THE PROTEST Winter 2012
cover
The Social Media Revolution page 3
table of contents
3 the social media revolution 4 mary lou’s place 6 the tar sands part ii 10 occupy the dream 12 serving sustainability 14 choking on coal 16 reflections on namibia 18 one child, many consequences 20 sopa condemned 22 copyright code
the protest
| winter 2012
editor-in-chief matthew kovac feature editor anca ulea design editors corinne chin jack foster designers cameron albert-deitch yoona ha emma lehmann christine nguyen kathryn prescott photo editor kerri pang web editor jack foster assistant web editor lauren manning senior editors kathryn prescott charles rollet becca weinstein
photo by jack foster cover photos by jack foster
published by peace project, an asg-recognized and funded organization. the views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of peace project or the entire magazine staff.
The Social Media Revolution By Rafael Vizcaíno
T
he Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) have been the most recent attempts to curtail the Internet’s political potential. On Jan. 18, Wikipedia and Google among thousands of other websites, as well as millions of people on Twitter and Facebook, sharply protested against the repressive character of SOPA and PIPA. By that evening, several of the politicians who proposed the bills in the U.S. Congress had “changed their course.” By Jan. 20, these two bills had been brought to a complete standstill. That these two imposing bills were so abruptly stopped as a result of a massive campaign of public outcry demonstrates, once again, the Internet’s mighty political potential. The Web could be an inherently democratic medium that offers everyone a chance to be heard. Taking this possibility to its logical conclusion, the Internet has the potential to spark a global political coming-to-consciousness. The world has become increasingly aware of the Internet’s political potential, especially in recent years. Perhaps it all began with WikiLeaks, when in November 2010 the site began to release sensitive diplomatic cables that uncovered cases of corruption and misinformation around the globe. Indeed, WikiLeaks gave us the chance to literally see what our governments have been deliberately hiding for years. We know what happened next: the Arab Spring. Undeniably, the revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Yemen
and Libya, as well as many other places, relied on the Internet. It was not merely the fact that citizens organized massive protests against their governments through Twitter and Facebook, but that for the first time in history, the entire world could see these actions from the protesters’ point of view. YouTube exported these revolutionary movements to anyone with Internet access. That meant governments could no longer brutally suppress these movements with impunity — the whole world was watching. What the world realized with WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring was that the Internet did not merely have to be for entertainment or business. The Web is, in fact, the revolutionary tool of the 21st century. Protests in Spain, Greece, Chile and the United Kingdom all showed a relatively similar pattern. And then the unexpected happened: Occupy Wall Street, a movement that spread all around the world, mostly through the Internet. In 2011, there were two particular events in the United States that convincingly brought to the eyes of American elites the Internet’s political potential. First, there were the online mobilizations against Bank of America, Citibank and other banks that attempted to charge fees to “free” checking accounts. Secondly, there were the online mobilizations against Verizon Mobile when the company proposed fees to one-time bill payments. In these two particular instances, we united through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and online petition sites such as Change, iPetitions
In 2010, WikiLeaks began to release sensitive diplomatic cables that uncovered cases of corruption and misinformation around the globe. During the revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Yemen and Libya citizens used Twitter to mobilize and organize massive protests. The Syrian protests saw citizens use cell phones to film and upload the horrors of President Bashar Al-Assad’s crackdown on protesters to YouTube. In November 2011, Tumblr set up a page that allowed users to connect with U.S. representatives to share concerns about the Stop Online Piracy Act.
and Avaaz. And we gained a crucial victory. Furthermore, the recent events that brought SOPA and PIPA to a standstill are a similar victory for everyone that values democracy, plurality, and freedom of expression. But we must remain alert. If the Internet is the revolutionary tool of the 21st century, a counter-revolution will soon strike back. Let us be aware that the Internet’s political potential as an inherently democratic medium that offers everyone a chance to be heard is now explicit. And the world has never in its history had such great potential for a global political coming-to-consciousness. = THE PROTEST | WINTER ISSUE 3
Y R MA S ’ U LO E C PLA
“Mary Lou’s Place” helps victims of domestic violence along a difficult path toward recovery. BY SUSAN DU Illustrations by Corinne Chin
D
omestic violence is not an issue often visited in Evanston’s peculiar residential mix of college students and retirees. Yet since 1980, YWCA Evanston’s “Mary Lou’s Place” has been faithfully serving the North Shore as an emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence. Mary Lou’s Place serves around 500 women and children up to the age of 12 every year, and its location is undisclosed to protect its inhabitants. Residents can stay up to three months at Mary Lou’s, and must participate in counseling sessions to stay. Mary Lou’s counselors offer the women workshops in financial independence and health education, and offer sessions in music, art, and play therapy for the children. The goal is to not only provide emergency housing for those in need of sanctuary, but to put women on the path to becoming economically and emotionally self-sufficient. However, once a domestic violence survivor comes to the point of requiring emergency housing, healing is a longer and more complex process than one 90-day stint can achieve. Karen Schrage, clinical coordinator of Mary Lou’s Place, says it’s “not often at all” that women who complete their stay at the shelter immediately move on to acquire a personal residence for themselves and their children. “If she can find work pretty quickly upon getting to us, that definitely increases her chances,” Schrage says. “But it’s been rough.” Schrage says that in her 19 years of working at the shelter the most challenging aspect of her job is not knowing what happens to the families after they leave. “Some people do keep in touch,” she says. “Once in a while we’ll hear from someone who lived here. But for the most part I don’t have any idea what happens to the families. [Healing] definitely takes longer than three months.”
“HEALING DEFINITELY TAKES LONGER THAN THREE MONTHS” – Karen Schrage THE CHILDREN Currently, children living at Mary Lou’s Place attend school in Evanston and play with neighborhood friends afterward. Yet the impact of sudden homelessness often does leave lasting effects on child witnesses of domestic violence. For these children, often the most critical aspect of minimizing emotional disturbance is maintaining a semblance of stability. Wendy Dickson, YWCA program director, says Mary Lou’s Place counselors conduct one-on-one parenting classes with moms to help families deal with the stress of their situations. “The kids struggle when they’re here, and as much as we would like to judge the home that they came from, it’s the only home that they know,” Dickson says. “And so oftentimes they’re angry and they don’t want to be here, and they take it out on their moms or other kids or the staff.” Mary Lou’s Place has the capacity to house 32 women and their children. Frustration with their situations may cause children to act out and lash out against their counselors, Dickson says. “A lot of our kids struggle in school and are dealing with a lot of issues when they get there – academics is sort of the last thing on their plate they care about,” she says. After clients leave Mary Lou’s Place, they may go to live with relatives or find other
means of temporary housing. The exact amount of time it takes for a domestic violence survivor to find a permanent residence and stable employment naturally varies greatly case by case, but until they do, their children usually make each transition along with them. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services is a full-time child welfare service that presides over the foster and adoption system. In the case children bear witness or are themselves subject to violence in the home, DCFS representatives are required to review the suitability of their custody arrangements. Undoubtedly, in some cases, children are taken from their parents and shuffled into the foster system – a controversial move. DCFS’s ability to take kids away from parents is something that can keep victims from leaving abusive relationships or getting help, says Alicia Aiken, director of training at LAF, formerly known as the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. “Victims of DV are afraid of DCFS taking their children away, and afraid that a call to the police for help will result in the police calling DCFS,” she says. “Batterers manipulate this fear by threatening to call DCFS if the victim tries to separate.” LAF works with domestic violence survivors to secure their rights to protection from violent partners and custody of their children. Aiken says domestic violence victims with children are in a difficult situation. Staying
with an abuser can expose children to violence, but might also preserve stable housing and schooling. Leaving an abuser can disrupt schooling and expose children to a traumatic court battle and unsupervised visits with the batterer. There is always the risk that a DCFS investigator or a judge will disagree with the choices the victim makes and punish her for them. “Under Illinois law, DCFS can and does indicate DV victims as neglectful parents because they have been physically assaulted in front of their children,” Aiken says. Out of all the Evanston Police Department’s reports of domestic battery from 2009 to 2010, only a small percentage of victims chose to leave their homes for temporary shelter. Wendy Dickson of the YWCA says that although she feels she can truly make a difference in the programs she conducts through community schools and youth advocacy organizations, it’s easy for social workers to feel jaded from time to time. “It is a tough population to work with because they do continue to go back into these situations and sometimes we settle down and go ‘well, what have we done that has really made a difference?’” she says. “And that’s when we really have to take care of our staff and take care of each other and look for little improvements. What we may want as a social work staff may not be what the client wants, and you have to be able to live with that.” = THE PROTEST | WINTER ISSUE 5
THE TAR SANDS This is Part Two of a two-part series about pollution in Canada’s Alberta province stemming from the nearby oil sands extraction industry. Locals struggle with a precarious balancing act of reaping economic benefits from the industry at the cost of the damage oil projects wreak on aboriginal well-being. Check out our Fall 2011 issue for Part One of the series.
PART II Story and photos by Emma O’Connor
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ince the 1960s, aboriginal First Nation communities in northern Alberta have struggled to accept their economic dependence on the nearby oil sands industry, which local doctors, environmentalists and citizens say has dramatically harmed native health and lifestyle. In the Fort McKay First Nation community, which sits less than 40 kilometers north of some of the largest excavation sites, elders say they have witnessed the depletion of wild animal populations, the reduction of trap lands, and the pollution of air and waterways. Several studies in the last few years have echoed these concerns. A November 2007 study by Dr. Kevin Timoney revealed unhealthy levels of carcinogens and other toxins in fish, water and sediment downstream from the oil sands, and an October 2009 report by Dr. David Schindler and other independent scientists showed that the oil sands have contributed toxic compounds to the nearby Athabasca River. Much of the water pollution may stem from the tailings ponds that are caused by residual material left behind during the extraction of bitumen from the oil sands, as the ponds contain recycled Athabasca water and often leak into the watershed, according to a report by Pembina Corporate Consulting that used data from Environmental Defence, a Canadian environmental action organization. The 2008 report found that tailings ponds leak over 11 million liters of toxic water per day — or over four billion liters per year — into Albertan groundwater. Scientists from the University of Waterloo voiced concerns that Suncor’s Tar Island Dike leaked profusely into the Athabasca River for more than 40 years. It is these kinds of studies, coupled with his patients’ health worries, that have long interested Dr. John O’Connor, Fort McKay’s physician and health director (full
disclosure: O’Connor is the writer’s second cousin, once removed). O’Connor suspects that industry pollution may explain the elevated cancer rates he first questioned publicly in 2006. After noting unusually frequent cases of rare cancers, including bile duct cancer, in nearby Fort Chipewyan — another aboriginal reserve downstream from industry — O’Connor called for a comprehensive health review of the community. Instead of an investigation into carcinomatous health, however, O’Connor received an investigation into his own medical practice. Health Canada, Alberta Health and Environment Canada filed complaints with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, accusing O’Connor of provoking “mistrust” of the government and raising “undue alarm.” While the charges, which threatened his medical license, have since been dropped, O’Connor says both government and industry have yet to seriously evaluate aboriginal health concerns, choosing to disregard them in favor of endorsing oil sands development. “There’s a 30 percent higher rate of cancer, among them rare cancers, that can be directly linked to the toxins that Schindler, Timoney and everyone else have found,” O’Connor, 54, says. “We know those toxins are coming from the tar sands and we know the elders and multiple people in the community have talked about changes in the environment, in fish and in wildlife. But industry and government are still looking the other way.” Some industrial and governmental sources, including the Royal Society of Canada, have produced scientific reports that counter findings by Schindler and Timoney and deny concrete connections between elevated cancer rates and oil sands activity. O’Connor says most of these reports have involved flawed methods and limited information. In
July 2006, Alberta Health released a study that claimed that cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan were not higher than expected, but Dr. Yiqun Chen, the head of surveillance at the Alberta Cancer Board, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that she used incomplete data to prepare the analysis. Schindler, too, says he thinks government and industry scientists have used ineffective sampling programs when testing water contamination and have failed to adjust their methods in health studies to make them suitable for the small First Nation populations. “All you need to do to say that you can’t detect anything is to get a really terrible chemical lab and an incompetent sampling program that doesn’t sample enough or in the right places,” Schindler says. “I suspect it’s not malicious. It’s just ignorance. But when you get an operation this size, it’s time for ignorance to end.” Kimberley Nordbye, the stakeholder relations manager at Suncor, says in an e-mail that there are also flaws in the reports by Timoney and Schindler. “Both researchers have done some interesting research that has examined some aspects of the environment that have not been looked at extensively in the past,” Nordbye writes. “However, we believe that the data they generated cannot necessarily be extrapolated to the effects they are suggesting.”
ECONOMIC INTERESTS AT STAKE O’Connor, Schindler and Timoney say that the nationwide economic benefits provided by the oil sands industry have played a significant role in the provincial and federal governments’ reluctance to produce comprehensive pollution and health assessments. According to the Oil Sands Developers Group, oil sands projects are expected to generate $1.7 trillion in economic activity in Canada in the
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next 25 years. Moreover, the Fort McKay First Nation has itself benefited economically from the industrial presence. Chief Jim Boucher says Fort McKay first decided to seriously collaborate with industry after the European Economic Community made it more difficult for Canadian fur trappers to enter European markets, starting with the 1983 ban on imported seal pelts. Such legislation left many First Nation trappers with no source of income, Boucher says. “By 1985, the community faced a dire situation,” Boucher says. “So we tried to formulate different ways of working with the oil companies and government. We tried to be more proactive with respect to industry so that we could gain some economic employment and benefits from oil sands development.” After establishing one contracted janitorial company in 1986, Fort McKay has since developed the multi-million dollar Fort McKay Group of Companies, which employs over 500 native people and offers heavy equipment operation, materials delivery, site maintenance and other services to oil sands developers. In addition to the Group of Companies, most working residents of Fort McKay are employed by industry, Boucher says. According to Travis Davies, the spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the oil sands industry spent $1.3 billion on contracts with aboriginal companies in 2010. A survey by the Oil Sands Developers Group calculates that aboriginal companies have earned over $5 billion through collaboration with the oil sands industry in the last 12 years. Moreover, the oil and gas industry is the country’s largest employer of indigenous people, and the survey notes that over 1,700 native people in the Wood Buffalo region, which includes Fort McKay, held permanent jobs in the oil sands industry in 2010. Dianne Farkouh, the operations manager for the Oil Sands Developers Group, says there is “stiff competition” within the industry
to hire aboriginal people, and many oil sands companies actively recruit natives. Nordbye notes that in the first quarter of 2010, almost six percent of employees at Suncor were native people. The oil sands companies also contribute to First Nations community development. The OSDG survey found that oil companies provided over $5.5 million in 2010 for youth programs and cultural projects in native communities in the Wood Buffalo and neighboring Lac La Biche regions. Additionally, O’Connor says Suncor provided the equipment that allowed him to offer video conference calls to patients in Alberta when he moved temporarily to Nova Scotia in 2007. Boucher says that while the First Nation is still rarely consulted about new oil sands projects, Fort McKay and industry now have a “positive working relationship.” Fort McKay elder Wilfred Grandjambe, who has worked for both Suncor and Syncrude, says he also cannot ignore the financial advantages of Fort McKay’s proximity to industry. “I can’t say that the oil companies didn’t do anything good for the Fort McKay First Nation,” says Grandjambe, 74. “The kids have everything now. They’ve got nice houses, an arena for skating, schools and whatnot.” Indeed, Fort McKay residents express more frustration over governmental inaction than industry behavior, O’Connor says. He says the provincial and federal government shirk responsibility and let industry police itself. “Industry does what it does and it does it very well,” O’Connor says. “It needs to answer to its shareholders and it needs to make a profit and it’s doing it. It doesn’t have a responsibility to look after the health of masses of the population, and it doesn’t have a responsibility to be its own environmental steward. But it’s given it.”
“A CHEERLEADER FOR THE OIL SANDS INDUSTRY” Linda Duncan, the Member
of Parliament for Alberta’s Edmonton-Strathcona district who prepared a report on the federal government’s role in protecting waterways from oil sands’ impact, says the federal government has not been held accountable. “The federal government has unilateral, singular responsibility for the impact on the First Nations,” Duncan says. “That’s not to say that the First Nations can’t negotiate with the province or with industry, but the potential impacts on the First Nations are 100 percent federal responsibility.” The federal government is also responsible for conducting cumulative impact assessments, regulating toxins, protecting endangered species and safeguarding fisheries, Duncan says. The federal government is further required to consult with First Nations when considering development projects, Duncan says, but that burden has been pushed onto the oil companies. Schindler says the government’s dismissal of indigenous concerns indicates that it is breaking the promises it made to aboriginal communities in Treaty 8, a nationto-nation agreement from 1899 that recognized the right of First Nations people to pursue a traditional lifestyle without interference or restriction. “This is supposed to be a democracy,” Schindler says. “The national propaganda claims that we’re a multicultural society, but, to me, that means that if there’s a small culture, the small have the same rights as the large. I just don’t see that happening here. It’s as though we pride ourselves on taking in foreign cultures, and we ignore the culture that was here to begin with.” Andrew Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, says that problems lie with both levels of government. The province has approved 100 percent of all proposed oil sands projects to date and the federal government has failed to produce a single cumulative impact study, Nikiforuk says. “We’ve built this project way too fast without thinking about the
global consequences of doing so, and without thinking about what some of the black swans of this project could be,” Nikiforuk says. “What country does that? It’s stunning.” Nikiforuk, Timoney and Schindler all say the Alberta government has failed to properly monitor the potential environmental impacts of oil sands activity. In July 2011, the independent Alberta Environmental Monitoring Panel urged the adoption of a thorough environmental monitoring program in the province. The expert panel released a report recommending improvements and criticizing the current oversight system, the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program. Two reports in 2010, produced separately by the Oil Sands Advisory Panel and the Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel, similarly pointed to shortcomings in the existing monitoring program. “What we have to do is get rid of the industry monitoring program that has demonstrated itself to be totally incompetent,” Schindler says. “It’s been reviewed by expert panels and no review has been very kind to the program.” Dr. Tom Etsell, from the Centre for Oil Sands Innovation (COSI) at the University of Alberta, says he thinks the Alberta government may slowly become less dismissive of oil sands critics. Etsell notes, however, that the government remains hesitant to support any oil sands research unless industry has already expressed interest. The Alberta government decided to partner with COSI, which seeks to develop new technologies to reduce the environmental impact of oil sands excavation, only after Imperial Oil agreed to launch it, he says. “I think it’s changing, for sure, but the Alberta government has been more of a cheerleader for the oil sands industry rather than properly monitoring what’s going on,” Etsell says. “The Alberta government is happy to contribute money to something like COSI as long as there’s company involvement.”
A POLARIZING ISSUE Nonetheless, the provincial government still insists that the links between health concerns and industry pollution are overblown. Dr. Andre Corriveau, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, says the drinking water
in downstream communities meets all Canadian standards. “The data that I’ve seen doesn’t give me any serious cause for concern in the shortterm,” Corriveau says. “I haven’t seen complete data on species of fish but traditional knowledge might help with that, and land animals at this point should not have a significant contaminant load. So I’m not at this point recommending that people change their traditional lifestyle.” O’Connor and Timoney say First Nation communities are hesitant to continue pushing for governmental investigations because the close political ties to industry make workers fearful of losing their jobs. “There’s been a history in the communities of politicians siding with big money, sadly,” Timoney says. “That is what’s preventing Fort McKay from dealing with pollution issues in a more effective way. McKay is especially unable or reluctant to speak out about what’s happening because they are directly dependent on the industry all around them.” As more information about environmental changes has become available, the Fort McKay natives have become slightly more willing to speak out, O’Connor says. “Though not a tremendous amount, there’s a little more freedom to criticize the companies,” O’Connor says. “It’s kind of like the First Nations are saying: we have no choice, this is our employer and there is no other employer around here, but that doesn’t mean we have to be completely lying down and playing dead.” Mike Hudema, a Greenpeace Alberta campaigner, says he understands the financial anxieties that Fort McKay faces, but he thinks the government’s insistence that the economy will plummet without the oil sands is inaccurate. Hudema says he would ideally like to see the provincial and federal governments support a strategy of economic diversification that would offer more options to First Nation communities and wouldn’t lock them into industry jobs. “It’s a tough position,” Hudema says. “But there are a lot of ways to create revenue and jobs that don’t destroy the environment like the tar sands do.” The government should consider investing in transportation systems and renewable energy initiatives to create jobs that are
“It’s seen as such a polarized issue, so you’re either for or against the tar sands, but it’s not that clear.” –SAIMA BUTT more in line with the cultures and spiritual beliefs of First Nation communities, Hudema says. At the University of Alberta, a student group called Stand With Fort Chipewyan has been wrestling with the oft-conflicting economic and environmental arguments surrounding oil sands development. Saima Butt, a group member who graduated in December 2010, says she knows she has to weigh many factors when considering oil sands dilemmas. “It’s seen as such a polarized issue, so you’re either for or against the tar sands, but it’s not that clear,” says Butt, who grew up in Fort McMurray and whose father works on an oil site. “I’m not actively advocating for shutting down the tar sands, but I do think that development needs to slow down and we need to address the concerns before moving forward and approving more projects.” For now, Fort McKay’s Grandjambe says his community must learn to live with the development, as he knows the region will never again revert to the pre-industry conditions of his childhood. “I know that we will never be able to go backwards,” Grandjambe says. “So we’ve just got to follow up with what we’ve got now.” The Fort McKay people must continue to work with industry because they cannot do much to deter the projects, Grandjambe says, but he thinks younger generations may be too willing to prioritize profit. “The problem I see with younger people is that the first thing they worry about is getting this money from the oil companies,” Grandjambe says. “Money will always be there, but the things that we lost will never, ever be there.” =
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Y P U C OC M A E R D E H T et By Charles Roll
Celebrating MLK Day: Jesse Jackso n, Jr. speaks to th 15. (Photo courte e crowd at Occu sy of IIRON) py the
The Movement to Reclaim Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Vision
Dream Jan.
