previous low of 4% to only about 6%. This ridiculous change was the result of a partisan U.S. congressional debate, the same divide between parties that has been causing some serious issues over the past decade. The U.S. Congress has been ineffective and idle and this is at the crux of many arguments in advocating for the AIIB. Since the World Bank and IMF are led primarily by the U.S., our malfunctioning political system has contributed greatly to the weak efforts in leading them. These two factors, being a lack of funding and idleness on the part of U.S. controlled institutions has lead to the creation of the AIIB. As mentioned, the AIIB would function a lot like the World Bank; it would make loans for infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, ports etc. to developing countries in Asia. It sounds like a good idea and simple solution to the problem of underfunding. On face value we now have another source of financing for developing countries that need it. However, we have to question to whom this new institution would be giving power and how would it be welded. With this backdrop set, lets examine why the shining AIIB has more to it than just its praise worthy long term aims. While the institution was built with the purpose of development lending, it was also made with the interests of China in mind. Like the U.S. controls the IMF and World Bank, China would hold the reigns in this endeavor, and that is precisely the problem; the AIIB risks giving to much power to a not yet ready and capable China. The U.S., despite its deficiencies is often thought to be the most responsible, authoritative, and
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qualified country for a position as the global power. While we do need a solution to this problem of a lack of infrastructure financing, the AIIB is like a dirty bandage on an open wound. In other words, the global economy has responded to a large issue by slapping on an institution that in the long run, will simply worsen the situation. The power that China would gain as a global lender would be enormous. Why is this bad? Why can’t China operate the same way as the U.S.? The answer is simply that China would seek to pursue their own best interests at the expense of global or even regional interests. The World Bank and IMF implement regulations and restrictions on international loans to ensure that funds are being used for good purposes and are not exploited. For example, the IMF ensures in many cases that natural resources wouldn’t be abused in lending their money and a violation of this would most likely result in a retraction of said loan. The Economist magazine reports that a common critique of the AIIB is “that the China-led bank may fail to live up to the environmental, labor and procurement standards that are essential to the mission of
Economics
development lenders.” The IMF explains that in the long run, these easy-to-attain loans will hurt the developing economies because they will exploit their land, dry up their resources (which many of their developing economies’ are based on), and end up in severe trouble. The Economist also details a lack of “business transparency” in China that includes an often corrupt and inefficient market. Perhaps an even larger point is that the political state of China is very unstable. Its neighbors have historically harbored animosity due to China’s coveting their resources. It has not shown capabilities of foreign influence; this power giving seems unjustified. David Shambaugh for The Brookings Institute explains; “China does not lead. It does not shape international diplomacy, drive other nations’ policies, forge global consensus, put together coalitions or solve problems.” Whether or not this animosity and lack of respect is warranted is irrelevant; the fact remains that China isn’t ready for the power that it would gain through the AIIB. Perhaps the final, most significant issue with this larger claim at power is China’s root problem of human rights abuses. The
money being lent is not restricted enough; it doesn’t provide covenants/ conditions that will ensure that the money is being put to good use and not for a particular government to solidify its power through the abuse of its citizens. William Yale, a research associate at the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) explains that “China hasn’t exercised ‘best restraint in handling disputes with others’; … the China Coast Guard, and even civilian fishing vessels routinely play games of brinksmanship and threaten freedom of the seas and skies.” The bottom line is, China won’t change just because of this frenzy involving their new bank. While some argue that the close scrutiny that the bank is under will encourage better practices, it simply doesn’t follow in the real world application. All that the AIIB really has to do, is tackle the problem it was instituted to face while countries look the other way when they financially support backwards
“governments.” The Human Rights Watch reported that their “land seizures, forced evictions, environmental degradation, miscarriages of justice, abuse of power by corrupt cadres, discrimination, and economic inequality,” are all still prevalent issues that are not dealt with. In reality, what the underdeveloped countries want is money, but it needs to be spent appropriately for the benefit of all citizens without causing environmental damage. While China probably does have a warranted claim of more global influence given their sheer size and Asia’s near 50% of annual global economy, their lack of “good governance” limits how much should be taken, or rather how much power grabbing is warranted, and the AIIB simply crosses that line. In the status quo, the United States serves as the most able global power and the flaws in the international banking system should not be solved by displacing power elsewhere. HMR
“The bottom line is, China won’t change just because of this frenzy involving their new bank. “ May 2015
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Economics
The Stride to Discipline 90 Million People:
China’s New Anti-Corruption Measures By Peter SHamamian
X
i Jinping came to power in China in 2012 with the major initiative to crack down on the notorious corruption of the Chinese government. To this date, Jinping and China’s Central Commission of Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the government body spearheading the campaign since Jinping’s election, have found and disciplined 414,000 officials for corruption. This staggering number reveals how widespread the issue of corruption is in China’s political sectors, and it is clearly a call for action by the government. It is important for the world to acknowledge the sheer magnitude of Jinping and the CCDI’s fight to minimize corruption in China, as it is a problem that requires an incredible amount of force and perseverance to tackle. Recently, the CCDI notified the U.S. State Department that the corruption China is facing is leaking
into the United States, stressing the need for China’s anti corruption efforts to be brought to the international level. This effort is thorough and widespread, even Communist Party leaders who seemed out-of-reach are not exempt from investigation. Top military officials have come under investigation, along with the former vice president. Approximately 201,600 of the 414,000 officials brought under scrutiny by the CCDI and Jinping have been prosecuted for infractions in the court. While these efforts have reached the global scale, they are only a part of what seems to be a larger effort of reform of the very political culture of the Chinese Communist Party. Jinping’s largest goal within his effort to stop corruption in the nation is his effort to re-establish the Chinese Communist Party’s authority over its nearly 90 million members.
