SLUH
The voice of the student left at St. Louis U. High
Friday, February 26, 2010
Volume 1, Issue 4
Class Warfare:
Missouri House passes prejudicial bill
Ben Minden-Birkenmaier Editor On Thursday, February 12th, the Missouri House passed a bill that would require people who receive certain types of government assistance to pass drug screening programs before they can recieve any government funds. This bill would also require lawmakers to pass drug screening or face certain penalties. Besides possible concerns about the constitutionality of the search process, critics have also raised questions as to the discriminatory nature of this bill. They point out that it targets mainly the impoverished, ignoring the fact that illegal drug usage is a problem that affects people of every social class. As articulated by professor Robert O. Keel of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, drug use is a society-wide problem that affects those on every economic level. The illegal use of many legal drugs, such as alchohol or nicotine is, in fact, much more prevalent in the middle and upper classes, and recreational use of prescription pharmaceuticals, as well as use of party drugs such as ecstasy and LSD, is a mainly middle-to-upper class problem. Creating a bill ostentatiously for the purpose of combatting drug use, but which only targets the poorest of the poor, is a discriminatory stereotype that ignores the realities of the larger drug use problem in America. Backers of the House bill make the argument that because welfare recipients accept public funds, they should be held to a higher standard when it comes to drug use. But this argument ignores the fact that every citizen of the United States is a beneficiary of public funds, and is indebted to society and to governmental infrastructure. For the first fifteen to twenty years of every citizen’s life, he or she drives on public roads, walks on public sidewalks, goes to schools that benefit from public
funding (yes, even SLUH students benefit from public funding in the form of the lunch milk program), and eats food, takes medicine, and uses products that are checked and guaranteed safe by the FDA, all without paying a cent in taxes. These services are provided by society, by the taxes of those around us, and we are therefore as indebted to this society as any welfare recipient. But we do not have to pass drug screenings to use these services. Under this bill, only a certain section of society would have to undergo screening in order to make use of certain public services: the poor, the ones most in need of these services. To only target that one section of society, while ignoring the same problems in other segments of society, is unfairly prejudicial. Some lawmakers argue that money from welfare, unlike other services, can be directly used to purchase illegal drugs. “We’re not going to subsidize drug use by welfare beneficiaries”, said Republican Speaker of the House Bryan Pratt, according to Missouri news outlet KansasCity.com. This sentiment makes a logical point, in theory: stop supplying drug users with public money, and they will either stop doing drugs so that they can have money to buy food, or they will die. Either way, public funds will not be paying for illegal drug use. In reality, however, the situation is much more complex. It is very uncommon for addicts of drugs such as heroin to be able to suddenly stop using drugs when they are no longer able to afford them. Instead, they more often react with violence, doing whatever they can, including stealing, to obtain money or goods that they can exchange for the drugs that they feel they need. They may start to rely on family members (who, themselves often at low income levels, cannot afford to support an addict), or, if their family is uncooperative, may threaten or use violence against them to obtain money for drugs. To
think that the drug problems of low income addicts can be solved simply by cutting off their funds is naive and short-sighted. The best proven, effective means of attacking drugs in low-income areas is the use of addiction counseling programs, in which trained counselors meet with addicts to fight their addiction and help them become fuctioning members of society. Missouri does have some state-run drug treatment programs, but, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the waiting lists for these programs are already lengthy. If lawmakers truly cared about combating the drug problem in low-income neighborhoods and making sure that federal money is not used to purchase illegal drugs, they should divert more funding to programs such as these, programs that focus on working with addicts to beat their addiction, rather than cutting them off from financial support. As it is, the current bill is nothing more than class warfare against the least fortunate members of our society.
Second place?
