An important note: All opinions and ideas expressed in The Podium are the personal opinions and convictions of featured student writers and are not necessarily the opinions of The Podium staff, the Belmont Hill History Department, or the Belmont Hill School itself.
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Dear Reader, In the inaugural edition of Volume IV, The Podium staff has sought to maintain the modifications established in Volume III - Edition II. For our second Featured Person, Griffin Hamilton ‘20 and Liam Kelly ‘20 have profiled Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a piece which traces her journey from the Bronx to Capitol Hill. For the History on the Hill section, Charlie Wells ‘21 has profiled a Belmont Hill legend, Ted Martellini, who has been a mainstay on campus for 36 years. Two Op-Eds are included in Volume IV - Edition I. Luke Carroll ‘22 won the first competition of the year with his essay titled “The (Blue) Green Wave.” Here, Luke lays out his predictions for the 2018 Midterm Elections and details both the aims of Democrats and Republicans at the halfway mark of the Trump Administration. In the second competition of the year, Jake Pappo ‘20 won with a piece titled “Harvard and Affirmative Action” concerning Affirmative Action in the United States and the recent Harvard University lawsuit that shook the country. In addition to these three sections, Volume IV -Edition I contains the top research papers, provided by the History Department, from the first semester. Two polling projects are also included. In the first, Abe Tolkoff ‘21 ask the community to fill out mock Massachusetts ballots and responds to its choices. The second, conducted by Jack Curtin ‘20, seeks to uncover the opinions of the community around the recent government shutdown. As politics and society continue to become increasingly intertwined in the United States, The Podium hopes to continue to promote an open dialogue on campus around current events and tackle the issues that face our world head-on. We would also like to remind the community of the importance of having civilized debate, respectfully challenging others opinions, and remembering that we all have the right to speak freely. Jeff Segel ‘20 –– Editor-in-Chief Liam Kelly ‘20, Max Barton ‘20 –– Executive Editors Jack Weldon ‘20 –– Head of Design Dan Madden ‘20 –– Content Coordinator
From left to right: Griffin Hamilton, Jack Curtin, Liam Kelly, Dan Madden, Jack Weldon, Max Barton, Jeff Segel, Declan McDonough, Brady Chitkara, Jake Pappo, Abe Tolkoff, Mr. Harvey
Volume IV • Edition I
March 2019
The Podium | Letter from the Staff
Letter from the Staff
Content
Edition I
01 History on the Hill Ted Martellini
09
1
Charlie Wells ‘21
5
Griffin Hamilton ‘20, Liam Kelly ‘20
7 8
Luke Carroll ‘22 Jake Pappo ‘20
9
Jack Flynn ‘20
14
Luke Wagner ‘22
19
Christian Eikeboom ‘21
24
Shane Rockett ‘19
29
Aaron Belluck ‘21
Government Shutdown 37 2018 Midterm Elections 40
Jack Curtin ‘20
Featured Person
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
05
Opinion Pieces The (Blue) Green Wave Affirmative Action
12
Research Papers
Crusading in the Middle Ages Assessing the One Child Policy Catholicism Influenced the Rhineland Thawed Out: Prospects of War in Donbass Becoming a Rebutter-in-Chief
47
Data Analysis Jake Pappo ‘20 Griffin Hamilton ‘20
Nominations
For Research Papers and Essays
Form III
World Issues
China’s One Belt, One Road in Iran China’s Ebbing Workforce
Form IV
Matt Travaglini ‘21
Economics Italian Debt Crisis
Form VI
Howard Huang ‘22
English True Faith
Form VI
Ben Trotsky ‘22
Robert Pare ‘19
International Relations
Crises, Conflicts, and Corruption Threaten Congo
Thomas McEvoy ‘19
Thank you to the History Department for their assistance in identifying strong essays and papers. Their dedication to The Podium is vital to the success of the final publication.
He made the two hour drive down to Suffield Connecticut and interviewed Ted Martellini is the epitome of, with the headmaster, Ken Windfors, “not well, Ted Martellini. An individual to even really knowing what the job was the core, no one word can describe him. for.” Five other teachers were applying A family man, he married his wife, Janfor the job, one of whom had taught for et, thirty-one years ago and has had one more than ten years prior. The next day, son, Marco. He jokes, often giving kids he got a call from the headmaster offernicknames such as medium-rare for John ing him the job. He always had been good Weldon (well-done) or telling funny jokes at math, and he loved sports, so he was and anecdotes in class. An outdoorsman, excited to coach, JV basketball, JV soccer, he enjoys biking cross country, or camp- and to be the assistant coach for varsity ing and hiking with Janet. A traveler, he lacrosse. There, at Suffield, he found his has visited places all around the world, love for teaching, especially the teachranging from Italy to Australia, and he er-coach model. He also found a mentor, now travels with Janet, a former member Abe Samii, whose style of teaching, with of the peace corps. But above all else, Ted joking and anecdotes interwoven into Martellini has taught and coached for the class, heavily influenced his own, to forty-one years, thirty six of which he has this day. spent at Belmont Hill. As he walked into the classroom When he came out of Tufts college for our interview, his lanky, 6’ 3” frame in 1974, Ted Martellini had a degree in towering over the students seated computer programming. He spent two throughout the room, there was a sudden years traveling the world and spending explosion of chatter: “Mr. Martellini, how time outside, camping and hiking and do I do this?” “Mr. Martellini, can you such, which has grown into a lifelong look over this?” “Mr. Martellini, I’ve been passion, even to this day “I was talking to waiting for ten minutes!” He walked over some parents the other night, and they to his chair, sat down and said, “Everywere like ‘so who carries your stuff for body clear out, I’ve got this interview you?’ and ‘who cooks for you?’ or ‘who with Samma and Wells.” Disappointed sets up your tent?’ and there are like these murmuring followed, as fifteen students fancy bike trips where you can have peo- all filed out of his room, a few of the ple carry all your stuff for you, and go up braver students voicing their dissonance ahead and set it up, but I do it all myself.” a little louder. He took a deep breath and After those years, in 1976, he found a job combed a hand through his curly black at ITNT, writing programs tracking the hair. Throughout his thirty-six years at sales of semiconductors, “which are little Belmont Hill, Mr. Martellini has calmly, freaking chips that are like, in everything. and stoically dealt with that same 2:15 There’s probably a semiconductor in this chatter nearly every day. When he did a mug!” Although his roots were in comput- teacher exchange program in Australia, er programming, he hated his job there. in 1989, he learned that not all students One day, his longtime friend from coland schools burst with the same ramlege and high school, Dale Garden, asked bunctious energy Belmont Hill boys do. him if he would like to come down and “We [He and his wife] arrived, and they interview for a job at Suffield Academy, were like throwing a big going away parwhere he was working. A teacher/coach ty for the guy I’m replacing, and I show Volume IV • Edition I
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Author- Charlie Wells ‘21 had gotten sick, and the school desperSection-Research Papers ately needed a last minute replacement.
The Podium | History on the Hill
Profile: Ted Martellini
up, and obviously the people there are like the teachers at the school, and so I meet everyone, and I’m like teaching the next freakin day! And, because they do things differently there, the guy stayed with us for one day, and you know, showed us all the classes. On my second day, I walk into a class, and the kids all stand up when the teacher walks in, not exactly like Belmont Hill, and I’m getting organized, because you don’t have one specific classroom, and they’re still standing, and one of the kids goes, ‘you have to tell us to sit down, sir,’ and I’m like ah! Not exactly my style of teaching as you guys know.” Another big part of Mr. Martellini’s career has been coaching. After coaching at Suffield, he grew to love the teacher/coach model, and because of that, became the coach of the basketball team while in Australia as well. “When we landed there we had a visa, and we had it for exactly one year after we landed, and so I started teaching like August fifth, and I planned to spend the year there and come back here with a little vacation left. But that’s when basketball season was down there, because this winter, and I had a really good team, and it was funny, we used to press and trap everywhere and coaches would be like ‘you can’t do that, that’s illegal!’” He laid back in his chair, and chuckled, before beginning to speak again “They were tremendous shooters, tremendous athletes, but they all played zone defense, and we were pressing man-man, and we were winning. The games were only played once a week, they were on Saturday, and there were like four rounds. And after we won the first round, I had to go home, because my visa had expired, but it so happened that one of the players on my team, his dad was the premier of Victoria, which is like the governor. So anyway, the guy gives us an emergency visa for one more week, and we win again and so I get another visa. And the funny thing was that paperwork never got done, but since he was the premier, he could just be like ‘Gink!’ and it would go through. So we end up getting extended like three weeks, and we finally get to the finals and we won, and it was like a Saturday, and Belmont Hill started on like the MonVolume IV • Edition I
day. I thought I was gonna have three weeks to get ready, so literally the entire basketball team and their parents drive us to the airport, packed and ready to go at the end of the game, and it’s like a twenty-two hour flight, and I get home Sunday night, and I couldn’t be more zombie, and I’m teaching again on Monday!” At the beginning of that year, the math department, at least according to Robert Brownell, would poke fun at Mr. Martellini for missing out on his vacation entirely. Although they like to joke around, the math department is really a group of close knit friends, with Mr. Martellini near the center as the second most veteran member of the department after Michael Sherman. His fellow faculty member since 1992, Christopher Sweeny said about Mr. Martellini’s impact on him personally, and the math department as a whole, “I have always admired the way Mr. Martellini goes about writing tests and other assessments. We have worked together on exams for many years, and he has an incredible ability to make up problems or find the perfect way to see if a student can illustrate his knowledge of a topic. About twenty-five years ago, Mr. Sherman went on sabbatical and left Mr. Martellini to cover his sections of Calculus BC and Analysis (today’s Pre Calc A). In scheduling teachers for the next year, Mr. Martellini told Mr. Sherman that he should “share the wealth”. When Mr. Sherman asked Mr. Martellini ‘What should I do with the Analysis class?’, his quick response was ‘give it to Sweeney’. That single leap of faith by Mr. Martellini changed my career and helped me to continually strive to live up to his expectations of me. Mr. Martellini is certainly loved by his students, but the admiration and respect he has earned from the math faculty is incredible.” Long-time student of his John Weldon said: “What makes Mr. Martellini special is how well he understands each of his students. He’s keyed into your mood and will be there to laugh with you when you’re up and support you when you’re down. Beyond being a great teacher, Mr. Martellini is a great friend.” A few years after his time in Australia, in 1994, Mr. Martellini chose to move for 2
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a year out to Missoula, Montana for some time off with his family. His first and only son, Marco, had just been born, and after passing through Missoula multiple times on cross-country bike trips, he decided it would be the perfect place to spend some time. “If you haven’t been to Missoula, you should. Five rivers converge there, it’s surrounded by mountains and there’s forest everywhere.” But, while in Missoula he still needed to find a job for renting out a home and such. He decided that he wanted to work at a bike shop, to have a job that focused so heavily on one of his main hobbies. While searching for a job, however, he happened to walk across the University of Montana, and decided to check out the math building. In there, he met the head of the math department, and after telling him what he did for a living, he was offered a job to help rewrite the public high school math curriculum. The Federal Government had recently given the University a massive grant to do this, and they had been searching for math teachers from around the country. While working with the UofM, he was given a free ride through graduate school as well. However, to get a graduate degree in math takes two years, and his sabbatical only lasted one. When he told Dr. Melvoin, who had only recently been made headmaster, that he was planning to stay in Montana, Dr. Melvoin quickly offered to extend his sabbatical one more year. Because of the admiration he had earned from the math department, his students, and the school in general, the new headmaster, despite the fact that he did not know Mr. Martellini very well, knew losing him would be a detriment to the whole school. At the end of his two years in Montana, Mr. and Mrs. Martellini had completely fallen in love with the beauty of Montana. Despite the blue sky, constant hiking, beautiful mountains, trees, and rivers all around them, and his wife’s best wishes, “I had to pretty much drag her out of there,” Mr. Martellini felt an obligation to return to the Belmont Hill, because Dr. Melvoin had been so kind to him. Just as he was very fortunate to find his job at UofM, he was also very lucky to have Volume IV • Edition I
found a job returning home from Italy in 1981. “But after I had taught [in Italy] for two years, I stayed there for probably about six months, until I had about three dollars left. I bought a plane ticket home, and flew home around December twentieth, and you know, classic lucky break, my mother picks me up at the airport, and she says: ‘you won’t believe what just happened.’ I hadn’t seen my mother in a few years, and so there’s this guy, Dick Peters, creator of one of the Bibles [what he calls his favorite math books], head of the math department over at Phillips Andover, and my mother lives in Andover, and runs a clothing store over there, and this guy’s wife comes in there every so often. Well, it so happened that this guy stepped down from his position at Andover, and went to go teach at Moses Brown, in Rhode Island, because his son had had a kid down in Providence, and he had gone down to help him. He was like a math god, and unfortunately, he had slipped on some ice and broke his hip, and retired from teaching like the day I got back, or I guess the day before. And so his wife comes in to my mom’s store, and she tells her the story, and my mom is like ‘holy crap, my son is flying home, he doesn’t have a job, and he has like no money.’ So I land, call up Moses Brown, got a job. I started like second semester, and so I was very lucky, I thought I was gonna be working at like McD’s at this point.” After working at Moses Brown for half a year, Mr. Martellini finally found his way to Belmont Hill. There, he has taught math for thirty-six years, coached varsity basketball and fifth lacrosse for the same time, and fifth soccer for twenty. In this time, he has developed great skills in bringing out the best in boys, both on the field/court, and in the classroom. He has coached basketball alongside Corey Cofield for the past two years, and although he is moving down from coaching varsity this year, he has taught much to his fellow coaches, coaches Murphy and Cofield. Coach Cofield said about him: “It was a joy to coach alongside Coach Martellini the past two years. His knowledge of the game is invaluable and the boys, who have played under him, are 3
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lucky to have had his guidance throughout the years. Coach Marto, as he is often called, truly enjoys coaching boys as is seen with his excitement everyday in practice. Not only does Mr. Martellini have a keen sense of x’s and o’s, he also has a knack for getting the most out his players. His humor and fun spirit encourage the boys to have fun and enjoy playing the sport of basketball. His pregame rituals of Twizzlers and cough drops will be missed as he will not be on the bench next season. Having coached for more than twenty years, there isn’t much that phases or surprises Coach Marto. He has a calm demeanor is appreciated during the anxious and stressful times during the season. I, personally, have learned a lot from him and have adopted some his coaching style into my own.” Halfway through our second interview, Mr. Martellini’s fellow math teacher, Robert Brownell, walked in. As Mr. Martellini’s sharp, hazel eyes followed him into the room, Mr. Brownell said: “Ooh, profile interview.” He started talking about Mr. Martellini’s trip to Australia, and how when Mr. Martellini’s Australian counterpart, Jeff Gweans, left to return home, he gave the car for safekeeping to a couple of members of the math department. He stopped to munch on a cookie Mr. Martellini had given him. Thus, Mr. Brownell took out his car, a tiny little Honda Civic, “a little roller skate looking thing,” and did a road trip around the USA in it. And so, when he came back, Mr. Martellini’s car had an extra 15,000 miles on it on top of those that Gweans had driven. Later, another math department member, Jeremiah McCarthy, walked into the room and sat down to join the fray. This is not an isolated occurrence. Often, the teachers of the math department will simply walk into one another’s classes if they have a free. During my class, for example, nearly every member of the math faculty has visited Mr. Martellini’s class, some at least once a week. Despite the joking and pranks, such as Mr. Brownell driving Mr. Martellini’s car around the country, the math department as a whole has likely the tightest knit friendship Volume IV • Edition I
throughout the school. This is in large part due to the friendship Mr. Martellini extends to all the members of the math department, especially when they are new, like giving Mr. Sweeney the Analysis class. He describes himself as “A parent, teacher, good friend, lover of dogs, and a bicyclist,” and through thirty-six years of teaching, friendship, and sometimes dogs, he has created at Belmont Hill an incredibly close knit group of friends, cowerkers, and students alike, truly defining the math department.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not have the typical upbringing of a politician. She was born in the Bronx on October 13, 1989, to a Puerto Rican and Catholic family. Her family was never wealthy, and she attended Yorktown high school and later, Boston University. After college, she interned in the immigration office of Senator Ted Kennedy. She was often relied on to take tough calls due to her ability to speak Spanish. She moved back to Manhattan and worked as a waitress and a bartender while her mother cleaned houses and drove school buses. Her father died of lung cancer while she was at BU. Alexandria and her mother lived paycheck to paycheck and barely avoided the foreclosure of their home. All of these factors would make it very difficult for someone to start or even win a political campaign. Alexandria managed to overcome these struggles and was passionate about helping her community before her run for the House. Alexandria started a publishing company for books about the Bronx that portrayed it in a positive light. She also worked for the National Hispanic Institute. In 2016, she volunteered for the Bernie Sanders campaign. She was inspired to help her community and enter politics after visiting Flint, MI and the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota. She decided to run for the House of Representatives in 2018. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez started her campaign while she was still working as a waitress. She would canvass in between shifts and often struggled to afford necessities. One of her customers at the bar helped to create fliers and other materials. She wanted to run a “grassroots campaign that puts people above party.” The incumbent, Joe Crowley, had a
75% of her donations were small individual ones. Latino activists from the 20th century, such as Cesar Chavez, inspired her campaign posters. The Bronx showed overwhelming support for her and placed her posters all over the neighborhood. Joe Crowley was endorsed by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Senator Chuck Schumer. Cortez was endorsed by many progressive movements such as Black lives matter and Justice Democrats. This support is significant because it shows the Democratic establishment’s support for Crowley while Cortez had the support of younger far-left movements. She ran on a platform of supporting the disenfranchised and eventually won the election. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez received 57.13% of the votes while Joe Crowley received only 42.5%. The election was widely considered an impressive upset because of the incumbent lost by nearly 15%. She was also at a significant economic disadvantage and appeared in many headlines immediately after the election. Bernie Sanders congratulated her by saying “She took on the entire Democratic establishment in her district and won a very strong victory.” She had volunteered for Bernie in the past, and many of their ideologies are similar. The official election was a complete landslide due to the widely democratic district. She won by a margin of 78% to 14%. She became the youngest woman (29) to be elected to the House of Representatives. After defeating Joe Crowley, she exploded in popularity. She was a guest on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and also The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. However, not all of her attention was positive though. Right-leaning news organizations such as Fox News criticized her age and financial status and claimed that she
The Podium | Featured Person
Author- Griffin Hamilton significant financial advantage. His campaign spent 3.4 million dollars while her ‘20, Liam Kelly ‘20 Section-Research Papers campaign spent 194,000 dollars. Around
was unfit for office. Cortez believed this was a double standard due to the Republican party’s support for Paul Ryan when he was 28. She has amassed a huge social media following and had more than 2.6 million followers on Twitter. This amount is around 1 million more than Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the house. This following has allowed her to have much more influence than the average new congressperson. Cortez identifies as a Democratic-Socialist. She believes in creating a form of socialism that is similar to Norway or Sweden. She supports socialized healthcare, free college tuition, abolishing ICE, and enacting gun control legislation. Climate change is also a priority for her. She describes it as “the single biggest national security threat for the United States and the single biggest threat to worldwide industrialized civilization.” One of her main goals as a politician is the “Green New Deal.” This plan would involve the federal government investing heavily in renewable energy. Another one of her most controversial
policy proposals has been a 70 percent marginal tax rate that would only apply to income over 10 million dollars per year. She believes that this money would be essential in funding the Green New Deal. She has been an avid supporter of creating a more accessible path to citizenship for prospective immigrants as well. Overall, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents a younger and more liberal Democratic party, and she has been able to connect to many people in a way that few other politicians can. She managed to win a National election with very little funding and has supported policies that are designed to help the lower and middle class. Her Twitter presence has also been an impetus for her success, and at only 29, she can navigate social media with greater ease. However, she has also been criticized heavily by many on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Her policies are polarizing for many, and she will undoubtedly be making headlines for the foreseeable future.
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The (Blue) Green Wave failed to garner more than 50% in his nearly two years in office. With a fractured and less popular Republican Party, Democrats are prepared to take back Congress. But Democrats should be wary of their own party’s The 2018 Midterm Elections, besides divisions, which, if they do take the House, deciding which party will be in power for the could come to fruition. In red districts, hopeful democrats have next two years, will reflect the nation’s opinmoved towards the center, and often strayed ions on President Trump. Approval ratings from party lines. On the other hand, more for the president are historically low, and, liberal Democrats in already democratic discombined with strong polls for democratic approval (some leading Republicans by more tricts have gained popularity, like Alexandria than 12%), it’s no surprise that talks of a “Blue Ocasio-Cortez. Both sides mostly agree that Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, Wave” have consumed the nation. Despite should be replaced. The battle for who will needing to take 23 seats to flip the House and 3 to win the Senate (while defending 26), be the next Majority Leader could take place Democrats are steadfastly confident. Howev- between Pelosi and her shrinking group of er, these polls aren’t the only things that may supporters, the moderate Democrats, and the swing the midterms in the Democrats’ favor. rapidly growing group of liberal Democrats. Both record fundraising and faltering Repub- Though these divisions may be less accenlican support could mean a blue Congress in tuated than conservative and moderate in the Republican Party, Democrats are gearing 2019, but, whether or not they do gain control, a threat of division among them looms up for a House battle between themselves, which could serve as a roadblock to their over the party. Record-breaking fundraising in the Dem- greater ambitions. All things considered, Democrats are likely ocratic Party is what could ultimately proto take the House and could possibly flip the pel them towards a November victory. The Senate. The combination of unprecedented Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee alone has already raised $15.4 million, and massive donations, stronger support $4.4 million more than the entire 2016 cycle. than in previous decades, and flounderMoreover, in just the 70 most contested races ing Republican approval in contested races means that at least some victory is inevitain the country, Democrats have reserved nearly twice as much for TV advertising ($109 ble. However, polls after the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh showed million) than Republicans ($60 million). In total, Democrats have raised nearly $150 mil- some gains for Republicans. Still, Democrats lion more than Republicans in 2018. Though are being flooded with donations and still have the edge over Republicans. The only money isn’t everything, advertisement and spreading awareness have allowed Democrats certain outcome of the elections, though, will in currently red districts or states to gain the be more political division. Whatever the case, it is essential that both parties work together edge over their Republican counterparts. to accomplish something for the people they Democrats, it seems, are winning just as much as Republicans are losing - in the polls, represent.
The Podium | Opinion Pieces
Author-Luke Carroll ‘22 Section-Opinion Pieces
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so far. Just as younger and minority voters (leaning Democrat) are more energized than they have been in decades, the percent of older (more Republican) voters that plan to vote has plateaued. Republicans, though they’ve tried fervently, have failed to energize their base to the degree that Democrats have been able to. Also, midterms tend to reflect the nation’s approval of the president who has
Affirmative Action nity should beget diversity, as opposed to it being a glorified product of racial discrimination.
