WUPR Issue 19.2: Bodies

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Editors’ Note Dear Reader, As you may know, each issue of the Political Review features - besides general pieces of domestic and international political interest - a core set of articles focused on a particular theme. Sometimes, we choose topics to encourage writers to think about how politics intersect seemingly unrelated spheres; hence our most recent issues on the Politics of Pop Culture and Food. Other times, we aim to provide a forum for discussion of contentious subjects; see our issues on Race or the War on Terror. This time we have chosen a theme, Bodies, that blends both these objectives.

Within the realm of political discourse, the term “bodies” hearkens back to the days of second wave feminism, which introduced the notion ”body politics” as an effort to broaden the scope of women’s rights. This was the period when women gained legal access to birth control and abortion. In these years, the personal was political. The body was political.

The link between body politics and women’s rights feels as poignant today as it did fifty years ago. Commentators, particularly on the left, dubbed the 2012 election cycle the “War on Women,” and several sure-fire candidates tumbled from contention because of what they had to say about women’s bodies, among them Missouri’s own Todd Akin. The fight between pro-life and pro-choice interest groups has never been more heated, as legislation restricting or expanding access to abortion emerges around the country, above all at the state level.

Once again, women’s bodies have found themselves to be the subject of national debate.

But to limit the topic of body politics to women would be to ignore the larger implications of the issue. We face a society that is increasingly critical of and concerned with body images. Just this past summer, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced that he had undergone lap-band surgery, and the world jumped at the opportunity to weigh in. Eating disorders touch young girls and boys alike at alarming rates, and at younger and younger ages. Moreover, as medicine and society continue to advance, our capacity to modify the body and successfully deal with once devastating illnesses has never been greater. However, even great improvements create new challenges. Organ trafficking and bio-hacking confront traditional notions of the ethical limits of science. And the HIV-positive population is facing complications involved with aging that were never an issue when a diagnosis was a death sentence.

Inside, you will find articles touching on all these subjects and more, mostly written by firsttime contributors to the magazine. We are very excited by this, and encourage you to join the discussion by emailing your thoughts or contributions to editor@wupr.org.

Enjoy, Will Dobbs-Allsopp Moira Moynihan

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Table of Contents

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Let’s Invade the Middle East Joe Lenoff

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Bill de Who? Charlie Thau

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Let’s Clear the Air: Why Not to Light Up in Washington State

16 Grover Norquist Interview Jimmy Loomis

17 Oliver North Interview Jimmy Loomis

18 The Tea Party Infiltrates College Campuses Billie Mandelbaum

25 Sizing Up Discrimination Naomi Rawitz, Hana Hartman

26 The Privacy of Privates Wallis Linker

28 Biohacking: The Future is Under our Skin Arian Jadbabaie

Grace Portelance

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19 Yanking the Bell Our Cheap Addiction

Martin Lockman

29 The Price of Skinny Jeans Matthew Hankin

Kevin Deutsch

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The Future of Our Mental Health System Victoria Sgarro

10 How the Rebels Can Win Razi Safi

12 In a War to Win, a Generation to Lose Kaity Shea Cullen

13 Syria: The Global Civil War Aaron Christensen

15 21st-Century Free Trade Chris Gibson

20 Shattering the Facade: The Burgeoning Oil Cities of Middle East

30 Xiao Pangzi: the Rise of Obesity in China Patrick Easley

Ari Moses

22 The Use of Effective and Available Technology in Healthcare Aashka Dalal

23 The Stigma Against Mental Illness Miranda Kroeger

24 A Graying Epidemic: Aging’s Impact on HIV/AIDS Henry Osman

31 A Modest Proposal circa 2013 Adam Flores

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Staff List Editors-in-Chief: William Dobbs-Allsopp Moira Moynihan Executive Director: Nicolas Hinsch Staff Editors: Nahuel Fefer Gabriel Rubin Sonya Schoenberger Features Editor: Aryeh Mellman Director of Design: Michelle Nahmad Managing Copy Editors: Kelsey Garnett Stephen Rubino Director of New Media: Raja Krishna Programming Director: Hannah Waldman Finance Director: Alexander Bluestone

Staff Writers: Maaz Ahmad Stephanie Aria Alex Beaulieu Vinita Chaudhry Aaron Christensen Henry Clements Benjamin Cristol Kathy Shea Cullen Aashka Dalal Shivani Desai Kevin Deutsch Hugh Dunkley, Jr. Naomi Duru Patrick Easley Rahmi Elahjji Adam Flores Chris Gibson Matthew Hankin Hana Hartman Arian Jadbabaie Jack Krewson Miranda Kroeger Joe Lenoff Wallis Linker Martin Lockman Jimmy Loomis Billie Mandelbaum Brett Mead Ari Moses Henry Osman Grace Portelance Naomi Rawitz Andrew Ridker Razi Safi Victoria Sgarro Ari Spitzer Daniel Steinberg Charlie Thau Jared Turkus Scott Witcher Camille Lynn Wright Megan Zielinski

Front Cover Illustration: Kelsey Rogers and Shelby Lindblad Inside Front Cover Graphic: Jacklyn Reich Back Cover Illustration: Margaret Flatley Editorial Illustrators: Andrew Catanese Alex Chiu Esther Hamburger Dara Katzenstein Simin Lim Gretchen Oldelm Zach Rouse Board of Advisors: Robin Hattori Gephardt Institute for Public Service Professor Bill Lowry Political Science Department

The Washington University Political Review is a student organization committed to fostering awareness of political issues. We shall remain dedicated to providing friendly and open avenues of discussion for students, irrespective of political affiliation or ideology.

Submissions: editor@wupr.org

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International

Let’s Invade the Middle East Joe Lenoff | Illustration by Alex Chiu more books to read, more farms to plow, and more businesses to grow. Let’s help ourselves by helping others.

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don’t want drones or tomahawk missiles. I want American boots on the ground. Well, sandals anyway. I want American flags waving high and proud, but I want them on top of school buildings and hospitals, not tanks and jets. I want humanitarian aid. I want USAID to invade the Middle East.

There is so much in flux in the Syrian crisis, so let’s act on what we know to be true. The Syrian diaspora, which now extends into every neighboring Muslim country, desperately needs our help in finding the basics of food, water, and shelter. We can and should do more though. We should help them build schools and farms and businesses, and we must not allow them to wallow in refugee camps any longer. We have a chance to put America on the right side of Middle Eastern history again. These two million refugees will either look to America as the country that helped them in their time of need or as a heartless hegemon. The choice is ours.

The humanitarian argument for aid is an easy one. Syrians, scared for their lives, have been forced to flee their homes. The only shelter they could find were patchy tent cities in foreign countries. Now, however, with winter approaching, even that small bit of security could elude them. The UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) simply doesn’t have the money to support two-million plus people. Unless we are willing to witness a humanitarian disaster, we must agree that these refugees need help.

America has already given over one billion dollars to the Syrian refugees through USAID, making us the single largest contributor of humanitarian assistance. We should be proud of that.

We can now either rest on our laurels, say “good enough”, and turn away, or we can realize that there is more to do. Let’s finally control how the Middle East views America. Let’s define ourselves as a force for good, not “imperialism”. Let’s help our allies in Turkey and Jordan cope with their new population. Let’s keep Lebanon from descending into another civil war. Let’s give the refugees

Where do we start?

We should start in Jordan. As Jeffrey Goldberg writes in the Atlantic, King Abullah is “the region’s most pro-American Arab leader.” He is a bastion of stability in a turbulent region, acting as both a liberalizer and a modernizer, and he provides a peaceful border for Israel. America certainly does not – wink – use his intelligence services – wink. All in all, he is good for America, and America should be good to him.

King Abdullah has been in trouble recently, though. In the wake of the Arab Spring, there were mass riots calling for his abdication. His people were angry that, like in most Arab countries, youth unemployment was around 25 percent. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the cessation of oil subsidies that Abdullah agreed to in return for a loan from the IMF. Jordanian Prime Minister al-Khasawneh was forced to resign, prompting new elections for parliament. These elections were boycotted by the most conservative and powerful political parties (a mild term for a group that includes the Muslim Brotherhood), calling the entire election into question. In 2012, Abdullah Ensour took over the premiership in a nation no longer rioting, but still simmering with revolutionary rage.

In 2011, in the middle of all of this, the Syrian crisis broke out and refugees started pouring into Jordan. The Za’atri refugee camp in the north is home to 150,000 Syrians, making it the 4th largest “city” in Jordan. Put another way, an economically weak and politically suspect government got an influx of poor, jobless, and hungry people so large that all but three places in the country are dwarfed by it.

Today, an already stretched royal purse is being ripped apart at the seams trying to keep them happy and healthy, but the refu-

We have a chance to put America on the right side of Middle Eastern history again. gees are still doing what refugees typically do, which is, of course, nothing. They have no avenues for success, no ability to contribute to the economy in any way but as dependents. It is certainly not what you want to see your ally going through.

The Syrian refugees are in a sad state of affairs, but not one bereft of opportunities for America. Jordan merits primacy because of their strategic importance and humanitarian desperation, but all across the Middle East there are people who need us, and from whom we can benefit. I say again, let’s help ourselves by helping others.

Joe Lenoff is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at joseph.lenoff@wustl.edu.

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Bill de Who? Charlie Thau | Illustration by Gretchen Oldelm

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ew York City’s leading mayoral candidate is a 6’5” Italian and championed as a liberal lion. Sound a little different from Bloomberg? On September 10, former Public Advocate Bill de Blasio emerged victorious in New York City’s Democratic primary, with 40.2 percent of the vote. He is also heavily favored in the general election where he will face Republican Joe Lhota.

So who is Bill de Blasio? And should he be the next mayor of New York City? I would argue no, and that if elected, New York may be in some danger, but thankfully not from Carlos Danger.

Maybe the only thing that everybody can agree on about Bill de Blasio is that he is really, really, liberal. Running to the left of everybody else in New York City isn’t a new tactic, but has it been successful in mayoral elections?

Recent history says no. David Dinkins was the last Democrat to hold the office in 1994. Since then, New Yorkers have been drawn to two candidates who campaigned on tough-on-crime rhetoric, who were concerned primarily with the security of the city, and who supported making New York more “business friendly”: Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.

It would appear, however, that priorities have changed. Capitalizing on liberal frustration with the Bloomberg era, de Blasio unseated City Council Speaker Christine Quinn as the favorite by painting her as an heir to “Tyrant Bloomberg.”

This is, in a sense, parallel to the 2008 Democratic primary in which Hillary Clinton suddenly became the establishment candidate and Barack Obama the agent of change. It’s not as if Christine Quinn isn’t liberal - she’s incredibly liberal - and would have been the first woman and first LGBT mayor in New York City’s history, but de Blasio simply out-flanked her from the left.

Regardless of how liberal de Blasio may be, he is clearly a brilliant, manipulative campaigner. His signature policy would increase taxes of those making over $500,000 to pay for things like universal Pre-K and after school programs for middle schoolers. This is a proposal that wins serious support from left-wing New Yorkers, many of whom love

to show the world how liberal they are by focusing their rhetoric on taxing the rich. The tax will never become law, however. Changes in laws regarding income tax must be approved by the State, which will not endorse such a measure in a state senate controlled by Republicans and dependent upon New York City’s wealthy residents as a tax base. De Bla-

De Blasio has a long way to go to show me that he is an honest politician with policies of real substance.

He will most likely win regardless. sio isn’t ignorant or naïve - he knows the tax is unworkable - which makes his stunt particularly infuriating.

So how did he suddenly become the frontrunner? Many argue that his sudden surge came from an ad he ran during the summer, giving him what his supporters are calling “fro-mentum.” In the ad, an Af-

rican-American teen with an enormous afro, Dante, talks about why de Blasio is good for New York and is “the only Democrat with the guts to break from the Bloomberg years.” He then goes on to claim de Blasio is “the only one that will end a stop-and-frisk era that unfairly targets people of color,” despite the fact that almost every other Democratic candidate has used similar rhetoric. Then comes the big plot twist: turns out he’s de Blasio’s kid! It’s one of the most effective political ads I’ve ever seen, and suddenly made him the candidate who will protect minorities, even more so than Bill Thompson, the only African-American candidate in the field. De Blasio’s poll numbers among minorities rocketed and gave him the boost he needed to become the clear frontrunner.

As de Blasio transitions from the primary to the general election, it would be shocking if he doesn’t take a slight right turn towards the center. He knows that Republican candidate Lhota will label him as a loony leftist who can’t relate to moderate, even left-leaning, independents. De Blasio’s rhetoric against Wall Street will likely soften as he knows that at the very least he will need to have a cooperative relationship with the financial heart of the city. He will juggle that relationship with his identity as a liberal crusader when campaigning in the outer, more liberal, boroughs (Brooklyn and Queens).

While clearly a political mastermind, intentionally misleading the public by presenting pandering policies that can never be enacted is intellectually dishonest. Further, using his family to gain votes from minorities is simply aggravating and underhanded. De Blasio has a long way to go to show me that he is an honest politician with policies of real substance. He will most likely win regardless. As a Democratic operative told Newsweek’s David Freedlander, “Bill de Blasio is much closer to Machiavelli than Marx…He lives for the game.”

Charlie Thau is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at cthau@wustl.edu.

