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Volume XIV, Issue VIII
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Volume XIV, Issue VIII
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE WEEK IN REVIEW ....................................................................
A publication of
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Eliza Schultz ’15
JHU POLITIK jhupolitik.org
INDIA, PAKISTAN, AND A CHOICE DENIED ...........................
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Alex Clearfield & Rachel Cohen MANAGING EDITOR Colette Andrei ASSISTANT EDITORS Julia Allen Katie Botto Christine Server CREATIVE DIRECTOR Victoria Scordato MARKETING & PUBLICITY Rebecca Grenham Audrey Moss WEBMASTER Sihao Lu FACULTY ADVISOR Steven R. David
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Mira Haqqani ’17
HEAD WRITER Ari Schaffer
THE YARD OR THE CARPET? ..................................................
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Henry Chen ‘14
MARYLAND EDITOR Adam Roberts
THE DEATH OF THE URBAN REPUBLICAN .............................. Page 7
COPY EDITOR Peter Lee
Adam Roberts ‘14
STAFF WRITERS Akshai Bhatnagar Mike Bodner Adrian Carney Henry Chen Virgil Doyle Dylan Etzel Rosellen Grant Sarallah Salehi Eliza Schultz Geordan Williams Chris Winer
the questionable merits of the minimum wage .....
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Preston Ge ‘17
TUNNEL FROM GAZA:
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RETHINKING DIVERSITY ......................................................
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IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CURRENT CONFLICT David Hamburger, Special Visiting Student
Geordan Williams ’14
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INDIA, PAKISTAN, AND A CHOICE DENIED
WEEK IN REVIEW: Elections
by Mira Haqqani ’17, Contributing Writer
By Eliza Schultz ’15, Staff Writer
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he only possible solution to the conflict between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region is to allow the Kashmiris to decide their own future. The case for Kashmiri self-determination is clear—it is unacceptable for the Kashmiris to be raped, tortured, and live under occupation in a progressive age. The strongest reason to allow the Kashmiris to decide their own future is to seal the division that has plagued them for over 60 years (Kashmir is divided between Indian-controlled Kashmir and Pakistani-controlled Azad Kashmir by the Line of Control). Moreover, the Kashmiri desire to establish selfgovernment shows how important it is for the Kashmiris to play a leading role in deciding their disposition. This is especially true because of their history of efficient internal administration, as can be seen by the fact that they remained politically autonomous even under the British Raj.
Virginia Gubernatorial Race Tightens, Attracts (More) National Attention While previous polls indicated that Democrat Terry McAuliffe held a double-digit lead over Republican Ken Cuccinelli in the race for Virginia governor, recent ones have suggested that the candidates are separated by a narrow margin. To help galvanize voters, President Obama and Bill Clinton campaigned on behalf of McAuliffe last week, whom many consider weak. One recent poll suggested that 65% of his supporters will vote against Cuccinelli rather than affirmatively for McAuliffe. The recent surge in support for Libertarian Robert Sarvis, who is estimated to attract about nine percent of the vote, has pulled voters primarily away from Cuccinelli. The outcome will gauge Republican popularity in the wake of the government shutdown and provide insight into midterm elections next year. A victory for the Democrats in the swing-state may be indicative of a national shift toward the left (or, at least, away from the Tea Party).
Coloradans to Decide on Marijuana Taxes Tuesday Having legalized recreational marijuana last year, Coloradans will determine the fate of sales and excise taxes on the drug this Tuesday. Proponents argue that revenue from the taxes (at a total rate of 25%) would help implement the regulatory system necessary for keeping the drug away from minors while also funding the educational system. Without well-funded regulation, supporters argue that the measure passed last November would be undermined. Opposers have argued that the higher price would deter buyers from the regulated market, driving it underground and compromising regulation. Both groups agree that strong regulation will prevent federal intervention and may position Colorado as the national model for other states that hope to legalize marijuana. Despite disagreement over taxes, legislators have not abandoned the initial cause: last week, the Denver City Council replaced a proposed law that would have restricted public use with one that allows it in backyards and parks.
