the brown contemporary
Boldly Brown? • A multi-million dollar pool project and flat-screens in J. Walter Wilson accompany tuition hikes and firings. What does this say about the administration’s priorities? •
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CONTENTS 4
RECOGNIZING HAMAS anthony badami
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BROWN’S PRIORITIES ARE WACK simon liebling
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C*NSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE 2009 will wray
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OPEN REVOLT IN FORECLOSED PROVIDENCE reed frye
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FINANCING OBAMA: HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR DEMOCRACY NOW? jessica wang
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KEVIN ROOSE EXPERIENCES THE GOD DIVIDE bradley portnoy
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bc editor-in-chief Matthew Corritore editors Anthony Badami Reed Frye Brynn McNally Jessica Wang contributors Simon Liebling Bradley Portnoy Will Wray cover art & illustrations Sara Martin sara@saraillustrates.com
Thanks for reading the Contemporary. We’re proud to have expanded our reach this semester by recording weekly podcasts on politics and culture. Do us a favor. Visit www.browncontemporary.org and listen to our latest podcasts. They are, quite simply, amazing. enjoy the magazine, matt
Submit comments, questions, and letters to the editor: browncontemporary@gmail.com The Brown Contemporary is a student production. The content herein represents the views of the individual contributors, of which Brown University is not responsible.
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Recognizing Hamas by anthony badami
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n light of recent developments concerning the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the United States should reconsider its diplomatic position towards Hamas. The United States currently recognizes Hamas as a terrorist organization. As such, diplomatic engagement with Hamas has been minimal, if not absent altogether. This stance must change. The United States should extend full diplomatic recognition to Hamas and en-
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gage in high-level, high-intensity negotiations with Hamas leadership. In that past, current US leadership has refused such accord until three criteria are met: Hamas must recognize Israel’s right to exist; Hamas must renounce violence; and Hamas must abide by international agreements. It is my ardent belief that these criteria have been sufficiently satisfied. Thus, Hamas should be granted full diplomatic recognition. Hamas recognizes Israel’s right to
exist. Like many Israeli citizens, politicians, and academics, the majority of Palestinians support a two-state solution. This arrangement would create an Arab state and a Jewish state in the Western section of historic Palestine. While issues such as border dispute and the Palestinian refugees’ right-to-return policy remain contentious, Hamas support for a two-state solution is an important step in the right direction. In January 2006, Hamas leader Khalid Mish’al clarified his po-
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sition towards Israel’s right to exist in a letter to the Guardian: “Our message to the Israelis is this: we do not fight you because you belong to a certain faith or culture. Jews have lived in the Muslim world for 13 centuries in peace and harmony; they are in our religion ‘the people of the book’ who have a covenant from God and His Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him) to be respected and protected. Our conflict with you is not religious but political… if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms. Hamas is extending a hand of peace to those who are truly interested in a peace based on justice.”
“The Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously.” Gaza was no exception. As the siege initiated, a small boat, the Dignity, was on its way from Cyprus to Gaza. The doctors and human rights activists aboard sought to defy Israel’s blockade and to bring medical supplies to the cornered Gaza population. Israeli naval vessels rammed the dignity in international waters, damaging it severely, almost sinking it. On board were CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul and
have international support. It should be noted that without international support, it would be difficult for Israel to gain any legitimate ground politically in the region. My recommendation: the United States should stop its support for such war crimes. The United States could engage in mutual cooperation with other democratic nations by accepting the ceasefire proposed by Hamas political leader Khaled Mishal a few days before Israel launched its attack on December 27. Mishal called for restoring the 2005 agreement – this called for an end to violence and uninterrupted opening of the borders, along with an Israeli guarantee that goods and people could move freely between the two parts of occupied Palestine, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Under this agreement, violence on both sides would stop. Change is desirable and probable. Though the United States has many interests, rejecting Hamas pushes both Israel and Palestine further away from a peaceful resolution in the foreseeable future. Those Palestinians in support of the Hamas cause are human beings. We must not forget this. Their reactionary behavior in the 2006 elections is a result of continued antagonism from US-backed Israeli aggression. If the United States extends diplomatic recognition to Hamas, then we are one step closer to mutual cooperation in the Middle East. bc
As we know from Ze’av Schiff, the late Israeli military analyst: “The Israeli Army has always struck civilian populations, purposely and consciously.” Gaza was no exception.