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National

Let’s Clear the Air: Why Not to Light Up in Washington State Grace Portelance

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early a year ago citizens of Washington state rejoiced as initiative 502 was passed by a 10 point margin, making it one of the first two states in the United States to pass a recreational marijuana law. We felt pride in our liberal leanings, with both the passage of I-502 and the legalization of gay marriage putting us on the map as a model of social progression. Businessmen and politicians lauded the potential economic benefits of a new pot industry, and marijuana users looked forward to a paranoia-free high. Across the nation, advocates of drug legalization saw this initiative as the beginning of the end of the War on Drugs.

In short, a lot of faith was put in those two words--marijuana legalization--and Washington residents responded exuberantly with all night parties.

We, the cutting edge Washingtonians, are blazing trails.

Unfortunately, it seems that the trails we

thought we were blazing do not lead to the place we thought they would. As nice as the concept of legal weed seemed to 55 percent of the population, the question now comes down to what we actually ratified. Nearly a year after its passage, we seem to be no closer to this hazy goal of “legalization.� There is a massive discrepancy between the perceptions of the law and its actual intended effect.

Is this truly the bold step forward it has been regarded as?

This initiative has a lot riding on it because of its controversial nature- people saw it as a movement towards a society that accepted smoking weed as it does drinking alcohol. However, weed is not legalized to the extent many assume. Marijuana remains a schedule 1 substance under state law, with I-502 allowing for a legal exception for the possession of one ounce of marijuana. It is still illegal to use marijuana in public. It is illegal to share marijuana with another person.

At the moment, there still is no legal distribution of marijuana, (as the legal dispensaries will likely take years to set up) leaving all the demand to be filled illegally. Any use of this drug is still a federal crime, and while at the moment the federal government has no plans to take action against recreational pot use, this clash could cause unintended problems. This legislation is not the game changer it has been lauded to be, yet approaching this issue at any level forces the state legislature to tackle the difficult issue of how to create a set of regulations that can maintain safety and allow the government to back recreational marijuana use. The lack of information regarding safe marijuana use is especially evident in the set up of a legal limit of intoxication that is both arbitrary and difficult to justify scientifically.

I-502 sets up a legal limit of 5 nanograms of THC (the psychoactive component of marijuana) per milligram of blood. In

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theory, this would operate as a parallel to the 0.08 blood alcohol content (BAC) rule currently in place for judging if a driver is impaired by alcohol. Police officers would have to follow the same procedure as when testing for alcohol, simply adding a new dimension to DUI testing. Seems easy, right?

Not so much. Unfortunately, the similarities between marijuana and alcohol (in terms of DUI’s) end there, and the differences are many. Firstly, while Washington state is putting money aside to further research into marijuana’s effect on driving, the scientific and political communities are both skeptical as to whether blood level testing is the correct course. In Colorado, the state senate rejected four times the establishment of a marijuana blood standard, in large part because of the lack of reliable scientific evidence concerning impairment. Setting a legal limit without confidence in its efficacy is a dangerous game for the Washington state legislature to be playing. What if this limit is too high, and the seriously impaired are able to legally drive? Or, alternatively, where unimpaired drivers face serious penalties?

This issue becomes more complicated when one considers the variant effect THC has on people as compared to alcohol. The rate at which alcohol leaves one’s system is fairly predictable, and though there is some variation based on tolerance, size, gender, and more, the sobriety tests we have today are tested and well- established. This is not the case for marijuana. Firstly, there is no easy way to test for marijuana impairment:

to attain proof. Additionally, even with a foolproof test of THC levels, there is still is the essential question of what this test tells us. Marijuana affects people in a huge variety of ways, both in capability and length of time it remains in the system. Under this legislation, there is no legal amount of THC that can be present in a minor’s bloodstream while driving, and considering that THC can remain in ones bloodstream for weeks, this could potentially regard a 20 year old person who used marijuana weeks ago as driving under the influence. For this reason, medical marijuana users made up a strong lobby against I-502 with the concern that chronic users will always have THC in their system that may not impair them, but may falsely incriminate them.

The lack of preparation for the legalization of marijuana also has major implications for the production of marijuana. Many proponents of I-502 backed it not because they felt strongly about drug legalization, but because they saw it as an untapped industry that could replace the illegal market with a legal, taxable one. However, with only possession of marijuana (in small quantities), becoming legal, the distribution element of the equation is missing. The only distribution permitted by the legislation is that executed by strictly regulated and licensed dispensaries, which have yet to open up in Washington. Home growing is still illegal. So far it has been one year where possession is legal but any way to secure marijuana is not. Without a clear idea initially of how to determine who can sell

Businessmen and politicians lauded the potential economic benefits of a new pot industry. Marijuana users looked forward to a paranoia-free high. no Breathalyzer, no walking lines, and no touching fingers to noses. There is a saliva test, but it should come as no surprise that pristine results are difficult to maintain transporting a cotton swab (with salivary enzymes continually breaking down molecules in transport) from the roadside to a lab. Otherwise, a blood test is necessary, putting police in a difficult position to both assess whether a person is impaired by marijuana, and go through a complex procedure

marijuana, where, and when, lawmakers are struggling to figure out the safety standards, which at the very least will lead to the opening of dispensaries’s being difficult and costly for entrepreneurs. This only encourages illegal markets to grow and supply for the legal demand. Even if the state is able to create a system to begin issuing licenses, it will likely be a difficult path to open up a legal, profitable dispensary. There is still a direct conflict between federal and the new state law, and

while it is unlikely that this will impact individuals who use marijuana recreationally, this has historically created issues for medical marijuana dispensaries in other states.

Furthermore, the shaky legal ground of new dispensaries could make important parts of business start up procedure, like attaining loans, difficult, as banks may be reluctant to invest in something so contested. Whether or not marijuana can be a thriving industry is difficult to ascertain when it is unclear how this state/federal conflict will pan out.

In the case of I-502, the Washington state senate legislated first and asked questions later, an approach that put it on the frontier of marijuana reform, yet set up an unclear and untested system. Though some may argue that baby steps are necessary, rushing through legislation that could potentially be used as model for worldwide marijuana reform is unwise for the future of the movement. As we come up on the oneyear anniversary of its passage, we haven’t found many answers. We are still determining exactly who can sell marijuana and where. We are still reconciling the direct clash our policy has with that of the federal government, which may have difficult effects down the road, particularly when it comes to gaining tax revenue from this supposedly lucrative new market.

And we are still fundamentally unsure about how marijuana actually affects people who use it casually, chronically, and medically. In this way, Washington state has become less of a trailblazer and more of a guinea pig, and the hasty actions taken could lead to even more problems down the road.

It is a dangerous misconception to view Washington as a safe haven for marijuana users, as the legalization measures taken do not accurately represent what many would consider “true legalization.” I believe we can look forward to many years to of contested cases and conflict. I-502 was legislation we were not ready for and ultimately represents being progressive for progressive’s sake, and it was not the correct path to take to achieve the true legalization of marijuana.

Grace Portelance is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at grace.portelance@wustl.edu.

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International

Our Cheap Addiction Kevin Deutsch

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he United States should stop trading with China and move its trade elsewhere. Right off the bat, I’ll admit that I provide limited warrants for my claims; this article should be considered as a thought experiment, rather than a rigorous policy recommendation.

My argument relies heavily on the interplay of global superpowers, so before I begin, I should define what a superpower is. For my purposes, it will be a country that has worldwide hegemony. For example, during the Cold War, the USSR and the United States were superpowers, as they dominated countries across the globe. China had localized influence and therefore was not.

Ditch China My first conjecture is that it is in the best interest of the United States to remain the world’s sole superpower. Simply put, having unrivaled power makes it easier for the US to achieve its objectives, whatever those may be. It gives us worldwide influence. Our unrivaled power is essential to our national security, because our government is better able to act in the interest of its citizens. As of now, we are the world’s sole superpower because we have the world’s largest economy and its most powerful military.

Secondly, I believe that China, with its up-and-coming economy, is threatening our

best outcome, there is a market failure we must account for. Markets don’t account for the strategic certainty that trading with China empowers the country, which threatens us. Currently, we’re sacrificing our standing in the international arena, and subsequently our own security, for cheap prices. Essentially, China is our cheap addiction. We rely on them for inexpensive consumer goods, yet our reliance enables their rise.

To account for this market failure, we ought to place tariffs on Chinese goods, such that their market price reflects their true price—losing our status as the world’s sole superpower. Subsequently, this would shift trade to other markets, therein mitigating the financial toll from losing China as our trading partner. All of these other markets (India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Thailand) provide fertile ground for increased manufacturing and foreign investment.

Why the Others Can’t Out-Do Us For a variety of reasons, none of these countries could ever rival the United States as a superpower. The most powerful reason is that India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand are hectic democracies. This means they are less able to make the decisions and the reforms necessary to become superpowers. Although this

While trading with China is the result of free market economics, which usually provide the best outcome, there is a market failure we must account for. status as the sole superpower. Its growing economy enables it to build a more capable military, which makes the threat two-fold.

In 2010, the People’s Republic became the second largest economy in the world. Last October 31st, China’s fifth generation stealth fighter, the J-31, made its maiden flight. And last September, the PLA Navy commissioned its first aircraft carrier.

Not trading with China would stifle its rise. Currently, exports to the United States account for 9% of China’s economy. While trading with China is the result of free market economics, which usually provide the

is the case, they are still stable enough that they don’t pose a significant risk to foreign investment. Moreover, while they may be wrought with bureaucracy that would normally deter business, countries often have foreign trade offices that expedite the otherwise encumbering process of getting permits and meeting requirements.

India and Indonesia are also both tremendously diverse, while China is much more homogeneous. This means these two countries lack national unity, something that most enduring superpowers have had since ancient times. While the United States has an

President Richard Nixon meeting with Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong. Nixon is famous for ending a 21-year trade embargo with China in 1971.

incredibly diverse population, it is unique in that its democratic ideals unify the population. India, specifically, was historically divided into smaller kingdoms; it was not united under one government entity until the British Raj was established in 1858 (an exception, the Mughal Empire was pervasively weak and short-lived). Indonesia would not exist but for the Dutch unifying it as a colony.

Malaysia and Thailand, along with Vietnam and the Philippines, have populations that are too small compared to those of their neighbors to become superpowers.

Finally, India, the most likely to become a superpower out of the countries I listed, is too entangled with its longtime enemy Pakistan to emerge as a superpower. Pakistan, while substantially weaker than India, is a huge check on India with its nuclear stockpile and competition for control of Kashmir.

Conclusion A complete, truly thorough argument cannot not be made in an 800-word article.

For that, I’d need to write a book several hundred pages long. But I don’t have time to write that, nor do you have time to read it. My goal for this piece is not to prove my point, but to present it and generate debate.

To close, our world is changing. If this century becomes the “Chinese Century” as some predict, it will be attributed to our own failures in foreign policy.

Kevin Deutsch is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at kcdeutsch@wustl.edu.

National

The Future of Our Mental Health System Victoria Sgarro | Illustration by Zach Rouse

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bout ten months ago, a 20-year-old man walked into a Connecticut elementary school and fatally shot twenty children and six adults. The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School sparked a renewal of the never-ending national debate over gun rights and violence. As a traumatized country searched for answers, the conversation turned toward a new, often stigmatized topic: mental health. Mental health awareness advocates faulted the American mental health system for the shooting in Connecticut and tragedies like it (the shooting in Aurora, Colorado occurred only six months earlier, and the one in Tucson, Arizona a year earlier). In response to the devastating events at Sandy Hook Elementary, President Obama has spoken of the need for a mental health care reform, reiterating this point at the National Conference on Mental Health in June. Now that the January 1st effective date of his Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as “Obamacare,” is fast approaching, could a change actually be in sight?

The short answer is, maybe.

Currently the American mental health system is fragmented and non-comprehensive at best. About 20 percent of Americans with health insurance have no mental health coverage, and about a third have no coverage for substance abuse treatment.

Without access to affordable treatment, many people with low-income levels and mental health problems end up in prison. The ACA strives to fill these gaps in coverage by expanding the mental health and substance use disorder benefits of approximately 62 million Americans. Of these 62 million, 32 million will receive coverage for the first time and 30 million others will experience improvements in their mental healthcare coverage.

So what will this expansion of coverage mean in terms of policy exactly? The answer requires backtracking a few years. Many Americans are unaware that a major mental health care bill, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), passed in 2008. The law did not receive much at-

tention at the time because it was attached to the $787 billion economic stimulus package. However, its passage essentially redefined mental healthcare in the United States, putting mental health conditions on equal

ACA strives to fill these gaps in coverage by expanding the mental health and substance use disorder benefits of approximately 62 million Americans. ground with physical health conditions. Under the MHPAEA, if an employer offers both physical and mental health care coverage in its insurance plan, then those coverages must be deemed equivalent. This means that outof-pocket expenses, deductibles, and treatment restrictions of mental illnesses must be comparable to those of physical illnesses.

Essentially, a person’s right to receive treatment for depression must be the same as his or her right to receive treatment for a bro-

ken leg. This idea in itself was a major victory for mental health advocates. However, this victory did not come without a few caveats.

Firstly, the law only applies if an employer already offers mental health care coverage under its insurance plan; it says nothing about requiring anyone to offer it. Additionally, small businesses are immune to this law. And needless to say, people without health insur-

ance did not benefit at all.