Since 1947, the year that marked the much-awaited independence of British India and partition of the region into India and Pakistan, the dispute over Kashmir has played a crucial role in determining relations between the two countries. Failure to decide the future of Kashmir at the time led India and Pakistan to approach the United Nations for mediation. The United Nations asserted that the Kashmiris be given the right to self-determination through a plebiscite and emphasized the need to uphold this right and its importance in liquefying the political and military tension between the two countries over Kashmir. However, as of today, Kashmiris remain deprived of their right to choose, making the dispute one of the bloodiest in the history of the United Nations.
In Race for Boston Mayor, Nearly Identical Candidates Spar In a dead heat, Boston mayoral hopefuls enter the election with few policy differences and similar polling numbers. To separate themselves from one another, John Connolly and Marty Walsh, both Democrats, have notably jettisoned all civility. Connolly recently ran a push poll in which he condemned his opponent for both his labor union ties and participation in a parade that discriminated against gays. Walsh released brochures that harshly criticized Connolly’s family and contained inaccurate information about a school at which Connolly previously taught. In the final debate last week, the opponents squabbled over negative campaigning but held similar positions on diversifying the police department and changes to the education system. While they disagreed over casinos, neither fully elaborated their position. Despite uncertainty regarding the outcome on Tuesday, Bostonians anticipate low voter turnout. After all, the candidates are indistinguishable.
With both countries continuing to claim their right to control the ‘paradise on earth’, the fight over Kashmir has become long-lived with no apparent solution; in the quest for Kashmir, India and Pakistan have been to war three times in the last 66 years, held endless rounds of negotiations and have failed countless times to establish peace over Kashmir. While this conflict is often seen as a political failure by the international community, the seriousness of this issue for the Kashmiris is unrealized. Since 1947, Kashmiris have sacrificed their lives for a right to self-determination, and have tragically become
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accustomed to a life of guns, bullets, curfews, and checkposts. Even in an age characterized by enlightenment and progress, the Kashmiris continue to suffer from violations of human rights and international law inflicted upon them by the Indian military presence in the region. The Kashmir conflict creates a huge dilemma, not only for Pakistan, India, and the people of Kashmir, but for the entire international community. A denial to the right of self-determination for the Kashmiris is a clear violation of the UN resolutions of 1949 which state that “the question of the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India or Pakistan will be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite.” In addition, the Indian military presence in Kashmir has compromised the well-being of the Kashmiris by carrying out massive breaches of the Geneva Convention and international law pertaining to armed wars. Despite this clear encroachment upon the human rights of Kashmiris and the United Nations’ strategy for the future of the region, the issue over the disputed territory has been tabled at the UN Security Council because conflicts in other parts of the world have taken precedence over the bleeding state of Kashmir and its people. The future of Kashmir cannot be predicted; while a unanimous realization of the importance of Kashmiri self-determination seems next to impossible, it is the only way in which the final disposition of Kashmir can be achieved. If the Kashmiris continue to be denied this right, the conflict is likely to worsen. This would represent an unfortunate state of affairs because of the fear of nuclear warfare between India and Pakistan. Thus, the Kashmir situation remains an extremely sensitive issue which the international community must take priority in resolving. PP
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THE YARD OR THE CARPET?