Falling behind in the green revolution
Joe Klein Editor
On June 26, 2009, the American Clean Energy and Security Act was passed by the House. While this bill is not yet law yet, coupled with many investments included in last year’s stimulus package, it shows a dramatic and long-overdue change in our country’s policies toward clean energy. This newfound awareness, on the cusp of a green revolution, gives us a window of opportunity to become a world
(continued on the next page)
2
February 26, 2010
1.4
Green Revolution
(continued from the previous page)
leader in the development and deployment of green technologies. Unfortunately, because of our slow response, we have been left with too little, too late, and may have to accept a number-two position in that field—second to China. Let’s take high-speed rail, for example. Just over a month ago, the Federal Railroad Administration began doling out $8 billion in funding from the Recovery Act to begin construction of clean, efficient high-speed rail networks around the country (including one connecting St. Louis and Chicago). There is no doubt that this is a long-overdue step in the direction of sustainable, green transportation and job creation, but is it ambitious enough? Not in the least bit. One of the first lines planned to open, a track between Tampa and Orlando, will open, barring any unexpected circumstances, no earlier than 2015. And that’s just one line, out of many, the rest of which will not be operational for many years after that. China, on the other hand, is building new railways at a relatively astonishing rate. By 2020, they will have invested $300 billion in high-speed rail, expanding their network to cover 50,000 kilometers (just over 31,000 miles), a gargantuan size, dwarfing the $8 billion that we have allocated to create a network of a much smaller magnitude. The arrival of such high demand for clean technologies opens the door for massive job creation to take place; if solar panels are in demand, for example, workers will be needed to manufacture them and install them, therefore establishing thousands of stable,
reliable jobs. The manufacturing base has been decimated in recent years, and this green movement could very well fuel it resurgence. However, such a revitalization requires investment on part of our government—funds from the stimulus package, spent with the intention of creating said jobs domestically, were distributed with that purpose. Most recently, General Electric announced the construction of a 600-megawatt wind farm in Texas. All seemed well, until it was revealed that $450 million of federal stimulus funds would be used to the manufacture wind turbines for that plant—in China. If reviving and retooling the manufacturing base is to be done, this complete disregard for our industry must come to a halt; China has already topped the U.S. to become the largest manufacturer of solar panels and wind turbines in the world, and if this seeming endorsement of stimulating Chinese industry by our largest corporations continues, that disparity will grow even further, and the green sector of our economy—with its job opportunities—will deteriorate even more. The goal of anybody advocating for a transition to a clean energy economy is, ultimately, an independence from foreign oil. If we do, in fact, wean off our addiction to it, that action must take place sooner rather than later, for the longer we put it off, the greater the possibility that we would not be freeing ourselves of a dependence but instead shifting it, so we may eventually be reliant on, for example, solar panels and wind turbines built in China, not here. We’ve been given a prime opportunity to give American manufacturing a new life. Let’s not let it go to waste.
Obama’s vows against “Don’t ask don’t tell”
As shown in a USA Today feature from April 2008, use of Eric Lewis stop-loss, an order forcibly extending soldiers’ tours of duty, has Contributor
In his first State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama promised to finally fulfill his campaign promise to rescind the military’s current policy towards homosexuals, popularly known as “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT). This policy, passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton as a compromise measure after Clinton’s failed attempt to overturn the policy during his first term, states that officers are not allowed to ask enlisted men and women about their sexuality, and gay enlisted soldiers are not to tell any of their fellow soldiers, regardless of rank, of their sexuality. Any publicly homosexual soldier is immediately discharged, regardless of record, previous commendations, or mission-critical status. America is currently embroiled in a two-front war in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Troop numbers in Iraq have quickly decreased under the Obama administration, but fighting in Afghanistan promptly accelerated as America returned its focus, according to Radio Free Europe from June of 2009. Obama has committed 30,000 troops to another deployment to Afghanistan, all of whom are expected to be on the ground in Afghanistan by the end of May according to the president’s announcement at West Point in November of last year. He has not yet gotten around to repealing “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” however, depriving the armed forces of necessary personnel. One might argue that a country with a population of 300 million has soldiers to spare, but the statistics suggest otherwise.
increased 43 percent since 9/11. A report from the Government Accountability Office estimates that the Federal government has had to spend $95.4 million recruiting and another $95.1 million training replacements for the nearly ten thousand men and women discharged by order of DADT from when it was passed in 1994 through 2003. This statistic fails to include people like Lieutenant Stephen Friske who simply chose not to reenlist solely because of frustration with the dishonesty DADT demands. In an interview with USA Today, Friske claimed that he was not the only person to do so, and said, “you’ll never be able to tabulate” how many soldiers had withheld service for similar reasons. DADT does more proven harm currently than any feared lack of unit cohesion could hope to do. Naysayers have argued that allowing homosexuals to publicly serve in the military will place American soldiers at greater risk, given Islamic extremists’ anti-homosexual zeal, but such an argument is unacceptable appeasement. Not only is DADT an ineffective and harmful policy, but from both a legal and moral perspective, it cannot be allowed to stand. The Declaration of Independence claims that all men are created equal, so should any man’s sexuality eliminate his right to defend his country? The Fourteenth Amendment promises equal protection of the law to all citizens. Is a homosexual not a citizen? The Civil Rights Act forbids descrimination in employment on the grounds of race and sex. Is sexual orientation so much of a stretch?
(continued on the next page)
February 26, 2010
1.4
DADT
(continued from the previous page)
DADT may protect us from the potential danger of unit incohesiveness due to homophobia, but it weakens our military by
depriving it of willing and skilled soldiers, both in recruits turned away and veterans discharged. Whatever your personal view toward the homosexual lifestyle, the evidence suggests that DADT is not the proper course of action, so perhaps it is time for a change.
Farming in America Thomas Dempsey Contributor
I love Jack in the Box’s Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger. It is probably one of my favorite burgers. The two buns and two patties have sixty-five grams of total fat, two of which come from trans fat and 27 from saturated fat. It has a whopping 937 Calories and 126 milligrams of cholesterol. The juicy burger has 1,837 milligrams of sodium and, thankfully, 41 grams of protein, according to the online menu. You can already infer that I am not a vegetarian. I identify as a Republican, yet am very open minded and am willing to see the other side. So when I wondered what made up my burger, I approached the search from a different standpoint than most of the typical readers of the SLUH Progressive. By 1906, America had a problem. The meat packing industry was far from sanitary, and rumors abounded of humans being ground in with the ground beef. Upton Sinclair’s fictionalized but powerful account of the industry, The Jungle, raised concerns about the the way we get our meat. With time, however, we felt better about our meat and put the issue on the back burner in our minds. But things haven’t changed so much. Our meat is still mass-produced, not farm fresh. Organics have a chance of purifying our meat market, yet only 2 percent of beef production is organic according to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Organic production is just our latest attempt to bring us back to the image that we see on the front of our canned goods of lush fields of green. And don’t get me wrong—the organic movement has had some success, but at a heavy cost to our wallets. Big companies such as Tyson are able to sell their meat cheaper and to the average American; to most of us, the cost of our food comes before the health of the food. So what happens to the rest of America’s foods? Corn has become the United States’ miracle plant. Almost every animal that will eventually go to slaughter eats some form of corn-based meal. Corn is usually used as filler and always as a substitute for a natural diet, such as grass. Some sources will tell you that there are only ten strands of corn left! We have managed to culture it from a weed into an edible plant. Land grant universities use to breed corn and create hundreds of hybrids, but we have chosen the best and lost the rest. Google “land grant universities breeding corn,” and you will find that the University of Illinois still breeds hybrid strands, but commercially, we have limited ourselves by limiting the crop’s diversity. Farming these days is radically different from the image we see in things like Monsanto’s latest TV spot about ‘farm families.’ Most farmers have little control over their own crop or cattle. Corporations like Tyson have successfully forced their farmers to sign contracts to stay in business. By doing this, the farmers must
3
continue to meet Tyson’s standards or be terminated. Techniques have changed, too. From a satellite image, a farmer can plant his crops to maximize his land efficiency. A Cato Institute publication shows a remarkable graph of farm productivity. From the graph, one can see that from 1800 until 1938 farmers were at the same rate of production. However, by 1980, corn productivity increased exponentially, to several times the production levels of the 1930s. Basically, as phrased by the USDA, “we produce at least 20 percent more corn on 25 percent fewer acres than in 1930.” To add to all this corn confusion, the U.S. government since 1996 has subsidized corn, even in the face of multi-million dollar industry profits. By doing this, they have created an artificial price floor, leading to overproduction. The U.S. gives a lot of this corn away, some of it to third world countries, supplying 56 percent of the world’s food aid by doing so, according to the Guardian. With this surplus, we have managed to put corn into everything. Glucose, dextrose, America’s favorite fructose, plus the fact that we feed it to all of our cows, pigs, chickens, and even fish. Is this healthy? Can we know? My basic knowledge of the issue goes like this: the bacteria strain E. coli 0157:h7, made famous by numerous meatrelated illnesses, can exist inside a cow without the cow showing any signs of illness and has no effect on the cow at all—but it is deadly to humans. Most cows live in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, standing knee-deep in manure. Cows are more prone to catching E. coli in this condition. However, since cows are fed corn, the acid in their stomach is stronger than the acid in a cow fed grass. The strand 0157:h7 has developed a special resistance to the highly acidic environment. Because 0157:h7 is more resistant to acidic environments, the human natural defense to E. coli, stomach acid, is too weak to destroy the bacteria. When you consider that over one hundred cows have parts in every patty you eat, according to vegblog.org the chances of one of them having E. coli skyrockets. The meat packing industry has a solution. If they dip the meat into ammonia, then the E. coli is killed. Some have issues with their meat being doused with ammonia, but most have no idea that this goes on. Since The Jungle, we have learned nothing. We have accepted fatty meats from disgusting conditions. Tyson and other big meat companies feed their cows corn and exploit the farmers they employ. If the farmers do not follow Tyson’s standards, then who will they sell their meat to? Tyson has become too large. If you want to argue that animals have feelings, then consider the amount of stress that is being released into their body, into the meat you will eat. It is not a lie to say a happy cow is a healthy cow. I would love to eat organic if I could, and I admire those who are willing to go vegetarian for the sake of boycotting this industry. I am sure there are many people who have a much stronger view on this issue than I do, but I would like to show that even from a conservative standpoint, one can still be very much for cultural change. Health in America starts with food, not with legislation.
4 “Shock and Awe” February 26, 2010
1.4
Iraq strategy meant more than bombs
Jack Newsham reconstruction, leaving seventeen Iraqi cement factories shuttered Editor while American companies rebuilt Iraq at ten times the price
Remember Iraq? No, not just the two dead soldiers in the paper every day. Not just the occupation with no clear exit strategy, nearly seven years since the invasion. We’re talking about 2003. We’re talking about Rupert Murdoch’s hopes for $20-a-barrel oil, Donald Rumsfeld’s expectations of “six days, six weeks, I doubt six months,” Dick Cheney’s swearing that we would “be greeted as liberators.” We’re talking about raising the flag over Baghdad, shock and awe, psy-ops, spider holes, light em up, bunker busters, the glory days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In retrospect, it looks like things didn’t exactly go according to plan. But looks can be deceiving. Iraq wasn’t just a war; it was the latest front for disaster capitalism, the latest corporatist bonanza, and one of the most recent examples of economic shock in action. From Chile to Russia to Iraq, the legacy of corruption and monstrosity continues unabated, from Basra to Baghdad, in the underreported buying and selling of Iraq. Most of us remember the start of the war, or at least parts of it. The shock-and-awe airstrikes. The two-week capture of all major cities. The rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch. But the part we don’t remember is the part that didn’t make the news. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. envoy to Iraq, arrived shortly after the invasion—in his words, while “Baghdad was on fire, literally”—and immediately began issuing privatization decrees from Saddam’s old Republican Palace. The line of thinking was best phrased by an investor at a conference in Washington, D.C.: “The best time to invest is when there is still blood on the ground.” By October, just seven months after the bombing began, the Washington Post reported that Bremer had instituted a 15 percent flat tax on Iraq, a proposal that has been rejected by Americans for our own country several times. Bremer ordered the borders flung open, and cheap imports flooded the country where factories were in shambles and unemployment at the time stood near 67 percent, as reported by Reuters. Yet as Iraq came ever closer to the edge—with rampant unemployment, severe revenue shortfalls, severe malnutrition affecting one in twelve Iraqi children, and the rest of the country receiving government-subsidized meals—Iraq’s government was increasingly pressured to privatize and sell out, as one adviser put it, “starting with the elimination of subsidies.” Back at home, Iraq was appearing more and more mouthwatering to the multinational corporations who stood to profit from rebuilding a country bombed into the Stone Age. Contractors like Halliburton, Bechtel, Parsons, and CH2M Hill were paid hundreds of millions to rebuild everything from infrastructure to “local democracy,” with the North Carolina company RTI given nearly 500 million dollars to bring fair and free elections to the Iraqi people. In an episode documented by the Associated Press, RTI was driven from the country when the CEO, a devout Mormon who hoped to persuade Iraqis to accept the Book of Mormon, blocked Islamic candidates from taking their elected positions. American companies took a no-bid monopoly on
the Iraqis could have worked for. As revealed in the Washington Post, Bremer had forbidden the Iraqi central bank from offering assistance to state-owned enterprises; the Iraq he envisioned was “open for business,” but on the auction block for anyone with close enough ties to the Bush administration. Whereas the Marshall Plan, to which President Bush strove to compare his reconstruction, was about rebuilding Europe’s infrastructures and economies, the Iraqi reconstruction was nothing but profiteering at the expense of everyone from the American taxpayer to the Iraqi construction worker. Chronic joblessness wasn’t the only thing rending Iraq. Those tasked with rebuilding the country were inept: John Agresto, tasked with rebuilding the education system of Iraq, admittedly knew nothing about Iraq and intentionally refrained from learning so as to keep an “open mind.” Only three people were alloted to the job of privatizing Iraq’s 200 state-owned companies. Iraqis, meanwhile, were growing impatient. Increasing numbers were turning to fundamentalism, with 70 percent of surveyed Iraqis polled supported an Islamic state, versus 21 percent six months prior. One worker of a state-owned factory interviewed by journalist Naomi Klein reported that he and his co-workers were afraid of the cuts that came with privatization, so much so, he swore, that if the plant was sold, “we will set the factory on fire...or we will blow ourselves up inside of it. But we will not be privatized.” So much for being “greeted as liberators.” The billions our government paid out to corporatist cronies for reconstruction didn’t do much good, either. Bechtel pulled out in 2006, citing “the overlay of violence.” The Baghdad Children’s Hospital, under a different contractor, had raw sewage sitting in the halls. Parsons, the engineering giant, completed six of the 142 clinics it was paid over one hundred million dollars to build. Nearly one hundred cases of reconstruction-related fraud were being investigated by the Inspector General’s Office by December 2006. This is where we are now. Iraq sits—though a more appropriate word may be festers—in decay after years of destruction and neglect. Though the economy is beginning to grow on the strength of Iraqis, explosions still punctuate daily life. Strategic Foresight Group, an Indian think tank, estimates that the invasion of Iraq inflicted over $2 trillion in opportunity costs on the country—that is, it forced the country down a path that wiped out a potential $2 trillion in economic growth. The plotters behind the sale of Iraq were just the latest incarnation of the Pinochets and the Yeltsins in the half-century debacle of market “liberation.” Though authoritarian-controlled markets are ultimately unsustainable, the shock therapy “cures” prescribed to them are like using a defibrillator on someone with pneumonia: extremely painful and of absolutely no benefit. There’s a lesson to be learned from the devastated economies, enriched instigators, violent implementations, and fatal results of the shock therapy movement: be ready, and be resilient. The next shocks are coming.