Vassar Chronicle, November 2013

8/13/2019 Vassar Chronicle, November 2013

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Vol. XXV, Issue 2

THE VASSAR

CHRONICLE Novembe

NATIONAL SPENCER VIRTUE ’16 FRAMES GUN CONTROL DEBATE

DEBATE FOR EMIGRATING R EFUGEES, HOW FAR IS TOO FAR ?

FOREIGN PAGE 12-13

“T HE P EACE P ROCESS ”: I SRAELI C O

P OLICY IN P ALESTINE

8

18

THE VOTE THAT NEVER WAS

Why Sen. Ted Cruz and his Tea Party cronies contradicted their"principles" when they voted to end the government shutdown. pg

BY JASON STORCH '16


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V assar College operates on a systemof “shared governance.” TheGovernance of the College denes

shared governance as a set of principles, which entails “the organization and meansof shared responsibility and distributeddecision-making, consultation, andadvising.” Thus, when a college policy,if enacted, would inuence the dailyexperiences of students, we at The Vassar

Chronicle expect that the College wouldimplement such a policy with the consentof the entirety of the student body, andnot merely the elected representatives ofthe Vassar Student Association (VSA).This consent becomes especially salient when the College seeks to implementpolicies that those VSA representativesdid not campaign on, and so do not havea clear democratic mandate. Moreover, we consider shared governance to beessential to a productive environmentthat emphasizes collaboration and mutualrespect. When shared governance wouldhinder an essential policy from beingimplemented, or would actively harm Vassar’s community, we expect that theparty violating the student trust clearlyarticulate such a position and explain whyshared governance ought not apply inthose circumstances. While we choose not,at this point, to weigh in on the merits ofa smoking ban on campus, we take issue with what we perceive to be violations ofshared governance and a lack of continueddiscourse on the future of the smoking ban.

At the end of last year, the Committeeon College Life (CCL), voted to approve

a smoking ban on Vassar’s campus.Prior to that vote, the VSA Smoking andTobacco Action Research Team (START)conducted a survey of Vassar’s student body, held town hall meetings, and met todiscuss the pros and cons of implementinga smoking ban. START, as per its VSAcharter, sought to represent the voice ofthe student body to the CCL. Though wethink that the survey conducted by START

biased responses towards supporting asmoking ban (by including questions onthe health-effects of tobacco, throughsmoking, second-hand smoke, etc.),55% of the student body responded thatthey would not be in favor of a smoking ban. Indeed, START concluded in itsrecommendation to the CCL that theycould not recommend the smoking banone way or the other, based on the survey,as well as concerns raised about the ban intown hall-style meetings. START closedits report by emphasizing norms of sharedgovernance: “What we can end this with,however, is the rm articulation that moreneeds to be done in regard to engaging with students, educating them, and givingthem respect and agency in the decision-making processes that govern their lives.”

Contrary to START’s recommendations,the CCL voted to recommend to PresidentCatharine Bond Hill that Vassar proceed with a smoking ban. Shockingly, of the 8students on the CCL committee, 3 voted infavor of the smoking ban, in contradictionto the recommendation of the STARTcommittee and an authorized survey thatfound the student body not in favor ofthe ban. Such actions violated not only

the student trust, but the spirit of sharedgovernance – indeed, the Governance of Vassar College mentions the “students” asa constituency in shared governance, andnot the interests of the VSA or individualselected or appointed to a committee.

If the Vassar administration wishesto abide by shared governance, TheChronicle Editorial Board recommendsthat it suspend implementation of the

smoking ban until START reconvenes andconducts an unbiased survey with propermethodology. If, after such a survey,students overwhelmingly support asmoking ban, The Chronicle would take noissue with its implementation. Moreover, we think that the administration shouldcontinue to hold talks with the student body and student leaders. Finally, we urgethe Vassar community to think about thesmoking ban not in dichotomous terms,as being the only method for regulatingsmoking, but as one of many alternatives. We certainly think that common courtesy– not to mention the law – dictates thatpeople distance themselves from buildings when they smoke.

If, however, the administration wishesto push ahead with the smoking ban, itshould make clear that the benets of sucha ban outweigh the harms, and articulatea clear reason that the student body doesnot possess the capacity to participate inhelping to decide on this issue. We thinkthat the establishment of such a precedent would violate the founding principles of Vassar College, and irreparably damagethe relationship between students and theadministration.

Smoking Ban Contravenes Shared Governance

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STAFF EDITORIAL

Flathead Beacon



VASSAR & LOCAL

CHESS PUZZLE

Find the best move for White.

by David Gonzalez '14

With the government nally open,

While everyone sits around mopin

The home’s off the range,But so much for change.

No one awake is still hopin’.

by Gregory Perry

'Big Brother' Star to Speak at Vassar, Contribute to DiscouRaphael Korine

Contributor

Submit your answer to [email protected]. The name of the rst personto respond, along with the solution, will be published in the next Chronicle.

On Dec. 4, 2013, Noyes House — incollaboration with Cushing House,Josselyn House, the Town Houses,

the Programming Board, and the Ofceof Residential Life — will be bringing DanGheesling to Vassar College as a guestspeaker. Gheesling is most famous for winning Season 10 of “Big Brother,” areality television show broadcasted everysummer on CBS. In 2008, he became therst and only houseguest to win the show with a unanimous jury vote. Due to hisimmense popularity inside and outsideof the house, he was asked to return asa houseguest for Season 14 of the show, which aired in 2012. In “Big Brother”14, Gheesling nished in second place, becoming the only player in “Big Brother”history to make it to the nal round bothtimes he played. As a result, Gheesling isconsidered the best – as well as the mostfamous – “Big Brother” houseguest of all

time.Since being on “Big Brother,” Dan has

focused his attention on motivationalspeaking, one-on-one coaching sessions,and writing. His rst book, How To Get On Reality TV: How A Normal Guy Got CastOn Reality TV , served as an inspiration tomany of those who applied to be on theshow. He has used his reality TV fame ina positive way by giving back what he has

learned from his experiences to the greatercommunity. Thus far, he has lectured atother schools, including the Universityof Central Florida and NorthwesternUniversity.

Bringing someone like Gheesling to Vassar is unusual to say the least — in

fact, we have never brought a speaker with a background in reality TV to ourschool. When presenting the idea to bringGheesling to campus to various individualsand organizations, Noyes House receiveda variety of responses. Some were verypositive, particularly from students who watch reality TV. Fans of “Big Brother” were especially excited to hear that themost famous contestant from the showcould be coming to Vassar. A largemajority of students, however, did nottake the idea seriously. In fact, studentsarticulated their most common response– ridicule — through laughter. Once thesestudents realized that the proposition was legitimate, they followed up theirmocking with cynicism and criticism. Howcould someone with such a backgroundcontribute to the intellectual discourse of Vassar’s academic community?

First and foremost, Gheesling dees thestereotype of the “vapid reality TV star.” Heis engaging, intelligent, and charismatic.The lecture he plans to give at Vassar, “SixDuties of Epic Leaders,” outlines six “actionsteps” that anyone can incorporate intotheir life to improve their leadership skills. While he incorporates some anecdotes of

his time on reality TV in the presentation,the core of the presentation focuses onleadership and achieving a balance in one’slife.

While there are many intellectual benets from the typical academicspeakers who usually come to Vassar, it

is important to acknowledge the valueof learning from those with differentperspectives. As a school that encouragesdiscourse and open-mindedness, Vassarought to recognize that bringing a speakerlike Gheesling to campus will providemany benets. His presentation will helpstudents to develop their leadership skills,strive for a balanced lifestyle, and attainthe level of personal empowerment thatResidential Life is specically encouragingthis year, particularly to house teams. It will also encourage students to challengethe stereotypes that they may haveinternalized when it comes to reality TVand popular culture as a whole; Vassarcan and will benet from a chance tolearn from someone who has pursuedan unconventional career. Finally, thepresentation will work to acknowledge thestudents who are interested in this genreof television. Having Gheesling on campus will help to defy the stigma associated with reality TV; people will then feel morecomfortable discussing reality TV withoutfeeling ashamed that it may not have anyintellectual value. In fact, “Big Brother”has its own academic merit: it tests coreelements of psychology by isolating

contestants in a conned space fomonths without any contact froutside world. It also explores the ipopularity of this type of progrand what this popularity suggesour culture and society.

As a socially and academically-ccommunity, we should always be towards expanding our minds. Tmuch is given, much is expected.guy” from Michigan who built hithrough unconventional meacertainly provide Vassar studentfresh perspective on leadershipZohn ’96 would likely agree — hechampion of Survivor’s third seaso

Dan Gheesling rests from the intense tion of "Big Brother." He will visit Vasspeak on Dec. 4, 2013.



NATIONAL AFFAIRS

PAGE 4

Tea Party Stance in Gov't. Shutdown Contradicts PrincipJason StorchContributor

Continued on Page 5

There are certain social aspectsregarding national media coveragein relation to this article that I must

establish before going any further — I am well aware that, in the current state ofmedia coverage, there is no shortage ofmedia outlets that report that RepublicanTexan Senator and conservative Tea Party-afliate Ted Cruz is a bit of a hypocriteand a lot of a problem. While criticismsof Senator Cruz are readily available,there is one piece of information that Ifeel has not been broadcasted enough. Itreveals not only the hypocrisy of SenatorCruz, but also his willingness to placepolitics and personal arguments abovenot only the good of the American peopleas a whole, but even his own agenda. Thatunder-reported piece of information isthat a vote that would have put the UnitedStates Federal Government on the pathto default, and would have been, to quote

former Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman,“the nuclear missile to the shutdown’shand grenade,” never took place.

The Tea Party agenda is certainly nosecret. Some of their publicly-statedgoals include lower taxes, military non-intervention, and cutting entitlements. As such, it made perfect sense whenthey were some of the most impassionedenemies of the Affordable Care Act as it was being crafted into a legitimate, bonade legislation that had already been thefocal point of two federal elections. Thegovernment-defunding asco furloughedfederal employees and shellackedthousands of concessions stands, ferryoperators, and other private sector workers

that conduct their business directlyoutside of federal parks, monuments,and museums. The economy took a 23 billion dollar beating. Ironically, the onlything that remained unhindered — evenunaltered — was Obamacare. While Ithink that it is ridiculous and archaic thatCongress can pass a bill and then refuseto fund it, it was the way in which HouseRepublicans went about handling their

hesitation over funding the AffordableHealthcare Act that truly caused the two-plus weeks of political turmoil.

Congress has the constitutional power of

the purse, meaning that it chooses wherefederal funding goes. While Congresscould not prevent Obamacare fromactually being implemented, it could keepthe United States Government withoutfunding — a political play that had not beenutilized in 17 years and would certainly bring national attention to Washingtonand the politics being discussed there. Andthat unique, high-tension situation wasthe perfect opportunity for Senator Cruzto show America who he was; indeed, the2016 election was only three years away.Though it severely damaged the nationaleconomy and tossed the global markets back and forth for weeks, the shutdowndid not stop the implementation of the Affordable Healthcare Act. If nothing else,

the Republican strategy of scorched earthfailed — even in the midst of the shutdown— to do any good. This strategy is telling inregards to Senator Cruz.

While the shutdown falls in line withthe Tea Party’s “take no prisoners; money where your mouth is; oust the Washingtoninsider,” mentality, it came to me as a hugesurprise that the nal person to sign off onthe re-funding of the government and theprevention of default — the ending of theshutdown — was none other than Tea Partystrongman and mouthpiece Ted Cruz.

Before the shutdown ended andCongress had reached a deal to re-fundthe government and avoid default, theRepublican Senate minority proposed a vote to prolong the shutdown and defundthe government. As Jon Huntsmanstated, such an event would have beeneconomically horrendous for the country. Yet, it seems as though that kind of vote was exactly what Senator Cruz and hisfellow Tea Party colleagues would have wanted. It is no secret that during theshutdown, Senator Cruz was one of the fewpoliticians whose constituents continuedto support him. This impressive feat oughtto be praised, as Congress as a whole had

a pitiful 10% approval rating. Simply put,the people of Texas, much like their electedSenator, were ne with a half-functioninggovernment, massive economic losses, and

a lack of international respect. For Cruzand Texas voters, the government, for allthey cared, could remain at a standstillforever, just as long as they could expresstheir opinion that the Democrats musthave their spending programs reignedin — namely, the Affordable Care Act. Iam certainly not in any remote sort ofagreement with that state of mind, but I amalso not writing this article to belittle theclose-mindedness of the Texan voters; Iam here to discuss the distinction betweenthe mentality on which the Texan voterselected Ted Cruz and the way he acted oncehe entered the actual Washington arena.

To quickly run through some of SenatorCruz’s antics, I’ll rst cite his “libuster”against the Affordable Care Act. Coinciding

with the mentality of other Tea Partymembers, Cruz thought he could standon the Senate oor and speak to preventthe law from going into action — an oldpractice very deliberately included inthe Senate Rules. The sentiment that hesoapboxed to his Tea Party voters was thesame sentiment that he elaborated uponin his “pseudo-libuster.” This is the wayin which I am referring to Cruz’s speech because the purpose of a libuster istypically to prevent legislation from beingpassed, but this was neither the intent norresult of Cruz’s speech; the legislation hadalready been passed and continued to be alaw after the so-called libuster.

While Senator Cruz’s voters wished forhim to continue using the aforementionedpolitical tactics, his actual course of actionduring the shutdown stemmed from a very different viewpoint. Cruz’s attitudetowards the then-looming danger of defaultdiffered from what other Republicans inCongress thought about the default. “Giveus your best shot, if you are even reallythere,” seems to sum up his approach best,according to most accounts from Tea PartyCongressmen/women when asked aboutthe possibility of default. “We need to go

back and redene ‘default,’” sSteve King (R-Iowa). “Default wo you couldn’t pay the interest andmanage the principle on our debt. And that’s not going to hapresources are there. The cash owthere to pay the interest on our de

Joe Barton (R-Tex.) demonstraRepublicans didn’t fear the defaactually thought that it could in what Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.)scare tactic:

“We’ve got more than enough cmore than enough cash ow to payon the public debt when it comesthe House Republicans have pprioritization bill. This talk abou by the U.S. Treasury is nonsepresident can be smart or the pcan be stupid. And I would assmart as President Obama is, whcomes to shove, he’ll be smart. Snot going to default on the pubBut that doesn’t mean that we haevery bill the day it comes in.”