As Hamas has recognized Israel’s right to exist, so too should the United States acknowledge the Palestinians’ right to exist and recognize Hamas as their democratically elected leader. Yet, while the United States extends its heartfelt sympathies towards the plight of the Palestinians, its actions in the forums of international discourse send a different message. In November of 2008, both the United States and Israel voted against a UN General Assembly resolution that “took up the draft on the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.” The international community responded overwhelmingly to the resolution with a vote of 175 in favor to 5 against. Clearly, the United States’ stance towards the Palestinians is inconsistent with the international community. By disregarding the international consensus, the United Sates inhibits international cooperation that is at the heart of any liberal democracy. A change is indeed demanded. The international response to Israel’s invasion of Gaza with United States support has been forceful and farreaching. International organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, have wholly condemned the actions of Israel, along with numerous European states. The asymmetric military response by Israel was indeed unjustified and particularly violent. As we know from Ze’av Schiff, the late Israeli military analyst:
former US representative and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney who verified this account. Two weeks after the initial invasion, Israel disallowed humanitarian aid into the Gaza region, effectively converting it into a landed prison. In addition, Israel instituted a media blackout in the region, barring all reporters and journalists, both Palestinian and Israeli. On January 10th, as was reported by the Water Utility Management agency in Gaza 100,000s of people in Gaza were without water because of repeated Israeli attacks on power plants, sewage systems, and water systems. Taking these tactical decisions into account, I hope it is evident why Israel’s recent invasion into Gaza does not
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for April Cover Story
Brown’s priorities are wack by simon liebling
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f there’s any benefit at all to the impact of Depression 2.0 at Brown, it’s that when administrators are compelled to orchestrate budget cuts, the triage and bloodletting expose their priorities to the rest of us. When things are more comfortable and the endowment is a full billion fatter, they get to spoil us and make everyone happy, so it takes a crisis--like a recession--to find out what they really care about. With the house on fire, what do they dash back inside to salvage from the flames? From administrators’ quotes in Herald articles, their public fora, their budgets and the little news leaking out of Corporation meetings, we can glean an answer, at least for this round: the favor goes to the prestige projects--Building Brown. The endowment, of just as much importance to reputation and public image, enjoys the same jealous protection. Left to the ashes, with much of the University’s academic mission and its civic duty, are students and staff. Victims of further tuition hikes, mass layoffs, and less-publicized curricular compromises, those without meaningful influence over the direction of the University were--historic surprise--once again ignored by their unaccountable governors. It’s still unsettling to take a moment
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to survey the wreckage of the second semester alone. At its February finance meeting, the Corporation approved a three percent tuition hike while slashing $21 million off of the University’s from a recent New York Times article operating budget for the coming year. on university financial aid: “Facing fallThe unmistakable message: Brown-- en endowments and needier students, wealthier and larger than our families many colleges are looking more favorhome: 508.429.8502 and most importantly, from the perably on sara wealthier applicants as they cell: 774.217.0325 martin spective of justice, inanimate--hassara@saraillustrates.com to make their admissions decisions this illustrator http://www.saraillustrates.com/ find a way to spend less, so we all have year. Institutions that have pledged to pay more, financial crisis be damned. to admit students Sketch Two for April regardless Cover Story of need After the tuition hike, students, are finding ways to increase the numpaying more into a smaller budget, will ber of those who pay full fare in ways be responsible for a greater fraction of that allow the colleges to maintain the revenue that drives Brown’s the claim of being need-blind— operating budget. With smaller -taking more students from the outlays from the endowment home: 508.429.8502 transfer or waiting lists, for inplanned for next year andcell: poten774.217.0325 stance, or admitting more foreign tially beyond, depending on the sara@saraillustrates.com students who pay full freight.” economic climate, that fraction Staff, meanwhile, have already http://www.saraillustrates.com/ grows larger. And thus continues faced thirty firings in the name of the gradual and usually surreptineeded thriftiness and timely prutious process of shifting to students dence. The Brown administration, castthe burden of funding Brown’s opera- ing thirty of its own into the worst job tion, lightening the load on the endow- market in memory, could not so much ment so it can be that much larger for as manage to fire people with class. It the benefit of the U.S. News rankings. kept the names of the victims secret The tuition hike threatens to be while it prepared their severance packthree percent too much for already ages, delaying the start of job searches vulnerable students and their families. that were going to be difficult enough 38 percent of undergraduate respon- and leaving staff to anxiously wonder if dents to a recent Herald poll said they they were the ones unwere worried about their family’s abillucky enough to make ity to afford their Brown tuition. And it onto the hit list. should anyone be deprived of the eduThose thirty fircation they have earned and be forced ings, administrators to withdraw, the University’s diversity say, are the first of suffers with them. (A victory for somore yet to come.Becioeconomic and racial exclusivity-cause at Brown, the just what the Corporation ordered.) obvious way to save Financial aid will prove few stumoney is to expel dents’ savior. Widespread student people from the civic concern over finances and more undercommunity we work graduates taking out loans are ample so hard to create. Esevidence of unmet need, but for any pecially while the Uniremaining skeptics, there’s this gem versity is committing
sara martin
illustrator
Sketch Two for April Cover Story
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tens of millions of dollars to superfluous construction projects that have not yet begun. Staff--estranged from students and faculty and occupying positions of less prominence--are the easier victims. And then come the academic compromises, the costs exacted from the student experience at Brown while the administration subordinated its aca429.8502 demic mission to its pet initiatives. TA shortages due to underfunding forced 217.0325 professors in the American Civilizaates.com tion department to turn away students ates.com/ from otherwise uncapped courses at the beginning of the spring semester. Professor Mari Jo Buhle, forced by the shortage to refuse space to interested students for the first time in her career, told the Herald that as many as 200 undergraduates were turned away from classes in the AmCiv department. 150 students showed up to the first lecture for her husband Paul’s final class at Brown to be told that unless he was allocated additional funding he would have to cull the class list to below 100.
sara martin
illustrator Next in line for the gallows: interde-
partment concentrations like Developketch Two for April Cover Story
home: 508.429.8502
ment Studies and Science and Society, which the Herald reported in March are in danger of disappearing without financial support from the University. The directors of those programs are struggling to provide the concentration requirements--like mandatory thesis classes--next year. The chair of the
sara martin
A victory for774.217.0325 socioeconomic and racial exclusivity-cell: just what the Corporation ordered.Hunger curses sara@saraillustrates.com
http://www.saraillustrates.com/
No help came, and today, registration stands at 80 students. Curious students were unable to take classes that interested them--in some cases, the last chance to take a class with some professors--not because the professors wanted smaller classes but because the University would not fund the classes adequately. Better renovations to Faunce rather than making sure students can enroll for classes, right?