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Despite the enormity of Jinping’s effort is to regain control over this large mass of people, he still has to understand the notion that he and the CCDI cannot extend their power over the entirety of the country with effectiveness. Once the components of regional factions and the new business elite enter the ring, it is almost impossible for Jinping and the CCDI to ensure the omnipresence of anti-corruption members. That is why it is of the utmost importance that Jinping and the CCDI concentrate on corruption on the largest scale, or corruption that drastically impedes the economic activity and political process of the country the most. This would result in not only the eradication of the most detrimental corruption, but it could allow for a kind of cascade effect that would topple corruption in local governments on the small scale.
Economics This problem is all within the context of the slowing Chinese economy. Attacking one of the major issues can solve this notion of a double-sided problem. With manufacturing jobs moving to Southeast Asia and growth slowing to its weakest rate in over 25 years, Jinping has publicly spoken of the need to “actively restructure” the economy. Albeit Jinping’s move to “restructure” the newly fractured Chinese economy, he has refused on multiple occasions to address the issues through direct democracy or an independent judiciary, the two most effective ways to combat this issue. This paradoxical idea of avoiding accountability and active reform while wanting to provide a swift end to the culture of corruption in the country is only impeding Jinping’s success, and, more broadly, the prosperity of the Chinese people’s government. The next flaw in Jinping’s approach is his appeal to the morality of the populace. In the 21st century, morality is gone, especially in business. Jinping thinks that by doing this, he will be able to leave the nation’s one-party state intact, but, as we can see, this is nearly impossible. At stake are not only the position of the Communist Party and the political practices of its officials, but also the future of China itself. The fate of the nation is in Jinping’s hands, and it is up to him and his Communist ideals as to how far he wants to take this fight. Jinping and the CCDI have taken alternative routes to discovering corruption in the past couple of years. Jinping created extremely specific guidelines in order to control the new class of wealthy businessmen in China, down to how many cars officials and businessmen of various ranks and positions could have, the permitted size and value of their residences, and which officials could have secretaries or security details. The enforcement of these mandates is apparent in the arrest of 156 officials last year who were discovered to be drinking, gambling, and allowing factions to form among subordinates while in office in certain provinces. It is instances like these that go to show that Jinping can be fairly effective in his effort to stop corruption and misuse of funds. In a New York Times article written about Jinping’s anti-corruption efforts, he and his team are cited for looking into a new activity of the elite to stop corruption and collusion between interest groups: golf. Here, we can begin to see the alternative tactics that Jinping is taking due to
the ineffectiveness of his moral appeal to officials. State-run news outlets have depicted the sport as another temptation that has led the Communist Party away from the true interest of the people. In response, the government has dismissed multiple officials whose golf expenses are being paid by unidentified companies, as well as shut down dozens of courses across the country built in violation of a ban intended to protect China’s limited supplies of water and arable land. As we can see, the Jinping administration is not taking or giving any chances on anything that suggests the possibility of corruption in the state. The government of China has long been riddled with this issue, and it has clearly been noticed on the international scale. Not only has the international community noticed the issue, but also it has just as well become involved in the issue with the migration of officials embroiled in corruption to different countries to avoid reprisals. The United States State Department has recently been notified of this issue, as the Chinese government has confirmed that at least 150 corrupt Chinese officials were believed to be living in the United States. The two have agreed to cooperate in extradition proceeding for the officials to have trials in China. This notion of Chinese corruption metastasizing into different regions of the world is concerning; these actions need to be contained because it is only a matter of time until these businesspeople and officials begin to resume the same corruption in American, British, Korean, or other important economies. The phenomenon of corruption in Chinese government or dynasties has been in existence since the ancient nation’s conception. It has continually proved itself a formidable opponent of many Chinese presidents, and some have chosen to act more than others. In the case of XI Jinping and the CCDI, they are dealing with a situation that has spiraled out of control. Jinping should still make an effort to continue this battle, but the issue is already too large to contain. With the help of other powerful nations, however, there is a possibility of containing the issue and taking it down to a negligible rut in society. In any case, it is up to the reforming attitudes of Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party to take a strong and lasting stance against this messy and drawn out problem of corruption in the state of China. HMR