These remarks clearly demons

fact that Republicans did not ddefault or recognize it as a real unlike the Democrats. This idealilinchpin to the notion that if Sena was so adamant about his Tea Pashutdown agenda, he would hav vote to prolong the shutdown be poor.

On Oct. 16, 2013, a vote was ppreliminary phases on the SenaThe vote would have determinedthe government would end the sor if the United States Federal Gov would, for the rst time in historyon its debt. Presumably, if the staught us anything, it is that Repin the Senate would have foughand-nail, using their historicallparty discipline, to see this vote w

control over the back benches, hhas been completely destroyed asof inexible negotiating by the TThis led to some of the most hodutiful, and exible men of the ReParty — like Sen. John McCain (RRep. Peter King (R-NY) — to ght wide civil war between the Re base and the Tea Party fringe.disillusions of imminent success, was 100-0 against going into defaSenator Cruz, you have some expldo!

Let me be blunt — Senator Cadamant enough about his pthat he spearheaded the shutdohelped sustain it for over two was passionate enough about rObamacare in order to save monlong-term to let the economy lose 2dollars, and was condent enoughthat the default was nothing ma liberal myth and scare tactic.adamant, passionate, and cenough to do all of these things, hadamant, passionate, or condento push a vote to keep the shutdowSenate oor. In fact, Senator Cruzadamant, passionate, or conden

“While the shutdown fallsin line with the Tea Party’s“take no prisoners; moneywhere your mouth is; oustthe Washington insider,”mentality, it came to meas a huge surprise thatthe nal person to signoff on the re-funding ofthe government and the

prevention of default — theending of the shutdown— was none other than

Tea Party strongman andmouthpiece Ted Cruz.”

NewsBusters



NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Making Sense of Ted Cruz's Hypocritical ActioContinued from Page 4

to even vote to prolong the shutdownhimself. While it is obvious that SenatorCruz was guilty of a number of hypocriticalmissteps, let us not forget that he is notalone in the Senate — there are other TeaParty Senators who marched to the same

beat, albeit less loudly. Sen. Jim DeMint(R-SC), who stated that Obamacare scaredhim more than the shutdown, voted toend the shutdown. It is worth notingthat South Carolina is one of the leadingstates in populations without insurance— a whopping 20% of people are stilluninsured. So, when Senator DeMint andother politicians from states like SouthCarolina, in the sense of lack of insurance,declare that they are acting in accordance with the will of the people, they neglect the

basic fact that the people need healthcare.Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — namedthe “Political Face behind the DefundObamacare Movement” by Time Magazine — stated that, “Just passing something to

keep government funded at current levelsis touted as a compromise, but it’s reallyan act of collusion in the sense that theyknow this isn’t good for the people. It’s nota good way to legislate, it’s not a good wayto govern — but we are going to do this because it’s the least awkward way to getthings done.”

Lee did not seem like someone who would vote to end the shutdown and avoid default.

Senator Toomey, the man who claimed thedefault was a “scare tactic” by the Obama Administration, seemed sacred enough to vote with the other 44 Republicans in theSenate to end the shutdown.

Now, allow me to give the Tea Partysome credit — they probably realizedtheir “take no prisoners,” scorched earthmentality had failed miserably. Theyprobably felt forced to either uphold the vote that would get the shutdown debacleover with and remove their tarnishednames from the press spotlight. Sadly, theentire ordeal was brought about not due topolitical differences, as there were manyfellow Republicans against the shutdownlike Chris Christie and former Nixonspeech-writer and economist Ben Stein,to name a few. Both are fervent critics of Affordable Healthcare who also malignedRepublicans’ strategy of government

shutdown. Stein, in particular, gave agreat interview on CNN in which he statedthe sheer childishness of the currentRepublican course of action as opposed tohow discrepancies are typically dealt with.Rather, the shutdown was brought about by the opportunity to gain notoriety. InCruz’s case, this is certainly evident whenconsidering his fake libuster, trite mediacoverage — which, arguably, towards theend of the shutdown became as irrelevant

as a Paris Hilton interview — even his lonetear at the end of the shutdown (which, Iremind the reader, he himself voted for).Tea Party members also used this nationalcatastrophe as a platform to make theirnames known and big-talking, partisanagendas heard.

The true, sad comedy of the situationis how counterproductive Senator Cruz’sactions have proved. While Senator Cruz

thinks he has dug in with his basfact, alienated himself from it, as of the Tea Party now supports may think that he said the righ but, in actuality, he said some of tthings possible. To name one oupon returning to Texas, Cruz sspent a lot of time in Washingtongood to be back in America.” Makirrational, callous remarks will him in any sort of general election

while Senator Cruz may think put himself in a prime position tnext President of the United Sthas just sealed his own fate, as tnever be a time when the Americachoose to put their faith in someointerested in themselves than theof this nation. Senator Cruz, you sashamed.

DO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD?

T HE V ASSAR C HRONICLE ENCOURAGES YOU TOSUBMIT COLUMNS AND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR .

CONTACT CHRONICLE@VASSAR .EDU

“SPEECH IS CIVILIZATION ITSELF.” - THOMAS MANN

During the October government shutdown, about 800,000 employees were suspended. Many of these federal workers took to Capitol Hill

“Just passing something tokeep government funded atcurrent levels is touted as acompromise, but it’s really

an act of collusion in thesense that they know this

isn’t good for the people. It’snot a good way to legislate,

it’s not a good way togovern — but we are going

to do this because it’s theleast awkward way to get

things done.” —Senator Mike Lee



Sidney Plotkin: So, what interests youabout the shutdown?

Nathan Tauger ’14: Mostly, yourthoughts on it. We see a few importantconsequences of it, and, I guess, the mostpressing one would be: what do you seehappening in the next midterm elections? Anything because of the shutdown?

SP: It’s early to make that judgment.There are a couple of different ways tolook at it: one is that the consequence ofthe shutdown was to produce devastatingimpact on public opinion of the RepublicanParty. The most recent Wall Street Heraldpoll indicates that public approval ofthe Republican Party is at 22%. That’sunprecedented. No major political partyhas ever been that unpopular in Americanhistory in the era of polling. We are inunprecedented, novel territory. So, lookingat it from that point of view, the Democratshave a potential advantage going into 2014.On the other hand, the rollout of the Obamahealthcare plan has been something shortof success. It’s been a disaster, politically— Democrats are quite frightened that whatever advantage they may have gottenfrom the shutdown will now be dissipatedas people hold the Obama administrationto account for the roll-out which has been very, very badly handled. Now, if theadministration gets its act together byNovember, December, and is not forcedto delay the act and the requirements forannulling an insurance plan, I think there’sa good chance that the administration willnot pay too heavy a price because people’spolitical memories tend to be short. But, ifpeople nd that they can’t enroll at the timethat they’re supposed to enroll, and they’releft in a situation where they’re confused

— and, keep in mind, we’re running intoChristmas season, so people are buyingkids their presents, they’re shopping,they’re organizing Christmas parties —the last thing they want to have to worryabout is turning on their computer andnding website difculties. I mean, it’s justa mess. The administration, if it gets its acttogether, might be able to ameliorate thenegativity that they’re confronting rightnow as a result of the roll-out. But, lookingat it from those different perspectives atthe same time, it becomes very difcultto calculate, at this point, who’s likelyto benet in 2014. Chances are that theCongress in 2014 and 2015 is not goingto look terribly different from the one wehave right now because of gerrymanderingand the number of relatively safe districts

in the House, in particular. It’s likely thatthe numbers will change only slightly,unless some distinctive, evident wave begins to emerge. Let’s say the Obamapeople do get their act together and thepeoples’ anger about the RepublicanParty persists — then you could getsomething rather dramatic, but, frankly,I don’t think that’s going to happen. Ithink the other fascinating dimension ofthe shutdown, and this is consistent with what I’ve been saying about Americanpolitics for about two years, before the

2012 election – you know Nathan talksabout the campaign – one point I tend toiterate and reiterate is that one of the mostfascinating consequences of 2012 is goingto be the impact on the Republican Party.Coming out of 2012, particularly if theylose, which they did, the Party would then

be tested with respect to whether it wouldfollow the Tea Party’s ultra-conservativeroute or decide that Romney was sucha poorly-situated candidate who was bending over rightward to appeal to theTea Party without really honestly beinga Tea Party person, that it made senseto really pull the party back towards itstraditional, Main Street, business-orientedRepublicanism. I anticipated that thisdivide would get worse and worse, andit has. The Republican Party right now isin such disarray, not only because of thenumbers — the public opinion numbers,that’s bad enough — but what’s feedingthose numbers, in part, is the fact thatthe Republicans are so internally divided, both in the House of Representatives andamongst and between key core segments

of the constituency of the Party. One of

the most remarkable, really remarkable,aspects of the shutdown was to observemajor business interest groups like theBusiness Roundtable and the Chamberof Commerce banging on the doors ofTea Party representatives and getting nohearing, and then Tea Partiers announcing with great pride, “We’re not going to listento big business. We’re not going to listen tothe Chamber of Commerce,” which, by the way, is not big business — the Chamber ofCommerce is a much more diverse group.“We’re not going to listen to the businesslobby?” Well, that’s the core of theRepublican Party! That’s mind-boggling.I mean, cutting yourself off from your keyconstituency? The Republican Party has been the “Party of Business” for the betterpart of a century or more. Really, in thatperiod, it became the “Party of Business” basically in the period right after Lincoln.That’s its whole history, and now you’recutting yourselves off from that? Oh, myGod. So, you’re talking about major, deep-seated ssures in the Republican Party tothe point where, for the rst time in my

lifetime — and I never thought I wouldever even think this, let alone say it — itis now not entirely out of the realm ofpossibility that the party could fracture so badly that it would have to be replaced bya new conservative party. Do I think that’sgoing to happen? Nah, it’s probably not

likely, but is it possible? I mean, there wasa story today [Nov. 1, 2013] in the NewYork Times about business organizing, theChamber of Commerce, and a number ofindividual rms like AT&T pouring moneyinto a Republican primary in Alabama toelect a more moderate conservative —an establishment conservative — who isrunning against a Tea Partier who is very, very strongly Christian, very strongly anti-gay, very strongly in favor of the shutdown,and continues to be in favor of theshutdown. The business community wantsgovernment to be open, needs governmentto be open, depends on government beingopen, wants an immigration bill passed, wants tax reform, that is, tax reform thatis favorable to business, wants these thingsto happen and knows that government

has to function — the idea that it would

be best if government didn’t function, orfunctioned in a radically smaller way, isalien to business interests in the UnitedStates. Businesses are now beginningto get heavily involved in Republicanprimaries to reshape the party in itstraditional image. Whether they’ll succeedor not is an open question because the TeaParty groups tend to be very intense, verygalvanized, and they turn out to vote.

NT: So, what you’re saying is that you don’t see the next congress as beingradically different from this one. Do youmean that only in terms of Democrat vs.Republican or do you think that we couldsee the same kind of thing that we sawin 2012 — where a lot of more moderateRepublicans were replaced by Tea Partiers?

SP: That could very well happen;that could very well happen. You mightsee a situation in which the Tea Partyconstituency would hold its own, and that’sreally all it has to do. It has somewhere between 40 and 90 sympathizers —40 hardcore, 50 hardcore, maybe 90sympathizers. All it needs to do is hold

its own and it can wrench the RepParty in all sorts of twisted waysprocess making it very difcult President to govern in the latter pasecond term, which is going to be in any case, because he’ll be a reduck now. Now, he’s sort of a qua

duck, but he’ll be a real lame dmoment the 2014 election happObama’s got a very, very small wiopportunity. Now, things could chthe Democrats could take the Hohold the Senate — but I don’t thinlikely to happen. Again, it’s a littlearly to say. I would just stress — I thit’s very, very important — the RepParty is in deep disarray. I think yoto go back to the Democrats in ththe Vietnam War to see a politicaltwisted and torn as the Republicais now; I think that, even at theithe Democrats were not as twistorn as the Republicans are rigThe Democrats ultimately recoverabout 30 years.

Greg Perry ’15: What are your t

in terms of the precedent this govshutdown sets on an internationalterms of the integrity of the United

SP: This is uncharted territpolitical science, we talk aboudecisions as patterns and roles anand ideological formations that certain issues from getting raisedthey’re too sensitive. Historicadebt ceiling issue was a kind onon-decision issue, in the sense was permissible for the minority Congress to jump up and down anabout how terrible it was that t was getting bigger and refuse to rdebt ceiling, knowing full well tmajority would raise the debt whether the majority was RepubDemocrat. So Obama, a couple

ago when he was in the Senateagainst raising the debt ceiling beknew it was a f ree vote — inconseqtrivial, irrelevant and symbolic —in the wind, as it were. It wataken seriously. Neither party scontemplated calling into questionfaith and credit of the United Stateis absolutely indispensable to the iand rationality of the global econoglobal economy depends upon a bof measure. That basic unit of is the U.S. Treasury; if you say thnot going to pay our debt, the that Treasury note is now susp you now no longer have a basic u which to evaluate and measure tthe international capitalist system wild and so weird and so strangeprovocative as to beggar the imagThe fact that we’ve gone through this remarkable — I don’t mean thpositive way. It has been literally reupon quite deliberately and conscithe Chinese, who hold much of oand don’t like seeing it toyed withholding trillions in U.S. paper and th want to see those trillions of dollameddled with by a handful of zealoUnited States House of Represe who don’t understand the intereconomy. Nonetheless, we com

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

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Shutdown 'Uncharted Territory,' Introduces New Political Tact

Nathan Tauger Natl. & Foreign Affairs Editor

Continued on Page 7

OFFICE HOURS WITH PROFESSOR SIDNEY PLOTKIN

FORA.tv



NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Tea Party 'Intensity' Usurps Traditional PolitContinued from Page 6

to the point I was making before: so youhave Wall Street, Chamber of Commerce,Business Roundtable, and some of the biggest corporations in the United Statesknocking on the Republican House doorand saying, “What are you people doing?”and they get the response, “We’re trying to

ght the accumulating debt of the UnitedStates,” and it’s as if they don’t understandinternational economics. There weremembers of the House Republican caucus who were saying, “You know, if we default,the economy will be stabilized.” Yeah,probably at a depression level, with moremortgage defaults and factory closuresand with unemployment skyrocketing. Who’s going to lend you any money if youdon’t know what the value of that moneyis? So, the international implications were staggering, and that’s why PresidentObama, in my opinion, made a mistake in2011 when he bargained with the HouseRepublicans, with John Boehner, on thedebt expansion. He should have realized,at that point, that once you set the model,once you set the pattern of being willing to

negotiate on the debt ceiling, then it’s notunreasonable for Republicans to think thatthey can get a negotiation and some trade-offs and something back the second time.The second time, I think, Obama pursuedthe more responsible Presidential strategy, which is to say, “There are not going to beany negotiations.” He made the point, andothers have made the point, that this is notpartisan. If we’re going to play this kind ofgame, it’s not inconceivable that ve or 10 years down the road, when a Republicanis president, and the Democrats mightcontrol the House, they might say to aRepublican president, “Well, we’ll give you your debt ceiling increase, but you haveto raise taxes on corporations 20%. If youdon’t want to do that, ne, we’ll go intodefault.” Republicans would not like that,so this is a very, very bad precedent. I mean, Alexander Hamilton would be spinning inhis grave at digital speed. He fought withall of his strength and vigor in the early years of the Washington administrationto establish the full faith and credit of theUnited States; he said it was important forus to go into debt so we could establishthat full faith and credit and begin toestablish a nancial presence in the worldso we could borrow and ultimately pay forthe various things that we were going to become engaged in — inevitably, by the way, war. Governments nance war by borrowing long-term. So, for Hamilton,the idea of repudiating the debt — that’sabout as anti-governmental and anti- American a strategy could get. I mean, if

you were a really radical, radical Marxistanarchist, you might say, “Wow, this is agreat strategy. This really will bring downthe capitalist system.” So, the Tea Party, inthat sense, pursues a logic that ultimatelyfeeds into the most radical understandingsof the inability of capitalism to function, but Marx says capitalism can’t function because of its internal contradictions —he didn’t anticipate that it would be anideological move from the far right that would threaten the integrity of the wholeglobal capitalist system.

GP: The strongest beneciaries, no less.

Joshua Sherman ’16: One questionregarding the Tea Party and the RepublicanParty — in its current state, does it seemlike the Tea Party is trying to consumethe Republican Party? Right now, the TeaParty cannot exist without the RepublicanParty, but do they think otherwise?

SP: The Tea Party is a very complicatedthing — there’s a lot of scholarly debateon how best to understand it. In essence,simply, there are those scholars who believe that the Tea Party is genuinelyan indigenous American conservativepopulace that really does comefundamentally from the grassroots up andthat what you’re seeing is a powerful senseof indignation at a number of things —the growth of the central government, the

weakness of the national economy, and thelack of economic security for people fromthe lower-middle class, particularly in rural America. There’s all this anger buildingup and it’s coming from the grassroots.There are other people who say, “No, it’sreally a manipulation from the top down,”in that it’s the Koch brothers and otherconservative groups that are taking someof this discontent and funding it, fuelingit, organizing it, mobilizing it, and then bringing it to bear in Washington because what they ultimately want to do is limit thescope of the government and reduce taxes.So, the Tea Party is playing a kind of fool’sgame for the very rich. Then, there arethose who argue that it’s something of both.There’s an indigenous movement fromthe bottom, but there’s also recognition by certain groups, like the Koch brothers,that such groups could really be helpfulin empowering a very conservative attackon government in Washington. But, inthe case of the shutdown, even the Kochs backed off. The Koch brothers said, “Waita minute, you can’t meddle with the debt,”

and the response was, “Why not? We can do whatever we want. We have power and thisis what we think is right. We’re not goingto listen to the establishment,” and theKoch brothers became the establishment,in this case. So, the Tea Party is theirown expression of an on-again, off-againphenomena. A very conservative populismsurfaced in the 19th century in various ways — the Know-Nothing Party is oneexpression of that, the John Birch Societyin the 1960s was another kind of expressionof it, some aspects of the Cold Warmovement — it’s something that’s deep-

set in the American political experience, but we’ve never seen it take the kind of virulent economic form that we have now.It’s usually in terms of something likeanti-immigrant fervor or anti-communistfervor, anti-Semitism, racism — these arethe traditional ideological manifestations

of the Right. The idea that the Right would challenge the integrity of basicinstitutions of capitalism — the Fed, thedebt, the Treasury Department — this ispretty new. I mean, there’s always been anelement of that conservative populist viewthat saw the Zionist conspiracy runningthe government. That was always there, but it wasn’t powerful. It wasn’t potent. Itdidn’t have an imprint on national politics.This Tea Party is having an imprint onnational politics and on the internationalpolitical economy. I would bet that allaround the world, from Berlin to Beijing,leaders are saying to themselves, “Mr.President, get control of your politicalsystem. Get control of your politicalsystem because you are endangeringthe global economy; we will all go to

hell together if you’re not able to get thispolitical system under control.” Of course, what they don’t necessarily understand very well is that presidents don’t havethe power to really “control” the politicalsystem — their power doesn’t run that far.Republicans really have a big task facingthem. They have to put their own housein order. Democrats cannot discipline theRepublicans — the Republicans have todiscipline themselves. Frankly, I think thatparty right now is going through what, inmy earlier years, we used to call a nervous breakdown. They just don’t know how toassemble a coalition that’s effective. That’s why, I think, John Boehner held out foras long as he did. I think he was tryingto say to the Tea Party people, “I’ll stick with you — I will bind my reputation andmy speaker-ship to you — but in the end,”and he said this very early on, “In the end,I’m not going to let this country default.”So, I think the fact that he was willing togo to the very tip of the crisis — the tip ofthe ledge — was a way of conrming hisleadership and sympathy with respect tothe Tea Party. I think there were two thingshere: One, at the most cynical level, he wasprotecting his own speaker-ship, but at amore structural or institutional level, Ithink he realized that if he moved early,the Tea Party folks would rebel againsthim and he probably would have lost hisspeaker-ship. Then, the question becomes,if not Boehner, who? And that would havesent the Republican House into a real tizzy.I think there may have been an element of

Boehner’s thinking that involved reallymore than his own self-interest — that theparty had to be held together — and theonly way to hold it together was to walk theplank. This was even though Boehner, asan inside Washington guy, knew — and hedidn’t need to be an inside Washington guyto know — that this was a self-defeatingand futile strategy. In the face of it al l, TedCruz remains popular, is raising a lot ofmoney, and thinks he’s going to becomepresident.

JS: Just very briey, Ted Cruz has beentaking center eld — the spotlight — is

there any perception of motivathat? He’s walking back and forth taking credit for the shutdown andit.

SP: He wants to become presideUnited States — I think he actuallythat he can be president. He’s

over at Obama, who went to theserved a couple of years, and thenpresident. The idea that politiciato pay their dues, climb the gre— build up experience, a social pand a resumé — is not in Americananymore. You can become presidequickly if you build up a national reand a national following; in the tw which is already eons away froObama ran for ofce in 2007 and 2even easier to do that. He really he can become president — I thhas been very much about his inrunning for President in 2016 anddown the most conservative elemthe Republican Party in the primthe presidential primary processa sense, isolating any conservativ

he will monopolize that wing of thcertainly be able to isolate Rand Pthen, presumably, get the nomClearly, he thinks he can win. I thia fairly utopian understanding of Apolitics and remarkably egodriven, but he is very smart, he coma very important state, he can get aa lot of money, and he clearly hastrong built-in willingness to dthings that under ordinary circum would be seen as crazy.

JS: What would you say is hischallenge in that sense?

SP: His biggest challenge Republican Party’s approval at t— that people are very upset abshutdown — and he’s the guy thata strategy that had no winning oto it. Why would you want this be president of the United Staclearly is thinking in ways whiadhere to the traditional expectatunderstandings of political ratioI think his ability to win the inde voters who are essential to any Re victory is highly suspect at the ve but ego is a very powerful force inand I think that he thinks that become President. Right now, in become president from the Reside, you have to get the Repnomination — the key to the Renomination, as he sees it, is athese very conservative Tea Part who command by no means a mathe Republican Party, but a very

minority who do turn out to vote Alabama primary that I mentionefolks are really concerned. While tfeel that they have the better caand the more rational positiodoesn’t mean those voters who amoderate-conservative are going out to vote. The Tea Party people ato come out to vote. They’re icommitted — in politics, intensity just about any other emotion or principle or factor.

–Joshua Sherman ‘16 and Perry ‘15 contributed reporting.

“The Tea Party…pursuesa logic that ultimately

feeds into the most radicalunderstandings of the

inability of capitalism to function, but Marx sayscapitalism can’t function

because of its internalcontradictions — he didn’tanticipate that it would be

an ideological move from the far right that would threaten

the integrity of the wholeglobal capitalist system.”


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/vassar-chronicle-november-2013 8/20



Malala Yousafzai is currentlythe most famous teenagerin the world. The 16-year-

old from the Swat District of Pakistan

publicly protested the restriction of girls’education put in place by the Taliban. Forher efforts, she suffered two gunshots inthe head and neck from a Taliban gunmanin October of 2012. Yousafzai survived,recovered from the assassination attempt,and has since become an international voice on universal education advocacy.

Her story pulls at heartstrings across America, but I cannot nd the samepassion that so many others have foundfor this “voice of a generation.” I agree with Yousafzai’s belief in the necessity ofequal access to education among genders, but I do not believe in the ability of the American people to d o anything about it .

Two other recent cases typify myambivalence to the American people’sability to institute change. A year and

a half ago, the “Kony 2012” campaigngained immense prominence. Americans who saw the viral video were disgustedthat they knew nothing about the horrorstaking place in Uganda. Then, this pastDecember, 26 people were shot andkilled at Sandy Hook Elementary Schoolin Newtown, Connecticut. Across thenation, people rallied together to institutestronger gun control laws. Both causes brought together millions of people withthe same hopes. Then, a few months after both incidents, while the horrors hadnot been forgotten, the response to thesecrises had diminished to nearly nothing.

An explanat ion for the suddendownturn in public outrage so soon afterthe Kony campaign gained its voice isreadily available; after Jason Russell,

the co-founder of Invisible Children— the organization responsible for theproduction of the viral video — suffereda meltdown and was arrested, the public became disillusioned with the c ampaign.Just a few weeks after the “Kony 2012” video went viral, it was becoming a distantmemory. However, other tragediesregularly remind the public of theNewtown shooting, and yet gun controllaws have barely improved. Slate.com has created a tracker to commemoratethe number of people killed by guns sincethe Newtown shooting; their data doesnot show any downturn in deaths byrearms.

Immediately after Newtown, there was a cry for immediate action becausegun control advocates understood that,after a certain amount of time, the shock would pass and no legislati on wouldchange. That is exactly what took place.

This effect is American complacency.The public nds a cause to rally behind,throws money at the problem (orpromises to do so and then “forgets”),and eventually lets the issue pass whilefeeling better because they cared, ifonly for a moment. It is because of thistendency that I cannot feel the same hopeas the rest of the country that change is

any nearer while listening to Malala Yousafzai.

Firstly, Malala is not famous becauseof her views on education or women’srights — she is famous because she wasshot in the head. Her story is spectacularand unbelievable — the sort of tale thatappeals to people’s unending curiosity forthe irregular or extreme. An intelligentgirl from Pakistan does not strike peopleas terribly unusual, but now that she hasproven herself to be unique through herattention-grabbing story, her voice can beheard. The problem with gaining fame inthis manner is that the initial shock thatdrew people in will wear off, so althoughshe gathered attention incredibly quickly,there is nowhere for her to grow.

We have seen how these other “amazingstories” play out. Time and time again, we have seen American complacency takeeffect. After an onslaught of unrelentinginformation, people feel desensitized tothese unimaginable situations. Three weeks after the Sandy Hook massacre,or the Aurora shooting, or the Boston

bombing, people were so used to hearingabout the tragedies that they did nottruly pause to consider their context orimplications anymore. Malala’s story ofTaliban gunmen coming onto her bus,seeking her out, and shooting her isthe same situation. It is only the mostrecent of the American fascinations, and,unfortunately, it will likely pass.

The Malala Fund, a nonprotorganization made in her name thatintends to ght for young girls’ rightto an education, does nothing toturn Americans from the course ofcomplacency. The CEO of the Fund,Shiza Shahid, told CNN that the fundis looking for “innovative solutions”and intends to help fund programs thatare already in place. The Malala Fund,then, strikes me as somewhat harmful,if anything. Instead of raising awarenessfor programs that already directlyhelp people in need, the Fund acts as

a middleman. Additionally, a donorto the Fund has, as far as I can tell, noidea where exactly their money is going. Without that knowledge, donors can drift back into their complacent lifestyles —feeling like they have helped to alleviatean issue without a true awareness of thesituation.

The Malala Fund’s intention is toincrease awareness of the lack ofeducation available to girls in Third World countries and to raise money to

combat this issue. The program asks onlyfor monetary donations, which is not the best way to provide a direct link betweendonors and the concern at hand. It is likelythat people will donate and then forgetabout it entirely — detaching themselvesfrom the problem. Charity feeds American complacency by distanc ing thepeople donating from the actual issue.People can donate and assume theirmoney is helping someone, but if, in fact,the situation gets worse, they will not beinformed about it. Ironically, the peoplecontributing to ghting for educationmay not be educated themselves aboutthe actual status of the issue.

The question then is what Americansshould do and how much they should careabout other people. Americans benetfrom not caring and prevent themselvesfrom accessing information that wouldmake them care. I do it too — I am one ofthe many people guilty of not reading thenews enough because it does not makeme feel good. It is incredible that so manypeople are willing to give up any little

bit of the insulation that living in thedeveloped world provides. The very factthat people do donate at all is positive, but even more engagement is necessary.

Americans — as well as people in manyother developed countries — need to nda way to reconstruct their perception ofthe rest of the world. One of the commentsI have heard most frequently from people who have visited an underdevelopedcountry is that, “They’re just like us,” with a tone of surprise. We often equateeconomic status with ontological status — because underdeveloped countries do nothave many of the same conveniences that we do, we assume that their people mustnot have the same emotional abilities asus, and are therefore not as important. We distance ourselves from people whose

lives are incomprehensible, forgettingthat they, too, have similar concerns andgoals to us. When we actually connectto people, it is far harder to ignore ordistance them.

The beauty of such a globalized worldis that communication dees national boundaries. Technologies enable us toreach out and talk to people who lead very different lives than we d o. Americanfascinations form because of an interestin a specic person and who they reallyare. After the Newtown massacre, peoplemourned the loss of children they hadnever met, trying to nd every detail theycould about their lives and the futuresthey had lost. People sought to relate tothe victims because this personalizationadded to the tragedy of the situation.

This overexposure eventually led to thedesensitization of their stories, but thatinitial empathy — American engagement— could be funneled into something withmuch more positive results than just amoment of charity.

It is not the responsibility of the UnitedStates to save the world. It is, however,necessary to be aware of issues and to beeducated about how certain changes canhelp. If people do choose to help others,they are responsible for understanding

who and how they are helping. Gi blindly continues Americ an compand the stagnancy of interperceptions.

A fantastic example of an orgathat avoids falling into complaKiva, which is built around the of micronance. A member cansomeone to support whose stoadmire and donate money to thaindividually. The program, thomore than just a charity. Theusually goes towards helping theperson build up their business, eventually repay the money,

Kiva member can then lend thefunds to another person. Kiva c99.02% repayment rate. At thiKiva connects over 8,000 peoplthe world looking for or receivinrelated to education to others w willing to fund them. With 4,800 being women, a Kiva member is adirectly what the Malala Fund isto do through more indirect mea

Of course, Kiva is certainly nto reach everyone, and the Mala will be able to nd people to who would otherwise be Nevertheless, the idea of microdoes struggle against the tenden American people to isolate thethrough ignorance; it is a positiveof keeping people in touch with th

outside their own bubble. While Malala Yousafzai may

incredibly inuential and helpall across the world, her story what will change American discoeducation or assisting other coHer story is, however, the prompeople in the developed world cthe empathy to do so. We need toengaged with the world as a wh just in our narrow state of compl

NATIONAL & FOREIGN AFFAIRS

American Complacency Precludes Care for OtheChrista Guild

Senior Editor

The book I Am Malala: The Girl Who Sfor Education and was Shot by the Tali

cusses Malala Yousafzai’s experiencesthe Taliban regime and her hope for thof women’s education.

“The public nds a causeto rally behind, throwsmoney at the problem(or promises to do so

and then “forgets”), andeventually lets the issue

pass while feeling betterbecause they cared, ifonly for a moment.”



Chancellor Angela Merkel expressedher shock that the NationalSecurity Agency (NSA) may have

been intercepting her communications.The infringement of international law

concerned Merkel less than the violationof trust: “Spying between friends, that’s just not done.” Assorted prime ministers,presidents, diplomats, and politicalactivists united behind Merkel, criticizingthe NSA for overstepping diplomaticprotocol, and President Obama forcondoning such blatant violations ofnational sovereignty. U.S. spokespersonsrushed into the fray. They evadedquestions about past spying on Merkel andasserted that the U.S. “is not monitoringand will not monitor” Chancellor Merkel’scell phone, while simultaneously assertingthat President Obama had no priorknowledge of such operations. Accordingto reports in Der Spiegel , the NSA mayhave been intercepting ChancellorMerkel’s communications for at least

ten years via a covert spying operationin the U.S. Embassy in Berlin. As formerNational Security Agency (NSA) DirectorMichael Hayden recently commented,the NSA surveillance of foreign leadersand governments – and one could add ofUnited States citizens – is “nothing special,and it’s certainly nothing new.”

For centuries, governments haveinltrated and analyzed obscure andsecret sources of information producedin the affairs of state – they haveintercepted diplomatic dispatches,stolen secret military plans, and plantedspies in ministerial meetings. Since theadvent of communications technologies,these governments have utilized newintelligence-gathering methodologies andestablished new systems for employing

and categorizing knowledge. Room40, a precursor to the GovernmentCommunications Headquarters (GCHQ)– the NSA’s elder peer in London –intercepted German communications usingthen emerging surveillance methods, long before the NSA tapped Angela Merkel’scell phone. At the start of World War I, theBritish Navy cut Germany’s trans-Atlantictelegraph cables, forcing the Germansto use the United States’ cables. As inevery war, the British sought to interceptand decode its enemies’ diplomaticand military communications. ThoughRoom 40 engaged in a limited inquiry ofGerman communications – they soughtintelligence on German military operationsand strategy – they proceeded, absent theassent of the United States government, to

collect all German communications sentover the U.S. cables. Room 40 collected theZimmerman Telegram (an offer of materialsupport from Germany to Mexico to attackthe U.S., and one of the proximate causesfor the U.S. entering the war) in its broadprogram of signal interception. The British Admiralty misinformed the United Statesgovernment that a British spy had bribeda Mexican telegraph ofcial to obtain the

ciphered telegram so that Room 40 couldcontinue to collect American telegraphcommunications. Angela Merkel ought not be shocked that the United States has beentracing her phone calls; “spying betweenfriends” (who, one should remember, arealways potential enemies) through themass collection of information has been“done” for at least a century.

Though the United States and the UnitedKingdom now participate in an enterpriseof mutual surveillance, not much haschanged since World War I. The GCHQcontinues to employ the same methods forcollection on a grander scale; they interceptand store all digital communications thatow through massive trans-Atlantic ber-optic cables as they pass through Englandfrom North America to Europe. The GCHQgrants the NSA access to this data sothat it, in turn, can use NSA tools to sortthrough it. Although its methods, in thisinstance of intelligence gathering, haveremained the same, the GCHQ collects vast quantities of internet and telephone

data for very different reasons. TheGuardian, which has reported extensivelyon the leaks, sees the GCHQ’s collectionefforts, codenamed “Tempora,” as ameans of capturing extensive data on theinteractions of almost every internet userin the world: “For the 2 billion users ofthe world wide web, Tempora representsa window on to their everyday lives,sucking up every form of communicationfrom the bre-optic cables that ring the world” (“GCHQ taps bre-optic cables for

secret access to world’s communications,”6.21.13). The dominant discourse ofsurveillance emphasizes the collectionof data on the mundane experiences ofindividuals as an unwarranted violationof rights and an intrusion of the politicalinto social interactions. Mass surveillanceis reduced to the government infringementof personal sovereignty. In a recent articlepublished in The New York Times (“WhyDo Brits Accept Surveillance?”, 11.8.13),

Jonathan Freedland, a columnist for TheGuardian, describes this discourse interms of a polarized conception of thefunction and authority of state power:

“Britain has a fundamentally differentconception of power than, say, the UnitedStates. In America, it is ‘we the people’ who are held to be sovereign. Viewed likethat, the N.S.A., and other arms of thegovernment, is a servant of the people: Itis meant to do what it is told. The Britishsystem, by contrast, still carries the imprintof its origins in monarchy: Ofcially, itremains ‘‘Her Majesty’s Government,’’ notthe people’s. Power still emanates fromthe top and ows downward, with thepublic allowed a peek only when the statechooses. It means that Brits can be quiteresigned toward the level of governmentpower over, and intrusion into, their lives— because they don’t really see governmentas their servant in the rst place. Britonsremain subjects, not citizens.”

As American citizens, according toFreedland’s analysis, we feel entitled to

control of and oversight over the statesecurity regime. Government surveillance violates individual rights, and the ability toparticipate in a system of free governanceunhindered by limitations on democraticdiscussion. The implied solution to thisinversion of democratic sovereignty is arenewed concern with individual rightsclaims. The American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) has asserted that this inversion violates Fourth Amendment due processprotections and the right to privacy. They

argue that such information could be useto create a virtual communicative recordof every U.S. citizen. This dichotomousconception of individuality predicated onahistorical national differences – on theone hand, an American citizen served bythe government, and on the other, a Britishsubject constrained by the monarch –reduces the power dynamics of surveillanceto the government violation of rights, ratherthan the construction and elimination of

perceived threats. Threat consdoes not violate any discernible srights, but its pernicious effects government policy and modulate social relations.

The history of surveillance cothe premise that the concept of citentails imminent resistance to govsurveillance. Supposed com– “reds” – threatened the desystem in the early twentieth Government ofcials cited the comthreat as a reason to improve me watchfulness and collect informU. S. citizens. A young J. Edgar then head of the newly formed BInvestigation, organized his polto inltrate communist organand collect information on subversives that could be deporte broad anti-immigrant laws. Fro1920, the Bureau of Investigatthe Department of Justice conduPalmer Raids, resulting in the depof hundreds of suspected communPalmer Raids represent an early atconstructing a national threat thrcollection and analysis of mass dIn later years, Hoover would cite sevidence that quantied FBI arrthe number of threats in the Unitto justify funding his hunt forenemies.” The popular culture1940s and 1950s reveals that Am believed that the FBI served to prideal of American citizenship. EveMcCarthy and HUAC, they prtheir participation in democracyelimination of threats as a mpreserving their rights, rather tassertion of rights claims as a preventing government violationsocial activities. General Ralph Vaoperated a domestic intelligence that encouraged individuals to rthe potential disloyalties of their

family, and neighbors. When hethe FBI access to his intelligeopened the door to the current incof government surveillance.

The modern paradigm of surdictates that the state collect infoon its subjects and those outsipolitical boundaries to parse thrtotality of social and political fenables the state to construct a recan be categorized, described, andagainst a conceptual system of pthreats, subversives, and enesource in the GCHQ explainedGuardian that they use this sycollect “a small number of needles vast haystack of data” (“GCHQ taoptic cables for secret access tocommunications,” 6.21.13). Th

ofcial explained that the govhas no interest in listening to people talking to each other.” Theamount of data collected prevGCHQ from reading the personal and listening in on the phone caaverage mass telecommunicatioIndeed, the system automaticacommunications that relate to “terror, organised crime[,] [a]nd e well-being,” which trigger


PAGE 10

Discourse of Surveillance Ignores History of Systemic ChanZack Struver

Editor-in-Chief

Continued on Page 11

The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) serves as England's primary surveillanceorganization. The United Kingdom, along with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States,comprise the "Five Eyes," an intelligence collective that seeks to share knowledge and techniques to

further the interception of mass communications.

Ministry of Defence/Wikipedia.




Surveillance Produces System of Threat ConstructiContinued from Page 10

investigation by intelligence analysts.Government regulation predetermines the“needles” sought by the GCHQ and allowsanalysts to construct a system of knowledgethat will identify those needles. Thissystematization of discursive exchangeallows for the quantitative construction

of threats, based on the words used andassociative networks of communication between “known terrorists, radicals, spies,etc.” and others. The construction of a veriable threat requires empirical analysisgrounded in the precise interpretationof the totality of data produced andexchanged in the world. General Keith Alexander, Director of the NSA, testiedon Oct. 2, 2013 that “terrorists and otherforeign adversaries hide in the same globalnetwork, use the same communicationsnetworks as everyone else, and takeadvantage of familiar services … We must

develop and apply the best analytic toolsto succeed in our mission: Finding thecommunications of adversaries whileprotecting those of innocent people

regardless of their nationality.” Theubiquity of communications technologies justies the deployment of surveillancetactics that tracks the metadata of suchcommunications. Section 215 of thePATRIOT Act allows federal ofcials torequest the “business records” of any business, broadly construed to includethe phone logs of telecommunicationscompanies; the subject lines, recipients,and senders of emails; and the instantmessages of social networking services.

Though many have argued that suchmethods are unconstitutional, the courtshave ruled in favor of the PATRIOT Act,Congress continues to reauthorize the

Act after years of criticism, and the NSAremains subject to limited, “rubber-stamp,” judicial oversight, in the formof the Foreign Intelligence SurveillanceCourt (FISC). Should ACLU v. Clapperreach the trial phase, it seems likelythat the government could very easily

argue that it has a “compelling stateinterest” in overriding any constitutionalprovisions that could protect Americancitizens from surveillance. Moreover,the government can, and will, point tothe regime of legal oversight and thelack of any real constitutional violation.Individuals already sign away the right tocontrol the use of the metadata that theygenerate; most tech companies sell oruse such information to improve targetedadvertising or the utility of their services.These companies already own suchmetadata, and the use of a secret federal warrant to collect such information,though distasteful, seems perfectly legalunder the PATRIOT Act, and represents asmall incursion into the privacy of any oneindividual. Though framed as collective,

the Bill of Rights protects individuals,not groups. The constitutionality of NSAsurveillance ensures its continued use,until Congress either radically reformsthe Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the PATRIOT Act, or passes aconstitutional amendment that explicitlylines out globalized, aggregate rights that would protect modern internet users.Neither option seems likely. Althoughrepresentatives and senators have heldhearings on government surveillance,members of the intelligence oversight committees have known of the extentof these programs since their inception.Their public shock and criticisms seemdisingenuous, at best.

The government continues to “compel,”as General Alexander put it, private

technology corporations to comply with metadata collection procedures.Sophisticated methods of surveillance will improve upon the current patchworksolution of hasty back-doors. Thegovernment could soon require technologycompanies to hand their encryption keysover, allowing government ofcials tohack, crack, and intercept any privatecommunication sent over a network orusing a specic piece of technology. LadarLevison, the owner of Lavabit (an encryptedemail service), compelled by a FISC orderto hand over the private encryption keyof his system, typed the key in four pointfont and handed federal ofcials eleven

pages of illegible text. Compelled to givethe government a digital version of thekey, Levison shut down Lavabit ratherthan “become complicit in crimes againstthe American people.” It seems that theonly means for resisting governmentsurveillance is as equally unattractive –and unlikely – as the legislative methodsfor changing the surveillance system.This resistance requires removing oneselffrom the system, forgoing all networkedtechnologies. Should one wish to resistthe NSA, they would need to removethemselves from the global exchange ofideas and information, cut all contact withdistant family and friends, and avoid publicappearances, for fear of being captured byCCTV or drone surveillance and placed in adatabase used for facial recognition.