THE DEATH OF THE URBAN REPUBLICAN
by Henry Chen ‘14, Staff Writer
by Adam Roberts ’14, Maryland Editor
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ike deciding whether or not to allow the dog to use the bathroom in the yard or on the carpet, fracking for natural gas represents a choice between the lesser of two evils. It is far from the perfect solution to our energy security and climate change problems, but it goes a long way towards providing a more reasonable alternative to the status quo. Unfortunately, by voting to impose new restrictions on hydraulic fracturing this month, the European Union has soiled the carpet. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, involves pumping a cocktail of water and various chemicals into the ground in order to loosen shale formations, releasing natural gas and oil deposits that were previously inaccessible. There is some risk to this process because when done incorrectly, these chemicals can leach into groundwater deposits. Furthermore, we may never know what chemicals are used because the industry is legally exempt from the Clean Water Act, and therefore does not disclose the ingredients in its fracking cocktails. There can be no doubt fracking is potentially dangerous. But it is also unquestionably the best thing to happen in this country during the past decade. During the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, America’s dependence on foreign oil quickly became the greatest challenge facing the economy. Between January 2007 and July 2008, the price of oil surged from $54 per barrel to $133 per barrel. Adversarial exporters such as Russia and Venezuela utilized oil for geopolitical leverage while OPEC conspired to keep gasoline prices high. Overseas, American involvement in Iraq rapidly escalated, while the rapid growth of the Chinese economy dramatically increased global oil demand. All this accentuated concerns that the world had reached “peak oil” production and was about to enter a new phase of intense conflict over energy resources. But contrary to all expectations, our dependence on foreign oil has receded with astonishing rapidity over the past five years. After decades of slow decline in gas and oil production, American production has surged to historic highs since 2009. Because fracking has produced vast quantities of cheap natural gas, natural gas is now replacing coal in power plants around the country. This has created
enormous environmental benefits, because natural gas produces half the carbon emissions as the equivalent amount of coal. Carbon emissions in the United States recently reached their lowest point since 1990. The European Union has set ambitious goals for lowering carbon emissions. It met a goal of achieving a 20% reduction of carbon emissions by 2020 years ahead of schedule. However, there has been a recent uptick in carbon emissions, as countries such as Germany have chosen to shutter emissions-free nuclear plants in the wake of the Fukushima crisis. Because of the absence of fracking in Europe, this demand has been largely met through emissions-heavy coal imported from the United States. The natural gas industry in Europe has been harmed by regulations such as France’s complete ban on fracking. The European Parliament passed legislation this October that requires companies to carry out in-depth environmental audits before they begin fracking for gas, which will severely curtail investment in the shale gas sector. These restrictions are largely driven by two fears: contamination of drinking water and fears that it will undermine investment in solar and wind technologies. The first is not entirely unfounded, but ignores the clear and present danger of climate change in order to address a relatively minor concern. The second is valid in theory but does not account for the fact that coal has been the primary beneficiary of Europe’s hesitancy to frack. Aside from its obvious impact on carbon emissions, coal extraction produces environmental impacts arguably more severe than fracking. Regrettably, European legislators have largely focused on the hazards of fracking rather than addressing the ultimately graver problem of climate change. While scientifically unproven allegations that fracking causes earthquakes or sink faucets to catch fire may seem frightening, ultimately a policy must be evaluated against its alternatives. Through its excessive regulation of fracking, Europe risks losing focus of the overarching goal of reducing carbon emissions. The stakes are high: we can clean up the yard, but ultimately we cannot afford to replace the carpet. PP
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D
uring the “white flight” and suburbanization of the 1950s through 1970s, upper class and upper-middle class white people left the cities for the nearby suburbs. As these groups were the Republicans’ base, the party quickly lost its competitiveness in America’s cities. Democratic African-Americans, who had once been ostracized from positions of power in cities, gradually began to assume the mayoralties of places like Los Angeles and Atlanta. Other traditionally Democratic voters like poor whites who were unable to leave the cities, Hispanics, and newly arrived Asian immigrants, all supported this political realignment. Seizing the opportunity created by growing white bigotry and increasing tensions between blacks and other minorities, President Reagan launched an all-out verbal war directed against urban blacks. Using coded racist language like the talk of black “welfare queens,” he critiqued supposed corruption in largely black unions, criminality amongst blacks, and the drug epidemic in black neighborhoods. Reagan’s racist appeals proved very successful since poor whites had long blamed AfricanAmericans for urban decay, and Hispanics and Asians saw blacks as competition for labor. The result in the 1984 election was his victory in every state in the heavily urban and Democratic Northeast and nearly 40% of the Hispanic vote (compared to around 25% for Romney in 2012). To translate this national success into local electoral victories, Republicans relied upon a series of crises. In 1991, anger about police mistreatment caused riots to break out in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. A year later, massive unrest broke out in Los Angeles after the notguilty verdict for the policemen who assaulted motorist Rodney King. In both cases, primarily black rioters vented their anger on other minorities, especially Jews in Brooklyn, and Mexicans and Koreans in Los Angeles. Seeing this violent split amongst traditionally Democratic voters, Republican mayoral candidates in both New York and Los Angeles took advantage of the riots. With both cities having black Democratic mayors at the time, Rudy Giuliani in New York and Richard Riordan in Los Angeles subtly accused the mayors of sympathizing with the rioters. In fact, they campaigned almost entirely on “law
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and order,” coded words for the chaos that black rioters and politicians had supposedly caused in America’s cities. Those who had been most affected by urban decay and the riots, especially Hispanics and Asians, turned out heavily for Giuliani and Riordan. Thus, two of the most Democratic cities elected Republican mayors in 1993. Yet today, there are no major cities with Republican mayors, and even few mid-sized cities in heavily red states have Republican mayors. This strange turn of events was the result of smart strategy on the part of Democrats. Starting in the late 1990s Democrats had begun to take on the union corruption and crime in cities, while strongly supporting private investment in urban development. By taking these political stances, Democrats co-opted previously Republican issues without appealing to bigotry. Using this formula, black Democratic Mayor Bill White won enough of the Mexican vote to survive a challenge from a Hispanic Republican in Houston in 2001. Also appealing to desires for lower crime rates and increased economic development without a racist tinge, white Martin O’Malley became mayor of overwhelmingly black Baltimore in 1999. Democrats have continued to successfully use the same formula over a decade later. In the 2013 New York Democratic mayoral primary, black Bill Thompson did best amongst Hispanics and Jews, while white Bill de Blasio easily won the black vote. Obviously Republicans need more than coded racism to win in America’s cities today. People simply vote much more on issues than race nowadays. Yet, the Republican Party has still sought to achieve electoral success through coded racist measures like voter purges and voter ID laws, which disproportionately affect black people. These measures have done nothing to get Republicans competitive in cities again, which is dangerous for the party’s viability. As rapid urban development is sweeping the nation, and young adults are largely choosing to live in cities over suburbs and exurbs, Republicans are increasingly losing their voter base for national elections as well. What they need to do is stress their support for public safety, decreased union power, and increased private investment without appealing to racism. If they seem more in favor of those issues than Democrats, perhaps urban voters may once again vote Republican. PP
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TUNNEL FROM GAZA: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CURRENT CONFLICT
THE QUESTIONABLE MERITS OF THE MINIMUM WAGE by Preston Ge ’17, Contributing Writer
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by David Hamburger, Special Visiting Student
he minimum wage was undoubtedly born from good intentions. Earlier this year, President Obama called on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 to support struggling, lower-income workers. Just a few months after Obama’s speech, California raised its hourly minimum wage to $10 by 2016 to assist lower-income workers in a state plagued with high living costs. However, the unfortunate truth is that the minimum wage hurts not only the same low skilled workers it is intended to help, but also encumbers the entire economy.
A&M economists found in 2013 that the majority of the minimum wage’s negative employment effects come not from immediate job loss, but from a long-term reduction in job growth. Moreover, the minimum wage exacerbates inflation as firms increase prices to pass higher labor costs on to consumers. But perhaps most importantly, the minimum wage handicaps businesses operating in the United States and gives them the incentive to shift operations to other nations where labor costs are lower. As a result, the competitiveness of the American economy will falter.
While it seems that the minimum wage should benefit low-income workers, it must be kept in mind that labor is a resource subject to the laws of supply and demand. Increasing the cost of any other good or resource leads to a decrease in quantity demanded. The same is true for labor. A minimum wage increases the cost of labor; firms that hope to hire more workers cannot do so because the minimum wage drives up the cost of labor. A worker whose productivity justifies an hourly wage of $4 would not be hired under the current minimum wage. More importantly, the burden of the minimum wage falls most oppressively on the shoulders on young workers, whose dearth of experience makes them the least likely to be hired and the most likely to be laid off.