This is where Obamacare comes in. The Department of Health and Human Services announced that adequate coverage for mental health care and substance abuse is one of the ten “Essential Health Benefits” that an insurer must offer under the ACA. This means that all of the people who do not have healthcare now will have both mental and physical coverage when the ACA takes effect. Thus, all of the newly insured will receive the benefits of the MHPAEA. This change is especially important because among today’s 32 million uninsured Americans, there is a high prevalence of untreated mental health problems. Moreover, because the ACA says that no one can be denied care based on a pre-existing condition (including a mental health condition), every American will have access to the mental health treatment that he or she needs.

Nevertheless, January 1st will not signal the end of all problems with our mental health system. Although coverage will greatly increase under the ACA, there is not an expected accompanying increase in the number of trained psychiatrists and addiction counselors. Therefore, coverage may not truly translate into access. Furthermore, Obamacare permits all states to adjust the definition of the “Essential Health Benefits” based on the needs of their citizens.

Thus, actual implementation of the law might be different across the country, allowing one state to cover more expensive prescription antipsychotic drugs than another.

Despite these concerns, the Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction. It sets a higher standard for mental health coverage, ensuring that citizens’ mental health illnesses be taken as seriously as and be treated with as much respect as their physical illnesses, regardless of who they are. Living up to this standard will be difficult in practice, but the fact that we are asking more of our mental health system is the first step in reaching it.

Victoria Sgarro is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at vrsgarro@wustl.edu.

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Syria

How the Rebels Can Win Razi Safi

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s a Syrian, my view on the civil war in Syria is tremendously biased, and I may be unintentionally optimistic about the ability of the rebels to seize control of the country and form a stable, democratic government. That being said, I am confident that my viewpoint parallels those of civilians in Syria. Here, I will provide a simplified background regarding the rebels in Syria and will describe the steps I believe the rebels must take in order to gain international legitimacy, control in Syria, and a proper foundation for a new government in Syria.

While each of the many rebel groups has its own specific agenda for Syria, the rebels’ unifying goal is to remove President al-Assad from power. In 2012, when WUPR had the opportunity to ask rebels what their long-term goals were, they replied that their only goal was to remove al-Assad. They said that what happens to Syria afterwards is irrelevant because nothing could be worse than what they have now.

The rebels don’t have a well-organized strategy for democracy in Syria because they believe that can only be established after al-Assad is removed from power. While I laud their efforts to achieve democracy, I believe that they cannot successfully create a democratic government unless a well-organized strategy is formed prior to the removal of the Assad regime.

Contrary to popular belief, the future of Syria doesn’t rely on its fighters; it relies on the transitional government the rebels hope to es-

tablish. If a coalition designed to establish a transitional government can prove to the international community that it is acting in the best interest of both the Syrian people and the international community, it can harness that support in a manner that will produce regime change.

Parties that prefer stability in Syria to democracy in Syria will then recognize that the new government will be better suited to provide that stability and will further catalyze the ultimate removal of the Assad regime.

The Major Players There are countless coalitions looking to create a transitional government. The most established is the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (The National Coalition). The National Coalition absorbed previous groups such as the Syrian National Council (SNC), which had been recognized by 17 United Nations members including the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. The SNC represented a wide variety of the Syrian opposition, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood. Other councils integrated into the National Coalition include the Kurdish National Council, local councils representing each part of Syria as well as members representing many smaller opposition factions. The Arab league has recognized this coalition as the “legitimate representative of the Syrian people.”

Syria

Since its formation, the National Council has established the most legitimacy and appears to be the most capable of establishing a stable government.

The National Coalition’s website, outlines the mission statement and its organization, which appears to be well structured, although admittedly not fully planned out. While it has a mission statement and its members represent a wide margin of Syrians, they lack a meaningful constitution that will properly detail the role and form of their organization.

While the National Council has reasonable control over the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and while its three core principles of inclusivity, accountability, and consensus show its aspiration for a democratic government, it’s hard to see what the National Coalition has actually achieved. If the National Coalition wants to establish legitimacy both in Syria and internationally, it has to go one step further and initiate plans for their future government. It’s not enough to say that the new government will be democratically elected; they need to establish rules to show exactly how their new government will work. Only then will the Syrian people actually buy into the idea of a new democratic government.

Barriers to a Democratic Government The largest barrier to a unified new government is religious. The National Council and its military, the FSA, hope to establish a secular government, while other strong militant groups such as the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF) have an Islamic ideology;

the FSA and SILF differ in their vision of the role of religion in Syrian government, they both agree that the government should be democratic and must have protections for non-Muslim Syrians.

This consensus, along with a constitution established by the National Council, can strengthen the opposition and de-radicalize the civil war. It’s also important to note that al-Nusra, like most al-Qaeda affiliates, thrives on disorder: any attempt by the FSA and SILF to establish order will weaken alNusra. An FSA and SILF alliance would even sway Assad’s Christian, Druze, and Alawite fringe supporters who fear persecution and currently prefer a dictator to complete chaos.

The rush of radical fighters into Syria raises the question of whether the National Coalition would be able to establish a legitimate government without radical influence if the Assad regime were to be overthrown. I reject the notion that extremists in Syria have made the civil war too complex for a stable democracy. While groups such as al-Nusra complicate the matter, they aren’t deal breakers. Though al-Nusra is an extremely well trained militia with solid financial backing, the reality is they don’t have the true support of the Syrians and are also smaller than the other militias. Many in the FSA also claim that the Assad regime has encouraged the conflict to become radicalized by extremists in an attempt to bolster support for its government. As soon as order begins to be established in Syria, the power of groups such as al-Nusra will dwindle. While it certainly won’t be easy to establish order for the Na-

Contrary to popular belief, the future of Syria doesn’t rely on its fighters; it relies on the transitional government the rebels hope to establish jihadist groups such as al-Nusra want an even more radical movement. It is important to emphasize that while groups such as al-Nusra complicate the issue, they do not truly have the support of the Syrian people. Al-Nusra may be praised for its efforts against the regime, but it can easily be marginalized if the other militant groups such as the FSA and SILF can form a unified front, which can be achieved with the help of the National Council. While

tional Coalition, it can be accomplished more easily with a comprehensive transitional government. International support can then be initiated if the Syrian people determine them to be legitimate representatives and the international community establishes that there is no radical influence.

Preventing another Egypt One of the major fears that Syrians have is that even if the Assad regime is overthrown, the country will fall into chaos. Their fears are warranted, as evidenced by Egypt’s recent post-revolutionary violence. How can they be sure that the government they elect will accurately represent them? How can they be sure that their democratically elected government won’t be overthrown? How can they be sure that the democratically elected government won’t infringe upon the rights of Syrian minorities? While these questions cannot be answered with certainty, these risks can be mitigated if the National Coalition can establish a plan for a real government now and go further than simply just naming who will be in charge. The National Coalition should establish rules on how long each representative will serve, whether or not there will be term limits, and how to establish balances so that one political party does not attain absolute control.

The National Coalition should go one step further and establish rules that expand on its three principles of inclusivity, accountability, and consensus. It can establish rules that protect the rights of all citizens and rules that will establish accountability through a well-organized legal system. The National Coalition doesn’t have to have every single system of a new government worked out, but they do need to establish common-sense rules that go beyond rhetoric. I’m not saying that this task will be easy, but I am saying that it is necessary if the National Coalition hopes to gain legitimacy locally and internationally.

Despite the difficulties that lie ahead, Syria is capable of establishing a stable democratic government. Instead of focusing on the fighting, the rebel leaders need to focus on establishing a functional transitional government that will win the support the Syrian people and bring the civil war to an end. Given their strength relative to other rebel groups, the National Coalition is best suited to establish a legitimate government.

The only question that remains is whether it can get past the rhetoric and establish something that Syrians can support.

Razi Safi is a senior in the School of Engineering. He can be reached at razi.safi@ wustl.edu.

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Syria

In a War to Win, a Generation to Lose Kaity Shea Cullen

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here is no innocence left in Syria. As debates over an appropriate response rage within the parliaments, committees, and households of Western nations; camps continue to swell; death tolls continue to climb; and Syria’s border nations continue their struggle to accommodate the influx of refugees. Americans face the challenge of deciding which force to back: Bashar al-Assad, a ruthless dictator responsible for the violent slaughter of his people, or the rebel forces, themselves guilty of war crimes and ties to al-Qaeda. With our attention focused on the politics of the conflict, it becomes too easy to forget the true victims: the civilians. As the conflict worsens, Syria reels towards the grim reality of raising a lost generation.

Children Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, the number of refugees has steadily grown, now exceeding 2 million. Throughout the conflict, however, one number has remained constant: nearly 50 percent of refu-

The children who suffer the physical, emotional, and educational consequences of civil war today will be charged with rebuilding and restoring their devastated nation tomorrow. gees are children. Moreover, 75 percent of these are under the age of eleven. The situation in Syria has certainly affected the lives of all its civilians, but the impact on children has been disproportionate. Countless children have been injured. Many more continue to be killed, maimed, and orphaned. Traumatized by sexual violence, torture, arbitrary detention, and the deaths of their family

members, these children lose their ability to reason and become terrified by the sights and sounds of violence. UNICEF spokeswomen Marixie Mercado emphasizes the feelings of anger, fear, and disappointment that affect refugee children, who often fight with one another and whose drawings of violence and death cover the walls of their classrooms.

Few children have access to psychological counseling or even general health care.

Over half of refugee children became ill last January when a wave of floods and extreme weather hit the region, and access to clean drinking water is of significant concern in the desert camps. Such deficits mean that Syrian children must continue to struggle for their emotional and physical health long after leaving the war-torn nation.

Education Education has been particularly affected by Syria’s civil war. In 2002, elementary and primary education (grades 1 to 9) was made free and compulsory for Syrian students, both boys and girls. Today, more than 60 percent of Syrian children do not attend school, according to a study by the humanitarian organization CARE. In Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, UNICEF reports that the number of children attending classes has fallen to a mere 6 percent.

Existing classes are overcrowded, with many consisting of more than 100 students.

Some schools offer shortened days, rotating children through in four shifts to accommodate limited resources. A fifth of Syrian schools have been destroyed, damaged, or converted to shelters, and while a few makeshift classrooms have been set up within homes and other community venues, the costs of transportation, school supplies, and school lunches mean that many children have dropped out even where classes are available. The longer children stay out of school, the less likely they are to return.

Syria’s Future One father remarks that watching his children stay home from school is like watching them “lose their future.” But in Syria, these children are very much the entirety of the nation’s future. According to the Brookings Institution, conflicts like this last an av-

erage of 17 years. This would suggest that the children who suffer the physical, emotional, and educational consequences of civil war today will be charged with rebuilding and

Overlooking Syria’s lost generation would be a serious mistake. restoring their devastated nation tomorrow.

And while improved access to education would have an immediate positive impact, providing a sense of routine and reducing the psychological effects of violence, its longterm ramifications are of crucial importance to Syria and the international community.

Increased access to education decreases the likelihood of future armed conflicts and facilitates rebuilding in post-war nations.

Overlooking Syria’s lost generation would be a serious mistake for the United States. While we cite humanitarian priorities to justify missile strikes, we fail to use the same rationalization to push seriously for civilian aid. Though the decision to carry out targeted strikes in the region is complex and contentious, the need to extend aid to children is not.

Providing access to health care, counseling, and education is of basic necessity from a humanitarian perspective. Moreover, it is a pragmatic, strategic decision. It offers the potential to improve Syrian public opinion of the United States, a fact whose significance becomes clear when one considers that a sizeable rebel faction is affiliated with AlQaeda and that the instability in the region offers the potential for a variety of groups to operate and even rule in Syria. Additionally, an educated populace will accelerate rebuilding and facilitate a more speedy recovery and return to stability in post-war Syria. But for today, there is no innocence left in Syria.

Kaity Shea Cullen is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at kscullen@wustl.edu.

Syria

Syria: The Global Civil War Aaron Christensen

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ebanon entered the Syrian Civil War in April 2013 as fear mounted that the war would soon enter Lebanon. It was then that Hezbollah, Lebanon’s strongest armed political faction, intervened on the side of the Assad regime with thousands of soldiers. Overnight, “spillover” became the media’s go-to word for Lebanon’s future. The war, it seemed, would not stay confined to Syria, but would expand beyond international borders. Not long after, this fear seemed to manifest itself as the radical Lebanese Salafi cleric Ahmad al-Assir issued a fatwa declaring it the duty of Lebanese Salafis to wage jihad against the Syrian government and, by extension, Hezbollah. His call was answered by thousands, who left an increasingly divided Lebanon for Syria.

Soon after, the tension boiled over; al-Assir’s partisans took up arms and attacked Hezbollah-controlled neighborhoods in the city of Sidon. The Lebanese Army intervened in favor of Hezbollah and won the battle. Driven from Sidon, al-Assir attempted to foment a national rebellion against the government, but it never materialized. He never again led more than a few hundred fighters and remains in hiding to this day. It was not for want of support; in the aftermath of the Sidon clashes there were violent demonstrations as far away as Egypt by Salafis sympathetic to their foreign counterpart. Al-Assir’s problem, it seems, was of his own doing: most of his militant supporters were off fighting in Syria. Hezbollah’s reaction to the battle was also uncharacteristically weak as, similarly, its resources were directed against the Syrian rebels.

Strangely, Hezbollah and the Salafis have been fighting their internal Lebanese war, but they have done so over the border in Syria.

Crucially, this was not an isolated incident.

