Letter from the Editor & the President Dear Reader, In a time proliferated with news media, thinkpieces, and the latest “hot takes,” we’re grateful that you chose to pick up our magazine. We call this magazine the premier student-run and student-written political analysis magazine on our campus. While we are but one of many politically bent publications at Northeastern, we believe we have a unique opportunity to offer, both to our writers and readers. While truth-telling is our ultimate goal, we try to embrace its inherent subjectivity and own it, giving students the chance to share their perspectives while providing the context needed to express it in the most informed way. We aspire to present to you not only facts, but stances, opinions, and other ways to uniquely frame and present information. We embrace this new era of long-form journalism, making accessible the often difficult and dense topics that our student writers find fascinating or integral. The cover story of this edition, written by our Managing Editor, speaks to the cathartic power of the written word. In a political climate where many of us find ourselves feeling overwhelmed and perhaps hopeless, the act of writing can serve to restore our agency. Analytical writing is a journey, and by the time each edition is released or each article is published, we hope to have ultimately reached a more cogent conclusion about the issues that keep us up at night. Similarly, as readers, engaging with our peers’ analyses provides us with a form of comfort that illustrates that we are not alone in our concerns. This magazine exists for you: to offer you feedback, to engage with the topics you find interesting, and to provide you with a platform that uplifts your work. We hope that it challenges you to politicize your own lives. Thank you to the people who participated in our discussions, to the executive board for allowing our organization to function, to the writers who populated this magazine with their work, to the editorial board that worked tirelessly to present it in the best possible way, and to you, the reader, for taking the time to engage with it. We hope that you enjoy the latest issue of the Northeastern University Political Review!
All the best,
Jaclyn Roache, Editor-in-Chief
Eesha Ramanujam, President
Meet the Team Executive Board
Mission Statement
Eesha Ramanujam President
The Northeastern University Political Review seeks to be a non-affiliated platform for students to publish essays and articles of the highest possible caliber on contemporary domestic and international politics, as well as critical reviews of political books, film, and events. The Political Review aspires to foster a culture of intelligent political discourse among interested individuals while promoting awareness of political issues in the campus community. The organization envisions itself as a place where students with a common interest in politics and world affairs may come together to discuss and develop their views and refine their opinions. The Political Review hopes to reflect the diversity of thought and spirit at Northeastern, including the dual ethic of academic and experiential education our school embodies.
Jaclyn Roache Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Morris VP of Public Relations Reilly McGreen Treasurer Isiah Myers Secretary Jennifer Heintz Creative & Digital Director
Editorial Board Prasanna Rajasekaran Managing Editor Elena Kuran Columns Editor Alex Frandsen Magazine Editor Claire McHugh Magazine Editor Reshma Rapeta Magazine Editor Jillian Wrigley Magazine Editor
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The Comforting Limits of Pessimism Prasanna Rajasekaran
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We Need to Change the Way We Think About Health Care...And Fast Jared Hirschfield
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Fitting In Nowhere: The Case for Trans-inclusive Feminism Gabriel Morris
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The Red Menace: The GOP's Quest to Turn America into a Single-Party State Jordan Choy “Crimmigration�: Immigration Enforcement & Detainment Eesha Ramanujam Dissenting Opinions Need Not Apply: Republican Mentality in the Age of Trump Claire McHugh The U.S. Lags Behind in Paid Parental Leave...Here's Why Chantal Cheung
Global 16
The New Global Arms Race Kamran Parsa
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A Look Back at Kurdistan's Tumultuous September Evan Crystal
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How Our Tax Code Inflates the Cost of Health Care Garry Canepa
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Bias Ease Milton Posner
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Jordan Choy / History 2018
W
hen Senator Jeff Flake revealed that he would not be seeking re-election, he delivered a moving speech that sounded like an epitaph for traditional conservatism. The senator from Arizona lamented the death of a conservatism based on values, from a bygone era when Republican candidates offered visions and values, using rhetoric and logic to defend those platforms. In his words, “It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path
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to nomination in the Republican Party—the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things.”[1] The election to replace him will be the testing ground of that statement, and Stephen Bannon’s faction has produced a champion in the hardline State Senator Kelli Ward. It should be known that Senator Flake is guilty of complicity in the erosion of civic and institutional checks on the president, particularly with his vote to eliminate the filibuster for Neil Gorsuch.[2] However, in this new age of politics, past transgressions can be forgiven through meaningful action taken in the present. The senator’s book, Conscience of a
Conservative, offers the critique on Trumpism that has generally failed to gain traction with his fellow Republicans. Tragically, the means by which Trump gained power was paved by his own party’s actions over the last decade. The great irony is that the Republican Party has launched a sustained assault on the values it supposedly espouses, targeting individual rights with ruthless efficiency in its campaign for power. The Republican Party in its current iteration has does not and has not cared about individual liberties and has, in fact, passed policies that greatly curtail basic freedoms. With reckless abandon, the party of small nupoliticalreview.com
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The great irony is that the Republican Party has launched a sustained assault on the values it supposedly espouses, targeting individual rights with ruthless efficiency in its campaign for power.
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Barack Obama with honor, famously rebuking a supporter after a racist outburst at one of his rallies. In the display in Alabama, he was booed for voting down a bill that only 17% of Americans approved of. He was disdained for standing on principles. He was punished for daring to defy the president.
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Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore is a shining example of the new breed of Republican politician. The clear favorite in the Senate election to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Judge Moore is a walking amalgamation of the darkest forces unleashed by the newly Russified Republican Party. The fanatically extremist Roy Moore’s well-documented history of racism, bigotry, and authoritarianism are selling points rather than stains on his character.[5] His embrace of conspiracy theories and openly theocratic principles represent the logical conclusion of the GOP’s militant ideology. Despite the recent allegations of pedophilia, molestation, and sexual assault, his poll numbers still put him in striking distance of victory.[6] This embrace of anti-American values started with a tactical response to a growing problem. The GOP has lost the debate on the issues. Its social, economic, and political ideas have lost their sway with the American people. Instead of coming to grips with this or attempting to better argue their case, the GOP has turned to what Senator McCain calls “spurious half-baked nationalism” to gain power through demagoguery. The GOP has always had issues with ideological inconsistency. When Ronald Reagan was president, he championed free market economics and individualism, yet he took a decidedly Keynesian approach to economics through his heavy investment in military spending. Under the Reagan administration, government spending ballooned from $147.3 billion from $71.2 billion in 1980—a 43% increase.[7] While this inconsistency is often overlooked in the cult of personality that has been built around President Reagan, it is not as severe as the current inconsistencies between the GOP’s stated beliefs and its new de facto ideology. Having essentially lost its economic argument for trickle-down economics and the free market, the Party has adopted the grievance politics that has defined authoritarian states. Adopting Chinese-style nationalism and Russian-style incoherence, the Republican Party has imported these impulses and is locked in a battle against democratic institutions to bring these impulses to life. The Russification of the GOP has its roots in a dangerous and uncompromising obstructionism. This can be traced to the rise of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his “Republican Revolution.” Most disturbingly was that this effort was rewarded with a crushing victory, producing a net gain of 54 House seats and 8 Senate seats in the 1994 midterm elections. Congressman Gingrich, like his
To the Republican Party of 2017, there is nothing more despicable than the liberal, and crushing liberalism is the end goal of this new political movement.
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government and individualism has attacked reproductive rights, LGBT rights, and voting rights of Americans it claims to represent. The Republican ideology resembles the thuggish ideology of Putin’s Russia. Principles and ideas have been replaced by incoherence and irrationality, the faces of Republican media openly spew deranged conspiracy theories and actively build a cult of personality around a buffoonish caricature. In an Orwellian fashion, language is being radically devalued and robbed of meaning. Fake news is a cudgel to bludgeon a free press; free speech means ideas cannot be criticized; and liberty is built on the deprivation of rights. In the mind of the modern-day GOP, freedom is zero-sum and can only be enjoyed when others are deprived of their rights. To the Republican Party of 2017, there is nothing more despicable than the liberal, and crushing liberalism is the end goal of this new political movement. There is a clear authoritarian bent to the new breed of GOP, and they are operating on a playbook that has existed for decades. Authoritarian parties around the world have used the same pillars of anti-intellectualism, intimidation, cult of personality, and propaganda that are now appearing in the modern Republican Party. In his stubborn opposition to President Obama, Senator Mitch McConnell led his party into a Faustian bargain that is in the process of consuming him and his party. His efforts have been rewarded with the lowest approval ratings of any senator in the nation.[3] This self-loathing was exemplified when a crowd at a Trump rally in Alabama booed Senator John McCain.[4] The 81-yearold Vietnam veteran, who is currently battling brain cancer, conducted his campaign against
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spiritual successor Senator McConnell, was a brilliant tactician and possessed a strong political acumen.[8] His lack of consistency was a blessing and a curse, as he recognized the importance of balancing fiery campaign rhetoric and the need to govern. Senator McConnell did not feel this need under President Obama and chose to simply obstruct without offering alternative solutions to government. By using chaos as a campaign strategy, Congressman Gingrich unleashed the forces that eventually overtook his party.[9] Instead of a “Contract with America,” there was simply a nihilistic and often racist campaign of blind rage and irrationality. Creating a media landscape of propaganda and conspiracy theories, the GOP did everything in its power to delegitimize a democratically elected president. Sore from losing, they simply chose to undermine democracy. The modern day GOP has lost control of its own voters. The rise of Trump was in open defiance of GOP leadership, and his campaign platform offered a firm rejection of free market economics (and basic human decency). Using racist rhetoric and anti-intellectualism, he turned the GOP’s nationalist populism on its head, directing its voters in a coup against the GOP establishment. Despite this, the president’s love of crony capitalism has produced one of the most right-wing agendas in recent U.S. history. As a sign of this incoherence, the president’s own voters rejected his preferred Alabama Senate candidate Luther Strange in favor of the anti-establishment challenger.[10] The result of this campaign of weaponized cynicism has led to the importation of a foreign ideology into the United States that fundamentally challenges the shared values of liberal democracy that both Democrats and Republicans are supposed to believe in. The tragedy is that the Republican Party has become the monster it once devoted itself to defeating. The Party resembles the Soviet autocracy and its Russian successor state in far too many aspects. In its zeal and lust for power, it has become twisted into the modern-day American Red Menace. •
[1] "Read Flake's bombshell Senate speech: 'Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough'." Azcentral. October 24, 2017. [2] Wilson Andrews, Audrey Carlsen, Jasmine C. Lee, Alicia Parlapiano And Anjali Singhvi. "How Senators Voted on the Gorsuch Filibuster and the Nuclear Option." The New York Times. April 06, 2017. [3] Giaritelli, Anna. "Mitch McConnell is America's most hated senator: Poll." Washington Examiner. October 31, 2017. [4] "Trump Supporters Boo McCain's No Vote on Health Care Plan." NBCNews.com. November 11, 2017. [5] Kamisar, Ben. "Roy Moore's five most controversial remarks." TheHill. September 24, 2017. [6] "Reagan's Defense Buildup Bridged Military Eras ." The Washington Post. Accessed November 11, 2017. [7] Gillon, Steven M. "The Gingrich Revolution and the Roots of Republican Dysfunction." The Huffington Post. October 12, 2015. [8] Cottle, Michelle. "Newt Broke Politics-Now He Wants Back In." The Atlantic. July 14, 2016. [9] Burns, Jonathan Martin And Alexander. "Roy Moore Wins Senate G.O.P. Runoff in Alabama." The New York Times. September 26, 2017. [10] Burns, Jonathan Martin And Alexander. "Roy Moore Wins Senate G.O.P. Runoff in Alabama." The New York Times. September 26, 2017.
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"Crimmigration" :
Immigration Enforcement & Detainment Eesha Ramanujam / Business and Political Science 2017 Illustration by Suma Hussien
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n October 3rd, U.S. Representatives Adam Smith and Pramila Jayapal, both from the state of Washington, introduced the “Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act of 2017.” The act would increase transparency and accountability for immigration enforcement in this country, while improving the conditions of immigrants detained by the Department of Homeland Security.[1] Rep. Smith has a recorded history of raising concerns with detention practices dating back to at least 2014, when he addressed them directly with then-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.[2] Rep. Jayapal, newly elected to Congress, is a renowned immigrant rights activist.[3] The two representatives put forth this legislation to address the lack of protection for detained immigrants, the system’s reliance on private subcontractors, and the inhumane conditions in detention facilities. Our society is a carceral state focused on punishment, disproportionately so when it comes to people of color.[4] The groups or acts that are targeted by criminalization may differ from administration to administration, but our dependence on punitive measures has long since reached an unsustainable point. The intersection of mass incarceration and immigrant detainment illustrates this. Changes in the immigration system are tied to the evolution of the criminal justice system, as evidenced through the War on Drugs and the post-9/11 era. Both structures demonstrate a trend toward privatization, which critics cite as a conflict of interest.[5] And conditions in detention facilities, often extensions of prisons or county jails, have raised concerns, as shown recently when detained individuals at Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington led a hunger strike in protest of their living conditions and insufficient wages for their labor.[6] Immigration enforcement criminalizes undocumented or asylum-seeking immigrants, thus diverting responsibility for their well-being and access to justice. This country’s system of incarceration is one steeped in a societal proclivity for
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This country's system of incarceration is one steeped in a societal proclivity for punishment, revenge, and profit, rather than for true rehabilitation and justice.