Author- Jake Pappo ‘20 Section-Opinion Pieces Affirmative action is defined as “the practice or policy of favoring individuals belonging to groups known to have been discriminated against previously” and has received incredible attention through a recent lawsuit against Harvard University. This prestigious college has been accused of limiting its number of Asian-American students, partially justifying this through subjective grading systems for applicants, such as a “personal rating.” The ruling on this case will undoubtedly set a major precedent for the role of race in college admissions; however, the problem itself presents society with an interesting paradox. Race relations in America have led to an increased focus on equality and diversity in recent years. As a result, these two ideas have gone hand-in-hand with one another, almost to the point of perceived synonymity; however, this affirmative action reminds everyone of their contrasting concepts by bringing them into direct opposition with one another. As seen in the lawsuit against Harvard, Harvard has been accused of limiting equality for the sake of diversity. On one hand, the college gives students of a desirable ethnicity an advantage over students whose “racial quota” has been reached, thus failing to give everyone a fair chance. On the other hand, if Harvard turns to a “color-blind” admission process, the result will most likely be a disproportionately high number of Asian students, which will, in turn, cause embittered people of other races to assault the school for not fostering a diverse student body. This rare dilemma serves as a reminder that a balance between equality and diversity must be found in order to resolve issues of this nature. Definitively ending affirmative action, first at the college level, will be a great step toward discrediting the widely misinterpreted belief that diversity is equivalent to equality. Though it will not always work out perfectly, as seen in this case, equal opportuVolume IV • Edition I
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Introduction: The Crusading movement of Europe began in the early 1090s and had a substantial impact on the lives of all people in all of Europe. The movement was not contained to only religion, as it had a profound effect on the political and economic structure of European life.1 The movement even found a role in art, as artists of all different backgrounds came together to create new expressions as a mark of the time period.2 The Christians of Europe, in particular, interpreted the Crusading movement as a means of “salvation”.3 Both spiritual and real-life rewards were promised to those members of the church.4 Those rewards included indulgence, the forgiveness of sins, “plunder from conquest,” exemption of debts, exemption of taxes, and political power.5 The Christian Church desperately wanted to expand and influence to as much of Europe as possible, with its tempting rewards and harsh opposition. The Christians made clear that any member of another faith or anyone who questioned the authority of the Pope Was a clear threat and enemy to the church.6 The highest members had a Church maintained a stronghold of its followers creating a highly devout group of thousands.7 In 1096 Pope Urban II called for Christians of Europe to regain control of the Holy Land and to strengthen the Byzantine Empire which the Muslim Seljuk Turks had attacked.8 The Pope offered absolution, meaning forgiveness from God for any sins that had committed in one’s past, for any man or woman who would participate in this crusade.9 These religious wars carried on from 1096 until 1291.10 The slaughtering and brutal treatment of both Muslim people, and Jews along the way by the Christians raises questions about the ethics of religious motives and perspectives in terms of war. For the Christians, the orders of the Pope and the social devotion to the Christian “brotherhood” Volume IV • Edition I
contributed to an offensive mindset throughout the Holy Wars, while the Muslims pushed back in an effort to maintain faith and their land, in what was a defensive perspective. Christian Background and Perspective: Following the inspiring speech of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095, the people of the Christian faith were ready to go to war and take back what was theirs. A man named Bishop Adhemar was said to have fallen to his knees in front of the Pope to promising to “lead any willing Christian to reclaim the Holy Land for Christ.”11 The pieces of the puzzle were falling together nicely for the Pope, though his motives and claims about the Holy Land appeared to be not entirely genuine. For about the last four hundred years Muslims had peacefully inhabited the Holy Lands.12 Urban II had made numerous statements in his speech regarding “atrocities” the Muslims had committed, which actually had little to no proof supporting them.13 The Pope’s current Political state had been seeing a steady decline in relevance thanks to the war against the Holy Roman Emperor, who had their own Pope, Clement III claiming to be the rightful Pope.14 Urban II was not even allowed to enter Rome on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor.15 His message was to unite Christianity by fighting a common enemy rather than fighting a war among themselves. It appears obvious that this decision was very self-centered as March 2019
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Author-Jack Flynn ‘22 Section-Research Papers
The Podium | Research Papers
Crusading in the Middle Ages
the one true benefit at all would be Pope Urban II regaining some of his political power back in the Church. Urban II was intelligent enough to realize that not only did there need to be insensitive to fight this war for him, but the message needed to reach the right group of people. Urban offered up absolution of sin to any man that would join him in combat, which in itself was the perfect offer because the majority of these people seeking forgiveness were the trained warriors who yearned to wipe clean their past.16 These men had the ability to achieve absolution in the eyes of God simply by doing what they knew how to best. As many successful leaders have done in History, Pope Urban II took complete control of this time period. The world he lived in completely revolved around faith and the word of the Lord, which was exactly what he offered. One major issue with the proclamation of absolution that arose were some of the personnel the movement was picking up.17 Peter the Hermit of France was eager to help the cause, spreading horrible rumors of horrendous crimes committed by Muslims to peasants compelling them to leave their homes and join the cause.18 Another group of French peasants were similarly led by a man named Walter Sans Avoir left for the Holy land slightly before Peter the Hermit.19 These two groups were followed by two additional self-governed groups of peasants from both Belgrade and Constantinople.20 The fighting and the journey itself had a profound cost that could not be supported by an overwhelming majority of the Crusaders.21 Before the fighting even began a great economic debt was beginning to pile up in Europe, that was soon to be in conjunction with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and the complete destruction of cities and towns.22 Urban II had an astonishing number of Crusaders joining the cause, but once again, they were not the people he was necessarily looking for or ones who deserved any sliver of absolution and forgiveness. The “People’s Crusade” was underway and there was no turning back now as many Crusaders made it into Belgrade several months before the Byzantine empire had expected.23 The Empire was also Volume IV • Edition I
surprised to see that so many of these so called Crusaders were not even soldiers, but rather unarmed peasants and common folk.24 The people of the Byzantine empire refused to let the mobs of Crusaders into their home until they received confirmation from Constantinople.25 After waiting around outside of the city walls, the Crusaders started to rob and destroy numerous villages along the Belgrade countryside due to their own lack of supplies.26 It became abundantly clear that the vast majority of people who were fighting Pope Urban’s were going to abuse their opportunity at hand, to essentially do whatever they pleased. The last and arguably the most important piece of the Crusade came from a people following Count Emicho of Germany.27 Inspired by Peter, the Hermit Emicho set out to bring a group of men to join the Crusaders and take back the Holy Land before their journey took a turn.28 Shortly after Emicho and his men left Germany they stopped in Jerusalem and decided to slaughter and pillage unarmed Jewish citizens and their cities, rather than voyage all the way to the Holy Land.29 The Christian Church was in total agreement that the acts committed in Jerusalem were horrible and completely unjust, but it made certain that Pope Urban’s message had been misconstrued by some and was likely to once again in the future.30 Nonetheless, thousands of European Jews had been slaughtered for no good reason at all, certainly not one that had to do with the Christian Church. The Brotherhood was growing, whether it was for better or for worse the Crusaders grew in numbers and gold and were only getting stronger on their route to the Holy Land. The acts committed upon arrival were very similar to those carried out by Emicho’s group in Jerusalem, but all of the sudden became more acceptable, or more “justifiable.” Thousands of harmless and innocent Muslim men, women, and children were brutally murdered at the hands of the men Pope Urban II “Called to Arms.” Entire cities and towns were demolished by the days, as more and more citizens were being killed and captured. The atrocities that took place even draw striking similarities 10
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to the Holocaust. Author Jonathan Smith-Reilly even goes as far as claiming the Holy Wars to be the “First Holocaust.”31 In addition to the extermination of rivaling religions, the leaders of the Crusade also forced assimilation on a great deal of the victims.32 Peter the Hermit was especially guilty of this, as along the way of his self led Crusade Peter forced the baptism of an entire community of German Jews in Regensburg, Germany.33 Jews spanning all over Europe were left with an ultimatum of “death or conversion.”34 The chaos in the Holy Land would continue for hundreds of years at the expense of the Muslim people inhabiting the area. Pope Urban II may have never envisioned the Crusade unraveling the way it ultimately did, but the Church was on the offensive and did more damage than anyone could have imagined. Arab Background and Perspective: The majority of the History and perspective surrounding the Holy Wars falls heavily on the Christian Church. In reality, there is very clearly two sides two the story as the Wars have had a lasting effect on the Muslim people that exist today. The invasion of the Holy Land actually did not come as much of a surprise to King Kilij Arslan, the leader of the Muslim Seljuk Turks, who had been informed of the Crusading in July of 1096.35 King Arslan was not fully aware of the true nature of the Crusading only where and when these men had left from home, but he was certain it could not be good for his people.36 The young leader decided to act first before he would even allow for an attack upon his city. He gathered his troops and traveled to a camp supporting a group of French Christians.37 King Arslan attacked and was successfully able to kill a great number of both nights and foot soldiers within the camp.38 Although, this victory for Arslan saw a significant number of his own men killed, leaving his army very short handed. The victory was glorious in the king’s eyes and actually proved to unite members of the Islamic faith.39 Amin Maalouf, author of The Crusades Through Arab Eyes states, “For the first time in three centuries, the entire Muslim East was united under the authoriVolume IV • Edition I
ty of a single dynasty which proclaimed its determination to restore the past glory of Islam.”40 The Christians did not cease their invasion of the lands, as they actually were starting to bring more and more troops by the thousands.41 Arslan and the Turks were severely outnumbered and were facing grave danger. The local Turkish capital would soon be attacked by many of the French Crusading forces, thus beginning the most brutal treatment of the Muslims.42 The Capital was successful in managing to keep the Crusaders outside of the city walls, but they were not able to protect those living outside and around the city.43 The Crusaders organized “systematic mass murders” of the Turkish Muslims and were even forcing the citizens to witness infants being thrown into fires.44 Following the massacre, the Christians once again tried to take the Turkish Capital only to be defeated again, and almost completely wiped out.45 The group of peasant crusaders dropped from around 20,000 to begin to almost 3,000 by this point in time.46 Eventually the five major forces Pope Urban II had intended to lead the Crusaders were off to the Holy Land with more numbers and significantly better fighters.47 The Islamic people were already having issues within their own faith between bordering states such as Sunni and Shi’a and really did not have the resources, time, or men to keep fighting off these Christian soldiers.48 The war was not something the people had ever wanted or did anything to initiate. Although leaders and Kings of the Turks like King Arslan were able to post several honorable and uniting victories, they were simply losing men only out of defensive for their home. Even if the Muslim soldiers were able to have fought off the Crusaders and prevent some of the atrocious war crimes from being committed, they would have been left with exactly what they started with minus a great number of innocent lives. From the Arab perspective, the Holy Wars were not a series of events that the people wish had turned out differently, they were a series of events that the people wish had never hap11
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pened. Conclusion and Modern Context: Hundreds and hundreds of years have passed since the end of the Holy Wars and the First Crusaders, but the history of the events still proves its relevance even today. The past has shaped a political and social viewpoint to the East that has much to do with what happened years ago in the Holy Land.49 Many reject or look down upon the celebration of the Christian Church for what they did in the name of their lord. The events had the ability to highlight the occasional threat religion can present when too much faith is exercised for the wrong reasons. It is hard to blame all of the Christian Church and even more specifically the Crusaders themselves for what they had done, as some men and women truly believed God had willed their journey. Of course, the group of Crusaders who escalated their duties to murder innocent civilians and infants have to be accountable for these crimes no matter what they may have been promised. Lastly, for the Church, Pope Urban II must assume a great deal of responsibility for all that happened in the hundreds of years of fighting, and even for some of the perspectives today. In what seemed to be a reasonable yet selfish political move, he had succeeded in developing an army of people who set out to murder and loot in the name of the lord. Urban took advantage of people’s past and promised them a better future in a grand plan that only he benefited from. History can never be erased, but there is certainly potential for forgiveness and repayment. One gesture that hits close to home is the elimination of the Crusader logo and name from The College of the Holy Cross. The name and emblem have been removed from all school gear and uniforms in an effort to recognize the harsh history of the school’s religious affiliation as wrong. It will take a lot more than one school to change their logo before what has been done becomes mended, but one step at a time even the worst parts of history need to be studied and acknowledged in order to create a better world.
1 Rooney, Rachel, and Andrew Miller. “The Crusades: Motivations, Administration, and Cultural Influence.” The Newberry. Accessed January 7, 2019. https://dcc.newberry.org/collections/ 2 ibid 3 ibid 4 ibid 5 ibid 6 BBC Editing Staff. “Holy Wars.” BBC. Accessed November 15, 2018.http://www.bbc. co.uk/ethics/war/religious/holywar.shtml. 7 ibid 8 Rooney and Miller, “The Crusades,” The Newberry. 9 ibid 10 ibid 11 “The First Crusade - The People’s Crusade.” Video file, 8:12. Youtube. Posted by Extra Credits, August 8, 2015. Accessed January 8, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIs5B2U7US0&t=223s. 12 ibid 13 ibid 14 ibid 15 ibid 16 ibid 17 ibid 18 ibid 19 ibid 20 ibid 21 Rooney and Miller, “The Crusades,” The Newberry. 22 ibid 23 ibid 24 Moynahan, Brian. The Faith, A History of Christianity. First Image Books ed. N.p.: Random House, 2002. 25 ibid 26 BBC Editing Staff. “Holy Wars.” BBC. Accessed November 15, 2018. http://www.bbc. co.uk/ethics/war/religious/holywar.shtml. 27 “The First,” video file. 28 ibid 29 ibid 30 ibid 31 Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Crusades A History. Second ed. New Haven, CT: Yale Nota
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Bene, 2005. 32 ibid 33 Riley-Smith, Johnathan, ed. Crusades. The Oxford Illustrated History. New Haven, CT: Oxford University Press, 1995. 34 ibid 35 Maalouf, Amin. The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. New York City: Random House, 1985. 36 ibid 37 ibid 38 ibid 39 ibid 40 ibid 41 ibid 42 “The First,” video file 43 ibid 44 ibid 45 ibid 46 ibid 47 ibid 48 Tyerman, Christopher. God’s War. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008. 49 Rooney and Miller, “The Crusades,” The Newberry.
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Assessing the One Child Policy one percent over the next 35 years.4 However, this reform was unsuccessful because of the political disputes around the Cultural Revolution which prevented anything substantial reform. In 1972, the Chinese government created a “family-planning bureaucracy” to oversee policies around birth control and population control.5 In this reform, the Chinese government provided free abortions and sterilizations to the Chinese people; this reform was successful, and the Chinese government began to create five-year economic plans targeting population growth and size shortly after.6 A couple of years later, the Chinese started to heavily promote the idea of “later, longer, fewer.” This slogan promoted longer-lasting marriages, longer periods between when babies were born, and few numbers of kids per family.7 A year later, the Chinese government still wasn’t entirely happy in which direction the population control was going, so they instituted another slogan which was, “one is not too few, two is enough, three is too many.”8 The Chinese government had so much concern in the way the population was growing, so, in 1979, they finally established the One Child Policy.9 The One Child policy has been defined as, “a strict policy of one child for every couple with very, very few exceptions.”10 This attempt to control the population was one that was thought of by different groups as “the most extensive and aggressive attempt ever made to subject childbearing to direct state control and regulation.”11 The Chinese government had a different view on the creation of the One Child Policy than some of the people that lived in China. Deng Xiaoping, a Chinese official who played a major role in the creation of the One Child Policy, stated that “Unless the birth rate fell rapidly, we will not be able to develop our economy, and raise the living standards of our people.”12 Other Chinese officials also believed that the rapid and fast-paced growth of the Chinese population had to be brought under control if China was to achieve a goal of Four Modernizations (agriculture, industry, technology, and science).13
Author-Luke Wagner ‘22 Section-Research Papers The Chinese have long sought to remake their county into one that can compete with the West. The Chinese government believed that the creation of the One Child Policy and the regulation of their population would help the Chinese become a world power. In 1978, Deng Xiaoping moved China away from a centrally planned economy and introduced market reforms.1 As a result, China has experienced massive growth in its economy, gaining an average GDP growth rate of 10.2% from 1983-2013.2 In 1979, almost concurrent with the economic reforms, Deng Xiaoping introduced the One Child Policy. Prior to the One Child Policy, other campaigns had successfully tried to limit population growth, but they had eventually stalled. To achieve economic success, it was important that population growth didn’t outstrip the country’s economic output, thus putting too much pressure on the consumption of natural resources. At a high level, the Chinese government sought to balance its growing population with its ability to grow its economy, and ultimately secure its ability to compete with other developed countries. The One Child Policy was an important component of economic success, but the country-wide policy had unintended consequences as it may have left the country with too few people to maintain the economic growth of the past 30 years. The One Child Policy, or reforms similar to it, were anticipated by the people of China because of the legislation that was made before it was created. Government officials made statements about birth control for many years prior to the start of the One Child Policy. Additionally, they advised people to have fewer children while promoting various legislative acts and promotional campaigns. The Chinese government began these legislations in 1962 when the first population control target was created by the Chinese government.3 This population control effort proposed to reduce the annual growth of the Chinese people by Volume IV • Edition I
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The One Child policy was a strict policy however, there were some exceptions. A lot of families in rural parts of China relied on more than one child to farm, live, and survive. Additionally, rural children had the ability to help and provide various important services caring for the family’s elderly.14 Because of this, the fertility rate of the people in these areas was extremely higher than in other parts of China.15 This fact forced the Chinese government to comply with the needs of the people in the rural parts of China. The Chinese government recognized that children were extremely important to the people of rural China, therefore they received more lenient treatment.16 The One Child Policy did help bring the average fertility rate for people in these rural areas from 6 to 3, however it was still much higher than other parts of China.17 For the majority of the country, however, the Policy was strictly enforced. For example, in 2013, the family of a famous filmmaker was fined 7.48 million yuan for having three extra children.18 Since the Chinese people could only have one child, they started favoring men over women. The implementation of the One Child Policy affected the ratio of men to women in all parts of China. The favoritism led to many baby girls being aborted or mothers already with a child having forced sterilizations.19 Also, many female babies faced out-of-country adoption, neglect, abandonment, and even infanticide.20 The result was an extremely large divide between the ratio of men to women in China.21 This divide was especially prevalent in rural areas of China. In these rural areas, families had to rely heavily on the children of the family to work. It was believed that boys could provide more for the farms and the families than girls could, thus resulting in the massive swing in the number of men.22 To help resolve this problem, rural families, as well as some ethnic groups, were allowed to have more than one child if their first-born child was a female.23 Additionally, boys were favored over girls because they are able to carry on an ancestral family name for another generation (since couples usually will take the man’s last name when they get marVolume IV • Edition I
ried).24 The favoring of boys over girls created a large discrepancy between the two sexes, and studies have found that there are roughly 107 men to every 100 women in China right now, and in 2004 the sex ratio was around 120 men to 100 women.25 With the overwhelming amount of males compared to females, the next generation is finding that there are not enough women for men to marry.26 Additionally, from years 1960-2012, the fertility rate in China has also seen a very large decrease from around six births to 1.6 births (See Figure 1).27 The fertility rate that is needed to maintain a stable population (excluding emigration and immigration) is around 2.1, much higher than the Chinese fertility rate.28 In just this past year, the number of Chinese births dropped to below 15 million people, the lowest since 2000.29 This could hint at a declining Chinese population, but the effect is not very evident because this number is quite different from previous years. Additionally, many families wanted more than one child, and they decided to go against the rules and have two children. This lead to many of the children that were born second (not the first child) to be kept in secrecy without any documentation. Without this documentation, it was very difficult for these children to get an education or a job because they did not have a birth certificate.30 Even after the One Child Policy was abolished, there was no real incentive for people to have more than one child. And it is generally very costly, so the fertility rates have remained very low. With this very low fertility rates comes a few amount of people to care for the elderly and a shrinking workforce.31 In addition to the effects the One Child policy has on the sex ratio in China, it also has a role in the Chinese economy.32 In the year 2019, it is looking as if the One Child Policy is having a negative effect on the Chinese economy. Since the amount of kids that were born from 1980-2016 decreased dramatically, there was a very large decrease in people in the working class and the Chinese government is now facing a very young generation of people.33 With the influx of people retiring, there is a need for money to support these people. 15
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Since the number of working-class people has decreased by 7%, that money is going to have to come from somewhere else, putting a dent in the Chinese economy.34 This effect is relatively minor though, and people are probably going to have to wait for another two decades to see the result of the One Child Policy on the Chinese population. Now that the One Child Policy has been abolished,35 there has been a backlash against working women that has affected their dayto-day lives. Companies are more reluctant to hire women for jobs because of the possibility of having to pay them for maternity leave, possibly even multiple times.36 Providing maternity leave has become more costly for employers, and have had to extend paid leave. Women are experiencing the common trend of being asked personal questions in job interviews about when they are going to have children, or if they are in a relationship.37 To combat this, China has made sex-discrimination laws, including laws that prohibit companies from firing pregnant women until their child is at least one year old.38 Women also experience their wages fall after giving birth. Additionally, in the agriculture and farming business, women are discriminated against heavily.39 A study done in 2012 found that on average, women’s income is around 67% of what men’s incomes are. In rural settings, this difference is even greater, as women generally make 56% of what men make.40 The Chinese government attempts to convince people around the world that there is equality in China, but in reality, that is not true. There is a large discrepancy when it comes to the amount of money that women make versus men. Many Chinese citizens disagree with the effectiveness of the One Child Policy. It has created many different opinions that the Chinese people have and has found many women being discriminated against. A Chinese citizen recalled about her experiences of her childhood in China by saying, “My grandma’s parents killed her two older sisters the day after they were born, because of their gender. She was almost killed, Volume IV • Edition I
too, but when her parents were about to throw her into the river, she opened her eyes, and they got scared. Her parents refused to raise her themselves and sent her to be raised by a couple that had no kids. My grandmother never got an education. Even today, she cannot read. She married my grandpa when she was 18 and then went on to have four children. Marriage and babies are all she has ever known.”41 She goes on to talk about how her parents always treated her like she was a boy, and how she used to do many things that are categorized as “boy things,” for example playing with cars rather than dolls or playing sports. She also mentioned how her parents always told her that it was unacceptable for her to be inferior to a boy and that she was spanked because she was happy that she got better grades than all the girls, but not all the boys. She concludes with saying that when she grows up and has children of her own she really wants to make sure that they know of the tragic past that the female gender had to endure, and hope for a better future for her children. The One Child Policy was not supported by many people, especially because of the significant selection of men compared to women. The One Child Policy was a simple idea that was trying to support economic growth and modernization of China. The country stepped away from central planning when it implemented capitalist market strategies. However, it applied a centralized policy approach to controlling its population. In the short run, the policy supported rapid economic growth. However, as is often the case with simple ideas being applied to a complicated, interconnected problem, there are unintended consequences that could not be anticipated. The One Child Policy had a deep social impact with many female children being aborted or given up for adoption. The high male to female ratio has made it more difficult for China to maintain the natural birthrate necessary to maintain the population without the need for immigration. In the future, the fallout from the One Child Policy is likely to include too few workers to drive the economy while 16
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also supporting an aging population. The One Child Policy worked very well in the shortterm, but in the end, may lead to less economic growth than it had intended.
Text=child&searchText=policy&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Fwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3BQuery%3Done%2Bchild%2Bpolicy&ab_segments=0%2Fdefault-1%2Frelevance_config_with_defaults_ duplicate&refreqid=search%3A2ff81f79f031be7e1cd99155573ecb62&seq=1#metadata_ info_tab_contents. 13 Greenhalgh, Just One Child, 32. 14 Berkshire Encyclopedia, 1644. 15 Ibid 16 “One-Child Policy,” accessed January 13, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/ one-child-policy. 17 Ibid 18 “China Puts an End to Its Notorious One-Child Policy Enforcer,” accessed January 14, 2019, https://www.scmp.com/news/ china/policies-politics/article/2137094/china-puts-end-its-notorious-one-child-policy-enforcer. 19 “The Law of Unintended Consequences,” Economist, 32. 20 “China’s Former One Child Policy,” https:// www.thoughtco.com/chinas-one-child-policy-1435466. 21 Berkshire Encyclopedia, 1644. 22 Ibid 23 “China Ends One-Child Policy after 35 Years,” accessed January 14, 2019, https://www. theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/29/china-abandons-one-child-policy. 24 Berkshire Encyclopedia, 1644. 25 “China Now Has 33.5 Million More Men than Women,” accessed January 14, 2019, https://www.whatsonweibo.com/china-now335-million-men-women/. 26 “China’s Former.” 27 Ibid 28 Ibid 29 “China Birth Numbers Expected to Fall to Lowest Level since 2000, Creating New Economic and Social Challenges,” accessed Janu-
Endnotes 1 “China’s GDP Examined: A Service-Sector Surge,” accessed January 14, 2019, https://www. investopedia.com/articles/investing/103114/ chinas-gdp-examined-servicesector-surge. asp. 2 Ibid 3 Looking Locally at China’s One-Child Policy, [Page #], accessed January 14, 2019, https://www-jstor-org.libdb.belmont-hill. org/stable/172250?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=one&searchText=child&searchText=policy&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Fwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3BQuery%3Done%2Bchild%2Bpolicy&ab_segments=0%2Fdefault-1%2Frelevance_config_with_defaults_ duplicate&refreqid=search%3A2ff81f79f031be7e1cd99155573ecb62&seq=1#metadata_ info_tab_contents. 4 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China (Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2009), 1643. 5 Ibid 6 Ibid 7 Susan Greenhalgh, Just One Child (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2008), 32. 8 Berkshire Encyclopedia, 1644. 9 Ibid 10 Greenhalgh, Just One Child, 32. 11 Berkshire Encyclopedia, 1644. 12 Malcolm Potts, “China’s One Child Policy,” British Medical Journal, 361, accessed January 13, 2019, https://www-jstor-org.libdb.belmont-hill. org/stable/40699586?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=one&searchVolume IV • Edition I
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ary 14, 2019, https://www.scmp.com/economy/ china-economy/article/2180339/china-birthrate-expected-fall-lowest-level-2000-creating-new. 30 “The Effects of China’s One-Child Policy,” accessed January 14, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/story/the-effects-of-chinas-one-child-policy. 31 Ibid 32 “How Will China’s One-Child Policy Change Impact the Economy?,” https://www.thebalance.com/china-one-child-economy-1979075. 33 Tyrene White, China’s Longest Campaign (n.p.: Cornell University, 2006), 264. 34 Ibid 35 The End of China’s One-Child Policy, 83, https://www-jstor-org.libdb.belmont-hill. org/stable/24720399?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=one&searchText=child&searchText=policy&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Fwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3BQuery%3Done%2Bchild%2Bpolicy&ab_segments=0%2Fdefault-1%2Frelevance_config_with_defaults_ duplicate&refreqid=search%3A2ff81f79f031be7e1cd99155573ecb62&seq=1#metadata_ info_tab_contents. 36 “The Law of Unintended,” 32. 37 Ibid 38 Ibid 39 Marte Kjaer Galtung and Stig Stensile, 49 Myths about China (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015),73. 40 Ibid 41 “What It’s like to Be a Daughter in China (When Everyone Prefers a Son),” accessed January 14, 2019, https://www.thecut. com/2018/03/how-women-in-china-feelabout-the-one-child-policy.html
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Figure 1: China’s Fertility Rate From 1960-2012
(https://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-steven-friedman/chinas-dependency-ratio-t_b_5813344.html)
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Catholicism Influenced the Rhineland houses.6 Germans in this area were required to raise their hats to show respect for French officers, humiliating citizens.7 The French even required Germans to apply to the French to repaint or repair their houses.8 In the occupied zone, many restaurants, swimming pools, and other public establishments were labeled “For Allied Troops Only” or “No Germans Allowed.”9 In addition, one of the greatest sources of anti-French feeling was the occupation of the Rhineland by African colonial troops. It was rumored that the Africans were raping innocent German maidens. Perpetrators of such alleged crimes usually went unpunished. This was dubbed the “Black Shame.”10 All of these acts from the French occupation increased resentment from the inhabitants of the Rhineland towards the French and the Treaty of Versailles. Secondly, Germany was required to pay war reparations, a total of 132 billion gold marks (U.S. $33 billion) as required by the Treaty of Versailles.11 The Rhineland region of Germany was rich in resources that the French planned to take from Germany in the form of war reparations. To compensate for the destruction of French coal mines during the war, Germany was forced to cede the output of the Saar coal miners to France and as well as the control of the Saar to the League of Nations for 15 years. The German people felt hopeless by this, as they saw trains loaded with coal leaving Germany, while German houses remained dark and cold. The German people even came up with a phrase for French coercement of resources: “ententekohlen” meaning “coals for the Allies.”12 In addition to coal, the Rhineland had to pay for war reparations using products of some of their main industries such as “timber, livestock, and pharmaceuticals.”13 In a desperate attempt to pay off some of the heavy war reparations, the Weimar government in 1923 began to print German money, quickly inflating the currency to the point where it became worthless. People saw their savings disappear quickly, which caused extreme financial instability. When the hyperinflation got particularly bad,
Author- Christian Eikeboom ‘21 Section-Research Papers The end of World War I in 1918 left Germany in a position of economic, political, and social instability. In 1919, defeated Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles. The people of the Rhineland region (the regions of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland Palatinate) of Germany were strongly impacted by the end of WWI and the Treaty of Versailles. However, the humiliation experienced by the enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles was not enough for the Rhineland region to predominantly vote for Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) in 1932. The Catholic roots of the people in the Rhineland determined their voting preferences and kept the region predominantly in support for the Zentrum (Centre) party and not the NSDAP. In 1918, France, with military support from America and Great Britain, advanced successfully and defeated the German western armies.2 The German government understood that the war effort was near futile. Germany was then forced to sign The Treaty of Versailles.3 Through the treaty, Germany had to accept all blame for the war, disarm most of its military, pay incredible amounts of reparations, give up German land and finally, Germany was not permitted to be part of the League of Nations.4 Germans were outraged.5 The Treaty of Versailles affected the Rhineland region in particular ways. First of all, the Treaty of Versailles forced the Rhineland region of Germany to disarm its military, and then to be occupied by France for fifteen years. The reason for this was that France wanted a frontier on the Rhine, the region closest to the French border, to protect itself from a future potential German invasion. The German people saw this occupation as a deliberate act of humiliation. Overnight, Germans became second-class citizens, with mandatory curfews, disconnected telephones, censorship on all letters, newspapers, and movies, compulsory registration, and placarding of Volume IV • Edition I
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it was a better option for people to burn money than use it to buy firewood because it had lost all of its value. Due to the hyperinflation, it became harder and harder for factory workers to live off of their shrinking wages. Meanwhile, “big” business prospered. Owners of such establishments could take immense bank loans, wait a few months, and then pay back the same amount for significantly less due to the hyperinflation of the currency.14 Workers began to blame prosperous “Fabrikbesitzer” or “factory-owners” for their economic woes. The reparations had a devastating effect on the morale of the region and left the German people hopeless. In 1919, during this time of occupation and economic upheaval, Hitler joined the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), which later changed its name to the NSDAP. In 1920, he outlined his “political creed” or his policies and political views for the NSDAP.15 Some of these policies included anti-Treaty of Versailles rhetoric, anti-foreigner leanings, the promise to nationalize German industry, diversion of profits from big business, the formation of a national army, and to provide for the “volk” or the German people.16 These policies were aimed at alleviating the sufferings of the German people, especially the people of the Rhineland. First, the NSDAP was firmly against the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles had impacted all of Germany including the Rhineland and rejecting the terms of the treaty would free the Rhineland people of “the chains of Versailles.”17 Second, the NSDAP was against foreigners, which applied to the foreign French and African soldiers occupying the Rhineland. Third, the NSDAP was for the nationalization of German industry, which meant liberating the coal mines from the French. This would bring control of the production and use of German coal back to Germany, specifically coal from the Rhineland region. Fourth, Hitler was against big business and corporate elites, people who had prospered during the hyperinflation. Fifth, he believed in the reformation of a national army, remilitarizing the Rhineland, and giving the Volume IV • Edition I
inhabitants of that area sovereignty from the control of the French. Finally, he believed in the duty of the state to provide for its people. The people of the Rhineland saw this especially pleasing because many of them were now unemployed and hungry. Hitler promised “Arbeit, Freiheitund Brot!” meaning “Work, Freedom and Food” for his citizens before he was made Chancellor.18 He planned to do this by stopping the payment of wartime reparations and instead use that money to reinvest in the German people. It makes logical sense that the German people of the Rhineland would now support Hitler, but in fact, they did not. In 1919, Germany had its first free and democratic election after the fall of the German monarchy.19 This election gave rise to the formation of many new political parties and left the German political field fractured. People throughout Germany were now able to vote for the first time for the party of their choosing, and with so many options, people turned to the certainty of others to inform their decisions. This is especially the case for the Catholics who lived in the Rhineland. From 1928 to 1932, the Rhineland was made up of mostly Catholics, as seen below in figure A. (See Appendix) 20, 21, 22 The Catholics largely supported their own conservative party, the Zentrum party.23 This was because the Catholic church pressured parishioners to vote for the Zentrum and actively spoke out against the NSDAP. The Zentrum had been the center of Political Catholicism since its founding in the mid 1800’s.24 Even many high-ranking Zentrum party officials were Catholic priests and they tried to use their influence to convince parishioners to vote for the Zentrum. It was even said that “the most important of all of the parish clergy’s task was to make sure that the Zentrum’s ballots got distributed.”25 While the clergy’s support was for the Zentrum party, it actively discouraged Catholics from supporting the NSDAP. For example, in the diocese of Mainz, parishioners were expressly forbidden to be a member of the NSDAP and anyone who was, would not receive the holy sacraments. One local Catholic priest warned parishioners that “There is no bigger sin than 20
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voting for Hitler!”26 Another priest said in his sermon, “Heil Christ, not Heil Hitler.”27 Not only did the priest’s preachings have an effect on their parishioners’ behaviors, but the fact that the Catholic church also provided relatively well-financed social welfare programs meant that the Catholics did not need to rely on Hilter’s promises.28 Moreover, in this time of political uncertainty, the Catholic church was seen as a stable component, something that had existed for more than 1000 years, which could be trusted. These factors actively swayed the Catholic parishioners from voting for the NSDAP. Figure B, as seen below, shows the Rhineland region having predominantly less than 20% support for Hitler in the 1932 German federal election. The small amount of support for the NSDAP came from Protestant farmers, skilled workers, shopkeepers, and civil servants.29, 30 But, the majority of people, the Catholics of the Rhineland, did not vote for Hitler. In conclusion, the end of World War I and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles strongly impacted the Rhineland region of Germany, leaving the German people humiliated and outraged. Hitler’s “political creed” outlined a solution to the problems encountered by the people of the Rhineland. However, due to the Catholic majority and how strongly the Catholic church warned against the NSDAP, Hitler’s ideas fell upon deaf ears. Even though the Rhineland generally did not support the NSDAP, the rest of Germany somewhat did. In the 1932 German election, Hitler managed to receive 37.4% of the German vote,31 but lost the election to Hindenburg and the Independent party. However, Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler Chancellor of Germany in 1933. Hitler then proceeded to change the world forever.
2 “End of the War and Remembrance.” BBC. January 08, 2014. Accessed January 11, 2019. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/0/ ww1/25403869. 3 “The Fourteen Points and the Versailles Treaty.” Accessed January 11, 2019. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/teachers/ lesson_plans/pdfs/unit8_11.pdf. 4 “Treaty of Peace with Germany.” Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.loc.gov/ law/help/us-treaties/bevans/must000002-0043.pdf. 5 National Archives. “The National Archives Learning Curve | The Great War | Why Was It Hard to Make Peace?” The National Archives. January 27, 2004. Accessed January 11, 2019. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/greatwar/g5/cs2/background.htm. 6 Jonge, Alex De. The Weimar Chronicle , (Paddington Press, 1978), 79. 7 Jonge, Alex De. The Weimar Chronicle , (Paddington Press, 1978), 80. 8 Jonge, Alex De. The Weimar Chronicle , (Paddington Press, 1978), 82. 9 Jonge, Alex De. The Weimar Chronicle , (Paddington Press, 1978), 80. 10 Jonge, Alex De. The Weimar Chronicle , (Paddington Press, 1978), 84. 11 “United States History.” Douglas MacArthur. Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1369. html. 12 Jonge, Alex De. The Weimar Chronicle , (Paddington Press, 1978), 78. 13 What the World Rejected: Hitler’s Peace Offers 1933-1939. Friedrich Stieve. Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/ reparations/wgptv00.html#pk 14 Jonge, Alex De. The Weimar Chronicle , (Paddington Press, 1978), 94. 15 Mein Kampf . http://childrenofyhwh.com/ multimedia/library/Hitler/mein-kampf.pdf. (Volume II Chapter I) 16 World War 2 Death Count. Accessed January 11, 2019. http://www.hitler.org/writings/programme/. 17 Limited, Alamy. “Stock Photo - Gegen Versailles N S D a P Sonnwendfeier - German Nazi
Endnotes 1 “Map of Germany - German States / Bundesländer.” Maproom. Accessed January 11, 2019. https://maproom.net/shop/map-germany-german-states/. Volume IV • Edition I
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Propaganda Poster - 1931.” Alamy. Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.alamy.com/ stock-photo-gegenversailles-n-s-d-a-p-sonnwendfeier-german-nazi-propaganda-poster-96658175.html. 18 “Arbeit, Freiheit Und Brot! [Work, Freedom and Bread!].” Imperial War Museums. Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/ item/object/146. 19 “Elections in the Weimar Republic.” Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.bundestag.de/ blob/189774/7c6dd629f4afff7bf4f962a45c110b5f/ elections_weimar_republic-data.pdf. 20 “Who Voted for Hitler?” Accessed January 11, 2019. https://books.google.com/ books?id=dcX_AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=who+votes+for+hitler+in+the+rheinland+of+germany&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjztY3BmbfAhWDhOAKHbdnBpoQ6AEwAHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=who%20 votes%20for%20hitler%20in%20the%20 rheinland%20of%20germany&f=false. (Page 127) 21 O’Louglin, John. “The Electoral Geography of Weimar Germany: Exploratory Spatial Data Analyses (ESDA) of Protestant Support for the Nazi Party.” University of Colorado, 2017 22 “Who Voted (and Didn’t) for Hitler, and Why?” American Journal of Political Science. August 10, 2017. Accessed January 11, 2019. https://ajps.org/2017/08/10/who-voted-anddidnt-for-hitler-and-why/. 23 O’Louglin, John. “The Electoral Geography of Weimar Germany: Exploratory Spatial Data Analyses (ESDA) of Protestant Support for the Nazi Party.” The University of Colorado, 2017 (Page 12) 24 Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www. kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/spenkuch/ research/religion_nazis.pdf. 25 Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/spenkuch/ research/religion_nazis.pdf. 26 Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/spenkuch/ research/religion_nazis.pdf. Volume IV • Edition I
27 Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/spenkuch/ research/religion_nazis.pdf. 28 “IN ESSENCE - The Wilson Quarterly.” Accessed January 10, 2019. http://archive.wilsonquarterly.com/sites/default/files/articles/WQ_VOL33_SU_2009_PERIODICAL_14.pdf. 29 O’Louglin, John. “The Electoral Geography of Weimar Germany: Exploratory Spatial Data Analyses (ESDA) of Protestant Support for the Nazi Party.” University of Colorado, 2017 30 “Who Voted (and Didn’t) for Hitler, and Why?” American Journal of Political Science. August 10, 2017. Accessed January 11, 2019. https://ajps.org/2017/08/10/who-voted-anddidnt-for-hitler-and-why/. 31 “Elections in the Weimar Republic.” Accessed January 11, 2019. https://www.bundestag.de/blob/189774/7c6dd629f4afff7bf4f962a45c110b5f/ elections_weimar_republic-data.pdf. Appendix Title Image:
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Thawed Out: Prospects of War in Donbass Author- Shane Rockett ‘19 Section-Research Papers The crisis in Ukraine, through networks of alliances and blurry ethnic divisions, has grown into far more than a territorial dispute. Since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014, pro-Russia separatist movements in the Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Luhansk have declared their independence from Ukraine. An area known as the Donbass in Eastern Ukraine has become a battleground between the Ukrainian patriots attempting to reclaim their former borders and the separatist governments who are backed by the Russian military. By 2017, 10,000 combatants and 3,000 civilians were killed.1 Local militias, who do the majority of the fighting, are armed and reinforced by both the Russian and Ukrainian governments. In November 2018, Russian special forces seized three ships of the Ukrainian Navy, prompting the Kiev government to declare martial law in 10 regions and ban Russian adult males from entering the country.2, 3 A short-lived ceasefire created a buffer known as the security zone, which is now the most dangerous area of the conflict. Almost daily, heavy artillery has been fired across the security zone, reducing hospitals and medical facilities to rubble and leaving the locals without healthcare. The crisis in Ukraine has deep historical roots. The word Ukraine is derived from the Russian term for “borderland”, and throughout history, Russia has attempted to assimilate Ukraine under its hegemony.4 In 1921, the Soviets conquered Ukraine, which remained part of the U.S.S.R. until its dissolution in 1991. The Soviets coveted the warm water port of Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, a goal that would persist in Putin’s Russia. From a geopolitical perspective, the absorption of Crimea to the Soviet Union meant access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean for military purposes as well as a year-round trading port free from ice in the winter. During the Soviet era, Ukraine experienced significant demographic changes. Ethnic Tatars, who were the majority Volume IV • Edition I
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of the Crimean population, were deported en masse by Stalin in 1944 and replaced by ethnic Russians who worked in the collective farms of the Soviet Union.5 Crimea’s majority of ethnic Russians is the result of Stalin’s Russification policy. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine began developing closer ties with Europe and adopted a democratic constitution in 1996.6 Ukraine continued to drift towards the West and announced they would be joining NATO in 2002.7 In the heated election of 2004, the leader of the pro-Russia faction, Viktor Yanukovych won the presidency. The runner-up and leader of the pro-Western faction, Viktor Yushchenko, who had been mysteriously poisoned earlier that year, alleged voter intimidation and fraud.8, 9 Yushchenko led a series of mass protests called the Orange Revolution which resulted in the Ukrainian Supreme Court annulling the results of the election. Yushchenko won the subsequent re-vote and fostered Ukraine’s ties to the European Union. In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych won the presidency and, in June of that year, the Ukrainian Parliament voted against their earlier decision to join NATO. Then, in 2013, the Ukrainian government announced it would be abandoning a previously-drafted association agreement with the EU.10 Ukrainians responded to the decision by organizing in another series of mass protests known as the Maidan Revolution. In February 2014, Ukrainian security forces killed 77 civilians, and the protests escalated to the point that Yanukovych fled to Russia that same month, leaving Kiev to the opposition.11 Russia reacted swiftly by seizing the Crimean Peninsula in March of 2014, then holding a referendum to justify the annexation.12 Russian President Vladimir Putin also cited protection of the large Russian majority in Crimea as the rationale for annexing the peninsula. In April 2014, the Eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Luhansk were seized by pro-Russian separatists and declared March 2019
independent from Ukraine.13 The Kiev government sent the Ukrainian Army to reclaim the newly-independent People’s Republic of Donetsk and People’s Republic of Luhansk. As fighting broke out between the Ukrainian patriots and the separatists, Russia provided the separatists with arms, reinforcements, and heavy artillery from the Russian Army. Ukraine responded in kind by arming Ukrainian patriot militias and firing their own heavy artillery across the front. In 2015, the Minsk II agreements were signed by Russia and Ukraine, and a ceasefire was officially instated, although the agreements were quickly disregarded and the conflict continued regardless of the agreements.14 In 2018, despite claims from the Ukrainian Government that militias are only acting in support roles, the local patriot militias were still engaged in combat regularly.15 The War in Donbass may be expected to worsen dramatically in 2019. Neither side of the conflict has demonstrated a serious interest in peace, and both actually stand to benefit from a prolonged conflict. From the Russian perspective, they achieved their desired goal of a warm water port and have done so without encountering major international resistance. Furthermore, Russia has created a period of instability for the pro-West Ukrainian government and may continue to do so while waiting for the day when a pro-Russia faction comes back to power in Ukraine. While Ukraine has the obvious disadvantage of being under siege from Russian expansion, it stands to benefit as well. International dialogue is now hailing Ukraine as an integral European ally and one that deserves foreign aid in the interest of preserving democracy. For the government who wanted to ingratiate themselves with the European community, victimhood at the hands of Russia has been a political resource. Moreover, the corrupt government can use the war as a distraction. The most important issue for Ukrainians in 2018 was the war in the East, which they viewed as more important than rooting out corruption or economic health.16 Also, Ukraine stands to benefit financially from the Volume IV • Edition I
foreign force inside their borders. In addition to frequent defensive aid from the United States ($350 million in 2018), the IMF introduced a $17.5 billion loan program in 2015. Ukraine ultimately failed to meet the obligations of the deal and thus only received $8.6 billion because of suspected corruption.17, 18 Nonetheless, the IMF followed up in 2018 with another $3.9 billion loan as the conflict worsened.19 For a government suspected of corruption, Ukraine has received unusually large amounts of Western money since the beginning of their conflict with Russia. Even if both Russia and Ukraine were to act against their best interests and end the War in Donbass, fighting would continue nonetheless between the militias who now roam Eastern Ukraine armed with government weapons. When asked what they would do if the volunteer military had to be folded into the regular military, members of one Ukrainian nationalist militia said, “We refuse to join a system that would swallow us up.”20 In Ukraine, the Day of the Defender used to be a holiday celebrating the patriotism of those who took up arms against the Russian invasion. In 2018, local militia groups, some of whom possess anarchist or far-right sympathies, used the holiday as a recruiting event and marched through cities carrying the banners of their respective militia groups.21 Although the U.S. Congress has taken a definitive stand, President Trump’s stance on Russian aggression has been generally conciliatory, with the exception of economic sanctions. Sanctions were imposed on nine companies and 21 individuals with connections to separatists by the Treasury Department in January 2018.22 In response to Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian Navy ships, Trump said, “We do not like what’s happening either way. We don’t like what’s happening, and hopefully it will get straightened out.”23 Trump’s special relationship with Putin has made him reluctant to criticize the Russian leader. Although multiple U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, at the 2018 Helsinki Summit President Trump said, “I don’t see any reason why it would 25
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be [Russia]… President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”24 Despite the President’s goal of fostering relations with Russia, Putin’s violation of international law cannot be ignored by the United States. The international community must remember the consequences of unchecked aggression and the end result of justifying annexations through demographics. The United States, in coordination with the West, should meet Russia’s actions with a firm response. Direct military involvement of any kind by the United States or its allies should be ruled out for its extreme consequences with an already-unfriendly Russia and the potential for escalation or war. Short of using the U.S. military, the United States has three options to effectively end the War in Donbass. Supporting the defense of Ukraine through monetary aid is a viable option and should be continued by the United States, even with the consideration of Ukrainian corruption. Ukraine as a Western ally on Russia’s border is too valuable to surrender without at least defensive funding. Sending detachments of U.S. advisors to train the Ukrainian patriot militias is a possibility only if the militias are free of radical and dangerous political views. In 2018, the United States cut off aid to the Azov Battalion, a militia linked to neo-Nazi ideologies.25 The United States should be very selective about who is receiving training, and provide U.S. advisors or funds only after putting the militias through a thorough vetting process. Advocating for an international peacekeeping effort is a more consequential policy, but some argue that it is a necessary risk for ending the War in Donbass and making a firm stand against Russia’s aggressive policy towards Ukraine. The two bodies capable of such an effort would be NATO and the United Nations. Russia has already expressed concern regarding the NATO bases near its borders and sees NATO as a euphemism for American imperialism. Consequently, any effort involving NATO countries, including UN operations, would only worsen the conflict and potentially provoke a military reaction by Russia. While the notion of a UN peacekeepVolume IV • Edition I
ing mission is often suggested, its actualization is unlikely. The United States should not advocate for such a plan because it will fail. Even if the UN were to send a detachment, and did manage to create a ceasefire or even broker a peace deal, there would be little in place to prevent Russia and Ukraine from resuming the fighting after the departure of international troops. Despite sponsorship of Minsk II by France and Germany, the ceasefire failed because Ukraine and Russia ignored the agreement. Furthermore, before international troops left, the UN would have to designate would be a message encouraging militarism and annexation around the world. Giving it to Ukraine would incentivize Russia to resume the conflict once the UN troops have left, and potentially subject the ethnic Russians living in Eastern Ukraine to severe persecution. The United States, then, is left with one course of action to take regarding Ukrainian crisis: continue giving Ukraine defensive funding, train Ukrainian patriot militias without radical views, and impose sanctions on those individuals or groups who are responsible for the War in Donbass. Endnotes: 1 Coman, Julian. “On the frontline of Europeßs forgotten war in Ukraine.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 12 Nov. 2017, www.theguardian. comØworldØ2017ØnovØ12Øukraine-on-thefront-line-of-europes-forgotten-war. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 2 “Ukraine profile - Timeline.” BBC, 30 Nov. 2018, www.bbc.comØnewsØworld-europe-18010123. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 3 Borger, Julian, and Matthew Bodner. “Putin ßseriously concernedß after Ukraine votes to impose martial law.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 27 Nov. 2018, www.theguardian.comØworldØ2018ØnovØ26Ønato-callsfor-calm-after-boatsseizedin-russia-ukraine-clashes-kerch-strait. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 4 Pifer, Steven K. “Ukraine or Borderlandø” The New York Times, New York Times Company, 28 Oct. 2011, www.nytimes. 26
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comØ2011Ø10Ø29ØopinionØ29iht-edpifer29. html. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 5 Conant, Eve. “Ethnic Russians: Pretext for Putinßs Ukraine Invasionø” National Geographic, National Geographic Society Geographic Partners, 2 May 2014, news.nationalgeographic. comØnewsØ2014Ø05Ø140502-russia-putin-ukrainegeographycrimea-languageØ. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 6 “Ukraine profile - Timeline.” BBC, 30 Nov. 2018, www.bbc.comØnewsØworld-europe-18010123. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 7 Ibid. 8 “Understanding Ukraine: The Problems Today and Some Historical Context.” YouTube, uploaded by Vlogbrothers, 4 Mar. 2014, www. youtube.comØwatchøvΩA2nklduvThs. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 9 “Viktor Yushchenko: Ukraineßs ex-president on being poisoned.” BBC, 2 Apr. 2018, www.bbc.comØnewsØavØworld-europe43611547Øviktor-yushchenko-ukraine-s-expresident-on-being-poisoned. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 10 “Conflict in Ukraine.” CFR, Council on Foreign Relations, 10 Jan. 2019, www.cfr. orgØinteractivesØglobal-conflicttracker£°ØconflictØconflict-in-ukraine. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 11 “Ukraine profile - Timeline.” BBC, 30 Nov. 2018, www.bbc.comØnewsØworld-europe-18010123. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 12 Masters, Jonathan, and John Bellinger. “Why the Crimean Referendum Is Illegitimate.” Council on Foreign Relations, 16 Mar.2014, www.cfr.orgØinterviewØwhy-crimean-referendum-illegitimate. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 13 “Why Ukraine is trapped in endless conflict.” YouTube, uploaded by Vox, 6 Feb. 2018, www.youtube.comØwatchøvΩFb9U1uoYCOc. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 14 “An end to the war in eastern Ukraine looks as far away as ever.” The Economist, Economist Newspaper, 11 Oct. 2018, www.economist. comØeuropeØ2018Ø10Ø11Øan-end-to-thewar-in-eastern-ukraine-looks-as-far-awayas-ever. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 15 “Out of Control∫ Ukraineßs Rogue Militias.” Volume IV • Edition I
YouTube, uploaded by Vice, 25 May 2018, www.youtube.comØwatchøvΩwMMXuKB0BoY. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 16 “An end to the war in eastern Ukraine looks as far away as ever.” The Economist, Economist Newspaper, 11 Oct. 2018, www.economist. comØeuropeØ2018Ø10Ø11Øan-end-to-thewar-in-eastern-ukraine-looks-as-far-awayas-ever. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 17 Browne, Ryan. “US releases $200 million in defensive aid to Ukraine as Moscow seeks better ties.” CNN, 20 July 2018, www.cnn.comØ2018Ø07Ø20ØpoliticsØus-defensive-aid-ukraineØindex.html. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 18 Melkozerova, Veronika. “5 top international sources of financial aid to Ukraine.” Kyiv Post, Businessgroup, 22 Dec. 2017, www.kyivpost.comØbusinessØ5-top-international-sources-financial-aid-ukraine.htmløcn-reloadedΩ1. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 19 Kramer, Andrew E. “Ukraine Wins New I.M.F. Support as Tensions Rise With Russia.” The New York Times, New York Times Comapny, 18 Dec. 2018, www.nytimes. comØ2018Ø12Ø18ØworldØeuropeØukraineimf-loan.html. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 20 “Out of Control: Ukraineßs Rogue Militias.” YouTube, uploaded by Vice, 25 May 2018, www.youtube.comØwatchøvΩwMMXuKB0BoY. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 21 Ibid. 22 “Conflict in Ukraine.” CFR, Council on Foreign Relations, 10 Jan. 2019, www.cfr. orgØinteractivesØglobal-conflicttracker£°ØconflictØconflict-in-ukraine. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 23 Baynes, Chris. “Trump responds to Russia-Ukraine crisis, saying: ßI donßt like what is happening either way.ß” The Independent, 27 Nov. 2018, www.independent. co.ukØnewsØworldØamericasØus-politicsØtrump-russia-ukraine-crimea-putin-black-seanavy-boats-kerch-strait-poroshenko-a8653616.html. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019. 24 “Trump: Putin Was ßExtremely Strong and Powerfulß in Denying Election Interference.” YouTube, uploaded by Fox News Insider, 17 27
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July 2018, www.youtube.comØwatchøvΩ6kwKu7Vqvig. Accessed 11 Jan. 2019. 25 Kheel, Rebecca. “Congress bans arms to Ukraine militia linked to neo-Nazis.” The Hill, Capitol Hill Publishing, 27 Mar. 2018, thehill. comØpolicyØdefenseØ380483 -congress-bansarms-to-controversial-ukrainian-militialinked-to-neo-nazis. Accessed 10 Jan. 2019.
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Becoming a Rebutter-in-Chief he attended Buckingham Browne and Nichols School, where he developed leadership skills by captaining the lacrosse team. He then attended Stanford University in California. His roomate there, Jason Collins, who is the first openly gay NBA player, later enhanced his awareness of gay rights. Subsequently, Congressman Kennedy served in the Dominican Republic from 2004 to 2006 as a member of the Peace Corps, which was founded by his great-uncle, President John F. Kennedy. “My time in the Peace Corps was probably the most impactful experience that I’ve had, professionally, personally, or in my life. When I sat down with my Dominican host family and their friends at dinner, they would take half of the food on their plate and scrape it onto mine, even though they are earning under three thousand dollars a year and struggle to feed their children. They are no less talented; they are no less intelligent; they are no less gifted than I was. They just don’t have the systems around them that could support them to make sure that they can reach their dreams the way that I’ve had support around to help me reach mine.” Speaking fluent Spanish, Congressman Kennedy worked on sustainable tourism for Damajagua Falls and prevented the attraction from being taken over by tour companies that were paying local guides unfair wages. “We convinced the government to put the park under local control, allowing the community to set wages and craft safety precautions. We raised money and built a small business to run the park operations with more local autonomy. We set up a community reinvestment fund so that a portion of every entrance fee went into the local neighborhood— to build a bridge, buy a school bus, bring clean water to the community.” Congressman Kennedy learned the positive difference people can make when caring leads to action: “the impact that simple acts of service can have across borders, generations, and time. It’s a lesson I carry with me every day.” After the Peace Corps, he returned to his home state of Massachusetts to attend Harvard Law School. There, he met his wife
Author-Aaron Belluck ‘21 Section-Research Papers In a few short minutes, 45 million Americans would be watching him. Once it began, it would all be over in about ten minutes, but the repercussions for him could last a lifetime. He paced around the vocational training school, nervously awaiting his signal to go on stage. All at once, he heard the audience become silent, and he was cued to walk out into the blinding lights. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he began, as he heard the applause, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It is an absolute privilege to join you here tonight.” Just two weeks earlier, thirty-sevenyear-old Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy III was working on legislation in his cramped office in the Cannon House Office Building in Washington D.C., when he was called into Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s suite. “I didn’t know if I had done something wrong. It’s like when a teacher pulls you out of class at school.” Leader Pelosi asked him an unexpected and daunting question: “Will you give the Democratic response to the President’s State of the Union Address?” Congressman Kennedy instinctively answered, “Yes.” It was his deep sense of caring, developed over his lifetime, that led him, almost without thinking, to accept this responsibility. Congressman Kennedy cares about improving the lives of his constituents in Massachusetts as well as all American citizens. His passion to help, which emerged from personal connections and experiences, is so great that he took the risk of giving this address out of commitment to public service and out of concern for the citizens of America. “It is an opportunity to set forth an alternative interpretation to the current trajectory of our country and a vision for how to make it better. For me to have an opportunity, as difficult an opportunity it might be, was one that I didn’t want to turn down. And besides, Leader Pelosi is a hard person to say ‘no’ to.” Growing up in Boston, Massachusetts, Volume IV • Edition I
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Lauren, who is a healthcare policy expert, on the first day of school in Professor and now Senator Elizabeth Warren’s constitutional law class. Together, they contributed to a Harvard human rights magazine and co-founded an after-school program for teenagers in Boston. After he graduated, Congressman Kennedy served as an assistant district attorney, working on many cases that involved theft for drug money. His desire to help those affected by substance abuse was one of the main catalysts for his choice to enter politics a few years later. In 2012, he successfully ran for office and became a member of the United States House of Representatives in Massachusetts’ fourth district and is currently serving his fourth term in this position. Congressman Kennedy left Leader Pelosi’s office in a much different emotional state than when he had entered. Back in the hallway, feeling both excited and anxious, he ducked into the nearest cloak room and urgently conferenced called his key staff members. Congressman Kennedy realized the gravity of his decision to accept the offer. The task at hand was now coming into focus, and he became daunted and overwhelmed. He quickly thought of three imminent pressures. Congressman Kennedy understood that he would have to give this speech under great performance pressure as to not ruin his political career on a national stage, under extremely significant time pressure with only two short weeks until the speech, and under pressure to execute to the standards of his family’s legacy and name. He imagined himself on the stage speaking live to millions of Americans, which would undoubtedly be the largest audience he had ever addressed. As a result, many people would have their first exposure to Congressman Kennedy, which raised the already high stakes of this address. The significant pressure to perform well sunk in. He was also painfully aware that previous rebuttors –– almost without exception –– failed to generate a positive outcome for themselves. “I have watched a number of those speeches before, as many people have, and folks that give them don’t Volume IV • Edition I
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do so well. I remember thinking that if I ever got asked to do that, why would anyone ever say ‘yes.’ But of course when I was asked, I said ‘yes.’” Senator Marco Rubio’s response to the State of the Union in 2013 is remembered by his reaching for a water bottle instead of the content of his speech. Governor Bobby Jindal experienced a similar failure in 2009 when the delivery of his rebuttal was considered boring and fake. Congressman Kennedy’s Chief of Staff, Greg Mecher, described the response to the State of the Union: “In the past, it’s been a pretty boring retort to policies only. It’s generally a miserable assignment. It’s the thing you want your closest enemy to do. The goal for Congressmen Kennedy was to not crash and burn and to try to avoid total catastrophe and have it be terrible and to have it not be the end of Congressman Kennedy’s national political career.” Congressman Kennedy did not want this address to ruin his current political career and future aspirations because he so passionately cares about the American people; he did not want to lose his platform and therefore ability to help others. In addition to the stress of performing well, Congressman Kennedy and his team were under tremendous time pressure. They were faced with planning and writing his response to the State of the Union in just two short weeks before he would give his speech on Tuesday, January 30, 2018. They needed to select a format for the address in addition to a venue. Congressman Kennedy had to decide on only the most important policies to address in his speech as well as to incorporate input from other Democratic voices because he cared about fully representing his party. They had to find and select the right words to persuade people to vote for Democratic candidates in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections so that the Democrats could win back the House of Representatives and provide a critical check on President Trump’s policies. There were endless drafts to the speech after contributions and feedback from a variety of people. He also had to leave time out of the two weeks so that he could rehearse the speech multiple times. Greg described the preparations for March 2019
the speech: “Endless rounds of practicing the speech and looking for anything that could possibly go off in that room that would ruin the speech.” Compounding the stressful performance and time pressure was the fact that Congressman Kennedy had to carry on his family’s legacy and execute to the standards of his relatives. He was born into a political dynasty, and he was essentially destined for a role in the federal government. When he was four years old, fellow preschoolers would come up to him in the playground and ask if he would run for president one day, simply because of Congressman Kennedy’s last name. His great-great-grandfather John F. Fitzgerald served as the mayor of Boston in the early 1900s; his great-grandfather Joseph Patrick Kennedy served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940; his great-uncle John F. Kennedy served as president from 1961 until his assassination in 1963; his grandfather Robert (Bobby) F. Kennedy served as senator in New York and was assassinated during his presidential campaign; his great-uncle Edward (Ted) M. Kennedy, the “Lion of the Senate,” served as senator in Massachusetts for 47 years; his cousin Patrick Kennedy served as a congressman in Rhode Island for 16 years; his father Joseph Kennedy II served as a congressman in Massachusetts. Congressman Joe Kennedy III wanted to carry on this legacy and not taint the family name in this speech, which has failed for so many. He had only two short weeks to overcome these three pressures. Congressman Kennedy sought a location for his address to the nation that would reflect the values that he learned throughout his life as well as reflect his constituents and district. Emily Browne, his speechwriter, described the planning for the speech: “We decided to make it look really different. We wanted it to look much more informal, authentic, and energetic with a relatable setting.” Emily also mentioned, “No one had found the right setting. A big issue was that almost everyone had tried to do it straight to camera. It’s hard to make that look good so we Volume IV • Edition I
quickly decided to ditch that.” The team considered arranging the address in the form of an interview with talk show host Jon Stewart, where Congressman Kennedy would be asked prepared questions in order to address the topics he wanted to cover in his speech. However, the team rejected this idea as the format may have distracted the audience from the actual content of his response to the State of the Union. Instead, they decided to select a location that would reflect the values that Congressman Kennedy had learned throughout his life as well as showcase the constituents in his district. The Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Fall River, Massachusetts was ultimately chosen because Congressman Kennedy cares deeply about the school and its students, especially since the school is in his district. “Throughout its history, Fall River has been a resilient and proud city. The 1,400 students of Diman embody that same spirit. As Democrats seek to build an economy that works for all Americans, Diman is an innovative and inspiring model. I couldn’t imagine a more fitting location to deliver the Democratic response to the State of the Union. In addition, Greg explained that “the students there do these types of things like rolling out the red carpet, making flower arrangements, and sculpting the wood boxes for the floral arrangements, which make beautiful centerpieces.” Having the address at this school enabled the students to demonstrate and practice their respective crafts. The next challenge for Congressman Kennedy and his team was to create the content of his speech. There were many topics that he wished to discuss in his address as he was representing not only the Democratic party but the entirety of the United States of America. The person responding to the State of the Union is only allotted around ten minutes of televised coverage. The President has the luxury of giving his or her speech without a strict time limit. Congressman Kennedy had to work with his speechwriter to select only the most important concepts and policies without overloading and boring the national audience; there needed to be the right 31
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balance between covering the areas of policy and concern, including many from his fellow Democratic representatives, while maintaining the focus of the audience. In addition to addressing his main policies and beliefs, Congressman Kennedy had to predict what the president would say before him and provide a rebuttal for that in his speech. “It’s hard to respond to everything the President said in 90 minutes in just 9. We don’t know everything that the President will say in the State of the Union so you have to sort of guess at it to give the best response.” Congressman Kennedy described how “the president has this extraordinary platform to talk about his first year in office and what he views are the successes of that first year and I thought it was important to put some of those actions and his inactions in context.” Thinking about his desire to provide “an alternative pathway for our country,” Congressman Kennedy highlighted the policies that he cares about the most in his response to the State of the Union. His choice to focus on the policies which he mentioned in his speech originates from his caring and experiences with people in need. “One of the extraordinary privileges you have with this job is that you get to meet a bunch of people who are touched by these policies. For the policies that you do choose to focus on, you get to meet an awful lot of people who are touched by them and are touched profoundly by them.” The overarching themes of Congressman Kennedy’s response to the State of the Union are both his definition of the American Promise –– “the belief that we are all worthy, that we are all equal, that we all count in the eyes of our law and our leaders, our God and our government” –– and his belief that America should not be a zero-sum game, where one has to lose in order for another to prosper. More specifically, Congressman Kennedy emphasized three main messages that are a product of his caring and passion: fight for healthcare and the Affordable Care Act, remove both the stigma surrounding and the lack of help for mental health and substance abuse care, support immigration. Volume IV • Edition I
“The actual moments right before the speech were a bit excruciating. It is not like game day in sports, where the kickoff is at 1 o’clock or the puck is going to drop at 5. My start time was based off of when the president was going to stop, and the president went on for a very long time. So I was just basically sitting in a room waiting for him to finish, and it’s hard to just sit there and wait and not have a set time to know when you can go. I was trying to drink enough water so I wouldn’t get dehydrated and not have too much water so I didn’t have to go to the bathroom. I was obviously a little bit nervous. I wanted to make sure that it went well. The waiting is probably the worst part because after you get going, you are just talking into the microphone; the lights were so bright that I could barely see much of a crowd anyway. The countdown up to it is by far the worst. I was more excited than nervous once I got started because I was excited to be able to provide an alternative pathway for our country.” “We choose a healthcare system that offers you mercy … We choose affordable healthcare your family needs to survive … No parent should have to worry if they can afford to save their child’s life.” Congressman Kennedy remembers walking through a community health center a few days after President Trump’s inauguration. “One nurse stopped me, looked me in the eyes and told me, ‘You gotta fight the fight, man.’ It was the best advice I could have asked for.” He also remembers a story about a Muslim refugee from Baghdad who came to America after spending several years in a refugee camp in Turkey. Before coming to America, this man visited four different hospitals seeking treatment for bombing-related injuries and was being targeted and shot at while out with his wife. In America, he went to a community health center in Worcester, which not only cared for him but embraced him. He later played the United States’ National Anthem with pride. In the eyes of Congressman Kennedy, President Trump is limiting funding for 32
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health centers and medical care and making it harder for not only immigrants but regular citizens to obtain healthcare. One of Congressman Kennedy’s most prized bills that he introduced and passed through Congress is his hearing aid bill. Hearing aids that are not covered by Medicare cost around 5,000 dollars for a pair. This hefty price deterred seniors from purchasing them. It resulted in their isolation from family conversations and the world due to a lack of hearing in addition to further health consequences. The bill, which involved collaboration between Democrats and Republicans, successfully reduced the cost of hearing aids from around 5,000 dollars to the current price of 500 dollars. This bill is so important to Congressman Kennedy because he cares about the wellbeing of seniors in America. One of the main policies that Congressman Kennedy is most passionate about is healthcare. He described his overarching goal for this issue as “trying to shore up access to healthcare, building off the promise that every single person in this country gets access to the healthcare they need when they need it at the price they can afford.” Congressman Kennedy developed his great passion for this issue from meeting so many people who suffer from a lack of access to healthcare. “I think that there is no better indication of the strength of our society than how we treat those who are less fortunate, and I think that, in particular, it is a reflection of the commitment that we, as a society and government, are able to make to each other at our time of deepest need. It is a system that we don’t think a whole lot about when we are healthy and well, but when you have a loved one, a parent, a brother or sister, or a child that is sick and hurting, it is the only thing that you care about.” In addition, Senator Ted Kennedy, who died from a brain tumor before he could implement his healthcare legislation, inspired Congressman Kennedy to continue the fight. Senator Kennedy had an exceptionally strong commitment to decent and quality healthcare for all. He stated, “We were only as rich as the poorest among us, as strong as the weakest, and as healthy as the sickest.” This notion inspired Congressman Volume IV • Edition I
Kennedy’s passion about this issue and his selecting healthcare to be a prominent point in his response to the State of the Union. To address his concerns about healthcare, Congressman Kennedy fights to preserve former President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. According to a Gloucester, Massachusetts resident who spoke with Congressman Kennedy, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has provided him with better care options in retirement than the plan he was using while working in a grocery store. An example of the consequences of President Trump’s reversal of the Affordable Care Act is shown in a health center in Worcester, which would lose $3.6 million out of its $5.17 million annual government funding and its ability to care for more than six thousand patients with these reforms. Congressman Kennedy called the potential repeal of the ACA “stunning and shortsighted.” To help prevent President Trump from undoing the ACA, Congressman Kennedy has worked relentlessly to support it. “How about let’s start by not building an $18 billion wall … that Republicans have conceded is the most expensive and least effective way to solve your problem. But let’s start there instead of going after healthcare for our communities.” Congressman Kennedy has also been imploring his colleagues in Congress, especially Republicans, to visit the healthcare centers, where he has been so actively involved, so that they can hopefully have the same experiences that formed his strong support and belief in the ACA. “It’s going to be patients that get hurt and communities that get hurt, which is just tragic.” “As if a parent, whose heart is shattered by a daughter in the grips of an opioid addiction, is less important. So here is an answer that Democrats offer tonight. We choose both… We choose a healthcare system that offers you mercy, whether you suffer from cancer, or depression, or addiction.” An area of concern for Congressman Kennedy on the issue of mental healthcare arises from the fact that the three biggest pro33
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viders of psychiatric services in this country are in the jails in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago –– a majority of those in need of mental healthcare end up in jails instead of receiving treatment at a medical center. More than fifty-five percent of the counties in the United States do not have a single practicing psychiatrist, psychologist, or social worker. He cares that those who suffer from mental health issues are able to find the help that they need, especially to avoid actions that lead to incarceration. Congressman Kennedy wishes for “a much more robust investment and regulatory change to our mental and behavioral health system so that we can actually bring people out of the shadows, and we can reduce that stigma [of mental healthcare].” On the topic of substance abuse services, Congressman Kennedy believes there needs to be a massive investment in order to help fix the problems, including overprescribing by doctors, having too many opioid pills on the streets, and the ability of people to “doctor shop,” which is getting prescriptions from multiple doctors. Congressman Kennedy provides an analogy for the lack of attention on substance abuse care: “Our society would never accept the idea that if you have cancer, we would say, ‘You have Stage 2 cancer. We can’t treat you right now, but come back in a few months when you are worse and we might be able to treat you.’ That’s essentially what we do with mental and behavioral healthcare, except we don’t even guarantee we’re going to be able to see you in a few months.” It was important to Congressman Kennedy that he mentioned the issues surrounding the United States’ mental healthcare and substance abuse systems because he cares about this issue and does not think that it is addressed enough. Unfortunately, a few members of his extended family have been affected by mental health and substance abuse issues. His cousin Congressman Patrick Kennedy acknowledged his addiction to alcohol and opioids, after drunk driving incidents and time in rehab. Since his departure from office, Congressman Patrick Kennedy has written a book about his mental illness and addiction Volume IV • Edition I
struggles, and he is helping others in similar positions. Congressman Joe Kennedy’s personal connections with this issue have helped to form his empathy and passion for it. Emily described the formation of his passion for this issue: “He spent a lot of time sitting down with folks struggling with addiction or mental illness. It makes for more passionate and empathetic speeches.” Most of his experiences with this issue come from his time as a prosecutor. Many young people who are addicted to opioids, resorted to theft in attempts to obtain cash for that day’s drugs, typically spending over 100 dollars every day. If they could not steal enough money, the young addicts would purchase cheaper heroin to fulfill their dependency. As a prosecutor, Congressman Kennedy faced many of these cases of theft, which led to his desire to take action on this issue as a congressman. In fact, Congressman Kennedy stated, “The opioid epidemic is one of the things that actually motivated me to run for Congress.” “Dreamers: You are part of our story. We will fight for you, and we will not walk away (Kennedy says in Spanish)… Build a wall and our generation will tear it down… The greatest, strongest, richest nation in the world should not have to leave anyone behind.” Congressman Kennedy visited a detention center for immigrant children in Tornillo, Texas twice in 2018. After President Trump developed the policy to “rip” children away from their families, Congressman Kennedy went down to Tornillo to experience this issue firsthand, but he was turned away at the door to the facility. During his second visit just three months later, he was able to gain entry, and he discovered the camp had expanded to be five times larger, housing more than 1400 children. Children without their parents were being kept at 100 different sites in 17 different states. “For the facility that it is, it looks fine, but I don’t think we can ignore the fact that kids shouldn’t be in these facilities in the first place.” Describing his interactions with 34
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the kids, Congressman Kennedy explained, “It’s heartbreaking to have talked to these children, young boys and girls, that had been separated from their families for weeks if not months and have no idea when they are going to get out or see their families again. I try to think of it if I was in their shoes and I had walked thousands of miles… not having anyone who you knew or trust to help you navigate through the process, being shipped from facility to facility. All these kids want to do is see their family members, which I do not think is too much to ask for a 13 or 14 year old little girl. Two girls at my table were begging me and my staff member to take them on the plane home so that they could see their families.” After reflecting on his visit, Congressman Kennedy’s policy position is that America as a sovereign nation should be able to decide who comes into the country, but keeping children separated from their family members for extended periods of time without the access to resources that they need is not reflective of the country that “I believe Americans believe we have.” Congressman Kennedy blames President Trump for his immigration policies, including placing limitations on sponsors who act as potential homes for these children across America. President Trump requires the sponsors to provide their fingerprints, which have been used to arrest “would-be sponsors with immigration violations of their own.” There is likely to be long-term mental health consequences for the children who have been separated from their parents. Congressman Kennedy believes that “connecting children with sponsors faster would minimize the trauma many children face while living in the government facilities.” Immigration issues are present even at his own office, where an immigrant working for him fears that his parents will be deported for overstaying their visa. Congressman Kennedy can also look at his own family history. Ancestors on both sides of his family confronted discrimination a long time ago in Europe, and, as a result, they left Europe. Fortunately, America allowed their immigration into the country. His mother’s family came Volume IV • Edition I
to America because of a lack of religious protections; his father’s family emigrated from Ireland in the midst of a potato famine, when there wasn’t enough food grown in Ireland to feed everyone there. In fact, the harvested potatoes were shipped off by the British lords that ruled Ireland instead of attempting to feed the hungry. “It was a base level of the government’s failure to provide for the wellbeing of its citizens via the freedom to exercise their religion or to make sure they had enough food and basic sustenance, and I think we see many of those similar circumstances at play around the world today… This obviously doesn’t mean that we have completely open borders where whoever wants to come comes, but it recognizes that we also see the humanity behind children and families that are fleeing violence, destruction, destitution, poverty, sexual exploitation, and other forms of abuse.” Congressman Kennedy is trying to ease the struggle that immigrants, including his ancestors, have faced when fleeing the countries by persuading the American citizens to be more accepting and supportive of policies with a more caring attitude. Congressman Kennedy concluded his response to the State of the Union: “Bullies may land a punch, they may leave a mark, but they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future. Politicians can be cheered for the promises they make. Our country will be judged by the promises we keep. That is the measure of our character. That is who we are. Out of many, one. Ladies and gentlemen, have faith. Have faith. The state of our union is hopeful, resilient and enduring.” Congressman Kennedy felt relieved after finishing his speech, but he was eager to hear the feedback. All of the extensive preparations and pressures of the past two weeks were finally behind him. “I was relieved after I finished. I didn’t know exactly what the reactions would be. I said ‘hello’ to some supporters and friends in the crowd. Then I 35
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basically got in the car because it was a pretty late night, and we drove home from Fall River. I remember looking at a bunch of emails and text messages, and I was going through those and I was eager to see how people would receive the message. Obviously much of the attention was around the President’s speech as it should be, but I was encouraged by the initial response and reaction that I got.” Congressman Kennedy’s response to the State of the Union address had been the biggest speech of his career, since he had the national stage to speak to all Americans. As a result, this address received more feedback from viewers and the media than any of his previous speeches. Scanning the reactions in the car, Congressman Kennedy observed many comments about ChapStick around his lips, which he did not realize would be as prominent as it was on television. A twist of his famous great-uncle’s quote, he was teased, “Ask not what your country can drool for you, ask what you can drool for your country.” Emily stated that “it was a bummer that it distracted from what he actually said.” Simply put, Congressman Kennedy said, “I would have worn less ChapStick.” He was disappointed that people were not more focused on the content of his speech and his policies because he is so passionate about helping people and implementing positive change. He hopes to build off his response to the State of the Union to continue to pursue his policies in the future. “I am working very hard to make sure that we’ve got a Democratic majority for the issues that I care about: healthcare, mental health, immigration, climate change, and an economy that works for everybody, and that we continue to make gains on these policies because they affect millions of Americans in a very real way every day.” In the days following his response to the State of the Union, Congressman Kennedy flew back to Washington D.C., rolled up his sleeves, and returned to legislation that he had temporarily set aside, just fourteen eventful days earlier.
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The conflict between President Donald J. Trump and the Democratic House of Representatives over a proposed border wall captured headlines last December and January. Following his campaign promises, the President demanded that the government budget must contain funding for a wall in order to gain his approval. Congress and the President were unable to agree, and a government shutdown followed. The political scuffle soon turned to a fight for public opinion, as each side made their case to voters. In order to gauge the opinion of the Belmont Hill community, The Podium sent out a questionnaire on the topic. The Belmont Hill community, excluding parents and alumni, received a questionnaire regarding the current issue. Since the poll is sent with voluntary responses, it has the potential to create biased results, as more opinionated people may feel the need to respond. The questionnaire was sent out on January 21, 2019, regarding the ongoing government shutdown, which started December 22, 2018. Ending on January 25, 2019, it marked as the most extended government shutdown in US history. A comparison between the responses of Belmont Hill and the nation as a whole show that Belmont Hill is far more likely to blame the President for the shutdown. A Quinnipiac University poll shows that 56% of voters blamed Trump while 69% of the Belmont Hill community did the same. Such a significant deviation is unlikely to have been entirely caused by the factors stated above but instead reflective of a community more left-leaning than the Volume IV • Edition I
rest of the nation. Responses to other questions back this up, with 83.6% of respondents not supporting President Trump’s emergency declaration, in comparison to 61% nationally. The Belmont Hill community was similarly hostile to the proposal of a wall. From this data, The Podium has concluded that the majority of the school’s population does not agree with President Trump’s stance on having a border wall. 75.9% of the responses stated that they do not support Trump’s proposal for a border wall. Further acknowledging their disagreement on the topic, the Belmont Hill community strongly disagreed with the declaration of a national emergency, 83.6% responding with no need for one.
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The Podium | Data Analysis
Author-Jack Curtin ‘20, Declan McDonough ‘20 Section-Data Analysis
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Government Shutdown
Data
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B
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D
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2018 Midterm Elections Author-Jake Pappo ‘20, Griffin Hamilton ‘20 al election, choosing Democrat Elizabeth Warren by a vote of 53%, with 30% voting Section-Data Analysis
for Republican Geoff Diehl, 8% voting for Independent Shiva Ayyadurai, and the remaining having ‘No Opinion.’ In this regard, Belmont Hill leaned slightly more Republican than the rest of the state, with 60% voting for Warren, 36% voting for Deihl, and 3% voting for Ayyadurai. The final question of the poll regarded whether or not one would vote for their incumbent US House of Representatives candidate. Of those polled, 70% said they would vote for their incumbent and 30% said they would not. Statewide, of the nine House seats, seven incumbents won their races, three of whom ran unopposed. Of the remaining two candidates, one ran unopposed and the other won her race by a vote of 62% to 33%. This district contains very few members of the Belmont Hill community. From this, we can conclude that in House of Representatives races, Belmont Hill leans more Republican. This general trend can be seen across most of the ballot for the 2018 midterms and is representative of the Belmont Hill community overall.
In the 2018 Midterm election, Belmont Hill voted similarly to the state of Massachusetts in most races. Of the 141 respondents to the poll, around 43% were Upper School students, around 35% were Middle School students, and roughly 22% were faculty or staff members. In ballot question one, which asked about nurse to patient ratios, Belmont Hill voted almost exactly the same as the rest of the state, with 73% voting ‘No’ to keep the current laws and not implement the new limits. This particular question was one of the most fought over issues in this election cycle, with both sides forming strong campaigns to make their opinions known. Ballot question two was the closest of any of results for the races or questions at Belmont Hill, but the least close for Massachusetts. The question asked whether or not a citizens commission should be formed in order to propose an amendment to the US Constitution regarding political spending and corporate personhood. This measure passed at Belmont Hill with 52% voting ‘Yes,’ 31% voting ‘No’ and the remaining having ‘No Opinion.’ Statewide, the measure passed 71% to 29%. While on most other questions, Belmont Hill trended liberal and aligned with the state, on this question, Belmont Hill was much more conservative leaning, perhaps hinting at an unwillingness in the community to limit anything related to corporations or businesses. Ballot question three concerned affirming a law passed in 2016 which cemented gender identity rights. The law was affirmed in Massachusetts by a vote of 68% to 32% while at Belmont Hill, the measure passed by 77% of the vote. In the gubernatorial election, Belmont Hill again voted similarly to the state, choosing Republican incumbent Charlie Baker by a vote of 75% to 15% with the remaining having ‘No Opinion.’ Similarly, Belmont Hill voted with the state in the senatoriVolume IV • Edition I
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