May 2015
414,000 Corrupt officials discovered
7.4% Weakest JOb GRowth rate in 25 Years
150 Corrupt Officials that have fled to the U.S.
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Economics
POLITICS FOR PURCHASE Ray Fishman
W
hile the 2016 Presidential Election is over a year away, it seems as if both the Republican and Democratic parties have declared “full steam ahead.” With eight candidates already having declared their candidacy in their respective, election season is fast approaching And as expected with any impending election, several higher profile candidates and household names such as Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio have already begun to express and solidify their views on the plethora of topics relevant to American politics. Yet one particular issue has been lacking among the usually vast array of dilemmas that face the nation as a whole: the involvement of money within our political system. Surprisingly enough, lobbying, and other forms of campaign financing are not issues that have polarized the nation across party lines, dissimilar to many other issues. In fact, over 90% of American citizens agree that money has too much influence over the political system. With this statistic in mind, it is puzzling that politicians have often slyly eluded discussing the issue, as on a most basic level, the politicians elected in the United States are supposed to be representations of the people’s opinions and consensuses. When examining the issue more in depth;however, it becomes apparent that the reasons for money’s involvement in politics resides not only in a sys-
tem that allows for the “virtual purchase” of votes, but also in the unmitigated greed and corruption of the vast majority of politicians. This being said, there are many important questions left unanswered. Firstly, how has the political landscape of the United States shifted to allow the intertwining of money and politics? Secondly, what can be done about the current situation if legislative power resides in the hands of those who benefit from the present-day system? And thirdly, perhaps the most practical and important of all questions, who can be trusted to carry out meaningful change? Before attempting to suggest solutions to an obviously corrupted system, it is important to understand how the system works. One of the primary manifestations of the intertwinement of money and politics is through an organization called Citizens United. Self-described as a conservative nonprofit group, Citizens United allows for the sponsorship of politicians from big name companies, which often give exorbitant amounts of money to political campaigns. Although it is ultimately the voters on Election Day who decide between the candidates, the correlation between success of a campaign and the amount of capital it has is evident. Furthermore, since the vast majority of this money is in the form of large donations from some of the country’s largest corporations, politicians
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feel pressure to comply with the demands of their sponsors in fear of losing contributions for the next election. Instead of representing the people who elected them, politicians now represent the corporations and the so-called “billionaire class” who “own” them. Perhaps the politicians cannot be fully blamed for submitting to a system in which money equates to power and control. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United vs. FEC that Citizens United was within their legal rights and an expression of first amendment rights. Since then, Citizens United and Corporate America at large have continued to impose a quasi-oligarchy on our political system originally founded on democratic principles. While interest groups such as Citizens United and the Koch Brothers, who have pledged almost a billion dollars of their own money to campaign financing in the 2016 Presidential Election, are consistent supporters of conservative politicians, it is important to recognize that campaign finance corruption is also within the Democratic Party. In fact, the frontrunner for the Democrats’ nomination for the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton, has throughout her political career been supported by special interest groups and large corporations and has never taken an affirmative position against such institutions’ practices. Since 1989, some of Clinton’s biggest campaign
Economics
contributors include: Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Time Warner, and Merrill Lynch, to name a few. Clinton has accepted on average about $500,000 from each of these companies and received particularly large amounts during her prior run for president in 2008. Clinton’s actions show an unfortunate truth to the American people: that the only two political parties with any mainstream relevance and legislative control are both corporately owned. Perhaps this is why it will take a politician outside both of these parties to bring about meaningful change. Enter Bernie Sanders. The self-described democratic-socialist served two terms as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, several terms in the House of Representatives, and is currently in his second term as a senator. The most impressive part of Sander’s political career is that he has remained an Independent. Now 73 years old, Sanders has decided to run for president in 2016 and is venturing into unsettling territory for many other politicians: campaign financing. Unlike most of his counterparts, Sanders supports a constitutional amendment that would effectively ban Citizens United and other groups like it. Sanders claims that these groups have created an oligarchy in the United States, and the statistics behind Sanders’ own campaign financing only serve to support his words. Since 1989,