An even worse sectarian conflict was simultaneously devel-

oping in Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government and the American imposition of a weaker one, the situation worsened until the summer of 2013, when a sharp rise in violence caused many news analysts to predict an impending civil war. Shia and Sunni militias prepared for the coming fight and their rhetoric became increasingly aggressive. The administration of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk went so far as to commission the digging of a giant security trench around the entire city. Months later, however, this war has not begun and deaths from sectarian violence are slightly down. This reprieve is a result neither of reconciliation between the parties nor a result of a regime change. Instead, it links back to Syria. Sunni jihadists had already poured into Syria in 2012. Now, in the summer of 2013, came an intervention of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Shia mujahedeen, many from Iraq. Just as in Lebanon, countless would-be participants in an Iraqi civil war were off fighting in another country’s conflict, sometimes against other Iraqis.

Why do these militants prefer fighting in Syria to fighting at home? The Syrian Civil War is a deeply emotional and “famous” struggle with profound significance in the Muslim world. Syria, in addition, is a war constantly swaying in the balance where individual action can have a great effect. In short, militants go to Syria because it is an important fight. As they export their violence to Syria, a vicious cycle emerges where their involvement makes the Syrian Civil War more important, encouraging others to get involved. This involvement does not extend only to militant groups; states are getting interested too and are now fighting their own interstate conflicts, latent or overt, within the civil war.

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Syria Rare Exports Among these conflicts is the decadesold fight for regional hegemony between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran, al-Assad’s closest ally, needs Syria to remain in government hands in order to protect its influence in the Arab world. Saudi Arabia wants the rebels to win in order to prevent Iran from doing precisely that. In response, both nations have sent their respective sides large quantities of money and weapons. Many of the Shia who went to Syria first travelled to Iran for government-sponsored train-

rious spat since the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Syria has the world’s attention, and whichever side gets its way will prove itself a global power.

These indirect engagements are broader symptoms of the post-Cold War military environment. Direct interstate war is unfeasible in today’s world. Instead, countries take their confrontations to proxy conflicts, especially civil wars. Syria is such a conflict. What began as a domestic political rebellion has become a proxy war for the entire Middle East, much as

Syria is becoming its own kind of world war; instead of the war coming to the world, the world has come to the war. ing. Saudi Arabia has a similar strategy; it directly encourages religious extremists in its own territory to leave for Syria, thereby fighting al-Assad and getting rid of domestic fundamentalists who could challenge the Saudi government.

Just as Syria has become the new front of fundamentalism, it has also transformed into the new battleground for Kurdish nationalism. In 2012, Kurdish separatists belonging to the “People’s Protection Units” (YPG) carved out an independent Kurdish enclave in northern Syria. In July 2013, the group began fighting Syrian rebels who accuse the Kurds of supporting the regime. A wave of Kurds came from throughout the Middle East to fight alongside the YPG, among them fighters from the PKK, the separatist militant group that fought Turkey for decades before agreeing to a ceasefire in early 2013. They did not so much end their fight as move it to Syria.

Turkey, fearing an independent Kurdish region in Syria could support Kurdish insurgency at home, has thus tried to encourage the Syrian rebels to fight the YPG through patronage, arms, and logistical support.

Following the usage of chemical weapons in eastern Damascus, the war took on a global dimension as the United States and Russia escalated their diplomatic sparring.

The end of the Cold War did not end tension between the two countries; Russia has been trying to regain its superpower status ever since recovering from its post-USSR anarchy. Vladimir Putin has openly challenged Obama’s military solution and managed to win the support of Europe for his own diplomatic one. This dispute over the Syrian Civil War is perhaps their most se-

the Spanish Civil War was Europe’s great proxy war. Militant groups, political parties, religious leaders, virtually everyone has some Syrian connection. A proxy war is an old phenomenon; what is new is a single civil war acting as a proxy for so many different disputes across the region and, lately, the world. Syria is becoming its own kind of world war. Instead of the war coming to the world, the world has come to the war.

What happens in Syria, stays in Syria?

These overlapping interests and proxies have helped make the situation as bitter and horrible as it is today. Yet the external actors involved in Syria benefit from the nation’s misery; they can fight their battles on the land of another, the designated battleground for the region.

But this trend cannot last forever. The war has to end (or at least die down) at some point, and that will likely be sooner rather than later. Both sides have already turned their focus from seizing new territory to consolidating the control of the areas they already have. It is important to emphasize, however, that neither will be able to administer their territory after the war. The rebels have no central leadership and are only united by a common enemy.

When the fight ends, so will most of their cooperation. Even Bashar al-Assad has recently given up part of his authority to Alawi militias and foreign fighters so that the regime can survive. When the war ends, one way or another, what will stop the violence from leaving Syria’s borders?

What is now a nightmare for Syria

could tomorrow be a crisis for the Middle East and, the day after, the world. The hope of the West, it seems, is that positive and negative will cancel out in a bloody catharsis, thus resolving all the Middle East’s accumulated tensions. This “solution”, however, looks increasing unlikely every day.

Surviving foreigners who went to fight in Syria will leave even more radicalized; over 200 Australians alone are fighting in Syria, most in extremist militias. Western governments are deeply concerned about a potential pandemic of terrorism when their nationals return. The end of the war poses an even greater threat to countries in Syria’s vicinity.

The country’s borders are porous with a constant flow of refugees, allowing militants to easily enter neighboring countries. The war’s devastation will leave Syria with few if any economic prospects and the country’s instability will deter investment, leaving hundreds of thousands of native Syrians with guns but no jobs.

Syrians, for two years the world’s biggest net importers of violence, could soon begin exporting it. Although the conflicts of the Middle East have been exiled to Syria, sectarian tension and anger has only increased in response to the killing and suffering. Syrians wishing to continue fight-

Syrians, for two years the world’s biggest net importers, could soon begin exporting violence. ing would be in high demand abroad. The Middle East’s almost arbitrary colonial borders are weak. When they finally break and Syria’s chaos rolls outward, the Middle East will never be the same. Fundamentalist imams often exhort the faithful to join the fight in Syria by portraying the war as a kind of apocalyptic conflict that will change the face of the world. They’re not too far off.

Aaron Christensen is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at aaronchristensen@wustl.edu.

International

21st-Century Free Trade Chris Gibson

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ew economists would argue against free trade. In our increasingly globalized world, free trade is vital to maximizing efficiency and exploiting comparative advantages. Free trade agreements (FTAs) are generally efficient, but they also have costs.

Many groups, especially labor unions, point out that FTAs can send American jobs overseas and tend to support big business over the average employee. This argument is especially relevant today, as the United States is in the process of negotiating the two largest free trade agreements in history.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is comprised of the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, and a number of smaller countries around the Pacific. Together, these countries make up $27.5 trillion, or 38 percent, of world gross domestic product and accounted for 40 percent, or $1.75 trillion, of US trade in 2012. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is only comprised of two parties: the United States and the European Union (EU). Together, they make up 45 percent of world GDP and 33 percent of total world trade.

Talks are underway for both FTAs and will hopefully conclude sometime before the end of 2014. With economic growth in developed countries slowed to a crawl, these massive trade agreements offer a potential source of GDP growth for all nations involved. Unlike most recent FTAs, both TPP and TTIP are “21st-century” trade agreements; in addition to lowering tariffs between countries (the traditional role of FTAs), they also address modern barriers to trade, including differences in regulatory standards, intellectual property law, financial services, and regulations on cross-border data flows. The 21st century aspects of TPP and TTIP negate the arguments against trade agreements. Trading with developed countries minimizes job loss, and everyone, from wealthy CEOs to small business owners to the average consumer, stands to benefit from TPP and TTIP. TPP has two main goals for liberalizing trans-Pacific trade. The first is lowering tariffs on manufactured goods, textiles, and agricultural products. Average tariffs range from 2 percent to 10 percent, but specific industries can have tariffs as high as 200 percent. The second goal is liberalizing “21st century” issues regarding financial and legal services, intellectual property rights, and government procurement requirements.

Unlike the tariffs in TPP nations, tariffs in the EU are already very low, averaging about 3.5 percent. TTIP is focused on decreasing behind-the-border non-tariff barriers (NTBs) that indirectly raise the cost of trade. A simple example would be car seatbelt regulations.

Here, if the United States. and the European Union have different standards, producers are forced to modify their production methods if they wish to export. Combined with other safety and emissions standards, NTBs represent the equivalent of a 27 percent tariff on automobile trade between the United States and the European Union, which could be cut significantly by TTIP. Across all industries, NTBs add anywhere from 10 percent to 75 percent to trade costs, with trade in food and beverages facing the highest barriers.

According to a 2012 study by the Peterson Institute, TPP could raise U.S. income by $78 billion annually, driven by $124 billion in added exports. World GDP could increase by nearly $2 trillion, or 2

Leaders of the TPP member states.

percent, by 2025. It should also be noted that this study was conducted before three large economies, Canada, Mexico, and Japan, joined TPP. A 2013 study by the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London predicts that TTIP will lead to increases in U.S. GDP of $123 billion, or 0.8 percent. By 2027, annual household disposable income could increase by over $800 and exports to the EU could grow 37 percent. The study also predicts that, by 2027, only 0.7 percent of the en-

Everyone, from wealthy CEOs to small business owners to the average consumer, stands to benefit from TPP and TTIP. tire US-EU labor force will be displaced as a result of the agreement.

TPP and TTIP are unlike past trade agreements because most countries involved are highly developed. High labor standards and wages in the EU and countries including Australia and Japan will prevent US jobs from being outsourced. To those who claim that trade agreements favor big business and those with lots of capital, I concede that since big business and the wealthy are the most invested in international trade, this will probably remain the case. The benefits, however, will not be limited to these individuals. The FTAs would remove many of the regulatory differences that currently prevent small businesses from exporting their products. Products imported to the US would also be cheaper, especially automobiles from Europe and Japan. Finally, average household income and wages will increase once the agreements are implemented due to increased production and the growth of global service industries.

The benefits of TPP and TTIP are not limited to individual producers and consumers. TPP and TTIP, if negotiated well, could serve as the international standard for trade, and could restart the stalled Doha Round talks of the World Trade Organization. Though the implementation of either trade agreement is months in the future, the massive scale and huge implications of TPP and TTIP will improve the entire world economy and the quality of life of the vast majority of Americans.

Chris Gibson is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at chris.gibson@wustl.edu.

Image by Gobierno de Chile [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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National

CPAC St. Louis Coverage Reported by Jimmy Loomis, transcribed by Aryeh Mellman On September 28th, 2013 Staff Writer Jimmy Loomis attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) St. Louis event.

The conference drew notable political figures, including Governors Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rick Perry of Texas, as well as former Senator Rick Santorum, and many other prominent conservative voices. Loomis participated on behalf of WUPR in press conferences for Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist and Lt. Col. Oliver North. We’ve selected excerpts from each; the full transcripts are available on www.wupr.org.

Grover Norquist Question: Realistically, as an expert, do you think that Congress is going to come up with something close to what happened in 2011?

Grover Norquist: …The interesting question I’ve never heard answered is [about] the Boehner attempt to vacate the Boehner rule.

I thought the House Republicans believed going into this that the deal to be made on debt ceiling would look like this: Democrats are very unhappy about the sequester because Obama can’t spend more right now. And [they] could go and say, “Well, if you were to change some entitlements 10, 20, 30 years from now, the present value of small changes can become fairly significant, so you could save $100 billion in today’s dollars by cutting trillions 20, 30 years out.” But if you do it through the entitlements, it’s not a maybe, it’s actually a change in law like Reagan and Tip O’Neill did in ’83.

GN (cont’d): So you could take savings in the future that were sure, not promised, but actually in law, trade them for a little bit more spending today to lighten up on what the Democrats feel is this terrible pressure, which the Pentagon feels is this overwhelming pressure—they could only spend $3 and $4 trillion a year and it’s killing them, and that kind of deal could be win-win for everybody…

Q: But is there any interest in doing that?

GN: Well, the Republicans have put that on the table and made it very clear it’s on the table. It is exactly what Bill Clinton spent eight years saying he wanted to do. But when he got in trouble with his personal stuff, the left wouldn’t let him make that deal.

Could Obama do it? He has not done any reform of entitlements during his Presidency.

Q: He says he won’t even negotiate.

GN: Well, but he said that all the way through the last time too. It’s a little bit hard. You’ve got some Republicans who right now won’t do anything unless all of Obamacare disappears tomorrow. The same people said they wouldn’t vote for the debt ceiling increase in August of ’11 unless they got a Constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote to raise taxes and a balanced budget. We didn’t get that, and they did vote for the deal, so sometimes people say—I think it’s a bad idea to misrepresent your final offer, even if other people think it’s the negotiating process.

Q: On a separate note, how are you trying to sell young people on your taxpayer protection pledge?

GN: Well, I’m only to sell elected officials on it, so young people running for office get the same sales pitch as everyone else. When you run for office, it is a good idea in the cosmic sense, and a good

idea for you personally, if you are against tax increases, to say so in a credible way. What the pledge does is it allows somebody to make credible promises that a lot of people used to make; some of them wanting to be believed. “I won’t raise your taxes.” But a bunch of liberal, a bunch of politicians also said, “We’re lying.”

Okay? And then when you challenged them on it, they said, “Well, that was then and that was before this other thing happened, and what I meant was, I don’t want to raise taxes now…” That person’s not promised not to raise your taxes. They’ve just told you the excuses they will give you when they raise your taxes.

