Volume V, Issue X
November 1, 2010
JHU POLITIK STEWART & COLBERT DESCEND ON WASHINGTON
ISSUE X, 11/01/10 Also in this Week’s Edition:
INTERNATIONAL WIKILEAKS WRECKS HAVOC
By Briana Last ‘14
-Page 3
THE FRENCH PROTESTS
By Anna Kochut, ‘13 -Page 4
OPINION A CASE FOR REINSTATING THE DRAFT
By Hilary Matfess, ‘14 -Page 5 A NEW WAVE IN CHINA ( Saul Loeb/ Getty Images)
by Cary Glynn, ‘13 Staff Writer
O
n Saturday morning throngs flocked to the National Mall in Washington, DC for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.” By noon, the Roots , a hip hop band, opened the show. The three-hour rally was certainly an odd amalgam. It was part late night comedy in the early afternoon, and part USO show. It was part political rally, and part slapstick comedy with large puppets and jokes about feces. It was part Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) concert and part Ozzy Osbourne concert (literally). A blend of comedy, music, and politics, the rally is hard to categorize. While the majority of the rally was comedic and satirical (“We know if you have too many white people at a rally, then your cause is
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By Ari Schaffer, ‘14 -Page 6
racist but if you have too many people of color at a rally, well then you must be just asking for something – like eating in a restaurant."), towards the end Stewart changed his clothes and tone. Wearing a suit, he delivered a prepared speech from the podium. He began by noting the concern that, “there are boundaries for a comedian/pundit/talker guy, and I’m sure I’ll find out tomorrow how I have violated them.” To cheering he announced, “we live now in hard times, not end times.” He continued by excoriating the press. “If we amplify everything,” he said, “we hear nothing.” As many signs at the rally alluded, “inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslim makes us less safe, not more” Stewart argued. The media and politicians’ perpetual cycle of
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extreme conflict and vitriol is not a true reflection of America, he said. Everyday Americans can compromise, and represent diverse views. “We know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light,” he implored, “we have to work together.” While his tone may be criticized for being platitudinous, and his message for comedy, timidity, or lacking feasibility, his audience was certainly engaged. His speech caused the National Journal to wonder whether the rally should have been called “The Rally to Restore Jour(Continued on Page 2) www.JHUPOLITIK.com
Volume V, Issue X
November 1, 2010
The POLITIK EDITOR-In-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
Joshua Ayal
Harry Black
Sam Lichtenstein
Staff Writers
Executive Editors
Rohit Dasgupta Eric Feinberg Becca Fishbein Conor Foley Cary Glynn Benjamin Goldberg Paul Grossinger Dan Hochman Daniel Roettger
Managing Editor
Will Denton Morgan Hitzig
Matt Varvaro PRODUCTION MANAGERS
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NATIONAL REPORT (Continued from Page 1) nalism.” “The fact is, Stewart embodies a contradiction at the heart of the contemporary liberal mentality. He says he just wants everybody to be reasonable,” writes Robert McCartney, a columnist for the Washington Post, “but his fans, at least, also want one side to win. And winning in politics usually involves being self-righteous and pushy – traits that don't encourage a civil response from the other side.” This represents a frequent critique. There were even appearances made by the MythBusters, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, R2D2, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Abdul-Jabbar, Stewart’s example of a non-terrorist Muslim Colbert would like, reminded the crowd that “no matter what religious position someone plays, we’re all on the same team.” Teresa Giudice of the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” and Steven Slater, the infamous flight attendant, both were shown in prerecorded video messages criticizing their previous unreasonableness and pledging future sanity. Stewart and Colbert gave Medals for Reasonableness and Fear, respectively. “Medal of Reasonableness” recipients included Armando Galarraga, the Detroit Tigers pitcher whose near-perfect game was ended with a blown call, and Jacob Isom, who stopped a protester in Texas from burning a Qu’ran. “Medal of Fear” recipients included Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, for increasing Internet privacy paranoia, Anderson Cooper’s black t-shirt, for being worn by Anderson Cooper, and
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ABC, CBS, AP, and NPR for prohibiting their employees to attend the rally. Other musical performances included Mavis Staples, Jeff Tweedy, Sheryl Crow, the O’Jays, John Legend, Tony Benet, and 4troops. Sam Waterson and Mick Foley also made appearances. After Stewart introduced a “traditional,” start to the rally, to which Colbert responded, “a book burning?” Don Novello, as Father Guido Sarducci, delivered a benediction. He asked God for a sign to show which religion is “correct.” He never got a sign. While Stewart jokingly asserted that roughly “10 million” people were in attendance, a crowd study based on aerial photography by AirPhotosLive.com, commissioned by CBS, estimated that 215,000 people attended the rally. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 10 percent. While the National Park Service no longer estimates crowds, officials apparently leaked estimates of “well over 200,000 to Viacom. Many rally-goers had humorous homemade signs. Unlike Glenn Beck’s rally, which banned signs, this rally endorsed them. Sign-makers satirized the Tea Party, Obama conspiracy theorists, and political polarization. Signs included, “The Founding Fathers Fathered Anchor Babies,” “Don’t Believe Rally Signs,” “Superlatives are the WORST,” “I prefer Coffee,” “Death to the Extremists,” “I'm somewhat irritated about extreme outrage, ” (Continued on Page 3) www.JHUPOLITIK.com
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November 1, 2010
NATIONAL / INTERNATIONAL REPORT (Continued from Page 2) “Glenn Beck Brainwashed my Grandparents,” “I can see the real America from my house,” and “Hitler is a Nazi.” While pundits are still unsure of the effects of the rally, the results of Tuesday’s elections will showcase whether the ambitious project was able to influence the midterms – or whether it was simply late night comedy in the afternoon. s
WikiLeaks Wrecks Havoc by Briana Last, ‘14 Contributing Writer
Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange.
(Getty Images)
On October 22, 2010, WikiLeaks released the “largest classified military leak in history,” in the words of the whistleblowing website, thereby setting off a maelstrom of controversy. The nonprofit media organization, which aims to provide ways for anonymous sources to securely leak information, shocked the general public by publishing 391,832 reports entitled “The Iraq War Logs.” These reports recount the events of the Iraqi occupation from Janurary 1, 2004 to December 31, 2009, with the exception of two months (May 2004 and March 2009) and detail the actions of the United States military throughout the invasion. The “Iraq War Logs,” accounts by soldiers in the U.S. Army, paint a grim picture of military action. Many of the reports highlight the methodical abuse of detainees, the use of electric drills, and even execution by Iraqi soldiers and security forces “under the noses,” as Marc Am-
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binder of The Atlantic remarked, of American led coalition forces. The War Logs also put an exact number to the deaths in the war, and more importantly reveal the number of civilian deaths, which the government previously claimed not to have reported. The number of civilians reported dead were around 66,000, and according to The New York Times, “In a statement on Friday, Iraq Body Count [an organization that estimates civilian deaths throughout the war using press reports], which did a preliminary analysis of the archive, estimated that it listed 15,000 deaths that had not been previously disclosed anywhere.” In addition to the abuse and death by Iraqis, the reports also reveal key information regarding Iranian interference in Iraq. The War Logs recount, in painstaking detail, how the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and more specifically, the Quds Force, imported Hezbollah fighters trained in Lebanon to Iraq in order to distract U.S. Special Forces. The documents reveal that a large portion of the American military’s efforts was redirected to cope with these attacks. More disturbing than simply spurring conflicts was the evidence in the reports that Iran provided Islamic extremists in Iraq with chemical weapons – weapons of mass destruction. Noah Shachtman, contributing editor of Wired magazine, wrote, “The WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war.” Thus, the controversy over weapons of mass destruction, felt to be an obsolete and irrelevant claim by both left and right-wingers, is beginning to resurface due to the leaks. As a result of all of the confusion and controversy inspired by these documents, there is a determination by the Iraqi government to investigate the reports further. The BBC reported Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad AlBolani saying that the Baghdad government will pursue the allegations of human rights infringements by Iraqi forces in the reports, “regardless [of ] how long the investigations will take there are courts and legal procedures that will bring to justice those who are involved in violations against any Iraqi.” While there is plenty of coverage of the actual content of the reports, the more prominent and pressing debate is over how the revealed information is flooding the media. The reactions to the leaks range from outrage to joy. The Department of Defense has already asked the (Continued on Page 4) www.JHUPOLITIK.com
Volume V, Issue X
November 1, 2010
INTERNATIONAL REPORT (Continued from Page 3) head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, to return the documents and to take the logs down. Additionally, many political commentators such as Victor Hanson of The National Review consider the revealing of the war logs to be an abomination by claiming that such leaks will serve to demoralize troops and war efforts. He writes, “So we now have a war within a war – one to defeat the enemy, and quite another, to preemptively backtrack, footnote, and explain the context of one’s actions for future armchair judges and jurors who will adjudicate battle behavior from the library carrel.” However, those that support the leaks claim that they are fundamental to the revealing of truth and filtering of lies that are propagated by the government. Stephen M. Walt, a renowned Harvard professor in international relations, wrote in his article for Foreign Policy entitled “In Defense of WikiLeaks”, that he feels the potential for military documents to be revealed keeps the military’s actions in check. He states, “given the great power at the United States' disposal, I want the people running foreign and defense policy to know that what they are doing might be exposed to public scrutiny. I want them to think twice about whether the policies they are pursuing are defensible on either moral or practical grounds.” To be sure, the implications of the “Iraq War Logs” leak are still uncertain. What is certain is that the heated debate over the country’s war efforts will continue – and this time, the plot thickens with yet another perspective on military actions overseas. s
The French Protests by Anna Kochut, ‘13 Contributing Writer Just this past month, the French legislature passed a bill that raised the national retirement age from 60 to 62 and the age to receive pension from 65 to 67. If the bill passes through the Constitutional Council, the bill will become law in mid-November with nationwide implementation beginning in July. The proposed bill has incited widespread anger across the country and has resulted in a strike, led by many of the country’s unions, to go on strike for weeks. Those workers who are part of the country’s many powerful unions have taken to the streets in droves to signal their
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Striking workers set a fire in northern France on October 22.
(CNBC)
displeasure with the changes. Travel has been particularly hard hit. The RER, a French commuter rail train into Paris, has been running at 50% capacity. Airplane travel has decreased, as well, with 30% of the flights scheduled to depart from the major international airport serving Paris cancelled on a regular basis. Moreover, with the takeover of multiple fuel depots by strikers, access to gasoline has been difficult for many. Of particular note, the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) is one of the unions supporting the strikes. This group holds significant sway over the areas of fuel supply, transport, and refineries. Founded in 1895, CGT is a large, successful union that represents hundreds of thousands of workers and is more ideologically oriented than most of France’s unions. However, JeanFrançois Copé, leader of the governing party in the National Assembly, asserted that CGT has “shown that it is unable to be a modern union as we find them in Germany or Spain.” Even though the unions are viewed as largely ineffectual vis-à-vis the government’s determination to pass the bill, the strikes have managed to disrupt the travel patterns of the French people. Frédéric Dabi, the director of opinion research at IFOP, a major French marketing firm, observed, “people have internalized the idea that pension reforms are necessary… but there is clearly the idea that the unions can sway the balance.” Despite his nation’s anger surrounding this latest reform, President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to remain steadfast and not bow to the union pressure. President Sarkozy highlights the fact that the numbers of workers on strike have gone down from past national protests. (Continued on Page 5) www.JHUPOLITIK.com
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November 1, 2010
OPINION (Continued from Page 4) He guarantees to “restore order” and crack down on the “troublemakers.” While Sarkozy maintains low approval ratings in the polls, observers agree that giving into the pressure from the unions would affect Sarkozy’s possible future successes with reform efforts. To be sure, the strikes seem to have passed their high point. For the most part, strikers have gone back to work, though there are still some holdouts. That being said, just this past weekend, unions representing French pilots and cabin crew announced a four-day strike starting on Friday to protest against plans to change tax policies. Under the proposed legislation, perks such as reduced air tickets, hotel rooms, and parking would be subject to tax. Although these grievances are separate from those that provoked the nationwide strikes earlier this month, they represent another challenge to President Sarkozy’s already tenuous grasp to leadership. Although President Sarkozy was elected on a platform of reform, it seems he (AP) may have gone to far in the eyes of many. s
A Case for Reinstating the Draft by Hilary Matfess, ‘14 Contributing Writer This July, Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY) rose to introduce HR 5741 – a bill to reinstate the military draft. As to be expected, the bill failed and only added to Rangel’s growing reputation as America’s most ridiculous Representative. Yet, despite the fact that Rangel is not a Representative with whom you want to align yourself publically, I find myself, a liberal dove, wish the bill had not been defeated. Let me first be clear: I am not a proponent of war. I think many contemporary American wars have been unpalatable sacrifices of American soldiers and unjustified unilateral interventions. But writing off the draft under the guise of liberal values may be defeating the left’s larger goals. Reinstating the draft would eliminate (or at least reduce) socioeconomic factors that determine who goes to war and would force a conversation on gender equality in the United States. In actuality, the term ‘all-volunteer’ in regards to the military may be a misnomer. Our armed forces are disproportionately comprised of members of the lower-so-
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cioeconomic spheres. Though I appreciate their choice to defend our nation and I am mindful of the sacrifices they and their family make, I cannot help but think that their over-representation is symptomatic of larger societal issues in America. In adverse economic conditions like the ones we are experiencing now, the choice to join the military is particularly appealing to those in lower socioeconomic spheres. Saying their choice is ill-informed is unfair to those who earnestly want to serve our country; however, ignoring the financial pressures that often prompt these decisions is also a mistake. Few sons and daughters of our Senators and Representatives are on the front-lines of the wars they start and fund. Few political families will deal with the agony of hoping to hear from, and not about, their loved ones oversees. Few of the privileged in this country choose to go into the military and many who are not so privileged have little choice but to enlist. Reinstating the military draft is a way to level the playing field, unite Americans, and force Congress to think of soldiers as sons and daughters, not statistics. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), first proposed in 1923, was defeated in the 1970s largely because women did not want to have to register for the draft. Almost 40 years later, the United States must carefully examine the state of modern gender relations. As a feminist, a citizen, and a pacifist I think that the next step in gender equality is for women to register for the draft. We cannot fight for equality in all arenas except the military; doing so risks creating a dangerous and undermining double standard. The creation of a universal military draft will advance the cause of women’s rights by demonstrating women’s usefulness and skill in a historically masculine arena. As stands today, America is defended largely by the citizens it protects the least. If we intend to build any sense of national unity in this divided atmosphere, we must at least consider the reinstitution of the draft. s
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Volume V, Issue X
November 1, 2010
OPINION A New Wave in China by Ari Scaffer, ‘14 Contributing Writer
A wave of revolution, perhaps the biggest since the American Revolution, is overtaking China. The new emerging leader of the world, both economically and militarily, is being called to task not just by the West, but also by its own people. Years of economic growth and increases in wealth are slowly empowering the people to stand up and demand the rights, which up until now have been concentrated under 60 years of Communist control and suppression. The people are finally standing up and demanding freedom. The path to reform in China has been a long and interesting one. After falling to Communist dictator Mao Zedong in 1949, the Chinese government threw all respect for universal rights and freedom out of the window. In the 1970s, Chinese officials met with Richard Nixon for the first time and finally opened up relations with the West, a move that was both a welcome change and a turn for the better. Further movement toward liberalization came with the nearly simultaneous death of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power. The significant economic reforms that Deng brought to the table have resulted in the unparalleled economic growth mentioned above. The economic reform brought great challenges for the Chinese Communist Party. Following the death of great reformer Hu Yaobang, the mentor of current premier and reformer, Wen Jiaobao, the Chinese public surged forward to demand more rights and equality. This new wave inevitably led to the events at Tiananmen Square and the famous incident of “The Tank Man.” Since the late 1980s, China’s economic growth has continued to
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explode at a rate of over 10% per year and has continued to grow ever since. As one might expect, the increase in economic capital has led to an increased demand for political capital. Rallies and public pressure have increased dramatically. The Chinese constitution guarantees many of the human rights we take for granted – freedom of speech, press and information via the Internet – but that has proved to be more rhetoric and empty promises than actual law. The Internet is still censored and sites that present opinions opposed to the Communist regime in China, or even just critical of the current regime, are usually blocked. Websites representing ideas that are deemed dangerous to the security of the government are withheld from the people. The censorship of the Internet is so bad that it was a serious issue throughout the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Although officials eased the restrictions on their national firewall, China unblocked it only for certain areas and certain websites. Hopes that the Olympics would bring greater transparency and liberalization to the Chinese people were dashed when President Hu Jintao specifically warned against politicizing the event. The record of the Chinese government on freedom of speech and within the press is even more abominable. Despite repeated attempts by many reformers to exercise their freedom of speech, their words have been met with outright rejection – and, often times, imprisonment. One of the most famous cases is the imprisonment of recent Nobel Prize Laureate, Liu Xiaobo. Liu’s prizewinning essay, Charter 08, unfortunately also earned him an 11-year prison sentence for attempting to subvert the government. The document echoes the sounds of the American fight for freedom. Liu demands rights such as freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and above all democracy. He quotes Abraham Lincoln and demands a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” The currents of change are coming, just as they came when Lincoln first said those words 150 years ago. The Chinese people are slowly gaining more confidence and speaking up. Citizens from all classes are starting to demand redress for their problems. Workers, who have long been paid horribly, are starting to go to courts and special arbitration committees to have their issues resolved. Frustratingly, the courts and committees tend to have a pro-business leaning, so there have been many complaints by workers who are standing up for their rights.
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Volume V, Issue X
November 1, 2010
OPINION Additionally, Chinese workers have started to get more organized. Rather than sitting passively as they may have in the past, workers in multiple foreign-based factories in China went on strike this past summer. One strike at Taiwan-based Foxconn prompted the electronics company to promise to double the base wage pay for some of its workers. Similar strikes at the Honda and Toyota factories have also led to pay increases. Workers may be fighting against just private companies now, but the strikes are a strong sign that there is more to come. Luckily, the Chinese people have a government official to aid their fight. Wen Jiaobao, also known as “Grandpa Wen” in China, is the leading reformer in the government. Although limited by party resistance to reform and the desire of hard-liners to avoid expanding rights, he has been fighting extensively for more rights for his people. In a recent interview with CNN correspondent Fareed Zakaria, Wen reestablished his commitment to promoting democracy and human rights in China. He stated that the people’s need for democracy is ever-present and will only grow stronger over time. Freedom of expression, he argued, is indispensible for any country, including China. In sum, Wen committed to four sentences that he feels are the core of democratic reform: everyone should lead a happy life with dignity, everyone has the right to live with security, everyone has the right to live with equality and justice, and last but not least, everyone has the right to look out on the horizon and expect a brighter future. Wen seems to be the proverbial ‘white knight’ for whom the Chinese people have been looking. With men like Wen Jiaobao in government and activists like Liu Xiaobo leading the way, the Chinese reform movement is gaining steam. It has a long way to go, but as China gets stronger economically, so do the cries of the Chinese people for greater rights. The call for change is reverberating throughout the streets of Beijing and Hong Kong and it is only a matter of time before it reaches the halls of the government itself and the Chinese people get to taste the benefits of a governing system “of the people, by the people and for the people. s
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