illustrator
committee that runs the Science and Society concentration says she fears that the program remains a potential target for future budget cuts. The funding that the administration allocates to these programs is already negligible-the base stipend for Development Studies is $500 per year. The money to keep them afloat is there, caught up in construction projects and locked away in the endowment. It’s the administrative choice to save them that’s lacking. The choices that they are making, administration planned and Corporation approved, represent a very different set of priorities and interests. Disregarding the imposition of tuition hikes, firings, and academic decline, the University continues to devote its attention to the projects designed to improve its stature and add polish to the projected image of Brown. The construction of a new student center in the former Faunce House is still proceeding, at a cost last estimated at $20 million. The Corporation has
decided for the Creative Arts Center to be built from the ground up, at a going rate of $45 million. And a new swim center will join them, at an expense estimated a year ago at $25 million. For those three projects alone, the aggregate cost comes to $90 million. $90 million is 1,800 years of (hiked) tuition, enough for an entire Brown class and then some. It’s enough for the total budget cuts that administrators estimate will be required over the next five years, with $30 million left over to waste as they will. And who knows how many fired workers $90 million saves, or how many classes and concentrations currently on the chopping block. I presume all of them. The fact that these are at least in part donor-funded projects is irrelevant. The administration solicited those donations and solicited them for those specific projects. It decided to which initiatives it would work to attract donor dollars. And when it did, it chose construction projects totaling $90 million, at the cost of giving adequate attention to academics and aid. But neglect of those necessities is nothing new for university governance. Consider the cosmetic quality of so many other recent expenditures. The Walk went at $10 million. Wilson Hall got a facade facelift for just under $2 million, while the classroom space inside--the part we students actually use--remained cramped and poorly lit. Add in the little extravagances littering campus--the huge flat-screen TVs everywhere in the new J. Walter Wilson are the rococo ornaments of the modern campus--and you have the unmistakable footprint of a Uni-
Sketch Two for April Cover Story
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versity consumed by image rather than work in service of its mission. And that’s the goal of Brown in the era of rankings and university expansion. The benefit of these projects for students and staff is insignificant next to the incurred human and academic costs, but these projects aren’t designed for us. Their cosmetic nature and the sense of shining luxury they bring to campus are for the sake of maintaining stature and reputation competitive with the rest of the Ivy League and our other institutional peers. They are tour-friendly and prestige-friendly--U.S. Newsfriendly--but they antagonize the people who live and work here and for whom the University actually operates. These are not surreptitiously pursued ends; rather they are (or at least once were) readily professed by the administrators who dreamed them up. President Ruth Simmons, in an interview with the Herald, said that early in her tenure at Brown she presented the Corporation with a vision of winning Brown a place among the best research universities in the country. “Nobody could imagine a different identity for Brown wherein we would be no longer an Ivy League university,” she told the Herald. And so Brown set off after Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, initiating a program by which the administration abandoned the unique and historic prominence of the focus on the university-college in favor of a vision that by definition gives less weight to students and academic instruction.
It’s explicit, then: the real point of Building Brown and the rest of President’s Simmons’ brainchild is to make Brown competitive with universities of the highest global stature. That means expenditures on cosmetic improvements, cultivation of Brown’s image and reputation, and the appeasement of the rankings that purport to measure the University’s relative renown. That’s a project that requires neglecting--if not exploiting--students and staff, in part because resources
recession. Endowment expenditures are minimized (and students are asked to replace with higher tuition the revenue the endowment once provided) because a bigger endowment is a hallmark of prestige that means better rankings and a place of renown alongside the elite. Other recently completed buildings, like the Sidney E. Frank Hall for Life Sciences ($95 million) are targeted at research rather than undergraduate academics. And the design of buildings like the LiSci promote the sprawling glamor of a research university far more than the intimacy of the university-college. The consistent truth across these decisions is that the interests of students and staff are no longer top priority for the Brown administration. They have surrendered Brown’s mission of the education of its students and the protection of its community to aspirations to prestige and the establishment of Brown as an international research university--Harvard, Providence Campus. And that’s why when the economic climate necessitates budget cuts, they lay the burden on students and staff when the just and efficient answer would be simply to cancel uninitiated construction projects that don’t really serve Brown’s academic mission in the first place. But prestige matters most, and everything else--the welfare of community members, undergraduate academics, the state of the university-college--is secondary. bc
by matthew corritore
They have surrendered Brown’s mission of the education of its students and the protection of its community to aspirations to prestige and the establishment of Brown as an international research university-Harvard, Providence Campus. are limited but also because the type of university that Brown wants so desperately to be does not exist for the education and the service of undergraduates. Jane Wellman, executive director of an organization that studies university spending, says in the New York Times, “Universities aspire to prestige, and that is achieved by increasing selectivity, getting a research mission and having faculty do as little teaching as possible, not by teaching and learning.” This pursuit of prestige informs decisions well beyond those on the status of construction projects in the wake of
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C*nservative Political Action Conference “