punishment, revenge, and profit, rather than for true rehabilitation and justice. While one president might be perceived as responsible for increasing levels of immigrant detainment and another as accountable for rising numbers of deportations, such a broken system can never be a truly positive force under any leadership. While the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act might offer an intermediate set of remedies, examining the ingrained issues within our immigration and incarceration structures as well as the ways in which they overlap unveils a troubling trend of state-sanctioned violence and violation of human rights. immigration Enforcement & Mass Incarceration
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he United States currently imprisons more people than any country in the world. In a little over 35 years, from 1973 to 2009, the number of people in prisons increased ten-fold, from about 200,000 people to around 2.2 million. With five percent of the global population, the U.S. is responsible for a quarter of the world’s prisoners.[7] Part of this uptick can be attributed to tough-oncrime policies during the War on Drugs, from the 1970s to the 1990s.[8] With prison expansion, beginning in the 1980s, the detention of immigrants began to increase along with overall imprisonment. Refugees from Cuba and Haiti in the early 1980s were installed in detention facilities as they arrived, and with policy shifts in the 1980s, the use of these new
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facilities increased.[9] The Immigration and Naturalization Act was changed by Congress during this time to mandate the automatic detention of immigrants with specific criminal convictions.[10] Immigration enforcement mechanisms soon began to absorb the toughest aspects of the criminal justice system. Emulating mandatory minimum drug sentencing implemented in the 1980s, mandatory detention curtailed due process, limited detainees’ access to hearings, and ignored the specifics of circumstance when deciding on punishments.[11] The reach of mandatory detention expanded as detention became a primary method for immigration enforcement. Legislation in 1996 broadened the scope of populations vulnerable to detention or deportation to include all non-U.S. citizens living in the U.S., documented or otherwise. With an increasing emphasis on national security in the 2000s, immigration enforcement became a high budget priority, replicating practices employed in both the criminal justice system and the national security agenda.[12] Largely responsible for this was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which evolved to house Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the three major agencies that enforce and prosecute immigration enforcement.[13] And with their creation, the civil enforcement structures of immigration began to explicitly emulate criminal enforcement. nupoliticalreview.com
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Infrastructural Expansion
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uring the Bush administration, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 was passed, pushing to increase the capacity of the immigration detention system. The goal was to increase capacity by 8,000 beds (used as units to calculate the number of inmates that could be detained at any one time) each year for four years, starting in 2006.[14] Around this time, as capacity increased, the DHS eliminated the “catch-and-release� process, in which undocumented immigrants without any criminal record would be served a court summons for an immigration hearing but permitted to stay in their communities until the date of the hearing.[15] Instead, reliance on detention increased. After incremental increases to capacity while meeting this new need, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia introduced the bed quota in 2009, as a part of the DHS Appropriations Act of 2010. [16] The bed quota set a minimum number of beds for ICE to maintain daily. While the agency maintains that the quota does not dictate the number of detainees, multiple facilities have admitted to changing practices based on meeting it, or altering bond prices to profit from it.[17] This quota is unique; no other law enforcement agency is required to meet similar requirements.[18] The bed quota seems to encourage a dependence on detention as the primary method for immigration enforcement. It facilitates the criminalization of individuals who are awaiting court hearings but
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pose no danger to the public, and increases the costs of our immigration enforcement system while deflecting conversation about making necessary changes to it. As of this publication, the bed quota stands at 34,000.[19] This number has remained constant since March of 2013. The same month, there was a discussion for the first time about the reliance on immigrant detention. Following this, there have been frequent debates about and proposals to remove the bed quota, as well as suggestions for alternatives to detainment, supported by legislators, advocacy organizations, and various media outlets.[20] With continued insistence on the part of DHS leadership that the quota is simply for maintenance and not a mandate on the number of detainees, requests to eliminate the quota have been stifled. In July 2016, the average daily detained population exceeded 37,000 people, and in the following month, it was revealed that bond amounts were varied based on bed quotas, creating inconsistency in detainment processes.[21] If the bed quota was in danger of not being filled, for example, bonds would be set higher to increase the number of detainees. With continued expansion to ICE’s detention capacity, the bed quota stands. Therefore, for several decades, in addition to building up its own infrastructure, the agency has developed relationships with private prisons to meet the required capacity. Privatization of Detainment
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he privatization of immigration enforcement and detainment parallels the increasing reliance of the criminal justice system upon private contractors. It began in the early 1980s, when the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), then the main agency for immigration enforcement, signed a contract with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), now known as CoreCivic.[22] During this time, the War on Drugs was leading to rapidly increasing incarceration, and a number of county jails and private prisons were pursuing contracts with the federal government to offer their facilities and profit from the surge.[23] Fall 2017
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National The INS-CCA contract formalized a new industry that paralleled the public-private partnership emerging in the criminal justice system. GEO Group was a significant player that emerged in the private prison-immigration partnership in the 1980s.[24] Over the years, their profit surges have parallelled increased detainment numbers, often when mass incarceration within the criminal justice system has plateaued.[25] Dependence upon private prisons has come under scrutiny in recent years with, for example, the Obama administration announcing plans (reversed this year by the Trump administration) to transition out of a reliance upon privately-run federal prisons.[26] Less attention has been paid to the ICE’s reliance on such facilities. ICE primarily works with local governments in smaller towns, who in turn sign contracts with prison management companies in their area.[27] Private prison contracts ensure that these companies make money based on the number of inmates or detainees they house, to the point that they demand occupancy guarantees or supplementary taxpayer money to maintain their level of income when beds are not filled. [28] Because there is a profit motive to every person detained in the facility, there is a
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motive to arrest and detain people, sometimes for years until they are deported or even given a hearing.[29] The Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) undertook a review in 2016 to determine whether ICE should follow the Department of Justice’s commitment to phase out the use of private prisons, and many members of Congress expressed support for such a measure.[30] Later in the year, the subcommittee tasked with the review concluded that there was a necessity for dependence on private prisons due to the perceived cut in costs, even though 17 of the 23 members of HSAC disagreed with the conclusion and urged a “deliberate shift away from the private prison model.”[31] As contracts with GEO Group and CCA continue to be signed and carried out, the proposed Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act would prohibit any new DHS contracts with private prison companies, as well as require the agency to terminate existing contracts within three years.[32] Right now, it is estimated that 62% of detention facilities are operated by private companies.[33] Meanwhile, about 65% of individuals in the immigration detention system are held in privately run prisons. Such a reliance on private companies, with little to no oversight or accountability in the overall system, is deeply problematic.
Conditions and Accountability
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art of the push for the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act has been to report on the conditions of various immigration detention centers. Tacoma’s Northwest Detention Center in Washington, for example, has experienced a number of hunger strikes over the years, protesting inadequate food, substandard medical care, and lack of accountability.[34] While immigration detention is a civil process, detainees experience significant emotional distress and physical strain, which is particularly inhumane considering many of them are asylum-seekers and refugees.[35] Detainees have complained of excessive force from guards, and there are frequent violations of due process rights. [36] Particularly in private prisons, there is an incentive to cut costs (often at the expense of adequate medical care, for example) and dehumanize detainees, which has led to injuries, illness, and preventable death.[37] 167 people have died in immigration custody since 2003.[38] While detainees have attempted to draw attention to their plight, they also have little recourse. ICE, especially due to its outsourced model, operates with relatively little oversight nupoliticalreview.com
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Amendment compliance in the bond system.[43] If the Act is passed, over the next three years the Department of Homeland Security will be prevented from signing new contracts with private prisons or local jails, and it will be required to terminate all existing contracts with those entities. This, coupled with a suggested focus on alternatives to detainment, especially for detainees with no criminal history, would cut costs and hopefully decrease the number of people held at any given time.[44] The Act also requires that the DHS revise detention standards for a civil detention setting and set up a structure through which detainees and their loved ones can seek recourse when those standards are violated. To make sure those standards are enforced, the Act mandates unannounced inspections and penalties for facilities that are found to be in violation of standards, including contract termination or transfer of all detainees. The Act also sets up a reporting mechanism that allows findings to be released to the public after a certain amount of time.[45] To further increase accountability, the Act requires that probable cause be established
The system of immigration enforcement criminalizes detainees and, through the country's use and perception of the criminal justice system, diverts accountability and criticism for its substandard living conditions.
The Dignity For Detained Immigrants Act
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he Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, as introduced, addresses four major concerns: reliance on subcontractors for a profit-based model of immigration detention, inhumane living conditions of detainment facilities, lack of accountability or transparency within the system, and lack of Fourth
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within 48 hours, in compliance with the Fourth Amendment, and that due process be followed for immigrant detainment. Especially coupled with mandatory detention, the fact that immigrants can be arrested without a valid warrant allows for egregious violations of several rights, with no option for recourse on the part of those detained. The Act also requires a more standardized procedure for setting bond amounts, to make them
achievable to those who are detained as well as independent from bed quotas and other external factors.[46] Lastly, the Act would require the DHS to develop alternatives to detainment in conjunction with advocacy groups and community organizations. To encourage use of methods other than just detainment, the Act sets forth procedure under which a judge decides the “least restrictive conditions” that will assure the enforcement agency that the individual will reappear for the trial and not pose any sort of danger.[47]
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of its facilities, and while many reports and investigations have concluded that conditions are substandard, not much has been done to rectify the problem.[39] ICE has revised its standards occasionally, but there is no transparency around whether they have worked to achieve those new goals.[40] Private prison companies cite their various certifications and awards for medical care and mental health services, purporting themselves to be exemplary correctional facilities.[41] These awards are subjective and meaningless, especially when considering the standard of comparison for living conditions within this system. Meanwhile, detainees may become free or low-cost labor to the facilities in which they are held, with no access to due process and no recourse.[42] The system of immigration enforcement criminalizes detainees and, through the country’s use and perception of the criminal justice system, diverts accountability and criticism for its substandard living conditions by citing both the supposed need to depend on private contractors and the perceived inefficiency of maintaining rigorous standards for them.
Moving Beyond Reform
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he immigration system in this country requires an overhaul, with over $2 billion spent each year on detaining over 400,000 individuals.[48] Budget-related excuses for resisting reform are no longer valid, with various studies showing the fiscal incentive for alternatives to detainment. The criminalization of those caught within the immigration enforcement system has created an unjust scheme that demands change. A concentrated effort jumpstarted by the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act could help legislators scrutinize and revisit the standards set up by this country, revealing potential solutions for the deep-set problem of civic immigration criminalization. There is bipartisan consensus that mass incarceration in this country has become unsustainable.[49] But all attempts at reform fail to address the inherent bias of the system toward punishment, however selective, rather than justice. The United States experiences fads in criminalization, susceptible to fluctuations of public opinion and sensationalized crises. The lives caught as collateral damage are swiped to the side, whether they are nonviolent drug users or undocumented immigrants. It is time this country commits itself to a complete overhaul of criminal justice structures and values, instead of expending so much energy on creating an immigration enforcement system based in a deeply flawed dependence on incarceration.
[1] Smith, Adam & Pramila Jayapal. “H.R. ___ The Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.” Last modified September 22, 2017. [2] Chan, Jennifer. “Immigration Detention Bed Quota Timeline.” National Immigrant Justice Center. Last modified January 13, 2017. [3] Young, Bob. “An immigrant herself, Seattle’s Pramila Jayapal leads the push for reform.” The Seattle Times. Last modified August 7, 2010. [4] “Racial Disparities in Criminal Justice.” ACLU. Accessed November 1, 2017. [5] “Prison Privatization.” Prison Policy Initiative. Last modified October 12, 2017. [6] Carter, Mike. “Hundreds of immigrant detainees at Tacoma ICE facility on hunger strike.” Last modified April 12, 2017. [7] Breslow, Jason M. “New Report Slams ‘Unprecedented’ Growth in US Prisons.” Frontline. Last modified May 1, 2014. [8] “The Drug War, Mass Incarceration, and Race.” Drug Policy Alliance. Last modified February 26, 2016. [9] “Immigration Detention 101.” Detention Watch Network. Last modified 2014. [10] “Immigration Detention 101.” Detention Watch Network. [11] Jesselyn McCurdy & Sarah Solon. “The 1980s Called. They Want Their Mandatory Minimums Back.” ACLU. Last modified September 18, 2013. [12] “Immigration Detention 101.” Detention Watch Network. [13] Gavett, Gretchen. “Map: The U.S. Immigration Detention Boom.” Frontline. Last modified October 18, 2011. [14] Chan, Jennifer. “Immigration Detention Bed Quota Timeline.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [15] Gavett, Gretchen. “Map: The U.S. Immigration Detention Boom.” Frontline. [16] Chan, Jennifer. “Immigration Detention Bed Quota Timeline.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [17] Chan, Jennifer. “Immigration Detention Bed Quota Timeline.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [18] “Immigration Detention 101.” Detention Watch Network. [19] “Detention Bed Quota.” National Immigrant Justice Center. Last modified 2016. [20] “Detention Bed Quota.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [21] Chan, Jennifer. “Immigration Detention Bed Quota Timeline.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [22] Rosenfeld, Steven. “Private prison demands New Mexico and feds find 300 more prisoners in 60 days or it will close.” Salon. Last modified August 4, 2017. [23] Barry, Tom. “A Death in Texas: Profits, poverty, and immigration coverage.” Boston Review. November, 2009. [24] Barry, Tom. “A Death in Texas: Profits, poverty, and immigration coverage.” Boston Review. [25] Barry, Tom. “A Death in Texas: Profits, poverty, and immigration coverage.” Boston Review. [26] Bernard, Sara. “An End to Private Prisons? Washington Reps Introduce Act to Phase Out Immigration Detention.” Seattle Weekly. Last modified October 3, 2017. [27] Barry, Tom. “A Death in Texas: Profits, poverty, and immigration coverage.” Boston Review. [28] Smith, Clint. “Why the U.S. Is Right to Move Away from Private Prisons.” The New Yorker. Last modified August 24, 2016. [29] Bernard, Sara. “An End to Private Prisons? Washington Reps Introduce Act to Phase Out Immigration Detention.” Seattle Weekly. [30] Chan, Jennifer. “Immigration Detention Bed Quota Timeline.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [31] Bernard, Sara. “An End to Private Prisons? Washington Reps Introduce Act to Phase Out Immigration Detention.” Seattle Weekly. [32] Bernard, Sara. “An End to Private Prisons? Washington Reps Introduce Act to Phase Out Immigration Detention.” Seattle Weekly. [33] “Immigration Detention 101.” Detention Watch Network. [34] Bernard, Sara. “An End to Private Prisons? Washington Reps Introduce Act to Phase Out Immigration Detention.” Seattle Weekly. [35] “The Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.” National Immigrant Justice Center. Last modified October, 2017. [36] Werner, Dan. “Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act urgently needed for human treatment of detainees.” Southern Poverty Law Center. October 3, 2017. [37] Barry, Tom. “A Death in Texas: Profits, poverty, and immigration coverage.” Boston Review. [38] “Immigration Detention 101.” Detention Watch Network. [39] Chan, Jennifer. “Immigration Detention Bed Quota Timeline.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [40] Bernard, Sara. “An End to Private Prisons? Washington Reps Introduce Act to Phase Out Immigration Detention.” Seattle Weekly. [41] Barry, Tom. “A Death in Texas: Profits, poverty, and immigration coverage.” Boston Review. [42] Bernard, Sara. “An End to Private Prisons? Washington Reps Introduce Act to Phase Out Immigration Detention.” Seattle Weekly. [43] “The Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [44] Smith, Adam & Pramila Jayapal. “H.R. ___ The Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.” [45] “The Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [46] “The Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.” National Immigrant Justice Center. [47] Smith, Adam & Pramila Jayapal. “H.R. ___ The Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.”[48] “Immigration Detention 101.” Detention Watch Network. [49] Jesselyn McCurdy & Sarah Solon. “The 1980s Called. They Want Their Mandatory Minimums Back.” ACLU.