My pessimistic assessment of thefuture of government surveillance doesnot imply that we ought not worry aboutpotential abuses of such a system. I trustthat many current government ofcials,including General Alexander, believe thatthey protect rights even as they constructa terroristic threat that inculcatesIslamaphobia and reinforces the conceptof an empire abroad. Yet, I worry thatintentions and motivations change, andthat a future president or intelligencechief may use such technologies to pursueprot, fame, or pure power. The notionof a threat continues to shift from anideological norm reliant on stereotype(as typied by cases such as the TrayvonMartin trial) into a scientic category that

pursues the analysis of large setsSince the construction of a threclear denition of an other who d belong to “the people” remains to the American democracy, it impossible to dismantle the Asecurity apparatus. Most people aof drone strikes, the slaughter of icivilians abroad, and the massive inof the political into the social. Yetas they continue to believe and intclaims that threats to democracythe violation of basic human digni will be no change. Unless we wit wholesale repudiation of the discorhetoric that denes and marks teas threatening and dangerous, surv will continue, and state power willDemocracy entails radical, fundequality of voice. Voices cannot b

if the state silences them as extthe nation. Surveillance will eas we redene nationalism as inglobalization as productive of relationships, rather than globaland democratic participation freedom to communicate without into a system of quanticatiabstraction. Or, perhaps we can alcell phones down for a little bit, reour unhealthy attachments to techand rethink how we communicaothers. State surveillance will eif the people refuse the governmandate to totalize and eliminate

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To attain peace has never been inthe interest of Israel. The moretime passes, as conicts remain

unresolved, the more Israel gains, in terms ofterritory as well as positioning in the powerdynamic, and in what has been dubbed the“political reality” of the situation. This has been the case since before the creation ofthe expansionist state in the rst place.

The Israeli state has been a colonialistenterprise from its very inception. Thepower relationship and methodology haveremained largely the same throughout thecourse of the now ¾ century-long invasionof Palestine.

Although the slaughter of civilians in thestreets certainly has died down in recentdecades, the methods by which the Israelinarratives dictate discourse remain similar.Efforts are made to provoke retaliation,including forced eviction, arson, and theabove-mentioned slaughter, so that theretaliators can be pointed at and labeled

“terrorists,” “extremists,” and “aggressors.”Once your enemy has been dened as anaggressive terrorist entity, who wouldn’t beon your side?

The immigrants to Israel largely are white, European or American immigrants who feel entitled to a living space veryrecently inhabited by Arabs. The ctitiousnarrative of a “land without a people for apeople without a land” sheds light on thisimperialistic sense of entitlement, and onits foundation in the dehumanization ofindigenous populations.

And just to be clear, the reason forthe Palestinians’ departure is entirelyautocratic. These people are not packing upand leaving voluntarily, despite being forcedto live under such extreme conditions as toconstitute humanitarian crises.

Soldiers armed with bulldozers and the

best conventional weapons in the world(courtesy of your American taxpayerdollars) forcibly inspire the eviction, bythe authority of the supremacist invadergovernment. But they’re defendingthemselves, so it’s ne.

The Oxford Dictionary denes“colonialism” as the policy or practice of

acquiring full or partial political controlover another country, occupying it withsettlers, and exploiting it economically.

The UN Council for Human Rights(UNCHR) links a state or regime’s desireto impose ethnic rule on a mixed area withthe use of acts of expulsion. “Acts of ethniccleansing” are dened to include “separationof men from women, detention of men,explosion of houses, and subsequentlyrepopulating the remaining houses withanother ethnic group.”

Drazen Petrovic is a widely acclaimedscholar and expert on matters of ethniccleansing, having published extensivelyon the intractable conicts of the former Yugoslavia. He denes “ethnic cleansing”as the “policy of a particular group ofpersons to systematically eliminate another

group from a given territory on the basisof religious, ethnic or national origin.Such a policy involves violence and is veryoften connected with military operations.It is to be achieved by all possible means,from discrimination to extermination,and entails violations of human rights andinternational humanitarian law…[and]…expulsion by force in order to homogenisethe ethnically mixed population of aparticular region or territory. The purposeof expulsion is to cause the evacuation of asmany residences as possible, by all means atthe expeller’s disposal, including nonviolentones….”

In 1975. United Nations General AssemblyResolution 3379 declared Zionism “aform of racism and racial discrimination”to be eliminated. “The racist regime in

occupied Palestine and the racist regimes inZimbabwe and South Africa have a commonimperialist origin, forming a whole andhaving the same racist structure and beingorganically linked in their policy aimed atrepression of the dignity and integrity of thehuman being.”

By these and a whole range of otherdenitions, the facts of the Israeli-Palestinian question speak for themselves.The fact that the sentiments and actions ofIsraeli leadership coincide so clearly withthese descriptions is not something thatshould take us by surprise, so long as weactually examine what they say and haveeven a slight awareness of the context ofdiscourse.

Thus, once a stone has been thrown back,the same old accountability-absolvingnarrative will never fail to remind us that“violence occurs on both sides.”This andmany other constructions borne from thepro-Israeli narrative are made with theagrant intention to obscure the context ofthis conict. They distort the situation, forexample, to imply that it should be depictedas a just war of some sort as opposed tothe colonialist invasion of one group byanother. Once we consider the situationin a vacuum and neglect to acknowledge

the prior human presence in this space,invading it seems totally reasonable.

This severely underdetermines the vastextent of violence and abuse directedagainst unaccountable, unarmed,unsuspecting civilians by one of the best organized militaries in the world.Moreover, these incredible injustices have

become inseparable qualities of Palestinianidentity, along with the need to vouch fortheir having occurred in the rst place dueto unrelenting assaults on their historical veracity.

These are the effects not only of neglectand refused acknowledgment on thepart of the Western world, but also of theendorsement, protection, and fundingof what unequivocally amount to ethniccleansing operations. The resources forthese supremacist settlement expansionsdo not appear out of thin air. These are your taxpayer dollars, sponsoring the IDFin its efforts to systematically dwindle anddisenfranchise an indigenous populace.

There is a striking resemblance betweenthe horric ethnic cleansing operations ofthe former Yugoslavia and the entirety of

the Israeli enterprise. In the early 1990s,the late Slobodan Milosevic, leader ofSerbia at the time, executed a systematicethnic cleansing initiative against Croatsand Bosniacs in an attempt to create anethnically homogeneous Greater Serbia.Massive slaughter of civilians and ravagingof cities took place, and the atrocities thatplayed out set the scene for the coinage ofthe term “ethnic cleansing.”

There are two analogies here I would liketo emphasize. First, the actual methods ofethnic cleansing pursued by the foundersof the state of Israel are nearly identical with many of those performed by the Serbs.Some of these tactics included superuoushome arson and demolition, and the publicmass-execution of able-bodied men, notto mention indiscriminate rape, murder,

and mutilation just to speed the terrorizingeviction process along.

Second, the nature of the power dynamicsin the negotiations of Milosevic with theCroats and Bosniacs were remarkablysimilar to what exists now, and what hasexisted since before 1948, between Israeland the Palestinians.

The rst thing one learns about peacenegotiations is that negotiations won’t work if there is a signicant imbalance inpower between the two participants. Astime passed fruitlessly, American DiplomatRichard Holbrooke and company gleanedan awareness that the initially cooperativeMilosevic was consistently failing tomake any substantive progress towardcooperation, despite his best appearances.Upon learning about the covert genocidaloperations he had been conducting, itdawned upon them that the more timepassed, the more Milosevic gained both interms of territory and victims’ lives lost.

There was no incentive for Milosevic tocontribute sincerely toward a peace initiative because he was winning. When one grouphas a glaring advantage over the opposinggroup in a conict (when the power dynamicis drastically disproportionate, as it were),it is not within that group’s interests to

end the conict. Peace was againstinterest because it was benetiexploiting the conict.

Since Israel’s graceful entrance context of negotiation,(principato international pressure, it shnoted) its government has had its means of maintaining power,

its supremacist and expansionievidently have not changed. Israel hadopted policies of “peace nego which of course have been codisingenuous. In opposition to recthe need for genuine concession to acquire lasting peace, Israeli phave been deliberately inammainitiatives sabotaged and doomefrom the very beginning in order to to serve Israeli interests. This pdescribed explicitly by the veneratescholar Yehoshafat Harkabi, awaIsrael Prize for political science:

“We must dene our position down basic principles for a settlemdemands should be moderate and band appear to be reasonable. But inmust involve such conditions as t

that the enemy rejects them. Tshould manoeuver and allow him his own position, and reject a seon the basis of a compromise We should then publish his demembodying unreasonable extremis

This policy is a sophisticated atderail any prospects of peace thaallow for a signicant Arab presenprospective Greater Israel. Moreprimary use and purpose has been tdemonize and undermine theseof grotesque violence and opprecodify current and future abuselegal framework, and to wrench othe history books any trace of evidethese abuses ever happened.

The pattern has been coIsraeli strategy consists of f

peace initiatives, accompaniloudly proclaimed condemnationPalestinians, while the invasioccupation of Arab Palestine cunabated.

It must be established clearlyfoundational contention of this isserasure of the culture, history, andof the Palestinians, beyond justtheir immediate physical presencethe Nakba, or “catastrophe,” facePalestinians in 1948 involved thdismantling of any evidence of Papresence in their former cities, venture continues to this day.

It has been a prioritized Israeli to omit acknowledgment of the ePalestinian society that pre-existed20thcentury’s inux of Jewish im by several hundred years. Cities ahave been buried or renamed, agiven a historical narrative thatdepicts noble settlers coming to land and making progress. Somehdepictions fail to mention the broaof Palestinian society present bedisplacement of over a million of it

Part of the essence of ethnic cis the eradication, by all means aof a region’s history. The most

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

PAGE 12

Peace Contradicts Israel's Supremacist InteresGregory Perry

Natl. & Foreign Affairs Editor

Continued on Page 13

"I see nothing wrong with forced transfer."

“These operations can be

carried out ... by destroyingvillages (by setting re to

them, by blowing them up,and by planting mines in

their rubble), and especiallythose population centres

that are difcult to control permanently; or by ...

encirclement of the villages,conducting a search insidethem. In case of resistance,

the armed forces mustbe wiped out and the

population expelled outsidethe borders of the state.”

-David Ben-Gurion



method is that of depopulation withinan atmosphere that legitimizes acts ofretribution and revenge.

Israel bitterly refused even to considernegotiating about Palestinians with actualPalestinians until 1991, as they continuedto deny acknowledgment of their identity

through the forced juncture of a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.Since the reluctant descent into dialogue

with its victims, Israel has continued toemploy brazenly manipulative devicesto debilitate their stance. Israel’spropagandized accounts of history impedethe cooperative process further in that theyundermine the integrity of the negotiationprocess as a whole, and drastically limit thepossibility of reaching an agreement.

Negotiation attempts have beencomposed exclusively of Israeli proposals(due to a priori rejection of Palestinianleverage) concerning exclusively issuesframed along Israel’s terms and ctionalhistory. The framing of these issuesappoints Israel’s security against alleged“Palestinian terrorist aggression” as

the principle priority; it persistentlyreiterates Israel’s innocence and completelack of accountability; and then it offers“concessions,” like the slowing of theexpansion of settlements that have beenrepeatedly and internationally condemnedas illegal ethnic cleansing operations.

Palestinian acceptance of the premisesof Israeli propositions would result incrippling disadvantages on the groundas well as a deterioration of the domesticsupport necessary for political stability.Some of these premises amount torescinding acknowledgment of genocidalpolicies directed against Palestinians ofthe past as well as validating apartheidpolicies of the present. They include thedemands that the Palestinians agree tofostering the expansion and permanence of

these policies, and that they renounce thehistorical accounts of the systematic abusesthat now constitute such an integral aspectof Palestinian identity.

For a Palestinian leadership to rescind thehistory of its people, and thus effectively todelegitimize its own stance in negotiations,is an outrageous proposition to make, andit accomplishes nothing but to establishclearly that the negotiation process isentirely disingenuous. It is inconceivablethat a Palestinian leadership would betraythe people of its constituency so thoroughlyand still be able to maintain a shred ofintegrity among them. And these are thedemands thrust forth as preconditions foreven entering the discussion.

The procedure itself is dictated byIsraeli terms, in a way that is deliberately

constructed to disallow cooperation. Asarticulated by the acclaimed historian Walid Khalidi, the Palestinians suffer “theunique position where not only is theircatastrophe ruled out of the Western court,as being irrelevant to their reactions againstits perpetrators, but where these veryreactions are held to incriminate them.”

Israel’s interests align only with peace ina homogeneous state, in effect, as a productof the comprehensive eradication of theethnic/religious minority it considers as vermin. The irony here of the similarity

between Israeli and Nazi rhetoric mustn’t be neglected. Frequent references torhetorical narratives such as “the purityof the state,” “the enemies of Israel,” anda perpetual status as the victim, not onlyof greater injustices but also of having totolerate living amongst an infestation of

parasites, hark back to the language used byHitler himself.“When we have settled the land, all the

Arabs will be able to do about it will be toscurry around like drugged cockroachesin a bottle” – Rafael Eitan, Israeli Chief ofStaff, 1983.

In the context of having supremacistideals as the foundation of the colonialistenterprise, in which the ‘purication ofthe state’ has been endorsed and pursuedon a consistent basis, and in which one’sopposition to such aspirations resultsin public condemnation, Israel holdsincentives contrary to the prospect of peace via reasonable settlement.