I was asked yesterday: ‘What do you think is going to happen to the party?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, I don’t care. This is not a Republican Revolution.” These were the words of Dr. Ron Paul, former Republican presidential candidate and current Congressional Representative from Texas. He was one of many speakers at CPAC 2009, a three-day conference held in downtown Washington, DC. The conference was an excellent opportunity to observe first-hand the schizophrenia afflicting the GOP. Following Bush the younger’s less-than-well-received tenure in the White House and a sound trouncing this past November, there is a very real question as to how the Republican party can rebound. Would the long-dormant libertarian principles of limited government, low taxes, and social liberalism finally emerge from the smoking wreckage of the right? Or would the party leadership seek to pull off yet another Frankensteinian miracle, cobbling together a candi-
2009 date cleverly marketed so as to attract an ungainly coalition of small-government libertarians, religious social conservatives, and hawkish neo-cons? I flew down to DC in February for two days of the conference. I was housing with volunteers for the ‘Campaign for Liberty’, or, in nauseating youth-speak, ‘C4L’. C4L is a grassroots political advocacy organization that sprung up from the fertile, moneyed corpse of Dr. Paul’s 2008 Presidential campaign. Primarily youth-driven, the group’s reductionist platform has attracted a heterogeneous mix of followers; the DC townhouse was a microcosm of the movement. A single room held a blunt-smoking, scruffy group of idealists who had
by will wray
enough with the egregiously expensive war on drugs; an Iraq war veteran who decried American imperialist foreign policies; a blonde Swedish UPenn student with strong beliefs about free-market capitalism and sound monetary policy; a group of four working-class New Yorkers trying to spread the truth about 9/11; and more than a few ideologues who were attracted to the movement’s philosophy of personal responsibility. The volunteers hailed from different regions and disparate backgrounds; the common thread was a resistance to the ever-expanding role of the federal government. Some saw the government as benign, but inefficient. Others, especially those who idolize Dr. Paul, view any sort of government with suspicion. More than once I was forced to listen to a rambling, passionate account about the imminent ‘New World Order’, and harshly questioned as to ‘Who, exactly, owns the Fed?!?’ Supporters of Dr. Paul represent the fringe of a burgeoning movement
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of socially liberal, fiscally conservative youths who lack a party. Some of this growing contingent seeks to engender a change within the GOP, but many cling to the label ‘libertarian’ with a fervor that smacks of defensiveness. One volunteer from ‘Young Americans for Liberty’ loudly refused to be labeled with the ‘c’ word. I questioned him regarding his distaste for ‘conservatism’, and received a sound-bite in return:
by the right - one of the most widely attended events was a screening of the film “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted.”
ing “revolution” of socially liberals, fiscally conservative voters existed outside the Republican Party? It was mixed. Following the telling si-
The tension between the two divergent strains of thought was largely diffused by the emphasis on fiscal responsibility and government wastefulness, a belief at least nominally shared by all factions of right-wingers. Given the contemporaneous Washington Post headlines which proclaimed Obama’s multi-trillion dollar budget, the theme was timely and well-re-
lence, some shouted and applauded wildly, others looked thoughtful, and some were clearly displeased. The questions of verbiage – Who do you label a conservative? Is a libertarian a Republican? – has assumed inordinate importance in the current discourse of right-wing politics. It seems to be a given that the party is in need of a change, but it is unclear who exactly will take the helm and steer it in a new direction. Dr. Paul, with his advanced age, limited appeal, and uninspiring, petulant oratory, is in no position to lead a ‘Campaign for Liberty’. A party united behind Sarah Palin will hopefully remain but a nightmare, and the 2008 hopefuls – Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson – have already shown themselves incapable of attracting the vast financial and energetic reserves that the libertarian movement has to offer. The Republican Party has four years to find a candidate to pick up the torch and strike off in a new direction – will the libertarians follow? bc
“Well, on a personal level I might be called conservative. I am all about family values, I attend church regularly, and I am staunchly pro-life… but I recognize that these are personal beliefs, my individual standards… trying to have a government enforce these values for three hundred million people is impractical, inefficient, and well… just wrong.”
This newfound social liberalism was by no means shared by all CPAC attendees and vendors. There was a significant faction more concerned with licking the wounds of the 2008 election cycle rather than endeavoring to provide new solutions to a deeplyrooted problem. There were no less than three booths devoted to Sarah Palin’s 2012 presidential run: ‘Team Sar-
Many cling to the label ‘libertarian’ with a fervor. One volunteer from ‘Young Americans for Liberty’ loudly refused to be labeled with the ‘c’ word. ah’ boasted a poster of a fetus with the urgent tagline ‘WE MUST PROTECT THE UNBORN’, another student-run booth handed out giant posters of her face, a third decried the way in which the media had keel-hauled Palin and worshipped Obama. There was quite a profit to be made from perhaps the only righteous indignation exhibited
ceived. Mitt Romney spoke against the bailout; Eric Singer spoke on behalf the Congressional Effect Fund, a portfolio that only invests while Congress is out of session; and Dr. Ron Paul managed to elicit chants of ‘End the Fed’ from an initially dubious crowd. What was the audience’s response to his assertion that this burgeon-
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Open Revolt in Foreclosed Providence by reed frye
“Well, we stood in front of this house and said, ‘Hey, we’re not gonna let you take these families out of their homes.’” Thomas Judd, community organizer for the Rhode Island Bank Tenant Association, calls the recent foreclosure blockade a “coming-out party” for his five-month-old tenants’ rights group. The blockade was only symbolic, preempting the family’s scheduled eviction. But this grass-
roots group means business: it now hosts regular blockade training sessions for its growing constituency. This response is one more symptom of the devastating inefficiency of US foreclosure policy and bank deregulation, more acute than anywhere here in Providence. According to the Hous-
ing Action Coalition of Rhode Island, Providence has experienced over 1,600 foreclosures in the last year – that’s over four evictions per day - mostly of minorities, mostly of families. Judd refers the curious reader to the interactive map at www.providenceplan. org, where several blocks in west Provi-