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Dissenting Opinions Need Not Apply: Republican Mentality In the Age of Trump Claire McHugh / Biology 2020
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he nature of Republican party politics in America today can only be described as contentious. Reports of Republican lawmakers privately bashing the president while trying to maintain and foster a semblance of party unity has become commonplace. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell has privately conveyed his concern that Trump would not be able to salvage the legacy of his presidency after the number of debacles he suffered this summer.[1] House Republicans reportedly had a heated private meeting with Trump administration officials in September over frustration with a plan Trump made with House Democrats to raise the debt ceiling.[2] Republicans are becoming increasingly fed-up with Trump’s tactics in private, but are unwilling to challenge him publicly. Even when they are caught saying something negative about the president, they have a tendency to walk things back because criticizing the president is seen as criticizing the party. This was the case with Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) in August, when she was caught on a hot microphone saying she was “worried” about the president.[3] Her office later released a statement stating that the Senator was referring to the president’s 2018 budget, not Trump himself. Those who do criticize the president purposefully and publicly are not only subject
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to rebuke from Trump himself, but are effectively sacrificing their political careers. This phenomenon has occurred multiple times in 2017, notably with Senators Corker and McCain, and more recently with Senator Jeff Flake. Those who were previously glorified by conservatives, especially in the case of Corker, who was reportedly in the running to become Trump’s Secretary of State, are now being vilified for speaking out against Trump. Senator Corker’s approval ratings among conservatives have been low since he started criticizing President Trump this past spring, and Steve Bannon even threatened to run a primary opponent against Corker. This feud has culminated in Corker announcing he will not be seeking re-election in 2018, and a subsequent intensification of his attacks on the president.[4] Senator McCain, a war hero who was nominated for president by a Republican base that once loved him, is now facing approval ratings in the low 40s with
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Republicans.[5] Republicans who once idolized him have begun to vilify him in the face of his resistance to the Trump agenda. The announcement of McCain’s diagnosis of fatal brain cancer this past summer has further emboldened the senator to attack Trump. The same phenomenon repeated itself in October with Senator Jeff Flake’s announcement that he will not seek re-election in 2018, followed by a speech that went viral and attacked President Trump for “undermining our democratic ideals.”[6] Flake’s private polling throughout this year showed that the more he attacked the president, the lower his favorability among Republicans became.[7] This led the senator to conclude that he could not win a Republican primary in 2018, which was celebrated by Bannon with the statement “Our movement will defeat you in primaries or force you to retire.”[8] While Flake has been a critic of Trump since the 2016 presidential primary, his criticism has become more
The silent majority of Republicans are complicit in what Senator Flake calls Trump’s “reckless, outrageous and undignified” behavior.
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pointed and vicious in the last few months, presumably once he realized that he would not be running for re-election. Republicans have reportedly become increasingly angry with those who are willing to publicly bash Trump, as they believe that tying themselves to the president is the only way to achieve their legislative agenda— most recently, an overhaul of the tax code.[9] As they have had no substantial legislative achievements so far this year, GOP lawmakers are willing to pass just about anything. Tying themselves to Trump to do so and continuing to fail to achieve anything will be a political disaster.[10] Some Republican legislators still support Trump, but many see him as a means to legislating their agenda, and McConnell encapsulates this attitude, saying that “[Trump] is the only American who can sign a bill into law.”[11] Those Republicans willing to speak out at this point are only doing so because they have
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nothing to lose politically. The silent majority of Republicans are complicit in what Senator Flake calls Trump’s “reckless, outrageous and undignified” behavior.[12] If Congress is too
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) yield so much power that lawmakers are afraid to go against their party for fear of losing re-election. Democracy relies on elected officials having their constituents’ best interests at heart, and if the fear of not being re-elected due to the withdrawal of financial support from their party eclipses this obligation, the party system is hurting democracy. If party comes before country for many voters and lawmakers, as evidenced by how quickly Republicans will turn on their own who raise questions about Trump, this indicates a bigger problem than Trump himself. If there is no longer any check on the executive through the legislature, this has larger implications for the current two party system’s effect on American democracy than the weak Republicans who are currently in Congress. •
If party comes before country for many voters and lawmakers, as evidenced by how quickly Republicans will turn on their own who raise questions about Trump, this indicates a bigger problem than Trump himself.
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afraid to stand up to party politics because they will lose financial support in elections, this is indicative of a larger problem. Organizations like the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and
[1] Burns, Alexander and Jonathan Martin. “McConnell, in Private, Doubts if Trump Can Save Presidency.” The New York Times. August 22, 2017. [2] Davis, Susan. “House Republicans Fume at Trump Administration in Private Meeting.” NPR. September 8, 2017. [3] Bierman, Noah. “GOP Senator says ‘I’m worried’ about Donald Trump, calls Republican congressman ‘so unattractive.’” Los Angeles Times. July 25, 2017. [4] Montanaro, Domenico. “Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker Won’t Seek Re-Election in 2018.” NPR. September 26, 2017. [5] Phillips, Amber. “‘We are not his subordinates’: John McCain’s rallying cry to the GOP resistance.” The Washington Post. September 1, 2017. [6] Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. “Jeff Flake, a Fierce Trump Critic, Will Not Seek Re-election for Senate.” The New York Times. October 24, 2017. [7] Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. “Jeff Flake, a Fierce Trump Critic, Will Not Seek Re-election for Senate.” The New York Times. October 24, 2017.[8] Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. “Jeff Flake, a Fierce Trump Critic, Will Not Seek Re-election for Senate.” The New York Times. October 24, 2017. [9] Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. “Jeff Flake, a Fierce Trump Critic, Will Not Seek Re-election for Senate.” The New York Times. October 24, 2017. [10] Hulse, Carol. “Another Republican Call to Arms, but Who Will Answer?” The New York Times. October 24, 2017. [11] Hulse, Carol. “Another Republican Call to Arms, but Who Will Answer?” The New York Times. October 24, 2017. [12] Stolberg, Sheryl Gay. “Jeff Flake, a Fierce Trump Critic, Will Not Seek Re-election for Senate.” The New York Times. October 24, 2017.
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Chantal Cheung / Political Science and Economics 2021
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he United States is the only developed nation that does not have any law guaranteeing paid family leave. This translates to many parents, particularly those from low-income families, going back to work much sooner than they should simply because they cannot afford to take unpaid leave. The benefits of paid family leave have been proven over and over again: increased worker retention rates and female labor force participation help boost the economy, and parents are allowed more time to bond with and look after their children.[1] Many countries that are part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provide six months or more of paid maternity leave, and a smaller but significant number provide paid paternity leave. Working parents in the U.S., however, receive nothing. Why is that? One reason is that American democracy is essentially different from those
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of other countries. In his book American Exceptionalism, political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset discusses how American democracy was founded on ideas of individualism and equal opportunity.[2] Throughout American history, the concept of the American Dream has been consistently revered. In James
If upward social mobility can be achieved through the power of the individual and hard work, class awareness serves little purpose.
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Truslow Adams’s book The Epic of America (1931), Adams states that the American Dream is “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability
or achievement… regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”[3] This American Dream is rooted in the Declaration of Independence, which states that “all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Essentially, the American Dream claims that upward social mobility is—or ought to be—possible with hard work and determination, and that the potential for success lies within the individual. In the United States, such mantras highlight how class divisions are blurred. If upward social mobility can be achieved through the power of the individual and hard work, class awareness serves little purpose. The incentive to build class power by joining labor unions, for example, is reduced by this lack of class awareness, which partially explains why labor unions in the United States are so weak compared to those of other countries.[4] This, nupoliticalreview.com
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casualty rates, as most of the war was fought on European land. Europe needed people to join the workforce in order to repair the damage and begin to rebuild. Thus, many European social democracies wanted paid leave policies in order to encourage women to both join the workforce and have children to repopulate decimated regions.[12] This was not the case in the United States. During the war, there were many women working in factories and occupying jobs that were previously held by men. When the war was over, however, men returned, and the need for women in the workforce diminished. Many of the positions occupied by women during the war were now given back to the men, and women either returned home or took on “pink-collar” jobs.[13] While it is true that the number of women who joined and stayed in the labor force increased post-WWII, most women stayed out of the
"[Paid family leave laws'] absence means that many families, particularly lowincome ones, are financially vulnerable when they have children, a time when money is needed most."
The current administration appears supportive of a government-mandated paid leave; the budget of the U.S. government for fiscal year 2018 includes a vague proposal for using the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system as a base for paid parental leave. It proposes that states be required to provide a minimum of six weeks of family leave. The funding for that would come from reforms to the UI system, such as by reducing waste and abuse in the program.[16] Republican Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska also recently introduced Bill S.344, The Strong Families Act, which aims to address paid family leave. The Strong Families Act proposes an incentive program for paid family leave. Employers who provide at least two weeks of paid family or medical leave will receive a 25% tax credit for wages paid to workers taking up to 12 weeks of leave. This means that if the employer provides their employees 100% wage replacement during the paid leave, 25% of that money goes back to the employer.[17] However, this isn’t enough. As Dr. Aparna Mathur, an economist at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute and co-director of a joint project on paid leave with the left-leaning Brookings Institution, has stated, “[the bill is] not really going to change firms’ behavior. A lot of firms are not suddenly going to start offering these policies just because now they have a tax credit in place. But what’s more likely to happen is that… firms like Netflix and Google that are already offering these policies will now just get much more money out of the federal government…”[18] She has also criticized President Trump’s plan to use the UI as a base for paid leave due to its lack of clarity on how paid leave will actually be funded. What’s needed isn’t a vague plan on paid family leave or an incentive program, but rather a federal law that mandates paid parental leave. While it’s great that the current administration seems to be supportive of a government-mandated paid leave, this is not enough. A plan that requires businesses to offer paid family leave, a plan that is inclusive of families from all socioeconomic backgrounds, is the only kind of plan that is best for American families. As mentioned before, the United States is one of a handful of nations that does not offer paid parental leave.[19] It’s about time that the U.S. catches up to the rest of the world. •
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in turn, helps explain the lack of paid leave policies, as there is less concerted support for such policies. Along with weak labor power, corporations and businesses have great influence over American politics. Trade groups like the Chamber of Commerce at state and national levels, as well as the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), carry much sway in the political sphere. They have traditionally opposed government intervention in business, and thus generally oppose any government sponsored paid-leave policy.[5][6] Present day cases such as the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruled that political spending is a form of speech protected under the First Amendment, and therefore corporations are able to spend large amounts of money to influence elections, giving even more power to corporations.[7] In fact, the NFIB contributed $859,064 to specific candidates, parties, and leadership PACs during the 2016 election cycle, their top recipients being the National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the Republican National Committee, and various Republican candidates such as Barbara Comstock and Marco Rubio.[8] While $859,064 may not sound like a lot in the grand scheme of political contributions, consider the fact that the “total of contributions to candidates from National Federation of Independent Business PACs is 119 times larger than contributions from individuals.” In 2017, they spent $1,829,000 lobbying for policies that affect small businesses. They also spent $665,700 as independent expenditures to influence the outcome of the 2016 elections, directing all of that money toward Republican candidates that generally opposed government involvement in business.[9] Organizations like the NFIB influence policy, and if powerful organizations are opposed to paid leave programs on the basis that it is too much of a burden to small businesses, then it is almost impossible for such policies to even be debated in Congress.[10][11] Another contributing factor as to why the United States does not have paid family leave laws is because of how differently World War II affected the United States versus its European allies. Europe suffered massive damage to its infrastructure, as well as higher
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workforce once they married and had children. The “cult of domesticity” that reigned during the 1950s also pressured women to keep out of the workforce, and thus reduced the need for paid leave policies. Understanding why America doesn’t have paid family leave laws does not excuse it. Their absence means that many families, particularly low-income ones, are financially vulnerable when they have children, a time when money is needed most. The argument that it should be up to individual businesses to offer paid leave is flawed. Most private employers do not offer paid family leave, and those who do generally only cover about 13% of employees.[14] Firms usually only offer paid leave to higher-paid employees; 21% of workers in the top quarter of earners have paid leave, compared to 5% of workers in the bottom quarter of earners.[15] This means that the majority of low-income families are left struggling financially.
[1] Boushey, Heather. “Paid leave is good for our families and our economy”. Washington Center for Equitable Growth. January 14, 2016. [2] Kurtzleben, D. “Lots of other countries mandate paid leave. Why not the U.S.?”. NPR. July 15, 2015. [3] Adams, James Truslow. The Epic of America. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2012. [4] Gebelhoff, R. “Why are unions in the U.S. so weak?”. The Washington Post. August 1, 2016. [5] “Parental Leave: What’s the Best Policy for Small Biz?”. NFIB: Protecting the Future of Small Business. [6] “The Unintended Consequences of Paid Family Leave”. NFIB: Protecting the Future of Small Business. [7] Oyez. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. [8] Center for Responsive Politics. National Fedn of Independent Business. [9] Ibid. [10] “Trump’s Paid Leave Plan: Will It Hurt Small Businesses?”. NFIB: Protecting the Future of Small Business. [11] “The Unintended Consequences of Paid Family Leave”. NFIB: Protecting the Future of Small Business. [12] Kurtzleben, D. “Lots of other countries mandate paid leave. Why not the U.S.?”. NPR. July 15, 2015. [13] May, Elaine Tyler. “Women and Work”. American Experience. PBS, February 9, 2004. [14] Boushey, Heather. “Paid leave is good for our families and our economy”. Washington Center for Equitable Growth. January 14, 2016. [15] Ibid. [16] United States. Office of Management and Budget. Bureau of the Budget. Budget of the U.S. Government: A New Foundation for American Greatness, Fiscal Year 2018. Washington D.C. [17] Strong Families Act S. 344, 115th Cong. Congressional Research Service. February 2017. [18] Aparna Mathur (Resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute), interviewed by Chantal Cheung, Washington D.C., February 2017, transcript. [19] Deahl, J. “Countries Around The World Beat The U.S. On Paid Parental Leave”. NPR. October 6, 2016.