To renounce the entire foundation ofone’s purpose as a prerequisite for anysort of progress is a non-starter. Yet it

is the Arabs labeled as “uncooperative.”Israel’s actions have done nothing butexploit and exacerbate the situation: brazen instigation funded and militarized by the government (not limited to invasivesettlement expansion) is publicly denied

to the international community by theparty bearing statehood, while Palestinianleadership is pushed towards more extremepositions for fear of appearing complacentin the eyes of its constituency.

The United States’ pro-Israeli biasis entirely shameless. Israel stoops tonegotiations only when they serve to codifypolicies of occupation and apartheid intoa legal framework, and it receives nothing but unquestioning support from the UnitedStates.

Martin Indyk is quoted as having said“even-handedness…and pressure [are]not in our lexicon,” referencing theUnited States’ diplomatic policy towardsIsraeli delegations, standing alongsideseveral other members of the Clintonadministration who expressed similarsentiments. Such a declaration, extendedto the resources of one’s vocabulary,communicates an unabashed prejudice inIsrael’s favor that boasts an extremity worthnoting.

Little has changed since the 1990s in thisrespect, as we saw last year with the Obama

administration’s opposition to Palestinianstatehood based upon fallacious premisesof Israel’s “right to self-defense.” This might be more aptly called Israel’s “privilege tooppress,” as a facet of a more general “keep-them-divided-and-conquered” tacticalmentality.

After the 2000 Camp David summit,the failure of the negotiation process in itscurrent form came to light, and Palestinianpeople responded with civil uprising, whichescalated and produced violent retaliationon a larger scale. This culminated in theelection of Hamas in 2006. Expressionsof outrage and isolated incidents ofindividuals’ violent retaliation becamegrossly inated as collective and indeniteunwillingness to “consider peace” and thus,as a compromise of Palestinian integrity tothe international community.

Resistance to past instances of negotiation by Palestinians stems only from warrantedapprehensions about being exploitedfurther. It comes from the perspective of victims of perpetual occupation, based onclear and consistent historical precedent.

Palestinian requests are barelyacknowledged and are routinely pushedaside or postponed at Israel’s command.The renunciation of Palestinian nationalidentity has somehow become a prerequisitefor any hope of its representation

in actualized policy, while what thePalestinians consider basic human rightsare used freely as bargaining chips by theopposing, advantaged side.

The entirety of this conict must bequalied by Israel’s strategic refusal torecognize this Palestinian national identity.The deprivation of statehood has perhaps been the most effective instrument insecuring the failure of the peace process.The Palestinians are cornered into aposition in which their status persistentlysuffers a shortage of legitimacy due to thelack of statehood, the only alternative being

the renunciation of the very foundationalpremises to the claim of statehood in therst place.

The ability to frame the issue to theinternational community is directly linkedto the distinction of statehood. Withoutan established, sovereign representation,the Palestinians are merely a group withinthe Israeli state to be dealt with by Israelis.They have no means by which to project a voice.

Sadly, the various indoctrinationsintertwined within the Israeli narrative,

including rabid Islamophobia, mentalities in the United States Discourse is infected by the condenarrative of, for example, “the man vs. the savage”, where man” means homicidal imperia“savage” means colonized co

ravaged by said civilized chaps. Lsubway advertisements severacities in the United States boastiinammatory constructions cause bit of contention, and even the likNews blurred out the word “savagcoverage of the stories.

Most people advocate for the usovert, epithetical, and shameful lthan that pursued by people likeGeller, and by organizations suc American Freedom Defense (AFDI), the American-Israeli PublCommittee (AIPAC), and the Organization of America (ZOA), several others. But the fact is that dis very much determined along tset by this advantaged side.

Apart from public discours

organizations are responsible for einuence on our politicians. TIsraeli lobby consistently donatesof dollars to Israel-friendly incuas well as to the competitors of lecourageous enough to lift a dainof criticism against Israeli foreigIn addition to the many billions otossed over by the federal govthese groups funnel obscene sums toward further illegal settlement ein the West Bank and Gaza atstaggering and alarming rate.

In the case of the former Yugoslavthe deployment of NATO air strikesmilitary bases and infrastructural well as the arming of the disadCroats and Bosniacs, before thdynamic was balanced and Milos

convinced to truly negotiate a se At this point in the Israel-Palestinean overwhelmingly powerful thi would be required to coerce vast unilateral concessions from Israelto secure even a modicum of justicPalestinian people.

I wouldn’t hold my breath.The attainability of “justice” l

became a dead and irrelevant Now all we have left to work witto minimize the bleeding. Surperhaps, asking nicely has notin dislodging the many Israeli embedded in the chest of Palestine

We need not delve into the moreissues as to whether any state in place deserves existence in order toIsrael’s alleged “Right to Exist.” W

not even acknowledge that the ventails the denial of that right for ththat had been living peacefully on for hundreds of years.

I have a simple math problem tothe contention. This, lest we run ifoundational ideological ssures,say for sure:

Supremacist states do not have aexist, and should not exist.

Israel, it should be clear, is a supstate and has been from its incepti

Four.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Western World Sponsors Ethnic Cleansing of AraContinued from Page 12

Dylan Finley


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/vassar-chronicle-november-2013 14/20C HRONICLE , NOVEMBPAGE 14

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

SEC Investigates Possible Bribery in JPMorgan Hiring PractiJanet Kanzawa

Contributor

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is not playing by the rules. In the wake of the globalnancial crisis, the largest bank by

assets in the United States has been underthe spotlight for inaccurate credit reporting

and rigging bond transactions — and thatis only what the regulators have caughtso far. This kind of market manipulationshould not be accepted; regulation, nowmore than ever, is absolutely necessary.But, right now, JPMorgan is facing aninvestigation that does not stem from what we may think of as traditional marketmanipulation. The Securities & ExchangeCommission (SEC) found an internalspreadsheet that shows a direct correlation between JPMorgan’s hiring practicesand the business it is winning in Asia.Now, JPMorgan is under investigationfor possible violation of the U.S. ForeignCorrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which raisesnew questions concerning its standing inthe international business world.

The FCPA, enacted in 1977, prohibits

companies from paying bribes to foreigngovernment ofcials for the purpose ofobtaining or retaining business. The U.S.Department of Justice (DOJ) and SEC, which are responsible for enforcing theFCPA, have interpreted the key provisions very broadly. Violations can be triggerednot only by cash payments, but by “anythingof value,” which includes basically anyform of benet — entertainment expenses,scholarships, or even the hiring of a foreignofcial’s family member if its purpose isto generate an advantage not enjoyed bycompetitors. The anti-bribery provisionsof the FCPA apply beyond the constraintsof U.S. territory to U.S. companiesoperating abroad as well as to any thirdparties who act in afliation with them.Unsurprisingly, the FCPA is argued to be

the most signicant compliance challengefor companies operating internationally.

In 2006, JPMorgan started a hiringprogram called “Sons and Daughters,” which separated the friends and familyof Chinese elites from other “normal” jobapplicants, in order to protect its businessdealings in China and ensure it couldavoid bribery charges in the U.S. Althoughthe program was instituted to preventquestionable hiring practices, in the yearsthat followed, interviews with formeremployees and an SEC letter showedthat it became a fast-tracking process forthe children of ruling elite. According tothe New York Times, applicants fromprominent Chinese families often facedfewer job interviews and more relaxedstandards compared to their unconnected

competition.This past August, the SEC began

investigating whether two formerJPMorgan employees were hired forthe purpose of helping JPMorgan win business with their parents’ companies.The spreadsheet the SEC discoveredlinked some hiring decisions to specictransactions pursued by JPMorgan, whichcan be viewed as evidence that JPMorganhired people in exchange for business.

JPMorgan’s Hong Kong ofce hired TangXiaoning — the son of the chairman of the

state-controlled nancial conglomerateChina Everbright Group. After Tang washired, JPMorgan secured a successionof coveted deals with China EverbrightGroup, including the underwriting ofthe Initial Public Offering of one of itssubsidiaries. JPMorgan had never done business with China Everbright Group before hiring Tang.

JPMorgan Hong Kong also hired ZhangXixi — the daughter of an ofcial of thestate-controlled construction companyChinese Railway Group. After Zhang washired, the Chinese Railway Group selectedJPMorgan to advise its $5 billion publicoffering.

The SEC will hunt for evidence showingthat Tang and Zhang’s jobs were inventedonly because their parents were importantpublic ofcials. This may be a difculttask, given that Tang’s resume includesimpressive stints at other global banks, while Zhang attended Stanford. Accordingto the FCPA, however, it does not matter ifthe employees are qualied — the mere actof hiring a family member in order to win business is illegal.

The probe, originated by the SEC’santi-bribery unit, has since expanded toan investigation of JPMorgan’s hiringpractices in countries across Asia. The DOJhas joined in the investigation, which nowtargets not only full-time workers, but alsointerns. JPMorgan’s presence in the Asia-Pacic region expands to 16 countries;over 200 hires have been agged forreview. This investigation will take a longtime – JPMorgan must undertake aninternal investigation of its hiring practicesfrom the last six years to identify potential violations, then turn over the results to theDOJ.

Even if JPMorgan cooperates with theinvestigation, the rm may nd acquittalmore difcult than it would ordinarily

expect. The DOJ is asking for a payment of$13 billion to settle JPMorgan’s other pastoffenses, but, reportedly, has not droppedthe criminal investigations for the possibleFCPA violation. This means the DOJ mayrequire JPMorgan to admit wrongdoing.

Hiring politically-connected bankers inChina is nothing new; Wall Street rmshave been doing so for so long that thereis a term for it — “elephant hunting” — which specically refers to the seeking ofmandates to manage the highly lucrativestock offerings of China’s big state-ownedcompanies. In fact, the children of the

government-afliated Chinese elite arereferred to as “princelings.”

Not everyone thinks “elephant hunting”and hiring “princelings” are bad. As Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil pointsout, American rms operating within theU.S. hire the children of powerful peopleall the time for reasons unrelated to theirqualications for the job. “If we are goingto target wheel-greasing in China — whereit can be difcult to get business done without bribing — does this mean we needa Domestic Corrupt Practices Act, too?” Weil said. “Of course not. Life isn’t fair —not in the U.S. and not in China.” It seemshypocritical to pursue cases involving foreign ofcials, like that of JPMorgan, when similar behavior is condoned withinU.S. borders. For example, the practiceof under-qualied applicants obtaininginternships through their parents should

be of concern, given that the JPMorganinvestigation now includes interns.

The issue boils down to the questionof what being “well-connected” means.So many industries rely on building anetwork of relationships for the purpose ofhaving people to rely on in the future. Thepopularity of LinkedIn shows how much value people place on being connectedto other professionals, presumably withthe intent of keeping in touch in orderto do business with them in the future.Is it wrong to count your parents in yournetwork? Even if Tang and Zhang werehired because JPMorgan knew it could win a deal with their parents, is this notthe same reason why any company wouldhire the better-connected candidate — forpotential business? If Tang and Zhang did

not actually do their job properly, thenit is surely dishonest and unacceptablefor JPMorgan to have hired them as full-time employees solely for the benet ofobtaining a connection with their parents’companies. The FCPA would be morelogical if it applied to the hiring of anyonefor the purpose of winning business withtheir family members, regardless of whether they fall under the “foreign” or“domestic” category.

What the FCPA is trying to ban is thecreation of an unfair advantage over

rivals in their relations with governments. Anti-bribery m

prevent multinational corporatiogoing into poor countries and mantheir governments for their ownNo one wants a system where govofcials spend their time seekininstead of performing their However, in this case, China EvGroup and the China Railway Grouhave inevitably closed deals withmultinational nancial rm — tneeded to determine which one.and Zhang were actually qualithey seem to be — and could havto take a job at Goldman Sachs inJPMorgan, it was legitimate for JPto hire them and use their netwoadvantage because, otherwise, GSachs would have. Yes, this cconsidered problematic; perhap

were smaller rms that wanted tthe Chinese companies on theiofferings, but were not able to ofor Zhang salaries comparable to th were offered at the Wall Street so were driven off the playing it seems unrealistic to expect suplaying eld for companies in thearena when what goes on withincan be equally corrupt.

Some argue that, in order tothemselves from the risk of corruption, Wall Street rms shallow their “princelings” to work in sectors overseen by their However, this seems like a newdiscrimination itself — employee be able to work on the deals in whare most interested and for which

most qualied. Is the FCPA goincompanies to prevent their emfrom pursuing their passions jussake of compliance and risk mitig

At this point, JPMorgan has naccused of any wrongdoings hired the law rm of Paul, Weiss, Wharton & Garrison to haninvestigation. The multinational world continues to hold its breaththe FCPA applies to conduct commin competitive rms hoping to winfrom foreign governments.

The SEC is investigating JPMorgan for hiring the children of prominent Chinese businesThey face possible criminal charges and large nes for their alleged misconduct.

“Some argue that, in order to protect themselves from the

risk of Chinese corruption,Wall Street rms should not

allow their “princelings”to work on deals in sectorsoverseen by their parents.

However, this seems like anew kind of discriminationitself — employees should

be able to work on the dealsin which they are most

interested and for which theyare most qualied.”



FOREIGN AFFAIRS

P

Nuclear Disaster Exacerbated by TEPCO, Japanese Governme

Erin Murray Contributor

March of 2011 will be rememberedfor the tragedy of the nuclearreactor disaster in Fukushima,

Japan. American journalists, representing

our dignied cable news networks, spokeof generations of radioactivity, clean-up,and possible side effects in children andfood supplies. By May of that year, therst debates for the 2012 United Statespresidential election that would occur in 18months from had begun (Rick Santorum,anyone?), and the aftermath of the nucleardisaster was no longer newsworthy.Unfortunately, this was just when thesituation was taking a turn for the worse.

On Mar. 11, 2011, the Fukushima DaiichiNuclear Power Plant — run by the TokyoElectric Power Company (TEPCO) —suffered several nuclear meltdownsafter the severe Tohoku earthquake andsubsequent tsunami. The magnitude-9.0earthquake sent a monster tsunami thatswept over 15,000 people out to sea and a

13-foot wave over the 10-foot seawall of thenuclear power plant. This wave ooded the bottom-oor emergency generators thatkicked in when the earthquake occurred.The generators failed, the coolant pumpsstopped, the meltdowns commenced, andthe rest is history.

TEPCO and the Japanese government were unprepared for the disaster. Post-tsunami inquiries and studies concur thatthe design of the plant and governmentalresponse were both inadequate inpreparing for and responding to thecatastrophe. TEPCO took the design forthe plant from an American GeneralElectric plant design — a design ne fora landlocked plant but completely wrongfor a plant located on the coast of thePacic Ocean. This choice of schematicexplains why the generators were placedin the basement of the building, which is why they failed almost immediately. Thegovernmental response is also to blamein that, immediately after the disaster,the Japanese government allowed TEPCOto dump tens of thousands of tons of

contaminated water into the Pacic as an

emergency measure.The government contracted TEPCO to

head the clean-up and decommissioning ofthe plant, which led to a slew of problems.Since 2011, TEPCO has been accused ofemploying ineffectual subcontractors,racketeering, exploiting legal loopholes indecontamination regulations, and usingcontractors afliated with the Yakuza.Only this past summer did TEPCO admit

the claim that the groundwater owinginto the basements of the reactor buildings

was contaminated. Testing of groundwater

shows that several radioactive chemicals were present in the groundwatersurrounding the plant at levels 10-50 timestheir legal limits. TEPCO has also recentlyacknowledged that the plant is leaking anadditional 300 tons of contaminated waterinto the ocean each day. Since TEPCO haddenied this countless times previously,many suspect the amount could beconsiderably more. Studies provided bythe government concur, but I am hesitantto trust the data provided by the Japanesegovernment, considering the governmentconsented to TEPCO contaminating theocean in the rst place.

The Japanese government’s response tocancer risks is another example of a failedresponse to the disaster. Children have thehighest risk of becoming ill from radiationexposure than any other age group; theyare particularly vulnerable to thyroidcancer caused by radioactive iodine. Thegovernment possessed potassium iodidepills that were to be given to children inthe case of a nuclear emergency to blockradioactive iodine from entering their

thyroids, but it failed to administein time to be effective. Testing hasa substantial, though inconclusivin thyroid cancer — 44 cases havfound in 200,000 children sinceof 2011 within the Fukushima precompared to the average incidence

out of every 1,000,000 from befoin the same region. In order to their children from developing cancer, many parents are still, day, using Geiger counters — deused to measure levels of radiatiothe food their children eat. In rethe Mayor of Matsumoto has offhost children from the affected rehis town. Now, parents have theto send their children away in hopit will maintain their health whilesame time, tearing their families astaying in Fukushima themselves.

The harmful direct and indirectof the Fukushima disaster are nowfelt across the world. Alarming nof sh along the west coast of Can bleeding from their gills, stomac

eyeballs. 45% of sea lions born thJune in California have died compless than 33% in past years. Polar b well as other mammals, along the Acoastline are suffering from openand hair loss — classic signs of rapoisoning. Certain countries have all sh imports from Japan’s nocoast, such as South Korea; the ecof northeast Japan has been irredamaged without shing. Pollutioonly working up the food chain, buthe ocean too. Millions of tons of tdebris, of which some may be radioare making their way across the Pachave started washing up along thcoast of the United States.

Just recently, a magnitearthquake struck off the coast of

Naturally, the debate has started uregarding proper solutions to theThe Japanese government musresponsibility for future nuclear prand for the continually-unfolding debacle. If not, the repercussionsfelt by the entire world.

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“Post-tsunami inquiriesand studies concur thatthe design of the plant

and governmentalresponse were both

inadequate in preparing

for and responding to thecatastrophe.”



Captain Phillips is the newestaddition to director PaulGreengrass’s repertoire. After

directing such movies as “The BourneSupremacy,” “United 93,” and “GreenZone,” Greengrass has attempted tomatch the success of his prior works without fallin g short of expectat ions orallowing his movie to ultimately becomeanother rushed, over-hyped, Hollywood“current-event-based” film. The publicis all too familiar with this genre, withmovies such as “Act of Valor,” “Zero DarkThirty,” and “Argo” released in the past year alone. Touching on sensitive topicssuch as the Osama Bin Laden take-downand the Iranian hostage crisis, thesemovies attempt to recreate actual events but inevit ably succumb to “movie magic”as their truth becomes buried underneaththe cameras. “Captain Phillips,”however, tells a story that needed to be

told, and it tells this story well. Releasedon Oct. 11, 2013, the film recounts the2009 hijacking of the U.S. cargo ship, Maersk Alabama , by Somali pirates. Theship’s captain, Richard Phillips (played by Tom Hanks) , tries to out-run and out-smart the pirates, but is eventually takenhostage. A tense standoff then ensues between the pirates and the U.S. Navy.Though “Captain Phillips” is nothing likea Bruce Willis action-packed film, it isfilled with twists and turns and never-ending suspense that accurately depictsPhillips’s ordeal.

The film opens with Phillips en routeto the airport with his wife (CatherineKeener). He reflects on today’s “changing world” and tough economic climate , in which “thirty people apply for the same job.” Back in his day , he expl ains, people were “able to sit through class and do well

in life,” but now, employers look for ever-distinguished individuals. This expressesthe realities of contemporary societyand intricately ties in the increasingcompetition in the workplace with theincreased demand for higher education.Competition and demand are by nomeans unique to suburbia, however, asthe film later makes clear. The prologueestablishes a contrast between two times,the past and the present. Throughoutthe course of the movie, this contrast broadens and shifts to encapsulate adifference between two worlds — the West and the Underdeveloped.

Greengrass investigates theunderdeveloped nation of Somaliaand analyzes the validity of one’spre-conceived notions surroundingpiracy. It is easy, for instance, to viewpirates as inhuman savages; given thecountless news reports and propagandapieces on the harm that piracy inflictson capitalist economies, it is hard todo otherwise. In “Captain Phillips,”however, Greengrass presents us witha realistic account of Muse, the piratecommander (Barkhad Abdi), and the

other Somalians. Greengrass, true toform, delicately captures the strugglesand realities of life for the pirates and thecrew, as he did in his 2006 film “United93,” which documented the takeoverof United Airlines flight 93 on Sept.11, 2001. The hijackers of the Maersk Alabama had been coerced into piracy by

terrorists, unable to escape the cycle ofpoverty in which they were entrenched.Unchallenged by local governments,terrorist groups present themselves asruthless and imposing . Similarly, the American c rew of the Alabama had littlechoice but to run the gauntlet or join theunemployment queue.

As the tension builds between thecrew and the pirates, Phillips attemptsto negotiate with Muse. He asserts thateveryone has a boss and that, surely,the pirates must have some other wayto earn a living. Muse replies, “Maybe in America…Maybe in America.” Perhapsthe most powerful line in the movie,Muse’s response reveals a shockingtruth. It is easy to picture the Western World as a bubble protected from theperceived evils and poverty of Third World countries. The same bubblesthat delineate countries distinguishescollege campuses from their surroundingcommunities. These bubbles do not markan ignorance of circumstance, but ratheran unwillingness to engage.

In the past 30 years, fundamentalists— largely unchallenged — have

spread across the world like a disease.Governments fueled by unbelievable brutality, ignorance, and superstiti onsuppress education, human rights, andfreedom in countries like Somalia. Thesenations are marked by a regression in values towards marginali zed groups,rather than innovation and growth.

Greengrass masterfully depicconsequences of Western iThe choice is clear. In today’smassed with instant commutechnologies, fundamentalism cancer — will spread even furthunchallenged, and will ultimatto chaos. We, as citizens of a freecannot afford to wait until ourlife and existence is threatened we act. Those who hope to set t back on progress should be con wherever they are, by the goverof neighboring countries, if government of the afflicted countThese radicals, not unique to Sshould be educated and providreal alternatives to terrorism, agriculture or industry. Before bean actor, Barkhad Abdi left Som Yemen at the age of seven, but evhe could not attend school as child. As Americans — leaders of world — it is our duty to take step against terrorism.

“ Captain Phillips” portraysharsh realities well, especiatremendous psychological stra

encounters with terroristic violerepressive governments can p victims. Dashed with the right baHollywood heroism, “Captain Phan entertaining and soul-searchthat compellingly and accuratelythe ordeal of the Maersk Alabaher crew.

PAGE 16

DEBATE & DISCOURSE

'Captain Phillips' Critiques Western Inaction AbroKeon Karimabady

Contributor

“It is easy to picturethe Western World as a

bubble protected from the perceived evils and poverty

of Third World countries.The same bubbles that

delineate countriesdistinguishes collegecampuses from their

surrounding communities.These bubbles do notmark an ignorance of

circumstance, but ratheran unwillingness to

engage.”

“Captain Phillips,” directed by Paul Greengrass, develops a contrast between the ideological assumptions of the West and Underdevloped nwhile humanizing its subjects — Somalian pirates — as individuals motivated to improve their economic and personal security.

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VASSAR CHRONICLE.COM



DEBATE & DISCOURSE

To those of us entangled with thepolitics of our minds, it can bedifcult to imagine opinions

free of thought. And yet, ignorance is boundless. People are stupid; most peoplethink without instruction and with theabsence of criticism. More often thannot, ignorance reects not upon personalcharacter, but rather upon the byproductsof social norms and quieted conversation. Within our industrial modern economy,capital, rather than creativity, dictatesthe production of the cultural class. Setstructures enable set results, and thushegemonic ideals become organizedrealities by way of markets, institutions,and advertisements. In other words,most people lack agency over their veryimaginings. This is especially true when itcomes to issues of gender and identity.

From day one, we are sorted: pink or blue, girl or boy — the estimated two to vepercent transgendered demographic in the

U.S. be damned! If you are intersex, you will likely be reassigned an arbitrary genderto better acclimate to society; it’s binary or bust. As children, we begin to understandourselves within this limited framework; we internalize these differences and beginto expect categorization. The educationsystem only compounds the problem by focusing on standardized testing,memorization, and performance asopposed to understanding, collaboration,and exchange. Questions are encouraged, but only if they touch on core concerns:“You won’t be tested on that; don’t worryabout it,” and “That goes beyond the scopeof the class,” are phrases often heard inthe classroom. Questions, in turn, become vehicles to produce set answers — toolsto further clarify one’s understanding.

What if the answer isn’t enough? What if aquestion necessitates further questioning?

Questions have the capacity to producedialogue, but only if we let them.For example, take the recent debacleregarding V-Day — a movement started by feminist artist and activist Eve Enslerthat aims to “generate broader attentionfor the ght to stop violence against women and girls.” This year, in honorof V-Day, Connecticut College’s Vagina Monologues group produced a video thatasked one question: “Why are vaginasimportant to you?” Interviewing 100 menfrom an array of different backgroundsand sexual orientations, the Vagina Monologues group received a variety ofdifferent responses. They ranged from theimmature:

“Vaginas remind me of Sunday morning breakfast.”

“Because they are the original honeycombhideout.”

“Sometimes, they are good in cartoon, but usually, they are better in real life.”

to the rudimentary:“Because without them, I wouldn’t be

here”“They are warm, cozy, and they’re great!”“I like ‘em a lot. Can’t live without ‘em.”to the reective:“I like solving puzzles, and it’s kind of

like a puzzle.”“Vaginas — they make me kinda

nervous.”“I love seeing ‘em. I love looking at ‘em.”to the oblivious, yet well intentioned:“Vaginas are all about peace and love

and happiness!”“They are the key to consensual love.”

And, nally, to the encouraging:“They are complex. They are beautiful.”“I should be informed more about the

vagina so that I can understand why it’simportant.”

“Vaginas are all different and beautifuland wonderful, as they are unique … Theyare an exploration and they should beloved.”

“Everyone — no matter what race,gender, sexuality, [or] class they belongto — it’s just something everyone should be proud of. Everyone should be happy … And think that [they] are totally kick ass!”

Critics of Ms. Ensler and V-Day havelong noted the project’s cisgender andheteronormative bent. In talking aboutthe vagina, V-Day often equates the vagina with motherhood, livelihood, and

womanhood itself. V-Day efforts have also been criticized for failing to encapsulategreater issues regarding sexuality bynot incorporating the vulva or clitorisinto discussions surrounding sex andsexual violence. Though V-Day does notnecessarily exclude trans* and intersexpeople, it does not explicitly include them,rendering them invisible to the cause andsidelining trans* concerns. According tocritics, in asking men, “Why are vaginasimportant to you?” Connecticut Collegehelped reinforce a narrative of trans*marginalization, in effect committing anact of transphobic violence through themedia.

While I am sympathetic to these claims,I completely disagree with them. Whencasually asking difcult questions, onecannot expect perfectly complex, norcomplete, responses. Soliciting personalperspectives about genitalia is unexpected,at best; to even be willing to answer aquestion about the importance of the vagina demonstrates a profound breakfrom societal conventions of silencesurrounding sex and the body. Howevernormative, thought and discussion aboutthe vagina, about women, or about issuesof sexual violence are necessary in orderto promote further awareness. The videoin question is framed so as to underlinethe awkwardness and radical nature ofthe project; while it doesn’t directly speakto trans* issues, this does not necessarilymean that it is not ultimately allied withtrans* concerns. Granted, the trans*community does not have the luxury ofchoice in regards to being allied withfeminism, whereas feminism has theprivilege to either exclude or includetrans* dialogue, but that being said, toeven begin to conceive of gender outside ofa binary requires rst the acknowledgmentof cisgendered women as equals withinsociety and under the law.

Too often, we do not speak for fearof sounding stupid, but being stupid isnecessary, dare I say, vital, to eventualunderstanding. Without voicing inaccuracyand without giving space to prejudice,

there is no potential for growth, no abilityto unlearn. Instead of condemning andinsulting different understandings, weneed to ask more questions in order toeffectively refocus conversation.

Telling people that they are wrongdoes nothing to engender support. If youoperate under the logic that by ignoring

race, one is racist, or that by ignoring women, one is sexist, or by ignoring class,one is classist, then you poise yourself fordestruction. Labeling others does not aidin reconstructing your own label – it onlyfurther perpetuates systems of differenceintolerant to voices of dissent or confusion. When we begin to label, defenses raise andconversation stops. Name-calling ensues, be it justied or not, and before anyunderstanding can be reached, lines aredrawn and differences are decided.