GN (cont’d): “I will not raise your taxes” is a commitment to spending less, because if you take taxes off the table you then focus on spending restraint…Every politician who’s open (inaudible) our memories thought we’d live through this—[in] 1982 Reagan was promised $3 in spending restraint for every $1 of tax increases.

The tax increases on the table ate all the spending restraint. The spending went up, not down. With Ronald Reagan monitoring the deal, he got taken. And then Bush, in ’90, same thing happened to him. He got $2 in spending restraints for every $1 of tax increase…But in both of those cases, because tax increases were on the table, tax spending cuts never, ever happened. Spending went up, not down, in both cases. Now if you just want to get elected but you think you might want to raise taxes, my strong suggestion is don’t take the pledge because it’ll come back to bite you. Which is why even desperate people trying to get elected cannot tell that lie in writing. It’s very interesting.

Grover Norquist is the President and Founder of Americans for Tax Reform. A conservative, libertarian Republican, he opposes all tax increases on the federal, state, and local levels. He is most famous for promoting the “Tax Payer Protection Pledge,” which asks lawmakers to promise in writing never to raise taxes. Key to building support for President George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, he is on the Board of Directors of the NRA and the American Conservation Union.

He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and won first place in “Washington’s Funniest Celeberity” in 2013.

Gage Skidmore [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

National

Lt. Col. Oliver North Question: What is the best way for young people to get involved with American politics?

Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North: Pick a candidate. I mean, find somebody that is aligned with your particular political philosophy, regardless of what it is. And I’m not bragging or complaining, I put together the largest youth movement in Virginia history when I ran for the Senate in ‘94. In large part because I had a very attractive daughter who was part of the College Republicans, and a very activist son who was in the same chapter-

deserve and that’s credibility in that part of the world.

ON: (Laughs) He is, he’s a handsome young man. And now is a father of six, so something’s going on…I think that engaging with a candidate rather than a party organization or something like that is probably the best way a young person can involve themselves.

ON (cont’d): The Russians have essentially four things that they can export. Number one gas, number two oil, number three weapons, among them chemical weapons—no one’s asked the question, where did those chemical weapons come from, that were in Syria? They came from the Soviet Union. And number four, people. The Soviet Union exports people at a greater rate than they replace them.

No one [immigrates] to the Soviet Union, to Russia…And [the price of oil is] important to Russia because one of the ways in which Ronald Reagan broke the back of the Russian Empire, what he called the Evil Empire, was to drive down the price of oil. And so today, in today’s dollars, it costs over $50 a barrel to get oil and gas out of the ground in Russia…

Putin now has the ability to keep oil over a hundred dollars a barrel, because all he has to do is tweak things a little bit in the Middle East and the price goes up. So I think the outcome in Syria is very much in doubt.

Q: What is your view on the President’s current handling of the crisis in Syria?

ON: I think the administration’s been making it up as they go along…In all cogent, coherent administrations, you have a national strategy…Nothing was done from the time we drew a line in the sand to build a coalition of Great Britain, the NATO forces, whatever, unlike what transpired with George W. Bush.

President Bush built a coalition to go deal with a problem of what they honestly believed was weapons of mass destruction in a place called Iraq…This administration did none of that. They didn’t go out and grease the skids with their closest allies the Brits, or the Canadians, the Australians…I think we’ve handed Putin something he doesn’t

Q: Do you think that the Republican Party or America as a whole will ever return to Reagan’s America?

ON: Yeah…yeah, I hope so…What you’re seeing in Washington right now, with the fratricide that’s occurring over the budget, and the continuing resolution, and what we’ll see in the debt, is a Republican party that no longer has a leader. Without a leader, setting an example, which is what Ronald Reagan did…you’re unlikely to succeed…You’ve got a great governor in Indiana in Mike Pence.

And so at the local level, Republicans are doing very well. At the national level you’ve got national constituencies built, essentially paying you if you’re on food stamps - you got ‘em from us…remember us Democrats when

(offstage): He was attractive too!

its time. If you’ve got an abortion, remember we’re the ones that made sure it happened…

And so you’ve built, essentially by bribery, an enormous constituency, and it’s in little bits and pieces, and the Republicans are doing none of that. The Republicans could easily cease to exist if they insist, as some do, that the Republican Party will no longer be a place for those who believe in, as it’s commonly referred to, as the social issues…That could ruin the Republican Party, which was born after all on a great moral crisis. The Republican Party that was formed in 1857 has one issue. Remember what it was?

Q: Slavery.

ON: Abolition! And so, if you look at what’s happening in the Republican Party, we no longer have a moral issue. It’s not taxation; it’s not growth of government. It’s the moral position of a country that there’s no one appealing to. That’s what Reagan did; he appealed to the moral values of Americans, and built an enormous coalition that has since been allowed to dissipate.

Oliver “Ollie” North is a former Marine Corps Lt. Col. and an outspoken conservative commentator. A New York Times bestselling author, North is most famous for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair. In November 1986, President Reagan dismissed North as knowledge became public about North’s participation in the weapons sale.

He would later be indicted on sixteen felony counts and convicted of three, before succesfully appealing to have the rulings vacated with the help of the ACLU. In 1994, he ran for one of Virginia’s US Senate seats, losing to incumbent Democratic Senator Charles Robb, son-in-law of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. North currently sits on the board of the NRA and hosts a television show on Fox News Channel.

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National

The Tea Party Infiltrates College Campuses Billie Mandelbaum | Illustration by Dara Katzenstein

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young, blonde woman who has just purchased insurance under Obamacare walks into a doctor’s office for a gynecological exam. After speaking with a nurse, the woman enters the exam room, puts on a gown, and lies down upon the examination table. As the woman nervously waits for her doctor, Uncle Sam pops up from between her legs, menacingly snapping a speculum in his hand.

This is the opening of a new commercial from Generation Opportunity, a conservative non-profit group funded in part by the Koch Brothers. The advertising spot is just one example of the many efforts being made by conservative groups as they scramble to find any way possible to derail the implementation of Obamacare.

After failing 42 times to pass legislation that would either repeal or weaken healthcare legislation, right-wing Tea Party groups have turned to “grassroots” efforts in a final attempt to mobilize support for their cause. FreedomWorks, another Tea Party organization bankrolled by the Koch Brothers, has led such efforts with its “Burn Your Obamacare Card” campaign. While the organization purports itself to be a grassroots group interested in defending American’s individual liberties, the group’s past efforts have functioned to protect the Koch Brothers’ libertarian political and financial interests.

FreedomWorks’s new campaign seeks to take out the health care law by manipulating young adults to believe that it’s “socially acceptable” to break the law by refusing to buy health insurance and to instead elect to pay a fine. Tea Party groups, such as FreedomWorks and Generation Opportunity, believe that if they can convince enough healthy adults to not buy health insurance, the cost of insurance premiums will rise so high that Obamacare will collapse. Tea Partiers defend their effort by claiming that the Affordable Care Act is a breach of personal freedom. As FreedomWorks Vice President of Public Policy Dean Clancy wrote in a blog post on the organization’s website, “we’re urging folks to ‘burn your Obamacare card,’ skip the exchange, pay the fine, defend your freedom.”

While Tea Party has built a strong constituent base of generally older and uneducated people, conservative anti-Obamacare groups have been working to garner youth support. To appeal to tech-savvy young people, FreedomWorks launched a video contest in late September, asking college groups to post clips of themselves burning their Obamacare “draft” cards to YouTube. The first and second place winners will receive stipends for continuing to spread the antiObamacare cause across their respective campuses. In addition to its gynecological Uncle Sam commercial campaign, Generation Opportunity plans to visit multiple college campuses across the country to host various tailgate parties and other events to rally students to their cause. More disturbing than these “grassroots efforts,” however, is the fact that these groups—especially FreedomWorks—disseminate potentially misleading and deceptive information to the American people.

One of FreedomWorks’s main claims is that Obamacare will force young adults who purchase health insurance to cross-subsidize the cost of insurance for older people. In an August interview with the Washington Post, Clancy said, “The whole scheme is enlisting young adults to overpay, so other people can have subsidies.” Others have refuted this claim, pointing to insurance exchange estimates

By burning their Obamacare cards, many young could actually be burning themselves. that indicate costs for younger people will not necessarily rise under Obamacare.

In fact, many young people could benefit from Obamacare. According to the Young Invincibles, a non-profit health care reform group, 19 million of uninsured Americans are young adults between the ages of 18 and 34. Of this group, about 9 million young adults would receive tax credits toward purchasing subsidized insurance.

What the Tea Party also doesn’t consider is the potential consequences of not purchasing health insurance. For example, consider the situation of a young Obamacare card-burner who gets into a major bicycle accident and incurs extensive medical costs, who then finds himself unable to pay his medical bills. By burning their Obamacare cards, many young people could actually be burning themselves.

Beyond college campuses, the Tea Party’s efforts to bring down Obamacare pose a problem to society at large. The healthcare law, a piece of legislation passed by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court, seeks to maintain the American social contract. If Obamacare is fully implemented, 30 million people will become insured. By buying health insurance now, young adults are helping support a system that will guarantee access to affordable health care for all.

In the past, the Tea Party has had great success in manipulating its largely uneducated base. Hopefully college students, a group typically considered to be educated and responsible citizens, will be able to see through this latest ruse. If not, the Tea Party will likely be emboldened to go further. What will they seek to deceive Americans about next?

Billie Mandelbaum is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences.

She can be reached at bmandelbaum@wustl.edu.

National

Yanking the Bell Martin Lockman

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013 has been a slow year for politics. Well, not slow exactly: the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, the House and Senate are prepping for a showdown over food stamps, and the United States has been on the brink of war with Syria for a couple of months.

But nothing you can stick on a t-shirt or a 5 second sound bite. In a year tragically bereft of sweeping congressional declarations and dramatic troop deployments, the nation has turned once again to the constant brushfire war that is state politics. In recent months, a number of small campaigns have come to the nation’s attention. From the (ultimately failed) “People’s Filibuster” in Texas to the recall elections in Colorado to the recent battle in Jefferson City over tax legislation, the news has been saturated with local battles.

It’s easy to see why local politics are so attractive to the media. In a country with more than half a million elected officers, there’s always a fight or three raging somewhere that can be woven into almost any national narrative. The successful recall of two state senators in Colorado for their support of gun control can be spun into weeks’ worth of punditry about the “shifting currents of public opinion”. The smaller scale of local politics can give an intimate touch to issues of national significance.

Political organizers of all stripes have flocked to the state battlegrounds for the same reason. Changing the scope of a political fight has been a strategy of American organizers since the first abolitionists—when defeated at one level of government, campaigns refocus their efforts on another. Following Roe v. Wade, the pro-life movement brought their fight to the state level and have since won a series

It’s easy to see why local politics are so attractive to the media.

In a country with more than half a million elected offices, there’s always a fight or three raging somewhere that can be woven into almost any national narrative. of statewide victories, from enforced waiting periods to mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds. In the same fashion, gun control advocates have made progress at the state level after being thwarted in Congress.

These wins are loudly touted as representative of broader trends. Increasingly, these “bellwether” campaigns have garnered public attention, media coverage, and financial support at the national level.

It’s undeniable that the nationalization of these state issues has had an effect. Senator John Morse, one of the Colorado state senators defeated in recall elections in September, represented a district of around 70,000 voters. Amid a storm of media coverage, both sides of the short recall election raised a joint $3,500,000, or $50 per voter.

For comparison, the Romney and Obama campaigns together (major PACS included) spent under 16 dollars per voter. According to the Denver Post, more than half of the money spent in the recall was

raised from out-of-state sources.

The term “bellwether” derives from the Middle English word for the practice of belling a castrated ram to let shepherds know which way the flock was headed. Although the word now refers to anything that predicts a general trend, local politicians involved can probably identify with the rams in more ways than one. The nationalization of local issues often takes control out of the hands of the involved parties. Tellingly, much of the money raised “in opposition to the recall” was spent outside of Morse’s district. The same Denver Post article mentioned above noted that many of the expensive television ads opposing the recall were seen by few, if any, of Morse’s constituents.

Ultimately, national attention may do more harm than good. Although it’s easy to see money and media coverage as boons to a local race, if they draw attention from the specific, local issues at hand they have the potential to undermine the work of local politicians and advocates. In Colorado, we saw national organizations turn the recall into a framing device for their own political agendas, ignoring the election itself.

Certainly, some local issues do have national ramifications.

However, attempts by the media and interest groups to weave statewide stories into a national narrative leave local politics vulnerable to outside influences, and take political agency out of the hands of the very people who are most affected by the issues under debate. National actors should respect the preferences of local voters, and allow these voters to make their decisions independently and democratically. Yet this remains a distant dream. Pundits, press, and politicians will always be lured by the temptation of the bellwether battlefield.

Martin Lockman is a senior in the School of Architecture. He can be reached at flockman@wustl.edu.

The Colorado State Capitol Building. State Senator John Morse lost a recall election in September.

Image by Hustvedt (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Shattering the Facade: The Burgeoning Oil Cities of the Middle East Ari Moses| Illustration by Simin Lin

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o the casual onlooker, the new, exploding cities of the Middle East, such as Dubai, are 21st century marvels that defy the growth patterns of traditional Western cities. The sleek architecture coupled with the finest contemporary construction materials leave the impression that these new cities will eclipse New York and London as the financial hubs of the world within the next few years.