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The New Global Arms Race Kamran Parsa / Politics, Philosophy, & Economics 2022 Illustration by Mandi Cai
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nternational tensions between North Korea and the rest of the world hit a high point this September, when Supreme Leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un sanctioned the launch of a mid-range nuclear missile that flew directly over northern Japan before landing in the Pacific Ocean. For the past several years, North Korean leadership has been constantly reprimanded by the international community for the continued development of its nuclear program, and this launch inspired a similar string of condemnations from world leaders. Perhaps the most extreme reaction came from President Donald Trump, who stated in a speech to the United Nations that the U.S. would completely destroy North Korea if necessary.[1] But even though Trump may have harsh words for the North Korean government, he, along with the rest of the world, may be ignoring a larger global development with far greater military implications. Increasing global tensions from North Korea, the United States, and other major nuclear states could very well bring about the growth of global nuclear proliferation. To understand why global proliferation might be in the cards, we must first look into why countries like North Korea have been
so adamant and aggressive in building their nuclear arsenal. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, North Korea has made it its mission to slowly but surely develop its nuclear program, beginning with gaining plutonium processing technology from its former communist ally, the Soviet Union, in the early 1960s.[2] In the following decades, North Korea started developing uranium mines, fuel rod fabrication factories, and multiple nuclear processing facilities and reactors. The main motivation for this development was the United States housing nuclear warheads in South Korea. However, after then-President George H.W. Bush announced the withdrawal of these weapons in 1991, the North Korean nuclear program slowed its progress significantly, even going so far as to sign the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) agreement to repurpose its nuclear facilities away from weapon development. In spite of this, the second President Bush imposed multiple sanctions on North Korea in 2001 in order to further decrease its nuclear programs and push for a “less threatening North Korean conventional military posture.”[3] North Korean officials saw this as an obvious attempt to delegitimize and disempower the country’s military standing and responded by making clear that they had no intention to halt any nuclear development programs in 2003. Flash forward to today, and
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the North Korean state has around 60 nuclear weapons, all with short- and mid-range distance capacities. They are currently apparently working on intercontinental capabilities for their missiles and are rumored to have recently developed a hydrogen bomb last year.[4][5] In short, the principal motivators for North Korea’s nuclear developments have been fear and threat from the United States and other allied powers. The North Korean government believes that the only way to ensure its own safety from nuclear devastation is to obtain nuclear weapons of its own. Especially in the wake of President Trump’s incendiary comments at his address at the UN, North Koreans have felt an increased pressure and threat from the U.S. and the international community, with some North Korean diplomatic officials interpreting the president’s speech as an informal declaration of war.[6] The idea of this security dilemma goes back to the concept of mutually assured destruction from the Cold War, and is currently being adopted by more and more nations around the world as their justification for a more developed nuclear arsenal. Nations in extremely close proximity to North Korea, for example, are adopting this approach in the wake of Kim Jong Un’s ruthless development of nuclear weapons. South Koreans have shown increasing support for nuclear growth in recent years, with around 68% of citizens supporting the return of the nuclear warheads that were withdrawn by President H.W. Bush, and 60% saying that South Korea should invest in its own nuclear development programs to rival its neighbors to the north.[7] Additionally, the Liberty Korea Party in South Korea has been recently trying to coordinate efforts with Washington lawmakers to bring these nuclear weapons back to the peninsula. Similar sentiments are held by some Japanese officials in the wake of the recent missile launch that flew over the country in early September. Japan’s new Minister of
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...diplomacy alone may not be the most effective method of achieving peace in a post-nuclear world.
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Defense, Itsunori Onodera, has already set plans in motion to significantly increase the nation’s air defense programs by 2021 and is also currently advocating heavily for Japan to extend its offensive nuclear capabilities to protect itself from the possibility of a North Korean nuclear attack.[8] Furthermore, given the extensive nuclear research Japan has done in relation to its nuclear energy programs, it
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has all the tools, facilities, and resources to independently begin the development of its own nuclear weapons relatively quickly.[9] As North Korea’s closest neighbors at the greatest risk of a devastating attack, it makes sense why these nations would be so active in their proliferation efforts. It is still unclear whether South Korea or Japan will follow this course of action, with South Korea’s Prime Minister Moon Jae-in stating that actions like these could potentially lead to a nuclear arms race in East Asia, a possibility which is particularly volatile and undesirable.[10] However, many global actors and citizens view this as an inevitable solution to ensure the protection of the region from any nuclear attacks. Here is where the issue turns global. What if other countries start feeling the need to develop their own nuclear weapons due to a similar security dilemma? In regions like Southern Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, this concept is not too farfetched. The only nation whose nuclear arsenal rivals that of the United States is Russia. While we mainly associate Russian nuclear development with the Cold War era, the nation has not let up its development of new nuclear weapons in recent years. In past months, Russia, under the guidance of President Vladimir Putin, has been undergoing research and testing for its new intercontinental ballistic missile, the RS-28 Sarmat (commonly known as “Satan 2”), which Russian military officials say will be ready for potential launch as early as 2018. [11] Russia has been seen as an increasingly aggressive military threat, and the renewal of its nuclear program only reinforces this fact. The danger that Russia poses most alarms the nations of the former Eastern Bloc in Europe. In their eyes, there is an imminent risk that Russia will attempt to reclaim this territory in order to rebuild the former Soviet Union, and an enhanced nuclear arsenal will only strengthen Putin’s potential to carry this out. In order to prevent this, Eastern European nations might feel a motivation to develop their own nuclear weapons as a means of deterrence against Russian aggression. Poland has asked NATO and the United States in the past for access to nuclear weapons for its own security, and many international political scholars have argued that if Ukraine were in possession of nuclear weapons in 2014, it would have prevented Russia from invading the Crimean Peninsula.[12][13] A somewhat comparable situation is present in the Middle East, as Iran has been attempting to expand its nuclear program for the past decade or so in response to the constant nuclear threat it feels from the United States and its close neighbor Israel. It is no secret that the United States has one of the most developed nuclear arsenals in the world, and Israel’s nuclear capabilities are almost as advanced, due to the fact that it has shared nuclear research and technology with the
U.S. for years.[14] Considering Iran’s strained historic ties with the United States, as well as its open opposition to the Israeli state, it seems somewhat reasonable that it would feel a threat to its own nuclear security from these nations. Thus, Iran feels this is a justifiable motivation to build up its own nuclear arsenal for the purpose of self-defense.[15]
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While non-proliferation would be superior for preventing any nuclear conflict from arising in the future, as time goes on, the prospect seems less likely.
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The Iran nuclear deal of 2015 was an effort by the international community to halt Iran’s efforts toward developing a nuclear weapon. However, the results of said deal have been far from ideal, as it has no guidelines preventing Iran from missile testing and development during the ten-year period for which the deal is active.[16] Additionally, the provisions and oversight from the IAEA are not solid enough to actually determine whether Iran is fully following the details of the agreement.[17] This still leaves a relative amount of autonomy for the Iranian government to grow its nuclear programs, albeit at a slower rate. A similar power struggle exists in South Asia between India and Pakistan, both nations which have developed nuclear weapons already. Efforts have been made by the international community to decrease the size of these nations’ nuclear arsenals, but they have been largely unsuccessful.[18] Tensions between the two nations have been high ever since the formation of the Pakistani state after the partition of India, and nuclear weapons have become the method of choice to mediate this conflict as of late. Currently, Pakistan’s nuclear program is developing at such a rapid rate that it is set to surpass the size of those in India, the United Kingdom, and France within five years.[19] With both Pakistan and India devoting more resources to their respective nuclear programs, they are expected to create nuclear stockpiles so massive that they closely resemble levels of the Cold War.[20] While some believe this would worsen the already unstable relationship between the two countries, others argue that this could lead to a nuclear armistice, easing the current military tensions. If we’re using North Korea as our model, a secondary motivation for gaining nuclear weapons is a desire to be taken more seriously as an international military actor. While it is not known whether this will be successful in
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Nuclear non-proliferation has been seen as the ideal solution to preventing large-scale nuclear warfare and its devastating effects. However, with increasing global instability and increasing distrust of other nuclear states, some nations see the only logical solution to protecting the safety and security of their countries as developing nuclear weapons of their own. While non-proliferation would be superior for preventing any nuclear conflict from arising in the future, as time goes on, the prospect seems less likely. It is seldom that the ideal scenario comes to fruition, and it appears that the future of the nuclear world will play out similarly. Global proliferation does seem like a scary idea, and that’s because it is. But it is a reality that we should start accepting now in order to be better prepared for it in the future. •
[1] Aleem, Zeeshan. "Trump's message to the world at the UN: every country is on its own." Vox. September 19, 2017. [2] "North Korea." Nuclear Threat Initiative - Ten Years of Building a Safer World. [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid. [5] "North Korea's nuclear weapons: Here is what we know." News | Al Jazeera. September 17, 2017. [6] "North Korea accuses US of declaring war." BBC News. September 25, 2017. [7] Rogin, Josh. "Opinion | A South Korean delegation asks Washington for nuclear weapons." The Washington Post. September 14, 2017. [8] Funabashi, Yoichi. "North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons, Japan’s Bind." The New York Times. September 13, 2017. [9] Large, John H. "The Actual and Potential Development of Nuclear Weapons Technology in the Area of Northeast Asia." May 2, 2005. [10] Rogin, Josh. "Opinion | A South Korean delegation asks Washington for nuclear weapons." The Washington Post. September 14, 2017. [11] Silva, Cristina. "Russia is testing a new nuclear weapons system known as Satan. It's big enough to destroy France." Newsweek. March 29, 2017. [12] Associated Press. "Poland considering asking for access to nuclear weapons under Nato program." The Guardian. December 06, 2015. [13] Zurcher, Anthony. "Ukraine's nuclear regret?" BBC News. March 20, 2014. [14] Borger, Julian. "The truth about Israel's secret nuclear arsenal." The Guardian. January 15, 2014. [15] Hunter, Robert E. "Arms Control Today." The Iran Case: Addressing Why Countries Want Nuclear Weapons | Arms Control Association. [16] Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor, Jon Lovett, and Daniel Pfeiffer. (No Blood for Ego) Interview with Ben Rhodes. Pod Save America. Podcast Audio. October 16, 2017. [17] Laub, Zachary. "The Impact of the Iran Nuclear Agreement." Council on Foreign Relations. October 13, 2017. [18] "UN adopts global treaty banning nuclear weapons; India skips talks." The Economic Times. July 08, 2017. [19] Fair, Christine. "Pakistan’s army is building an arsenal of." Quartz India. December 21, 2015. [20] Mizokami, Kyle, W. James Antle III, Daniel McCarthy, and Samuel Rines. "Forget North Korea: Why the World Should Fear Pakistan's Nukes." The National Interest. June 15, 2017. [21] Krishnani, Murali. "Is India turning its nuclear focus toward China? | Asia | DW | 14.07.2017." DW.COM. July 14, 2017. [22] Harris, Chris. "NATO fears could push Europe towards more nuclear weapons." Euronews. July 05, 2017. [23] Fisher, Max. "European Nuclear Weapons Program Would Be Legal, German Review Finds." The New York Times. July 05, 2017. [24] "UN adopts global treaty banning nuclear weapons; India skips talks." The Economic Times. July 08, 2017.
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North Korea, many other nations might share this line of thinking. India, for example, has been pushing for an expansion of its nuclear program to focus on China, engaging in a contemporary arms race between the two nations.[21] India and China have increasingly perceived each other as rivals, especially economically. But India’s expansion in nuclear power is supposed to push the nation to be seen as the dominant and superior regional power by the international community. Another reinforcement of power can be seen with NATO nations after the United States brought up the prospect of withdrawing from the military alliance earlier this year.[22] As some in the international community may view NATO as having less authority without the military resources from the U.S., these Western European nations (most notably Great Britain, France, and Germany) are considering restarting their nuclear expansion in order to maintain the strong military presence the international organization previously had.[23] Since the end of the Cold War, the UN has made numerous efforts to end proliferation and eliminate all nuclear weapons in an attempt to avoid the threat of devastating nuclear warfare arising in the future. Despite almost all member nations of the UN signing onto these agreements, the results have not been entirely as anticipated. Change up until this point has been reasonably incremental, but as of late, these agreements have been derailed. This stems from the fact that too many countries to which this international policy most pertains—i.e. the nuclear states—have not been present at these nonproliferation agreement talks.[24] It is almost inevitable that these nuclear agreements will be failures if the countries that these resolutions are targeted at do not even acknowledge their significance. Instances like these increasingly show that diplomacy alone may not be the most effective method of achieving peace in a post-nuclear world.
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A Look Back at Kurdistan’s Tumultuous September 2017
Evan Crystal / International Affairs 2020
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n June 7th, 2017, a certain political leader shook the world with a tweet. No, not Donald Trump, but Masoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government. His tweet proclaimed, “I am pleased to announce that the date for the independence referendum has been set for Monday, September 25th, 2017,” thereby launching a bid for an independent Kurdish state.[1] Independence is an important goal for the Kurds because they are a minority in every country with a Kurdish population and have suffered abuse and discrimination in each of those countries. Their referendum is an important step toward escaping this persecution, but the vote alone is not enough to establish an independent Kurdistan; that process will take significant time and international support. The Kurds are a religious and ethnic minority spread out through parts of northern Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria.[2] Kurdish oppression culminated under the rule of Saddam Hussein, who violated the Geneva Convention by using mustard gas and committing genocide against the Iraqi Kurdish population.[3] To escape this mistreatment, Kurds have long desired their own nation-state. Since the Sévres treaty in 1920, the Kurds have been advocating for their independence on an international level but have been blocked or ignored at every turn. [4] Their referendum states that the new country, likely to be called either Kurdistan, or Iraqi Kurdistan, would be situated in Northern Iraq and would include the oilrich province of Kirkuk. Oil exports would become the major export of Kurdistan and would help support the economy. It would not include any parts of the other three countries, and only the Iraqi Kurds were allowed to vote on the referendum.
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The region was fraught with unrest leading up to the referendum. On September 19th, police were deployed in Kirkuk to stop any occurrences of ethnic violence. One Iraqi Kurd was killed in a clash with Turkmen security, and people on both sides were wounded. Since then, checkpoints have been set up around the city by the police. The Kurdish party has also been having issues with the Iraqi government. The Kurds have accused the Iraqi government of failing to pay the salaries of government workers in Kurdish areas, and the government has accused the Kurds of selling oil from Iraqi territory without the approval of the central government.[5] In April, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi said he “respected the Kurdish right to vote on independence, but he did not think the timing was right for the move.”[6] Part of his hesitation is about instability relating to the ongoing fight against the Islamic State, a war where Kurdish forces have been crucial. However, it should also be noted that Abadi has a reelection bid coming up, and he does not want to lose a third of his country’s land in an election year. It would be hard to justify to voters how he lost all that land and oil revenue, and even harder to defend this to potential challengers, inside and outside of his party. Despite this opinion coming from Baghdad, Kurdish leaders pushed ahead with the September 25th date for the referendum. Kurdistan’s other neighbors and many countries around the world have reacted far more strongly and negatively than Iraq. The US, Britain, and France are three of the most influential Western actors that are against the referendum due to instability in Iraq, the ongoing Syrian Civil War, and the war against ISIS. Like the aforementioned states, international organizations like the United Nations and the Arab League claim that a “yes” vote would threaten an already volatile region.[7] This is seen as legitimate; however, the region is already in a constant state of instability that
Since the Sévres treaty in 1920, the Kurds have been advocating for their independence on an international level but have been blocked or ignored at every turn.
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Monday, the 25th
Independence Referendum takes place. does not appear to be ending any time soon. Many Kurds have taken an “if not now, when?” mentality toward this response to their desire for statehood, and so they pressed on with the referendum despite international complaints. Abdulrazaq Khudur, 60, a pro-independence Turkmen living in the region, said, “We can’t have another Sykes-Picot to promise us something, and do a different thing next morning.”[8] The Kurds believe they have suffered long enough at the hands of both their own country’s leadership and foreign powers and will no longer tolerate delays to their bid for independence. Turkey has long been against any form of Kurdish independence and is very nervous about what effect Kurdish independence would have on its own embattled Kurdish population. The Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK, is a terrorist organization active in Turkey that claims to defend the Kurdish people. The actions of the PKK, including car bombings and assaults on Turkish forces and government institutions, have only served to further separate the Turkish government and Turkish Kurds. Turkey has used the PKK as an excuse to oppress their Kurdish population, and it is deathly afraid of what independence in Iraq could do to embolden its own Kurds.[9] Turkey has threatened the region with sanctions and has tried to unite Syria and Iran against independence, as the latter two are also worried about the secession of their own Kurdish populations.[10] On September 26th, Turkey positioned missile batteries at the border, and Iran closed its airspace to flights into the region. President Erdogan of Turkey said that Iraq allowing the vote was “treachery,” and if Kurdistan became a country, he would consider cutting off the oil pipelines that allow the Kurds to export their oil, debilitating
Turkey positions missiles at the border, Iran closes airspace to flights into the region.
them economically, and causing them to—in the words of the Turks—“starve.”[11][12] Interestingly, there is one country that has been supporting the Kurdish fight for independence. Earlier in September, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came out in support of Kurdish independence. In 2015, his defense minister said, “It is in the interest of Israel and the United States that a Kurdish state be established,” citing defense purposes and the spread of democracy. Earlier in September, Netanyahu released an official statement saying that Israel “supports the legitimate efforts of the Kurdish people to achieve their own state,” a concrete show of support in backing the results of the referendum.[13] Israelis and Kurds have long had mutual defense interests and mutual enemies, chief among them Iran, which has persecuted its minority Kurdish population and threatened Israel with annihilation since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.[14] Backing the Kurdish state allows Israel to support a longtime friend and establish a future ally in the heart of the Middle East. Despite the controversy surrounding the referendum, the day of the vote passed peacefully. As of Wednesday, September 27th, the referendum passed with 93% of voters choosing independence with 72% of eligible voter turnout. With this, Iraqi Kurds officially declared their desire for statehood.[15] But now that the referendum has passed, the Iraqi government is changing its tune on
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Referendum passes with 93% voting for independence. Iraqi Prime Minister doesn't recognize the referendum.
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Tuesday, the 26th
the legality of holding a referendum. The prime minister is now saying that the vote was unconstitutional, and he will not recognize the results. Parliament has since approved a resolution allowing the Prime Minister to deploy troops into the area, claiming that they need to keep the area safe given the unrest surrounding the vote. The Iraqi government also wants to regain control of the Kirkuk oil reserves, which it claims the Kurds are stealing. The Kurds have countered by claiming the oil is rightfully theirs because they liberated the oil fields from ISIS.[16] Despite this, Mr. Barzani, the president of both the Kurdish Regional Government and the Kurdish Democratic Party, has been given a mandate to speak for the Kurds in future negotiations with the Iraqi Government. But regardless of what happens, it does not appear that much will come out of the referendum. In order for a state to be recognized internationally, it needs more than just internal support. This is why Israel needed the United States in 1948, why Palestine pushed to have its flag flown outside the United Nations, and why China has blocked Taiwan from receiving international recognition. Kurdistan needs an important international ally, but they don’t seem to be able to procure any besides Israel. The referendum was certainly an important step in the journey to independence, but Kurdistan’s fight will likely be an ongoing process for the next decade. •
The Kurds believe they have suffered long enough at the hands of both their own country’s leadership and foreign powers and will no longer tolerate delays to their bid for independence.
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[1] "Iraqi Kurds Set Date for Independence Referendum." News | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, 08 June 2017. Web. [2] Engel, Jordan. “Kurdistan.” The Decolonial Atlas, 16 Mar. 2017, decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/2017/03/16/kurdistan-in-kurdish/. [3] Wong, Edward. “Saddam Charged with Genocide of Kurds.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Apr. 2006. [4] Danforth, Nick. “Forget Sykes-Picot. It’s the Treaty of Sèvres That Explains the Modern Middle East.” Foreign Policy, 23 Sept. 2016 [5] Reuters Staff. "Police Deploy in Iraqi Oil City as Tensions Rise Before Kurdish Independence Vote." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2017. Web. [6] "Erdogan Warns of Sanctions over Kurds' Independence Bid." News | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, 20 Sept. 2017. Web. [7] Chulov, Martin, and Paul Johnson. "Fearful Neighbours Look on as Iraq's Kurds Stake Claim to Nationhood." The Observer. Guardian News and Media, 23 Sept. 2017. Web. [8] Chulov, Martin, and Paul Johnson. "Fearful Neighbours Look on as Iraq's Kurds Stake Claim to Nationhood." The Observer. Guardian News and Media, 23 Sept. 2017. Web. [9] “Who Are Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) Rebels?” BBC News, BBC, 4 Nov. 2016 [10] "Iraqi Kurds Set Date for Independence Referendum." News | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, 08 June 2017. Web. [11] Fahim, Kareem, and Tamer El-Ghobashy. “Turkey Condemns Kurdish Independence Vote as Western Opposition Softens.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Sept. 2017 [12] McKernan, Bethan. “Kurdistan Referendum Results: 93% of Iraqi Kurds Vote for Independence, Say Reports.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 27 Sept. 2017 [13] Heller, Jeffrey. “Israel Endorses Independent Kurdish State.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 13 Sept. 2017. [14] Heller, Jeffrey. “Israel Endorses Independent Kurdish State.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 13 Sept. 2017. [15] McKernan, Bethan. “Kurdistan Referendum Results: 93% of Iraqi Kurds Vote for Independence, Say Reports.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 27 Sept. 2017 [16] Fahim, Kareem, and Tamer El-Ghobashy. “Turkey Condemns Kurdish Independence Vote as Western Opposition Softens.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Sept. 2017
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The Comforting Limits of Pessimism Prasanna Rajasekaran / Economics 2018 Photography by Jennifer Heintz
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turning point in my emotional development occurred during the historically destructive winter of 2015, the one that buried Boston under 108 inches of snow. Those months laid bare a pessimism I had harbored for most of my adolescent life. Until that point, the pessimism existed as a quiet dread in the pit of my stomach. Mostly, it was easy to ignore, and when it wasn’t, I would act out briefly, attempt some revolutionary lifestyle change; if I just lift weights/download Tinder/believe in god, my life will be an unfettered stream of joy. But that winter stripped me of the will required for grand fixes. The pit of dread seemed suddenly comforting, if only for its promise to let me rest in a reality I no longer had to reshape.
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Feelings alone cannot challenge such deeply held notions, not when those notions guard America’s purity. For feelings to take on the power of conviction, words must be put to them. That winter, the winter of my pessimism, I stumbled upon Ta-Nehisi Coates, and I got the words.
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oday, Coates is revered, controversial, and hated. I’ll admit, I stand in the first of those three groups. I’m probably the worst of super fans: I’ve read everything he’s written, listened to every interview, met him in-person, and to this day, delusionally believe he’d remember me if we crossed paths again. I stan for Coates embarrassingly hard. But my connection to his work is deeply personal. To say it in the roughest of words, that dude opened things up for me. He changed the way I look at the world, the way I react to it. He cemented my political pessimism—the way I felt about Mike Brown, about my country—in a logic and aesthetic that has proved unbreakable. But Coates himself might balk at the image of his work implied above. He rejects the title “pessimist.” Debates over whether Coates is or is not pessimistic, and whether he ought to be, inform much of the mainstream discourse surrounding his writing. The primary contention that underlies Coates's recent work is that America is premised upon white supremacy, that white supremacy is fundamental to our existence as a state and to our identity as a nation. With the publication of Coates's impossible to categorize magnum opus, Between the World and Me, this perspective burst into national consciousness. The book found a surprisingly broad audience. Coates made rounds on Charlie Rose, Fresh Air. Eventually, as praise became stale, several critiques emerged: Coates ignored class, generalized his experiences, appealed to too many white people. But none of these had quite the popular and lasting power as the pessimist critique. The pessimism debate came to a head this October when Coates went on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to promote his latest book, We Were Eight Years in Power. Coates is generally a jovial interviewee, disarming in his earnestness and candor. Colbert is, well, Colbert, the guy who can drag a chuckle out of his fiercest rivals. Which is why the testiness of this interview was strange. At the end, Colbert asks Coates, “You’ve had a hard time in interviews expressing a sense of hope that things will get better in this country. Do you have any hope tonight for people out there that we could be a better country?”
Coates lets out a semi-nervous laugh as he hears the question and responds, deadpan, “No.” He continues, “But I’m not the person you should go to for that. You should go to your pastor, your pastor provides you hope. Your friends provide you hope...That’s not my job. That’s somebody else’s.” Colbert jumps back in aggressively, “But I’m not asking you to make shit up. I’m asking you if you see any chance for change in America.” Coates is now visibly annoyed. “Maybe. But I would have to make shit up to actually answer that question in a satisfying way.” The next day Coates vented online, tweeting out several articles with sarcastic captions:
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So, for the first time in my life, I became a pessimist. I accepted a premise I tried for so long to disprove: that life was miserable, and there was nothing we could do about it. I began to devour Arthur Schopenhauer, a philosopher known for statements like, “Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence?” I watched over and over again the show True Detective, set in ghostly Louisiana, long on half-sensical nihilist dialogue. (Time is, indeed, a flat circle.) I started to bring pessimism into conversation, once surprising myself and my friends by casually noting how “I didn’t ask my parents to have me.” Yes, the whole thing was cringingly “college,” but it was also liberating. Indulging pessimism felt like quitting a marathon in mile five, like settling for a subpar job that pays the bills. It was the bittersweet acceptance of limits, and the great exuberance of not having to work so damn hard anymore. I could finally stop trying to convince myself that everything would be alright. But what made my burgeoning pessimism truly significant, bigger than the navel-gazings of someone with too much time on their hands, was that it was more than spiritual. It was political. Michael Brown was killed in 2014, some 30 miles from my childhood home. The utopian St. Louis of my youth revealed itself to be a literal war zone for those outside its white suburban pockets. I had never heard of Ferguson until Mike Brown, and I had never been to North County save a baseball tournament in 8th grade (even then our coaches warned us not to stray too far from the diamond). Of course, I knew the reality of St. Louis all along. We joked when it topped the “most criminal cities” ranking, talked often about how one should never go to East St. Louis or Florissant. Our amusement stemmed from the absurd distance between that St. Louis and this one, and the fantasies about our lives—noble, earned, innocent—implied that the distance was neither our doing nor our concern. However briefly, Mike Brown’s death and the Movement for Black Lives broke through this convenient delusion. To hold it, you had to rationalize the tanks stalking your city’s streets. If my spiritual pessimism grew from a seasonally affected mood, my political pessimism was based in hard reality. In a visceral sense, there is only one conclusion to arrive at viewing Eric Garner’s death, Walter Scott’s death: that America does not manifest its purported ideals, that our society is neither just, nor equal, nor free. Throughout the Fall of 2014, I felt this truth, but it was inarticulable. The illusion of my youth retained its sway, fed me ready-made retorts. After all, wasn’t it possible that these shootings were outliers, spurred by the unavoidable “bad apple”? Couldn’t it be that America was flawed, but all in all, moving in the direction of justice? Isn’t this evidenced by the end of slavery, the end of Jim Crow, the ascension of Barack Obama?
“Incredible reporting by @eosnos totally undercut by his penchant for turning nuclear war into a real bummer.” “Come on Elizabeth Kolbert, I know we’re in the middle of sixth extinction, but is it really THAT BAD?” “Really enjoyed Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands, but it was such a downer...Where’s the hope?” Coates's point was obvious. Writers tell the truth, and sometimes, truth doesn’t come with a complimentary side of hope. Asking a writer to provide hope where there is little or none is asking them to lie, which would defeat the entire purpose of writing. But, to the issue Colbert raised, forget a writer’s responsibility: Does Coates, himself, believe there is hope for
The underlying philosophy of Coates's work, the reason we are galvanized to act in the first place, says there’s little, or nothing, we can do about the injustice he exposes. America? Reading any of Coates's work would give you a decent idea of what the answer is, but here he makes it explicit: I don’t have any gospel of my own. [Tony Judt’s] Postwar, and the early pages of [Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands], have revealed a truth to me: I am an atheist. (I have recently realized this.) I don’t Fall 2017
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believe the arc of the universe bends towards justice. I don’t even believe in an arc. I believe in chaos. I believe power ful people who think they can make Utopia out of chaos should be watched closely. I don’t know that it all ends badly. But I think it probably does. There might be some use to a broader discussion on what “pessimism” really means, but let’s save that for academia. Coates's tendency toward doom, evinced above, should give us enough of an answer: He’s a pessimist, about America and society at large. For many, the discussion ends here. Perhaps considering oppression without the possibility of its end, without redemption, is too much. Perhaps any sort of pessimism, regardless of its logic, seems inconsistent with lived reality (there are, after all, people who genuinely enjoy living). But when I discovered Coates, I had the opposite reaction. Coates, through his pessimism, described for me an America that I felt: cruelly amoral, though it claimed otherwise. He taught me that America is a country where winners are not concerned with moral responsibility, but with advancing their own interests. Morality, in fact, has shockingly weak explanatory power in our country’s history. We did not end slavery because it was the right thing to do. We did not end Jim Crow because it was the right thing to do. Most importantly, the end of these institutions did not signal the demise of their causal sin. That sin persists, quite visibly, today. More, I could extend this vision of America to life at large. Popular notions of “everything’s gonna be alright” had always felt, deep down in that dark pit of dread, laughable. Coates's work bridged the gap between my political and spiritual pessimism; it crystallized everything I felt, read, and saw during that awful winter. The result of this crystallization was, of course, a rather dark view of life and society. But the very fact that my beliefs were girded to some core truth, that my philosophy was broadly and deeply coherent, gave me a level of fulfillment, of calm, I’d never before experienced.
