The past year and a half have left us with widespread uncertainty and chaos. As we have grappled with political unrest and systemic, cultural shifts, many of us have been reaching for control in a seemingly unruly world. We are constantly inundated with predictions about the new normal, trying to balance the persisting effects of the pandemic with our desires to move forward. This new academic year marked the departure of several NUPR leaders and members. We have done our best to honor their legacy and continue NUPR’s presence across campus. Thank you to all of our previous members for your contributions to this organization. We would especially like to thank Gabriel García, former president, Kamran Parsa, former president, and Milton Posner, former editor-in-chief, for their work. This semester also marked NUPR’s return to in-person meetings. This physical presence has allowed NUPR to advance our campus’s conversations on divisive issues and brought new and old members together. We’ve held discussions on performative activism, infrastructure, and foreign policy. This breadth of topics, both in our meetings and articles, reminds us of NUPR’s mission to foster intelligent discourse across all political spheres. We thank everyone who has joined us in person this semester, and we can’t wait to continue this dialogue. Most of all, we thank all of you—our readers, writers, editors, and members— for your sustained involvement with NUPR. Thank you for bringing your different backgrounds, identities, and experiences to NUPR to help us better understand and shape our political future. Your commitment to this magazine and organization highlights the importance of these discussions as we move into the new normal. No one can predict what the future will look like, but we must navigate it together. Thank you, now and always, for your dedication.
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The Economics 101 of Post-Pandemic Healthcare Isabel Present
The Paradoxical Power of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Linley Himes
Ilhan Omar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and the Antisemitism Card Noah Colbert
On Being a Mexican American in a Time of Humanitarian Crisis Alexa Kalach
What is Happening in Israel Jake Egelberg
Why Trans Female Athlete Bans Aren't the Solution Natalie Noland
Nevertheless, She Persisted: A Conservative Perspective on Feminism Stephanie Luiz
Scan a QR code with your phone camera to visit the online version of the piece, which includes citations for factual claims. Online versions may differ slightly from print ones.
Access at Northeastern: How Northeastern Can Create a More Inclusive Campus Community Hannah Nivar
Musical Artists Against the Brazilian Military Dictatorship: Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Chico Buarque Camila M. A. Blikstad Climate Change in the Pacific: Why the World Needs to Pay Attention Jenia Browne
Impacts of Direct-to-Consumer Pharmaceutical Advertising on Quality of Care Rachel Feiner
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-hile “opportunity” is rarely used to describe the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have had a unique opportunity to witness both the strengths and pitfalls of the healthcare system over the past year. The high cost of medical care provides a strong entrepreneurial culture that the pharmaceutical industry harnessed to create and distribute innovative treatments rapidly. Yet, the pandemic thrust the shortfalls of the healthcare industry into prominence, from the intensity of emergency rooms brimming to capacity with intubated patients to the glaring disparities in access to healthcare. With this new recognition of health inequality, the American public has an opportunity to scrutinize the current healthcare system and demand that policymakers enact bold, sweeping changes. In a 2019 poll, 59 percent of Americans reported that the government should be fully or partially responsible for healthcare. That number is up to 63 percent in July 2020, likely due to the pandemic. This increase is prominent among Democrats and Republicans (4 and 5 percentage points, respectively), indicating strong bipartisan support for reform that includes more government control of healthcare distribution.
Conceptually, healthcare reform is frequently floated but rarely defined. Change is a call to action that ignores the complex, interwoven implications of idealistic policies on society. The abstract idea of change holds lofty promises, yet this ideal fails to define each innovative policy solution’s specific consequences on the population experiencing the problem. The highly unequal distribution of COVID19 cases and deaths toward minority and low-income communities demonstrates the
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lack of healthcare accessibility for disadvantaged subgroups. This blatant inequality, coupled with economic instability, has turned this ethereal idea of progress into a list of tangible changes. Americans can, and should, demand mental health parity, elimination of employer acquired insurance, and improvements to telemedicine for increased accessibility.
D EM AND #1 : S T R ON G LEGISL AT T ION ENSUR IN G MEN TAL HE ALT H PAR I T Y Parity guarantees that insurance companies provide the same benefits—such as the number of fully covered visits and maximum out-of-pocket deductibles—for mental health services as they do for physical health procedures. This equitable access is vital for increasing the universality and affordability of mental health services for patients. The first major step toward parity was the 1996 Mental Health Parity Act. This law forbade insurance companies from imposing higher annual and lifetime limits on patient out-ofpocket spending for mental health than physical health. Despite the valiant effort at parity, the law only applied to employer-sponsored plans at workplaces with more than fifty employees. Additionally, insurance companies could waive the parity requirement if they could prove that their costs increased by greater than 1 percent. This loophole permits insurers to avoid the parity law and forces clients to accept lackluster mental health coverage. Passed as part of the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) attempted to remedy some of the 1996 Act’s pitfalls. The MHPAEA
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required almost all plans to provide equitable physical and mental health coverage regardless of the number of employees a company has. However, it does not enforce parity in reimbursement rates, allowing insurance companies to require those who can not obtain in-network mental health care to pay in full. The bill also does not apply to Medicare, Veterans Administration, and some state Medicaid programs; these three categories make up about 41 percent of insured Americans. Loopholes for insurers and lackadaisical government enforcement results in out-of-network doctors providing 32 percent of mental and behavioral outpatient services in 2016, compared with 6 percent of non-mental healthcare. While the remaining parity roadblocks may seem minuscule compared to recent progress, the pandemic has highlighted the need to fill these gaps due to the increased demand for mental health services and the shift in how Americans are obtaining insurance. In mid-July last year, 53 percent of Americans believed the pandemic negatively impacted their mental health, a twentyone-point increase from March. Worsening mental wellbeing increases the need for behavioral health services. Use of the federal emotional distress hotline increased by 1000 percent in April, with significant increases in suicides, substance abuse, and overdose deaths. This rising need for mental health services will soon exceed the capacity of psychiatric services in America. While many who have mental and emotional challenges brought on by the pandemic do not require a medication-prescribing psychiatrist, counselors and psychologists are not trained overnight. The need for additional counseling is immediate, but the emerging cohort of mental health professionals is still years away. Economics 101: Increasing demand for mental health care combined with a decreasing quantity of affordable services creates shortages, forcing patients to choose expensive out-of-network services to access care.
rate during the pandemic hit an almost unprecedented high of 14.8 percent last April. Higher unemployment marks seismic changes in how Americans obtain health insurance; fewer people are eligible to receive the higher-regulated employer-sponsored health plans. Newly unemployed people have limited insurance options: maintaining coverage through their furloughed employer, obtaining coverage through a spouse, purchasing insurance from the individual marketplace, continuing health coverage through government-sponsored COBRA, or becoming uninsured. Mental health parity is less regulated in all of these options than employer-sponsored healthcare. Consequently, there is more leeway to provide inferior and more expensive mental health coverage. One out of five Americans who lost their jobs are now uninsured. While Americans historically accepted employer-sponsored insurance, massive job loss and the pandemic-driven focus on community health have enticed people to rethink their stance on the government’s role in providing health insurance in favor of a more collectivist approach. A June 2020 poll indicated that 74 percent of
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D EM AND #2 : R E FOR M EMP LOYER -P R OV ID ED INSUR AN CE The pandemic has also shifted how Americans receive health insurance. In 2017, 56 percent of Americans received health insurance through their employer; however, that has recently dropped to 49 percent. This reduction is unsurprising, as the unemployment
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Americans believe that a government-regulated and subsidized option should supplement employer-sponsored insurance. Government-sponsored programs provide stability by creating a large pool of risk that allows those with expensive medical conditions or low incomes to afford care regardless of economic circumstances outside their control. Expanding government-sponsored options, including the ultimate extension to universal coverage, would ensure that unforeseen and uncontrollable economic circumstances do not impact people’s access to both mental and physical healthcare. Job loss during the pandemic was unequally distributed along racial lines, exacerbating the need to pivot to government-sponsored healthcare options. In June, the unemployment rate was 14.9 and 14.6
percent for Black and Hispanic people compared to 9.2 percent for White people. Social determinants of health already decrease marginalized groups’ overall well-being, and the pandemic has left these same individuals disproportionately unemployed. Many jobs filled by non-White communities already have lower than average rates of employer-sponsored health insurance. For instance, jobs in the food-service industry overrepresent Hispanic and Black workers but are frequently uninsured. In the private sector, employer-sponsored medical insurance is only available to 27 percent of workers in the bottom tenth wage bracket—a demographic overly represented by minority workers—compared with 94 percent of workers in the highest 10 percent income bracket. Providing government-sponsored insurance options would help redistribute the negative impacts of poverty and marginalization among Americans by removing the income barrier to healthcare. Economics 101: Resources promote opportunity. When the unemployed cannot access health insurance (the resource), society enters a spiral that further marginalizes already disadvantaged groups and focuses healthcare resources on a smaller subset of the population.
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D EM AND #3 : S T R EN GT HEN T ELEHE ALT H R EGUL AT IONS While increasing coverage options would help minority and low-income communities receive health care, other demographic factors, including the urban-rural divide, severely impact communities’ access to care. Telehealth is a promising solution, expanding health providers’ ability to connect with more physically isolated patients.
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companies in states without the parity law can also change coverage based on the insurance plan’s price. Telemedicine is largely regulated on a state-by-state basis, creating disjointed messages around payment and quality of care requirements. Economics 101: Quantity and price must be in equilibrium; the reduced costs and improved convenience of telehealth are counterbalanced by a lower quality of service.
Telehealth allows patients to seek personalized professional medical advice without requiring a method of transit to a physical office. Telehealth allows those recovering from surgery to attend follow-up appointments at home, away from the threat of hospital-acquired infections. Telehealth also allows insurance companies to practice gatekeeping by requiring patients seeking reimbursement for specialty health services to get a referral first. While requiring patients to interact with a chain of healthcare professionals can become a blockade to accessing care, it can also reduce unnecessary travel for in-person appointments through nurse-led monitoring clinics. It is a win-win situation in which patients submit symptoms and receive real-time advice from medical professionals, while providers can direct scarce in-person healthcare resources to those who need it most. Despite the economic benefits, accessibility remains a concern. Those without reliable internet access, the majority of whom are elderly and/or low income, cannot obtain the convenient care telehealth provides. Communicating over the internet is already more difficult than in-person in most instances; lower technological competence among the elderly exacerbates this barrier. While telehealth can lower costs for the healthcare system, overreliance on virtual medicine isolates vulnerable populations from care due to a lack of accessibility to new technologies. Regulations requiring equal reimbursement rates between telehealth and in-person visits are even further behind mental health parity. Only twenty-three states and DC enforce telehealth parity, allowing insurance companies to reduce the amount they are willing to pay for virtual services compared to traditional in-person medical visits. Due to a lack of federal guidelines, insurance
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Despite the plethora of negatives this pandemic has brought, the complete upheaval of our lifestyles provides an opportunity to demand systemic change. The elimination of many social and cultural activities and isolation among communities due to social distancing policy are just a few factors that contribute to the overburdening of the mental healthcare system, highlighting the need for mental health parity. High and unequal unemployment rates demonstrate the pitfalls of employer-sponsored coverage and provide a chance to shift toward government-sponsored options that are more impervious to economic turmoil. Despite quality concerns, telemedicine expands healthcare access through a virtual system. It exposes the need for policies to answer the legal and moral questions originating from this relatively new platform.
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Americans can, and should, demand more government involvement in regulating and distributing healthcare, focusing on affordability, quality, and accessibility. The pandemic creates an opportunity to focus on improving government-sponsored options instead of propping up a failing system. The disruption of private healthcare has normalized this line of questioning and hopefully dismantles these failing structures.
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Government-sponsored healthcare patches the holes left by an overreliance on employer-sponsored insurance by widening access to affordable, quality coverage. Economics 101: Government-run monopolies are efficient (just don’t get caught calling it “socialism”).