Indeed, the only way to effectively increase the wellbeing of low-income workers is through increased productivity: either through technological advances or improved education. While wages have technically largely remained constant since 1973, worker compensation, which includes nonwage benefits, has grown steadily and consistently with productivity. Compensation growth as a result of increased productivity is natural because, unlike a minimum wage, it is backed up by a tangible increase in goods and services produced. The minimum wage fails because it is an overly simplistic measure to artificially mandate high wages and completely disregards the overwhelming complexities of the modern economy. PP
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his month’s discovery of a tunnel from the Gaza Strip into Southern Israel once again raises an issue of security in a region that, for the most part, has seen a quiet year. Since Operation Pillar of Defense—a limited engagement between Hamas forces in Gaza and the Israeli army during late 2012—the perennial conflict between the Islamist group and Israel has remained calm. Faced with a rapidly changing political sphere, Hamas has been largely preoccupied with adapting to maintain the status quo in the face of an ascending Palestinian Authority and the distressing loss of an ally, Mohammed Morsi, in Egypt. Sidetracked with these other issues, Hamas has not been able to focus on pursuing another overt conflict with Israel. Now, however, the revelation that Hamas has spent millions of dollars and more than a year to construct an underground pipeline into an Israeli civilian center poses a real threat to the delicate status quo. It challenges the wisdom of loosening restrictions on Gaza, as the Israeli government has done, to permit the flow of construction materials into the Strip. It also raises serious questions about the intentions of Hamas, pointing to a growing need for attention to the present situation which Hamas seems increasingly willing to escalate. The tunnel, prior to controlled detonation this week by Israeli forces, stretched nearly 2,000 meters underground from Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip before reportedly coming to surface near a kindergarten in the Ein Hashlosha Kibbutz. Its construction not only represents Hamas’s technological capabilities—the tunnel was equipped with lights and communication lines—but also a readiness to carry out more significant attacks than the current method of rocket strikes.
But does empirical data reflect what economic theory predicts? In a comprehensive review of contemporary economic research papers, economists David Neumark and William Wascher found that out of 33 well-designed minimum wage studies, 85 percent indicated that the minimum wage negatively affects employment. Joseph Sabia, University of Georgia, showed that every 10 percent minimum wage increase leads to a 1 percent drop in retail employment. Such an increase in the minimum wage would cost nearly 45,000 jobs in retail sales alone, not to mention thousands, if not millions, of other jobs throughout the entire economy. In essence, a minimum wage increases unemployment among the same low skilled workers it ostensibly helps.
Indeed, in claiming responsibility for the tunnel, Hamas radio explained the tunnel as a project designed to facilitate the release of Palestinian prisoners – likely by kidnaping an Israeli civilian or soldier. These comments speak strongly to the Israelis, whose agreement to a 2011 release of over one thousand prisoners in exchange for captured soldier Gilad Shalit was feared at the time to set a dangerous precedent – a success Hamas now apparently wants to repeat.
On the macroeconomic side, the costs of the minimum wage are even more pronounced. For example, Texas
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A successful kidnapping, while daring, would bring much needed attention to the organization that has largely been forced to the sidelines while it struggles to replace deposed allies and maintain its relevance in the face of Palestinian Authority peace negotiations with Israel. By carrying out such an attack, Hamas could in one stroke reassert its dominance in regional headlines while simultaneously prompting a strong Israeli retaliation that would, in all likelihood, derail the peace process and establish Hamas as the central force of the Palestinian resistance. At a crucial time for Mideast peace, such a move could very well radically upset the current sense of stability. Perhaps equally important, the discovery of the tunnel poses challenges within Israel to those advocating a more liberal policy toward Gaza in the hopes of alleviating the current economic challenges facing the Strip. Last month was the first in years in which Israel allowed the transport of concrete into Gaza for private construction – an important first step in loosened restrictions on imports. In response to the discovery, however, Israeli officials reinstated a policy prohibiting the importation of construction materials such as concrete into Gaza. Citing the nearly 25,000 concrete slabs originally destined for construction used in the creation of the tunnel as justification for the cutoff, officials condemned Hamas for taking advantage of Israeli “good intentions to assist the people of Gaza.” For many in Israel, the tunnel only serves to reinforce the claims of hard-liners that say attempts to promote goodwill will only result in further attempts to harm Israeli citizens. As Israel continues its peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas struggles for relevance amid a less sympathetic world, both Israel and Hamas are faced with choices between moderation and radicalism. While the discovery of the tunnel certainly plays to the hands of hard-liners and raises serious questions about Hamas and its future ambitions, the successful destruction of the tunnel is a fortunate development for those supporters of a fragile peace on both sides of the conflict. PP
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RETHINKING DIVERSITY
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We often think that diversity is encompassed by the bubbles we filled out on our SATs or by the statistics contained within college brochures regarding race percentiles or number of international students, but diversity is so much more than this. First, so few students feel comfortable confining themselves to a box that constitutes their entire identity as Black, Asian/Pacific Islander, or White (Not Hispanic). Second, self-identity is much more than race and also consists of factors such as home origins, socioeconomic background, type of school attended previous to Hopkins, political inclinations, religion, and philosophy. A study of history reveals that factors such as home origins were once the standard of diversity, which demonstrates not only that cultural identity is dynamic or that the U.S. is a deeply racial society, but that any one of these categories fails to be representative of diversity as a whole.
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WRITE FOR thePOLITIK PRESS
by Geordan Williams ’14, Staff Writer
wo weeks ago, Voice for Life, a student pro-life advocacy club, set up a display entitled, “The Cemetery of the Innocents,” that included 139 white crosses posted on a lawn between MSE and the Homewood Museum. This display ignited a great deal of controversy that is indicative of an oft-ignored problem on university campuses across the nation. Universities select a diverse student body in order to promote a diversity of thought; however, campuses often fail in this goal because they are dominated by one ideological strain that can stifle meaningful discussion. As such, our understanding of what diversity is needs to be reevaluated and brought into line with the ultimate goal: diversity of thought.
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to the point that any deviation is deemed abnormal and illegitimate. I am not simply referring to the preponderance of Democrats over Republicans since many youth are now registering as Independents or often believe in a mixture of policies coming from either party. Furthermore, other university campuses in the U.S. are dominated by conservatives with few liberals and suffer from the same problem. The position of Voice For Life is considered taboo and makes many students uncomfortable, but if we are to grow as individuals then we need to be made uncomfortable. If we only interact with students who share our own assumptions, then we are never aware of what our assumptions are and how they limit our own arguments. The point of having a diverse community is to be faced with questions such as the debate sparked by Voice For Life. Now, I am not arguing that Voice For Life or the counter protesters were correct, nor am I arguing that only one or the other had a right to demonstrate. I am arguing that if you do not have at least some ambiguity inside of you regarding the issue, then you have not thought about it enough. This applies to every issue. As long as they are respectful, every club has a right to form and demonstrate on campus even if they do espouse ideas held by a thin minority of students. Higher education is about learning, and if we are not modifying our beliefs or questioning them, then we are not learning. PP
Photo Courtesy: United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs Division
The Politik Press, originally founded in 2008 as JHU Politik, is a weekly publication of political opinion pieces. We proudly seek to provide the Johns Hopkins campus with student voices and perspectives about important issues of our time. Rather than hide within a cloistered academic bubble, we know we must critically engage with the world that surrounds us. That, we believe, is at the heart of what it means to be learning. We’re lucky to be situated in the city of Baltimore, a city with a rich history and an ever-changing politics. We aim to look at the politics of the Homewood campus, of the city of Baltimore, of the domestic landscape of the United States, and then of the international community as well. While we publish the Politik Press weekly, we work simultaneously on our special issues which come out once per semester. These magazines confront a single topic from multiple angles. We have run issues covering topics like the political nature of research, the Arab Spring, and our city Baltimore.
It is for this reason that higher education admissions policies should be reconstituted. Origins and socioeconomic background should be given just as much weight as race in selecting a diverse student body. Although it is not necessary for every student to be politically active, prospective students on college applications should have to write three or four sentences on their own life philosophy and name several controversial issues that they are passionate about.
If interested e-mail us at
JHUPOLITIK@gmail.com Or find us online at
jhupolitik.org
These policies can help to end what I term ideological hegemony: one way of thinking dominating others
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