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dence have 20 past and scheduled foreclosures each. Often netting no buyers in a bear market, many of these houses that are so desperately needed in poor communities instead cripple those communities: they are boarded up, becoming a source of scrap resources for scavengers and shelter for criminals. However, the worst part of current foreclosure policy is the banks’ enterprising inflation of our homeless population. Evicted households have nowhere to turn, because where money is involved, regulation is nonexistent. In favor of a free financial industry, the Rhode Island Legislature has eschewed just cause laws, which forbid eviction without tenant misbehavior in places like Massachusetts. Bankers toss tenants who can and want to pay rent into the street, often only to sell the house to another rent-taking owner. Rare is the tenant who convinces a bank to accept his rent, and even then it is an insecure arrangement, with no lease period, tenant-paid utilities, and tenant associations like Judd’s as the only stabilizing force. Judd recalls numerous banks offering tenants money to vacate properties early, only to legally deny the pledged funds. Post-eviction, homeowners have quietly pocketed security deposits and further rent, leav-
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ing the uninformed tenants shocked when they wake up to hear an auctioneer selling their house from their own front porch. Even in court, the
while suing for her security deposit. Meghna Philip, the co-coordinator for Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE) here on campus,
Because of nonexistent warning periods, bald-faced lies by the banks, and the theft of rent and deposits, financially competent and rent-paying families resort to homeless shelters and taxpayer charity. tenant never sees a dime of the stolen rent until the landlord’s mortgage debts are paid (don’t hold your breath). In this way, banks and the free market are promoting what Judd calls “unfortunately a very common situation,” namely foreclosure-induced homelessness. Even hardcore conservatives have to admit the market failure. Because of nonexistent warning periods, bald-faced lies by the banks, and the theft of rent and deposits (“I haven’t heard of one tenant getting their security deposit back”), financially competent and rent-paying families fail to find new housing, resorting instead to homeless shelters and taxpayer charity. Tom recalls an unnamed mother forced into such a shelter, only able to find a day’s work per week
has seen more of the same while volunteering at local shelters. She has witnessed evicted single fathers checking in with their sons, and households devoid of “viable living alternatives” pending eviction. As Philip estimates Rhode Island’s total homeless population at around 7,000 already (nearing 1 in 100 people), policies that actually increase the homeless rate are unconscionable. So what must be done? Philip and Judd are in agreement that government aid to date has been unimpressive at best. More worried about the growing homeless rate, Philip is particularly dismayed by the failure of the shelter system to accommodate its larger client base. She points to the appearance of iconic “Tent City” under the Crawford Street Bridge (i.e. pitched survival in freezing conditions) as a preferable alternative to much of the local shelter system, where “incentives are skewed” and “not based on the qualitative level of service.” HOPE’s schedule this semester will accordingly focus on a policy-oriented and research-based reform of the shelter system, likely in favor of a “housing first” and “outcomes-oriented” approach. Judd on the other hand finds more fault on the national scale. When asked about the effectiveness of last year’s bailout bill, President Obama’s $789 billion stimulus bill, and the pending $75 billion foreclosure relief bill, Judd’s primary criticism was that he hasn’t “heard Barack Obama say much about tenants and foreclosure.” Citing a distinct lack of “community control” of government-subsidized bank funds, Judd links the continued misery of tenants with the inability to move beyond a system of weak “voluntary action” and “incentives” for constructive loaning,
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rather than punishment for predatory loans and perverse policy. In a letter from the Tenant Association to Bank of America, the Association lists many tenant demands unfulfilled due to this lack
ily hurt the situation.” He speculated proudly that the ordinances were largely “in response to actions on the part of homeowners and tenants.” Regardless of the various moder-
ognizing the externality here begging to be internalized. In layman’s terms, if banks insist on short-changing the short-of-change, make them pay the taxes to support the foreclosed homeless, make their cost of not keeping tenants significant enough for them to fix the problem themselves. Passing those taxes, or passing any restrictions on banks, frankly, is a mess for another article. Whether or not further responses to the Association’s blockade are forthcoming, Judd promises that Providence “will definitely see more of this in the news.”
Perhaps everyone can agree on one tenet: a foreclosed house and a tenant with rent money deserve each other. of control. The letter includes, among other things, requests that “mortgage payments reflect the true value of the property” and for tenants to be permitted to rent at prices “reasonable and fair to reflect the economic problems experienced by working people.” Further criticizing the foreclosure bill’s lack of coverage for underwater households, the bottom 20% of all homeowners, Judd warns that “these blind spots will be the next round of foreclosures.” Philip appreciates the 9 million who will see their loans modified to monthly payments at 31% of income, but is hesitant to pass judgment on a national bill largely in the hands of state and local implementers. One such local actor has been Mayor Cicilline, who issued a pair of ordinances mandating mediation by RI Housing between homeowner and lender, during which process the tenant’s lease would be honored until expiration. While Judd feared little effect in high foreclosure areas where leases aren’t common to begin with, he decided the news “doesn’t necessar-
ate and radical responses to the cycle of homelessness and foreclosure suggested, perhaps everyone can agree on one tenet: a foreclosed house and a tenant with rent money deserve each other. Banks don’t rent out foreclosed houses because they aren’t paid to care about increasing the homeless rate, about making the American citizen house the homeless instead. I think the average Econ0110 student will join me in rec-
The RI Bank Tenant Association is always looking for enthusiastic volunteers. Thomas Judd can be reached at Tjudd@housingnetworkri.org. The opinions of those interviewed do not necessarily reflect those of the author, or The Brown Contemporary as a whole.
bc
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Financing Obama
How do You Like Your Democracy Now? by jessica wang
W
ashington lobbyists haven’t funded my campaign, they won’t run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am President.”—Barack Obama, Greenville, SC | January 22, 2008 Throughout his campaign and during his first three months in office, President Obama has slung plenty of fiery rhetoric at lobbyists and special interest groups. Indeed, when he introduced new ethics rules banning lobbyists from his White House, they were initially heralded by politicians and press alike as an unprecedented overhaul of the revolving door system. Unfortunately, these new rules will not change a thing about the cozy relationship between Washington and moneyed interests. At best, Obama’s reforms are a stopgap solution to political corruption, and at worst, they are a smokescreen for the ugly realities of the system of the private financing that the President embraced during his campaign. By targeting lobbyists but letting elected officials off the hook, the President is missing an opportunity for real change. One of President Obama’s first actions upon taking office was the passage of his Executive Order on Ethics Commitments, which set strict limitations on the hiring of lobbyists to the White House. Appointees of his administration were prohibited from working in policy areas or for agencies that they lobbied in the past two years. Additionally, after his appointees leave office, they are barred from lobbying the agency in which they served for two years. These rules admittedly do attempt to disen-
tangle policymaking from private interest, yet they fall short, not least because this administration is more than willing to bend them. Waivers were granted to several former lobbyists, with the unconvincing disclaimer that they were “uniquely qualified” for their positions. The most outrageous exception to the rule is William Lynn, the Deputy Secretary of Defense. After years of working as a lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon, during which he oversaw a $14.5 million lobbying
Obama’s rhetoric about routing corruption from the White House, while a former lobbyist is put in charge of contracting reform at the Pentagon. This ethics about-face is hardly surprising to anyone who paid close attention to the President’s campaign. While he repeatedly castigated lobbyists to create sound bites with populist appeal, a detailed examination of who ran and funded his campaign reveals the weakness of his commitment to ethics reform. Obama pledged that he would not let lobbyists run his White House; yet one need look no further than Obama’s own campaign team to a see a number of lobbyists on board. Nine of his political aides on the campaign trail had previously represented a multitude of corporations, including Wal-Mart, British Petroleum, and Lockheed Martin, as registered lobbyists. While hardly a departure from normal campaign hiring practices, it was misleading and dishonest for Obama to constantly attack lobbyists while they were on his payroll. And while the Obama campaign publicly prided itself on not accepting money from Washington lobbyists or PACs, this line amounted to nothing more than window dressing for campaign finances that looked quite similar to that of other candidates. The Center for Responsive Politics runs a website called Opensecrets.org, which tracks campaign financing based on reports from the Federal Election Commission. The Center’s findings indicate that Obama accepted less than 1% of his campaign funds from PACs and a group that the Center labels “lobbyists;” but then again, neither did McCa-
At best, Obama’s reforms are a stopgap solution to political corruption, and at worst, they are a smokescreen for the ugly realities of the system of the private financing that the President embraced during his campaign.
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operation, Lynn was nominated and confirmed with little resistance from the Senate. He is now the number two civilian in command at the Pentagon. Does the administration’s excuse that Lynn is “uniquely qualified” for the job hold any water? As Raytheon’s senior vice president in Washington, he oversaw “governmental outreach efforts” which involved lobbying Congress, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Defense, Energy, Treasury, and State Departments on weapons technology. In that sense, he certainly has experience. However, there is a major conflict of interest when that experience helped a military-industrial giant bag $54 billion in government contracts, most of which were noncompetitive, according to OMB Watch’s research. The public is somehow expected to swallow
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in. As a matter of fact, PACs and lobbyists do not generally give much money directly to presidential campaigns. The devil is in the hidden details, though. First, the Center’s definition of “lobbyist” excludes lobbyists who only work for a single company, union, or association. They are instead listed as employees of whichever industry
his grassroots fundraising effort, which used the internet as a tool to reach out to small donors who contributed less than $200. In theory, this army of small donors ought to neuter the influence of special interests. There is an important distinction to be made, though, between people who donated less than $200 in total, and donors who contributed large amounts of cash in multiple $199 installments. The actual numbers paint a less rosy picture— the percentage of donors who gave less than $200 in total to the Obama campaign in total was only 24%, which was roughly the same percentage that donated the same amount to George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. Even when the definition of “small donor” is expanded to include people who contributed $1,000 or less in total, the money given to the campaign by large donors overshadowed the contributions of small donors by almost 80%. The truth is, no matter how many suppliant e-mails David Plouffe bombarded
Those who voted for President Obama and, yes, those who donated to his campaign deserve better. or sector they represent. To see how campaign donations affect presidential candidates, it is more useful to see which industry sectors contribute the most. It turns out that Obama received large amounts of money from the financial services and health sector, as well as law firms. This implicates bank bailouts, healthcare policy, and malpractice reform as issues where special interests can expect returns for doling out campaign cash. As evidence to the contrary, steadfast Obama supporters might point to
you with, the lifeblood of the campaign was still money that came from wealthier donors and influential industries. Where does this leave us now? With his Revolving Door Ban, Obama has implemented a half-hearted reform that even he chooses to ignore. As someone who once supported the Fair Elections Now Act, a proposal for a voluntary system of full public financing for elections, President Obama ought to know better that the current system of campaign finance breeds corruption and poor policy. Those who voted for President Obama and, yes, those who donated to his campaign deserve better. Every American taxpayer whose interests go ignored because of the overwhelming power of special interest money deserves better. By supporting full public financing, the President would have an opportunity to make good on his campaign promises and reverse the damage he did when he forewent public financing in 2008. Lobbyists would not run government, and the government would not run on lobbyist money. It’s time for new rules and a new game on both K Street andPennsylvania bc Ave.
bc
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COURTESY OF CAMPUS PROGRESS MAGAZINE
Kevin Roose ‘09
The Brown student who went undercover at Liberty University talks about Christian education, conservative Christian views on homosexuality, and why the “God divide” is overblown.
By Bradley Portnoy (photo courtesy Kevin Roose)
B
y all appearances, Kevin Roose is your typical Brown University senior. He’s an English major, sings in an a cappella group, and was raised as a Quaker in the kind of family where having two lesbian aunts is no big deal. But instead of the typical junior year study-abroad trip to Europe or Africa, Roose took a semester off from Brown to enroll in Liberty University, the world’s largest evangelical university. Founded in the 1970s by controversial pastor Jerry Fallwell (also responsible for founding the conservative lobby group Moral Majority), Liberty is known as much for its strict rules (no drinking, no dancing, and no kissing—not even on the cheek) as it is for its agenda-driven academics. Liberty teaches evolution in its biology department (necessary for accreditation), but all students are required to take courses teaching young earth creationism. When spring break rolls around, Liberty students hit the beaches like everyone else—but they’re there to proselytize, not party. Roose dove head first into what Fallwell once described as “Bible boot camp,” living like any other evangelical Christian student. When people on the Liberty campus asked him why he had left Brown to enroll there, he told them he wanted to see what a Christian college was like. This was the truth, but his motives went beyond that. Roose took notes on his experience every night, and his new book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University, is the story of his semester at Liberty. It comes out tomorrow. Campus Progress recently spoke with Roose about his time at Liberty, the challenges of returning to Brown after a semester of piety, and how his parents reacted to his “semester abroad.”
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Campus Progress: The book follows you through an entire semester spent at Liberty Universi-
ty, and in the end you come away with a surprisingly favorable impression. Going in, were you expecting to receive Liberty so positively, or did you find yourself surprised by the outcome? Kevin Roose: I really had no idea what to expect at Liberty, since I grew up and lived my whole life in a secular, liberal bubble. All I had to work with were my preconceived notions of Falwell-style conservative Christianity. So it was completely surprising to discover that most Liberty students are perfectly normal kids, and that a lot of them spend their days watching Judd Apatow movies, gossiping about girls, and complaining about the amount of homework they have—the same things my friends at Brown do. I was expecting a college full of students who spent their free time sewing Hillary Clinton voodoo dolls and penning angry letters to the ACLU. One of the major issues that you have with Liberty and its students’ views is their intolerance for homosexuality. At Brown you have a number of gay friends, and even went so far as to share a room with one of them before leaving for Liberty. Were there
ever times that you nearly spoke out against some of the comments that you heard (or even an instance where you did that didn’t make it into the book)? With that issue, I was in a pretty tough position since I couldn’t really speak my mind without revealing myself as an outsider. But as I got to know the guys on my hall, I did start to pipe up during discussions about homosexuality. I’d say things like, “You know, some people think the Bible doesn’t forbid same-sex relationships at all.” And, of course, my hallmates would mostly roll their eyes and keep talking. But a few of them actually seemed open to the possibility, so I felt good about that. Baby steps, you know? Your parents were apprehensive about your project going in— what have their reactions been to the changes Liberty brought about in you? “Apprehensive” is a bit of an understatement. They flat-out hated the idea of me studying at Jerry Falwell’s college when I first brought it up. They used to work for Ralph Nader, after all. But I think they came to understand my motives for wanting to do it, and they supported me even though they were worried that I’d be changed permanently by the experience. Now, I think they’re just happy it’s over. Even though you changed the names and identifying details of everyone in the book, you still spent a semester deceiving them about your true mission at Liberty. Were there any concerns going in about the ethics involved in your project? Of course. It was unbelievably hard to keep certain parts of my identity shielded from public view, and it only got harder as I grew closer to my Liber-
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ty friends. But I decided early on that I wanted to see the real picture of Christian college life, and that required being seen as an insider. I did make a few rules for myself going into the project, one of which was that I’d do as little lying as possible. So I told people I came from Brown, and when they asked why, I said something strictly true, like “I wanted to see what Christian college was like.” It probably wouldn’t pass muster in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but it’s how I slept at night. By the end of the book, you’re something of a campus celebrity. Do you think you got the full picture of what it’s like to be an average Liberty student or was your experience clouded by the many ways in which you reached into the community in search of more
content matter, which tends to be pretty dogmatic in the lower-level religion courses. So yeah, the information flow in those classes went almost entirely in one direction, and I did end up answering exam questions like, “True or false: Noah’s ark was large enough to accommodate various kinds of dino-
About midway through the book, your friend David (an outspoken gay Jew) comes to visit you at Liberty. Have any of your Liberty friends been to visit you at Brown? What did they think of it here? None of them have been up to
saurs.” Since I left, however, a number of Liberty professors and students have assured me that the upper-level classes are taught in a much more traditional
Providence yet, but a few of my Liberty friends have met my best friends at Brown, and they’ve all gotten along really well. It sort of sounds like the
information? I wanted to see as much of Liberty as possible in one semester, so I joined every club I could and took every class they’d let me take. And I certainly did try to reach out to people, get to know them, and hear their stories. Not being a wallflower allowed me to take in a lot during the four-plus months I was at Liberty, and as a result, I think my portrait of the school wound up being fuller and more authentic than it would have been otherwise. A major topic is the style of teaching at Liberty: mostly filling in blanks in workbooks that are given out, with little room for discussion or debate. Is that true of all classes, or just the introductory ones that you took as a transfer? Part of my experience, I’m sure, had to do with the size of the introductory classes I took—almost all of them had more than 100 students—and the
style, with all the discussion and debate you’d expect at a liberal arts college. The summary on The Unlikely Disciple’s book jacket loudly proclaims some of Liberty’s rules: no drinking, no smoking, etcetera. Which of the rules did you find the hardest to follow? Were there any you thought would be tough but weren’t? The hardest, without question, was the no-cursing rule. I don’t smoke or drink heavily, but I do enjoy a good four-letter word once in a while, so I had a real problem going to Liberty, where curses are punishable with up to 18 reprimands. (For comparison, 30 reprimands is enough to get you expelled.) I actually bought a Christian self-help book called 30 Days to Taming Your Tongue, and as a result, I spent a few days saying things like “Glory!” and “Mercy me!” I sounded a little like Beaver Cleaver, but at least I avoided getting reprimands.
premise for a bad MTV show, bringing these two drastically different groups of people together, but it’s actually been great to bridge the gap between my worlds. I think I might be the only person in America who has similar numbers of Facebook friends at Brown and Liberty. An event that I’m surprised wasn’t included in the book was your trip back to Brown for Spring Weekend, which is widely recognized as the most debaucherous weekend of the year—some students spend 72 hours intoxicated and the weekend often coincides with April 20th, a notorious date for marijuana use. How did that visit shape your perspectives on Liberty, and how much reverse culture shock did you experience during that weekend? Spring Weekend was a strange experience, simply because what had once seemed so familiar was totally alien to
Kevin Roose: I did end up answering exam questions like, “True or false: Noah’s ark was large enough to accommodate various kinds of dinosaurs.”
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me after spending several months at Liberty. I decided to cut that episode from the book, though, since I thought showing Brown only at the most bacchanalian time of the year would give a slanted picture of the school. It’d be like going to Liberty and only talking about the anti-abortion rallies. Most if not all of your close friendships at Liberty seemed to be with men, and specifically with the residents of your dorm. How much did gender segregation in the dorms shape your social relationships at Liberty? Gender plays a huge part in Liberty’s social dynamics, and my experiences there were inextricably dependent on me being a guy. If I’d been a girl, I’m sure I would have seen a completely different side of Liberty, especially with respect to Liberty’s theological teachings on female submission. A female Brown student should go to Lynchburg and write the girls’ version! What was your reaction to Christopher Hitchens’ remarks and some of the other mean-spirited criticism that followed Rev. Fallwell’s death? What, if anything, would you like such critics to take away from The Unlikely Disciple? I was actually surprised by my reaction to the Hitchens eulogy. [Hitchens
called Falwell an “ugly little charlatan” and quipped that “if you gave him an enema, you could bury him in a matchbox.”] I, too, had some pretty big qualms with Falwell’s theological and political views, but when I got to interview him several weeks before his death, I saw a different, more human side of him. He
warriors would have us believe? Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found that the “God divide” was nowhere near as big as people tend to think it is. There are legitimate differences between the two sides of the culture wars, of course, and those differences are likely to continue for quite a while. But I don’t think this particular religious conflict is built around a hundredfoot brick wall. If anything, it’s built around a flimsy piece of cardboard, held in place on both sides by paranoia and lack of exposure. If someone like me can go to Liberty and find things to like about it, the God divide can’t possibly be all that forbidding. What’s the one thing that you would want to tell students at Liberty (or any evangelical Christian) to help them better understand progressive secular culture? I don’t think there’s any one maxim that will do the trick. I think the key is just to spend time with people on the other side, learning why they believe the things they do. I know it’s not likely to happen, but I genuinely think the world would be a better place if every secular progressive spent time getting to know evangelical Christians and vice versa. It’s hard to demonize people when you learn to see things from their perspective. bc
Kevin Roose: He told me about his grandkids and his love of practical jokes, and I actually enjoyed talking to him, even though his affability didn’t excuse the offensive things he did. told me about his grandkids and his love of practical jokes, and I actually enjoyed talking to him, even though his affability didn’t excuse the offensive things he did. I think it’s important to recognize the humanity of even the people we disagree with most strongly, and I think Hitchens’ remarks, while funny, reduced a complex man to a one-dimensional villain. At one point, you compare your study away at Liberty to many students’ study abroad experiences in other nations, and wonder if the divide may be greater even though you spoke the same language as Liberty students. In the end, how different did you find the culture at Liberty from the progressive secular culture you’re more accustomed to? Are we as divided as the culture
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a cryptic letter to the editor from another school
Nature, Obama, and...yeah No business or economy can last forever and therefore we shouldn’t be surprised about what’s happening. Death is a universal law that nothing can escape. A forest will naturally fall to forest fires, no matter how much we try to prevent it. Our economy works the same way. Right now we are in the middle of a forest fire, and we must allow nature to take its course. Any intervention just postpones the inevitable and allows the less equipped to survive. Our government is fighting a fire with gasoline, poring more and more money into businesses which are doomed to fail. Though our government is foolish, do not be gloomed by what you see now, for the economy, like the forest, will come back stronger and brighter, with more jobs and more innovation than ever before. Obama can keep trying to save a dead tree, but we capitalists know better. Chad Dixon Finance Major at Baylor University
We’ll make fun of your letter, too! Email browncontemporary@gmail.com
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contemporary • may 2009
the brown contemporary 5/6/2009 3:24:52 PM