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n those dark months of early 2015, I got the chance to meet Coates. He came to speak at Northeastern, his prolific essay, “The Case for Reparations,” launching a first round of national fame. Before his speech, a group of 10 or so students, myself included, huddled around him as he fielded our questions. Eventually, my turn came, and I asked Coates if he considered himself an activist. He responded, firmly, no. He said his only goal was to write beautifully and tell the truth, that he had no agenda outside of this, political or otherwise. I’m a staunch defender of Coates. Critiques of his pessimism often, in my mind, fall flat because they don’t engage with his argument,
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don’t question the premises upon which his pessimism is built. Most critiques about Coates's pessimism lose their power because, well, they don’t show that he’s wrong, and I’ve seen very little to indicate that he is. And yet, despite its unquestioned validity, there exists an underlying discomfort with Coates's argument, an unsettling paradox that stems from his answer to my question above. That paradox is this: Those who read and understand Coates are also likely to feel moved by Coates's work. Indeed, Coates himself often says this is the goal of his writing, to galvanize people to action. But the underlying philosophy of Coates's work, the reason we are galvanized to act in the first place, says there’s little, or nothing, we can do about the injustice he exposes. But it’s deeper than this. There’s an added complexity to this paradox that Coates himself intimates. For example, in that interview
How do we act in a world where truth has such a tenuous shifting relationship with progress? with Colbert, Coates asks us to find pastors to provide hope—though he himself does not believe in god. It’s an odd statement from a writer so adamantly truthful, imploring us to seek out (what he believes is) delusion in order to feel better about our lives. It’s also somewhat strange that Coates does not want to commit himself to pessimism in name, though he openly believes that things probably end badly. From Coates's interviews, there’s a sense that he’s pushing against his own philosophy, unwilling to go to the darker places his arguments demand. One could argue that this is because Coates's pessimism is inherently unviable, that it does not reflect the power of individual agency, of progress in the world. But this, again, does nothing to disprove the inherent truth of Coates's pessimism. What we’re observing, rather, is a deeper paradox about individual agency and political change. Political change, as much as it is based on amorality and chaos, still requires people to demand it, fight for it. Yes, broad historical factors set the conditions for what is and what
isn’t changeable. But within those constraints, action is still required. Slavery ends because of secession, but also because of Black Union soldiers and Radical Republicans. The Civil Rights Movement is only possible due to the moral context of the Cold War, but it also does not exist without the organizing of countless groups and individuals. Can one act radically—as numerous people did to deliver the progress of these two eras—without envisioning a better future? And doesn’t the effort it takes to create that vision rely on a belief in personal agency, in our own ability to make things better, in hope? This is the deeper paradox of Coates's philosophy, of my philosophy. The following premises are both true: 1. Human history is defined primarily by chaos and tends toward destruction. Individual actors, for the most part, cannot overcome this. 2. The few times when individual actors do stem destruction and chaos, advance society in a just direction, it’s at least partially because these actors believe they have the agency to do so (even though, considering the evidence of history, that belief is largely irrational). Coates, being a writer and not an activist, only requires from his philosophy a coherent explanation of the observable world. If we take him at his own word, he’s simply looking for a viewpoint that proves true, the deeper implications of that truth notwithstanding. But for the readers of Coates's works, those who may, in fact, be activists, Coates's truth leaves us on unsure footing. It’s not a problem he can or should be asked to resolve. And so the question is left to us: How do we act in a world where truth has such a tenuous, shifting relationship with progress?
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ventually, the winter of 2015 ended. In early May, a few weeks after final exams, I returned to Boston. The cold death that so plagued Northeastern for the vast majority of my time there seemed jarringly distant. Campus had transformed into an oasis of urban greenery. Students laid out in Centennial, milled around outside the library. It was bizarre how casually the joy of summer happened upon us, how definitively winter was gone.
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But today, I no longer see Coates's work as the bridge between my spiritual and political pessimism, mainly because I’m no longer a pessimist. The draw of pessimism, the reason it felt so comforting in my darker days, was that it provided a sort of unassailable truth. It claimed to dissolve the delusional anxiety of life by saying hope—all of it—was fantasy. You, Prasanna, can stop wondering if things get better, wondering if you should do this or that to improve your life. You can simply accept the futility of all of this, and once you do, you can rest, without a hint of doubt to stir you. But the shifts in my life, and the simultaneous shifts in the direction of our society, have been too random and unexpected to be explained by such dogmatic certainty. I don’t think everything is good, but it’s obvious everything is not bad, either. I don’t think we have much control of our lives, which is not to say we can’t shape them in limited ways. My relationship with the paradox that stems from Coates's work is similarly uncertain. I don’t believe society tends toward justice, but I also don’t believe we have no say in whether it does. I have no idea the extent of our say, and I don’t think there’s any way to find out. But I know we have to exercise that say to the best of our abilities, even if that
means delusionally believing we have more power than we actually do. There’s a very high chance all of our efforts are for naught, but we must fight anyways. Not to grasp some sisyphean nobility, but for the slight, tangible possibility of progress. It’s probably apparent that the original paradox has not been solved. It still seems that truth and progress exist in a contradictory relationship; progress is possible if we believe in progress, which we have little reason to believe in. And yet, the paradox bothers me less. The comforting certainty of pessimism, of truth itself, seems selfish and solipsistic. The horrendous oppression of our society does not call for hermetic acceptance of reality—who, after all, has access to such easy acceptance other than those in power? Instead, at this particular moment, what I believe is required, from all of us, is an active belief in progress. And if it bothers you that this belief is delusional, ask yourself this: What’s more radical than delusion? •
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And though my pessimism continued to linger, it seemed less potent in its explanatory power when unaccompanied by nature’s wrath. I continued to read Coates— that summer, Between the World and Me released—but the spiritual pessimism, the existential pit of dread, felt less imposing. I still made dark quips about the pointlessness of life, but they no longer seemed based in my personal reality. As that summer progressed, I entered my first relationship, and it made me more happy and whole than I thought was possible. I haven’t really picked up Schopenhauer since. Yet during this same period, early 2015 to the present, as the pit of dread lost its appeal, America devolved into a hellscape. A mean, bumbling man, whose only exceptional quality is bigotry, captured the hearts and souls of the American people. As the potential of Trump’s presidency progressed, from longshot to nominee to President-elect, the mask of decency slipped from America’s face, revealing, at best, a daunting indifference toward the livelihood of marginalized people. I’m not sure how one would cope with Donald Trump’s rise without some belief in apocalypse. Coates, in his own right, has become more prominent during this time because his philosophy does much in explaining a character like Trump. Two of Coates's latest pieces, “My President Was Black” and “The First White President,” show how his theory of American racism portends the dystopian politics of the present.
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WE NEED TO CHANGE
THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT HEALTH CARE... AND FAST
JARED HIRSCHFIELD / BIOLOGY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE 2020
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ealthcare has proven to be the ultimate enigma for American policymakers. This year has brought wave after wave of political controversy, but nothing else has so comprehensively perplexed Republicans and Democrats alike. Hell-bent on dismantling the infrastructure left behind by Obama, President Trump regularly issues statements promoting the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, despite a glaring absence of viable alternatives. “Obamacare...Repeal it, replace it, get something great,” President Trump once assuredly announced in a campaign speech.[1] Yet, by February, only a month into his presidency, this tune of confidence had waned into a humble acceptance of reality. “Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated,” Trump then conceded.[2] Considering we’ve been battling the healthcare beast for decades, it’s more like nobody knew that we could be so wrong on healthcare. For months now, the future of the American healthcare system has hung in the
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balance, and much of the debate has centered around the provision of healthcare coverage. Staunch proponents of Obamacare celebrate the hike in “covered lives” as irrefutable proof of its supremacy, while proposed alternatives are measured almost exclusively on their ability to expand coverage. Politicians, along with the mainstream media, have developed a dangerous obsession with using coverage as a measure of our healthcare system, a statistic that fails to evaluate the true quality of any insurance.[3] Insurance coverage in its own right does not increase the life expectancy of Americans, work to prevent the onset of chronic diseases, or improve any of the health metrics by which the American healthcare system already falls so far behind—only high-quality, accessible medical care can. Coverage does not inherently translate to care, and until we begin to look past the numbers of mere coverage and work to provide more affordable, higher quality care to more Americans, the fight to revive a failing American healthcare system will be fruitless.
ILLUSTRATION BY COLLEEN CURTIS The need for a shift in perspective is striking in a Boston Globe article detailing the stories of Americans unable to access care despite being covered under the ACA.[4] This inability to receive needed care has become a harsh reality for Ohio residents Amete Kahsay and her husband, who are covered under the high-deductible ($13,200), low-level “family” plan they could afford. After an emergency room visit that drained her savings of $1,700, Kahsay now returns to her native country, Ethiopia, to receive major medical care. Once an adamant supporter of Obamacare, Kahsay explains, “Now, unless I get very, very sick, like only if it’s life-threatening, I won’t go to the doctor. I just lay down and take a rest.” Mrs. Kahsay has health insurance. She is one of the 20 million or so more Americans covered under Obamacare, but if she still cannot access quality care, have we really succeeded? Is her “covered” status alone helping her live a happier, healthier life? The healthcare system in the U.S. has historically trailed behind those of practically nupoliticalreview.com
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are the things that change a nation’s health on the macro scale, not hollow statements promoting the expansion of coverage. At first mention of any Nordic healthcare system, some will scoff, rattling off a long list of reasons why the United States can never achieve a system as successful.[9] A sizably larger population and far greater economic inequality are just a few among the many, and admittedly these arguments are not invalid—with one catch: they all focus on the economic inviability of adopting single-payer health insurance, without realizing that not one of Sweden’s transformative policies mentioned above is a direct product of government-issued healthcare. These policies transcend the economic and political underpinnings of healthcare that for too long have been used as excuses for the inferior health of the United States. There’s no doubt that many aspects of American demographics and economics represent potential barriers to the seamless adoption of a single-payer system, but a single-payer system is not necessarily needed to achieve the quality, sophisticated healthcare available in Sweden. Adopting some of these proven, structural healthcare strategies would drastically improve the health and wellbeing of Americans, regardless of who is managing the provision of health insurance.
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San Francisco Bay Area. A pediatrician and preventative care physician by training, Dr. Shenkin has written extensively on American
The goals of this national conversation must start to reach farther than simply increasing coverage and begin to better address what Americans can and should expect from coverage.
The healthcare system in the U.S. has historically trailed behind those of practically all comparable, developed nations and yet, the current narrowminded focus of the healthcare debate has done little to combat its shortcomings.
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As many of these structural strategies are instituted at the patient-physician level, insiders’ perspectives on the state of the American healthcare system are invaluable resources. Dr. Budd Shenkin is an executive committee member of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the president of Bayside Medical Group, formerly the largest privately-held primary care group in the
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all comparable, developed nations and yet, the current narrow-minded focus of the healthcare debate has done little to combat its shortcomings. In a 2015 comparison against 12 other high-income countries, the U.S. had the highest obesity rate, the highest infant mortality rate, the greatest consumption of prescription drugs, and the highest percentage of its elderly population with 2 or more chronic conditions.[5] Perhaps most demoralizing, Americans at birth are predicted to live shorter lives than the citizens of all of these countries. As Americans, we often pride ourselves on being exceptional, on being number one. With healthcare, though, it seems we’re number one in all the wrong categories. For decades, progressive critics of the traditional private insurance market have attributed these statistics to a lack of coverage in the U.S., calling attention to the superior health of countries with universal healthcare.[6] Herein lies the fundamental misunderstanding—the best healthcare systems in the world do not derive their success from bestowing coverage, but from providing excellent care. They are the best at making organized, evidence-based medicine accessible to their citizens. They are the best at regularly evaluating their health systems for quality assurance. They are the best at prioritizing preventative care and minimizing the prevalence of expensive chronic conditions. Boiling these systems down to the mere coverage they provide is entirely missing the point. One of the most commonly referenced countries in the healthcare debate is Sweden, which consistently tops the rankings of global healthcare systems. When looking at the structure and function of the Swedish health system, the origin of their healthcare prowess quickly becomes evident.[7] By Swedish law, all citizens must have access to their general practitioner within seven days. Practices are organized using a team-based approach and are often comprised of nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, psychologists, and gynecologists, in addition to general practitioners. Care for psychiatric issues, such as substance abuse disorders, is widely and readily available in both inpatient and outpatient facilities—a far cry from the virtually nonexistent mental health infrastructure of the U.S. And, most impressively, the costly consequences of smoking, hazardous drinking, insufficient physical activity, and unhealthy eating habits are mitigated by physicians who are trained in psychological counseling techniques.[8] These
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healthcare policy and structure. In an email to me, Dr. Shenkin echoed many chief concerns, noting: “The problem with the ACA is that the result could be near universal crappy health insurance... [A]ccess to high quality care is a huge problem.” With American statistics surrounding lifestyle diseases so grim, one would imagine that access to preventative care would be of top priority; however, Dr. Shenkin calls access to preventative care a “huge issue” and one that will “grow and grow.” The reimagining of healthcare as a public, government-administered good is a proposition that continues to accrue substantial support and is not at all an issue in principle.[10] What should not be tolerated is the establishment of any new healthcare system that promises Americans the world, while failing to provide them true and reliable access to care. The intense debate surrounding the future of American healthcare is productive, but only if it has a precise and logical objective. The goals of this national conversation must start to reach farther than simply increasing coverage and begin to better address what Americans can and should expect from coverage. Engineering a system is only half of the battle; measuring it with nuanced and revealing metrics is arguably the more difficult task. The Affordable Care Act, estimated to cost the federal government almost $1.5 trillion from 2015 to 2024, is much too costly of a system to be measured with a misleading and incomplete metric of effectiveness.[11] As politicians today triumphantly parade around numbers of coverage as proof of success, they naively overlook the millions of covered individuals who cannot receive the quality healthcare they deserve. As much as we want it to be, insurance coverage itself is not a golden ticket to a healthy life. It is reliable access to quality care that will make or break the health of America. •
[1] Rechtoris, Mary. “8 Donald Trump quotes on healthcare—‘Repeal it, replace it, get something great!’.” Becker’s Hospital Review. August 16, 2016. [2] Howell Jr., Tom. “Trump: Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” The Washington Times. February 27, 2017. [3] Roy, Avik. “Why Health Insurance is Not the Same Thing as Health Care.” Forbes. October 15, 2012. [4] Jan, Tracy. “Critics say high deductibles make insurance ‘unaffordable’.” Boston Globe. November 16, 2015. [5] Squires, David, Chloe Anderson. “U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective.” The Commonwealth Fund. October 8, 2015. [6] “Medicare for All: Leaving No One Behind.” Berniesanders.com. [7] Glenngård, Anna. “The Swedish Health Care System.” The Commonwealth Fund. [8] “Disease Prevention in the Swedish Healthcare System: Health situation, national guidelines and implementation.” Socialstyrelsen: The National Board of Health and Welfare. May 2013. [9] Edsall, Thomas. “Why Can’t America Be Sweden?” The New York Times. May 29, 2013. [10] Kiley, Jocelyn. “Public support for ‘single payer’ health coverage grows, driven by Democrats.” Pew Research Center. June 23, 2017. [11] Banthin, Jessica, Sarah Masi. “Updated Estimates of the Insurance Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act.” Congressional Budget Office. March 4, 2014.
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: e r e h w o N n I Fitting The Case for Trans-inclusive Feminism Gabriel Morris / Politics, Philosophy, and Economics and Communication Studies 2021 Illustration by Mandi Cai
“F
eminist: a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.”[1] The ringing wisdom of acclaimed novelist, artist, and activist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie sounded in billions of ears upon the release of Beyoncé’s hit single “Flawless***.” This excerpt from a TEDx speech turned novella was authored by one of the most prestigious and intelligent intersectional feminists of the twenty-first century: Adichie herself. However, if the clock were to be rewound just a short century, a woman of color like Adichie would have been shunned for her Nigerian descent, barred from “joining” the popular feminist movement alongside Susan B. Anthony or Carrie Chapman Catt. Given the prevalence of white supremacy during the first suffragette wave, women of color were excluded from the frontlines.[2] Sadly, this problem was not a unique one to women of color, as feminism’s roots in heteronormativity, cisnormativity, and aforementioned white supremacy left it and leave in in a precarious and problematic state—needing broad redefinition and repurposing for collective social good. While the feminist and queer movements overall were, and are, amazing vehicles of social change for many marginalized
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individuals, the harboring of negative and pernicious ideals from past times has led to the continuation of a hateful faction of feminism and queer movements today. This divisiveness is exemplified in trans exclusionary radical feminism and feminists—TERFs—and anti-trans queer groups. Even though feminist movements and TERFs didn’t invent transmisogyny nor the societal power structure that harms and disenfranchises people who identify this way, even with better visibility, they, in their birth and early struggles with cohesion, did nothing to address the issues of trans and gender nonconforming individuals. Given the lack of recognition these movements have, intentionally or otherwise, they have, in fact, inflamed and aggravated the struggles of trans people today. Following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the immediate goal of feminism—suffrage-focused feminism—was met. The goal of the white, middle class feminists had been achieved. Women now had the legal right to vote, but the problem of the patriarchy was not washed away with President Wilson’s signature. It had just begun. By the 1950s and 60s, after World War I and World War II, women such as Betty Friedan had grown tired of the image of the white housewife and the
so-called “feminine mystique;” women began yearning for more opportunities.[3] Friedan spoke for all white women when she investigated the “problem with no name” in her book, The Feminine Mystique, which many womanist leaders would later critique as an entrenched manifestation of “the white woman’s burden.” While second-wave feminism, led by women such as Friedan herself, wasn’t statically aggressive to trans individuals, it, more often than not, equated the female existence with things like menstruation and childbirth.[4] With this exclusion of trans women and women of color, many were forced to find or found their own movements, which provided feminist representation for black women, Chicano movements for Latinx and Hispanic women, and trans-friendly feminist movements for all trans, non-binary, and genderqueer individuals. As Linda Nicholson explains in her book Feminism/ Postmodernism, feminism as a categorizing structure “represent[s] a set of values or dispositions,” and when existing in this vein, for her, “it becomes normative in character and, hence, exclusionary in principle.”[5] Feminism, by definition, is a tool of exclusion.[6] Even in the present, the feminist movement continues nupoliticalreview.com
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to singe arguably the most marginalized group of people: transgender (trans) individuals. Trans people not only experience discrimination from their own community and communities in terms of mockery and deliberate misgendering, but trans people are also at extreme risk of violence. Between January 2008 and September 2016, trans people were subjected to disproportionate violence, as over 1,750 trans people were reportedly murdered.[7] Transgender people also make up the majority of suicide and homicide statistics in the United States, with 41% of respondents to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey reporting suicide attempts, compared to the 4.6% rate of average citizens, and the 21-31% rate of gay and lesbian people.[8] Suicides of girls like Leelah Alcorn, a white trans teen who took the news by storm after posting on Tumblr, are more publicized than those teens of color whose names are seemingly blurred into the concrete. Leelah stated in her suicide note that “the only way [she] will rest in peace is if one-day transgender people aren’t treated the way [she] was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights.” And while Leelah’s call to action was powerful and impactful for many, more still needs to be done for trans women and trans teens of color, who experience discrimination not only because of their color, but also due to their gender identity.[9] The only solution is unyielding integration.
The term intersectional feminism was coined in 1989 by American Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who gave a name to what many non-able-bodied, non-white, non-affluent, and non-cisgendered—or cis—women were already identifying with.[10] For Ava Vidal, “the view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity” is a given.[11] She saw that “cultural patterns of oppression [were] not only interrelated, but bound together and
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Feminism’s roots in heteronormativity, cisnormativity, and white supremacy left it and leave in in a precarious and problematic state—needing broad redefinition and repurposing for collective social good.
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influenced by the intersectional systems of society… examples of this includ[ing] race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity.”[12] To this day, intersectional feminist conversations strive to include all people: women and men, cis and trans people, and everything in between. Feminism should have been this way all along, but with very little visibility in the media, trans women, women of color,
those with physical and/or mental disabilities, and other marginalized individuals remain unable to talk about their own experiences of oppression. Instead, there are online press conferences with Emma Watson, talks with Taylor Swift. The problem is not with Emma Watson or Taylor Swift, who have made positive contributions to the third-wave and intersectional movements—the problem is that feminism has largely stayed a white women’s movement—not working for the “other” category in society. While amazing intersectional feminists like Beyoncé, a woman of color, have been allowed to rise to prominence in the public scene today, it is sadly the exception rather than the norm. The most likely culprit, responsible for the current continuation and perpetuation of the trans exclusionary and largely white movement, are second wave feminists. The second wave of feminism fell from slightly before the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s until the early twenty-first century. During this time, second wave feminist ideology and regulatory mindsets were bred in colleges, the workforce, and in the home. Lesbian feminists in the 1990s still viewed male biology, or that of perceived cisgendered men, as a “problem” and “mutation.”[13] This in and of itself still champions the biological gender binary, with men having XY sex chromosomes and women having XX sex chromosomes. Yet, in their explanation, these self-described radical lesbian feminists demonstrate a misunderstanding of biology. They theorize that all Fall 2017
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those with Y-chromosomes are mutants, building off of the false discovery that all fetuses are initially female. Carol Anne Douglas, a feminist theorist, author, and playwright, makes claims that the Y chromosome was created from radiation fusillading an X chromosome, creating the admittedly smaller chromosome. Yet, sex is determined using more than just XX and XY chromosomes; such is the case with intersex and other biologically diverse individuals, who are born with XXX, XXY, XYY, and even just X sex chromosomes.[14] Biological inquiries become violent in the public sphere for trans people when they are largely policed and their bodies objectified. Consistently in interviews with trans women, interviewers such as Katie Couric and Piers Morgan appear so surprised at the “passability” of women like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, saying they would’ve “never known” that the women were “born boys.”[15] The trans body is the same as any other physical body, and it is natural. As Mock, an accomplished author and trans activist states, “I… don’t marvel at it that much because there was no other choice than to be myself… I always knew that I was me; I didn’t know that it was about gender or that it was about anything other than just the inclinations I just naturally had, and the things that I was drawn to.”[16] The elements of gender are about more than being born with a penis, a vagina, both, or neither; they are about how one feels about oneself, and how they choose to express that outwardly or not. It is not the duty of another to question or police someone else’s identity, regardless of whether they disagree with it or not.[17] However, trans representation is improving. Successful shows like Transparent (even with a cis lead actor), Orange is the New Black, and CBS’s new pilot Doubt normalize seemingly “diverse” casts, in terms of race, religion, and gender. But the process is not finished. In 2017, trans exclusionary radical feminism is still ingrained in the feminist movements because of the overhanging ideas of second wave feminism. TERFs police physical gender and seem to want claim over the oppression of trans women face as oppression of their own,
even though trans women arguably face more oppression than cis women given society’s problem with femininity. Lesbian women who appear more male are often even treated better than feminine women simply because masculinity is a societal default, as well as more acceptable—it’s better for a woman to “dress” like a man than to “become” one, like a trans man. In fact, the term “dyke,” which refers to hyper-masculine lesbian women, comes from the term hermaphrodite because they are by some believed to possess or have possessed both sex organs—as intersex people do.[18] The fact is, maleness is always treated more acceptably. It’s just worse for trans women because many wrongly believe they “choose” to become females, which is the largest injustice a designated male at birth
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The elements of gender are about more than being born with a penis, a vagina, both, or neither; they are about how one feels about oneself, and how they choose to express that outwardly or not.
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could perpetrate—go against the patriarchal structure that would have favored them. When dust turns to dust, a woman is a woman who identifies as a woman; it is as simple as that. A man is a man who identifies as a man; period. Yet, many in our society continue to assume everyone to be cis, everyone to be straight, until proven “guilty” or “perverse.” But the problems with feminism seem to be getting washed out by powerful and inclusive feminist movements such as intersectional and trans inclusionary feminism. Rather than vilifying the patriarchal structure of society, those that continue to not accept trans women are villainizing penises as the cause of oppression and problems in their
own lives, which some trans women don’t even have; they choose to police the gender identities of people they don’t understand rather than working to understand those identities and the true minutiae of gender. Those refusing to see gender as a societal construct fail to realize that when you take away gender, nothing is inherently more important or functional; everything is just biological and existent by nature. The pushback oppression complex itself demonstrates the inherent nature of human beings, which has continued to be fostered by the patriarchal, cisgendered, heterosexual, white favorable structure of society. All in all, the LGBTQIAP+ communities, along with feminist communities, are working to incorporate the not at all taboo “T” into the mix. But radical feminists and stigmas among certain gay men still prove problematic in their conservation of foundational ideas from the second wave. Cissexism, the idea that all those with penises are male and all those with vaginas are female, can be just as harmful as sexism. Transmisogyny, the deliberate discrimination against trans people—women specifically—can be just as harmful as misogyny. And oppression by people of the queer community toward others in the community can be just as harmful as oppression by those outside. In-group camaraderie is more important now than ever before, as the future seems to hold not only perceptual challenges for trans and other LGBTQIAP+ individuals, but legal and policy challenges from President Donald Trump, his Vice President, Mike Pence, as well as a Republican-controlled House, Senate, and conservative Supreme Court. Mobilizing everyone around the fact that we are all important and equal in our plights for equality must be a hallmark in the journey forward for the feminist movement everywhere. •
[1] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists (New York: Vintage Books, 2014), iBook, 35. [2] “Suffragette’s Racial Remark Haunts College”, The New York Times, May 05, 1996, accessed November 10, 2016. [3] Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 50th Anniversary ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1963), 7. [4] Susan Stryker, Transgender History (Berkeley: Seal Press, 2008), 108. [5] Linda J. Nicolson, Feminism/Postmoderism (New York: Routledge, 1990), 365. [6] Ibid. [7] “TDoR 2016 Press Release,” Transgender Europe, November 9, 2016, accessed November 10, 2016. [8] Ann P. Hass, Ph.D, Philip L. Rodgers, Ph.D, and Jody L. Herman, Ph.D, Suicide Attempts Among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults, report, School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles, January 28, 2014, 2, accessed November 22, 2016. [9] Danielle Moodie-Mills, “Commentary: The Invisible Lives of Transgender Women of Color,” NBC News, February 13, 2015, accessed November 10, 2016. [10] Ava Vidal, “‘Intersectional Feminism’. What the Hell Is It? (And Why You Should Care),” The Telegraph, January 15, 2014, accessed November 10, 2016. [11] Ibid. [12] Ibid. [13] Carol Anne Douglas, Love and Politics: Radical Feminist and Lesbian Theories (San Francisco: ISM Press, 1990), 65. [14] Neil A. Campbell and Jane B. Reece, Biology, 7th ed. (San Francisco: Pearson, Benjamin Cummings, 2005), 287. [15] Janet Mock Joins Piers Morgan, perf. Janet Mock and Piers Morgan, CNN, February 05, 2014, accessed November 10, 2016. [16] Ibid. [17] Susan Rohwer, “So He Wears a My Little Pony Backpack? Stop ‘gender Policing’ and Let Kids Be Kids,” Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2014, , accessed November 10, 2016. [18] Richard A. Spears, “On the Etymology of Dike,” The American Dialectic Society, 4th ser., 60 (1985): 318, accessed November 10, 2015, doi:10.2307/454909.
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How Our Tax Code Inflates the Cost of Health Care Garry Canepa / Political Science and Economics 2019
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espite our nation’s deep political divide, there is consensus that reducing rising healthcare costs should be a top policy priority.[1] While overall U.S. prices grew on average at below 2% in 2016, health care grew at 4%.[2] For decades, healthcare costs have continued to grow faster than our economy with no signs of stopping. Health care constitutes 17% of our Gross Domestic Product, but has failed to produce health outcomes to justify its bloated size. By comparison, France, Canada, and Australia have healthcare sectors constituting 11.5%, 10.4% and 9.5% of their GDPs, respectively.[3] Despite the lower expenditures and older populations, these countries produce better health outcomes. [4][5] Although the U.S. pays more for health care than any other nation per person, over 11% of U.S. adults are uninsured, putting both their financial and physical wellbeing in jeopardy.[6][7] Lawmakers and the public must seriously consider how the healthcare system has been allowed to balloon as it has, and how it can be stopped. Part of the blame undoubtedly rests on the U.S. tax code. By subsidizing health care’s expansion, healthcare affordability and fiscal sustainability are placed at ever greater risk.
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A major tax giveaway for the healthcare industry is the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, which allows employers to contribute to their employees’ health insurance plans tax-free. Unlike salaries and wages, employer contributions to these plans aren’t subject to payroll and income taxes. This encourages employers to provide more generous health insurance plans to their workers in lieu of taxable income, regardless of whether employees actually need the additional coverage. In effect, the tax code allows businesses to overspend on health care, and underspend on wages and salaries. While having the opposite effect today, the healthcare tax exclusion was initially meant to encourage widespread insurance coverage. During the price and wage controls of WWII, in an effort to appease unions, the government allowed businesses to provide health insurance benefits to employees free from federal taxation. [8] This was extremely successful in encouraging employers to offer health coverage for millions of American workers, removing the
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need to adopt a universal healthcare system. While other Anglo-Nations have adopted a single-payer system, allowing the government to serve as the health insurance provider for its citizens, the U.S. continues to rely heavily on private insurance.[9] There is near consensus among economists that this tax exclusion, while encouraging greater healthcare coverage through employment, serves to increase the overall cost of
For decades, healthcare costs have continued to grow faster than our economy with no signs of stopping.
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health care for everyone.[10] This opinion is held by renowned economists on both sides of the political aisle. Lawrence Summers, who served under the Clinton administration and Gregory Mankiw, who served under the Bush Jr. administration, co-wrote an article stating that “if people have insurance that pays for too much, they don’t have enough skin in the game... They may not try hard enough to buy services from the lowest cost provider. Such behavior can drive national health spending
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beyond what is necessary and desirable.”[11] By taxing health care like salaries and wages, or at least capping the amount of insurance benefits that can be tax-free, workers would be smarter about their healthcare shopping. They would act more cost effectively and help to keep the overall cost of health care down by not over-consuming. Not only is this exclusion inefficient, it is expensive, costing the federal government over $210 billion in forgone tax revenues.[12] That figure is predicted to increase to $376 billion by 2026. The healthcare exclusion is also grossly unfair, primarily benefiting the rich. In 2016, the exclusion was worth about $1,000 to Americans on average, compared to over $3,000 for the top 20%.[13] The exclusion was worth a mere $20 for the bottom 20%. This isn’t knowledge confined to the halls of academia; policy makers from both sides are well aware of the harmful effects of the tax exclusion, as shown by their healthcare plans. On the left, capping the tax exclusion is somewhat implemented in the Affordable Care Act through the “Cadillac Tax,” which subjects expensive, employer-provided health insurance plans to a 40% tax. However, its implementation has been delayed to 2020 and will likely be delayed again.[14] On the right, the “A Better Way” GOP healthcare plan proposes something similar: a cap on employer healthcare benefits, limiting how much of employer provided healthcare benefits would be tax-free.[15] However, information such as where the cap would be placed, or what tax rate benefits above the cap would be subject to, has yet to be provided. Yet as economists and policy makers acknowledge the need to reform the healthcare tax exclusion, employers and workers have been quick to defend it.[16] Businesses want to keep providing generous tax-free benefits in lieu of taxable wage and salary increases. Workers, especially heavily insured union workers, want to preserve these benefits. Although most Americans believe they
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already pay too much in federal taxes, a tax on healthcare benefits is a necessity to control rising costs.[17] If left uncontrolled, Americans will have to pay even higher taxes down the road to finance an even larger healthcare sector. And this long term view should be
to bloat, interests become more powerful and fight harder to preserve the status quo, which has become even more valuable to them. As the profits of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries increase, they will have more to lose from fundamental reform and will fight aggressively to keep the system tilted in their favor. And as the healthcare exclusion becomes more valuable for the rich, who will also strive to maintain it, the burden of higher healthcare costs will continue to be borne disproportionately by the most vulnerable: the uninsured and underinsured.[20][21] A meaningful cap on employer provided healthcare benefits, while not being a silver bullet, would be an effective first step in improving our tax code and healthcare system. If not implemented, the vicious cycle will expand further, with healthcare expenses crowding out productive investments, only to level off when taxes are high. Benefits will be slashed and the healthcare industry will be even wealthier and more bloated. This is an issue we cannot afford to ignore, and it deserves to be a major political concern. •
The tax exclusion creates a vicious cycle between our tax code and healthcare system, the rising cost of one leading to the same effect for the other.
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more of a concern for Americans. According to a 2012 poll, there also appears to be near consensus among economists that the rising cost of health care will inevitably lead to either cuts in healthcare benefits, tax hikes for the average American, or both.[18] While employer healthcare benefits appear to be “free,” we will all end up paying for it through higher costs, higher taxes, and less spending on essential government services. The tax exclusion creates a vicious cycle between our tax code and healthcare system, the rising cost of one leading to the same effect for the other. Due to the exclusion, the healthcare system continues to expand because of its favorable tax treatment. This expansion leads to rising costs and forces government budgets to allocate more tax revenues to healthcare, inevitably forcing policymakers to raise tax rates. The hike in tax rates makes providing healthcare benefits ever more attractive due to its tax-free status in a high tax environment. The cycle continues as more of our economy’s resources go toward the healthcare industry and away from more socially productive areas. Health care, rather than contributing to economic growth, would be taking a bigger portion of it, referred to by economists as “rent-seeking.”[19] And not only is this cycle self-reinforcing, but also self-sustaining. As the healthcare industry continues
Get To Know The Columnist Garry is a fourth-year Political Science and Economics Major hailing from South Shore Massachusetts, but still clings to his Boston roots. During his time at Northeastern, he has co-oped at a state regulatory agency and is currently co-oping at a think tank. His areas of interest include tax policy, international trade and economic inequality. While holding strong views on the problems of the U.S. tax code, he is ultimately set on studying tax law, to earn a living from the dysfunctional system. In his free time he enjoys video games, eating Chinese food and watching Curb.
[1] DiJulio, Bianca, Ashley Kirzinger, Bryan Wu, and Mollyann Brodie. "Data Note: Americans’ Challenges with Health Care Costs." The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. March 02, 2017. Accessed November 12, 2017. [2] "Medical care prices rise 4 percent over the year ending November 2016 : The Economics Daily." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. December 19, 2016. Accessed November 12, 2017. [3] "Health expenditure, total (% of GDP)." Health expenditure, total (% of GDP) | Data. Accessed November 12, 2017. [4] "Population ages 65 and above (% of total)." Population ages 65 and above (% of total) | Data. Accessed November 12, 2017. [5] Schneider, Eric C., Dana O. Sarnak, David Squires, Arnav Shah, and Michelle M. Doty. "Mirror, Mirror 2017:International Comparison Reflects Flaws and Opportunities for Better U.S. Health Care." Mirror, Mirror 2017: International Comparison Reflects Flaws and Opportunities for Better U.S. Health Care. July 2017. Accessed November 12, 2017. [6] Brink, Susan. "What Country Spends The Most (And Least) On Health Care Per Person?" NPR. April 20, 2017. Accessed November 12, 2017. [7] Auter, Zac. “U.S. Uninsured Rate Rises to 11.7%.” Gallup.com, 10 July 2017. [8] Jaffe, Susan. “Health Policy Brief: Tax Debate.” Health Affairs, 9 July 2009. [9] Weller, Chris. "5 people from around the world share what it's like to have single-payer healthcare." Business Insider. August 09, 2017. Accessed November 13, 2017. [10] Barro, Josh. "The Cadillac Tax: Why Economists, but Few Others, Love It." The New York Times. October 05, 2015. Accessed November 12, 2017. [11] N. Gregory Mankiw And Lawrence H. Summers. "Uniting Behind the Divisive ‘Cadillac’ Tax on Health Plans." The New York Times. October 24, 2015. Accessed November 12, 2017. [12] "Analytical Perspectives." The White House. May 26, 2017. Accessed November 12, 2017. [13] "Tax Benefit of the Exclusion of Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits and Deduction for Self-Employed Health Insurance Premiums by Expanded Cash Income Percentile, 2016." Tax Policy Center. August 16, 2016. Accessed November 12, 2017. [14] Lemieux, Jeff, and Chad Moutray. "About That Cadillac Tax." Health Affairs. April 25, 2016. Accessed November 12, 2017. [15] Office of the Speaker of the House. A Better Way. Accessed November 12, 2017. [16] Abelson, Reed. "Health Care Tax Faces United Opposition From Labor and Employers." The New York Times. July 21, 2015. Accessed November 12, 2017. [17] Gallup, Inc. "Taxes." Gallup. com. Accessed November 12, 2017. [18] "Healthcare and Taxes." IGM Forum . July 18, 2012. Accessed November 12, 2017. [19] Robb, Greg. "Nobel economist takes aim at rent-seeking banking and healthcare industries." MarketWatch. March 06, 2017. Accessed November 12, 2017. [20] Ibid. [21] Collins, Sara R., Petra W. Rasmussen, Sophie Beutel, and Michelle M. Doty. "The Problem of Underinsurance and How Rising Deductibles Will Make It Worse." The Commonwealth Fund. May 20, 2015. Accessed November 12, 2017.
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Milton Posner / Journalism 2021
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ias is a symptom of an imperfect news industry trying to cover a far from perfect world. This can mean exhibiting loyalty to specific parties or factions, partiality for a specific public figure, or favoring one viewpoint on an issue over others without proper justification. These predilections will inevitably be reflected in the work that journalists and editors produce. The resulting problem is not an insufficiency of impartiality; it is that media groups that reject the notion that they produce slanted content are misleading the public about their organizational slant and the slants of their individual journalists. While these organizations should try to avoid excessive amounts of bias, they must also acknowledge that it will invariably be present in the majority of their work. Such an acknowledgement would improve journalistic transparency and credibility, something that is badly needed at a time when a majority of voters across the political spectrum profess distrust in the overall trustworthiness of mainstream media sources.[1]
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News organizations that claim to be free of bias usually do so in an effort to lend credibility to their coverage and, in some cases, delegitimize the coverage of others. The most notable instance of this is Fox News, which regularly criticizes the “mainstream media’s” news coverage, lambasting other networks and newspapers for perceived bias and irresponsible reporting. There is an obvious motive for this approach: It is an attempt to appeal to viewers with corresponding biases. This strategy, especially in recent months, has worked well for news networks, increasing their ratings as they played to certain political demographics. However, what works for ratings often doesn’t work in terms of responsible journalistic practice, and this instance is no exception. It is no coincidence that the media groups with the largest savior complexes, those that claim to occupy the lone spot in the eye of the swirling cyclone of spin and slant, are often the ones with the most obvious biases. This
is the news business’s equivalent to keeping a folder on your computer labeled “absolutely not porn.” The assumption is that people will buy into the charade as long as it is concealed in the most obvious way imaginable. They are by no means fooling anyone; the vast majority of viewers have some awareness of each organization’s slant. News organizations that unequivocally deny the influence of bias in their work are both incorrect and misguided. They all exhibit bias and should not consider it an embarrassment
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Bias is a symptom of an imperfect news industry trying to cover a far from perfect world. nupoliticalreview.com
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or a weakness. Even a news source consisting entirely of centrist journalists and devoid of any corporate sponsors or special interests cannot ensure true impartiality. It is human nature to form opinions about our world and the issues we face. We take in information and analysis, process it through the filter of our personal beliefs, and produce our opinions. This idea forms the basis for society’s need for accurate journalism. Professional journalists, in spite of what President Trump would have us believe, are human beings, and thus subject to human nature. They aren’t doing themselves or their readers any favors by pretending that their biases don’t exist. Complete denial or evasion of bias can also lead to weak, ineffective coverage. A paper, station, or network wary of being called out on its perceived bias will often go out of its way to show deference to all sides regardless of undeniable culpability, objective wrongdoing, or faulty reasoning. This was blatantly apparent with much of the coverage of Donald nupoliticalreview.com
newspaper like the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal, or one of the Internet media startups that seem to be multiplying by the day, bias has a number of ways of manifesting itself in news coverage. Once the consumer understands the universality of bias and the role it plays in the news they take in, they can continue consuming news with a fairer, clearer, more educated perspective. We, as news consumers, like to think that we have an ironclad grasp on the events of the day. We want to believe that the things we read are indisputably true and free of slant, and that we can quickly jump from reading to understanding to disseminating to debating. But this is not and cannot be the case. Being an informed member of the voting public requires a comprehension of the biases and predetermined stances of both our favorite media sources and the major industry players we ignore or eschew. It takes a good deal of knowledge, experience, and time to be able to competently detect and evaluate bias, but every American should learn to do it. Only then can we consume news with a discerning eye, keeping ourselves informed while keeping our guards up against constructing unnecessary echo chambers for ourselves. Bias will always be a part of our minds, and it seeps from there into the news we read regardless of our best intentions. It’s time to stop pretending otherwise. •
Columns
Trump’s presidential campaign; established, respected news organizations took many of his preposterous claims and obvious lies way too seriously. Many of these networks balked at the idea of ignoring or swiftly dismissing these statements for fear of being labeled as prejudiced against Trump. A news organization that exercises this sort of excessive caution when reporting on political scandals and charlatan candidates is abdicating one of its fundamental responsibilities to the public. Journalists, in many ways, are the watchdogs of society, tasked with holding the powerful accountable, keeping the public informed, and putting important information into the appropriate context. In order to effectively do their jobs, they need to assume a kind of protective responsibility toward their readers and viewers. They cannot endlessly agonize over what a company, political organization, individual, or other media group will say about them if truthful, diligent reporting gives off the appearance of slant. Many stories force fair-minded journalists to take a position; this is often necessary to effectively convey and analyze information and is not an inherent evil to be renounced. Impartiality and centrism are not always the same thing, and, for that reason, bias can often be a positive force. This is especially true if news consumers can vary their media intake, absorbing news from respectable outlets on both sides of the political spectrum. For their part, news consumers must understand the slant of each of their regular media sources, as well as the major media sources they don’t avail themselves of. Once they acknowledge this, they can consume their news with a better understanding of how it is being shaped. The press’ political preferences aren’t nearly as problematic as they are often portrayed, so long as the public is aware of them. Accepting inherent bias in any type of news coverage is an important step for anyone wanting to become a more educated news consumer. Once a source’s slant is understood, its coverage can be put into a larger perspective. The flaws of opinionated journalism can be taken into account, such as lies, distortions of the truth, omissions of facts or perspectives, which stories are covered, the time and priority given to each, and the quality of the arguments presented on all sides of a contentious topic. Whether it be a classic, well-regarded
It is no coincidence that the media groups with the largest savior complexes, those that claim to occupy the lone spot in the eye of the swirling cyclone of spin and slant, are often the ones with the most obvious biases.
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Get To Know The Columnist Milton Posner is a first-year Journalism student from Los Angeles, California. He is fascinated with politics, sports, and the way they are covered, and wants to pursue a career to that effect. When he isn’t examining the landscape of the American news industry, he can be found singing, playing guitar, watching political satire, and fearlessly wearing his beloved Lakers jacket on the streets of Boston. He knows how mad the last one makes you and doesn’t care. [1] Jonathan Easley, “Poll: Majority Says Mainstream Media Publishes Fake News,” The Hill, May 24, 2017. [2] Seth Ackerman, “The Most Biased Name in News,” FAIR, July 1, 2001. [3] Jonathan Mahler, “CNN Had a Problem. Donald Trump Solved It.,” The New York Times Magazine, April 4, 201. [4] Pamela Engel, “Here Are The Most-And Least-Trusted News Outlets In America,” Business Insider, October 21, 2014. [5] Jeremy Diamond, “Trump launches all-out attack on the press,” CNN, June 1, 2016. [6] Nicholas Confessore and Karen Yourish, “$2 Billion Worth of Free Media for Donald Trump,” The New York Times, March 15, 2016. [7] “Donald Trump’s File,” PolitiFact.
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