All three levels of the monolithic People’s Church of Chicago were filled to the brim. People without seats stood in the aisles, waiting for the first speakers to take the stage. The attendees ranged from South Side community organizers to affluent suburbanites, from college kids to the homeless. This was Occupy the Dream, where more than 1,500 people from all walks of life — galvanized by the global Occupy movement — gathered to celebrate and fight for Dr. King’s message of economic and social equality. The event was held on Jan. 15, a day before Martin Luther King Day, in an act of solidarity with Dr. King’s ideals.
Attendance: 1,500 people
Date: Jan. 15, 2012
Location:
People’s Church of Chicago
Notable Speakers: Rev. Dwight Gardner Jan Schakowsky (IL. 10) Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL. 2) Peter Visclosky (IN 1)
Reclaiming the Dream: Occupy attendees fill the People’s Church of Chicago top to bottom. (Photo courtesy of IIRON)
“Is Occupy Chicago in the house?” asked a man on stage to the human mass surrounding him. The audience roared. Many of those participating were veterans of the Occupy Chicago movement. For the first part of the two-hour ceremony, leaders of organizations like Occupy the South Side and the Illinois Indiana Regional Organizing Network (IIRON) gave speeches on their activities in the Chicago area. Occupy the South Side boasted of its notable recent achievements like lobbying for the CTA, Pace and Metra to become one all-purpose fare card and forcing a local Wal-Mart to pay its workers an additional 90 cents per hour. But the event’s most energizing speaker was the Rev. Dwight Gardner, from the Trinity Baptist Church in Gary, Indiana. “Our democracy has been hijacked by the wealthy,” said Gardner, his voice trembling with a mix of righteousness and anger. “We are being pushed to the brink of economic and social collapse.”
“Saying to a bootless man that he must lift himself from his bootstraps is wrong!” Gardner thundered. “When an edifice, by design, produces beggars and poverty, it must be redesigned. Every person who wants to work has a right to a living wage job.” The audience shouted: “Wall Street got bailed out, we got sold out!” Afterward, numerous other individuals appeared on stage. Evanston resident Rita Pope told a moving story of how she lost her daycare business after the financial crisis in 2008. She spoke calmly on the podium, asking Bank of America to readjust her mortgage to reflect the declining value of her home as she struggles to earn an income. “I have paid $138,000 in interest on my home to the banks,” Pope said. “And now I’m under threat of eviction.” The speakers all endorsed regulating banks, helping those facing foreclosure to avoid eviction, and creating jobs through various jobs programs. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, who represents Evanston and the surrounding area in the U.S. House of
Representatives, made an appearance, along with Chicago Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. Schakowsky promised to fight to pass her Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act, which she argued would create 2.2 million jobs and help fix America’s infrastructure. Yet at times, the overall feel of the event was more spiritual than political. A women’s choir made several appearances on stage, singing the spiritual “I’m Determined to Walk with Jesus.” The song’s slow, repetitive, yet strikingly powerful chorus — “I’m determined to walk with Jesus/ Yes I am/ Yes, I am” — aptly reflected the strongly religious roots of Dr. King’s vision. Although Mayor Rahm Emanuel continues to crack down on Occupy protests in Chicago by passing measures like installing more security cameras and lengthening the closure of public parks, the movement is still going strong. Drawing on the legacy of Dr. King’s civil rights movement can only help what has become a global — if disjointed — movement.=
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SERVING SUSTAINABI This winter, Northwestern University Sustainable Events Counseling worked with Northwestern University’s Conference on Human Rights to reduce the conference’s carbon footprint. The collaboration created a green model for student events that NUSEC hopes will spread beyond Northwestern’s campus.
NUSEC, a subproject of Engineers for a Sustainable World, added a “walk the walk” aspect to the conference on the global food crisis. Calculating carbon metrics, researching carbon-offset projects and choosing plastics, paper and food went into conference planning. The aim was to reduce the conference’s carbon emissions in the most simple and cost-effective ways. “We try and improve upon our model each year,” says Chelsea Glenn, Weinberg junior and co-director of NUCHR. A team of seven students did research and calculations to identify the conference’s main ecological issues, and NUSEC came up with three areas to focus on: carbon offsets, waste and food.
Carbon Offsets Flying and driving were the largest contributors to NUCHR’s carbon footprint.
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there won’t be carbon offsets because there won’t physically be space for more trees,” says McCormick senior and head of NUSEC Sam Malin. “We need to change the way we live our lives before we buy carbon offsets.”
Waste According to NUSEC’s research, waste in a landfill produces methane, a gas 22 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. There are only two decades of landfill space left in Illinois. Only 8 percent of plastics are recycled and the recycling process is still energy-intensive and not 100 percent efficient. To put this into perspective, according to EPA calculators, one pound of paper made with 100-percent recycled content is equivalent to reducing CO2 emissions by five pounds. Buying 30 pounds of 100-percent recycled paper could save an amount of car-
By Leah Varjacques Photos by Corinne Chin
Delegates and speakers came from everywhere from New Orleans to Uganda and chose modes of transportation both communal and individual. Using research from the Union of Concerned Scientists’ report “Getting There Greener,” NUSEC found that carpooling from New Orleans in an SUV releases 1,990 pounds of carbon. This amount of carbon dioxide could power a house for a month in terms of a carbon footprint. A flight from New York to Chicago via American Airlines is 817 pounds per person, which could power a home for 12 days. Because the conference’s transportation footprint was hard to reduce locally, NUSEC chose to purchase carbon offsets. NUSEC won the Bright Ideas $200 grant from ECOHillel to buy wind turbines in China, one of the conference’s case-study countries, from carbonfund.org. For $10 per ton of carbon, NUCHR offset 20 tons of carbon by supporting this renewable energy project. NUSEC went further than simply buying offsets by implementing other initiatives to reduce NUCHR’s footprint. “There will be a point in the world where
bon equivalent to the carbon footprint of a house powered for two days. NUSEC chose to use recycled paper and to reduce non-recyclable waste, food leftovers, and plastics use. NUCHR asked the delegates to bring their own water bottle and gave each speaker reusable ones. NUCHR special-ordered 100-percent recycled paper from Quartet Copies to print programs and pamphlets.
Food Cattle are responsible for 18 percent of all U.S. methane production, and food has to be transported long distances. Pesticides and fertilizers are often petroleum-based and harmful to people’s health. NUSEC used research from Environmental Working Group, CleanMetrics and Bon Appetit food calculators to construct menus. They found that from beginning to end, the process of preparing lamb emits 20 times more carbon than simply serving broccoli or dry beans. Similarly, beef preparation emits 27 times more carbon than tomatoes. To address these issues, NUCHR eliminated red meat from the menu, tried to reduce
food waste, and bought local. For the last banquet, NUCHR asked Sodexo to make an environmentally friendly, locally sourced meal. “I didn’t know it was possible to feed more than 100 people with Midwestern food in the middle of January,” Glenn says. “I thought it was impressive.” This meal’s footprint was reduced 70 to 80 percent compared with last year’s. NUSEC is still in the evaluation process and waiting to hear back from delegates. It has already noted some things that could be improved upon. “We wanted to make better choices than in the past,” says Weinberg junior and NUSEC committee member Emily Bauersfeld, adding a list of potential improvements for next year. Some of those include using sugarcane plates and composting, reducing food and wrapper waste, and using a printing company that uses sustainably harvested ink and paper. NUSEC is also thinking about developing its own calculator to consolidate its research and be more accurate. Such a tool would make it easier for other student groups to calculate their carbon footprints, Malin says. The upcoming ESW conference will implement these strategies and Northwestern’s Center for Global Engagement has expressed interest in NUSEC’s model. “The idea is to put legislation in ASG where groups get more funding if they implement these green initiatives,” Malin says, adding that the model would have to be adapted to different events. Details like recycling, composting and reducing use of plastic would have to be developed for events where transportation isn’t an issue. NUSEC also gave all the delegates its digital presentation to facilitate the implementation process on other campuses. NUCHR 2012 Delegate Remy Franklin, a junior at Dartmouth College, says he was impressed by NUSEC’s initiative and will try to build upon the model at Dartmouth. “It’s a matter of making it attractive and easy to do, in terms of reducing waste, focusing on local food and supporting local businesses,” Franklin says in a phone interview. “Compiling best practices and connecting it with funding is a brilliant idea.” Building on these innovative ideas across universities can have a hugely positive impact on “greening” student events across the country. And when it comes to an increasingly threatened environment, every bit helps.=
THE PROTEST | WINTER ISSUE 13
Photos and story by Jack Foster
T
he Illinois coal industry may finally be starting to crumble as renewable energy and natural gas are on the rise, but this relic of the Industrial Revolution isn’t going down without a fight. As coal continues to be burned, the health, environment and economic stability of the state suffers. “No matter how you look at it, coal is really the dirtiest fuel you could use to generate electricity,” says Brian Urbaszewski, the director of environmental health programs at the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago. “Just in terms of extraction and combustion of it, dealing with the leftovers, and the toxic ash that it creates. . . There are a lot of problems created by using coal to generate electricity.”
This form of energy, which not only produces high levels of carbon dioxide, but also mercury, lead and ash, has been burned and mined in Illinois since 1810, according to the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. What once may have fueled major innovation and economic development may now be costing more than it’s worth. Two of Chicago’s older coal plants, Fisk and Crawford, which are both run by Midwest Generation, have spurred much public outcry over their notorious pollution. “The coal plants have been open and operating in Chicago for over 100 years,” says Edya Sitko, a senior field organizer for Greenpeace. “They are responsible [for] over 40 deaths every year, over 720 asthma attacks, and 66 heart attacks.” These plants also spew out over four million cubic tons of carbon dioxide every year, according to EPA estimates. These are also only two of more than a dozen coal plants scattered throughout Illinois. Many groups have popped up in protest of the Illinois coal industry, including the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization (P.E.R.R.O.) and
the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. The industry has also come under fire from larger organizations like the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, but progress has been slow. Will Reynolds, an organizer for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, says that one obstacle may be coal’s long history in Illinois. “There are a lot of towns around the states that were formed just for coal mining and that lingers on,” Reynolds says. “People have historical and emotional ties to the coal industry. Many communities have seen that as their main economic development driver, even though there is no community that has gotten rich from coal. . . . Unfortunately most of the wealth goes out of the communities to other areas, so you don’t see places that have a coal-based economy and are also doing well.” Indeed, in some cases, the electricity produced doesn’t even flow into the towns where it comes from. In the case of the Fisk and Crawford plants, the only thing that the city seems to get is ash. “The profits from the operation of the coal plants go to Cali-
fornia, the coal comes from mining company in Wyoming, and the electricity goes out of state, so the thing people are left with here in Chicago is the pollution,” Sitko says. Despite this, Midwest Generation, which runs six coal plants in Illinois, claims that coal is a valuable asset. According to their website, the Fisk and Crawford plants provide 200 jobs and three million dollars in payroll taxes each year. Furthermore, “the average annual wage in the Illinois mining industry is $65,000,” and “each coal mining job supports 4.5 jobs in other sectors,” according to the National Mining Association. All and all, the payroll taxes accrued from the plants account for less than 0.02 percent of Cook County’s annual budget, and the median household incomes of cities that Midwest Generation operates in are always lower than their county medians, according to U.S. census data and City-Data. Reynolds says that this is because of coal’s “parasitic” nature and because “the coal industry does look for communities that are desperate for jobs, no matter what those jobs are, no matter what damage they might do to their community.”
The coal industry makes up for all of this with aggressive lobbying and strong political clout. Michael Madigan, the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, has received 65,500 dollars in campaign support from coal companies, according to Project Vote Smart. Representative Joey Costello has received over 150,000 dollars in support, according to a 2008 Greenpeace report. In the face of this, many protest groups are trying to gain more grassroots support, and have had some success. Thanks to public support, there is a Chicago city ordinance on the state legislature table that would most likely force the Fisk and Crawford plants to close down. Also, according to Reynolds, at one point there were 16 proposed coal plant projects in Illinois, and most of these have been halted. The struggle continues, though. “Coal has made up less and less of our power supply for the past several years and that will continue,” Reynolds says. “Coal is on the decline, and it will continue to decline. This is a long-term battle, but this is one that we are winning.” =
Fisk coal plant in Pilsen
reflections on namibia by Krislyn Placide | photos by Krislyn Placide and Kaitlyn Jakola I’m pretty sure the North Shore Hospital is ready to sue me for everything I’m worth (read: not much). The bill for my CAT scan last February remains unpaid to the time I sat down to write this, mostly because my insurance company can’t seem to get it together and I don’t have time to babysit them. It’s the classic awkward, uncoordinated girl concussion case: I wore heels in the snow on a Friday night, slipped on ice and fell to the ground. I remember very little of it, but my friends say I was completely unintelligible for the rest of the night. I made an appointment with Searle at my father’s request, and the doctor mandated that I get my head checked out, forgetting to mention that it might set me back $200 whether or not they found anything on the scan, which, of course, came back normal. It just doesn’t seem fair. I’m getting strange calls from numbers I don’t recognize telling me to pay the bill over the phone. Is this really how healthcare works in this country? But on the other hand, do I really have the right to complain? After all, there are starving children in Africa. My international brethren face war, famine and disease like I’ve never known. A Congolese refugee I met in Namibia, Brigitte Kimbumbu, is dying of diseases easily treated in the First World while I’m skating by, complaining about hospital bills while forgetting about my surprising Third World disease. I have tuberculosis, which I believe I was exposed to when I visited Namibia’s Osire refugee camp in December 2010 with Medill’s Refugee Lives program. At the Osire refugee camp, I, along with five other students, journalism professor Jack Doppelt and two other adults, was put in the midst of many amazing people living on basically nothing. I was reporting on healthcare in the camp with my proj-
Brigitte has angina or high blood pressure. The medication never came, though, because it was only available at a price unattainable for a refugee.
ect partner, Kaitlyn, when we encountered a middle-aged couple, Deobusilana Katembu and his wife Brigitte Kimbumbu. They were both working for the camp’s health center, trying to scrape by. Deobusilana, whom we called Deo, spoke to me about the trials of Brigitte’s disease: she had been all over the southern tip of the continent looking for treatment for her cardiovascular problems, but no one would help her. Deo told me that one of the numerous doctors they had seen prescribed her a medication called Adalat. From what I understand, this means that Brigitte has angina or high blood pressure, something along those lines. The medication never came, though, because it was only available at a price unattainable for a refugee: 300 Namibian dollars (about 43 American.) One of the doctors they saw also recommended Brigitte keep a special diet for her heart condition, but the camp leaders refused to treat her differently from the other refugees, so she was unable to follow the doctor’s advice.
Deo was frustrated. I could hear it in his voice. His hands hit the table, shaking the foundation of his tiny home in the camp. “Why did you even send us to a specialist if we can’t even follow the instructions,” he said he told them. I looked at this man, so desperate for a solution, not knowing quite how to help. I felt as powerless as he did. Before I left, he handed me a letter he had written for Lawrence Mgbangson, the representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Windhoek, pleading for help in improving his wife’s condition. I took it with me because sometimes you can’t just be an impartial, objective journalist. You have to be a human being. It was the least and the most I could do. When I returned to the states, where suddenly my quality of life drastically changed and I didn’t have to be afraid to drink the water, my head was buzzing with the faces and names and memories of all the wonderful people I had met, the children I had played with, the thorns I had picked out of
my shoes. My trip to Namibia is still with me in every possible way, pumping through my veins alongside the Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the Isoniazid drug that’s supposedly taking care of it. I still correspond with some of my Namibian friends from time to time: a cute Rwandan boy who is to soon relocate to the United States, a friendly father of two who ran a convenience store in the camp. However, I didn’t get a chance to ask Deo for his phone number, which I sincerely regret. I don’t know if Brigitte’s still alive or not, and I don’t know if sending the letter to Mr. Mgbangson actually helped in any way. Pardon me if it sounds too cliché, but we just don’t know how great we have it, how lucky we are. No matter what my beef is with my insurance, the fact that I even have any makes me one of the most fortunate people in the world. Only when we realize that the plagues of the world just seem to pass over us in this country will we begin to understand what fairness means. =
THE PROTEST | WINTER ISSUE 17
One Child, Many Consequences Most critics focus on the short-term effects of China’s One-Child Policy. But the long-term social consequences may be even more damaging.
By Amy Li
W
e’ve heard it all before. From talk of forced abortions to female infanticides, China’s One-Child Policy is still under the scrutiny of concerned communities both inside and outside the nation. While most reports illuminate the inherent problems of the policy, less attention is paid to the current social consequences that China faces. In 1979, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping launched the One-Child Policy in an attempt to limit the nation’s rapidly-growing population. The government was convinced that this policy was a necessary step in its program to alleviate economic, social and environmental problems in China. This policy, referred to by the Chinese government as the official Family Planning Policy, formally restricts married couples to having only one child in cities. Failure to comply with these regulations can lead to dire consequences. As Jennifer Lin wrote in her Knight Ridder article “China’s One-Child Policy Forces Family to Make Hard Choice,” families who are unable to pay the extremely high fine often had their possessions confiscated. Forced abortion and sterilization are not uncommon. While these seemingly unfair rules do apply to the Chinese population, there remains a common misconception about the extent of these regulations. According to a spokes-
person for the One-Child Policy committee, only 35.9 percent of the China’s population is held accountable to the one-child limitation. The policy offers exemptions to rural couples, ethnic minorities and parents without siblings. Furthermore, the Special Administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau as well as foreigners living in China are all exempt from the regulations. The One-Child Policy was originally a “temporary measure” designed to help relieve the unsustainable demands of a growing population. However, despite the original intent, this policy has continued a quartercentury since its implementation. According to Matt Rosenberg of About.com, the minister of State Commission of Population and Family Planning, Zhang Weiqing, declared that this plan “has been consistent with the nation’s goal for population growth and would thus continue indefinitely.” While rumors have it that the policy is becoming less strict as years go by, Zhang Weiqing denied such claims, reinforcing the seriousness of this national policy. The reality remains intact. The One-Child Policy is not going anywhere. While scorned by many, this policy is now an integrated concept of China’s way of life. In fact, a 2008 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center surprised the public when it reported
that 76 percent of the Chinese population supports the policy. The Chinese authorities claimed that this policy has helped prevent about 400 million births since its implementation in 1979. Yes, the policy works. Yes, it will continue to work for as long as it is implemented. The dilemma now is facing the unavoidable consequences of such a policy. What are the long-term social implications of such enforcements? How is the policy contributing to social behavior changes in China? These questions are usually left unanswered. Their cause-and-effect relationships remain unexplored. When dealing with the One-Child Policy, much attention has been geared toward the direct negative effects of the policy. Without disregarding the gravity of issues such as forced abortion and neglect or abandonment of infants, it is also important to thoroughly examine the modern-day social consequences of the One-Child Policy. One of the most problematic effects of the policy is sex discrimination. Considering how boys are culturally more favorable among the Chinese, the gender of a couple’s one and only child is an unavoidable concern for the parents. With common access to ultrasound tests, more and more people are deciding to abort their baby based on gender. With the dramatic increase in female
infanticide, the country’s gender imbalance increased. According to a study conducted by the British Medical Journal, China still has 32 million more boys than girls under the age of twenty. Over the years, this problem has been overlooked by the government. However, when social conflicts resulted from this issue, the government realized this problem can no longer be left unaddressed. Essentially what is happening in China is simple: there is a major shortage of women in the society. Its implicaThe lack tions, however, of women are much more complicated and in Chinese severe. As the society has generation of the One-Child increased Policy is ready to mental health start a family, the lack of women problems in the society has and socially increased mental health problems disruptive and socially disbehaviors ruptive behaviors among men. among men. According to a Chinese government report, some 24 million Chinese men of marrying age will not find a bride due to the One-Child Policy, but matchmaking trouble is just the beginning. The Times of London reports that leaders in China fear that the surplus of bachelors could lead to increased crime rates and social unrest. Confronting China’s fears, the current situation with gender imbalance is leading to more kidnapping, rape and even trafficking of women to be sold for marriage. The longanticipated complications of this policy continues to trouble the public as studies show a steady increase in the number of commercial sex workers in China. Additionally, this could potentially escalate the spread of HIV along with various other sexually transmitted diseases. Even for the select couples who were lucky enough to find love amidst this raging scurry for life-long companions, marriage might not be the happily-ever-after fairy tale they were hoping for. For a country of overall conservative culture values, China again surprises the world as its divorce rate skyrockets with a 20 percent increase. With that, there is also an increase of 12 percent in overall marriages. Sociologists have attributed the rising
divorce rate to the establishment of the OneChild Policy. With the tendency to over-indulge their only child, parents played a large role in enhancing what is now known as the “Little Emperor Syndrome.” This theory suggests that the One-Child Policy has single-handedly created a generation of spoiled kids who have a higher tendency toward poor social communication. Like the increase in the divorce rate, many attribute this phenomenon to the generation of kids who are unable to sustain healthy and successful relationships. Lacking self-discipline and adaptive capabilities, the generation of the One-Child Policy is subject to “social problems and personality disorders,” says Ye Tingfang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who supports the previous government rule to allow up to two children per family. While marriages and divorces are common concerns of the One-Child Policy generation, these are not their only troubles. Another alarming issue faced by this generation is the accommodation of the older generation. In 2007, there were at least six working adults to help accommodate the need of a single retiree. However, with the intervention of the One-Child Policy, it has been speculated that by 2040, this ratio will take a serious plunge to a two-to-one ratio. With a minimal amount of adults to care for the large elderly population, apprehension is in the air as China’s aging population will soon suffer neglect. Many analysts are still sketching out potential solutions to this problem as this “speculation” is rapidly becoming the norm in China’s way of life. The One-Child Policy has been without a doubt a big success in keeping the population under control. However, in an attempt to solve one problem, other problems have been created. The consequences of the policy are seen as a real threat to China’s stability in the future. Even though groups have tried to abolish this rule, like the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in March 2007, officials still refuse to let this policy go. The Chinese government now contends that a sudden end to this policy would put serious pressure on the development of the next generation. The truth is simple: the OneChild Policy is problematic. As important as it is to understand the cause and effect of this policy, it is now time to find a remedy to fix the issue, even if it means taking one small step at a time. It is time to move forward. =
QUICK FACTS
76
Percentage of Chinese citizens who approve of the One-Child Policy, according to a 2008 Pew Research Center survey.
35.9
Percentage of China’s population held to the one-child limitation. The policy allows exemptions for rural couples, ethnic minorities and parents without siblings.
32 million
More boys than girls under the age of 20 in the Chinese population, according to a study conducted by the British Medical Journal.
24 million
Estimated number of Chinese men of marrying age who will not find a bride due to the One-Child Policy, according to a Chinese government report.
20
Percentage increase in China’s divorce rate from 2007 to 2008, according to a BBC news report.
12
Percentage increase in China’s overall marriages from 2007 to 2008, according to the same report.
2040
Estimated year by which the ratio of working adults to retirees will plunge to a 2:1 ratio, down from 6:1 in 2007.
THE PROTEST | WINTER ISSUE 19
SOPA CONDEMNED By Sharon Kim
I
nternet users and web-based companies sprang into vociferous protest in January to defend freedom of speech as word spread of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – a bill that many college students say would restrict online freedom in an attempt to prevent copyright infringement.
“When it was first happening, it didn’t seem like it was too big of a deal,” says Stephen Rees, a Weinberg sophomore and editorin-chief of the satirical website Sherman Ave. “But when you get down to the nitty-gritty of what they were trying to do, it did seem more like an unfair legislation.” SOPA was first introduced Oct. 26 by Lamar Smith, a Republican representative from Texas. The PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), its Senate counterpart, closely followed. Though SOPA’s formal title states that it was drafted “to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property,” the bills
would have severe consequences in the U.S., providing limited protection against piracy in exchange for freedom of speech online. The Recording Academy and the Motion Picture Association of America insist SOPA will prevent Internet piracy by blocking DNS codes that would redirect users from domain names. However, Kelby Schuetz, a Weinberg freshman interested in majoring in political science, claims the restrictions can be circumnavigated by typing in the IP address of any blocked site’s server. “There’s some pretty simple work-arounds,” Schuetz says. “What it’s actually going to end up doing, in effect, is stopping all the not-
Internet-savvy-enough people who don’t know how to use those work-arounds. But it won’t stop the pirates, who obviously are Internet-savvy enough to know how to get around things like that.” Opponents believe the consequences of the ill-devised bill heavily outweigh this limited protection against piracy. Websites, fearful of retribution by SOPA, would be forced to monitor everything their users publish. As a result, Internet entrepreneurs would lose considerable income. It would also make it harder for websites to operate or for new sites to start up. The bills may have international implications as well. If SOPA or PIPA were to pass, other countries may be influenced to write up similar laws, as “the U.S. kind of leads the world in how the internet is carried out in effect,” Schuetz says. There is also the argument that piracy has helped increase profits for the media industry by exposing consumers to content that they would not have purchased had it not been free. “Music piracy could help the music industry or musicians in general by getting their music out there, because no matter what, bands these days aren’t making a whole lot of money off of CD sales anyways,” Rees
“What it’s actually going to end up doing, in effect, is stopping all the not-Internet-savvyenough people who don’t know how to use those work-arounds.” - STEPHEN REES, SHERMAN AVE. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF says. “How most bands make their money is by selling merch at their gigs, playing shows and then getting people in and buying t-shirts and maybe the records that they sell there.” Rees argues that underground musicians are hurt the most by music piracy. The MPAA and the Recording Academy’s artists make enough money that the amount lost
due to piracy will not be significant. He also says that many people will buy albums of musicians whose music they really enjoy and who they want to support. The Recording Academy and the MPAA, however, insist that the bill’s intentions have been exaggerated and refuse to acknowledge SOPA’s implications. Schuetz links this closemindedness to the media companies’ dislike of the average Internet user’s ability to reuse and remake old content, such as videos and software. “A lot of content owners, big media companies, they don’t like that, because they want to have absolutely exclusive control over what they do,” Schuetz says. “They realize that they can’t do what they want to do within the frame of ordinary law, so what they’re going to do is shoot first and ask questions later.” As news of SOPA and PIPA circulated, word spread of an unprecedented “Internet blackout” on Jan. 18. Several big Internet corporations, who would have their sites and content altered by the bill, chose to protest by shutting down their websites and spreading word of the bill. The most prominent blackout participant was the English-language Wikipedia, which went completely dark for 24 hours. “I remember trying to check Wikipedia to fact-check something that we [Sherman Ave.] posted that day, and I couldn’t,” Rees says. “I was getting really frustrated. It was so sweet, ’cause it hit people where it hurt most.” Other sites remained online but chose to protest the bill in other ways. Google blacked out its logo and collected seven million signatures on a petition. WordPress redirected its users to a blackout page similar to Wikipedia’s but allowed access to the main site through a link at the bottom of the page. “The Internet companies, Wikipedia, Google, showed their burgeoning power,” Rees says. “It’s really cool and fascinating to see that these companies can protest. I think that they will raise hell again if another bill comes to the floor.” Both SOPA and PIPA have only been delayed temporarily, and Schuetz thinks the bill, in its current form, will not pass. The threat, however, is still present. SOPA may be revised and reintroduced, or similar bills may be drawn up in the future. The AntiCounterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which would enforce intellectual property
protection internationally, is currently under debate. SOPA’s Canadian counterpart Bill C-11 is also being put up for discussion in early February, and this bill, in all likelihood, will pass. Some students question whether SOPA and similar bills are even necessary. Andrew Vega, a freshman at UC San Diego majoring in economics, claims the government has shown it is fully capable of preventing online piracy without Internet censorship. A day after the Internet blackout, the U.S. Department of Justice took down MegaUpload, a popular file-sharing site, and the owners were arrested without bail. The government has since taken action against a dozen other file-hosting sites, including MediaFire, which has elected to open its doors to the FBI and has been called to testify in the next 90 days. 4shared deleted files with copyright infringement and is also awaiting FBI investigation, while FileServe is closing. “The days of easy online piracy are over,” Vega says. “SOPA and PIPA are wholly unnecessary if the government can take these sites down on their own.” Large corporations have their own tools to fight online piracy and copyright infringement, namely the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which punishes unlawful distribution and production of copyrighted works. “Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the way it works now, a company can go to a website and ask them to remove any infringing content, and the website can then remove the content,” Schuetz says. “And if they don’t remove the content, the company [the website] can be sued. [SOPA] seems to me to be more of a power grab.” Sites that operate in foreign countries not participating in SOPA, PIPA or ACTA are still in full operation, such as Koshiki, a Japanese file-streaming site. Yet Vega claims most Internet providers would hand over information of any individuals caught using these sites. SOPA and PIPA, rather than providing a reliable solution to copyright infringement, were a guise to hand media companies more power over online content. Their gain would be the Internet user’s loss of freedom online. As Schuetz puts it, “It’s not worth sacrificing the open environment that is the rest of the Internet so that people would maybe buy more Hollywood movies.” =
THE PROTEST | WINTER ISSUE 21
© A large portion of music today takes elements from already existing, copyright protected songs. Mashup artist Girl Talk, for example, produces tracks that contain “samples” of other songs without paying fees to the original artists. How does this work?
OPYRIGHT ODE
The legality of sampling is complex. It takes books and documentaries to delve into why artists like Girl Talk, who uses 15-20 samples in a single track, can sample other musicians’ works — and not get sued. One explanation is that most mashups (tracks that combine two or more songs to create one) or remixes (when an artist adds original musical and stylistic choices to an already existing song) are distributed for free and are part of a sample-based music culture. “We don’t charge money for them, and they are small fish in a very large sea that is filled with so many other kinds and sizes of fish,” says the Hood’s DJ STV SLV. “If a record label were to come at us and demand we take a track down, we could do it, but it
would sort of already be on the Internet.” Peter DiCola, associate professor of law at Northwestern University and co-writer of Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling, discusses Girl Talk’s strategy. Here is a brief rundown. Girl Talk’s tracks have 15 to 20 songs sampled in each. That means he would need to obtain between 30 and 40 licenses, which is two per song — one for the lyrics, and one for the composition. (By the way, each license can cost up to $150,000. That is, if he were recording legally.) Instead, “he just decides not to get the licenses and releases his stuff over the Internet. And now we have to talk about the distinction between what’s the law and what’s
The rise of music sampling raises new questions in copyright law. BY BECCA WEINSTEIN | photos by jack foster
the reality,” DiCola says. “Not just anything someone does with copyrighted work violates copyright laws,” DiCola says. There are many exceptions for which “even though reproduction is happening, it’s okay.” So, Girl Talk is probably in the clear. One of Girl Talk’s legal defenses is the doctrine of fair use. “It’s a murky concept,” says DiCola. “It’s a vague standard rather than a rule. A rule is ‘your fence can only be ten feet tall and no taller.’ A standard is, ‘your fence shouldn’t be too tall.’” Thus, nothing is “definitely” legal under fair use. Girl Talk is arguing that because he combines many songs, he is doing what’s
called a transformative use. The court has said in a previous ruling that transformative uses could be fair and therefore exempted from copyright protection. Not using the entirety of a song is “what Girl Talk is hanging his hat on,” according to DiCola. However, what may hurt him is that he is in a commercial enterprise. Although Girl Talk does not make money by producing songs, as he gives away his tracks for free, he makes the big bucks by performing tracks live. For now, though, Girl Talk has yet to be taken to court. DiCola says he doesn’t know on what grounds Girl Talk could get into legal trouble, but cites fair use as a possibility for legal action.
“Girl Talk is savvy,” DiCola says. “It depends on what the Supreme Court wants the law to be.” And what about the legality of music websites that stream whole songs for free? That, too, is “endlessly complicated,” according to Nate Maddrey, co-founder of FratMusic.com. Maddrey’s site, which is classified as “noninteractive” because it plays more like a radio than an iPod, pays a flat rate to SoundExchange, the non-profit performance rights organization that redistributes money to the artists whose songs are freely streamed. Pandora operates under a similar law, while Spotify, an “interactive” site, pays much more to allow users to choose songs on demand. In sum: it’s complicated (it always is). =
THE PROTEST | WINTER ISSUE 23
WWW.THE-PROTEST.COM NUPROTEST@GMAIL.COM