the greatest amount of money that Sanders has received from a group is $95,000 over a 25-year period. Furthermore, the group was not a big corporation, but a workers’ union. In fact, almost every single one of Sanders’ campaign contributions has come from a union or a coalition of workers. In the first four days after he announced his campaign for President, Sanders has raised $3,000,000, yet the average contribution to his campaign has been a mere $43. This is a far cry from almost every other politician’s average contribution in America. Bernie Sanders truly represents the more than 90% of Americans who are sick of corruption and greed in Washington but have been refused due to an unfair system and cycle the favors the richest 0.01% of people. If he pulls off the miraculous victory, perhaps we as a country can close the book on a system that has no place in a true democracy. If he loses, perhaps the general awareness and understanding of nuances within the system will be better understood by the public, forcing mainstream politicians to adapt a different system of campaign financing entirely. Either way, Sanders is sure to leave a mark on modern American politics. If you care about restoring democratic principles in regards to money in the American political system, be sure to pick up the ballot for Bernie. HMR
May 2015
Although it is ultimately the voters on Election Day who decide between the candidates, the correlation between success of a campaign and the amount of capital is evident. 43
Economics
img.kid.com
College Football Profits Jacob Chae
On January 12th, 2015, the world witnessed the very first College Football Playoffs, a new four-team playoff arrangement. According to the College Football Playoff Committee (CFPC), “the format is simple: the best four teams in the country are selected, then there are two semifinals matches played in bowl games and decisively a championship game played in a different city each year. It’s the biggest innovation in the sport in decades.” Conclusively, the two finalists this year were Oregon and Ohio State, with Ohio State coming out as the astounding victor with a score of 42-20. However, rather than the outcome, something else was also on the line during the game: the future of college football and ESPN’s authority in cable television. Despite an initial sense of uncertainty in terms of profits and success, the inaugural college football playoffs were lucrative, as they had record-breaking viewings and generated an influx of revenue through advertisements. This new college football system not only impacts the game and surrounding factors of college football but also plays a phenomenal yet adverse impact on other college sports
and universities. The continuation of this new college football aspect is crucial in how over the years it will continue to bring a surplus in profit through media factors for the sport and ESPN. However, even though it also brings an increase in earnings for the schools, one downside is how through favoring football only for the economic benefits, it could negatively change the entire college sports concept of providing a diverse community that offers and supports a large variety of sports. One of the main reasons for this College Football Playoffs coordination was to alter the way the game is played by creating an impartial opportunity for all teams. Prior to this new adjustment, there would simply be one BCS (Bowl Championship Series) Championship Game, with the participating teams being the top two teams on the BCS standings. However, this caused an ongoing dilemma. People began to perceive the BCS standings with a general stereotype that it was favoring big name schools such as Alabama or Auburn. This stirred conflict as small name schools that had brilliant seasons felt they were at a huge
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disadvantage in the standings. Therefore, this new system was made as a plausible resolution. According to the official website of the CFP, the new method will run under the following: “No team will automatically qualify. Every FBS team will have equal access to the playoff based on its performance.” This new system is beneficial and preeminent in how it puts more attention on regular season games since each game and how each point could potentially determine if a team makes the playoffs or not. This new structure promotes players and coaches to perform their best when partaking in all of their regular season games. This might seem like a trivial assertion, but there is an indirect driving force underneath. Due to the increased attention on each game throughout the regular season for all teams, the competition for television and advertising rights would magnify compared to previous years. Just consider the amount of fans not only attending these games but also watching them on TV. As the College Football Playoffs put not only more tension but also emphasis on every single FBS game, fans will be eager and anxious
Economics
“One downside of this system is how it might make football superior to all other sports in college and the recruitment process.” to watch their teams play and ultimately win. In prior years, the regular season was not given much attention unless it was a highly anticipated weekend game between two highly ranked teams in the country. Take a look at this new situation from a statistical perspective. In America, there are a total of 128 FBS teams and each team plays on average 14 games a season. That totals to 1,792 regular season football games between the months of September and December. However, this is only about the regular season. After the regular season ends, there are a total of 39 bowl games including the College Football Playoffs. More importantly, each bowl game has its very own title sponsor from one main company or corporation. For example, Vizio was the title sponsor of the Fiesta Bowl and Goodyear was the title sponsor of the Cotton Bowl. Also, as college football is expanding, so are the bowl games. Clearly, the number of bowl games has grown over the recent years and will grow, as there were only 32 bowl games in the 2004-2005 season compared to the 39 bowl games this year. Undoubtedly, the economic repercussions of college football have been turning out to be more beneficial as the years go by. Nonetheless, some might consider the College Football Playoffs Committee and the broadcaster of the playoffs, ESPN, a little greedy for this transformation. Their move is very smart from a business perspective. According to U.S. News, since last year’s college football bowl championship game, ESPN has increased its advertising rates between 20% to 30%. Also, the Wall Street Journal reports how ESPN is charging around $800,000 to $1 million for a 30-second advertising spot this year. As the ratings of these College Football Playoff games keep piling up, so will these monetary implications. The semifinal games, the Sugar Bowl and the Rose Bowl, became the number 1 and number 2 most watched cable television programs in history respectively. The Rose Bowl drew in 28 million viewings and the Sugar Bowl
drew in 28.3 million viewings. However, the Championship game came out with the biggest boom and overtook the Sugar Bowl viewings by drawing in a total of 33.4 million viewers. This move closes the gap between national television versus cable television. Many people in this country do not welcome cable television because it comes with a price tag. With increases in charges for advertising and a surge in viewings, the new College Football playoffs can definitely be seen as a success from an economic standpoint. Not only are the College Football Playoffs Committee and ESPN capitalizing from this new shift but so are colleges themselves. This transformation has lead to financial success for many of the top schools in college football. According to U.S. News, some of the biggest gains were University of Texas making a $74 million profit and University of Michigan making a $64.6 million profit this very past season. “Among the 64 schools in the five power conferences - the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC and Pac 12 - they made $2.8 billion in profit,” CNN Money reports. CNN credits the new playoff system as a major reason for these profits. Selling tickets and television rights are among the biggest moneymakers for programs and conferences. However, one downside of this system is how it might place football superior to all other sports in college and the recruitment process. When schools realize the opportunity they have in achieving a great sum of money through this new change, the schools will put a lot more attention on its football programs. In this world, there is always competition for money regardless of the circumstances. The world of college football is no different. Much of the school and athletic funding will be directed to football in order to enhance their programs to the best of their abilities. Other sports that receive less attention such as track, fencing, wrestling, and squash, will be either given little or no support whatsoever. Also the college distribution of recruit-
May 2015
ment cases would be mainly entitled to football and therefore there would be a decrease in the performance of other college sports such as basketball or baseball. Overall, this new change in the format of College Football has mixed results. It clearly benefits the College Football Committee and ESPN but only partially supports and detriments universities. As other sports are planning to revamp their playoff format, they are looking up to college football. However, the new college football playoffs are just a start. Ultimately, this is the very first year these playoffs occurred, and ESPN has a contract through the season of 2025-2026 to broadcast them. Many economic experts and universities are now obviously looking at this situation from all favorable angles. As this new playoff structure has definitely met its expectations, more positive implications and benefits might come along down the line as AdAge states, “The first-ever college football playoffs amounts to a New Super Bowl in the Making.” HMR
usatoday.com
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Science and Technology
ISIS and Social Media
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Timothy Hoang
ne of the most prevalent areas of coverage in the daily news is ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. It is a deadly terrorist organization that has spread rapidly across the Middle East and has accrued members in countless countries, even in the West. ISIS’ influence and reputation have earned it notoriety as one of the most feared extremist groups of the 21st century. The question is how ISIS’ reach has extended so far around the world, away from its main base in Syria and Iraq. The short answer is the media. In an era where social media reigns, there is undoubtedly a way to take advantage of it. Insurgent groups and figures of the past, including Osama bin Laden, have deployed social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and
YouTube, to disperse messages and make threats. Yet the untapped potential that these social mediums offer hadn’t fully been used until the arrival of ISIS. Now that ISIS has revealed that it is capable of exploiting social media, the United States really has no choice but to tighten security on the Internet and counteract ISIS’ recruitment efforts across the globe. Over the course of the last couple of years, ISIS has grown from a small group of rebels into one of the largest insurgent groups worldwide. It is well funded and is constantly recruiting new members both in the Middle East and in other countries around the world. ISIS has extended its reach across the globe through social media, recruiting over 2,000 Westerners, including around 100 Americans,
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and thousands of others throughout the Middle East. Dozens of Twitter accounts spread the propaganda that ISIS offers to potential recruits around the world, and despite the best efforts of online hackers, such as the group Anonymous, who work to suppress this “online jihad,” the movement keeps pressing forward. Yet these online hackers do deserve to be commended for their work, rooting out suspected accounts of ISIS fighters, recruiters and other agents. In addition to Anonymous, numerous groups such as IS Hunting Club, TouchMyTweets and The Doctor truly understand the threat that social media presents and are working actively to limit ISIS’ influence. There is an insidious aspect to mediums such as Facebook and Twitter, which is the fact
Science and Technology that they can be used to organize attacks in Iraq, Syria, and the United States, as well as to spread ISIS propaganda to the general populace. The sheer number of accounts suspected of having some relation to ISIS is estimated at around 70,000 to 90,000, demonstrating that further action from the United States government needs to be taken to minimize the damage that social media can inflict. However, the use of social media to spread their message is only part of the story. Spreading the messages is one thing, but having success is another.
aimed towards younger people who are still seeking a certain fulfillment in their lives. By focusing its attention on young adults, ISIS gives them a sense of importance, given that they are the main focus of a recruitment campaign. Due to this, those who would even consider joining such a cause feel as if the propaganda distributed by ISIS is on a more personal level, relating to them specifically rather than just to the public in general. Given the success of ISIS’ social media campaign, the question is what the United States and the rest of the world
to a cause that is simply inhumane for its brutality and use of violence. However, weakening ISIS’ technological branches isn’t the only way we can begin to slowly clamp down on a terrorist group that has become out of control. ISIS’ success on the field of battle is also a key factor in its recruitment process due to the fact that success draws members. The more skirmishes in which it emerges victorious, the more confidence potential members will have in their decision to join the insurgent group. In addition, success on the battlefield is also tied to the success
“They’re making disillusioned, disaffected radicals feel like they’re doing something truly meaningful with their lives,” according to the psychologist John Horgan of the University of Massachusetts. What ISIS offers is “an opportunity for people to feel powerful. ISIS is making disillusioned, disaffected radicals feel like they are doing something truly meaningful with their lives,” according to the psychologist John Horgan of the University of Massachusetts. ISIS is essentially appealing to the inner drive of people who want to do something important with their lives. This is easily relatable for many people and explains why ISIS’ recruits fight with such passion and fervor. Not only does ISIS offer the opportunity to fight for a cause that is supposedly ridding the world of its injustices, but it also gives members the chance to speak their minds and do something personally “meaningful” with their lives. Other terrorist groups were known to use videos to release televised messages for the public to see. However, more often than not the videos were in Arabic and were targeted at those who lived in the Middle East rather than expanding outside that section of the world. ISIS has made movements to expand internationally, and the amount of success it is having is enormous, especially among young adults. According to Horgan, “[ISIS is] very adept at targeting a young audience.” The propaganda messages being released, such as a recent one by a Canadian convert, are done in English and target a much younger group of people. ISIS’ propaganda and the idea of doing something “meaningful” is undoubtedly
can do to hamper its progress. First and foremost, we need to weaken and debilitate their use of the modern technology at their disposal, specifically social media. By cutting down and restricting the ways of dispersing their propaganda, we will essentially be closing off the passage through which ISIS primarily recruits its members. It should be made a priority to control the types of messages being posted and videos being released to the general public. As we can see, these forms of recruitment have worked and have already converted thousands of Westerners, who joined with their own free will,
May 2015
of ISIS’ social media campaign. The fact that ISIS wins more than it loses speaks for itself and is definitely a contributing factor in whether potential recruits join up with the extremist group. Minimizing ISIS’ victories on the battlefield would not only affect the morale of its members but also damage its recruitment efforts. If the United States and the rest of the world can successfully put pressure on ISIS on both the Internet and the battlefield, ISIS will be crippled and then moves can be made to bring down the organization once and for all. HMR
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Science and Technology
China’s Technology Connects By Brian Song
C
hina’s current population of 1.3 billion people is growing. The nation’s technological boom has enabled Chinese citizens to connect with others. With over 640 million Internet users and over 500 million active smartphone users, the Chinese tech industry has rapidly expanded. Chinese companies, ranging from social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo to online marketplaces like Alibaba’s Taobao, have capitalized on China’s consumption of technology. Social media companies like Wechat and Weibo have helped give rise to China’s interconnectedness. Wechat, China’s version of Facebook, allows users to create social networks of selected friends. Wechat is unique in that it is specialized for Chinese consumers. Since most of Chinese tech users are smartphone users, Wechat has become one of the first mobile social media companies. Its application enables users to type and voice messages. Wechat also incor-
porates Chinese culture into its application. For example, the Chinese have a custom of giving “red money bags” to friends on holidays. By depositing small amounts of money into virtual pots of red bags, users can give gifts to and receive gifts from random friends. This feature was an instant success and demonstrates the melding of uniquely Chinese culture with new technology in order to bring China together. Weibo, slightly older than Wechat, is China’s copy of America’s Twitter. It offers similar micro blogging services and has overlapping appeals. Fearing the revolutionary possibilities of unrestricted media, the Chinese government has banned Twitter and Facebook. Therefore, Weibo, which grants the government the ability to censor posts, has been left to thrive. The story of the Orange Brothers also reveals China’s new interconnectedness. It begins in a bar in New York City’s East Village, where Matt Stopera acciden-
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tally left his phone on the counter. Matt subsequently bought a new phone, but a year later realized something very strange. Because someone had stolen his phone, pictures he had never taken were filling up his camera roll. They ranged from pictures of phone stores to fireworks to the titular photo of an Asian man taking a selfie with an orange tree. Soon enough, Matt realized that his stolen phone must have been sold on the black market in China. Since it was still logged onto his iCloud, the images taken by the new user, “Brother Orange,” were transferring over to his phone. Matt posted his story on Buzzfeed, and someone in China then posted it on Weibo. From there, the story spread quickly and received 70 million views in China. Chinese Weibo users were able to successfully track Brother Orange down from his pictures. Soon enough, Matt was even invited to China, where he met Brother Orange in a mix of cameramen, crowds of fans snapping pho-
Science and Technology
tos, and paparazzi. By the power of social media, a simple stolen phone in the world’s most densely populated country was able to sprout into the meeting of two people who lived in seemingly polar opposite lives. Technology has also dramatically changed the way Chinese people handle money. Alibaba, China’s TaoBao marketplaces, and Alipay have revolutionized financial transactions and online retail. Before Alibaba was formed in 1999, China had little to no concept of ecommerce. Alibaba started in Hanzhou, which at the time was the center for many small manufacturers. Driven by these manufacturers’ demand for materials and need to sell product, Alibaba was originally intended to connect small companies with customers and suppliers. Unlike other companies, who copied America’s Ebay and Amazon, Alibaba used marketing methods fine-tuned for the Chinese market and became very successful. Even today, Alibaba still conducts much of
Chinese business-to-business trade. After the success of connecting Chinese manufacturers in business-to-business commerce, Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma tried to get involved in business-to-customer commerce. However, China had a unique set of limitations. No online security system existed in China, and most Chinese people did not own credit cards. As a result, the Chinese public did not trust online merchants. Aiming to find a solution for this, Alibaba created Alipay, which acted as a middleman between consumers and companies. Now, customers pay Alipay who then notify the seller to ship the merchandise. After the customer receives the merchandise and verifies its quality, Alipay pays the seller. Thus, online commercial connections are now secure. After developing Alipay, Alibaba expanded further and created Taobao, an online marketplace that allows Chinese manufacturers to directly sell products to
May 2015
the public. Through unique techniques pioneered specifically for China, Taobao encountered great success. Alibaba was even able to nearly drive Ebay out of the Chinese ecommerce market. While Ebay focused on physical ads, Taobao advertised on TV, a marketing tactic that attracts more Chinese attention. Taobao also started a mobile messaging service for its phone-savvy customers and has consequently dominated the market. Before, on Chinese New Year, people sent holiday greetings through cumbersome letters. Nowadays, Chinese citizens can, with the click of a button, send a holiday card through Weibo or Wechat and buy a gift for them on an online marketplace like Taobao. Chinese technology has tremendously increased interconnectivity and revolutionized the Chinese population’s everyday life. HMR
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Science and Technology
America’s Renewable Energy By Alex Karpf
O
ver the past few decades there has been the widespread introduction of new forms of renewable energy. Technologies like solar panels and wind turbines now offer a means to produce energy without releasing pollutants and contaminating the atmosphere. It might seem obvious that nations, especially wealthy ones, would attempt to introduce these cleaner technologies. Indeed, the renewable energy sector in the United States has grown substantially in the past fifteen years, almost 35% since 1998. However, governmental policies indifferent toward renewable energy have stymied the growth of the industry in America. Consequently, the country has fallen behind the progress of other areas of the world, primarily Europe, in expanding its use of renewable power. The United States must implement laws that encourage the development of wind farms and eliminate its use of fossil fuels in order to encourage the growth of renewable energy in its borders. The majority of America’s renewable energy comes from hydropower, not solar or
wind energy. Dams on major rivers, especially in the West, utilize the flow of water to turn turbines and create electricity. However, growth in the hydropower industry occurred during the early 1900’s and has stagnated since. America’s Department of Energy last year forecasted that continued development of hydropower in the United States, through an array of smaller dams, could double the country’s hydropower. While energy from dams does have significant potential for expansion, it cannot ultimately solve America’s reliance on fossil fuels. Solar energy’s ability to constitute a large portion of America’s energy consumption is also limited. While the use of solar panels has increased by a factor of forty in the past 20 years, they still produce less than a half of a percent of the country’s energy production. This lack of progress is partially due to the high cost of solar panels. More importantly, solar panels’ introduction in the United States has occurred mainly through instillation on a residential basis. In other words, individual businesses and
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homes, not utility companies, have chosen to utilize solar energy. Although the federal government attempted, beginning in 2005, to incentivize purchasing solar panels through tax credits, it is ultimately difficult to promote the widespread employment of solar energy. Unlike hydropower and solar energy, the industry of wind power has a massive potential for expansion. For example, Stanford University’s scientist Mark Jacobson recently unveiled a plan regarding how each US state could move to use renewable energy, primarily wind energy, to satisfy its power by 2050. Although the generation of wind energy has grown astronomically in the past 20 years, the sector still makes up just 4% of America’s total energy generation. More strikingly, America’s use of wind power lags behind the progress of other forward-minded countries, particularly those in Europe. The development of wind turbines has driven Europe’s recent overhauling of its energy structure. Across the European Union, 15% of all energy comes from re-
Science and Technology
newable energy. A vast amount of this progress has occurred recently; Europe’s renewable energy consumption was half of that number just ten years ago. The reason for this progress stems from the strict energy benchmarks the region has set for itself. In 2009, the European Union man-
this exists in the United States. Our federal government does not mandate that the nation reform its energy structure by a certain year, but instead leaves the issue up to the states. Indeed, some states have chosen to implement stringent energy plans for the near future. Inconsistent energy policies
“The United States ought to take steps to facilitate a renewable energy boom in its borders.” dated that 20% of all energy consumption must stem from renewable sources by 2020 and that each member state assign itself a specific goal to achieve by 2020. For example, France intends to get 23% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. The implementation of specific and fixed goals has effectively pressured and motivated European nations to increase their production of sustainable energy projects. No centralized, standardized system like
across the country have hindered America’s ability to actively pursue an increase in wind energy. In contrast, a standard policy would encourage the production of wind turbines and investment in the industry of renewable energy. America has fallen particularly behind in offshore wind energy. While hundreds of turbine installations dot the Western shores of Europe, the United States does not have a single one. Cape Wind, a proposed wind
May 2015
farm off the shore of Massachusetts and easily the largest proposed project so far, experienced 14 years of legal battles and eventually lost its contract with two power companies that had promised to finance it. Leaders of renewable energy consumption, like Germany and Denmark, have invested billions of dollars in wind projects, the United States has hardly dedicated any money to the industry. It is imperative that America invests in these offshore farms, both to power American homes and demonstrate to private investors that offshore development is a real possibility in expanding America’s renewable energy capacity. In addition to creating wind farms, America must also adopt policies that encourage renewable energy and discourage continued investment in fossil fuel projects. One of the greatest incentives in Europe for the use of renewable energy technology is feed-in-tariffs, a system where nations require utility companies to purchase renewable energy from producers at a much higher price than the energy’s real price. Nations such as the Netherlands then subsidize energy costs for these companies so that consumers do not have to pay quite as high a cost. The system increases the lucrativeness of wind energy and encourages investment in renewable projects. A few American states, primarily on the West coast, have enacted similar state-wide policies, but the lack of an overarching law discourages widespread deployment of offshore wind farms. In fact, America has effectively discouraged developers from building wind farms by continually aiding producers of dirty energy. The United States government provides considerable tax breaks for the country’s five biggest oil countries and has prompted more economic growth in the oil sector and less in the renewable energy sector. Although the purpose of these breaks is to generate employment, just as many jobs could be created through tax breaks for turbine producers and utility companies that adopt clean energy. These suggestions are only a few of the many ways through which the United States could stimulate its renewable energy sector. At the very least, the United States ought to take steps to facilitate a renewable energy boom in its borders. While the nation’s recent progress in gradually abandoning fossil fuels has been better than no progress, the United States needs to overhaul its energy policies to even approach Europe’s accomplishments. HMR
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