Spending billions of dollars a year on real estate projects, Dubai has created landmarks, from the Palm and World Islands to the most expensive horseracing complex in the world. These structures instill awe across the four corners of the earth. But at what cost?

Financial Instability As the world entered into a global economic crisis beginning in 2007, massive financial institutions in New York went bankrupt. Today, however, the city has largely recovered. The US government’s ability to secure hundreds of billions of dollars to aid businesses suffering from financial losses has allowed New York to regain large portions of the jobs it lost just five years ago and to restabilize the financial sector.

But, what if the government and the massive corporations were one and the same?

In Dubai, the state owns or controls various multi-billion dollar companies in fields rang-

improvements. In June 2013, the Emirate was actively selling off its assets in order to repay the $30 billion in loans, due by the end of the year.

Labor Force Disparity While Dubai allows its companies to develop new projects because of its large annual growth, the migrant laborers building these projects face strict and abusive working conditions. Over one million migrant laborers make up 95 percent of the Emirate’s entire labor force. 45 percent of these migrant workers are employed in manufacturing and construction, with other significant portions in transportation and the real estate trade. Only 3.5 percent of the citizen emirate labor force of 52,783 (2011) work in the manufacturing and construction industries, while 61 percent are in public administration, and 9 percent are in the financial information sector.

The income gap between the two groups in Dubai is shocking. In Dubai, 64.5 percent of migrant workers earn less than $816 a month and 86 percent earn less than $2724 a month. Comparatively, 9 percent of emirate workers make less than $2724, 60 percent earn between $2725 and $5994, and 20 percent of workers earn more than $7084 a

Employees are often forced to stay and work for the company, no matter how abhorrent the conditions. ing from real estate to energy. In 2009, Dubai World, a state owned entity, announced it would need to restructure its debt, spreading fear across the financial markets that it is liable to default on its debt of approximately $60 billion. Stock prices plummeted globally and the dream of the rapid growth city was destroyed.

Despite the massive luxury real estate projects, the emirate has failed to maintain other aspects of its economy. Massive areas of undeveloped and vacant properties provide evidence of the need for infrastructure

month. This massive disparity in wages and wealth are a growing trend in the Gulf region in the mega cities of the Middle East.

Abusive Working Conditions The wage gap can also be seen in the areas where the laborers live, as the poorer workers live in hastily-constructed housing projects of poor quality. Human Rights Watch, an international rights charity, has discovered deplorable working conditions in the region, repeatedly finding abusive and unsafe work environments. In addition,

the companies owned by the government of Dubai, have been known to refuse to pay wages and withhold the travel documents of workers. Employees are often forced to stay and work for the company, no matter how abhorrent the conditions.

Unions, other collective bargaining groups, and strikes are forbidden in Dubai and can be punishable with jail time or deportation. Although migrant workers outnumber the emirate workers in Dubai by 24 to 1, they have no political power; as a result, the working conditions of the common worker have not improved.

So, as the world continues to marvel at cities like Dubai, will the international community, in the near future, see it emerge as a powerhouse similar to New York or as a playhouse for the wealthy like Monte Carlo, where there is a migrant labor force of 98 percent who face similar wage disparities? If the Emirate of Dubai continues its exponential growth in population and in the real estate sector, what type of city will appear? New York or Monte Carlo? The economic hub or the party city?

Perhaps it will be a new type of city. A city that has a strong business sector, yet remains inaccessible to the vast majority of population that derives its livelihood from the city. Dubai, perhaps in the future, is poised to fill the role of this new hybrid city, but presently, it contains many more similarities to Monte Carlo than New York.

Ari Moses is a freshman in the Olin Business School. He can be reached at arimoses@ wustl.edu.

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Alex Chiu

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The Use of Effective and Available Technology in Healthcare Aashka Dalal

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he Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has already begun to impact the health care sector, and will increasingly shape it over the coming years; however, many factors will influence whether this new legislation will actually result in quality care for a fair, competitive price. The healthcare reform bill seeks to modify the private insurance market, provide Medicaid to the working poor, and alter the way in which medical decisions are made. In line with these objectives, healthcare reform puts pressure on insurance providers and health care practitioners to improve the efficiency of their services. However, given the pervasive inefficiencies of the US healthcare system, there is a chance that changes in healthcare policy that result in a large influx of new patients will only lead to more problems.

Ineffective communication between primary care physicians, social workers, mental health specialists, and other healthcare professionals sets back hospitals about $12 billion each year. Fortunately, the means to increase productive communication, and consequently collaboration among these various branches of the health care system, already exists. The Electronic Health Record (EHR), which enables healthcare providers to more efficiently enter, store, and exchange patient information, can be accessed by anyone treating a patient registered in the system and therefore allows for a network of doctors in different locations to collaborate more effectively. The EHR has the potential to improve safety and efficiency while making quality healthcare more accessible to patients across geographic and socioeconomic spectrums.

Unfortunately, conscious and meaningful use of EHR technology has not yet been adopted or implemented equally across the United States. Multiple studies assessing disparities of use among hospitals across the country have shown an increase in adoption of the EHR

Ineffective communication between primary care physicians, social workers, mental health specialists, and other healthcare professionals sets back hospitals about $12 billion each year. system primarily among larger hospitals. This trend will likely continue as our healthcare system moves towards a more communitybased approach to treatment. Adoption of EHR technology does not, however, necessarily translate to improved communication. Though there are multiple programs available in the EHR, many users concentrate on only a few features of the database. Digital dictation and electronic signature are, unsurprisingly, the most used features due to their ability to reduce the time spent recording information. Yet what should be among the most important programs, such as portals for

patient access to health information and automated order forms with alert features (which recommend tests based on patient prognosis/ demographic analysis of risk), are used least.

There are only a few studies available that demonstrate the incredible abilities of EHR, but the data from these studies is impressive. During the H1N1 virus epidemic, the Institute for Family Health partnered with the New York State Department of Health to improve the surveillance and management of communicable and chronic diseases. They collected data through the EHR and used it to determine in which areas there was a peak in H1N1 viral symptoms, which then assisted in coordinating the distribution of vaccines. They also utilized the report/alert feature of the EHR, to keep track of patients who were overdue for a check up, refill, etc. Overall, the study showed a positive correlation between the increase in communication between the two health departments and the efficiency of healthcare practices in New York State.

Admittedly, even if the EHR were widely adopted and all it’s features were implemented, other challenges remain. The EHR program faces concerns with funding, investment return, and perceived compliance issues related to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). However, affordable healthcare in America should, and can, be available to everyone. And we are aware one of the necessary steps is reducing superfluous costs. EHR supports both quality and efficiency of care, lowering costs across the healthcare system by supporting preventative healthcare and preventing needless and redundant testing. The Affordable Care Act is changing the structure of our healthcare system, and technologies like EHR will help to support the efficiency and affordability of healthcare nationwide.

Aashka Dalal is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at a.dalal@wustl.edu.

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The Stigma Against Mental Illness Miranda Kroeger | Illustration by Esther Hamburger

“H

appiness is a choice.” But what happens if, no matter how hard you try, your “choice” to be happy still doesn’t make you happy?

Often, people struggling with depression, anxiety, an eating disorder, or other mental illnesses are made to feel that their condition stems from personal failing: if they could only stress less, learn to be happy, or see themselves more positively, they wouldn’t be facing the issue at all. This view, which is perpetuated by society’s stigma against those with mental illnesses, is not only false, but only creates further challenges for those living with a mental illness.

Amidst recent media coverage fixated on the depression and anti-social disorders of gunmen, it is easy to understand why somebody would be unwilling to come forward about their mental illness. Many fear that in doing so they might come to be associated with the extreme minority of mentally ill individuals who do commit heinous and publicized crimes. Stereotypes that those with mental disorders are “crazy,” “psycho,” or even “attention seeking” often keep people from getting help or admitting that they have a problem.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one in five Americans lives with a mental disorder, but only one-third of those with a disorder will seek treatment. Many fear they could be negatively labeled, treated differently by friends and family, and discriminated against if someone were to learn that they had a mental illness.

Society views counselors and therapists as necessary only for those who are “crazy” or who suffer from a severe mental condition, despite the fact that such professionals are helpful for those with or without mental illness. The negative associations of asking for help, even for something minor, can lead un-

treated patients to develop more advanced forms of mental illness in the long-term.

We need to address the deep, underlying stigma surrounding mental illness that permeates US society. In an article in Advancements in Psychiatric Treatments, author Peter Byrne states: “racism, fatism, ageism, religious bigotry, sexism and homophobia are all recognized descriptions for prejudiced beliefs, but there is no word for prejudice against mental illness.” Until the United States can recognize this pervasive stigma,

A person may suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder, but that doesn’t mean that he or she should be labeled as “obsessive compulsive”; you wouldn’t label someone with cancer as “cancerous.” progress on issues of mental illness will be slow and difficult as more people continue to suffer in silence.

But there is real potential for change.

The media, which helps to spread negative stereotypes about the mentally ill, can also take an active role in breaking them down.

Instead of sensationalizing stories where

mental illness is involved, the news media should ask whether the individuals in question would have sought out treatment had they not feared the stigma attached to mental illness. For example, the news on the Navy Yard shooting, Newtown massacre, and other tragedies focused on the shooter’s mental illnesses, but not on the failing healthcare system that allowed them to slip through the cracks in the first place. Very few mentally ill individuals are perpetrators of tragedies like the Navy Yard shooting, yet their illness becomes a symbol for these crimes when the media throws around the term “mentally ill” to explain the impetus behind abhorrent acts.

Individuals can work to make a difference. Acknowledging the generalizations made about mentally ill individuals and actively working to look past them is a good first step, but it isn’t enough. Create a support system for the people around you so that they feel they can get help without judgment.

Learn not to define others by their mental health condition. A person may suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder, but that doesn’t mean that he or she should be labeled as “obsessive compulsive,” the same way you wouldn’t label someone with cancer as “cancerous.” Each person is more than his or her mental illness, which should not be treated as a defining characteristic.

At a university, this topic is especially important. With the growing demands from institutions of higher education and the pressure on students hoping to enter a highly competitive work force, stress and anxiety are daily parts of a college student’s life. Asking for help can often be seen as a weakness, but not asking for help can lead to even bigger problems. On a college campus such as Washington University, where there are plenty of opportunities to receive help at places such as Uncle Joe’s and the counseling center, the only thing standing in the way of students utilizing these resources is their fear of being judged. Asking for help should not be seen as a weakness. Until we work to break down the stigma against mental illness, many who need treatment will continue to go without.

Miranda Kroeger is a freshman in the Olin Business School. She can be reached at mkroeger@wustl.edu.

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A Graying Epidemic: Aging’s Impact on HIV/AIDS Henry Osman | Illustration by Andrew Catanese

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oo often, AIDS is considered a disease of the young and reckless. Ad campaigns for testing and drug treatments always feature a youthful body, and the virus itself is often seen as the tragic product of youthful indiscretions. But as the development of antiretroviral therapy has transformed the HIV/AIDS epidemic from a death sentence into a chronic, manageable condition, the demographics of the affected population have shifted. According to predictions by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), over 50 percent of all HIV positive people in the United States will be over 50 by 2015.

This shift is driven by both increased lifespans of HIV/AIDS patients, thanks to improving antiretroviral therapies, and by an uptick in the number of new infections registered among older adults.

Despite this evidence, the media continues to represent people living with HIV as fit, young, and usually male. Studies of older adults living with HIV/AIDS are lacking, as is national recognition of an aging HIV population. This reflects, among other things, both our culture’s desexualization of older adults and, more generally, our rigidly ingrained stereotypes about the lifestyles of aging adults.

One of the biggest obstacles to realigning HIV/AIDS care and awareness with changing disease demographics is reaching the population of affected individuals over 50 years of age. Older adults, especially low-income ones, are among the hardest to access because of their lower rates of Internet usage and high rates of social isolation.

Healthcare workers and AIDS service organizations don’t always gear testing drives towards these populations, and they often neglect tailoring services to aging patients. Some older adults assume that once there is no longer the risk of pregnancy, they no longer have to use protection. Of course, growing older does not preclude sexual activity nor mitigate the risk of acquiring an STI. Those over 50 often find out about their HIV-status only while having unrelated medical procedures and are much more likely than younger people to test positive for HIV, because of this delay in diagnosis, only after the onset of AIDS. Those diagnosed over age 50 have a lower 10-year survival rate than younger HIV age groups, in large part because many older patients are not diagnosed until their immune system has already sustained heavy damage.

Age exacerbates HIV/AIDS, but the disease also compounds aging: older adults face earlier onset of both AIDS-related illnesses and of age related diseases, lower rates of survival, and accelerated aging and decomposition of telomeres. Not enough research has been done on how those with decreased kidney or liver capacity metabolize antiretroviral therapies. Despite improved treatment options, the prognosis for older adults with HIV/AIDS is decidedly grim. This won’t change until healthcare professionals begin to test older adults more frequently, create awareness campaigns targeted towards all groups affected by HIV, and educate older adults about the importance of safe sex even when pregnancy may not be an issue.

It’s also important to note that the graying of the HIV/AIDS epidemic is an international phenomenon. South Africa, which has the oldest and slowest-growing population in Sub-Saharan Africa, will soon have to face similar challenges. Today, 7% of South Africans over 50 are HIV-positive, which, though high, is only a third of the rate among younger adults. High mortality rates among younger

Over 50 percent of all HIV positive people in the United States will be over 50 by 2015. adults have left many grandparents as the primary caregivers; increased rates of HIV/AIDS among this older generation could further upset family structures. But in South Africa, few are ready to have this discussion. UNAIDS, which is one of the most important organizations dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS, doesn’t even include those over 50 in its epidemiological surveys.