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n February 4, the House of Representatives voted 230-199 to remove Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia’s fourteenth district, from her committee assignments. The House sanctioned Greene for her past statements embracing QAnon, seeming to endorse the assassination of prominent Democratic figures, and harassing the victims of school shootings—tragedies she dismissed as false flags. House members stripped her positions on the Education and Labor and Budget Committees. Yet only eleven Republicans voted for the House resolution to remove Greene from her seats. To distract from their complicity in emboldening Greene and her embrace of antisemitic conspiracy theories, House Republicans introduced an amendment to remove Representative Ilhan Omar from her committees, claiming that her past remarks regarding Israel were antisemitic and just as egregious as Greene’s. In June, they redoubled their efforts to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, capitalizing on the latest faux outrage over Omar’s alleged antisemitism. And unlike Greene, Omar faces attacks not just from Republicans, but from her own party over this farcical controversy. In early June, pro-Israel congresspeople and the House leadership condemned Omar for “equating” the war crimes committed by Hamas, the Taliban, Israel, the US, and the Afghan government. Of course, none of those shedding crocodile tears actually looked at Omar’s statement, which was entirely reasonable. She merely listed the countries involved in the proposed ICC investigation into war crimes committed by all parties, an investigation opposed by the State Department. According to those up in arms, “legitimate criticism” of Israel is allowed, but drawing false equivalencies “foments prejudice.” On this, they are certainly correct; framing Palestinians as uniquely violent does indulge in Islamophobia, and Israel has killed far
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more people than any Palestinian militant group. In the latest bombing campaign in Gaza, more children were murdered by Israel than Israelis killed by Hamas rockets ever. This bad-faith smear draws an equivalency with no basis in reality, underscoring key differences between the Democratic and Republican parties. When Greene supports conspiracy theories that are textbook antisemitism, the GOP votes to support her. In contrast, House Democrats immediately throw Omar to the wolves, condemning her and caving into attacks that were more about smearing a Muslim woman who dares to question American support for injustice than legitimately standing up for the Jewish people. The Republican Party embraces its fringes—to the extent that they aren’t already mainstream—while the progressive left of the Democratic Party is bottled up by party leadership, even when it represents most of its voters. The smear of Omar was part of a larger effort by the Israel lobby to create a culture where no dissent is allowed; one must either bend the knee in support of Israel or face the antisemitism card. In 2019, Omar was also attacked for multiple statements that the media whipped up into manufactured outrage. In one discussion, Omar gave a moving explanation of how, as Muslims, she and Rashida Tlaib are often accused of antisemitism for speaking up about Palestinians. Yet one sentence, along with some tweets, was singled out and reported on, devoid of context: “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” Omar was also criticized for tweets in which she claimed that lobbying groups worked to silence criticism of Israel, including one arguing that the stance of mainstream US politicians was “all about the Benjamins baby.” Pro-Israel activists and groups accused Omar of peddling the dual loyalty trope, an antisemitic canard claiming that Jews are
more loyal to other Jews than their countrymen. Yet, Omar was not talking about an international shadow cabal as antisemitic conspiracies go; she referred to the well-funded organizations that operate openly in support of Israel, securing an unparalleled 3.8 billion dollars of unconditional annual military aid. The criticism of the Israel lobby—of which the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is only one part—is the same one progressives levy at virtually all other political action committees and dark money sources who seek toxic ends. It is not antisemitic, and labeling criticism as such is a clear attempt to silence dissent. While associating money and political influence with Jews can be antisemitic, this is very obviously not. Whoever heard of a lobby that operates without money? The power of the Israel lobby is well known in Washington; AIPAC officials brag about the scope of their influence. The charge of “using tropes” benefits the ruling class of all creeds, who can stifle discussion of how our governmental policies benefit them. It contributes to a phenomenon writer Em Cohen describes as antisemitism’s “tropeification,” wherein “if a statement appears similar to one of these tropes, it constitutes antisemitism—regardless of context, regardless of truth. It assumes that antisemitism is inherent to tropes, rather than expressed by them.” Indeed, the intense power of the pro-Israel lobby, which immediately trumped up the bipartisan smear of Omar, does not even come entirely from Jewish organizations, despite the wishes of the conspiracy-driven alt-right. Rather, the massive support of right-wing American evangelicals buoys the Israel lobby. The largest pro-Israel lobbying group by numbers is Christians United for Israel, with over seven million members, whose current leader once claimed that the Holocaust was a punishment from God. Returning to Omar’s statement, she did not imply a “dual loyalty” any more than the one that AIPAC itself states is its objective. AIPAC
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self-identifies as “a bipartisan American organization that advocates for a strong US-Israel relationship.” The mission endorses the very thing Omar criticizes: an unwavering alliance between the US and Israel. It is not anti-Zionists who claim that Jews are synonymous with Israel: it is the Zionists. They routinely liken anti-Zionism to antisemitism and promote Israel as the sole representative of the Jewish people. Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu frequently referred to himself as someone who spoke “for all Jews.” Zionists play the rhetorical game of claiming that it is antisemitic to “hold all Jews accountable” for Israel’s actions while simultaneously pretending that criticism of Israel and Zionism is out of bounds precisely because it is so intertwined with Judaism. Omar’s critique has nothing to do with Jews being beholden to a foreign power. The US government has a foreign policy interest in maintaining a proxy state in the Middle East. As President Biden said in 1986, “it’s the best three billion dollar investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States
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would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” For all the atrocities of Israel’s occupation, the role of the United States cannot be ignored. The Israel lobby and Zionists have weaponized antisemitism for years to stifle
Zionists play the rhetorical game of claiming that it is antisemitic to “hold all Jews accountable” for Israel’s actions while simultaneously pretending that criticism of Israel and Zionism is out of bounds precisely because it is so intertwined with Judaism. criticism of Israel, but it has increased in the past decade as solidarity with the Palestinian people has grown in the Western world. Pro-Israel groups like CAMERA and Canary Mission stalk campuses for support of Palestine, and create blacklists in attempts to get left wing students fired or ruin their
future job prospects. If there really is a cancel culture, the persistent attempts to drive critics of Israel out of public life fit the bill. The Anti-Defamation League recently blamed the left and anti-Zionists for a recent “surge” in antisemitism in the wake of Israel’s latest siege on Gaza and an outpouring of global support for Palestine. But, the ADL’s metrics for reporting antisemitism are notoriously shoddy. They rely largely on self-reporting and include entries like protestors holding signs that say “Zionism is racism” or calling Israel an apartheid state. But the manufactured crisis served its purpose, getting well-meaning liberals who’d previously supported Palestine to shift to performative denunciations of antisemitism. When the Republican Party cried foul, House Democrats moved quickly to condemn Omar, ignoring that the allegations were lobbied in bad faith. No one mentioned that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who led
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the anti-Omar attacks, suggested in the previous election cycle that Mike Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, and George Soros—all Jewish businessmen—were attempting to buy the election. One could point out that this statement is at face value true. All three are prominent Democratic donors. Yet, we cannot then turn around and claim that similar statements about Sheldon Adelson or Frank Luntz, who lobby heavily on behalf of Israel, are antisemitic. Yet, for all his zeal against Omar, Kevin McCarthy believes that a private reprimand and a trip to a Holocaust memorial is enough to reform Greene. But any look at Greene’s conduct shows her to be unique in her odiousness and not inclined to any about-face. Over the past three years, Greene has continually voiced her support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that the country’s elite—particularly Democrats—are satan-worshipping pedophiles who traffic children and harvest adrenochrome from their blood for sustenance. If it sounds familiar, it is because it is a modern rebranding of the age-old “blood libel” conspiracy that Jews engaged in ritual sacrifices of Christian children. Yet, the GOP’s unwillingness to seriously condemn Greene stems from the fact that admitting to her misdeeds would shine a light on their own. There are some Republicans who can reasonably claim to take antisemitism seriously, but too many traffic in it in some form. The most blatant of them parrot White genocide and Great Replacement conspiracies, which purport that Jews are masterminding the extinction of the White race through mass immigration and the browning of the US. While many leave out the idea that it is Jews behind this alleged conspiracy, the subtext remains. Trump and conservative media have alluded to this theory, but former Representative Steve King and current Congressman Paul Gosar openly embrace it as well. Last February, both spoke at the America First Convention hosted by neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Nicholas Fuentes. This vile belief animated the 2018 Tree of Life shooting, in which eleven Jews were killed at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Even a cursory look at the Republican Party will reveal the extent to which antisemitism has corrupted it. Numerous avowed Nazis have mysteriously found their way onto the GOP ticket in the last few years, such as Arthur Jones, a former leader of the American Nazi Party and the 2018 Republican nominee for Illinois’s third district. Republicans have been caught multiple times doctoring photos of Jewish opponents. Pointing to the party’s rabid Zionism cannot dispel its antisemitism,
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for the Zionist movement has shown itself to be entirely reliant on collaboration with antisemites. Richard Spencer counts himself a “White Zionist.” Netanyahu buddied up to Donald Trump even as his supporters marched through Charlottesville chanting “Jews will not replace us,” a fitting analog to the Israeli mobs that chant similar things like “Death to Arabs” in occupied Jerusalem. The discourse that attempts to paint an equivalency between Omar and Greene’s broader political and ideological affiliations as
antisemitic is nonsensical. Omar is a refreshing progressive voice for Palestinian rights in a party where the orthodox view is uncritical and unequivocal support for Israel. For her views, she is demonized in ways that, far too often, play off Islamophobia. Greene, by contrast, is an outspoken racist who is the embodiment of a virulently antisemitic Republican Party that uses support for Israel as a wedge issue to hide its bigotry.
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n May 10, 2021, in the final days of Ramadan, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) stormed the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque with tear gas and stun
grenades. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam, but is part of a larger complex called the Temple Mount, which is the holiest site in Judaism. Though Israel is sovereign over the Temple Mount, it handed control of the area to an Islamic Waqf (committee) after the Six Day War in 1967. Currently, the Waqf forbids non-Muslims from praying on the Temple Mount and limits their visits to specific hours and locations. The siege injured more than 180 Palestinians, many of whom were worshippers. Immediately, controversy erupted. Israel’s opponents rushed to condemn its actions while supporters ran to its defense.
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S T OR MIN G AL - AQSA The events leading up to the siege, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally, are wrought with indefensible and morally questionable decisions. In early April, Israel limited gatherings at the Damascus Gate, a popular Palestinian meeting place, responding to increased propaganda calling for violence against Israelis. The IDF worried that agitators would use the site to stage riots, as they have in the past. Palestinian media aired TV segments with phrases like “our bullets will make sounds of joy to herald signs of victory in order to cut off the invading occupiers . . . ” twenty times between April 2 and 10.
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One day after Israel barricaded the Damascus Gate and on the first day of Ramadan, IDF soldiers violated their agreement with the Islamic Waqf. They cut power to Al-Aqsa’s speakers, silencing evening prayers to prioritize Israel’s national remembrance ceremony honoring fallen soldiers. In response to Israel’s closure of the Damascus Gate and silencing of evening prayers, some Palestinians launched a “TikTok Intifada” against Jewish civilians. The intifada, or uprising in English, involved reposting violent videos of Palestinians attacking orthodox Jews. Fatah, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) dominant political party in the West Bank,
fireworks at IDF officers below, chanted “we are all Hamas . . . shoot a rocket at Tel Aviv tonight,” and sang “bomb, bomb Tel Aviv.” Hamas is the PA’s dominant party in the Gaza Strip and advocates for both the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews within. Members of Hamas’s military wing openly admit, “any killing of a Jew was considered a success.” The US State Department considers Hamas a terrorist organization and two of Hamas’ founders’ sons have defected from the movement and condemned it. But the strongest condemnation of Hamas comes from its founding charter, which persistently expresses contempt for the Jewish people. In 2017, Hamas attempted to reform its image by drafting a new charter that “affirms its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion.” But their revised constitution still accepts “all means and methods” (including violence) for overthrowing the “Zionist project,” and does not distinguish between violence against Israeli civilians and lawful military targets. SkyNews highlighted this irony in an interview with Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar, who lauded Hamas’s attacks of “very important points [in Israel], including most of the overcrowded areas, the civilian society.” On May 10, the agitators’s support for Hamas, attack of IDF officers, and potential to riot spurred the IDF to storm the compound and disperse the crowd. The siege overwhelmed the agitators, but also disrupted the prayers of thousands of peaceful worshippers during one of the holiest times of the year. After the siege, the IDF discovered that some Palestinians had been stockpiling fireworks, stone slabs, and rocks for days, preparing for a potential offensive. In the backdrop of these clashes, Palestinians were further enraged by a court case that threatened to evict six Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. Once the UN created Israel, the surrounding Arab countries attacked. During the fighting, Jordan and Israel illegally invaded and captured East and West Jerusalem, respectively. In the time that followed, Jordan and Israel each expelled Jews and Palestinians from their sections, seized their property, and distributed ownership among Palestinian and Jewish refugees. Though, in some cases, Jordan leased refugees land rather than providing them ownership. Later, Israel triumphed over Jordan in the Six Day War, captured East Jerusalem, and soon passed the 1970 Legal and Administrative Matters Law. The decree maintained Jordanian leases but returned land ownership to the original owners from
The events leading up to the siege, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally, are wrought with indefensible and morally questionable decisions. also disseminated additional propaganda glorifying violence against Jews. One day after the TikTok Intifada began, Israel restricted worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque to Palestinians with the COVID-19 vaccine. While most of Israel’s population is vaccinated, the Palestinians have only received 120,000 doses for their population of 5.5 million. The decision technically aligned with health recommendations from the CDC and the World Health Organization. The TikTok Intifada spurred Jewish extremist group Lehava to march through Jerusalem in a display of “national honor.” The ultra-nationalists passed a large gathering of Palestinians and chanted “death to Arabs,” sparking further violence. Hoping to ease tensions, Israel reopened the Damascus Gate and banned Jews from the Temple Mount. The rising temperature reached its boiling point in the days before May 10, when some Palestinians hoisted the flag of Hamas above Al-Aqsa, launched
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before the Arab-Israeli war. Since Jordan only expelled Jewish residents from their territory, this exclusively benefited Jews. Meanwhile, Israel didn’t pass a similar law for West Jerusalem, where it had expelled Palestinians. In this way, Israel’s 1970 policy compensated Jews for the property that Jordan seized from them, but hung many Palestinians—from whom Israel seized property—out to dry. In 1982, East Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents agreed to recognize Jewish ownership of their property on the condition that they pay rent as “protected tenants.” This status prevented their new landlords from raising lease rates or evicting residents. But recently, the Palestinian tenants violated their agreement claiming Israel tricked them into signing it. As a result, their Jewish landlords have moved to evict them. Many Palestinians, who have faced years of discrimination via legal technicalities in Israeli property law, feel the case highlights a blatant example of anti-Palestinian bigotry: Israel provided Jews special land ownership privileges while denying Palestinians their residency rights. Meanwhile, supporters of Israel point out that the Palestinians involved in the case violated their own lease agreement, justifying eviction.
T HE AF T ER M AT H As retaliation for Israel’s storming of Al-Aqsa, Hamas launched an unprecedented campaign of rocket attacks against Israel. In three days, Hamas fired more than 1,500 rockets at Israel. For the first eighteen hours, Hamas launched nearly one rocket every three minutes, hoping to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. Hamas’s missiles, aimed at civilian population centers like the cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon, are intended to kill as many Jews as possible. Though the Iron Dome successfully intercepts nearly 90 percent of rocket fire, 10 percent breaks through. By increasing the absolute number of rockets fired, Hamas increases the quantity that hits their civilian targets. Hamas even bombed an Israeli aid convoy on its way to help Palestinians in Gaza, shutting an IsraelGaza border crossing and halting the aid.
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Israel defends itself with precise strikes against military targets; however, Hamas purposefully plants weaponry in residential neighborhoods to increase the likelihood of civilian casualties. It’s a public relations victory when Hamas can claim that Israel bombed a residential area. Hamas knows that the western media will air headlines like “The Latest: Israeli aircraft strike another building in Gaza,” or “Videos show Israeli airstrikes leveling Gaza apartment buildings amid escalating violence” without any context. Specifically, that civilian areas become lawful military targets when co-opted for military purposes. To clarify, the IDF does not operate on the principle that the mere presence of soldiers in a building justifies its demolition. Rather, only using that structure for military purposes, like directing attacks or launching destroying them. No law of war requires Israel rockets, renders it a lawful target. to do this. Unfortunately, warnings don’t Israel warns always work because Hamas often urges resiresidents in Gaza dents to stay home despite the danger. to evacuate with Hamas’s practices of “intentionally directing targeted phone attacks against the civilian population” and calls and the firing “utilizing the presence of a civilian . . . to render of non-explosive certain points . . . immune from military operwarning projectiles. ations,” are both war crimes according to the In the cases of the Geneva Conventions. The latter practice also headlines above, the explains why such a large fraction of those killed IDF fired non-ex- in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are Palestinian. plosive warning Israel’s Iron Dome protects its population projectiles at both from 90 percent of the missiles fired at it and compounds before its bomb shelters add another layer of safety,
Israel defends itself with precise strikes against military targets; however, Hamas purposefully plants weaponry in residential neighborhoods to increase the likelihood of civilian casualties.
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while Hamas intentionally endangers their own population for the sake of public relations. As of this writing, rockets have killed between 100 and 210 Gazan civilians compared to 12 in Israel, though these numbers are subject to change. One estimate suggests that as many as 91 of these Gazan deaths were due to the 680 defunct Hamas rockets that misfired in Gaza, bringing the civilian deaths caused by Israel down to between 10 and 120. Further, journalists caught the Gaza Ministry of Health—which provides the Gazan death toll—inflating civilian deaths in 2008 and 2014. Israel’s targeting of Hamas’s weaponry and intelligence apparatus—even when Hamas places them in civilian areas—is perfectly within their rights according to the Law of Armed Conflict. All nations have an inalienable right to self defense. When fired upon by Hamas, Israel has a duty to defend its citizens and retaliate in full force, regardless of Hamas’s military tactics. As American army lawyer David French puts it, nations have a right to defend themselves regardless of whether their opponent fights dirty.
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M AN Y T H IN G S CAN BE T R UE AT ON CE Israel’s decisions to close the Damascus Gate, prioritize honoring soldiers over Muslim prayer, and limit gatherings at Al-Aqsa were provocations that the preceding Palestinian propaganda did not justify. 2. It was questionable for the IDF to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan. While some agitators were flying Hamas flags and there were legitimate reasons to fear a riot, thousands of innocent worshippers traveled to the mosque to pray and were caught in the crossfire. Though some Palestinians planned to stage an attack from the compound, the IDF didn’t know this at the time of their assault. 3. Hamas’s response to the siege is also
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unjustifiable and illustrates their horrific tactics: they target civilians in Israel and they purposefully endanger their residents to manipulate media coverage of Israel. But efforts to frame the Israeli-Hamas conflict as “disproportionate” and “unequal” unavoidably deny Israel its inalienable right to self defense. Conditioning Israel’s right on how many Israeli civilians Hamas kills blatantly violates the meaning of “inalienable.” In World War II, Germany suffered fourteen times more casualties than America. No one seriously argues that America shouldn’t have defended our European allies because of this disparity. It’s borderline antisemitic that many people expect Israel, but not Hamas, to abide by guidelines stricter than the Law of Armed Conflict. Holding the Jewish state of Israel to different moral standards than America or any other country—like conditioning Israel’s right to self defense on the number of Jews killed by Hamas—is discriminatory.
But efforts to frame the Israeli-Hamas conflict as “disproportionate” and “unequal” unavoidably deny Israel its inalienable right to self defense. Conditioning Israel’s right on how many Israeli civilians Hamas kills blatantly violates the meaning of “inalienable.”
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Opinion
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n his first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order combatting discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. The order allowed trans children to access restrooms, locker rooms, and school sports of their gender identity and directed the Attorney General to evaluate states’s current regulations. In retaliation, almost thirty deep-red states introduced bills restricting or banning trans female athletes’s participation in women’s sports. However, no matter biology’s implications for athletes’s performance, bans are not the proper way to address participation in sports. Bans are a black-and-white response to a social issue with a spectrum of solutions, and they leave no room for nuance.
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BANS ARE UNNECESSARY AND H AR MFUL Contrary to popular belief, biological sex doesn’t necessarily determine sports performance. Dr. Joshua Safer is an endocrinologist, expert in transgender biology, and the president of the United States Professional Association for Transgender Health—a worldwide nonprofit with over 3,000 members. He argues that multiple biological characteristics contribute to a person’s sex, and “they may not all align as typically male or female in a given person.” People who are cisgender can have hormone levels that vary, so genetic make-up and reproductive anatomy are not indicative of a person’s athletic performance. Trans female athletes echo this sentiment. Idaho’s ban last year impacted Lindsay Hecox, a transgender runner at Boise State University. Though Hecox had already begun transitioning, the ban barred her from running competitively. She attributed the law to misconceptions about trans women’s athletic abilities.
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“It’s something about trans women athletes. They feel like it’s going to be some huge, tall, muscular superstar,” Hecox said. “I don’t even think most of my teammates would even think of me as trans—I just look like a regular girl.” Even contradictory research—which does find biological differences such as strength, muscle mass, and higher levels of endurance-impacting hemoglobin between men and women—doesn’t imply that bans are
Bans are not the proper way to address participation in sports. Bans are a black-andwhite response to a social issue with a spectrum of solutions, and they leave no room for nuance. necessary for sports. Biological differences are present between all athletes, not just trans and cisgender ones. It is not a question of men competing with women; trans women are women, and there is no justification for outright excluding them. Joanna Harper, a leading trans sports researcher in the United Kingdom, acknowledges that as a population group, trans women have athletic advantages over cisgender women but argues, “we do, however, allow for advantages in sports.” For example, the average height of a professional basketball player in the NBA is 6’6”. Yao Ming, a former player for the Houston Rockets, was 7’6”. Being a full foot taller than his average competitor, he had a considerable advantage over other players. Likewise, lefthanded pitchers are advantaged in baseball because the angle of their throws is rarer and
harder to hit. Yet, neither of these scenarios has prompted bans of ultra-tall basketball players or left-handed pitchers. Athletic abilities vary regardless of the gender doctors assign someone at birth. Trying to compensate for all differences an athlete may have is not feasible. Unless organizations are looking to ban all natural advantages, trans bans are discriminatory.
REGULATIONS ARE MORE EFFECTIVE AND INCLUSIVE Pro-ban advocates may respond to all of this by claiming that the biological differences between cisgender and trans athletes are more extreme than typical biological differences. Still, transition regulations are a more inclusive strategy for overcoming trans-cis performance differences than outright bans. Organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) acknowledge biological differences between trans and cis athletes and demand stipulations as a result. The NCAA requires testosterone suppression treatment of at least a year before transgender women can compete in women’s sports, and the IOC adds that the athlete must have declared their gender identity for a minimum of four years. The 2020 Tokyo Olympic games provided the first opportunity to see such regulations in action when New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard competed as the first openly transgender athlete in a gender category different than the one assigned to her at birth. As her gender identity changed from male to female, many worried that she had an unfair advantage, especially given that she previously competed at the national level as a man. Nevertheless, Hubbard’s transgender identity did not seem to guarantee her a win, and worries about her potential advantages were unfounded. She competed in
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Opinion
only one event—the over-87-kilogram division—and left without a medal. In fact, of the thirteen finalists in the division, she was the only one who didn’t complete at least one successful lift. Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of sports governance at the University of Colorado Boulder, acknowledged that while the IOC should review their policies, “a ban seems socially and politically untenable.”
THE ANSWER IS NEVER A BAN For some cisgender female athletes, banning transgender female athletes feels essential to their ability to compete. Madison Kenyon, a sophomore runner at Idaho State University, spoke out in favor of the bans after a trans female athlete beat her. Some ban-supporters argue that trans women’s participation in sports undermines biological women’s equality under Title IX. The Alliance Defending Freedom—a conservative public interest law nonprofit—filed a lawsuit in Connecticut on behalf of three high school track athletes who felt that competing against transgender athletes caused them to lose out on state titles and potential scholarships. One of the plaintiffs, Chelsea Mitchell became an advocate for bans after
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losing several state track titles in high school and finishing in third place behind two transgender girls in 2019. While it is true that transgender athletes may win a competition, the same can also be said for cisgender athletes. Mitchell beat one of the trans runners in a later race and was awarded a scholarship to Virginia’s College of William and Mary, while neither of the two trans competitors that once beat her was offered scholarships. At higher levels, hormone treatments are one way to address these concerns without outright banning participation. Hecox, the transgender runner from Idaho, began hormone replacement therapy to meet the NCAA requirements. She said that the treatment decreased her muscle mass and stamina, bringing her athletic abilities closer to the range of other female athletes. “I could feel myself getting slower,” she said, “and I was all right with that.” However, while puberty blockers are generally considered safe for younger children, other treatments after puberty, like certain kinds of hormone therapy, carry medical risks for people under the age of eighteen. Unless athletes younger than eighteen are comfortable taking puberty blockers, the answer lies in simply doing nothing. As Dr. Safer points out, “testosterone provides less of an impact for a 14-, 15- or 16-year-old,” so biological advantages are few and far between. A recent study from the Women’s Sports Foundation and the National Center for Lesbian Rights
Athletic abilities vary regardless of the gender doctors assign someone at birth. Unless governments are looking to ban other natural advantages, trans bans are discriminatory.
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Exclusion is not a solution. Trans female athletes should be allowed to compete in their desired gender category, and it is up to lawmakers to search for a way to include them.
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recommends letting transgender girls compete in sports as soon as they begin their social transition—that is, dressing and acting in accordance with their gender identity. The authors note that requiring hormone therapy is “unfair and too complicated” at the high school level but suggest schools keep athletes up to date on college rules since it could impact their participation at a higher level. The real issue to consider is not whether trans women should be allowed to compete with cisgender women. That would be like asking whether Black and white women should compete together. Trans women are women, and banning them from competing with their true gender invalidates that identity. Instead, the important questions to ask are: How can transgender and cisgender athletes come together in meaningful competition, and how can we address the current state of athletics to allow for equal opportunities on both sides? There is still research to be done, but exclusion is not a solution. Trans female athletes should be allowed to compete in their desired gender category, and it is up to lawmakers to search for a way to include them. No matter the perspective taken on the issue, outright banning trans female athletes is an extreme measure—and an unnecessary one.
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Opinion
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am a Republican feminist.
In saying so, I know I will receive scorn from both sides of the political spectrum; some conservatives will conflate my belief that the sexes are inherently equal with the progressive allegation that they are the same. Conversely, some liberals will posit that my acceptance of traditional family structures, individual choice, small government, and capitalism inherently undermine feminism’s tenets. In recent years, the political left has increasingly co-opted feminism and the discourse surrounding it, while conservative women have strayed from using the term. In 2020, just 42 percent of Republican women self-identified at least somewhat as a feminist, as opposed to 75 percent of Democrat women. Furthermore, 45 percent of Americans saw the term as polarizing. While most Americans do not identify as feminists, most support the “social, political, legal, and economic equality of the sexes” and believe that the US has yet to achieve gender equality. In part, this disconnect is a consequence of Americans conflating modern iterations of feminism with the movement’s fundamental teachings. Feminism is actually a bipartisan concept that denotes a truth about the human experience, not one that fluctuates to match whatever is politically convenient.
FEMINISM’S FUNDAMEN TAL S
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First-wave feminism strived for legal equality, property rights, and women’s suffrage. Beginning with the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, feminism premised itself on democratic principles and the classical liberal tradition. Author and activist Betty Friedan galvanized second-wave feminism with her book The Feminine Mystique, which exhorted women to embark on self-actualizing careers and lead life beyond the home. Her experiences as a housewife in the fifties and sixties—published for the world to see—transformed the American workplace and consciousness by illustrating the “problem that has no name”: a lack of fulfillment and boredom from staying home. nupoliticalreview.com
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Feminism is actually a bipartisan concept that denotes a truth about the human experience, not one that fluctuates to match whatever is politically convenient.
By the early 1970s, groups like the National Organization for Women codified traditional feminism into American culture. However, a subset of second-wave feminists deviated from the movement’s established mission. While the coalition largely focused on employment reform, a minority promoted radical ideas that culminated in the sexual revolution. Spurred by Kate Millett’s fanatical book Sexual Politics, the movement called for the erosion of the family and proposed that solely social constructions, not biological divergence, accounted for differences between the sexes. Traditional feminists lamented the shift, believing like Friedan that “the women’s movement was not about sex, but about equal opportunity.” Supporters of the sexual revolution feigned that the movement served as feminism’s natural progression, despite polls illustrating that most American women supported “efforts to promote women’s status,” not women’s alleged sexual liberation. Feminism’s final iterations—embodied by the third- and fourth- wave movements—embrace identity politics. These identitarians subvert many of the fundamental principles that underpin both traditional feminism as well as the American values that freed women in the first place. The American Declaration of Independence was unique in its recognition of the self-evident truths “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” These rights were not granted to Americans by the founding documents, but rather they acknowledged that these entitlements are God-given. While the Founding Fathers did not extend said entitlements to all Americans—notably women and people of color—they laid the groundwork for the emancipation of all persons. And traditional feminism, unlike its later iterations, took up the framers’s mantle.
natural rights theory, which acknowledges that all persons have differing abilities and the ensuing right to use them freely. Equity feminists undermine natural rights by believing that the sexes should have not just the same rights, benefits, obligations, and opportunities, but also the same outcomes. And in doing so, these ideologues ignore that sometimes equitable outcomes are not ideal: men and women have distinct preferences with consequentially disproportionate outcomes. Radical feminists’s emphasis on equality of outcome rather than freedom puts the third and fourth waves in opposition to traditional American values. Conservatism is not at odds with feminism. Rather, it pushes back against feminism’s more recent and more radical manifestations that subvert individualism and freedom. The left’s proliferation of equity rhetoric and their rejection of traditionally feminist ideals ostracizes conservative—and often-
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FOUL FEMINISM Radical third- and fourth- wave feminism disregards American equality premised on nupoliticalreview.com
Conflating feminism with progressivism undermines equality and inhibits bipartisan efforts to end sexual discrimination.
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times more traditional—women. Yet, it is urgent that Republicans maintain the label’s true definition; when Americans give progressives the power to define terms in accordance with their ever-shifting standards, we allow the left to frame the debate around their values rather than shared American standards. In the 2016 election, Republican presidential primary candidate Carly Fiorina endeavored to reclaim the movement, defining a feminist as “a woman who lives the life she chooses.” Conservative feminism has long emphasized the importance of choice and autonomy. Republican women like Jill Ruckelshaus and Audrey Rowe Colom fought for equal rights from the lens of freedom, a practice modern conservatives should emulate. Conservatives need feminism to ensure that we uphold the standards we claim to exalt. Gender equality efforts require massive cultural shifts that are only
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possible with overwhelming support. The narrow and deceptive politicized definition of feminism does everyone a disservice by inhibiting collaborative efforts where liberals and conservatives do agree. Feminism is not a conclusive ideology. Believing in the equality of the sexes is not predicated on considering abortion morally acceptable or subscribing to baseless equity rhetoric; it is not conditioned on supporting lackluster due process on college campuses or any other liberal policy outcomes. Feminism fundamentally describes those who believe that all human beings have the same inalienable rights because they are inherently equal. I am a feminist because we are all entitled to the same liberties as God’s children; because I am a conservative, not in spite of it. I will continue to reclaim the term’s authentic definition by calling myself a feminist. But, if rhetoric surrounding gender equality does not become more politically inclusive and rooted in reality, there is a chance that a major segment of the population will abandon feminism and its indispensable aims. As a society, we must stop politicizing terms that denote fundamental truths. All that results from doing so is a rejection of a movement and of the people who made fundamental societal progress that allows us to live as we do today. Americans ought to remember that feminism is about procuring equal rights regardless of sex, not implementing progressive policy outcomes that most Americans do not support. Terms like feminism set the tone for and define American culture. Conflating feminism with progressivism undermines equality and inhibits bipartisan efforts to end sexual discrimination. Conservatives can no longer sit back and allow liberals to set the rules of the game; liberals cannot prevent the majority of American women—who support some level of traditional values—from participating in and defining the movement developed to protect them. Equality is a ubiquitous and non-discriminant aim, and it’s about time we start acting like it.
The narrow and deceptive politicized definition of feminism does everyone a disservice by inhibiting collaborative efforts where liberals and conservatives do agree.
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Featured
THE PARADOXICAL POWER OF ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ LINLEY HIMES / POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY, AND ECONOMICS 2024
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he phenomenon of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has inhabited many political discussions since she defeated Joe Crowley in the 2018 midterms. Since then, she has gone on to light up Congress as the radical politician that is not afraid to call out colleagues who have been in power longer than she has been alive. Her unfiltered yet eloquent vernacular has garnered massive support from young voters and threatens the far right—even former President Donald Trump. AOC is not the first youthful newcomer to experience a meteoric rise in fame. Richard Nixon was elected at age thirty-nine as a controversial anti-communist firebrand in 1946, while Bill Clinton was dubbed “boy governor” in Arkansas after being elected at thirty-two. After remarkable careers in politics, both of them ended up in the White House. AOC could presumably follow a similar trajectory, cultivating an influential political career. But currently, her power is a paradox: while she has immense influence over public discourse due to her visibility, she simultaneously lacks political authority that will come with experience and time in government. To break out of her paradoxical presence, she must overcome a long list of challenges that accompany nascent progressivism.
AOC ’S P O T EN T I AL There is no doubt that AOC is a political talent that only comes around once in a generation.
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Her working-class background fosters a deep connection with her constituents— something that similar former-firebrand Hillary Clinton could never achieve. Growing up in the Bronx, AOC lived through growing income inequalities and the negative effects of economic policies on lower-income families; her father passed away shortly after the 2008 economic crash, putting her whole family in financial risk. After getting a Boston University degree in economics and international affairs, she worked as a bartender at a Manhattan taco joint, living paycheck to paycheck. Because of her upbringing, AOC is relatable in a way most lawmakers are not. Additionally, she has pledged never to take donations from political action committees (PACs) or Wall Street, garnering intense political support from progressive-leaning constituents. With Bernie Sanders presumably stepping out of the limelight after two unsuccessful presidential bids, the party’s far-left is ready for new leadership. The upcoming generation’s desire for diversity in politics further cements AOC’s potential for future party leadership. In a
AOC serves as a breath of fresh air for those who are tired of seeing older White men make decisions that disproportionately affect them.
profession where nearly 80 percent of congresspeople are White and 73 percent are men, AOC serves as a breath of fresh air for those who are tired of seeing older White men make decisions that disproportionately affect them. She’s progressive, she’s young, and she’s relatable. AOC has the potential to foster an extremely successful political career. What could stop her?
R EL AT IONSH IP W I T H T HE E S TA BLISHMEN T Unfortunately, it might just be her progressive appeal. Since the inception of her whirlwind campaign—and as one of the few democratic-socialists in Congress—AOC has made it clear that she will not play by Washington’s old rules. From day one of her Congressional career, she has not been afraid to call out even the House’s most powerful members to voice her progressive policies. Even before her first swearing-in ceremony in 2018, AOC participated in a sit-in at then Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office to advocate for the Green New Deal climate policy, indicating her willingness to work against the leadership to stand for what she believes in. She notoriously endorsed Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in 2019, echoing his desire to “reclaim our democracy.” Sanders is known best for his far-left ideas—including free college and socialized healthcare—which centrists have yet to embrace. Similarly, much of AOC’s appeal lies in her progressive and forward-thinking policies.
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Moderate democrats still dominate party leadership, so AOC’s path to a powerful and influential career is currently narrow, even though her ambitions are still unknown. Her decision to publicly identify as a democratic-socialist has ostracized her from amassing the support she needs to rise in the party ranks or make the sweeping changes associated with the progressive movement. Conversely, if AOC were to sign on to moderate policies to further her relationships with establishment Democrats, her base would question her partnership with the very ideologies she entered Congress to reform. But, the mere suggestion of bipartisan support towards many of her progressive policies is practically infeasible; a Republican who affiliates with someone as left-leaning as AOC would almost certainlylose their next election. Likewise, AOC is constrained from bipartisanship by her refusal to accept centrist attitudes. AOC must also overcome her tumultuous relationship with the Democratic leadership. Her skirmishes with party leaders proved detrimental to her last December when Representative Kathleen Rice beat her for a coveted spot on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which furthers environmental policy. While Democrats invited AOC to join the committee, a secret ballot vote gave Rice the position with a 46–13 vote, displaying her ostracization. The message was clear: leadership will not put up with new members stepping out of line. AOC's decision to denounce establishment Democrats is boxing her into a corner with few options for legitimate influence in the current House dynamic. She will not be able to create the impact she is looking for on her own. Since establishment Democrats inhabit almost every leadership position in Congress, she must maintain a relationship with Congressional leaders. Speaker Pelosi is primarily responsible for appointing members to committees and deciding what bills get brought to the floor. So, regardless of ideological divisions, AOC needs Pelosi’s support to gain influence.
AOC ’S P OW ER DI C HO T OM Y Part of the struggle AOC faces stems from her sensationalization in the press. From the get-go, the New York representative was the talk of the town. Even outside of the political bubble, she has become a hero for millennials and Gen Z alike. Whether it be live streaming herself putting together IKEA furniture while drinking wine or sharing her black-bean soup recipe, AOC embeds political discourse into everyday life. This skill, coupled with her nupoliticalreview.com
AOC’s decision to denounce establishment Democrats is boxing her into a corner with few options for legitimate influence in the current House dynamic. She will not be able to create the impact she is looking for on her own. relatability, results in her immense popularity with the general public. AOC’s popularity has caused her to adopt two distinct positions in the world. In the general public, she has more name recognition than any other established politician like Amy Klobuchar or even then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. AOC is one of the most well-known American politicians right now, giving her immense power over political discourse. However, because of her newcomer status in Congress, AOC realistically has very little influence. While she has the unwavering support of “the Squad”—a group of six progressive House members—it is insufficient to create a legacy of successful progressive policies. Due to the House’s size, individual members don’t have much power over movement and passage of legislation. Coalitions and caucuses exist to overcome this coordination problem. The Congressional Progressive Caucus—which AOC is a member of—is growing but not enough to enact policies into law on its own. This limitation creates a problem when her supporters expect Washington to adopt reforms quickly. AOC may certainly succeed in furthering the progressive cause, but the federal government is a massive operation that changes slowly. The country is unlikely to see AOC’s desired change in her lifetime. The reality is, politics is not an efficient vocation. It is slow-going, long-term, and can be frustrating from an outside perspective. But as former President Barack Obama once said, large democratic societies are like ocean liners—little adjustments turn the ship slowly, until ten years from now, it is in a very different place than before. Turn too fast, and the whole ship will tip over. But with time, the ship will turn. Progressivism embraced too quickly will rattle the establishment Democrats who still hold most of the party’s power. The country and the Democratic party have been slowly shifting left in policy decisions, and increased
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progressivism is likely to continue. But, it will not be accepted overnight. Because of the consistent dichotomy of power, AOC currently exists in a paradoxical state. AOC’s popularity with voters allows her to sway public opinion and garners political influence. However, within the sheltered walls of the Capitol, her political clout is inconsequential. The system forces AOC to wait her turn for power, which could take decades. To voters, she is a superhero who isn’t afraid to stand up to the villains and tyrants in power to do what is right. But within the hallowed halls of the Capitol, she is just one of 541 members who also think they are just that.
SP R E ADIN G P R OGR E S SI V ISM As progressivism continues to spread and younger generations idolize AOC, the junior representative has the opportunity to become a major player in the Democratic Party. However, to do so, she must overcome the challenges of nascent progressivism; most notably, her unwillingness to work within political expectations and among the establishment. However, these characteristics are in part rooted in her ideology. The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is relatively new, as the Progressive Caucus was established in 1991. The novelty has yet to wear off. The progressive ideology is far from moderate, which makes it even harder for veteran politicians to accept. Ideas like free college and achieving zero carbon emissions are revolutionary—just radical enough that they could prevent AOC from ever amassing the support she needs. Trailblazing does not necessarily correlate with power. To become the leader she could one day be, AOC must shed the radicalism of her persona while maintaining her progressive appeal. If AOC can form lasting coalitions and relationships with Democratic leadership, she has the potential to create a lasting legacy. Perhaps in ten or twenty years, AOC will join the list of Democratic powerhouses also known by their three-letter initials—FDR, JFK, and LBJ.
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ontrary to the one hundred thousand migrants who crossed the United States’ southern border in February alone, I didn’t have to work, starve, or risk my or my children’s life for opportunity. And yet, as a politically active and aware Mexican American woman, I struggle to find ways to cope with feeling helpless as two parts of my identity clash against one another. I grew up as a minority within a minority. I not only had a house, but I also had a home. I not only had a school, but I also received an education. I spoke Spanish and English. I was Mexican, but also American; and that—being American—comes with many benefits. One such benefit was not being
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turned away at the border for being a burden to America, rather than an asset. Today, America faces an immigration problem that has been ongoing for decades.
Contrary to popular opinion, this so-called “migration crisis” did not start with President Trump and will not end with President Biden. Contrary to popular opinion, this so-called “migration crisis” did not start with President Trump and will not end with President
Biden. The situation today is much harder to resolve than some anticipate. Immigrants are vital players in the US economy that simply cannot be disregarded; mistreating them at the border goes against the very values the country cherishes. While the last president characterized asylum seekers as people who drain public resources and damage the national workforce, the American economy has come to depend on immigrants. Immigrants have a positive impact on long-run economic growth. In 2020, 17 percent of the US workforce were immigrants, many of whom respond to the demand for low-skilled labor that natives are unable or unwilling to fill. By taking on challenging
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Immigration is not a partisan issue; the question is no longer whether one party’s policies grant access to foreigners, but whether America can function without an active flow of immigrants.
circumstances—working odd hours or in dangerous environments—immigrants enable Americans to take on higher-paying jobs. Regardless of immigration status, these foreign laborers make up a significant portion of a shrinking workforce. Some are entrepreneurial, establishing small-scale restaurants, hotels, and grocery stores. Their companies contribute on average $11.64 billion, or around 8 percent of their total income, in state and local taxes annually. As such, immigrants are now ingrained in American life. At this point, pushing them away would only undermine the country. Immigration is not a partisan issue; the question is no longer whether one party’s policies grant access to foreigners, but whether America can function without an active flow of immigrants. Seven years ago, the Obama administration warned of a national crisis at the border. But asylum seekers, especially children, from Latin American countries, particularly those from Central America’s Northern Triangle—Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador—continue to arrive in astounding numbers. Government statistics show that an additional 20,000 children and teenagers are in the custody of a system already at “103 percent capacity.” To add to the burden, processing asylum seekers—most of whom have waited years for refuge—takes time; over 25,000 migrants, of which 19,000 are children, currently remain scattered along the border between Matamoros and Tijuana.
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When he took office, Biden vowed to roll back Trump’s zero-tolerance policy on immigration; his administration committed to stopping family separations and is very critical of holding children in “cages.” He also committed to reversing harmful immigration policies by ending the discriminatory travel ban, protecting Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients, and temporarily stopping the construction of the
As good as Biden’s pledges sound, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blames Biden for the “crisis.” US-Mexico border wall. While Biden vowed to fix the immigration crisis, the US has ironically observed the largest flow of Mexican migrants since the early twentieth century. As good as Biden’s pledges sound, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador blames Biden for the “crisis,” pointing to how his policies encouraged more migrants to move to the US. As an ultra-left populist leader who developed a win-win relationship with Trump, it comes as no surprise that Obrador critiques Biden’s handling of the border situation. However, Obrador has also sympathized with the view of many
undocumented immigrants: “they see Biden as the migrant president” and expect to be welcomed with “open arms.” Unlike Biden, Trump established some of the cruelest anti-migration policies in decades. Under his administration, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned order practically denying all Central American’s asylum. Only individuals whose asylum claims are denied elsewhere, are from countries that fundamentally lack human rights, or are victims of human trafficking could apply for asylum. Trump also signed several executive orders in his first week, indicating the administration’s position on immigration early on. These orders largely undermined human rights by expanding the use of detention centers, denying asylum seekers entry into the country, strengthening enforcement of border measures along the US-Mexico border, and constructing a two thousand mile wall. Trump’s immigration policies centered around an anti-immigrant, white-nationalist agenda, while Biden stresses defending the democratic rights of immigrants as an imperative piece of his socialist revolution. Sadly, neither has successfully put an end to the “crisis,” and therein lies the point: neither party is serious about accepting and integrating immigrants despite this being in the nation’s interest. Trump’s policies were clearly damaging, but Biden’s actions contradict his vision to move away from his predecessor’s policies.
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The administration has responded with some of the same tactics that evoked moral outrage from the left under Trump, including accommodating children into “crowded cages” with little to no access to showers, clean clothes, food, heating, or a place to sleep. Democrats who once strongly criticized the Trump administration’s strident policies are now in a political bind. Upon backlash from Republican leaders denouncing the “Biden border crisis,” the administration argued that the crisis is not expanding, but instead under reconstruction. Thus far, the administration has turned away around 40 percent of families and practically every adult seeking asylum. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency made these dismissals under Title 42, the same provision the Trump administration used for legal deportations at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, Americans have reacted negatively to how the administration is handling arrivals of unaccompanied children at the southern border. One poll showed that around 60 percent of Americans prioritized reuniting families and focusing on the safe treatment of children at the border. Around 25 percent of respondents approve of the administration’s actions regarding immigration, while 40 percent disapprove of the current response. The Biden administration’s first test will be the Department of Health and Human Services’ response. Susan Rice, director of the Domestic Policy Council, and Amy Pope,
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the president’s senior adviser for migration issues, are aggressively pressing officials from the health department and other immigration agencies to explain the failure to quickly move more than four thousand migrant children out of jail-like detention facilities. Another test will be laying the groundwork for legal immigration. The administration continues to tell migrants not to come while simultaneously assuring that it will soon establish a system that allows asylum seekers to file claims from their home countries. In March, as part of its immigration plan, the administration offered eleven million undocumented immigrants living in the US an eight-year path to citizenship if they were in the country by January 1. Immigrants will be required to pass background checks and demonstrate that they’ve paid taxes for five years. Afterwards, migrants can apply for a green card that grants them permanent citizenship. To address the core issue, Biden’s administration says it will provide aid to Central America to target high-level corruption, set up regional facilities to process legal claims, and reinvent refugee processes for children. The administration is currently working across departments and agencies to help children contact their relatives, and is spending sixty million dollars a week to shelter unaccompanied teenagers and minors. The pandemic exacerbates the problem. It has left tens of thousands of migrants stranded and displaced due to changes in travel
restrictions, employment, and income. Calling the current border issue a “crisis” both exaggerates and understates the reality. It points to the fact that the system itself is broken. The current situation at the border is harming the safety of immigrants and Americans alike, working against our economic growth. Mishandling this crisis will lead to greater political and humanitarian ramifications for both immigrants and democratic governments. Immigration is not a partisan issue—in the US, it is a complicated, inflexible, and outdated mess. There are two sides to this issue. On the one hand, immigrants like me make up 13.7 percent of America. Our accomplishments and space within the country are praised, applauded, and welcomed. On the other hand, many other migrants are starving and dying in overcrowded detention centers. They dream of living in the US but are turned away. Whether out of nationalist sentiment, xenophobia, or fear of change, America has turned its back on its ideals and single-handedly selected participants to form the country. America is sustained and maintained by immigrants. The issue is not a Democrat or Republican one, but one that all Americans must tackle. As a first-generation Mexican American, I will not stand by and watch while freedom, democracy, and justice are stripped away by our nation’s leaders, and you shouldn’t either.
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ave you ever noticed how many door buttons on campus for students with physical disabilities don’t work? Or perhaps you’ve overheard a Disability Resource Center (DRC) notetaker complain about the minor inconvenience of having to submit class notes within twenty-four hours? I hadn’t paid much attention to such grievances until I became a peer mentor for You’re With Us!. You’re With Us! is a nonprofit organization that integrates young adults with disabilities into welcoming communities, such as local university campuses, that support their social and emotional development. To accomplish this goal, You’re With Us! trains college groups and student mentors to create meaningful friendships with their peers with disabilities. You’re With Us! established a partnership with Northeastern University in 2015 to jumpstart its program. It encourages community members with disabilities and students seeking relationships beyond campus to learn from one another through shared experiences. While a step in the right direction, this partnership is only one of many initiatives Northeastern should undertake to increase inclusivity. While the federal government requires public schools to ensure equal access, private universities like Northeastern do not have the same legal obligations. Public secondary schools abide by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Section
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504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). These laws mandate free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, protect civil rights of those in disabilities programs that receive federal funding, and prohibit discrimination by governments against individuals with disabilities, respectively. As required by the law, Northeastern upholds these policies by mandating inclusive educational opportunities for all Northeastern students regardless of physical or intellectual disability. Such policies differ from IDEA, which calls for individual education plans and specialized instruction. As a Northeastern student and former You’re With Us! mentor, I have learned more about the resources, or lack thereof, catering to students with disabilities on campus. In addition to the bare-bone legal requirements of the aforementioned policies, the university should provide extra resources supporting students with disabilities. The DRC works to ensure students with disabilities, as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act as Amended (ADAAA) of 2008, can fully engage in university opportunities. The center’s establishment in 1978 made Northeastern stand out for its long-term efforts to create a more inclusive academic experience and rank competitively in accessibility compared to other universities.
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Unfortunately, according to conversations I’ve had with administrators, it is not uncommon for departments at Northeastern to be relatively understaffed. Simultaneously, they remain under pressure to perform, as staff transition office functions between online and in-person due to COVID-19. This situation is disorientating and unconducive to aiding students transitioning to or looking to maintain a healthy university lifestyle. Given COVID-19 and the consequential rise in demand for educational support from students, the university should place the DRC as a higher priority to ensure it can adequately aid students with disabilities transition to college. Specifically, this could entail the
The university should place the DRC as a higher priority to ensure it can adequately aid students with disabilities transition to college.
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maintenance of campus facilities, enhancement of the Learning Disabilities Program (LDP), provision of additional resources for students, and the development of educational initiatives to inform students on how they can build a more inclusive campus.
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Any Northeastern student, faculty member, or staff can submit facilities work requests via myNortheastern to report malfunctioning door buttons. However, work requests are subject to the bystander effect; students might not feel responsible for completing requests because hundreds of others are also using the door, leaving some broken facilities unnoticed. It would be beneficial to have a staff member at the DRC walk around campus occasionally to ensure that all access points for students with disabilities are functioning properly and pinpoint locations that could be more accessible. While mentoring for You’re With Us!, I noticed that some mentees utilized wheelchairs and were occasionally unaware of the best traveling routes; an integral part of our trips included locating sometimes obscure elevators, ramps within buildings, and wheelchair-accessible entryways. To mitigate this dilemma, the DRC could help facilitate the placement of elevator access and directional signs for wheelchair-accessible routes. Consequently, new members of the Northeastern community can become better acquainted with building layouts and more easily travel around campus. Northeastern currently integrates students with disabilities through providing transitional training to acquaint students with university-level curriculum, help them advocate for themselves, and understand what resources are available to them. The DRC presents this information via virtual tutorials covering topics ranging from the difference between accommodations in secondary schools and Northeastern to what technology is available to aid learning. However, transitioning to college and adjusting to a new lifestyle takes time and
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should extend beyond a few videos and bits of information from an assigned advisor. Unfortunately, an understaffed department on campus can only do so much to provide exceptional transition services for students with disabilities. Northeastern ranks thirty-fifth out of fifty schools in Great Value Colleges’s picks for America’s top colleges for students with disabilities. This ranking is comparatively worse than other ranking systems that emphasize other aspects of Northeastern’s experiential learning, overlooking the university’s inadequate support of students with disabilities. This lower rank is significant because it identifies the exclusivity of Northeastern’s Learning Disabilities Program (LDP). The LDP is a fee-based academic program for undergraduates with primarily a learning disability. Students accepted to the program meet regularly with a specialist to set goals, review effective learning methods, and monitor their progress. Unfortunately, the LDP only accepts forty-five students annually. Students may submit applications after university admission, meaning students often do not hear back until after they decide to enroll. In worst case scenarios, if the LDP does not accept them, students who anticipated additional academic support struggle for the duration of their undergraduate careers. Although Northeastern fairly acknowledges the need to include students with disabilities, there remains room for improvement in the LDP. No student should have to barely get by due to the university’s failure to provide adequate assistance. With more resources, the DRC may accept a greater number of students to the LDP and seek to provide more specialized programming than general transition materials. The DRC can be a vital resource to aid students struggling through online learning and ease the transition back to the classroom by providing advice on managing coursework when one feels easily diverted from their work, overwhelmed, or completely disinterested. These stress-management tips can be helpful for all students whether or not they regularly utilize DRC resources. Drawing inspiration from University Health and Counseling Services (UHCS), the DRC could provide support groups for students with disabilities transitioning to the college lifestyle, or help connect students with relatable peers living with a physical or intellectual disability. Currently, UHCS only provides pandemic transition and international student
Members of our community with disabilities provide a unique perspective and innovative ideas for a better society; yet, the US has historically turned a blind eye to this truth and forced people with disabilities to fight for decades to have their voices heard.
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experience support groups for Northeastern students in Massachusetts. A greater array of opportunities for students with disabilities could help bridge the gap between emotional and medical needs while being flexible enough to meet the demands of each support group cohort. An increased sense of community can help to ease feelings of loneliness and judgment from others and provide a sense of empowerment to students with disabilities. Engagement opportunities for students unfamiliar with the work of the DRC could also be a great asset to building a stronger campus community. Alongside being a notetaker for the DRC and mentor for You’re With Us!, I want to raise awareness for the DRC’s important work. After seeing how helpful these resources have been to those close to me, I have a deep appreciation for how they are seeking to assist students with disabilities. Part of the DRC’s responsibilities should also include teaching all students how to communicate with their peers with disabilities respectfully. Students may worry about properly referring to people with disabilities or whether it is appropriate to ask questions about their disability. A Scope study approximated that 67 percent of respondents experienced discomfort while interacting with people with disabilities, often due to “a fear of seeming patronizing or saying the wrong things.” Meanwhile, 20 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds have avoided speaking to people with disabilities because they were not sure how to communicate with them properly. Teaching respectful interactions that normalize communication between students with disabilities and those without is a vital step in creating a welcoming environment in the Northeastern community. Conversations about effective and respectful student interactions with varying abilities can occur at orientation or 1000-level introductory courses. During orientation, students can hear from different departments and centers on campus and receive messages that the university would like to emphasize from day one, such as its nupoliticalreview.com
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beliefs about inclusivity. Similarly, 1000level courses permit offices on campus to discuss important topics, creating an opportunity for a DRC presentation that details how to refer to students with disabilities, when it is appropriate to offer help, and how to maintain balanced relationships between students with disabilities and those without. Creating connections requires branching out from one’s comfort zone and accepting others’ differences and what makes them unique. Small interpersonal connections through hobbies and shared interests go a long way to increase one’s sense of belonging. Consequently, friendships help increase a person’s overall health and allow for exploration of their identity. Friendships help students obtain the confidence to engage with others who are different from themselves. Opportunities to educate students about the history of disability rights could also provide a greater level of understanding. Currently, Northeastern fails to provide the same level of advocacy for the community of students with disabilities as marginalized student groups on campus. For instance, leading up to the 2020 presidential election, many centers on campus provided information to students on why it was important to vote and how to go about doing so. At cultural centers, in particular, the emphasis was on the suffrage’s history and how it helped advance the interests of the respective marginalized groups. However, the DRC did not publicly produce materials or host events about policies that may impact individuals with disabilities or how to overcome barriers associated with the voting process.
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Members of our community with disabilities provide a unique perspective and innovative ideas for a better society; yet, the US has historically turned a blind eye to this truth and forced people with disabilities to fight for decades to have their voices heard. Today, various organizations work to ensure that voters with disabilities are going to the polls to protect their rights. Why should certain communities on campus have their experiences and concerns elevated in the name of diversity while others are cast away? Disregarding the history of people with disabilities is part of a larger trend, not a one-time occurrence. I reviewed course offerings within the departments that I study in—Political Science, International Affairs, Law and Public Policy, and Spanish—to find a course that discusses the rights of individuals with disabilities. To my dismay, there were none; it is utterly shocking that an entire marginalized community has been left out of studies concerning politics and law, the very subjects that aim to highlight the way different communities interact with one another. Thankfully, some courses exist in other departments such as HLTH 5280: The (in)
Visibility of (dis)Ability in Society. This is a course offered within Bouvé; yet, I was able to receive permission from the political science program director to have it count as an elective. Northeastern faculty should continue to encourage opportunities to craft one’s educational experience into a more holistic endeavor in this manner. The students, faculty, and staff members of Northeastern must begin talking about uncomfortable topics. The university claims to value inclusion, but it must actively demonstrate this virtue. We cannot say that we stand for inclusion when we cannot acknowledge the need for greater resource allocation to the DRC, the nervousness associated with interactions between students with disabilities and those without, and the omission of a core part of society in our course offerings. If the university effectively welcomes all students by nurturing positive relationships among students of all abilities, students would be more confident in themselves, their interactions with others, and their desire to seek out new experiences. We would be able to foster a community that thinks diversely, challenges norms, and cares for one another. This is the inclusion that Northeastern should be pursuing to create a more enriching college experience for all its students.
If the university effectively welcomes all students by nurturing positive relationships among students of all abilities, students would be more confident in themselves, their interactions with others, and their desire to seek out new experiences.
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“É Proibido Proibir / It’s Prohibited to Prohibit” — Caetano Veloso, singer
wide cultural impact of those pieces, which serve as long-lasting reminders of history.
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he Brazilian military dictatorship—a politically tumultuous period lasting from 1964 to 1985—is mostly known for the government’s numerous crimes and many artists’s countless peaceful protests. The oppressive government lacked democracy, suppressed basic human rights, pervasively censored arts and literature, and persecuted those who opposed the dictatorship, including musical artists. Singers, such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Chico Buarque, protested with original songs. Although Brazil’s military tried to censor free speech during the dictatorship, artists still managed to state their opinions and actively fight against the military’s total control through their songs, stories, and art. This activism quickly became the most important method of protest during the regime, unifying sections of the population that the dictatorship’s cruelty and oppression negatively impacted. Now, it is also possible to see the
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Before the military dictatorship, the economic and political situation in Brazil was unstable. Economic uncertainty marked Joao Goulart’s presidency, which sparked many political and social protests. Eventually, the political situation led the armed forces to stage a military coup on March 31, 1964. Other countries, including the United States, that feared Brazil was becoming socialist due to its leftward-moving policies quickly supported the new government. Thus, the American press largely ignored reports of political opponents’ mass arrests. Instead, the message was that the new government had successfully defended democracy from communism. The support from the United States government and the Brazilian middle class ensured the dictatorship’s successful
beginning. Military control began on April 1, 1964 with then-military chief Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco as president. During the dictatorship, democracy was nearly absent due to censorship and political persecution. Infringement of civilians’s constitutional rights and the torture and murder of countless individuals who opposed the regime marked this period. The oppressive government destroyed the right to vote and popular participation, answering all protests against the regime with violence. One positive outcome of the dictatorship was that it curbed an economic crisis. In the twenty-one years of military control, the economic growth rate was one of the highest in the world. Economic growth helped the regime gain support, even through its most violent phase. In the early years of the oppressive government, the government killed thousands of Brazilian citizens as a punishment for rebellion. Although most of those kidnapped, tortured, and killed were politicians, a significant number were average
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citizens who opposed the military regime in both peaceful and aggressive ways.
CAE TAN O V ELOSO, GILBER T O GIL , AND TRO PICALIA Most Brazilians believe their national identity is closely tied to the country’s music, as it unites those of all social backgrounds and creates a place of refuge from real life. However, as the dictatorship gained more control and became increasingly strict during the mid-1960s, innovation and creativity in art greatly diminished. One key figure in uprooting this paradigm was Veloso. He aligned with the hippie movement and joined Gil to create a new form of music known as Tropicalia, which artists used to express provocative ideas and politically daring lyrics in a form of peaceful protest. It combined traditional Brazilian culture with various foreign countries’s artistic characteristics. Certain sections of the public found their voice for freedom in the music, while others reacted angrily to the political content expressed in the art of Tropicalia. From the beginning of his career, Veloso aligned with anti-dictatorship left-wing politics. As a consequence, the government often censored his songs with political undertones. Some of Veloso’s most popular and powerful lyrics are from the song “E proibido proibir” / “It’s Prohibited to Prohibit”: The virgin’s mother says no / And the television ad / It was written on the door / And the master raised his finger / And beyond the door / There's the doorman, yes … / And I say no / And I say no to the no / I say: / It is forbidden to forbid. Veloso wrote this song in 1968 to protest rampant free speech violations. Three months after presenting this song in a university festival, the military arrested him and shaved his head to humiliate him publicly. Veloso became one of the most vocal protesters of the time. “It's Prohibited to Prohibit” received a very negative reaction from audiences who were violently opposed to what they saw as the “Americanization” of Brazilian music due to the instruments used and the clothes worn during performances. Among others from the same genre, this song triggered many discussions about what was acceptable in music. Eventually, it
showed that a new, more eccentric style could be successful. However, his leftist political views and resounding opposition to the dictatorship eventually led to the government censoring, or even banning, many of his songs. Gil entered the music industry in 1967 to initially warm audience reactions, but his opposition to the dictatorship meant he also received increased attention from government censors. Like Veloso, he was criticized by the public for elements of his performance. His controversial usage of the electric guitar during concerts, for example, also resulted in more monitoring from the government, as the audience considered the instrument too modern and Western at a time when Brazil rejected other cultures’s musical characteristics. Therefore, his use of the electric guitar along with the new music genre Tropicalia, was a shock to the government and to the audience. Tropicalia generated more and more attention every day due to Veloso’s eccentric style and Gil’s introduction of a new instrument. Since the two artists were able to make their artistic expression marketable while maintaining a firm opposition to the regime, they became incredibly popular with others with the same political views and established themselves in the music industry. The government considered Tropicalia an intervention in Brazil’s culture and became increasingly worried about the movement. Because the genre was created to critique the government and was gaining more attention every day, the dictatorship decided to stop its growth by arresting Gil and Veloso in 1969. The government forced both of them to exile in London in the early 1970s. Reportedly, the official reason was that they wanted to break
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Although Brazil’s military tried to censor free speech during the dictatorship, artists still managed to state their opinions and actively fight against the military’s total control through their songs, stories, and art.
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the law and institutional order with messages to the population to weaken the regime. Gil managed to get the last word in when he released the song “Aquele Abraço,” which he wrote shortly after his release from prison and launched when he had already been exiled. He sings: Rio de Janeiro is still beautiful / Rio de Janeiro is still / Rio de Janeiro, February, and March... My way around the world / I make it myself / Bahia has given me / Ruler and compass / I’m the only one who knows what happens to me / A big hug! / For you who forgot about me / A big hug! / Hello Rio de Janeiro / A big hug! / All Brazilian people / A big hug!
The title of the song can be translated to “That Hug,” referencing a phrase often said by the guards stationed at the prison. In it, he summarized his experiences and what they represented by highlighting both the beauty of Rio de Janeiro and the ugliness hidden behind it. The song went on to become of the most successful in Gil’s career, being the most played and the second most sold of all his discs.
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The dictatorships’ strong reaction against any form of criticism shows the true impact music had during that time as one of the most influential and unifying weapons.
C H IC O BUAR Q UE Buarque, who is now considered one of the biggest icons in Brazilian culture, was also an extremely important opponent of the dictatorship. He was forcibly exiled in 1968 after the government repeatedly censored his songs. Buarque wrote many songs that protestors deemed influential to the resistance against the dictatorship. One of his most famous songs is “Apesar de Voce,” which he wrote in 1970 after returning from exile. He sings: You’re the boss today. / You said, it’s done / There is no discussion / My people walk today / Speaking from the side / And looking down / You invented this state / And invented to invent / All the darkness / You who invented sin / Forgot to invent / The forgiveness / Although you / Tomorrow will be / Other day / I ask you. / Where are you going to hide? / The enormous euphoria / How are you going to ban it? / When the rooster insists / In singing / New water sprouting / And we love each other / Nonstop. The song addresses the loss of freedom during the dictatorship. It sold one hundred thousand copies and played on the radio often, quickly becoming an anthem for the people. Despite its popularity, the government began to distrust the song’s message, so they ordered the recollection of all compacts sold and prohibited the song from being played on the radio. His song “Calice” had a similar impact. In a tactic central to the Tropicalia genre, the song used double meanings and
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wordplay as a clear form of protest against the dictatorship. Notably, Buarque used the word “chalice” due to its similar sound to “cale-se,” which means “be quiet” or “shut up”:
Father, move this chalice away from me / Of red wine of blood / How to drink of this bitter beverage / Swallow the pain, swallow the toil / Even silent the night, there’s the chest / Silence in the city is not heard / What’s worth to me to be the son of the saint / It’d be better to be the son of the other / Other reality less dead / So many lies, so much brute strength. Buarque’s most heartfelt song was “Angelica,” a song written to honor Zuzu Angel, a famous Brazilian fashion designer who was decidedly against the dictatorship and became a symbol for freedom and expression. The military allegedly arrested, tortured, and murdered her son because he was part of the left-wing movement. Unfortunately, her son’s body was never found, and Angel led an international campaign publicly shaming the government. One week prior to her death, she went to Buarque’s house and predicted her demise. She left a document which stated that if she died accidentally, it would be at the hands of the same people who killed her son—the military. The song written in her honor is a protest against the military’s aggression and killings, and talks about a woman searching for her son who is now at the bottom of the ocean. Eventually, the government’s distrust of Buarque led to them banning almost all of his songs. The dictatorship’s strong reaction against any form of criticism shows the true impact music had during that time as one of the most influential and unifying weapons.
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two leading artists, would consistently support each other’s music by joining the other on stage. For left-wing protesters, the art was very much loved and used as an example of freedom of speech and expression. The government arrested many Tropicalia artists for the political content their work expressed. Although Veloso and Gil were only arrested and exiled, others, like Raul Seixas, were tortured. Tropicalia brought many changes to Brazilian culture. It began as a defiance to Brazilian customs, and brought a rebellious tone to the country’s political situation. The songs were innovative, requiring listeners to have extensive cultural knowledge as writers chose to play with words and use codes to bypass censors. For this reason, many of Veloso’s songs are purposefully vague but carry an important explanation of the oppression and violence he and others suffered during the brutal dictatorship. Although the definitive number of Brazilians killed during this period is not confirmed, most reports indicate that the military
Those who were against the dictatorship used the songs of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Chico Buarque as anthems. The passion and fight of artists for free speech are still heard today with their popular songs documenting a very important time in Brazilian history.
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dictatorship killed hundreds of people. Those fighting the dictatorship used Veloso, Gil, and Buarque’s songs as anthems. The passion and fight of artists for free speech are still heard today, with their popular music documenting a very important time in Brazilian history. During a time of violence, oppression, and censorship, many artists showed their persistence and resistance by finding alternative ways to publish their art. The act of artistic creativity itself—which is fundamental to human nature—became an act of defiance that challenged a military regime that was out to destroy basic human freedoms.
Tropicalia was a very divisive music genre, especially in its early years. Violent protests from the audience often characterized an artist’s performance. Veloso and Gil, the genre’s nupoliticalreview.com
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ntil recently, climate change has always been a future problem. With most countries addressing climate change at a painfully slow pace, coupled with “gravely insufficient” policies, the recent uptick in support and concern worldwide is positive. In 2020, 52 percent of US citizens listed global climate change as their top priority, compared to 30 percent in 2008. In Europe, 93 percent see climate change as a serious problem. Increasing global concern, improving environmental policies, and more consistent follow-through from national governments have instilled hope in the climate-conscious. Yet, for many vulnerable populations, it is too little too late. Among the most vulnerable are Pacific islanders. The Pacific island region includes the small island developing states (SIDS) of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, stretching from Papua New Guinea to Easter Island. Most islands in the Pacific are barely above sea level, leaving them acutely vulnerable to sea-level rise, storm surges, extreme weather events, and droughts, amongst other environmental hazards. Some islands in the Pacific are already becoming uninhabitable, and that number is only increasing. This reality is especially troubling when considering the region produces only 0.3 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A dilemma that Pacific islanders barely contribute to is stealing their native lands, livelihoods, and cultures. The situation in the Pacific is dire. Despite this, in the face of climate adversity, Pacific island nations’s adaptation and mitigation proposals are among the most promising.
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World leaders and citizens alike should be cognizant of Pacific islanders’s struggle, as both share the responsibility to fight against climate change.
CLIM AT E C H AN GE PACIFIC R EGION
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According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, SIDS are left most susceptible to the damaging effects of climate change. In particular, the Pacific region is among the most vulnerable. Pacific island states have already experienced severe revenue loss in some of their largest sectors—agriculture, tourism,
when considering the island’s 2019 GDP of 5.496 billion USD and its already declining annual growth. Pacific islanders’s personal lives are being affected as well. In an interview with NPR, Claire Anterea, a climate activist from Kiribati, describes that she can “see the sea getting higher as the coastal areas are eaten away . . . My family’s home floods throughout the year.” Leitu Frank, a resident of Tuvalu, says that “before, the sand used to stretch out far, and when we swam we could see the sea floor, and the coral. Now, it is cloudy all the time, and the coral is dead. Tuvalu is sinking.” According to the Tuvaluan government, as of 2019, two of the country’s nine islands were already on the verge of submerging. In addition, water and food supplies in parts of Tuvalu have become polluted enough to cause climate-related illnesses. Further, frequent droughts contribute to food insecurity, the weather is becoming exceedingly unpredictable, and storm surges occur more often and with increasing intensity. Some scientists suggest Tuvalu could become uninhabitable in fifty to one hundred years. The grave situation in Tuvalu is reflective of the reality all Pacific island nations are facing. To add to the problem, COVID-19 left the Pacific islands more vulnerable than ever. Pacific island nations fared better than most regarding health, due to their remote nature. However, the economic devastation left in the pandemic’s wake poses an immense threat. With international tourism being a major source of revenue, Pacific economies will face severe economic repercussions in the coming years. Pacific governments’s inability to instill
SIDS are left most susceptible to the damaging effects of climate change. In particular, the Pacific region is among the most vulnerable. forestry, and water resources being only a few examples. Climate change threatens coastal infrastructure, subsistence crops, fisheries, local ecosystems, and islanders’s ways of life. With Pacific island states already facing challenges with sustainable urban development and land use, rising sea levels and increasing extreme weather events exacerbate problems that these countries are struggling to address. For example, Fiji could experience economic losses between 23-52 million dollars annually by 2050, a large loss
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protections for islanders and industries has contributed to the problem. Fiji’s economy alone could contract by around 20 percent. In conjunction with displacement and destruction from climate change, this unexpected economic downturn is a recipe for disaster. According to the Solomon Islands Environment Minister, Melchior Mitaki, “Relocation is often perceived as a last option. Yet for some parts of our country, it is the only reasonable and sustainable option.” Relocation only adds to the economic instability of Pacific island nations. Brain drain already damages many industries in the Pacific, including vital sectors such as healthcare. Additionally, relocation and migration come with the loss of traditional Pacific identities and cultures, which many islanders are rightfully unwilling to abandon. Pacific island traditions have strong ties to native land, a relationship that can never be replaced.
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sustainable infrastructure for the future. The development guide includes initiatives like incorporating sustainability into the state’s housing and leasing program. For example, the guide suggests residents install water systems that combat drought vulnerability, utilize renewable energy sources, and vegetate bare soil to prevent runoff and sediment deposits. A national loan program funds these initiatives. The Pacific region’s adaptation and mitigation methods are promising, and these are only a few examples. It is important to note that all of these advancements developed in states that face various challenges due to their remote nature, lack of financial or technical resources, and ever-changing governmental structure. Not only are developed, higher-emitting states capable of supporting adaptation and mitigation efforts in the Pacific, but they are also well-equipped to apply these policies, and more, domestically. Regarding GHGs, SIDS’s leaders are vocal and persistent about effective climate policy. Despite minimal contribution, Pacific island states continue to take the initiative to reduce GHG emissions wherever possible. Their mitigation efforts are often more ambitious than those of countries contributing higher amounts. These efforts set an example for the rest of the world. Many Pacific island states are also active members of regional bodies, such as the Pacific Island Forum and the Alliance of Small Island States, which have done extensive work to address climate concerns and create a unified front. Despite occasional breakthroughs in international policy, world leaders of high-emitting states leave Pacific leaders feeling unheard
Climate change is a global issue that requires a cohesive, global response. But like most global phenomena, those affected the most are being listened to the least.
PACIFIC ISL AND ER S ’S R E SP ONSE Climate change is a global issue that requires a cohesive, global response. But like most global phenomena, those affected the most are being listened to the least. While international concern is rising, and aid to the Pacific has generally increased in recent years, it is still not nearly enough to prevent further severe damage. Despite a slow and ineffective global response, Pacific island states have taken the initiative to create innovative measures to protect themselves and rally the international community to take action alongside them. The international community often overlooks innovation in the Pacific islands due to Western scientific biases. But the adaptations Pacific islanders are making at local to national levels have applicability worldwide. Traditional knowledge, often thousands of years old, makes Pacific islanders’s solutions unique in perspective and exceptionally successful. The wealth of knowledge that Pacific communities contribute, combined with new technology, produces solutions such as salt and heat-tolerant crops, reintroduction of traditional wells, and the use of GIS technology to map vulnerable flora and fauna for protective purposes. These ecosystem-based adaptations (EBAs) have significant benefits, including securing water to help communities facing droughts, ensuring food and fisheries provisions, and protecting islanders from natural hazards.
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In the Federal States of Micronesia—specifically on the island Oneisomw—traditional well system revitalization provides cleaner water to the island’s residents and ensures water accessibility, even for those who do
not have personal wells. The wells include a vegetation buffer and concrete walls to prevent sedimentation and run-off pollution. Widespread measures like this can not only lessen the damage done to water systems due to climate change, but increase water security. However, most Pacific island states do not have the governmental organization and power needed to expand these policies to a national scale. Government aid and guidance from local leaders like those in Oceania is a simple step that developed countries can take to support the Pacific; these states will also benefit from learning about sustainable practices that are domestically applicable. Traditional farming methods, combined with modern knowledge of agroforestry, can reduce agriculture’s contribution to climate change and increase food security all at once. NGOs and women’s empowerment groups have worked with local agriculture authorities in Ahus, Papua New Guinea to install household gardens and teach sustainable farming methods. These methods help reduce emissions, water usage, and pollution, increase local women’s income from agriculture, and reduce islanders’s reliance on fisheries. Explorations in low-cost aquaculture in Ahus work to sustain food diversity and protect coastal fisheries from depletion. In Palau, the Melekeok community developed a climate-smart development document in cooperation with local NGOs. This document will prepare the island’s currently vulnerable infrastructure for the effects of continued climate change and build resilient,
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Despite occasional breakthroughs in international policy, world leaders of high-emitting states leave Pacific leaders feeling unheard and cast aside.
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and cast aside. In the words of Soseala Tinilau, Tuvalu’s Director of the Environment Ministry, “the world want[s] to ignore us. They want to keep behaving as if we don’t exist, as if what’s happening here isn’t true. We can’t let them.”
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T HE S I T UAT ION T ODAY The crises Pacific island states face are not just warnings or premonitions for the rest of the world. The international community must prioritize effective and fast-acting climate solutions, apply them on the largest scale possible, and defend Pacific islanders’s right to live safely on their native land. It is not Pacific islanders’s (or any other vulnerable communities’s) responsibility to teach or coddle the international community, especially considering their minimal contribution to the climate crisis. Despite that, Pacific island leaders and communities have been adamant, determined, and willing to lead the global effort to address climate change. It is imperative that the global community, especially major contributors to climate change, accept the advice, information, and warnings that SIDS can provide. In the words of Victoria Keener, a climate research fellow in Honolulu, “what the islands need in addition to adaptation assistance are strong commitments and real action from the countries that are the biggest emitters.” Climate change is not a future problem. The UNHCR estimates that more than 20 million people each year are displaced within their countries because of environmental disasters or hazards. Australia and other states belonging to the Nansen Initiative, a coalition started in 2012, are developing recommendations for accepting migrants and refugees displaced by environmental hazards as the need for protections for environmental refugees becomes increasingly relevant. The focus of their work is attempting to facilitate “migration with dignity.” But is there any dignity in forcing Pacific islanders from their land to save them from crises they did not create? Additionally, for countries like Australia and the United States, is there any dignity in accepting migrants from islands that they played a role in devastating, both in the past and present? In 2019, in response to Fiji’s offer of land to environmental migrants from Tuvalu, the former Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele
Sopoaga said the following: “Moving outside of Tuvalu will not solve any climate change issues . . . If you put these people in the middle of industrialised countries it will simply boost their consumptions and
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It is the responsibility of every nation and every individual to mitigate their contributions to climate change.
sentiment rings true. The global community cannot wait until life in the Pacific is impossible. Pacific identity, culture, and land deserve to be preserved and protected. Most importantly, it is the responsibility of every nation and every individual to mitigate their contributions to climate change. What is occurring in the Pacific will soon affect every global citizen, assuming it is not already. We may have already passed some environmental “tipping points,” thresholds from which, once passed, Earth’s ecosystems can no longer return. Climate action is and will always be a collective effort. We all should be rallying behind Pacific islanders and vulnerable peoples elsewhere in their continuous fight against climate change. Not only to protect their futures, but ours as well.
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increase greenhouse gas emissions.” While displacement is becoming a requirement for many islanders’s survival, Sopoaga’s
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dvertisements for drugs have long inundated television and other media platforms. They all follow roughly the same formula: miraculous claims, moving images of families, the music swells, and then a long, incomprehensible list of possible side effects written in fine print and recited so quickly that the dangerous ones almost go unnoticed. This style of direct-to-consumer advertising and the rhetoric it employs has massively grown the pharmaceutical industry, but at the expense of quality patient care. University of British Columbia researcher Barbara Mintzes wrote an article almost two decades ago discussing the validity of direct-to-consumer advertising, which the World Health Organization then published. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising rose to popularity in the early 1980s, and since then, pharmaceutical sales and the cost of drugs have risen consistently and exponentially. According to a 2019 article by Senior Faculty Editor of Harvard Health Publishing, Dr. Robert H. Shmerling, “drug sales rise by $4 for every dollar spent on advertising.” The core idea behind DTC advertising is that pharmaceutical companies, rather than having to convince trained medical professionals of the merits of their drugs, can simply recommend their products directly to patients. Because most consumers are less knowledgeable than the average physician or pharmacist, pharmaceutical companies can take advantage of a more emotionally driven population that is less likely to be skeptical of skewed statistics and exaggerated claims. Researchers and agencies studying pharmaceutical advertising have contested the merits of this advertising approach over the last few decades. Most countries restrict DTC advertising to some extent, if not prohibit it altogether. In fact, DTC advertising is only fully legal in the United States and New Zealand. DTC advertising takes advantage of the sick and vulnerable and drives up healthcare costs for the consumer to sell products that “even when used properly, [can] cause serious harm.” That said, DTC advertising can, with a little due diligence, be a useful tool. In 2004, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) conducted a survey of five hundred healthcare providers, in which many providers felt that DTC advertisements prompted their patients to ask more informed questions about their treatment. In the current healthcare environment, which pressures healthcare providers to rush through patient visits as quickly as
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possible to fit more appointments into the day, patient advocacy is more important than ever. Anything that empowers patients to participate more actively in their care, challenge their providers when they feel their care is inadequate, and better understand the healthcare system is a boon worth acknowledging. However, while DTC pharmaceutical ads may effectively make patients more aware
affected decisions made by healthcare providers, as many providers responded that they felt increasingly pressured to prescribe brand name drugs that patients had seen in an ad over alternatives. If a patient feels set on a certain course of treatment after seeing an ad for it and their doctor makes an opposing recommendation, this can cause a disconnect between providers and patients that can negatively impact the quality of care. Not only has DTC advertising interfered with healthcare providers’ ability to administer the best care, but the burden has also been placed back onto these providers to try to curtail misleading advertising. The FDA’s Bad Ad Program encourages healthcare providers to learn to recognize and report falsehoods in DTC advertising. While programs like this are not categorically bad solutions to the problem, they are only reactive rather than proactive and rely unduly on healthcare providers to monitor content for which regulatory agencies like the FDA should be responsible. These types of advertisements also make brand-name drugs seem more desirable than generic alternatives, largely due only to increased exposure, and regardless of the fact that generic drugs are most often less expensive and equally efficient. For these reasons, while direct-to-consumer advertisements may serve to engage patients in the process of their healthcare, they can also present roadblocks that prevent patients from fully collaborating with their healthcare providers to get the best quality of care available. Pharmaceutical advertisements are specifically designed to present drugs in the most optimal light possible. Dr. Ameet Sarpatwari, a researcher of pharmaceutical marketing at Harvard Medical School, described the goal of these ads as informing the audience of the purpose of a drug and its benefits, but not specifying who qualifies for its use. In these ads, pharmaceutical companies get as close as they can to promising a miracle cure without becoming liable to be sued for fraud or false advertising. This often paints an inaccurate, sometimes even dangerous, picture. Rather than taking pharmaceutical advertisements at face value, it is extremely important for patients and other consumers to investigate any possible treatment options and all of their side effects thoroughly, and to always consult a physician for more information than what an advertisement provides.
DTC advertising takes advantage of the sick and vulnerable and drives up health care costs for the consumer to sell products that “even when used properly, [can] cause serious harm. ” of available treatments, they still create a skewed impression of the marketed products. According to Mintzes, “advertisements commonly contain misleading and inaccurate information, and the public rarely receives corrections.” For example, in 2013, a study conducted by teams at Dartmouth College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison labeled 60 percent of ads for prescription drugs and 80 percent of ads for over-the-counter medication as “misleading or false.” One of the offenders cited was an antifungal cream whose ad included some negative side effects of the product but failed to warn users of possible
In these ads, pharmaceutical companies get as close as they can to promising a miracle cure without becoming liable to be sued for fraud or false advertising. This often paints an inaccurate, sometimes even dangerous, picture. local adverse reactions at the application site. In the aforementioned survey conducted by the FDA, while doctors acknowledged some of the benefits of pharmaceutical ads targeting consumers, they also reported that these ads failed to weigh risks versus benefits accurately, giving patients unrealistic expectations of the drugs’s efficacies. Furthermore, the survey indicated that DTC advertising not only impacted patient behavior but also
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