The Connecticut College video asked asingle question and produced a varietyof responses. The positivity or negativityof these responses is irrelevant; it’s theexistence of the question that matters.The answers given should not be judgedaccording to how well they t into ourpolitically-correct and socially-awareexpectations of dialogue, but should rather be appreciated for providing discourse todissect, learn from, and further question.If the ultimate goal is to have inclusive,productive, and equitable dialogue,then we must be willing to be frustrated. We must be able to explore the painfulassumptions and perspectives of othersif we are ever to have a chance at shiftingsentiments or expanding dialogue.

Perspectives that directly or indirectlysupport intolerance and oppression

only fester when left unsaid. Tthat most people assume that allhave vaginas and that all vaginato women is not an act of violean act of ignorance. While heunderstandings are often compsystems of oppression, and thus vit is excessive to correlate soci

illiteracy with brutality. Furthdoing so ignores the fact that edabout LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, BTrans, Queer, Intersex, and Aissues is a function of privilege. Tof violence is better suited to expof aggression, not answers to quesquestions of answers.

The only way to thwart ignothrough engagement. While it isresponsibility of marginalized grteach others about their oppre bodes well to consider the ability to learn. There is no praxis in signorance. Questions need to be ashould not be disdainful of the aThis doesn’t mean we must accept with which we disagree, but condiscourse is not constructive.

So, why are vaginas important to Vaginas are important to me

they connect me to a larger net beings; my vagina reminds me than animal, and, regardless of attention, or education, cannot escyclical reality of my humanity. Vaimportant to me because they r both incredible power and vulnethey remind me of both strenshame.

Your turn.

Marginalizing Ignorant Voices Harms LGBTQIA ActiviMaya Horowitz

Contributor



The Syrian Civil War has displacedover two million people, morethan half of them women and

children. On Oct. 23, 2013, over 300 African migrants died after a ship

carrying over 500 migrants sank off thecoast of the island of Lampedusa, Italy. Meanwhile, Congress continues to delaycomprehensive immigration reform,despite pressure from the public and President Barack Obama. These events,incidents, and inactions relate to a numberof issues surrounding immigration. Donations have an obligation to its citizensto prevent certain immigrants fromentering? Do countries have a moralobligation to support refugees? How dowe determine who should be allowedto immigrate to a certain country? Inthis Debate of the Month, Debate & Discourse Editor Hannah Matsunaga ’16and contributor Sterling Higa discussthe following question: Ought nationsrecognize the right of refugees displaced

by deadly conict to emigrate? Sterling Higa: First, I’d like to

argue that immigration is benecial anddesirable for nations. Immigrants — often young — supplement aging populationsand are willing to work in unskilledpositions for low wages. These positions,however menial, are preferable forindividuals coming from areas of conict,like Syria. Even the most frustrating jobin America is better than suffering in anovercrowded refugee camp in Jordan orLebanon — countries that border Syriaand are currently struggling with manyof its immigrants. The mass movementof refugee populations exacerbates theinfrastructural shortcomings of politically-unstable and economically-developingregions, as occurred during the Rwandan

Genocide of 1994. Hundreds of thousandsof displaced persons strain resourcesthat are often already stretched thin.Meanwhile, many countries clamorfor inexpensive labor. Practices thatexpedite the immigration process to non-neighboring countries will reduce theeconomic strain and instability produced by large refugee populations in neighboringcountries. At the same time, we can deliverlabor where it is needed, and, as a bonus,increase multiculturalism. In this way,our commitment to preserving humanlife need not conict with selsh nationalinterest. We can have our cosmopolitanand drink it too!

Hannah Matsunaga ’16: Let’sstart with the most important ideathat this debate brings forward — theidea of incentives. The incentives for,amongst other social actors, citizens, the

government, and economic actors created by allowing individuals displaced byconict to immigrate to any country will win this debate because they extend beyondindividual and specic circumstances.Sterling makes a very interesting point when he says that immigrants are a greatsource of unskilled labor because they’re

willing to work in menial conditions forlow wages. While this sort of labor may be a farm or factory owner’s dream, itrequires a deeper analysis of Sterling’sromantic labor model — an analysis of what an inux of displaced and desperate workers would actually do. A pool of poorand unskilled immigrants who would l ikelystruggle with language barriers and cultureshock would be the perfect pool of laborersto exploit. The fact that these immigrants would work the worst jobs that society hasto offer — for very little pay, no less — notonly damages the immigrants themselves by forcing them into poor workingconditions, but actually regresses laborreform because individuals displaced byconict do not have the power or politicalpull in their new country to better their

conditions. This easily-exploitable labor would eliminate incentives for job creatorsto create better working conditions becausedesperation and displacement forces thelowest common denominator of laborersto accept whatever they can get. Why raisethe minimum wage when there’s a steadysupply of immigrants willing to work fornext to nothing?

SH: While exploitation of labor andculture shock may result from this policy, Istill think that the benets would outweighthe costs. First, the alternative countersany moral argument about their treatmentas immigrants. If they remain in their war-torn countries, refugees are likely to die in violent conict or from the ills of famine anddisease, as is happening in Syria right now.Some would choose to stay in their homes,though their country may be ravaged by violence and instability. Those who want a better life should, however, have the choice

to leave. Right now, they have the optionto ee over land borders to countriesovertaxed by supporting refugees, or they

can attempt to navigate the seas, whereit is probable that they will echo the criesof those who drowned off the coast ofLampedusa. Let’s leverage the economicadvantage of this labor pool and encouragecountries that are stable to adopt theserefugees and convert them into productivecitizens. Second of all, helping refugees

leave sites of conict benets regionalstability. Jordan and Lebanon haveshouldered over a million refugees fromthe Syrian conict. This is a tremendous burden for these countries. In the case ofRwanda, refugees ultimately destabilizedthe entire Congo — this destabilization was precipitated by the immense violenceof the First and Second Congo Wars andencouraged by the tumultuous aftermathof the Rwandan Genocide. Sometimes,nations cannot intervene to stop violentconict, but they can mitigate the harmsand instability caused by these conicts by allowing refugees to join societiesin which their human rights will beprotected. Ultimately, adopting this policy would allow us to assist those in needand mitigate instability caused by refugee

overows, despite politics that sometimesprevent direct intervention.HM: The distinction between

intervention – action taken to improve asituation – and mitigation — action takento reduce severity — is a critical one inthis debate. The advocacy proposed by myopponent, which would allow an unlimitednumber of refugees to immigrate anywherein the world, is mitigation of harm — aBand-Aid over an ax wound. It woulddiminish the incentive for warring partiesto end deadly conicts by allowing all ofthe people who have a profound interest inseeing such suffering end to leave, whichdecreases incentives for both local andinternational movements to end ghting.Most distressingly, however, is the fact thatthe people who are emigrating are exactly

the people that conict-torn regions willneed once the conict ends. Sterlingseems particularly tormented by the ideaof refugees immigrating to countries thatare nearby, giving the example of Syrianrefugees eeing to Jordan and Lebanon, but what happens when the civil war is over? What happens when Syria needs doctors,lawyers, farmers, and electrical engineers?Immigration to nearby countries is positive because it allows for the possibility ofrebuilding after conict, whereas allowingrefugees to ee to any country would pushpeople like the Syrians far away from Syria,creating a brain drain and crippling thepossibility of infrastructure restoration.This kind of a brain drain is just a perverseecho of colonial and imperialist practicesthat stole valuable resources from the

underdeveloped world for the benet ofthe developed world. Only this time, the valuable resources being stolen are the

people capable of rebuilding a nation.

SH: I think we disagree on people are humans with rights or rto be exploited. Unfortunately forher opposition to granting victimsconict the right to emigrate more dehumanizing than my p

When we sentence a person to in life based on their country we deny them their rights as humHannah’s rst point — that mdecreases chances of interventionthat personalizing foreign conicmore to end them than rhetoric a When your neighbor is a Syrian your perspective changes. Youlonger afford to dismiss far-ung This change in perspective increases advocacy and bolstersfor intervention, bringing a speeto conicts. To Hannah’s seconabout brain drain: a policy that wall people, including those willinglow-wage jobs, helps to humanizeimmigration policies of acceptprofessionals. I believe that al

should have the opportunity totheir livelihood without fear of or any other type of violent regardless of the skills they poseems especially dehumanizing certain individuals to stay and diethey supposedly have more to off world than others. Yes, Syria has doing well recently, and I’d want but neighboring Iraq is not exactlyeither. Pretending that violent happen outside the context of instability is silly. In closing, this policy would benet all stakeNations receiving immigrants catheir national interests, immigrahave to suffer human rights abusin overcrowded refugee camps, personalization of foreign con

bring speedier intervention and rto those conicts.

HM: Sadly, the clash in this denot centered on the central quesrather between reality and fantasyframes the key issue in this debata false dichotomy — between a prosperous life or a certain defor people displaced by conict to be hard, regardless of theircircumstances, but it is still bthose people to be in circumstanctheir labor is not exploited — whidangerous precedent for other latheir new countries — where thehuman capital of a region is noaway, and where they can help toa war-torn region. This side of thenvisions a world where those af

conict are empowered rather thaaside. As the old cliché goes, therein numbers.

PAGE 18

DEBATE & DISCOURSE

Debate: Ought Nations Allow Refugees to EmigratHannah Matsunaga, Debate & Discourse Editor

Sterling Higa, Contributor

DO YOU ENJOY THE KIND OF DEBATE FOUND IN THIS SECTION?

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“Immigration to nearbycountries is positive becauseit allows for the possibilityof rebuilding after conict,whereas allowing refugees

to ee to any country would push people like the Syrians

far away from Syria,creating a brain drain andcrippling the possibility ofinfrastructure restoration.



HUMOUR

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dee Adam NinyoContributor

Once, when I was around ve years old,my mom served me a plate of rice and Itold her, “Mommy, I like your rice betterthan Daddy’s.”

“Why is that, honey?”“Because you always end up burning it!”I always think back to my excited

proclamation that I enjoyed miscookedfood whenever I eat badly-burned rice —it gives me a warm, fuzzy, and nostalgicfeeling inside. In a strange way, theDeece gives me the same feeling, thoughI simultaneously rant about how muchI hate it. By the end of my rst week at Vassar, I was growing bored of the smallselection of mediocre and processed-tasting food, but by the end of my second week, I had started to delude myself thatthe food wasn’t actually that bad. I toldmyself that it was “good, compared tomost college food,” which, admittedly, itis. Now, I’ve found a reason to love theDeece: that warm fuzzy feeling it gives

me — except when that feeling is actuallyfood poisoning. The Deece seems to be aconstant in Vassar’s crazy world, just likemy mom’s (delicious) burnt rice was aconstant at home.

Whenever I go to the Deece, I count oncertain items to always be there and alwaystaste the same, like the pizza that’s alwaystoo soft, fragments near the crust, and hascheese that slides off the sauce and directlyonto whatever shirt I’m wearing. I can

always count on the stir-fry to be prepared with the same ingredients and sauces. Ican always expect a steady rotation ofnondescript items, like the fancifully titled,“Bistro Chicken Sandwich,” which is really just a grilled chicken sandwich with somemayonnaise on it.

In a screwed-up, Orwellian way, I love theregularity of the Deece and take solace inits consistency; even if I don’t necessarilylike it, I know what I’m going to get. Aftera long day of classes and papers, I lookforward to a nice, hot plate — or maybeve — of the Deece’s food. The Deece’smonotony adds an element of stability tomy life at Vassar. I don’t know which gradeI’m going to get on my next paper and I’musually scrambling to nd stuff to do on a weekend; however, with the Deece, I can

take comfort in the fact that some things— or most things, in the case of the Deece— never change.

I’ve even started to warm up to someof the Deece’s options. As a borderline-carnivorous foodie, I have always had anaversion to salad bars, but in my weeks at

Vassar, I’ve learned that the salad bar is agreat place to pick up wilted lettuce andover-ripe tomatoes for burnt paninis.

A side effect of my growing love forDeece food is that I have started to becomeoverly-defensive of its many splendors. A friend of mine from high school toured Vassar a few weeks ago with his momand they insisted on eating at the Deecefor lunch. As my friend’s mom glancedat the food on my plate, she took explicitnote, with more than a hint of disdain, of

the “sad little piece of chicken sin barbecue sauce” that lay on mygrew a bit defensive, thinking, “Ymay be a sad little piece of chicthat’s my sad little piece of chicke

The Deece has been an essenof my overall Vassar experience

I respect the Deece the same respects the kid in gym class w way too hard in gym class but is uunsuccessful at everything — okayI was that kid; here’s looking Vassar Athletics! The Deece masuccessful in everything it tries toat times, it may trip over itself in ways (please never serve meatloa but you have to admire its gumptgumbo). Stay classy, Deece. Stay c

Janet Napolitano Commits $5 Million to Undocumented Stude


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/vassar-chronicle-november-2013 20/20

THE LAST PAGE“W HO’S HE KIDDING? HE’S NO GENTLEMAN. HE HAS MY PANTIES.”

— E.L. J AMES, F IFTY S HADES OF G REY

Fifty Shades of Boehner

A g e n t O r a n g e

B e e t r o o t

C h e e t o ™

C ar r o t

C r e am s i c l e

P um pk i n

Beetroot (embarassed): Boehner's face after hearing his name

mispronounced by yet another high school tour group in the Capitol.

Agent Orange (angry): The Ohio General Assembly

gerrymandered Boehner's district into Cleveland.

Cheeto™ (horny): Boehner's feeling amin' hot. Somebody call

Creamsicle (relaxed): The Tea Party announces that they're

hosting a farewell tea party.

Carrot (normal): John Boehner after sitting in the sun for a week-

long "caucus" in Florida.

Pumpkin (sad): Newt Gingrich squashed Boehner's feelings after

John Boehner's skin tone changes color – all shades of orange – based on his mood and the current political situationin Congress. Pictured above are some of his most common colorations. Below, we've described what they mean.

Documents

Vassar Chronicle, November 2013