In both the United States and in South Africa, the shifting demographics of the HIV/AIDS epidemic has yet to be fully addressed.

Today, HIV-positive persons are living longer than ever and the rate of new infections is either decreasing or stabilizing. But we are also entering a stage in which many HIV patients are beginning to face the challenges of normal aging with a weakened immune system. Systematic cultural biases, like the desexualization of older adults, are slow to change, even in the face significant statistical data. With 1 in 6 new infections today occurring in patients over the age of 50, it is important to not only build awareness about the aging of the existing HIV/AIDS population, but to strive to prevent HIV/AIDS among all ages through testing and treatment targeted towards all at-risk individuals.

Henry Osman is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at hosman@wustl.edu.

Bodies

Sizing Up Discrimination Naomi Rawitz and Hana Hartman

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BC’s The Biggest Loser is arguably one of the most successful weight loss reality shows on TV today, having expanded in just a few years to Israel, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand. Yet NBC has yet to launch a reality series titled “The Biggest Gainer” in which anorexic patients compete to gain weight for money and fame, for obvious reasons: using a person’s mental illness for home entertainment could be construed as unethical, cruel, and psychologically distressing to contestants (and no, not the same kind of psychological distress that comes from watching “Princesses of Long Island”). In one study, overweight viewers found the presentation of obesity on The Biggest Loser “invasive” and like “a side show at some kind of circus,” as it exposed participants’ binge eating behaviors as well as showed their bodies in revealing exercise gear. This begs the question: what makes it okay to expose people’s struggles in a derogatory way on one end of the weight extreme, but not the other?

ticularly poignant study concerning hiring prejudice, obese applicants were significantly less likely to be recommended for hiring than average-weight applicants because heavier applicants “were judged as significantly less neat, productive, ambitious, disciplined, and determined.” The same study also found that obese employees received lower wages for the same work and were less likely to be promoted to high-level positions. The fact that participants with higher body mass indicies were less popular socially, less successful in school, less likely to get jobs, less likely to succeed at their jobs, and less likely to be paid adequately for their jobs, demonstrates that weight stigma is an institutionalized form of discrimination with both social and socioeconomic implications.

American cultural ideology places the blame for obesity squarely on the victims.

The American ethos declares that achievement belongs to those that pull themselves up by their bootstraps; anyone can manipulate their body size and shape if they are will-

There’s more to obesity than meets the eye.

Obese people face a wide spectrum of prejudice and discrimination. One study showed that “ethnic minorities, women, people in wheelchairs, amputees, and children and adults with facial disfigurements are all viewed more positively than obese persons.”

Unlike the obese, these groups are not held responsible for their conditions. Research on children as young as three to five years old shows that overweight children are perceived as less desirable for friendship. In one par-

ing to work for it. Yet exhaustive research has shown that obesity is not solely a matter of individual will—researchers estimate that 40-70 percent of variance in obesity is genetic, and that obesity “is only modestly related to dietary habits.” Nevertheless, it is impossible to avoid the social stigma attached to weight and body ideals in our society today. Everywhere we look, articles promoting detox diets of cayenne pepper, raw egg, lemon, and water, or headlines proclaiming

that you can “Fat-Proof Your Life,” perpetuate unhealthy understandings of the body and a total lack of body acceptance for larger body types. Such prejudice persists even in the medical field, where one study found that most physicians surveyed considered obesity to be a behavioral issue, resulting from obese patients’ laziness and noncompliance. Furthermore, in the recent debate over whether or not to include obesity in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the volume of all diagnosable mental illnesses, the DSM administration ruled that obesity was not a legitimate diagnosable illness. With this decision, sufferers are being denied access to care on the basis that they don’t have a “real” medical problem—they just need to stop being lazy and get off the couch.

This attitude is so pervasive that our very own first lady Michelle Obama has perpetuated it as well. Her “Let’s Move!” campaign advocates eliminating unhealthy food from vending machines and encouraging children to play outside. While it is true that these steps help create a physically healthier generation, they don’t address the genetic, physiological, and psychological factors that hold most of the responsibility for obesity, instead placing the responsibility on the children themselves. Mrs. Obama’s campaign ultimately stems from the same ideology as bloggers sharing tips to “Lose that Belly,” or “Have The Body You Always Wanted.” Most importantly, “Let’s Move!” does not maintain positive ideals of body acceptance, or an ideal of health, but rather specifically targets childhood obesity, implying: “Let’s eliminate the fat kids.”

As obese people are systematically denied opportunities for social and socioeconomic advancement, how can we expect the epidemic to stop? “Let’s Move!” towards a real solution—one that stops blaming the victim, integrates mental and physical health, and values body acceptance over shaming and discrimination.

Naomi Rawitz is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, and Hana Hartman is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. They can be reached at naomi.rawitz@wustl.edu and hana.hartman@wustl.edu.

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The Privacy of Privates Wallis Linker

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t a school like Washington University in St. Louis, where approximately 33 percent of the undergrads are Jewish according to a recent survey, the concept of circumcision may not be so foreign. But, circumcision is not only limited to the Jewish population; the circumcision rate nationwide accounts for more than half of the newborn population. Despite this, regional and national circumcision rates are on the decline. In 2010, the number of newborn males circumcised in a hospital nationwide was 58.3 percent, down from 64.5 percent in 1979. Over the same three-decade time span, there was a 37 percent drop in newborn circumcision rates in the western United States, from 63.9 percent in 1979 to 40.2 percent in 2010. Certain groups, such as religious organizations and governments, have played

a role in influencing these rates, and the acknowledgment of the relationship between genital alterations and public health has recently stimulated arguments over who can control our bodies, and how they can do it.

Circumcision, while now common amongst men of all religions, is an integral part of Judaism. On the eighth day of a boy’s life, he has a brit milah (or bris). The bris is a social event; often family and friends are invited to this religious celebration. The baby is carried on a large pillow in front of everyone to the room where the bris will take place and is handed to the sandek, the person who will hold the baby during the procedure. Then enters the mohel, a specialized professional in circumcision. The mohel recites a blessing, and using a shield to guide

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the knife, removes the foreskin. Prayers are said as the guests look on. Amongst the final ritual steps is the metzitzah, translated as suction, which serves as a means to remove blood trapped deep in the wound that could prove dangerous to the baby. This step can be easily accomplished with antiseptic or antibiotic techniques.

There are segments of the Jewish community, though, that choose to stick to more traditional methods of circumcision, forcing the secular community to question where to draw the line between preserving religious freedom and promoting public health. Amongst some Hasidic and Orthodox communities, the traditional method of metzitzah b’peh, oral suction, is still practiced. The Talmud argues for metzizah because of its hygienic qualities; it prevents the child from falling ill. Recently, however, medical practitioners have seen that the practice can make children sick. Health officials in New York City reported that 11 babies who had undergone the traditional suction procedure contracted herpes infections between 2010 and 2011. Two of the children died. New York City initially wanted to put a ban on the procedure, but later modified its stance, now requiring mohels to get parents to sign a form acknowledging the procedure’s health risks. Dr. Thomas A. Farley, commissioner of the city’s health department, said: “The city’s highest obligation is to protect its children; therefore, it is important that parents know the risks associated with the practice.”

Yet in other instances, circumcision has been seen as a boon to public health. According to the World Health Organization, male circumcision reduces the risk of female-tomale transmission of HIV by about 60 percent. The inner lining of the foreskin is highly susceptible to HIV infections. By removing the foreskin, the risk for HIV goes down drastically. The most recent data from Uganda shows that, following the WHO and UNAIDS trials, among the men who were circumcised there was a 73 percent protective effect against contracting the HIV infection. The nations of Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have all worked towards scaling up voluntary medical male circumcision.

More than 1.3 million voluntary, medical, male circumcisions have been performed to help combat the spread of HIV, including high profile African political figures. In Zimbabwe alone, at least ten members of Parliament were

circumcised to help promote the practice in the interest of a healthier, safer population.

So how far should a government really go in promoting the health of its people?

Governments, in general, seek to help and protect the people they serve, but doing so is often controversial. In New York, the government sought to protect newborn boys by mandating that parents be alerted to the risk of the metzizah b’peh should they wish to use the procedure. This has forced mohels to promote an idea they do not believe in: the metzizah b’peh was dangerous. After the Department of Health passed their regulation, several Jewish groups and three rabbis filed a lawsuit, claiming that the parental consent form represented a violation of their First Amendment rights to freely practice their religion.

In Africa, on the other hand, government officials hope to actively encourage

they give up their freedom to choose to opt out of certain procedures aimed at maximizing the public good. In some ways it isn’t fair—a family may not have the resources to send their children to private school or homeschool them, and thus are forced to comply with health regulations they may philosophically disagree with. But ultimately, this is an effective way of protecting the greatest number of people.

Should the metzizah be treated differently? Unlike the example of public schooling, the city’s regulation on metzizah aims to safeguard the health of the individual, not the masses. In that case, should the government really take the choice away from individual families? Or does it have an obligation to impose a broader consensus on a minority position when those affected the most, babies, have no say either way? These are tough questions, on which reasonable people can

Acknowledgment of the relationship between genital alterations and public health has recently stimulated arguments over who can control our bodies, and how they can do it. their citizens to undergo a surgical procedure to promote general health. In both cases, governments are advising people about the wisdom of genital alteration. The approach taken in Africa, does not force anyone, even religious officials, to do something they do not want to; the choice to be circumcised was strictly the choice of the people. New York officials have attempted to give people the chance to make an educated decision, but in doing so have been criticized for overstepping appropriate boundaries.

The issue harkens back to the question of who has control over our bodies: the government or ourselves? If the government were to mandate circumcision, or ban a certain type of circumcision, it would not be the first time it legislated on matters of the body.

In the United States, it is mandatory for children entering public school to be immunized for a number of diseases. Indeed, there is an exemption in all but two states for religious objections, and twenty states allow for personal or philosophical objection. Yet in the majority of cases, the government intercedes, telling people how to treat their bodies. If a child is to participate in public schooling,

disagree. Fortunately, we don’t really have to engage with any of them.

In the metzizah case, parents are still able to choose if they want their sons to undergo the traditional oral suction. The mohels are simply being told to present facts, albeit facts ones they do not like to think about.

Circumcision, when performed in a sanitary way, can remove potential dangers to one’s health through a safe, easy procedure. A person or the family of an infant should be able to choose to abstain from the surgery, or to go about it in a more traditional way. But this decision is not one that can be made for other people by refusing to disclose the risks of the procedure. People should be able to weigh the pros and cons and determine for themselves whether or not they would like to proceed with the surgery. People making this decision should have access to all available information. Information that should not be withheld because of the convictions of a few individuals.

Wallis Linker is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at w.linker@wustl.edu.

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Biohacking: The Future is Under Our Skin Arian Jadbabaie

U

ntil recently, biological manipulation was restricted to the domain of scientists in lab coats with big grants and professional facilities. But the lab coats have fallen from their lofty perch.

As biotechnologies become cheaper and more accessible, “do it yourself (DIY) biologists” and “biohackers” across the world have begun to explore the world of biology from the comforts of their homes.

As their name indicates, biohackers apply what’s called a “hacker ethic” to biology—they believe in shared, democratic access to information and technology and in manipulating biological systems to improve the quality of human life. In fact, many biohackers identify with transhumanist philosophies, believing that the integration of technology and biology is the new frontier for the development of the human species. Biohacking encompasses a broad spectrum of physiological innovations, from genetic manipulation to magnetic implants, and biohackers work in all sorts of settings, from personal kitchens to rentable labs.

Biohackers that search for ways to enhance the human body with the aid of technology, machines, and implants are called “body hackers” or “grinders”. For example, with just a scalpel and some tools, grinders can manufacture the “ability” to detect electromagnetic fields by placing small magnets near sensitive nerves in the fingertips. One of the first pioneers of these implants in humans was Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading. Unlike grinders working in garages, Warwick has the luxury of working in a university setting with anesthesia and a medical team, though his work still carries all the risks of venturing into unchartered medical territory. In 2002, he implanted cybernetic sensors in his arm, allowing him to control a separate robot hand from a distance. His wife had a similar implant done, and now the two can share sensations, such as the grasp of a hand, from across the Atlantic. Though his work has a therapeutic element, Warwick embraces the hacker philosophy, and has recently begun a study on biohackers with magnetic implants in an attempt to generate a baseline of understanding for future research. “A lot of the time, when it comes to putting magnets into your body or RFID chips, there is more information on YouTube than in the peer-reviewed journals,” Warwick said in an interview.

“There are artists and geeks pushing the boundaries, sharing information, a very renegade thing.”

Lepht Anonym, a biohacker from the United Kingdom, is one of these “renegades.” Her series of YouTube videos and essays have helped cement her as a leader in the biohacking movement. Anonym throws caution to the wind in the interest of advancing science: she proved, for example, that it was possible to implant certain chips and magnets into the human body simply with a scalpel and some tweezers, sans anesthetic, using herself as a guinea pig. “I’m an idiot, but I’m an idiot working in the name of progress,” Anonym explains. But advancement can come at a cost—Anonym has recently written on her blog about hearing phantom sounds, a possible long term side effect her biohacking. Still, these grinders adhere to transhumanist philosophies and see themselves as positive forces working towards human development. Warwick aims to bring about brain-to-brain communication in his lifetime, as well as advance study of the mind;

other biohackers go further, arguing that our bodies are merely aging sacks holding us back from a future free of physical constraints.

Recently, biohacking has begun to emerge from its subterranean subculture. Today, enthusiasts in biotechnology and synthetic biology can find a wide breadth of resources on the web, from forums to share and discuss information, to groups like DIYbio, a network of communities for DIY biologists. Some companies have introduced

To the outside world, these hackers seem like fanatics who implant anything they can find into their skin…But biohackers, especially grinders, see themselves as a stepping stone to the future. affordable DIY genomics kits, allowing enthusiasts to sequence genes at home. And others, like Genspace in Brooklyn, provide aspiring biohackers with access to a state-of-the-art lab—and a community of hackers—for a monthly fee of $100. Genspace’s motto? “Remember the time when science was fun.”

Part of biohacking’s allure is the lack of a hierarchical structure or government oversight—there’s no FDA-equivalent that regulates the work of biohackers, body hackers, or grinders. To the outside world, these hackers seem like fanatics who implant whatever they can find into their skin. But biohackers, especially grinders, also see themselves as a stepping-stone to the future. Self-identified grinder Nick Cannon explained this philosophy in an interview with The Verge: “I view it as kind of taking the pain for the people who are going to come after me. We’re paying now so that it will become socially acceptable later.”

Arian Jadbabaie is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at arian.jadbabaie@wustl.edu.

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The Price of Skinny Jeans Matthew Hankin | Illustration by Simin Lim

B

efore last spring, few Americans had heard of Rana Plaza, an illegally constructed eight-story building in Savar, Bangladesh.

On April 24th, 2013, the building, which contained textile factories that supplied skinny jeans and other garments to Walmart and other American and international brands, collapsed, killing over 1,100 workers and injuring approximately 2,500. Eight days after the industrial disaster, the worst in Bangladesh’s history, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina tried to push it out of the headlines, stating, “Accidents happen.” Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith similarly dismissed the Rana Plaza building collapse as not “really serious,” claiming similar industrial accidents occur “everywhere.” The great tragedy of the Rana Plaza disaster, though, is that it was not an accident, but a catastrophe brought about by profit-driven disregard for the safety and well being of factory workers.

The day before the factory collapsed, workers noticed large cracks in the building that prompted engineers to advise complete evacuation.

A private bank and shops on the first floor of the building closed and all workers were asked to leave. Despite never being cleared for safety, management ordered garment workers to return to the factory the next day or else forfeit a month’s salary and risk dismissal. Many workers,

Government inaction to improve worker safety is not merely oversight, but the calculated attempt of politicians to increase their own income. wholly dependent upon the job for their livelihood, felt they had no choice but to return to the building they knew to be unsafe. These workers’ fears were tragically confirmed the next day, when thousands became trapped beneath the building’s debris.

In Bangladesh, powerful industries exert tremendous influence over the policies that directly affect workers’ rights, and much of the political leadership have vested interests in promoting profit over safety.

Around 50 percent of all members of parliament have some business connections to the garment industry, and nearly 10 percent of the country’s national legislators directly own garment factories. This creates incentives for policymakers to ignore the needs of workers in the interest of personal gains. Government inaction to improve worker safety is not merely oversight; it is the calculated attempt of politicians to increase their own income at the expense of workers, who are treated as inputs to production rather than as equal citizens. Workers’ lives are so devalued that, at the time of the accident, there were only 18 factory inspectors for the nearly 4 million people who are working in the textile industry.

To this day, many families of the victims of Rana Plaza still await the promised $20,000 government compensation, unable to collect because nearly 300 bodies were buried without identification.

Although Bangladesh is more involved in the global economy than ever, workers have not seen any gains from this growth. International forces played a large part in the Rana Plaza disaster: with about 23 per-

cent of the country’s exports going to the US and 60 percent going to Europe, foreign companies play a major role in shaping the conditions in Bangladesh. Foreign companies profit from the extremely low Bangladeshi minimum wage and the minimal amount spent on insuring worker safety, which has led to increased investment in Bangladesh.

This investment has propelled the country to become the world’s second largest clothing exporter, behind China.

As news of these horrendous conditions spread after Rana Plaza, the United States reacted to the disaster at Rana Plaza with the largely symbolic, yet significant, move to revoke the tariff benefit for Bangladesh known as GSP (Generalized System of Preferences). The removal of GSP will cause a drop in exports of only about .8 percent, or $40,000,000, but sends a strong signal to the Bangladeshi government without necessarily reducing the employment opportunities that so many Bangladeshi’s desperately need.

H&M, the largest purchaser of garments from Bangladesh, took a similar step forward when it partnered with other apparel companies and signed a legally binding agreement that forces companies to invest in fire-safety and building improvements in the factories they use in Bangladesh. Other companies, like Gap and Walmart, have not followed their good example. Instead Walmart and Gap opted to enter into a volunteer agreement that lacks transparency and enforceability called the “Bangledesh Worker Safety Initiative.” The initiative consists of general promises that cannot be legally enforced. If Walmart did not decide to enforce safety regulations on good faith before the collapse, why will it voluntarily decide to now?

As retailers on the whole still prefer working in Bangladesh rather than in higher-wage countries like Vietnam and Cambodia, questions revolving around worker rights will not go away any time soon. Real progress in improving safety conditions will only come after the humanity of workers is acknowledged. The first step in this process lies with consumers’ decisions to support companies that have made legally enforceable commitments to workplace safety in Bangladesh.

In effect, these legal commitments are promises to view employees as people, ensuring they will be workers in factories, not bodies in rubble.

Matthew Hankin is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at mhankin@wustl.edu.

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30 Bodies

Xiao Pangzi: the Rise of Obesity in China Patrick Easley

D

uring my time in Shanghai, I took notice of the things that any Western visitor would intrinsically notice about a foreign metropolis: the people, the goods, and the architecture, among other things. But what stood out most was the abundance of restaurants that feed the city of 23 million people. Restaurants are nothing uncommon in large cities, but what caught me off guard in this “Communist” city was how ubiquitous American fast food restaurants were. Even more surprising was how similar the body of the average Chinese McDonalds consumer was to that of their

Chinese person now has much more disposable income. They also tend to work more and have less time to take care of their children or engage in physical activity. Many Chinese parents have turned to fast foods as a means of feeding their children, tremendously increasing the average size of the Chinese populous in the process. These “Xiao Pangzi,” as the Chinese media has dubbed them - or, “Little Chubbies” - have become almost as wide spread in urban China as they are in many Western locales. Like in America, the urban lifestyle has made purchasing and preparing fresh foods too economically

There are currently 100 million obese Chinese, more than 5 times the amount in 2005.

American counterparts. Being the sleuth that I am, I decided to go to a few other American fast food restaurants for the sake of checking out the customers. I was again surprised to see that most of the people in these establishments were overweight or obese. Few seemed to care about the quality of foods they were consuming either.

As a result of China’s extraordinary growth starting in the 1980s, the average

and temporally prohibitive. Many Chinese save that time and money and simply buy a bucket from the Colonel. This wouldn’t be a problem, were it not for the serious physiological damage that it is imparting on the world’s largest country.

There are currently 100 million obese Chinese, more than 5 times the amount in 2005, and these growth rates don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Coupled

with the 9.7 percent of Chinese citizens with diabetes (in America, 11 percent) and the rise of hypertension, the outlook for China’s citizens does not look bright. So what are the Chinese to do? The Chinese government is having a difficult time informing its citizens that the food they are consuming in bulk lacks key nutrients. Likewise, political leaders are finding it even more difficult to regulate the nutritional intake due to the relative lack of government oversight and transparency in the food sector. There have been attempts to curtail childhood obesity by building playgrounds and encouraging group exercise in parks, but this will only do so much. There needs to be a cultural shift in the way that China views issues of food and health. With its limited power in this situation, the People’s Republic of China government has just recently started to discourage people from eating fast foods all together. Yet, fast food is not the only root of China’s obesity problem.

During my time in China, I also noticed that the people of China not only eat like us, but they also live like us. Many urban Chinese get up in the morning, are at work in a cubicle by 8am, leave by 6pm, grab a bite to eat, sleep, and then start the day all over again.

This is in stark contrast to their parents and grandparents, who may have worked similar hours, but who always left time to exercise and prepare less fatty foods. Now these people don’t have to toil in the fields, and so they remain sedentary and gain weight. The rise of the sedentary lifestyle in China almost directly mirrors that of the Western world, and, increasingly, other Asian metropolises.

Will everyone grow into “Little Chubbies,” or is there an alternative? If there is one thing that China has taught us about itself, it is that it is willing to tackle its problems head first and perservere until it achieves a solution that will make the country better in the long run. I don’t see any reason why it won’t figure out a way to lose the weight brought on by delicious, “western decadence.”

Patrick Easley is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at Peasley@wustl.edu.

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A Modest Proposal circa 2013 Adam Flores

I

t is quite sobering to walk the streets of this city, or any city in this magnificent country and to encounter the numerous dispirited people who call the subway station, the dilapidated apartment, or even the corner outside of a coffeehouse, home. These people find themselves in their situation for a variety of reasons, many because of a series of unfortunate life circumstances over which they had little control. But, such is the life of a person in poverty.

Like many people, I envision myself one day having the resources to sip a fine cabernet sauvignon on a French vineyard in the middle of summer while I am served a plate of exquisite cheeses. Despite my extravagant dreaming, though, there exists the possibility that I may never cross the Atlantic, but will instead become one of the millions of Americans working at or below the minimum wage, a salary that would generate an annual pre-tax income of approximately $15,200 in Missouri. As a single person without additional health expenses or dependents, I probably would not qualify for assistance through the State of Missouri’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly referred to as food stamps. I would not be allowed to join the 928,000 people in this state who receive benefits as of June 2013. I would not be sufficiently poor.

Particular circumstances could lead to a reduction in employment that would then render me eligible for SNAP benefits. Based on the United States Department of Agriculture Thrifty Food Plan – the plan that serves as the basis for the maximum benefits available to a household enrolled in the food stamp program – food for a single male between the ages of 19 and 50 costs $42.10 a week. Currently, the maximum benefits for a single person is $200 per month, or approximately $2.22 per meal. In fiscal year 2012, however, the average monthly allotment per person in Missouri was $128.54. These numbers reflect just how much the government values the life and wellbeing of the nations’ poor. One must conclude that such policies were implemented to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit. As a hypothetical person in poverty, I am sure I would have something worth selling.

As the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Popular culture is rife with examples of people going to great lengths

to survive financially in the modern world. Hell, Bryan Cranston took down an entire drug enterprise. Notwithstanding, there is one lastditch option often overlooked by Americans: selling your organs. With tens of thousands of people waiting on the transplant list and numerous people struggling to put food on the table, why not at least entertain the idea of trading part of my liver for several thousand dollars? If New Jersey has shown us anything, other than the underutilized wonders

As a hypothetical person in poverty, I am sure I would have something worth selling. of a tanning bed, it is that I can find a wealthy older man low on the transplant list who will pay $160,000 for my right kidney. Ah, how the free market finds yet another solution to multiple societal problems.

You see, the Republican Party gets it. That’s why they are pushing the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act, a bill that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would remove 2.8 million people from the food stamp program over the next ten years and reduce the benefits of another 850,000 households by about $90 per month.

Makes sense, does it not? This is the party of limited government, the party of open markets, the party of self-improvement through the entrepreneurial spirit. What the Republican Party is trying to convey to the American people by slashing financial assistance programs for the nation’s most needy is that we are strong enough to overcome hardship as long as we are willing. The government does not need to give away as much money – or rather, as little – as it does to the poor. If the poor man understood the true capitalist spirit, he would find an affluent woman with an oxygen tank, call the doctor out into an alley, and point to the left side of his chest.

Adam Flores is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at adam.flores@wustl.edu.

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Advanced courses, internship opportunities, independent study, and the new minor in Religion and Politics equip Washington University students with the ability to identify, engage, and shape many of the most pressing issues in American public life. Visit us today to learn how coursework or a degree in Religion and Politics will contribute to your professional development and civic engagement.

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Talking Points 62

21h 19m

4.7 million

Percentage of federal workers that will continue working during the government “shutdown”.

Length of time that Ted Cruz filibustered against Obamacare, the third longest filibuster in US Senate history.

Unique visitors to Obamacare website in its first 24 hours of operation .

18,000

At least 144 17

Uranium centrifuges currently active in Iran, according to former nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi.

People that were killed in three terrorist attacks in Pakistan in one week.

Years since the last US federal government shutdown.

“[Abortion] could be a woman’s right, just like it’s a man’s right if he wants to have some kind of procedure.”

“The United States is chastised for meddling in the region, accused of having a hand in all manner of conspiracy, at the same time the United States is blamed for failing to do enough to solve the region’s problems and for showing indifference towards suffering Muslim populations.”

“We don’t discuss this issue [chemical weapons] in public because we never said that we have it, and we never said that we don’t have it.”

–Anita Perry, wife of Texas Governor Rick Perry

–President Obama, in a speech to the UN in September

–President Bashar al-Assad

Above image of President Bashar al-Assad by Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom [CC-BY-3.0-br (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons.