VASSAR BIG BROTHER WATCHING? THE VASSAR BOE. 3

DEBATE SHOULD EURUOPE TAKE IN LIBYAN REFUGEES? 16

NATIONAL AFFAIRS PAGE 7

BIRTHER DEBATE: WASTE OF TIME

THE VASSAR CHRONICLE

Editorial

Round Table:

Constructing

meaning from

Osama bin

Laden’s death.

p. 10

Vol. XX, Issue 4 May 3, 2011

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Dear Vassar,

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Alaric Chinn ’13 and I will be serving as The Vassar Chronicle’s Editor-in-Chief. As a member of the Editorial Board this past year, I have had the privilege of working to develop The Chronicle from an experimental publication to a full-fledged student political journal. To this end, I would like to extend my thanks to the rest of the Editorial Board for electing me, and to you, the students of Vassar College, for providing the content that makes each Chronicle a unique and dynamic issue.

As Editor-in-Chief, I hope to make The Chronicle more accessible to stu-dents from all political and cultural backgrounds. Through it, I hope for ev-ery student to enjoy broader sources of discourse so that all students can ben-efit from discussing differing points of view. In my opinion, the more voices from different backgrounds, the richer the conversation.

This past year has seen momentous events within Vassar College. Aside from the resurrection of The Chronicle, we have celebrated our institution’s 150th birthday and we have seen the first referendum on proposed VSA con-stitutional amendments fail. As this year fades into the next, I hope that as new controversies and issues spring up, every student will use The Chronicle as a resource not only to gain knowledge, but also as a springboard to launch their opinions.

Letters Policy: The Vassar Chronicle encour-ages its readers to voice their opinions by writing Letters to the Editor, several of which will be se-lected for publication in each issue without regard to the author’s race, religion, sex, gender, sexual identity, or ideology. Please address correspon-

dence to VassarChronicle@gmail.com.

Advertising Policy: All advertisements will be clearly demarcated as such. Contact MICA.vsa@vassar.edu for rates. All material is subject to edi-tors’ discretion, without regard for race, religion, or sex.

Nota bene: The opinions published in The Vas-sar Chronicle do not necessarily represent those of the editors, except for the Staff Editorial, which is supported by at least 70 percent of the Editorial Board.

M.I.C.A. is a student umbrella organization that aims to further moderate, independent, conservative, and libertarian thought on cam-pus by sponsoring events designed to expand the breadth of Vassar’s political dialogue; to this end, M.I.C.A. produces The Vassar Chronicle. Contact MICA.vsa@vassar.edu to become involved with the club.

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

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Editor’s Note

Madeleine Morris, Vassar Chronicle

STAFF EDITORIAL

Academics fl awed at Vassar

As an institution of higher learning, Vassar has a duty to uphold a certain standard in

regard to academics. Furthermore, being a college which has a strong reputation for academics, upholding this standard is tantamount to Vas-sar’s success as an institution by the very measure set out by the College itself.

Unfortunately, we at The Vassar Chronicle feel that Vassar has failed to live up to this standard as of late. This inadequacy has made itself evi-dent in number of ways, mainly in the inconsistent habit of grade inflation which has permeated the campus. Most problematic is the lack of a co-herent standard of grading, which re-sults in the effort required to achieve certain grades, which vary greatly by professor, class, and even major.

The harms of this are twofold: First, the harms which pertain only to grade inflation, and second, the harms which occur from inconsistent implementation of grade inflation.

First, the adverse effects may be seen from the disincentive inflated grades provide. Students may no lon-ger be inclined to work at their full-est potential, if they may achieve de-sirable grades with less work. While a one-time incident may not neces-sarily be fundamentally problem-atic, the compounding of these types of experiences cause individuals to adopt the habit of settling for mere adequacy. But furthermore, on the campus level it creates a culture of

complacency, which we feel is anti-thetical to an academic environment endeavoring to distinction.

The additional consequences may be seen in the inconsistent imple-mentation of this standard. And insofar that we wish, as a college, to utilize grade point average as a meaningful tool for establishing a comparative measure of success at Vassar, we fail to do so, and in-consistent grade inflation becomes harmful. The adverse effects may be seen in the impact of this lack of a consistent standard. Because we of-ten as individuals who profess our-selves to be lovers of learning, we are often swayed by less strenuous majors, a problem which is com-pounded by inconsistent and unbal-anced standards across majors.

At present, majors vary greatly in their requirements: Varying factors include number of classes necessary and existence of a thesis require-ment. While autonomy on the part of individual departments is certainly laudable, it must not come at the cost of a high uniform standard.

To correct these problems we only need to reaffirm a rigorous, compre-hensive academic environment and culture, and critically address our success at achieving our professed goal in terms of academic standards.

—The Staff Editorial is agreed upon by at least a 70 percent majority of the Editorial Board.

In a representative democracy like the United States of America, voting is the cornerstone of political action. The right

to vote is a right for which millions have fought and died. Indeed, when one peruses the amendments to the United States Con-stitution, four amendments are dedicated to civil rights and, by extension, the right to vote. Clearly, voting must be nearly sacrosanct to have such prominence in the document that serves as the supreme law of the land.

At Vassar College, the Vassar Student Associa-tion (VSA) encourages us to exercise our rights to political activity be that through assembly, press, petition, or speech. Of all of the forms of political speech, voting should be the most accessible and the easiest to accomplish. For example, in order to vote in the recent referendum, all that a student needed to do was follow a link and click “yes” or “no.” More recently, the VSA, through the Board of Elections (BoE), conducted its annual, albeit delayed, spring elections.

The spring elections serve as the most sig-nifi cant event among students aspiring to hold offi ce within the student government or on college committees. It is during this time that students cover the College Center with colorful, fanciful, humorous, and serious post-ers that outline their positions, who they are and, sometimes, even why you should vote for them. These students then engage in Internet solicitation, door-to-door campaigning, and/or publicized debates to outline their platforms and secure votes. Considering all the hard work that these individuals put into their campaigns and the importance of voting in the democratic process, I fi nd it rather surprising that the BoE, in addition to running an embarrassingly inef-fi cient election, decided to act under its own accord—nostra sponte, if you will—to eliminate votes, judge voters, and seemingly compromise the entirety of the spring elections. Let’s begin with an analysis of their conduct towards an individual student.

Big Brother in Disguise?The VSA Constitution states that, “Elections

shall be overseen by the Board of Elections and run in accordance with procedures as set forth in the VSA Bylaws (Constitution X.1.B).” How-ever, even an intensive review of the VSA’s gov-erning documents does not grant the BoE—or the Chairs, specifi cally—the right to judge a student based on how they vote (although By-laws VII.7.F allows for “monitoring,” this was probably with paper ballots in mind). Unfortu-nately, the BoE decided that it was well under its purview to judge one voter in particular.

One member of the class of 2013, who pre-fers to remain anonymous, utilized his free-dom of choice in writing “someone else” for one race and “I don’t care” for a committee position—actions that the Board of Elections found intolerable. In an e-mailed statement, the student reveals, “I was told that my vote ‘indicates poor commitment and respect to [my] education here,’” by a member of the VSA operating under anonymity through the BoE e-mail. According to the statistics on voting re-leased by the Board of Elections, an average of 59.26 percent of students engaged in elections. Considering that essentially every student had access to a link that would lead to voting (un-like the United States’ paper or electronic bal-lot systems), 59.26 percent is a far cry from optimal voter participation. In the sense that

more voices lead to better discourse, accusing students and insulting them based on their choices is perhaps the exact opposite way of increasing voter turnout.

Although the student recognizes that the dic-tion of the write-ins could have been better, he was surprised that the Board of Elections could initiate direct contact at all: “This is an issue be-cause confidentiality is supposed to allow people the security to vote for whom they want to vote, free of harassment or repercussions.” Why should the institution that is tasked with regulat-ing spring elections also serve as a moral author-ity when it comes to voting? This sets a precedent that no student can vote without fear of reprisal in the form of being reprimanded by the BoE. If a voter’s choice is motivated by fear, the vote is no longer valid. Secret ballots exist for the sole pur-pose of allowing individuals to support whom-ever they choose for any reason. Any system that enforces a voting mechanism less than this is at the least coercive, and at the most, dictatorial.

Finally, in what was perhaps the most dis-turbing action on the part of the Board of Elec-tions, the student was notifi ed that his vote was changed from “someone else” to “no.” In the student’s words, “Basically, after I voted I received an email from [Terrace Apartment President and BoE Co-Chair] Samantha Allen’s ’11 personal email telling me she changed my write-in of “Someone Else” to “No.” Although in a later e-mail, Allen told him that his vote went unchanged, two possibilities stem from this action. One, the B0E can actually manipulate votes, thereby bringing the entirety of the spring elections into question—an action that is literal-ly elections fraud. The second possibility is that, at the very least, Allen, in her capacity as a BoE Chair, believed that she could change the vote and had the intent to change the vote—an intent that refl ects poorly on the BoE as a whole.

The Case of the Shape-shifting Ballot

When I personally began to choose whom to vote for at 12:01 P.M. on Saturday, Apr. 23, 2011, I, like many students who voted early, ob-served this strange box that said “write in” on it. Having no idea how write-ins worked or if

they would even have an effect on determining who won the elections, I stuck with the more conventional checking of boxes. By early after-noon on Easter, I was surprised to hear that “write in” candidates actually became part of the ballot, meaning that people who voted after someone “wrote in” a candidate, had a differ-ent ballot than those who voted before. In es-sence, the Board of Elections’ policies led to the creation of a mutating ballot that changed with every “write in” candidate.

Imagine those students’ surprise when the BoE announced (after voting was closed) on April 25, 2011, that write-in candidates would simply be removed from voting! In the Board of Elections words, “There were fl oods of write-in votes for several positions. Initially we had posted them for open/unfi lled positions. However, due to the very large infl ux of votes and the fact that many were not submitted by the person themselves, we are opening up the positions for application and appointment.” Ergo, despite a “large infl ux of votes,” the Board of Elections decided to throw out those votes and replace a democratic process with an appointment process. This makes sense for the positions in which candidates did not originally write themselves in, but what of the positions where they may have submitted their own names? In the Board of Elections’ own words: “Many were not submitted by the per-son themselves.” “Many” does not mean “all.” Without going back to the issue of the Board of Elections actually knowing who votes for who, insofar as there was a single person who wrote in their own name and was legitimately elected to that position, the Board of Elections essen-tially rejected the will of voters. How did they do this? By changing the rules of the game.

Additionally, what about all of the write-in candidates who did not run in purely uncon-tested races? To my understanding, there were a number of candidates written in for con-tested races—candidates who received votes. However, the BoE decided to remove all write-in candidates. The result can be described as election fraud: People who voted for write-ins could have voted for another candidate or even

“No.” As of this writing, if either of the currently tied races had write-in candidates that were re-moved, then potentially, had students known their votes would be discounted, they prob-ably would’ve voted for one of the established candidates or “No.” Thus, the ties would have never occurred, and the VSA Council would not be choosing the respective winners.

A Constitutional Challenge The VSA Bylaws clearly state, “No Board of

Elections offi cial may infl uence any voter or engage in any other activity that may unfairly affect the election (Bylaws X.7.E)” and “Once the voting period has begun, the ballot may not be altered in any way (Bylaws X.7.G).” Under both of these provisions, based on the actions of the Board of Elections, there was a distinct possibility that the spring elections could have been overturned. Although no student brought a complain to the Judicial Board within the allotted 24 hour period, a ruling against the Board of Elections may have resulted in special elections taking place during study week—a proposition that would fall unfavorably with a probable majority of the college population.

The major question is not whether or not the Board of Elections would be found responsible for unfairly influencing the election and allow-ing ballots to be altered, but why did the Board of Elections even present the opportunity? The BoE is supposed to serve the role as a regulator and a facilitator to ensure fair elections, not serve as a pulpit from which a handful of students can dictate the outcome of student government elections.

Of course, we must look towards future elec-tions rather than wade in past events. Even if this year’s Board of Elections’ actions were de-plorable from the viewpoint of representative democracy, VSA constitutionality, and basic manners, as Vassar students, we have to see how we can make next year’s elections better. While I agree that total transparency in elec-tions and a 100 percent across-the-board voter turnout rate is nearly unattainable, I believe that the VSA and by extension, we the students, can advance in leaps and bounds from the ac-tions of this year’s Board of Elections.

VASSAR & LOCAL

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

BoE actions subvert democracy, undermine constitution

Voter participation in the Spring 2011 elections for the VSA executive board positions.Madeleine Morris, Vassar Chronicle

Alaric ChinnEditor-in-Chief

PAGE 3

President43.57%

VP for Operations39.13%

VP for Academics38.93%

VP for Student Life40.29%

VP for Activities40.13%

VP for Finance39.05%

As the Shared Bikes program reach-es it end, the Vassar community can only lament a wonderful ideal

ruined by harsh realities. The program was started in the mem-

ory of a Vassar student who died shortly after graduation, and offered the Vassar Community the chance to partake in a fleet of thirty bikes maintained by stu-dent volunteers for a small fee.

It seemed like the program would be great chance for members of the school to get together as a community with a common interest and offer a low cost and sustainable program. The vision was quaint and picturesque. But in the long run, neither of these objectives occurred: Student interest has dwindled and costs have risen, causing the program to ask for decertification.

While some may react in surprise and dismay at the decertification of a beloved Vassar tradition that arguably set us apart from other colleges, the decertifi-cation is, in reality, not as alarming when the results of other shared bike programs are considered. In fact, in context it ap-pears to be inevitable and it appears that the quaint picture is not so quaint.

In the recent article “Will Smart Bikes Succeed as Public Transportation in the United States,” written by Paul DeMaio and Jonathan Gifford in the Journal of Public Transportation, the authors re-ported that no shared bike program has ever been able to be finically sustainable, a shocking conclusion considering that a sustainable program only requires small monetary contributions from each mem-ber. What, then could be the cause of beloved programs breaking down on the side of the road?

The cause, as with the failure of all ide-alistic programs, may be found in reality. Specifically, the problem with the fleet of pink bikes was in regard to personal responsibility, or in this case, the lack of accountability. When an individual chooses to partake in the program, he or

she has no incentive to take care of any one bike. If one bike fails as a result of one’s action, the rider may simply find another bike.

Additionally, we see the free rider prob-lem rather frequently in the program. Students who do not own a key can sim-ply have a friend unlock the bike, or bor-row the key, while other students can just dismantle the lock all together. The free rider principle is unable to be overcome.

In historical terms, the problem is the “tragedy of the commons.” First coined by Garret Harding in 1968, the term re-fers to the problem that occurs when a resource is held communally by a group of people. Specifically, the problem of the tragedy of the commons often draws reference to the problem which occurred before the enclosure movement in Eng-land.

Groups of citizens would allow their cattle to graze in the middle of the town in the “commons” or communal grazing pasture. Each citizen would want to allow his or her cattle to graze for as long as possible, and while one instance of this occurring would not cause problems, the compounding would ultimately lead to the overuse of the pastureland.

Simply put, people act in their indi-vidual best interest, not in the collective interest. Worse yet, people’s personal in-terests are often antithetical to the com-mon interest, particularly when it comes to sharing resources.

Consider the Georges Bank fishery off the coast of New England. Once the most populated fishery in the world, it is now closed due to fishing at higher lev-els than are sustainable. The calculations for maximum sustainable yield had been widely known but it was not in the short

term interest of the fisherman to follow the information.

In short, what is missing, in the case of both the fishermen and the bike riders, is personal responsibility and account-ability. It’s a common theme in regard to resources held in common that is often repeated and there is only one solution to fixing the problem: removing the re-sources from their communal ownership or privatization.

This explains, among other things, the failure of systems of government where all property is held communally. If com-munal resources are to be understood as the root problem of exploitation, then communism, the system of communal resources, is fundamentally problematic.

Resources are limited. However, hav-ing unlimited desires, we wish to acquire as much as possible. This explains why communism, just like the Shared Bikes program, has failed.

In fact, the Vassar pink bike program is a case in point; we need look only to the proposed solutions to the shared

bike program. First we take it out of the hands of the students (the workers) and place in the hands of the administration (read: those who own the means of the production). Then, the ownership is no longer collective. The administration leases them out, or mandates what is in effect private property or at the very least mandates personal responsibility. A communistic paradise was achieved, but was unable to hold causing capitalistic measures to win out.

By having private property we remove any incentive for people to over-exploit their resources, because if the resourc-es are privately owned they face direct consequences their actions. As with the case of the Vassar Shared Bike Program, students are forced to care for their own bikes, without the ability to go find a new one if their bikes should fail. By taking advantage of people’s tendency to act in their own interest we see that the situa-tion will work out for the best both in the case of Vassar Shared Bikes and govern-mental systems.

VASSAR & LOCAL

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

The tragedy of the commons comes to Vassar CollegeShared bikes destined to fail due to lack of private ownership

Jessica TarrantineVassar & Local Editor

PAGE 4

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“SPEECH IS CIVILIZATION ITSELF.” - THOMAS MANN

Matthew Brock, The Vassar Chronicle

The pink bikes have fallen into disrepair over the past year, leading to their disbandment.

“By having private property we remove any incentive for

people to over-exploit their re-sources, because if the resources are privately owned they face di-rect consequences their actions.”

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

It isn’t much of a reach to say that if Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) were a politician, they

wouldn’t have a 100 percent approval rating, and it is no mystery why. One point of criticism has stemmed from the choice of bands ViCE has decided to bring to campus. Some have claimed that the bands represent what the tastes of only a small minority of students. In response to this criticism, ViCE has taken measures to try and combat this viewpoint.

Last spring ViCE attempted to bring one of its biggest acts yet: The Flaming Lips. Such a big band meant that ViCE had to make a few changes. First the venue was moved to an off-campus loca-tion—the Mid-Hudson Civic Center—to hold a larger audience and for the first time in my tenure as a student tickets were not available for free. Because of the name recognition that comes with The Flaming Lips, the cost to bring the band in was much higher, thus neces-sitating the need to charge students for tickets to the show. Thankfully, the cost was subsidized by ViCE and stu-dents were able to pay significantly less than the general population. However, in the past, ViCE had sold tickets to the general population, but kept tickets free for students. In the end, the show ended up being quite popular and very successful.

ViCE has tried to carry over some of that success to this year. Unfortu-nately, what has carried over has been none of the good and some of the bad. The big concert of the fall semester was Yeasayer, and while this author person-ally really enjoy the band, there were many students who were left asking “Whosayer?” To add insult to injury, off of the precedent set by The Flaming Lips show, tickets were once again sold, and not distributed, to paying students. In the end, the ticket price and obscuri-ty of the band were enough to keep stu-dents away, the chapel was never more than half full.

This spring, ViCE tried once again to combat complaints of only bring-ing obscure acts to campus by opening an online poll for students to vote on what act they wanted to bring to cam-pus. Unfortunately the poll was highly unsecure, allowing people to vote mul-tiple times, and was open up to the en-tire population of internet users, not just Vassar students—the poll received several votes from IP address in Florida and Connecticut.

Despite these problems the poll win-ner, Wiz Kalifa, did seem to be the most popular choice. The results of the poll were largely fruitless though, because despite Wiz Kalifa’s willingness to per-form on campus, ViCE’s managerial incompetence made it impossible for them to secure a contract, and once again another mid-level “indie” band,

Of Montreal, was contracted. And keep-ing true to recent form, ViCE once again imposed a $18 ticket fee for students.

The Flaming Lips concert has set a very poor precedent for the concerts here at Vassar. In an attempt to bring a major band to campus, ViCE began a practice of selling tickets rather than distributing them to students on a first come first serve basis at no cost. While many students certainly appreciate the improved quality of acts, the price to attend a ViCE sponsored show is a significant deterrent and an inherently unfair practice that is antithetical to the College’s admissions philosophy.

Vassar College is commended in the higher education community for not only being a need-blind institution in admissions, but we are one of the first and few institutions to also meet full demonstrated financial need. The money ViCE receives to fund these acts comes from a sizeable portion of every single student’s activities fee that they pay with their tuition.

By charging students an additional fee to attend the concerts that ViCE or-ganizes, students of lower financial sta-tus are denied the ability to enjoy the same activities as other students, even though a portion of their tuition has al-ready gone to bringing the act to cam-pus. Some may say that $18 is not very much to charge for a concert ticket, but there are student’s at this college to whom that is indeed a significant cost and are unable to attend due to finan-cial constraints.

Worse than the inequity created by this pricing system, however, is the fact that essentiall y every student pays for part of the concert, and only those who wish to and can afford to pay for the tickets actually get to enjoy those con-certs. What we have is a system that is not only inequitable but exploitative to members of the community.

What has happened is that a middle ground that fails to meet either of two criticisms has emerged. The Flaming Lips were successful because the band was a really big name act, and the ticket prices were paid and justified because of that. Similarly, in the year prior to The Flaming Lips, Broken Social Scene, Passion Pit, and Beirut were all suc-cessful because despite the small names these bands had, the concert was avail-able for any student who wanted to go, so long as they waited in line for a free ticket.

Now, instead, we bring bands with middle market recognition that cost a little bit more. Students are still unhap-py with the headlining acts, and ticket prices keep those who would be mod-erately interested away. In the end, it is far better to bring the small acts to campus and make them available free to students. At least in this scenario the exclusion factor is left to musical taste and not financial ability.

—Todd Densen ’12 is an economics major.

ViCE pricing practices unfair to lower-income studentsHigh prices deter students from concerts, cause events to fail

Todd DensenContributor

PAGE 5

Courtesy of ViCE

This semester ViCE brought Of Montreal to Vassar, charging students $18 to see the band.

Keller’s criticism of MICA, Dems incorrect, unwarranted

In his column in the April 28 issue of The Miscellany News, “MICA, Dems should not be counterparts,” Steve

Keller ’11 asserts that the Vassar College Democrats and the Moderate, Indepen-dent, and Conservative Alliance (MICA) are hampering political discourse and activism at Vassar by creating a false di-chotomy between partisan Democrats and ideological conservatives, while leaving out ideological liberals and par-tisan conservatives. As his column was published in The Misc’s last issue of the year, I would like to take the time to ad-dress his remarks in The Chronicle.

Keller based his analysis on a central, fl awed assumption: That an organization cannot be both partisan and ideological. By being a partisan group, the Demo-crats do not provide an adequate place for general liberal discussion, which he then claims sends the liberal ideologues fl ocking to MICA, who then displace the conservatives and remove the possibil-ity of Republican activism. However, con-trary to Keller’s assumption, ideology and partisanship are not mutually exclusive.

Since I am only a member of MICA, I cannot speak for the Democrats, al-though from what I have seen they tend to be fi ercely partisan during the elec-tion season but take a break to focus on liberal discourse during the rest of the year. MICA tends to oscillate between these extremes as well. However, as Keller points out, we tend not to support politi-cal candidates as often as the Dems do.

This is why I, as a liberal democrat, am able to fully participate in MICA without compromising any of my partisan beliefs.

However, MICA has not ceased its partisan activities due to people like me fl ooding its meetings. In 2008, MICA en-dorsed John McCain for president and tabled for him for weeks in the College Center, despite the frequent verbal as-saults they were subject to from students and faculty members. As a maverick—a moderate conservative—McCain fi t into MICA’s moderate-republican ideology, unlike his running mate Sarah Palin, who MICA specifi cally did not endorse.

In 2010, MICA was ready, willing, and able to campaign on behalf of moderate Republi-can Rick Lazio ’80, but no sooner did we ar-rive back at Vassar than he was defeated by Tea Partier Carl Paladino—a man who sup-ported throwing indigent individuals into prison to teach them personal hygiene. Due to his extremist policies, all of MICA’s mod-erates and most of its conservatives felt that it would be irresponsible of us, as human be-ings, to support Paladino’s candidacy. For that matter, most of the Tea Party candidates in 2010 proved to be too extreme to garner our support, so we were left with nothing to do but discuss the politics that do matter to us.

This afternoon, MICA and the Dems will engage in their annual debate over nation-al policy issues. True, we may not be polar opposites as Keller suggests—we did have some trouble fi nding a topic on which we were diametrically opposed—but together we encompass the entire spectrum of ratio-nal political thought from the communist left to the evangelical right and we look for-ward to advocating for the candidates that share our particular ideologies next year.

Matthew BrockSenior Editor

VASSAR & LOCAL

The directions are simple: Into an ice-filled highball glass, pour one-and-a-half jiggers of Gosling’s

Black Seal dark rum, top with Barritt’s ginger beer, and squeeze in a generous slice of lime. Stir thoroughly.

That’s a Dark ‘n’ Stormy, Bermuda’s national drink. It’s a simple cocktail to prepare and rather apropos to sip while sheltering from the lightning, thunder, and rain of recent weeks. Yet, such liba-tions are rarely if ever seen or enjoyed on the weekends at Vassar College. In-deed, it is a lamentable commentary on our drinking culture that many will ask “What’s a ‘highball’ glass?” “Why not my roommate’s white Bacardi?” and think “I’m pretty sure you can’t print the word jigger.”

Come Mondays, recycling bins and Town House lawns are the exclusive province of seemingly infinite cans of Busch, Natty, and Pabst Blue Ribbon; cost-effective, yes, but hardly enjoy-able. Worse, the “bar”—if one exists—is usually stocked with a few liters of Co-ca-Cola, cranberry, and orange juice, a handle of Crystal Palace, and a seeming-ly incongruous bottle of cut-rate tequila, sans salt, lime, or margarita mix. Worse still, it’s all room temperature, and since the bar is usually untended, partygoers are often left to their own concoctions as well as their impaired sense of how much is too much, with everyone under pressure to grab what they can before the thirty other people in the room—or the scores on their way—can gulp down the small cache. Ever try to kill the taste of neat Los Generales by adding equal parts vodka and Coke?

Although our social life is a far cry from the Greek system at the University of Colorado in Boulder—consistently ranked as the U.S.’s number one party school—the quality of ingredients, the lack of care for their combination, and the haste with which they are consumed that mark our bacchanalia indicate the prioritization of the enjoyment of drunk-enness over the enjoyment of drinking itself—qualities that need not be mutu-ally exclusive.

In this sense, Vassar’s drinking cul-ture—representative of America’s as a whole—is impoverished. I am not say-ing that there is not a definite place for 30-racks, kegs, Ke$ha, and $3 shots from the well, just as there is a place for fast food and microwavable “instant” meals. However, when only the cheapest, quickest, and least appetizing options are available, the cultural imbalance of imbibition ought to be questioned.

Why is this status quo? Neither ex-pense nor accessibility can justify the virtual absence of “high drinking” at Vassar. Arlington Wine & Liquor and Half-Time, for examples, are both near-by and offer an incredible variety of la-bels. You can make a gratifying gin and tonic without going broke, one that cer-tainly packs more kick and flavor than a Bud Light.

On that point, should pleasure not be the strongest incentive to imbibe? One receives the social benefits and harms of alcohol, as with too much of any good thing, irrespective of quality—as long as that benefit is simply a matter of finding the ideal blood alcohol content, should enjoyment of the drink itself, be it an Is-lay single malt or a Pina Colada, not be the paramount priority?

One refrain I often hear—and con-test—is that “Alcohol tastes bad.” That’s certainly true for such crimes as mixing cheap vodka, rum, and Franzia boxed wine together without ice, just one of the uncountable atrocities I’ve wit-nessed in the last four years. But I would challenge those who doubt me, even the most ardent teetotaler, to not appreciate the sublimity of a glass of St. Germain after trying it on the rocks with some flayed green grapes.

Perhaps the strongest defense here is simple ignorance—though Prohibition largely ended in the 1930s, the stigmati-zation of alcohol has persisted through-out the United States, reenergized by the rise of health consciousness. Parents and schools fear the potential harms of alcohol and its abuse, seek to inculcate that same fear in children, and in doing so promote a culture wherein drinking is construed as a vice—one restricted de jure in 1984 to those who are over 21 in further deterrence. Of course, such an atmosphere doesn’t actually deter drinking—just as long prison sentences and D.A.R.E. has not made America drug free—especially once teenagers es-cape to the non-judgmental “safe zone” that is Vassar College; however, such at-titudes decrease our knowledge of how to drink well and enjoy each sip.

But perhaps alcohol shouldn’t taste good because enjoying it could contrib-ute to addiction. It does not help that popular culture would have you think that one cannot drink responsibly—groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), in the pursuit of their honor-able aims, have helped conflate alcohol with danger—for example, A.A. teaches that alcoholism (broadly defined) is a “disease,” one’s choices are beyond in-dividual control, and that salvation can only be found through belief in a “higher power.”

While I don’t think even Kingsley Amis would contest that alcohol is de-cidedly less healthy and more risky than a spinach overdose, it takes substantial conscious abuse and still some degree of chance to destroy oneself even in the long term. In fact, a recent paper in the scientific journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that even heavy drinkers outlive ab-stainers, and that drinking in modera-tion, defined as one-to-three drinks per day—and not just red wine—is possibly healthiest, given its ability to relieve stress. Moreover, while one should try to live healthily through exercise, eat-ing right, et cetera, one ought to occa-sionally indulge in enjoyable choices over the healthiest, be it the occasional

ice cream cone, thick rare steak, or cold drink.

Perhaps if parents would construc-tively teach their children about imbib-ing—passing on knowledge of recipes, an understanding of which spirits mix well, and awareness of individual tolerance—they could show that one can drink socially, enjoy its benefits, and with a modicum of thoughtfulness, a host can prepare a number of great drinks fit for personal preferences and different occa-sions. After all, context is important—who wants to drink hot coffee, with or without a shot of brandy, in equally hot weather? Instead, many are left to trial and error, without encouragement to learn more, and come late—if ever—to higher standards.

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

ARTS & CULTURE

Vassar drinking culture focuses on quantity over quality

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PBR is among the less savory beers frequently found littered accross campus.

Jeremy Bright Senior Editor

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PAGE 6

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

President Barack Obama recently released his long form birth certifi -cate, which reveals that he was born

in Hawaii on August 4, 1961, and is there-fore a natural born U.S. citizen. The con-troversy over Obama’s birthplace began during the 2008 presidential campaign, and, despite Obama’s issuance of a certi-fi cation of live birth from Honolulu that was confi rmed by Hawaii’s Department of Health, fringe conspiracy theorists known as “birthers” continue to deny that Obama was born in the U.S. These radicals insist that Obama was born in Kenya, his fa-ther’s native country, or even Indonesia, where Obama spent several years as child. Section 1, Article II of the Constitution re-quires the president to be a “natural born Citizen.” As such, birthers contend that Obama’s presidential campaign should have been constitutionally prohibited.

The birther conspiracy theory made a grab for legitimacy when on April 15, 2011, the Arizona state legislature passed a bill requiring presidential candidates to submit birth certifi cates in order to be al-lowed on the state election ballot. How-ever, on April 19, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the bill, wishing to pre-vent politically motivated decisions at the hands of one “gatekeeper.”

Donald Trump further contributed to this speculation by exploiting the birther theory to bolster his reputation as a po-tential Republican candidate. Still, any-one outside of the 11% of Americans who believe Obama was “defi nitely” born out-side of America should reject this political posturing and acknowledge the absurdity of Mr. Trump’s claims.

Those who alleged that Obama was not

a legitimate natural born citizen are a fringe minority, and the media’s consid-eration of their accusations imbues their cause with a validity that it does not de-serve. Obama presented his birth certifi -cate, and was deemed legitimate, won the election, and now serves as president. The debate should have stopped here.

However, it remains extremely dubi-ous that President Obama expresses the constant need to address such outlandish claims. If the accusation is so far-fetched, why did he even feel compelled to of-fer evidence in the fi rst place? Indeed, Obama’s release of his birth certifi cate may provoke more questions than it an-swers. The timeline for this release may actually strengthen the birther movement. Only after two years did Obama fi nally re-lease his birth certifi cate. Yet at this point, after Obama has been legally elected into offi ce, it seems like overkill, even self-jus-tifi cation, to assure himself and the rest of the country that his position is legitimate. This need to validate his presidency after he has already been elected to offi ce indi-cates a lack of confi dence, a lack of ability to judge the importance of particular is-sues, and a lack of touch with the mindset of the people.

There can be no doubt that Obama was born in the United States—the evidence provided is clear. However, Obama’s de-layed reaction and preoccupation with his reputation highlights his tendency to priv-ilege a conspiracy theory over more press-ing national and international issues.

Obama said that he wanted to remove the distraction from the media in order to enable the U.S. to focus on more crucial world events, but in giving any attention to the birther theory, he gave it credibil-ity and in doing so, he may have actually further diverted national attention away

from more substantial policy questions. Although Obama released his budget vi-sion on February 14, 2011, he has either inadvertently or intentionally redirected media focus to the birth certifi cate and away from more pressing issues at hand.

Earlier this week, President Obama ar-gued, “we do not have time for this kind of silliness. We’ve got better stuff to do.” It’s a shame that he used up media time and resources doing exactly what he said he wanted to avoid.

Obama releases birth certifi cate, caves to conspiracy theoriesNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Madeleine Morris, Vassar Chronicle

PAGE 7

Madeleine MorrisAsst. Production & Design Editor

This week, WikiLeaks is back in the news after releasing a cache of government docu-ments pertaining to current prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and the re-action to the release has ranged from childish to absurd.

WikiLeaks last made headlines when it re-leased a series of U.S. diplomatic cables that revealed the shadier side of international di-plomacy, such as attempts by U.S. offi cials to hack into United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s personal e-mail. The govern-ment handled this release with a surprising level of grace—it admitted that countries use questionable tactics in diplomacy and while the release is unfortunate, it had no tangible effect on U.S.’s diplomatic operations.

However, the government’s reaction to the latest release has been to ignore it completely. As far as the government is concerned, the documents are still classifi ed—they offi cially do not exist. Ignoring the issue may seem to be a good tactic for the government—after all, it did not change any of its practices in re-sponse to the diplomatic cables and now they are all but forgotten. Unfortunately for the

government, there is a group of people who are clamoring for these documents to be rec-ognized in the public sphere: the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and their attorneys.

At present, the courts, like the rest of the government, claim that these documents are classifi ed and that detainees’ defense teams cannot have access to them; these documents, which anyone can access from their personal computer, cannot be discussed publicly be-cause they are offi cially secret. The incongru-ity of this statement is ridiculous.

This situation is made more absurd by the fact that these documents do not contain particularly damning evidence—there are no calendars that list exactly which torture techniques were used on the inmates each day. Instead, the documents mainly consist of lists of charges and testimony provided by the inmates which generally implicate them in terrorist plots. While the validity of this tes-timony is doubtful, especially if it was elicited under torture, there is certainly nothing in these documents that would suggest that the prisoners have been mistreated.

Using these documents to show the exact timeline of detainees’ incarceration serves as the only way that these documents could possibly be used to support their defense attorney’s asser-tions. The defense could use these documents to

verify how long their clients have spent at Guan-tanamo without a trial or due process, as guar-anteed by the fourteenth amendment. Granted, WikiLeaks points out that there are large gaps between when the inmates were fi rst captured and when they were sent to Guantanamo, indi-cating that they likely spent time in foreign pris-ons undergoing even less savory modes of inter-rogation, but again they do not spell out exactly if and how specifi c inmates were tortured.

One could suppose that it is also possible for a defense team to use the vast amounts of infor-mation that the military has already extracted as a justifi cation for having their client removed to a less extreme facility—what more can they hope to get? However, as this evidence would implicate them in terrorist plots, it would not provide a strong incentive for their release. So given how little harm these documents could do to the government, why is their reaction so dif-ferent than it was with the diplomatic cables?

The issue here seems to be that no one ever attempted to use the diplomatic cables against the government in a formal setting. This seems like an obvious point to make, but the reality is that the government’s lev-elheaded façade shattered as soon as anyone mentions WikiLeaks in a public setting, even though the release has had no substantial ef-fect on its day-to-day operations. This reality

is pathetic and highlights the childishly utili-tarian nature of our government—that it can only be reasonable when it is getting its way.

As a mere college student, I feel as though I may be overstepping my bounds, but I would like to suggest that the U.S. government could have easily sidestepped this entire debacle through a solid public relations campaign.

To start, the government should acknowl-edge that the leaked documents exist and are publicly available, because continuing on with this charade of classifi ed documents is simply making the government look more and more out of touch by the minute.

Then, the government should go on the of-fensive and embrace the documents which es-sentially do nothing but demonstrate how the detainees helped to fund, train, arm, or oth-erwise facilitate Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. No matter how large the ideological divide has become in American politics, ev-eryone can at least agree that terrorists are bad and deserve to be in prison.

So while the U.S. government is busy sticking its head into the sand and trying to pretend that the latest WikiLeaks fi asco did not happen, it is missing out on a golden opportunity to turn this newly released evidence against its enemies and to dispel some of the rumors surrounding the al-leged innocence of the Guantanamo detainees.

U.S. govt. shows true colors over latest Wikileaks scandalMatthew BrockSenior Editor

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

The popular American cartoon series, The Simpsons, offers a perfect example of the fear that Americans feel towards

the nuclear power industry. Homer Simpson plays the role of the bumbling nuclear power plant worker whose incompetence nearly trig-gers several nuclear meltdowns. The plant’s owner, Monty Burns, is the Scrooge-esque villain of the show whose evilness is solidifi ed by his connections to the nuclear power in-dustry. The nuclear power plant causes many of Springfi eld’s problems, including environ-mental degradation and the ugly aesthetic that the concrete cooling tower brings to the other-wise picturesque town.

Americans have historically held wince-worthy reactions to the thought of the ex-pansion of nuclear power. In our society and popular culture, nuclear power is thought of as a social evil and anathema to the America that we want to create. The recent disaster in Japan and its relation to the global nuclear power issue is causing these long-held fears to resurface not only in America, but all around the globe.

Some of Japan’s neighbors, including mem-bers of the Association of Southeast Asian Na-tions (ASEAN) have been prompted by the Japanese nuclear crisis to rethink their own nuclear situations. Nations such as the Philip-pines, Thailand and Indonesia have taken the path of extra regulation, slowing the process of building more plants until proper safety fea-tures are tested and assured.

Elsewhere, other nations began to express their concerns about the future of nuclear power. In the wake of the Japanese crisis, rep-resentative energy ministers from the twenty-seven EU member states called an emergency meeting to evaluate current safety measures now in place across Europe. The member states’ nuclear regulators agreed to carry out safety tests on the 143 European nuclear pow-er plants. These included risk assessments for possible damage caused by earthquakes, tsu-namis, terrorist attacks, and other potential dangers.

Other states have taken even further mea-sures. Switzerland has frozen plans to build new reactors, while Germany, one of the EU’s heavyweights, suspended its plan to extend the life of its nuclear power plants. Germany also closed seven nuclear plants in the midst of the Japanese crisis, setting the trend for other nations’ fears. Spain and Portugal have echoed the concerns of environmental groups by pro-claiming the desire for an eventual nuclear-free Europe. However, other governments are sticking with their preexisting nuclear policies. Russia, China, Poland and (earthquake prone) Chile are keeping to their plans to build more reactors.

Japan’s nuclear crisis came at a time when the United States government was looking to expand the nuclear energy industry by offer-ing companies billions of dollars in fi nancial support. Following the disaster, the Obama administration maintained that it would sup-port the expansion of nuclear power within the United States. Still, the government mandated new safety inspections on the aging reactors currently in operation.

So the dilemma remains: should the Unit-ed States rethink its nuclear energy policy in

light of the crisis in Japan? The answer to this question is much more complex than what the media cycle’s current discussion on this issue has revealed. I wholeheartedly support the ex-pansion of nuclear power, not only within the United States but throughout the world. How-ever, I feel that the United States, in particular, is missing out on a fair amount of potential progress.

France, a frequently cited example of nucle-ar prowess, has one of the highest proportions of energy needs met by nuclear energy. France generates about 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. 58 reactors generate this power across the country, constituting 16% of the world’s global nuclear production

On the other hand, the United States re-lies on fossil fuels for 73 percent of its energy needs, while receiving less than 20 percent of its energy supply from nuclear sources. While the United receives substantially less of its power proportion from nuclear power, this power source is based in 65 power plants across the country, meaning that the US actu-ally contains more nuclear power plants than France.

Too much of the conversation has been focused on modeling the United States off a country such as France, which utilizes few fossil fuels because of its high consumption of nuclear energy. However, the different size, culture, and energy needs of France make the comparison a little less practical.

Americans are scared of nuclear energy, de-spite our clean record on nuclear catastrophes. In the United States, not one death can be traced to nuclear power. Despite the negative publicity generated by the Three Mile Island accident of 1979, not a single person died as a result of this “meltdown.”

Nuclear energy sounds a lot scarier than it is, and a popular culture phenomenon like

the Simpsons only exacerbates the fear factor. Our dependency on coal, as well as other fos-sil fuels, has caused signifi cantly more dam-age than nuclear power has. Even beyond environmental degradation, coal is directly responsible for the loss of human life. The World Health Organization’s annual report on sustainable development stated that three million of the annual global deaths are a result of atmospheric pollutants released from the combustion of fossil fuels.

Comparatively, the death rate for nuclear power is negligible. The WHO calculated the death rates per terawatt hour (THw) of the most popular energy sources. For coal, the global death rate is around 161 per THw, while the rate lies at a little below 0.04 for nuclear power.

Obviously, these numbers are a little skewed by the prevalence of coal power versus nuclear power, both within the United States and around the globe. And it’s no secret that people are intrinsically more frightened by the threat of a nuclear meltdown or a terrorist attack on one of these reactors than they are by the idea of people being slowly killed by pollutants.

That being said, should the United States give into the fear mongers? No. Should the United States be knowledgeable about its po-litical capital and respectful toward these fears and work to alleviate them by taking the prop-er precautions? Most defi nitely.

While I concur with the Obama Adminis-tration’s support of the expansion of nuclear power, I also feel that if the United States had announced the desire to instantaneously back commercial power plant builders in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster, it would have represented a squandering of U.S. political capital.

The U.S. should focus on what has often been left aside in America and what has led to the decline of our competitive edge: research.

One potential way to sway the public toward the support of nuclear energy is by getting rid of the garbage and looking to cleaner alterna-tives. The “cleaner” alternative in this instance would be the use of thorium as a potential replacement for the uranium used in nuclear reactors.

A 2005 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency communicated the potential benefi ts of thorium-based reactors. Thorium has a much higher abundance on earth, and one ton of thorium can produce as much en-ergy as 200 tons of uranium or 3,500,000 tons of coal. In a thorium-based system, there is no possibility of a meltdown, the cost is lower, there is a way to burn up old radioactive waste, and it does not produce weapons grade nuclear material.

The only problem with Thorium is the low level of knowledge and research pertaining to the substance. However, there are some signs of progress on this front. Last year, research-ers from the Brookhaven National Labora-tory in New York received a grant to develop a thorium-based, self-sustaining light water reactor. This progress could be immeasurably valuable to the United States in its pursuit of a sustainable energy system.

Therefore, the United States should be prompted by the Japanese Crisis and after-math to revaluate its nuclear policy. It should continue its policy of constant inspection of the aging nuclear plants, with the hope of getting rid of these in the future. Not so that we can be a nuclear-free America, but so that we can har-ness the most effective nuclear power possible with the most technologically advanced reac-tors using the most cutting edge material.

Of course, Nuclear power will always have its naysayers, but we can effectively change the symbol of nuclear power from Homer Simp-son to an image of progress.

Japanese crisis should not deter U.S. nuclear energyMeg MielkeContributor

Nuclear power has many potential advantages for the U.S.Ecosprinter.eu

PAGE 8

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Earlier this month, Standard and Poor’s (S&P) threatened downgrad-ing its rating on U.S. sovereign debt

and declared its outlook on the U.S.’s fi scal future as “negative.” It has been viewed as an attack on the U.S. government, which has done very little to tackle the rising defi cit, agreeing only to minor spending cuts that have little effect on the U.S.’s $14 trillion debt. The media has unfortunately taken this event to herald the “end of the U.S.,” seemingly forgetting the overwhelm-ing monetary supremacy that the United States has globally. It is incredibly unlikely that the U.S. will default on its debt, and improbable that investors will pull out of the U.S. – still considered a safe and high-quality investment haven – anytime soon. The real issue is what will happen years down the line, and whether or not our gov-ernment can defy typical human nature by considering the U.S.’s long-term economic health over short-term interests.

The main two items in the budget that must be reformed at the very least and, preferably nearly eradicated, are Medi-care/Medicaid and Social Security. They currently equal 10 percent of GDP, and make up roughly half of all government spending. And this fi gure will only balloon in the future; these programs’ costs are ex-pected to overtake tax revenues by 2049. Some may offer the “simple” solution of raising taxes; however, if taxes on citizens who make $100,000 or more were raised to 100 percent today, it would still not cov-er the U.S. defi cit. Spending clearly has to be reigned in if there is hope of balancing the budget and the biggest programs need

to be the fi rst to pay a visit to the budget undertaker.

Paul Ryan, a representative of Wiscon-sin, offered a budget plan that would al-legedly cut spending by around $6 trillion and, hopefully, eliminate the defi cit in thir-ty years. Thirty years is an incredibly long period of time, and a multitude of events can happen that we cannot prepare for. As such, I think we need a solution that works more immediately, so we can feel prepared for the future rather than hoping things stay the same and all goes according to plan—a very unrealistic wish.

Another fl aw in Ryan’s plan is that his program does not actually signifi cantly cut costs, but the responsibility is still shifted to the elderly. While I agree with this shift, it is not a solution that actually relieves the defi cit, which is supposedly the goal of the plan. Ryan also wants tax cuts, which un-fortunately are also not consistent with the goal of reducing the defi cit. Signifi cant and deep spending cuts plus at least mainte-nance of current tax rates will be necessary if we truly want to get the budget in check. And trust me, I am not one to oppose tax cuts unless there is no other choice.

Looking at Obama’s proposal, spending will actually be increased from current lev-els and will not attempt to curb Medicare and Social Security spending. While there has been heavy criticism for Ryan’s plan from the left, there have been few counter-proposals. The political reality is that poli-ticians do not want to alienate elderly vot-ers who have now relied on these programs to ensure a comfortable retirement, and do not want to cut any programs that affect their home state or district’s voter base.

There are a few ideas that I fi nd espe-cially compelling that come from Jeffrey Miron, Director of Undergraduate Stud-

ies at Harvard’s Economics Department, that should be strongly considered by our current leaders. With food costs currently increasing, agricultural subsidies to farm-ers have (quite rightly) come under fi re. Eliminating these would potentially save up to $20 billion per year, as well as reduc-ing the costs of a range of products, such as soda and pork, which are heavily affected by corn prices.

The “War on Drugs” is another program that could be cut, saving up to $20 bil-lion. It is costly, ineffi cient, and has been shown to do much more harm than good. As Miron notes, taxation of drugs could be very lucrative, which would help increase government revenue. Miron also mentions cutting federal transportation (much of which is ineffi cient and benefi ts only a few states), and foreign aid (it often ends up in the hands of corrupt leaders), which would save another $60 billion.

The bloated giants, Medicare and Social Security, must be overhauled in a few ways. First, the retirement age must be increased, as times have changed since the program was fi rst designed and people are living and working much longer. While I personally think it should be an optional system, as I fi nd it unfair that many individuals put in far more than they will ever receive, this is a start to reducing spending on Social Secu-rity. Medicare should cut many of its ben-efi ts, transferring costs to consumers. It has been noted many times that we, as health care consumers, overuse health care on a basic level, having the luxury of going in for visits for minor problems. I think consump-tion should be decided more heavily by the market, and that reducing consumption to more effi cient levels (and thus having indi-viduals only consume care they really need), will not only reduce Medicare spending but

make our health care system as a whole more effi cient.

There are also a few programs where I think spending should be increased and most certainly not cut, namely education and NASA. Education is vital to keeping in-come inequality in check, as well as to en-sure that we have capable minds that can compete in the global labor market. I am personally very supportive of spending for NASA and other scientifi c exploration. It is not only the foundation for understanding the world we live in—a pursuit higher than the political level—but much of the tech-nology developed at this level is eventually passed down to consumers, increasing our quality of life. Neither of these programs is a signifi cant portion of our spending and therefore should not be sacrifi ced while there is so much “pork” that can be elimi-nated from the budget.

Spending cuts are easier than they might seem given the rhetoric politicians on both sides have given us. Their motivation to receive votes inevitably taints their views of what sort of spending are necessary and what could, and should, be overhauled to help the defi cit. If there was ever a bipar-tisan issue, reducing the defi cit should be it, and both sides should work together to change the structure of the United States to ensure that we don’t simply have a tempo-rary “fad diet” for our budget, but instead change our habits so that we have long-term economic health. While the United States won’t lose monetary dominance in the near future, by the time our generation is settling down and our parent’s age, we will have a crushing fi scal burden if noth-ing is changed. It is in our best interests to encourage radical overhaul of the cur-rent budget, so that we can enjoy the same prosperity as past generations.

Legislators need to focus on defi cit, cut spendingKelly Shortridge

Contributor

PAGE 9

The past year has been a milestone for civil rights—the rights of corpora-tions, that is. In recent years, corpo-

rate conglomerates have been bailed out of debt, given record numbers of tax loopholes, and been exempted from caps on political contributions. Despite the monstrous size and rising power of corporations, however, consumers always wielded one weapon of last resort: The lawsuit. Legal action is to the consumer what the slingshot was to David–a tiny weapon that, when wielded correctly, is capable of bringing down the most powerful Goliath.

On April 27, 2011, in the case AT&T Mo-bility v. Concepcion, the Supreme Court took away David’s slingshot. In a 5-4 ruling, the Court struck down a Californian law that prohibited contracts forbidding trial by jury and class action lawsuits. Just hours after the Supreme Court decision was reached, AT&T, the plaintiff, updated its terms of service agreement (the lengthy document you click “Agree” to without reading every time you sign something or install software) to con-tain the following clause:

“You agree that, by entering into this agreement, you and AT&T are each waiving the right to a trial by jury and to participate in a class action.”

With this single sentence, hundreds of years of consumer rights and legal precedent were wiped away. Class action lawsuits are no longer always available to consumers as a form of legal recourse–consumers can be forced into arbitration systems designed to minimize corporate accountability and costs. While arbitration is not an inherently bad process–arbitrators can be more acces-sible than a court–it lacks the crucial benefi ts that class action lawsuits fi led in a civil court possess.

Consider the following scenario: A fi c-tional corporation charges 500,000 of its customers an extra fi ve dollar fee for using a credit card as payment, despite it being against state law to do so. Even if each cus-tomer is alerted that the corporation has en-gaged in illegal behavior, it is unlikely more than a microscopic fraction of them will take the time to fi le a case for arbitration. Filing a case takes money, effort, and time–some-thing most consumers do not have, espe-cially when the stakes are less than the cost of lunch at McDonalds. With a class action

lawsuit, however, a single litigant or group of litigants can sue the corporation on behalf of all 500,000 affected customers, and that fi ve dollar complaint suddenly becomes a $2,500,000 one. This forces the corporation to be held accountable for all of its actions, not just the select few that are sent through arbitration.

Class action lawsuits are not limited to small fi nancial gains. Real-world examples of class action lawsuits include Duke v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., a case regarding sexual discrimination against female employees of Wal-Mart, and Baker v. Exxon, the lawsuit that ensued following the Exon-Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound. Class action lawsuits have also been historically popular in the case of securities or investment fraud, such as the Enron scandal, or consumer privacy issues. In all these cases, class ac-tion lawsuits were crucial to ensuring justice could be afforded to the maximum number of people possible, and that corporations were held fully accountable for their actions.

One argument against class action lawsuits is that consumers who are too lazy to fi le for arbitration when wronged are not entitled to receive compensation. This, however, seems contradictory to 200 years of American jus-

tice. Brown v. Board of Education, a famous class action lawsuit, did not end segregation exclusively for the thirteen families fi ling the complaint—it applied to the entire American education system. Had an arbitration system been in place, each of the individual fami-lies would have been required to fi le their own grievance, and the arbitrator’s decision would apply only to each individual family. This system is laughably counterintuitive, and a fantastic example of why class action lawsuits are necessary to preserving justice nationwide.

Class action lawsuits are a key tool con-sumers can use to protect themselves. Cor-porations have deep pockets and massive legal teams—they will happily throw a few hundred bucks at a consumer who fi les for arbitration in order to make a problem dis-appear. It is only when consumers rise up en masse and stand up to corporations through means such as the class action lawsuit that said corporations are held publically ac-countable for their misdeeds. AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion is another point for big busi-ness and one less tool in the little guy’s pock-et. If we are not careful, consumers will soon be entirely unarmed, and helpless before the rising corporate conglomerate.

Supreme Court limits consumers’ legal recourseAlex KorenContributor

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

Alaric Chinn: We’re here to discuss the momentous occasion that oc-curred in the Middle East. In fact it

happened in the world. And that event was that Osama Bin Laden was killed by Amer-ican forces in Pakistan on May 1, 2011. And he is dead. Confi rmed dead. The issue at hand is that there are editors who are di-vided on this issue, and the point is to fl esh out those discussions.

Matthew Brock: This event is a mo-mentous occasion. While obviously the death of one man isn’t going to cripple the entire terrorist organization of Al-Qaeda, it represents a major victory in that we’ve caught this man who we’ve been hunting all of these years. It answers the question, “Why are we fi ghting this war against ter-ror that seemingly isn’t accomplishing anything?” It represents a major victory for the whole country.

Ethan Madore: When I fi rst heard about the death of bin Laden, it was via the Facebook. I saw that a friend of mine had posted a comment to the effect of, “Osama is dead. God bless America.” It spreads this mentality of “Aren’t we great? And now isn’t the war that we’ve been fi ghting justifi ed now. Can’t we celebrate U.S. mar-shal prowess?” I don’t think this is a good death. One death is extraordinarily insig-nifi cant upon the deaths of thousands and thousands of people in the Middle East, many of them civilians. I don’t think it’s a

cause to celebrate. After ten years, a single death makes the American people satis-fi ed. It’s a sad statement about American culture and values.

Will Serio: I guess my main problem is that Ethan frames it as one random person. That’s it. One person versus 3,000 deaths. The problem is that this isn’t only a fi gure-head: He was the leader of Al-Qaeda, the orchestrator. He’s one of the largest mass-murderers in American history. It does in a sense justify the last ten years. It justifi es that we haven’t been able to do anything about it. We set one strict strategic goal, and haven’t been able to do it.

Jeremy Bright: You say that our mis-sion has now been accomplished. This is a grossly inadequate statement. And you just so fl ippantly said that we’ve been killing so many other top Taliban and al-Qaeda lead-ers. Yet people have not been celebrating those deaths with nearly the fanfare that this has elicited immediately. They have, arguably, been more important, and Osa-ma has only been peripheral. He has been reduced to an impotent fi gurehead for years. Why are we suddenly hailing this as the greatest moment in the war on terror? Moreover, has killing Osama bin Laden el-evated him to the sacrosanct pedestal of a martyr?

Madeline Morris: I think Obama ad-dressed this, and I kind of agree him. He wasn’t a hero among Muslims. He wasn’t

a hero among Americans…a hero among most Americans either. And I don’t think it humanizes him. We killed him in a fi re-fi ght. Not a majestic death.

Brock: This did serve to humanize him. He’s been this shady character who served as this boogeyman, lurking in the shadows, who’s been haunting Americans for years. Here, we can see he is human. He can bleed and he can die. In this way, Americans gained a psychological victory. He may not have been the most important actor here. But the perception among the Americans was that he was the most im-portant fi gure, and his death gives them hope, and is of great political consequence to the president.

Jessica Tarantine: I guess just in the regards of the idea of what his death rep-resents overall. Whether the death repre-sents in becoming a martyr. It really repre-sents in the larger context that we are tying up loose ends—we’re ending this confl ict that has been occurring since Sept. 11. Even in that framework, I don’t think it’s martyrdom when you’re cutting off loose ends. It’s a conclusion, fundamentally not a beginning.

Madore: I think this whole discussion we’re having about whether or not he’ll be a martyr for some people or whether or not his death will help the people in the Middle East move on from whatever they’re do-ing is rather silly. People are saying this is a huge psychological victory for Ameri-cans. Why should we feel some psychologi-cal boost from this death? I would say we defi nitely should not. I would like someone to explain why like killing this single per-son has this level of symbolic values? Why should we give him this level of symbolic value? And, if you want to say that we’ve been at war for ten years and now we’re getting what we want—we’re getting one death. I don’t think anyone in their right mind should sign up for a ten-year bloody confl ict in which hundreds of thousands of people have died just for a single death. I don’t think anyone can be worth that much.

Serio: I don’t think anyone at this table is defending the last ten years in any way, because it should have happened sooner…

The thing is you make it and you frame it as if “ten years for this one things and now it’s done.” “Oh well, this is a great psycho-logical victory.” That’s not how we’re trying to make it sound. The fact is that we have won a battle for freedom. this is a better outcome than had it not happened. You’re making it sound like “This isn’t going to do anything.” These do have long-term conse-quences It changes the dynamic, it changes morale… it changes a lot of things that are really important right now.

Bright: Sartre said that freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you. In this case, talking about the “freedom” that’s been won from the global war on terror. What did we do with what was done to us? We now live in a pseudo-Orwellian society of endless war and growing surveillance, a war which—contrary to what some have asserted—does not end with the killing of Osama bin Laden. A society predicated on fear—fear of imminent attack, fear of clan-destine enemies, fear permeating every as-pect of American life and clamping down our essential liberties. I think that insofar as Osama bin Laden’s death is concerned, we have no cause to see the evaporation of any such fears.

Osama bin Laden certainly was a fi gure-head for international terror, al-Qaeda—call him what you will. But he got to that position through action, through successful action, against those whom he and his co-horts identifi ed as his enemies. By freeing up such a monumental space, a fi gurehead for this intentional movement, do you not think that you won’t see many others jock-ing for position to take that place by com-mitting similar if not greater atrocities?

Madore: I’m interested more of what people are saying in response to the mur-der of Osama bin Laden. And a lot of peo-ple seem to be celebrating his death, a lot of people in this past hour since this has been announced, and I’m sure the days since this was published. They’ve been calling him an “evil man,” like we’re celebrating the death of this “evil man.” I think it’s re-ally swell for America that we can imagine our enemies as one-dimensional evil men one-dimensional evil men that we can cel-ebrate the death of. I’m not going to say

Staff discusses the impact of bin Laden’s death on U.S.

Osama bin Laden, recently deceased leader of al-Qaeda.fl ikr.com

PAGE 10

See bin Laden on page 11

NATIONAL AFFAIRS

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

Is the U.S. justifi ed in celebrating Osama’s death?

PAGE 11

that he was defi nitely very bad but I think that there’s this black and white mentality that we get into when our enemies are evil, are inhuman, we celebrate their deaths and our friends and our own actions are blameless.

Michael Greene: Alright, as far the Ethan’s point of this “black and white” thinking of whether he was evil man and if we should be onboard of celebrating his death, but quite frankly even if he was just a “very bad man,” there’s nothing wrong for celebrating the death of a “very bad man.” He doesn’t have to be completely evil for us to celebrate this, and you are denying Americans the catharsis they need.

We need to remember back to Sept. 11. Anyone who saw on television or saw in person those towers fall understands that as a nation, America needs the moment knowing that the man responsible for this has been punished, that justice has been done. We’ve shown him and every terrorist left in the world. We can and we will get him, like when we pulled Saddam Hus-sein out of that hole we are showing these terrorists, quite frankly, they are nothing but worms in the ground and America will crush them.

Madore: I want to address your point how I’m doing such a bad thing denying Americans catharsis. I don’t think cathar-sis is necessarily always a good thing, par-ticularly when what causes that catharsis is someone’s death. I don’t like it when we go to war to achieve catharsis about some-thing that happened ten years ago.

Do I want an America who can think that no matter what we can get these “worms” in the ground—our enemies? I don’t want America to think that our enemies are subhuman, or that there is a certain class of people who are our “enemies.” I think there are complex situation we have to work through.

Chinn: I’m willing to concede that may-be Greene’s point may have been too far in saying that enemies are “worms in the ground.” However, I think that the world should know that even if you go hide some-where and it takes ten years to fi nd you, eventually we will fi nd you. This sets a very important precedent—that precedent be-ing we can bring any person to justice that we need to bring. And it so how happened that in the fi refi ght he was killed. That’s probably not the best way of going about fi nding our enemies but the very fact that we can fi nd this person—who was respon-sible nonetheless for the Sept. 11 attacks demonstrates that Americans favor justice over killing.

Brock: And just to clarify, before we go on. I really don’t think we should be con-fl ating the death of Osama bin Laden with the Iraq Wars and Afghanistan. This death was the result of a concentrated strike in Pakistan—a country where we have no others ongoing operations. We’ve have not been fi ghting this war for ten years to kill Osama. We went to war in Afghanistan be-cause its government was supporting ter-rorists and we went to war in Iraq under the mistaken belief that they had weapons of mass destruction and to defend oil in-terests, which, in all honesty, is not a de-fensible war. To say that the thousands

of deaths from these wars is due to look-ing for Osama implies the two are related, which they simply are not

Madore: So fi rst of all, I love how your notion of justice is a CIA assassination squad. Sometimes trials, regardless of who they’re for, might be incorporated into this vision of justice.

Brock: We have a videotaped confes-sion where he admits to murdering thou-sands of people—what more could you possibly want?

Greene: To address your point of due process—you look at the Nuremburg trials, Hitler was dead… The secretary of state compared the Nuremburg Trials to the Bi-ble in saying how monumental they were to the human race… Did they prevent further genocide? No. It’s happened in Africa, it happened in Yugoslavia. What about Iraq? We tried Saddam Hussein; did it help the situation in Iraq at all? And I’m not even against due process. If we had been able to capture bin Laden and give him a Saddam Hussein-esque “show trial,” but he chose to die in a hail of gunfi re… history has shown us we weren’t going to get anything out of a human rights tribunal anyway that we wouldn’t have gotten if he was dead.

Enering: I think whether a trial would be appropriate or not is irrelevant, since we don’t know how he was obtained. Ac-cepting the highly unlikely prospect that the American government would have turned him over, I would have loved to see him tried by the International Criminal Court, since it would have augmented in-ternational law. But we really don’t know if that was an option or not—whether they could make the conscious decision to kill him or arrest him. I think it is more of an academic point that doesn’t address the exact specifi cation of what we’re debating here. Getting back to how Ethan has been framing this case, he simultaneously em-ploys both a deontological standard and a consequentialist standard. He hasn’t re-ally picked one. First, he claims that it’s intrinsically wrong to kill anyone. But then he transitions to a utilitarian justifi cation for this position, claiming that our central aspiration should be to benefi t civilians. If this is the standard we’re using, then we need to stop perceiving it as the U.S. kill-ing thousands of civilians to justify killing Osama bin Laden. Rather, the effort to kill bin Laden was part of a larger effort to re-

move Taliban offi cials who systematically infringed upon every human right imagin-able. So, if Ethan wants to consider what’s better for civilians, he needs to provide a very compelling reason for why it was bet-ter to live under the Taliban than it was to live under NATO forces.

Madore: Tom, I don’t think it’s neces-sarily a contradiction to say that all hu-man life is valuable and then I also don’t like this because a huge loss in human life. There can be layered arguments to that, like fi rst of all we need to respect the dig-nity of human right. I don’t think that’s a contradiction.

Greene: All right I believe that we need to conclude this debate with the cathar-tic effect of this. This is something that is good. A bit of closure after what happened on Sept. 11. This is good for the Middle East because this is a moving on point from the dictators and the terrorists that have been defi ning the region thus far it is showing that they are human and that they can fall and that can never be bad.

Morris: I don’t mean to be wishy-washy but I think you can see this from two sides at the same time. I’m glad he was killed; it was a victory for the U.S. But like Ethan

said, he was a human, he was a complex thing. I think you can only celebrate his death in as much as you can revel in the death of a human. It’s a happy day with a grain of salt.

Madore: At the end of the day, I don’t think that a large portion of the debate we’ve had today is going to be useful. Be-cause, obviously, he has already been killed. I think the important question that we have to ask is how do we approach this death in the coming days. Do we consider it the “cherry on top” of American military dominance and a justifi cation for what we’ve done in this string of unfortunate ac-tions, all of which are lamentable. Regard-less of this abstraction is evil, death is not something I want to celebrate as I wrap myself in a fl ag, bear a cross, and say “God Bless America.” I would continue to regret everything that has happened and just let other people get really excited about some-thing they can maybe feel good about.

Serio: The fact that Ethan can’t come to terms with even a relative kind of evil is problematic because if you don’t even have a realistic standard of evil, then there is just no meaning. It gives no morality to

any situation and the fact of the matter, no one here has ever killed anyone, or harmed them unless someone is keeping secrets. Also, no one here has defi nitely killed 3,000 people and no one has ever done that, and the fact that you can’t even come to terms with that and say—that you know that this is bad, and it’s probably better off that he is no longer around. We can say we are better off without him.

Brock: I think the death of bin Laden gives us a chance to pause and look back over the last ten years. Some people like Ethan think that the entire thing has been a waste, but at the same time after ten years the American people need a victory. In the words of Vice President Biden “It’s a big f***ing deal.”

Enering: There are two basic points I want to consider. The fi rst one is prag-matic. The death of bin Laden fi nally si-lences critics who alleged that the most powerful nation in the world appeared incapable of fi nding one man. Soft power and diplomatic solutions should always be employed before resorting to military solu-tions. However, in an international system largely predicated upon the varying de-grees of national power, soft power often depends upon the perception that it can be supported by hard power. The death of bin Laden affi rms the U.S. military’s com-petence, and will make it easier to exercise soft power. The second point that I want to talk about touches on catharsis. It’s been suggested that Sept. 11 only affected the victims of the attack and their immediate family members. This perspective obscures the scope of this national tragedy and how it impacted millions of people. Many of these people will simply feel closure fol-lowing his death, and will not necessarily embrace a hyper-nationalistic mentality. Some members here have suggested that we should not take pleasure in retribu-tion, but, if the death of a human being who caused such profound misery gives so many people closure, I certainly won’t de-prive them of this comfort.

Bright: If I were an insurgent I would be shaking scared in my combat boots right now that in, say, ten or twenty years, per-haps out of chance, they may kill me in a fi re fi ght from which I can’t escape. I think what we are really doing is granting such a degree of meaning to this occasion that I fi nd questionable. I certainly have no pity for Osama bin Laden, but the problem is the inability of commentators to go beyond shallow notions of good and evil to the heart of the philosophy of “terrorism,” to who these people are as people, not as ani-mals or worms, and actually gain insight from which we can collectively learn.

Chinn: We’ve heard a lot of analy-sis on a lot of important issues. A lot of people have suffered and died—each side has agreed that. When it comes to the idea that people suffer and I think we agree, but when it comes to the idea of whether or not bin Laden is good or bad per se, here is the only place where peo-ple reach a disagreement. One side says that all death should be lamented while on the other hand we have on the other side that says he is equitable to worms. We’ve heard a lot of good analysis, and I’m proud to close.

Former President George W. Bush declares war on terror.fl ikr.com

Continued from bin Laden on page 10

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The United Nations responded to Muammar Gaddafi ’s violent crack-down on pro-democracy forces with

stunning alacrity. On February 26th, the Security Council decided to refer the Lib-ya situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC), marking the fi rst time that China and the United States agreed to empower the world’s permanent criminal tribunal to investigate crimes against hu-manity. This swift reaction reveals the in-ternational community’s refusal to tolerate systematic mass murder, and suggests the Court’s new role in preventing future war crimes.

Lacking an independent police force, the ICC suffers from an inability to capture in-dicted suspects, and nations frequently refuse to enforce the Court’s arrest warrants. Given these limitations, many scholars contend that the ICC exercises a primarily symbolic power: arrest warrants convey the United Nations’ profound disapproval and inform the cen-sured leader that their actions will fall under the global community’s intense scrutiny. Ide-ally, the fear of future prosecution reduces suspects’ willingness to commit mass atroci-ties and thereby mitigates the brutality of their future campaigns.

Indeed, the 2008 election crisis in Kenya offers some support for this thesis. Following Mwai Kibaki’s claim that he won an extreme-ly contentious presidential election, ethnic tensions fl ared and violent riots rocked the nation. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan quickly offered to mediate the crisis, and a team of international investigators ac-companied him to catalogue examples of state administered violence. Although nearly 1,000 Kenyans died and hundreds of thousands lost their homes, activists at Human Rights Watch theorize that the presence of interna-tional observers and the subsequent threat of ICC prosecutions induced Kibaki and his supporters to restrain their actions. ICC advo-cates hope that the Court’s investigation into Libya already exerts a similar infl uence over Gaddafi ’s fi eld commanders and checks plans to target civilians in their counterinsurgency struggle.

This potential for deterrence renders sup-

porting the ICC an important national inter-est for the United States of America. Both the dominant realist and liberal theories of inter-national relations remain predicated upon the notion that a rational actor leads each nation-state and enacts policies in their na-tion’s material self-interest. Acts of genocide and war crimes shatter the political commu-nity underpinning each state, erode national stability by forcing one group to perpetually fear for their physical safety, and dramatically increase the likelihood that the nation will devolve into a “failed state.” Failed states lack the capacity to engage in international diplo-macy in a meaningful fashion, and danger-ous terrorist organizations frequently exploit political vacuums to augment their organiza-tional power. Evidently, if the ICC minimizes intra-state violence and the resulting volatil-ity, then it serves a crucial role in maintaining the international order’s stability.

Moreover, given the Libyan judicial sys-tem’s refusal to punish either Gaddafi or his generals for extra-judicial murders, the im-plementation of ICC investigations appears particularly appropriate. Since its inception in 2002, the ICC has positioned itself as “the court of last resort,” and its foundational legal framework, the Rome Statute, enshrines the importance of state sovereignty in Article 17. The principle of complementarity affi rms that the Court will only initiate an investigation when a national judicial body proves either unable or unwilling to undertake the pros-ecution itself. For Libya, an autocratic state that established its modern judicial structure following Gaddafi ’s personal decree in 1973, it is evident that loyalist troops could commit mass atrocities with absolute impunity. With-out the ICC’s intervention, it seemed unlikely that these men would ever be held account-able for their war crimes.

However, the validity of employing the ICC in this specifi c case should not obscure the very legitimate concerns raised by the in-stitution’s critics. Many detractors excoriate the ICC for focusing exclusively on the global south and, more specifi cally, Africa. Currently, the Court is formally investigating the Demo-cratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Central African Republic (CAR), Sudan, Ke-nya, and now Libya. Of course, the ICC lacks the power to consider war crimes committed prior to its creation in 2002, and the interna-tional community continues to devote $306

million annually to supporting the ad hoc tri-bunal developed to prosecute the European war criminals of the Yugoslav wars. Yet these mitigating considerations fail to fully rebut the most powerful implication of skeptics’ cri-tiques: the Court lacks the substantial moral authority required to promulgate a sense of justice truly considered international.

Under the system’s current structure, the ICC may begin an investigation if the Security Council decides to refer the case (Libya), if the Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, elects to submit a case before the Pre-trial Chamber of the ICC (Kenya), or if an indi-vidual state decides to refer itself to the Court (DRC, CAR, Uganda). This last notion of “self-referral” proves particularly problematic, and risks augmenting the legitimacy of rulers who subvert democratic principles.

In the most egregious case, the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, exploited the ICC to gain infl uence over prominent rebel lead-ers. Museveni, a leader long accused of citing “tribal tensions” to justify suppressing the development of a pluralistic democracy, in-sisted that the ICC investigate Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerilla organization dedicated to transform-ing Uganda into a theocratic state. In addition to facilitating the Ugandan government’s ef-forts to divert international attention from its own repressive policies, this tactic also gave Museveni a powerful tool to force Kony to the bargaining table.

In 2008, when Kony appeared willing to negotiate a peace, Museveni abruptly decided to privilege local trials over an ICC prosecu-tion, and declared his refusal to turn Kony or his offi cers over to Ocampo. In this case, Museveni simply utilized the ICC as a cudgel against Kony to force him into negotiations, while simultaneously using his own osten-sible compliance with the Court to present Uganda as a staunch proponent of account-ability. As this case clearly shows, the notion of “self-referrals” frequently undermines the moral authority of the ICC, and threatens to transform the institution into a political tool used to advance the pragmatic concerns of dictators.

Similarly, the structure of the ICC minimiz-es the possibility of ever holding a prominent superpower to the legal standards espoused by the international community. Nations possessing veto power ensure their invulner-ability from Security Council initiated inves-tigations, and Ocampo appears reluctant to test the extent of his offi ce’s power. Under this unequal construction, weaker African states will remain the targets of international condemnation, while Russia remains free to carpet-bomb Chechnyan civilians.

In the face of such serious challenges, the ICC must remember that it exists to ensure that perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity are held accountable for their appalling actions, even if the Court itself is not the institution meting out punishment. In failed states and nations refusing to use politically unbiased courts to investigate evi-dent war crimes, the ICC proves essential to combating impunity and entrenching the im-portance of international law. For most other nations, however, the ICC needs to work closely with the United Nations to enhance individual countries’ judicial capacity. The Justice Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development already fund ex-

pansive projects devoted to helping other na-tions develop effi cient domestic policing and non-partisan judicial systems. This technical support needs to also encompass projects that encourage states to remove venal policies that inhibit the prosecution of guilty government offi cials, and work towards situating laws ex-plicitly forbidding genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity into domestic legal systems.

The ICC must also coordinate with non-profi t organizations and other national gov-ernments to assist individual nation-states in prosecuting war criminals. Even though many states possess vibrant judicial systems, they frequently lack the fi nancial resources necessary for conducting such massive inves-tigations. For instance, the effi cacy of both the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia depended upon NATO countries providing satellite imagery of troop move-ments. These photographs proved vital to substantiating how paramilitary units select-ed their targets to maximize civilian casual-ties. Once a nation informs the international community that they intend to conduct the trials domestically, the ICC must embrace an expanded role that includes persuading intelligence agencies to provide satellite in-formation and logistical support to local court systems.

Indeed, efforts to empower domestic and regional courts counter the criticism that the ICC has failed to adequately incorporate no-tions of “restorative justice” into its judicial ideology. Primarily, the ICC strives to rein-force societal stability by punishing war crim-inals and providing an international forum for victims to articulate their experiences. Defenders of this model argue that the ICC provides a profoundly cathartic experience for victims of war crimes, and allows them to feel more secure back in their own nation. Oc-ampo posits that this increasing attention to victims represents the international commu-nity’s attempt to infuse the ICC with norms originating from an African-based sense of “victim’s justice.”

Although this new model certainly differs from the purely punitive measures embraced by the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, the ICC’s favored retributive measures still subvert the notions of reconciliation embraced by many African states’ judicial philosophies. By pro-viding for the creation of regional judicial bodies or simply strengthening domestic court systems, the ICC weakens claims refer-ring to it as an imperialistic institution. In-stead, the ICC illustrates its respect for local judicial customs, while still demonstrating its commitment to holding war criminals ac-countable.

Most importantly, the ICC’s active pros-ecution of war criminals reconceptualizes the purpose of international law. Since the Hague Convention of 1907, legal scholars have professed their worry that international law lacks any “teeth” and it thereby remains virtually unenforceable. The central purpose of international law then became to articulate the global community’s overarching hopes for a more humane form of warfare, and, ide-ally, the gradual implementation of interna-tional norms. Yet the ICC’s rapid investiga-tion into Libya invests international law with a new signifi cance, and expands the role of international law far beyond its aspirational origins.

ICC investigates Libya: Focus needed on domestic courts

Luis Moreno Ocampo, the lead prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.Flickr.com

PAGE 12

Tom EneringNational & Foreign Affairs Editor

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Spring has at last come to Seoul. The weather here is usually balmy and mild, and the sun shines during

the day. Though occasional bouts of cold weather and rain continue, the winter is, at last, over. The same cannot be said for the frosty political situation between North and South Korea, where a political reality with the distinctly wintery aura of the Cold War has settled in. Though North Korea this January suggested resuming talks with South Korea, South Korea re-buffed the offer as insincere, and repeated its demand for an apology for last year’s Cheonan and Yeongpyong Island attacks, which killed dozens of South Koreans, ci-vilian and military.

Now, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and his “Elders,” an independent body of former state leaders who visited North Korea in April, have emerged as another factor in the situation. The El-ders aim to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula, but Carter has rattled some politicians already. On April 28th, he condemned the United States and South Korea for a “human rights violation.” The violation they committed? Carter’s words: “For America and South Korea deliber-ately to withhold food aid to North Korea because of unrelated political issues is re-ally a human rights violation.” But would giving humanitarian aid to North Korea thaw the political deadlock, or merely feed North Korea’s military machine? And just how “unrelated” are the political issues surrounding the North’s food problem?

The twin problems of malnutrition and starvation in North Korea are, by all ac-counts, widespread and severe, despite the U.S. and South Korean governments’ belief that North Korea is exaggerat-ing the problem to garner international sympathy and aid. Many of the hundreds of thousands of North Korean defectors who arrived in South Korea mentioned food problems in the North, some saying hunger, rather than political oppression, was their primary reason for leaving in the first place. Samaritan’s Purse, a U.S.-based humanitarian group that visited North Korea in February, said that a se-vere winter reduced crop yield by up to half and that some people were already eating grass, leaves, and tree bark. This is not surprising. Food production in North Korea has always been a struggle, given the mountainous terrain and consequent lack of arable land. The UN itself also ap-pealed this March for 434,000 tons of food assistance for North Korea.

For his part, Carter and his fellow El-ders claimed a third of North Korean children are malnourished and suffer-ing growth problems. Mrs. Mary Robin-son, once president of Ireland and also a member of the Elders, cited a severe win-ter, foot-and-mouth disease, a cessation in aid from the U.S. and South Korea, and flooding as factors that have sharpened the situation into a “very serious crisis.” Carter’s remarks have already stirred po-litical waters in Washington and Seoul.

In Washington, President Obama now

faces another difficult foreign policy choice, not too long on the coattails of his reluctant decision to launch airstrikes on Libya. If Obama dispenses food aid to North Korea, you can expect his op-ponents to call him naïve for helping the rogue nation. If Obama stalls and says nothing, more conservatives will race to be the first to criticize his ineffective-ness. So far, Obama has merely said that the situation needs more monitoring, and that the U.S. would be willing to give aid, leaving politics aside. These are relatively warm words. Will North Korea reciprocate? If it does, Obama will have to decide how sincere he thinks they are, and even if he is willing to believe them, his ultimate response will hinge upon the thoughts of the South Korean gov-ernment.

In Seoul, South Korean conservative voices, including the Joongang Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo newspapers, have already lashed out at Carter, accusing him of be-ing a supporter of North Korea, rather than merely a sidelined would-be diplo-mat, as the South Korean government has portrayed him. This is unfair, especially given that Carter’s intentions are noble. Carter has personal reasons to be invest-ed in a resolution about the North Korean nuclear issue. Earlier in his career, he set up the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea would give up its nu-clear program. While the Framework soon collapsed, Carter is to be commended for attempting to resolve the crisis years after his presidency ended. Still, Carter should be more skeptical of the North than he currently is if he is to win more respect in Seoul.

According to South Korean Unifi cation Minister Hyun In Taek, North Korea’s food shortages now are no worse than they were previously, and he therefore believes that North Korea’s requests for international food aid are primarily politi-cal. That said, South Korea announced it is willing to grant aid if it goes to the starv-ing commoners rather than North Korea’s elite. This stipulation is important. In the past, the U.S. and South Korea have sus-pended aid shipments to North Korea be-cause that aid was being used largely to feed the army. The percentage of North Korean commoners who received foreign food aid is low, at an estimated 20%, ac-cording to a survey of 500 North Korean defectors by the Seoul-based Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights.

Other voices familiar with North Korea should give Carter pause if the dissenters in Washington and Seoul do not. In his article “Food for Thought,” Christopher Hill, former head of the U.S. delegation in the now-defunct Six Party talks, wrote that North Korea’s government has, in Hill’s words, “invested almost nothing” in agricultural infrastructure. Hill cites villages flooded because of unmanaged rivers and primitive irrigation systems ill equipped to utilize rainfall as evi-dence of this. In other words, enriching his citizens’ diets with essential vitamins was never Kim Jong-il’s priority. On the other hand, enriching uranium ap-parently was. Hill continues, describing

the North’s recently unveiled uranium enrichment facility: “According to the American scientist who was invited to see it, the facility…appeared to be state-of-the-art, thus reinforcing the suspicion that North Korea has no genuine interest whatsoever in fulfilling its nuclear-dis-armament responsibilities. When asked why they failed to include this facility in their declaration of nuclear programs, North Korean officials responded cheer-fully – and absurdly – that it had been built from scratch only after the collapse of the nuclear negotiations in 2008.” No one should be surprised. North Korea, of course, continues to pursue nuclear pow-er because of its strategic importance. A rogue nation with nuclear power could threaten to destabilize the region, and then receive aid as a pacifier after threat-ening its neighbors—all of which North Korea has done, repeatedly, in the past.

Food aid could potentially alleviate the food shortage in North Korea for several truly needy North Koreans, but is it wise to aid a regime that has devoted so much time and energy to attacking South Ko-rea? Conventional political wisdom says no. In his statement about the U.S. and South Korean government violating “hu-man rights,” Jimmy Carter has shown his preference for “human rights” over politics. The problem here is that Carter seems to ignore the very real human cost that could be incurred if North Korea uses food aid to feed its regime, and then starts fi ring on South Korea all over again.

Let it not be forgotten that North Ko-rea refused foreign food aid in the past, perhaps most notably in 2009. At the time, the World Food Program estimated around nine million North Koreans, or over a third of the North Korean popu-lace, were suffering from extreme hunger. Despite this, North Korea expelled aid workers distributing food on behalf of the United States. After that unwise decision, the North Korean government is merely reaping now what it sowed then.

I am all for aiding hungry North Ko-rean citizens. But this situation calls for a practical approach in light of North Korea’s recent provocations and history of bullying the world for aid. If North

Korea makes a humanitarian gesture, then it would make more sense for the U.S. or South Korea to discuss the pos-sibility of giving aid. Perhaps North Ko-rea could start by freeing Eddie Yong-su Jun (or “Jun Young-su” as he is called in Korean), a Korean-American business-man captured by the North in November 2010. But during Carter’s visit to North Korea this April, North Korea rebuffed Jimmy Carter’s appeal for Jun’s release (which Carter argued for on humanitar-ian grounds). Humanitarianism is not, it seems, going to triumph over realpo-litik anytime soon in the Korean penin-sula. This is unfortunate, but the United States, North Korea, and South Korea all have their reasons for their respective stances.

There remains one possibility for a thaw in this Cold War situation: if North Korea suffered another famine as dev-astating as the one in the 1990s (which killed, in the highest estimate, around 2.5 million people), North Korea might well be forced to request aid from the U.S. and South Korea, a political con-cession that might open doors. Analysts hoping that hungry North Koreans will overthrow their government during a severe famine are likely to be disap-pointed. Food riots have occurred in North Korea before, according to defec-tors. But hunger is hardly likely to keep North Korean civilians strong enough to pose an actual threat to its iron-fisted regime, which has previously used fam-ine for propaganda purposes. It declared the famine of the 90’s to be an “ardu-ous march” under Kim Jong-il’s great leadership, and stated that South Korea was suffering even more from famine. In the case of a potential future famine, it is once again the average North Korean who will suffer, rather than the North Koreans’ irresponsible leader, who has always been rather well fed. Should the U.S. and South Korea give food aid to North Korea? Not at this time, however much we may pity starving North Ko-rean citizens. The risk that North Korea will use food aid to fuel their military elite and gain credibility with their own populace is far too great.

President Jimmy Carter traveled to North Korea to discuss human rights violations.

Food, nuclear fuel, and human rights in North Korea

The Examiner

Justin ChayInternational Correspondent

PAGE 13

Change desperately needed in burqa debateGreater emphasis on women’s rights necessary

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

In 1989, 1994, and 2003 debates raged in France over the question of girls wearing headscarves to school. In

2010, the French government began the process of banning the burqa in all public places, and legally prohibited it on April 11, 2011. In theory, a woman caught wear-ing a burqa will incur a fi ne and a man who forces a woman to wear a burqa will spend time in prison. Combined with a law restricting girls from wearing headscarves to school, this legislative trend has enraged many Muslims, the international commu-nity, and human rights groups.

Many Muslims view these laws as xe-nophobic, and many human rights groups contend that the ban will be a source of even more tension for women within their communities. Following the passage of the most recent law, Muslims staged defi -ant protests. The police have had an ex-tremely diffi cult time enforcing the law. These problems may have a lot to do with the language and intent of the law. These laws also bring to the forefront the obvi-ous question of a woman’s right to freely choose what she wears and to freely ex-ercise her religion. This issue forces us to consider how to reconcile these two oppos-ing rights. Religious freedom and freedom of expression have long been considered core human rights, but when these rights are used as an excuse to exclude a portion of society, then these rights are meaning-less.

Unfortunately the French government vacillates between speaking about the law with regard to national security and as a problem of women’s rights. They are afraid of appearing Islamophobic, so they have obscured the issue of women’s rights with language about the need for transparency within French society for security reasons. This allows the men who are abusing wom-en to frame the issue around religious free-dom and an oppressive French government, neglecting the vital issue of women’s rights.

The absurdity of claiming that a ban on the burqa is essential for national security is evident to Muslim women who wish to wear the burqa. There are many women who legitimately feel that they need to wear the burqa or do not understand that being forced to wear a burqa is an abuse. The fact that the government has not made this primarily an issue of women’s rights does not provide an incentive for women to protest the burqa, but makes them feel that they are being persecuted for their re-ligious customs. The public interpretation of the law has emphasized its fatal fl aws.

In a speech to Parliament, French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated, “In our country we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity… The burqa is not a religious sign. It is a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement.” Sarkozy is right to say that women are de-prived of identity, but what obfuscates the point is his inclusion of an interpretation of the symbolic and religious nature of the

burqa. If the burqa were backed by the Ko-ran, would it be acceptable? While people have the right to individually embrace reli-gious customs, if it violates the well being of others or severely infringes upon hu-man rights, then religious freedom must be modifi ed. A clear line between what is acceptable in terms of religion must be drawn. The French would never tolerate public stoning, but because the veil keeps women silent and is a symbol of religion it is viewed as somewhat benign.

The burqa successfully hides not only women but also visible signs of their physi-cal abuse. These women are invisible to French society. Their religion hides and isolates them from the French eye. When they venture out into the world, any physi-cal harm incurred against them is hidden under the veil. This is problematic for two reasons. First, it conveniently allows the French to ignore signs of the physical abuse of women standing right in front of them. Secondly, it makes it almost impossible for these women to seek help. In 2006, Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali, an Australian Muslim cleric, made this analogy about rape vic-tims: “If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside... without cover, and the cats come to eat it... whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.” These beliefs are in no way atypical of many in the Muslim community. Obviously this is not true of everyone, but the presence of this belief as a whole is so destructive that it must be addressed.

In France, the issue of sexual violence in the banlieues—often referred to as Islamic ghettos—exemplifi es this problem. The gang rapes which occur in these districts are suf-fered in silence, and many girls’ parents will beat them or kick them out of the house for coming forward. The police do not take the issue seriously nor do they provide much protection for women in these communi-ties. According to the journalist Claire Ber-linski, “Parents in these neighborhoods ask

gynecologists to testify to their daughters’ virginity. Polygamy and forced marriages are commonplace. Many girls are banned from leaving the house at all.”

According to French-government sta-tistics, rapes in the housing projects have risen between 15 and 20 percent every year since 1999. In these neighborhoods, wom-en have indeed begun veiling only to escape harassment and violence. In the suburb of La Courneuve, 77 percent of veiled women report that they wear the veil to avoid the

wrath of Islamic morality patrols.” This dilemma makes it almost impossible for girls to escape or choose to wear a veil or not. The cycle of violence is perpetuated through the wearing of the veil. Rapes go unaccounted for, and women are forced to hide under the veil. This hiding protects the rapists while it endangers the victims. This unseen and silent crime can go on for as long as the perpetrator wants. The veil is a physical manifestation of the denial and silence that is common with regard to sexual crimes in every society.

The burqa is so incredibly destructive not only to the women who wear it, but to the women who don’t, children, young boys and men as well. Boys grow up seeing their mothers abused often physically and psy-chologically through the veil. At a young age, these boys feel entitled and superior. Many of these boys grow up to abuse other women. But, in a sense, who can blame them? When cultural relativism is so ac-ceptable and an intense indoctrination such as this is at play, it would be extremely dif-fi cult for boys and men to willingly give up power that they feel justifi ed and entitled to. They don’t have the opportunity to learn to respect women and in some ways are destined to commit egregious acts in the future. This is not fair to them either. Fad-ela Amara, the leader of a movement called Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whore Nor Submissive) attempted to bring to light the abuse Muslim women face in the slums and described conversations she had with boys in these communities. She wrote, “We

even met boys who had participated in sev-eral collective rapes and who did not under-stand what was wrong with their behavior and why we were protesting. It was horrify-ing to see that these young men could not grasp the weight of their acts and how they had destroyed a young woman’s life. I un-derstand that it might be diffi cult for a boy living in the projects to listen to a rebuke of violence when he constantly experienc-es feelings of injustice. And thus some of them move from the status of victim to that of persecutors.”

The French government has ignored these neighborhoods and it makes sense that violence has erupted. The burqa ban does not get to the root of the problem in these communities. Truly tackling the is-sue would require extensive fi nancial sup-port including education, safe havens for women, and an acknowledgment and un-derstanding in the Islamic community that there is a problem. The French govern-ment would need to work in conjunction with the Muslim community.

The veil is clearly an abuse, but this abuse is so much a part of Islamic cul-ture and women’s identities that merely banning the veil will not expel the prob-lem. The feelings of shame and alienation that the burqa was designed to induce upon women have done their job well. These women are victims of abuse, and the French government has not set up a safe haven or a place for women to gain psychological and fi nancial support when they are forced to shed the veil. The French government also has not set up a place to help men address their hostility toward women. Without psychological and edu-cational restructuring and support for both women and men, these women will not be able to participate in society. The problem is too deeply ingrained.

This dilemma cannot be solved by forcing grown women who are truly ashamed and humiliated without the veil to incorporate themselves into society. If the French are truly committed to women’s rights, then they need to take a more ardent stand for women and cannot include issues of nation-al security in the debate. They also need to acknowledge Islam and be more inclusive of the Muslim population within their society. Forced veiling does not only affect women, it affects entire communities. Many Islamic communities in France have been left by the wayside. This continued isolation contrib-utes to the continued oppression of Islamic women. The only remedy is to incorporate this group of people into French society, while protecting women by placing restric-tions and safeguards onto the religion. Free-dom of religion is not absolute and with the full acknowledgment of citizenship comes responsibility. The Islamic community should not be ostracized but they should also be held accountable for their misdeeds, and French society must be ready to fully engage with the community and spell out what they will and will not tolerate with re-gard to the treatment of all women. Only in this way will they be able to secure the rights of all French citizens, and achieve a cohesive and just society.

Muslim women protest the burqa ban in France.

Helen HaftContributor

Huffi ngton Post

PAGE 14

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

Privatization of water threatens Chilean citizens

Chile is a complicated, beautiful, and incredibly unique country. In addition to being the second home to Robinson

Crusoe, it is also the only Latin American country to fully privatize its urban water and sanitation sector. Because the majority of the Chilean people live in the capital city, San-tiago, this is shaping up to be quite a prob-lem. Chile has become a symbol of the power of the industrialized, capitalist nations that dependency theorists term “core” countries. This crisis also reveals the ability and desire of large corporations to prioritize wealth and profi t above humanity.

Ismail Serageldin, former Vice President of the World Bank, stated, “If the wars of this century were fought over oil, the wars of the next century will be fought over water.” While there is no doubt about the logistical validity of this statement, what Serageldin, as well as the rest of the core, seems to forget are the water wars occurring right now, in neighboring countries or continents.

The Chilean people greatly oppose the privatization of water, which makes sense since one needs water not only to survive, but also to sustain any sense of livelihood. While most Chileans have shifted to urban centers, there is still a rural population, heav-ily depended upon by the rest of the country. Additionally, as the urbanization rate quick-ens, it will become even more important for agriculture and rural life to hold some sort of incentive. The privatization of water elimi-nates any incentive whatsoever.

According to Business News Americas, “President Sebastian Piñera announced in December that state development agency Corfo would sell its minority stake in utilities Aguas Andinas, Essbio, Esval and Essal (in

other words fully privatizing water utilities) to fund the reconstruction of infrastructure damaged by the February 2010 earthquake.”

Chileans are creating campaigns in pro-test of privatization. Edgardo Conteza, from the Movement for Consultation and Citizen Rights, plans to lead actions against total privatization by confronting international institutions and claiming it as a constitution-al violation. Moreover, they posit that the greater diffi culty in obtaining water repre-sents an infringement upon their fundamen-tal human rights.

Unfortunately the privatization of water in Chile is painted as a rather pretty picture—with more commitment to the supply and sanitation of water and subsidies for needy families. The World Bank approximated Chile’s private sector investment around $5.7 billion. Wonderful, right? Not exactly. The World Bank actually requires, as a part of loan conditions, that many governments of developing countries privatize their water. Serageldin was right about water wars; he just forgot to mention that the organization he worked for is largely responsible.

The truth about the private sector is much more dismal. In reality, people are not get-ting access to water. If you don’t believe me, just ask the thousands of protestors. But to make matters even bleaker for the Chilean people, Chile is enduring yet another severe drought – depleting resources for farmers and city dwellers alike. The Public Works Ministry declared a water emergency this January. “The latest fi gures from Chile’s Na-tional Water Board (DGA), part of the Pub-lic Works Ministry, show that the country’s reservoirs were at just one third of their total capacity with water levels 45 percent below their historic average,” according to an ar-ticle in Business Magazine Chile.

Of course, water shortages in Chile do not

affect us. We’re Americans. Does anyone even remember how many free bottles of water he or she had this Saturday? We like to think we are taking a proactive stance toward resource crises, but unfortunately that is far from the truth. Nonprofi ts and government organiza-tions alike provide both water and sanitation services for the third world, but the desire to combat resource wars and shortages seems to fall short. In determining whether the U.S. is on the sustainable side of the resource war, we must not only look at how the U.S. helps the third world, but also at the water priori-ties within our own borders.

On March 23, 2011, I sat through an hour and half hydrofracking panel discussion. For those of you that do not attend geography/earth science lectures for fun, hydrofrack-ing is the drilling and creation of fractures in rock to extract resources, such as natural gas. While hydrofracking is extremely controver-sial and a focus in its own right, that was not what intrigued me.

It requires about four million gallons of

fresh water per well to hydrofrack in the Mar-cellus Shale, located in New York and Pennsyl-vania. However, not only will the four million gallons never be usable again, the hydrofrack-ing process contaminates already established ground water systems, leaving American fam-ilies without access to clean water.

In addition to the harm it creates right here, as well as abroad, companies continue to do it, and worse still, the government con-tinues to allow it. Hydrofracking is proof of the U.S.’s disregard for global problems. Can the United States really claim to attempt to alleviate the water crisis in any area of the world when our water priorities are working toward our own agenda and self-interest?

Living without sanitary water, or hardly any water at all, is a reality in which mil-lions of families suffer throughout the Third World. Fortunately, Americans can rid their guilt and mentally assuage the conditions of the periphery, a living hell for the unlucky majority, by donating to anti-water bottle campaigns or water sanitation NGOs.

Kaitlin ReedContributor

PAGE 15

How do these three seemingly sepa-rate things relate to one another? A (somewhat) short answer: They

are part of a doomed effort to maintain the spendthrift ways of the federal government without substantially increasing taxes or cut-ting spending by keeping the U.S. dollar’s in-ternational reserve currency status.

Domestically, it has long been a taboo for politicians to raise taxes. Americans’ anti-tax sentiments have ideological roots and have possibly gone beyond what is considered rational behavior by economists, especially when we consider the astronomical defi cit. Experimental evidence has revealed that even in settings where there are unambigu-ous gains in individual income if one opts for increased taxes, as long as people see the phrase “tax increase,” they will tend to au-tomatically reject the proposal. Some may argue that Americans’ anti-tax sentiments arise from their distrust of the government to spend the revenue effi ciently. However, if such is the case, we would have seen a simi-lar outcry against defi cit spending, but there is much less noise made about this issue.

Therefore, politicians in this country have an overwhelming preference to fi nance their spending by borrowing instead of raising taxes.

Yet the federal government’s ability to borrow is being curtailed. Standard & Poor’s recently downgraded its outlook on the U.S. credit rating from stable to negative. Their revision emphasized the size of the national debt and lack of credible political efforts to address it. This report actually still underes-timates the risks faced by the federal govern-ment because it fails to evaluate the full dam-ages incurred on creditor confi dence by the Fed’s second round of quantitative easing (QE2). Since its start in Nov. 2010, the effect of QE2 on commodity prices and exchange rates has been tremendous. The U.S. dollar lost ground against most major currencies over this period. Gold prices skyrocketed to an unprecedented $1,500 an ounce, while sil-ver climbed from $25 to over $40, refl ecting a general loss of confi dence in the U.S. dol-lar. Treasury bond holders suffer the biggest loss from the devaluation of the U.S. dollar. While many of these consequences are ac-tually intended because they help to reduce the debt burden and stabilize employment in some sectors of the economy, the biggest

threat is that the dollar will lose its reserve currency status because sovereign creditors will seek another currency that guarantees the value of their investment.

The reserve currency status of the U.S. dollar is crucial to the ability of the federal government to borrow from overseas. The most important pillar bolstering its reserve currency status since the establishment of the Bretton Woods system of fi at money and fl oating exchange rates has been oil payment accounts, or petrodollars. The U.S. has been on amicable terms with repres-sive regimes in the Middle East primarily because they have agreed to settle oil pay-ments with all counterparties in U.S. dollars and then use the proceeds to purchase U.S. Treasury bonds, which essentially means that they export oil to the U.S. and lend to the federal government with the proceeds at the same time. Once an oil producing country decides that it will accept payment in a currency other than the U.S. dollar, other countries will tend to follow suit be-cause they actually have many other trad-ing partners with whom they would like to settle trade in their own currency, and it will threaten to disrupt the recycling of petrodollars and therefore the ability of the

federal government to continue on a debt splurge.

This is the reason why the West intervened in Libya out of all the oil-producing despotic regimes of the world, as well as why France, which vehemently opposed the War in Iraq, decided to lead the charge. The true motive is not so much about oil interests per se in both cases. In fact, foreign competitors such as PetroChina shared a large piece of the pie in the post-war oil fi eld development con-tracts in Iraq. The real reason is that Libya had a few-of-its-kind state-owned central bank that not only issued its own currency, the Libyan Dinar, but also had the power to demand oil payments in its domestic cur-rency. This explains why Libyan rebels set up a central bank only weeks after the popu-lar uprising, in the midst of uncertainty and chaos. Similarly, the 2003 war in Iraq was fought because the country decided to switch its oil payment to Euros in Nov. 2000, and this was exactly the reason why the French vehemently opposed the war. The French led the charge on Libya because they believe that they have a good chance of establishing a monetary system based on Euros there, given Libya’s colonial history and close ties to France.

Libya, Bretton Woods, and budget defi cits interrelatedChenxi Cai

Contributor

The Chilean water system has fallen into disrepair.The New York Times

Ethan Madore: With a humanitarian crisis like we see in Libya, there is in-evitably going to be a fl ood of refugees

into neighboring states, both those directly next to Libya in North Africa and European nations across the Mediterranean. Displaced persons have had a mixed welcome in an al-ready economically strained Italy and other EU members, such as France, have taken measures to slow the fl ow of refugees across the rest of Europe. Regardless of the economic cost, I believe that these states would be acting in severe disregard of moral duty were they to turn away refugees or treat them in a way that ignored their innate human dignity.

Matthew Brock: Ethan, governments exist to protect their citizens and, were these countries to allow refugees to fl ock across their borders they would be failing in their moral obligation to protect their own people. To start with, other North African nations cannot be expected to take in these refugees. These countries have a very fragile infrastruc-ture which would be destroyed if they faced a substantial increase in population. Their economies are barely large enough to support their own citizens; they most defi nitely cannot sustain thousands more people who will start competing with their citizens for such scarce resources as food, shelter and jobs.

The European nations face similar con-straints. As you admit, Italy’s economy is un-der a lot of pressure at the moment—it is at constant risk of losing its membership in the European Union. At this point in time, its ob-ligation is to continue to provide a consistent level of services to its own people and to main-tain its standing in the international commu-nity, not to shelter displaced Libyans.

France would likely face a similar problem if the refugees started swarming into its cit-ies. While it is not in as dire fi nancial straits as Italy, it has one of the more generous welfare states in the world and as a result is facing a sizable defi cit. Each refugee would place an additional strain on France’s social welfare system and would serve to drive the entire program further into debt because these ref-ugees will likely not contribute much to the government in the way of tax revenue.

Furthermore, France is already facing harsh tensions between North African im-migrants and the native Europeans, with both groups rallying against one another in the streets. While these tensions cannot be blamed solely on the North Africans, a large infl ux of refugees from that part of the world would doubtless stir up these underlying ten-sions and lead to further violence in public spaces. It is incumbent upon France to pro-tect its citizens, both from fi nancial crises and physical harm, and you cannot ask it to betray the people whom it has sworn to protect.

Madore: I could respond to you on the grounds of your pragmatic arguments—that the couple thousand refugees that end up in France and Italy really aren’t enough to dramatically affect the whole of that nation’s economy, but I don’t think that addresses the core of my con-cern. I would say that even if it is true that by taking in refugees a nation would signifi cantly endanger its citizens’ quality of life, it still ought to. It’s that proposed role of government—only to protect its citizens, that I fi nd troubling.

By launching a no-fl y zone in Libya, an ef-fort both France and Italy have been heavily

involved in, they have already bought into the notion of a responsibility to protect endangered peoples in other countries at the potential ex-pense of their own blood and treasure. If these nations were willing to disregard national sov-ereignty in order to launch a violent defense of Libyans, how would it be morally consistent for France to now say that these displaced persons are “not its problem.” The world community can tolerate a bloody and destructive defense of civilians so long as they remain across a sea, but they are unwilling to care for those who ac-tually end up in their borders.

Brock: To address your fi rst point, bring-ing in thousands of refugees who have neither the skills nor the education to function in de-veloped society would most certainly have an adverse effect on the citizens of these coun-tries, especially when you consider that their lack of qualifi cations for legal employment will likely drive them to crime. Also, once France and Italy allow some refugees into the coun-try, more are soon to follow as more Libyans fl ee the war in Libya and seek safety with fam-ily and friends who already fl ed to Europe, so the issue is not simply a few thousand Libyans entering the country.

Your second assertion is that the role of government is not, in fact, to protect its own citizens, and you support this claim by writing that the no-fl y zone over Libya is an example of France and Italy protecting Libyan civilians out of the goodness of their own hearts, but this is simply not the case. France and Italy went into Libya because their governments’ believed that such intervention was better for the country. As two of the four largest con-sumers of Libyan oil, these nations entered the confl ict in an attempt to secure Libya’s oil reserves from the unpredictable Muammar al-Gaddafi and ensure that their countries have access to fuel for years to come. Furthermore, it is in the interest of France and Italy to sta-bilize North Africa, because as we clearly see, confl ict in Africa can quickly spread across the Mediterranean in the form of refugees who

will serve as a drain on European economies.Finally, if you do not believe that the pur-

pose of government is to protect its people Ethan, then what exactly do you believe that governments’ should do? Why do they exist?

Madore: I don’t think you can look at the actions of France and Italy from a primarily economic standpoint. I don’t think that the current state of civil war is actually conducive to the smooth operation of Libyan oil compa-nies. The fact is, there probably would not be a long, drawn out confl ict if NATO hadn’t got-ten involved—the fastest route to a stabilized Libya was probably to allow Gadaffi to crush opposition through whatever brutal means he wanted. And if regime change in Libya was really the end goal, why just a no-fl y zone? It seems like this middle-of-the-road approach is only actually effective at protecting against mass killings of civilians.

I don’t want to talk about the role of govern-ment; we shouldn’t really think about govern-ment as the primary moral actor in a society, it’s more of an apparatus of the people. What is relevant is the individual moral duty of people within that system. While a citizen of France might not have any duty to a Libyan refugee that emanates from his standing as a citizen, he could still have a moral imperative, as a man, to act in a way that exceeds civic study. I think this is true at every level of society. While the offi ce of the President of France might not have any duty to welcome refugees, Nicolas Sarkozy may.

Insofar that we recognize that there is in-herent value in human life, I don’t think that we can say that there are reasons to categori-cally preference some human lives over oth-ers. A sense of nationalism or homophily should not be essential in a person’s moral consideration. I don’t think that the harms incurred upon Europeans through taking in refugees could even approach outweighing the benefi ts to those displaced persons, and until it did, I think there is a moral duty. To preference avoiding negligible harms to your own group over greatly helping another relies

upon an in-egalitarian sense of self worth.Brock: France and Italy are indeed acting

in an effort to advance their economic stand-ing, as are all actors in this confl ict. Gaddafi is attempting to maintain his power in the posi-tion that has allowed him to accrue a consid-erable fortune of $70 billion. The rebels are attempting to overthrow his regime because while his rule was profi table to those resid-ing in and around the capitol of Tripoli, it has forced large portions of the population into destitution, and those portions are now rebel-ling to get their fair share.

Returning to France and Italy, yes, the cur-rent civil war does destabilize the region and disrupts oil production. However, it does so on France and Italy’s terms, whereas Gadd-afi —a notorious unpredictable leader with a history of supporting terrorism—could have chosen to disrupt the supply of oil whenever it would be most politically advantageous to Libya, and when it could do the most damage to France or Italy.

As for your assertion that human beings have a moral duty to help others, I agree with you that in a post-scarcity world, it would be-hoove us as moral actors if we all helped the less fortunate. However, we have to operate within the framework that is given to us, and unfortunately we live in a world that is not able to maintain a high standard of living for its en-tire population, and those individuals who are able to maintain their quality of life have an incentive to keep what scarce resources they have for themselves and their family.

You say that humans have some inherent right to a certain standard of living. However, what meaning does that right have if it can be taken away at any time? The right to property is one of the most fundamental human rights, and as the people of France and Italy are in no way responsible for the conditions in North Africa, so no moral actor can justify depriving them of this right by reducing their standard of living through admitting refugees into the country.

Refugees fl ee the civil war in Libya, many turning to Europe as a possible safe harbor.

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

Should European countries accept North African refugees?

Huffi ngton Post

DEBATE & DISCOURSE

Matthew Brock, Senior EditorEthan Madore, Debate and Discourse Editor

PAGE 16

DEBATE & DISCOURSE

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

The New York Times recently changed the subscription format of its online newspaper. Once al-

lowing unlimited access to online con-tent with a free account, The Times now requires a paid subscription if a user is interested in viewing more than twenty articles per month. Lane Kisonak ’13 and Nathan Tauger ’14 debate wheth-er online newspapers, specifically The New York Times, should pursue this kind of model.

Nathan Tauger: The New York Times made the right decision in im-plementing a subscription model to its online newspaper. Two reasons why: Online newspapers require more con-tent and subsequently more revenue to pay content producers, and lower physical newspaper subscription rates occur when online paper becomes free therefore causing a reduction in paper quality.

Lane Kisonak: Your argument hing-es on the assumption that The New York Times should want to preserve its read-ership base that consumes the paper edition. Packaging the online subscrip-tion package with its physical subscrip-tion suggests that the Times continues to prioritize preserving its place on the newsstand, which seems to be a rather misplaced desire whose costs are passed on to online consumers who lack access to the print edition or simply never had the budget to subscribe to it.

Tauger: The Times should want to preserve its original readership base. The paper owes the people that made it successful continued service and qual-ity.

Kisonak: If we’re talking about read-ership bases, then I think it’s important to compare print and online numbers, and determine where the Times is go-ing wrong with its approach; while the Times’ circulation hovers a bit below a million on the average day, it attracts an average of one million unique visi-tors daily to its website. Some of these people are heavy users, some are light, and some are directed to the website through search engines such as Google.

The plan the Times is currently pur-suing charges the heaviest users which, I will concede, likely has little effect on their demand for the Times‘ reporting. But it will do more to affect the attitude of potential readers who are just discov-

ering what the Times has to offer. For example, it limits to five the number of articles viewed per day by means of search engine redirect; while this might seem generous, it doesn’t take into ac-count people who use the newspaper of record as a means of research, and do it infrequently, but a lot in one sitting––such as the average college student. Unless this subset of users wants to take out $15 a month for a subscription, their use is limited. And it’s all kinds of users––not just these––that made the Times’s website the most visited news-paper website in the world.

Tauger: I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a newspaper with more than 150 years of history to suddenly make the jump exclusively to an online for-mat. That would be like expecting Vas-sar to get rid of its physical campus and switch to a completely online model. It might be better for the environment, student accessibility, and funding but it is unrealistic when we still have the physical good being demanded. There are over 800,000 papers still being bought every day and an efficient in-frastructure designed for these papers. The Times would be making a terrible business decision to completely ignore a market at least 75% the size of its online readership.

Kisonak: The comparison between a physical campus and the print edition of a paper is misleading. The real unrea-sonable request we are considering here has been made by the Times in asking a huge chunk of its readership base to begin paying admission for something which for its entire life has been free. $15 for four weeks comes out to just shy of $200 a year, which is not a negligible sum for the average reader. Whereas a physical campus is integral to the net-working aspects of social and academic life of a college such as Vassar, the life-blood of a publication is what it pub-lishes.

Tauger: You’re right that the format of an online paper requires a different outlook on how access should work, but the cost of supply should not be ignored. Maintaining servers and exclusively on-line content through producers like vid-eo editors and bloggers requires more funding than we think about. And when we look at the specific plan the Times is pursuing we see a direct correlation be-tween people that put the most stress on the server and people that have to pay.

Kisonak: I think it’s fair to argue that the costs of distributing a million copies per day of a thick broadsheet newspa-per are fairly sizable, both in terms of the company’s bottom line and when it comes to the environment. Almost two thirds of the paper in a copy of the Times will come from felled trees, and must be processed at great cost before it ends up in the hands of a reader. If the Times were to get rid of its paper edition en-tirely, it could channel the savings from production into quality reporting and accessibility for all consumers.

The Times has long been the U.S.’s newspaper of record, and in the world of journalism is instantly associated with prestige. With the ascendancy of the In-

ternet and the almost universal accessi-bility that comes with it, the Times lost the need years ago for a print edition. The Times’s efforts should be focused on making the transition to an online-only format to which it would find ways to direct traffic, not restrict it.

Tauger: I agree with your claim that the Times needs to maintain its place as the United States’s newspaper of record. But in order for the paper to maintain the high level of journalistic integrity it promotes, it needs to be properly fund-ed. The Times website already has nu-merous advertisements, some of which are pretty annoying. If content was to be entirely subsidized by ad revenue, we may as well accept non-stop commer-cials in articles or even more annoying pop-up ads. The Times had online ad-vertisements and free access for a long period of time. It was not producing the required amount of revenue for the quality of work the paper puts out.

Kisonak: The plan the Times is cur-rently pursuing charges the heaviest users which, I will concede, likely has little effect on their demand for the Times‘ reporting. But it will do more to affect the attitude of potential read-ers who are just discovering what the Times has to offer. For example, it lim-its to five the number of articles viewed per day by means of search engine re-direct; while this might seem generous, it doesn’t take into account people who use the newspaper of record as a means of research, and do it infrequently, but a lot in one sitting––such as the aver-age college student. Unless this subset of users wants to take out $15 a month for a subscription, their use is limited. And it’s all kinds of users––not ju¬¬st these––that made the Times’s website the most visited newspaper website in the world.

The Times could refer to online ad-vertising strategies used by companies such as Google, which has managed to become one of the most powerful com-panies in the world based solely off ad revenue, and over time it could devise

a sustainable way to preserve the qual-ity of its reporting while ensuring the greatest and freest possible access.

Tauger: Comparing the Times to Google is not a fair comparison be-cause they represent two entirely dif-ferent final products. Google is simply a compiler, a search engine. The Times is a completely different type of service that requires more compensation for its employees. Apart from the prestige, journalists work for the Times because of monetary compensation. If the news-paper was having problems maintain-ing the best journalists because of lack of compensation it made the right de-cision in moving to subscription based format.

As my final remarks, online newspa-pers are a nascent genre for which we are still developing guidelines and us-age policies. If the New York Times sees the need to charge users in order to maintain its high level of journalis-tic integrity, the only thing we can do to oppose it is to stop reading the Times. It’s up to the competitors of the Times to deliver a viable free alternative if we really think that newspapers ought not charge for online service.

Kisonak: The next logical step for a renowned paper such as the Times is not to continue awkwardly strad-dling the line between print and online journalism, but to invest more of its resources into making its journalistic imperative toward quality reconcilable with the goal of minimizing costs. The best way to do this is not to limit third-party traffic to its website––far from it. Nor is it to saddle everyone with costs associated with the heaviest users. With the print newspaper industry sagging year after year under the weight of its unavoidable costs, the New York Times stands to gain from forging ahead with a business model such as a free and exclu-sively online publication. By making the first move it could set the rules for the industry as a whole, and in the long-run benefit immensely in reputation, read-ership, and returns.

Should the New York Times be subscription based? Lane Kisonak, Contributor

Nathan Tauger, Asst. Deb. & Disc. Editor

By Jamee Bateau

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Matthew Brock: One of the things I’ve noticed a lot this year is that a lot of students don’t know what you

do on this campus. So, in your own words, what is your job as president?

Hill: I have a multifaceted job, but I guess ultimately my job is to be thinking about the institution and the future of the institution and where we want to take it. And then also make sure we’re running on a day-to-day ba-sis, I have a lot of people who work for me but ultimately I need to know what’s going on and make sure things are happening.

Brock: So how is Vassar doing this year? I know last year things might have been a little shaky but have we gotten better?

Hill: I think we’re in good shape. You know, 2008 was a very unexpected negative event in terms of the fi nancial markets and the economy and all the intuitions institu-tions of the private system were hit. Basi-cally it was the largest down turn since the Great Depression. We needed to respond and I think it took about 18 months to think it through but I think the last year has been going fairly well. It’s not like we can return to normal because things haven’t fully returned to normal. But I think we have thought about what we need to do and are on track to do that but I think this year has clearly been bet-ter. It has certainly been more fun with the celebration of the sesquicentennial.

Jeremy Bright: I know that your admin-istration has prized need-blind fi nancial aid. How do you see the college a maintaining that policy given the economic downturn?

Hill: I really see need blind admissions as a means, although it has some attributes of something that is inherently valuable. But when we think about who we admit people to the college we want to think about their mer-its, not their ability to pay. We want to get the most interesting group of students from all over the country based on merit and extra-curricular talents, not on their ability to pay.

Bright: But with the College’s fi nancial hit, do you feel like it’s something the college can continue?

Hill: Yes, it’s a policy that achieves a ben-efi t for us, though it costs resources in terms of fi nancial aid. But we have the resources and spending on fi nanicial aid is a way of en-suring that we get the type of student body we want to have. Now, if it turned out that fi nancial aid continued to grow at 10 percent a year forever and was eating up 100 percent of the budget that obviously would mean we couldn’t do it. But that’s not the case.

Brock: And so, in some way, it is tied to a hope of an economic turn around?

Hill: If you go back and look at the data at the beginning of this last decade, when we were need sensitive, the share of fi nancial aid had a very large jump when our economy moved into a recession because we meet all of demonstrated need regardless of changes in family situations. So, I think a lot of the run-up in our fi nancial aid spending in the past two years has not just been due to our need blind policy but in fact the state of the economy and returning students that had greater fi nancial need.

Brock: Going off of that I know you teach a course on the economics of higher educa-

tion. What’s the most interesting issue in that?

Hill: I think there are a ton of interesting issues there. I teach the classes by thinking about what kind of institution we are. What is our mission? How to do we accomplish it? What kind of issues are there? So we start off with the question of why is it true in the United States that historically a lot of higher education takes place in the non-profi t, pri-vate sector? And yet interestingly a for-profi t sector has risen as a very dynamic player in the higher education space. What do we ex-pect to happen as a result of that growth? So, interesting questions like that. We then go on to looking at issues like why do we have endowments? Why do some institutions not have endowments? Once you have one how do you go about investing it?

Brock: Are there many institutions that are now for-profi t these days?

Hill: So there’s a rising for-profi t sector. University of Phoenix is one of them that you may know of. They started out competing in a space that is not directly competitive with four year BA programs—offering more direct job training and competing more with com-munity colleges. But they’re extending their reach. Currently they actually account for twenty percent of Pell Grant receivers and ten percent of enrollments in higher educa-tion.

Brock: Is this affecting us at all?Hill: I do not think they’re directly com-

peting with the 4-year selective non-profi ts, yet. But it’s something on the horizon and I think people are wondering if this is some-thing we should be doing in the for-profi t sector rather in the non-profi t sector. I think it’s probably affecting schools by competing for Pell Grants though.

Bright: Speaking of horizons, in the next four years, what will your top priorities be for the college? In terms of change, new projects, aspirations…

Hill: Well, I think that we went through a planning process before the recession and then we went through a lot of thinking of what our priories were when we were ad-justing to the shocks of the economy and I think we have a pretty clear vision of what we want to do going forward and it’s con-tinuing to make sure that we’re continuing to be committed to recruiting interesting stu-dents from all over the country and world, talented students. It’s supporting our faculty and the curriculum, and it’s continuing to invest in the physical plant, our place. Right now there are two priorities in that regard: one is investment in the sciences, if you look back to see what we’ve done in the last 15 to 20 years, it’s the library, the museum, Drama and Film, and Kenyon. There was certainly a sense when I came here that the sciences were next in terms of needed investment in physical space. So we have the science proj-ect moving into design and development. We’re hoping to break ground in 2013. That would involve renovation of three buildings plus aplus a new building addition called the Bridge Building off Olmsted. And then con-tinuing to make sure we maintain our exist-ing buildings. We should be going into our physical plant every year and making sure we’re up keeping up all of our existing build-ings and our grounds as well.

We’re also moving into a phase now with all of that in the works, that we’re continu-

ing to think about the curriculum and I know that Dean Kitzinger is doing quite a lot of work with the Curriculum Committee.

Brock: I’m curious about the new science center. Since Vassar has always been strong in the Arts and Humanities, are you trying to gain a new demographic by updating our facilities?

Hill: I would say that’s actually not true. Vassar has always been strong in the sci-ences. Really through its history I think it’s just hard to compete with Meryl Streep and Lisa Kudrow when you think about our alumna body. But the fi rst professor hired was actually Maria Mitchel, an astronomer. The fi rst building fi nished was the Observa-tory, before Main. We have three McCarthy Genius awardees among the alumna body and they are all in the sciences and we have a very strong curriculum in the sciences. We also do very well in terms of getting students into graduate school for things like medical school. We have always been very strong in the sciences—it’s just not as apparent.

Bright: There was a lot of talk of going through the quad dorms and giving renova-tions, as well as moving the book stores to another location before the recession hit. I know there have been a lot of complaints in regard to student life being given the short end of the staff. Would With the spending projects on the new science center and other major projects, how’s the administration try-ing to balance major projects and creature comforts for students?

Hill: My understanding is that [Dean of the College] Chris Roelke has done a lot of talking with the students of what could be done to improve the dorms without a com-plete overhaul from top to bottom that would increase the quality of Residential Life.

I also think it’s important to realize that the science building is for the students as well. 90 percent of percent of our students take at least one science class. Half take three science classes, and about one quarter major in the science. So it’s a signifi cant number.

Brock: How do you see the sesquicenten-nial changing things at Vassar right now?

Hill: I really have enjoyed it. Vassar Voic-es has been really wonderful, it involves two videos, one at the beginning which is the ses-qui and is currently on YouTube and then a second which is a retrospective of life at Vas-

sar which goes through the school year start-ing with students being dropped off through reunion and its done with both video and photographs from all of Vassar’s 150 years. So for example, it starts from the gates of main opening and students arriving and includes a clip of young women in the ’30s arriving in a taxi from the train station, all dressed up in twin sets and pearls with leath-er suitcases and then also pans to students last year greeting students at move in wear-ing t-shirts. So it’s wonderfully creative and playful. But then the middle part of it is what we’re calling Vassar Voices and it’s a stage reading of things from the archives, newspa-pers, and letters home. It’s just a wonderful celebration of the place—it’s funny, it’s poi-gnant. We are trying to offer it one more time in the spring and I hope that comes. I guess the presentations in the spring were really early in the semester and it was right after that two day snow storm, it was really hard to get to.

We’ve gotten in touch with about 3,000 alums with 500 people in Washington D.C. alone. I think it’s really great connecting with those alums. And of course we have our fundraising campaign that we went public for with the sesquicentennial. It’s been going great; we’re at $270 million for a $400 mil-lion campaign.

Bright: Fantastic. On a different topic, I was eating at ACDC this past weekend. Gladly, because it was parent’s weekend and it seems that every parent’s weekend the food suddenly becomes top class. Ever since Aramark got its contract renewed and enhanced, the “Deece Food Makes Me Cry” Facebook group has only continued to grow. What are your thoughts on Campus Dining in general, specifi cally with the contract with Aramark coming up for renewal in the fore-seeable future? I don’t know how much feed-back you get, but in the student world it’s a great concern.

Hill: I know that Chris is really thinking long and hard about this. It does seem to be an area of student unhappiness and we do care about that. So we really like to see what’s going on and what we can do to fi x it.

Bright: Well, I know that Aramark caters many New York state prisons…

Brock: It does a lot of schools, too.

Catharine Bond Hill, President and Professor of Economics at Vassar College.

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

OFFICE HOURS WITH CATHARINE BOND HILL

Hill discusses Vassar plans, fi nancial aid, economics

Chronogram.com

Jeremy Bright, Senior EditorMatthew Brock, Senior Editor

DEBATE & DISCOURSE

See Hill on page 19

PAGE 18

Hill explains intracacies of meal plan

DEBATE & DISCOURSE

CHRONICLE, MAY 2011

Bright: It does a lot of New York State prisons. And so I wonder if the quality of their food is much different than ours.

Brock: It’s actually rated slightly lower.Hill: I think Chris is working on it and

thinking about it. What do you think we can do? What could be changed to make it better? I think what we’re struggling with is that when we ask aof bunch of students we get completely different responses from the students, in the same way with how the meal plan worked. When we changed it we got a lot of complains but at the same time, we changed it because of student complaints.

Bright: As an aside, since you were ask-ing, I think using fewer pre-frozen foods could improve the taste, also varying the recipes from day to day. But it’s still revolves around the same central ingredients just in slightly novel ways. And while there has been a push to use more local produce into the De-cece, I wonder if a local company couldn’t do it better at a lower cost. Because every Tasty Tuesday, for seven dollars I’m able to get a big plate from Kismat with a lot of different Indian food but for thirteen dollars can get food at the Deece that’s no where as fi lling or appetizing. And the fact that the ACDC can’t do the same thing as a local independent res-taurant—something is wrong there, especial-ly when they get millions of dollars from the government in subsidies, just to keep afl oat, because I think that sounds like a managerial problem and one I think the College should seriously consider.

Hill: Well, we went through the reviews for the proposals. Moust schools don’t do it themselves. Most make the move for effi -ciency reasons, and even for quality reasons. But you know, we hear you.

Bright: It just seems like even Kismat could do the job better.

Brock: Well, that one little guy in the kitchen might have a little trouble…

Cappy: With two thousand students. I mean it’s partly variety. Some students might not want to eat that at all. Never.

Bright: But Tasty Tuesday is variety.Cappy: Right. I’m always excited when

it’s Tuesday. I think we need help from the students to see how to make things better because to the extent I’ve talked to students it’s almost like when you get feed-back for a course, you hear I love this sec-tion and hated that section, while others love that section and hate that section. We could change things, and it could just be a whole new set of students who don’t like it anymore. So we somehow have to fi gure out how to make it fl exible to make the most number of students happy, without increasing the costs.

Brock: To conclude, what’s the next big project, personally, for the upcoming year?

Cappy: I think it’s actually continuing what we’ve started: we’ve got the science planning going on. We’re always thinking about Admissions and Financial Aid. We’re always making sure all of the fi nancing makes sense. I think it will be interesting to shift discussions back to the curriculum.

Continued from Hill on page 18

On May 1, 2011, MEChA, in conjunc-tion with other local groups, staged a rally on behalf of the rights of immi-

grant workers. In a satirical debate, Ethan Madore ’12 and William Serio ’13 discuss the importance of political activism and specifi -cally, if political activity is actually produc-tive. Madore takes the stance that political apathy can be benefi cial while Serio takes the opposite stance and argues that apathy is generally negative.

Ethan Madore: First of all, I think a lot

of people who take political science or who are really involved in politics would describe political apathy as something that is really bad. How do you feel about apathy as a politi-cal science major?

William Serio: I think generally it’s not okay in that it affects a lot of people in a lot of ways and just about everyone can be affected by it, so the politically apathetic should at least be aware of what their apathy entails.

Madore: I think that 80-90 percent of political decisions are largely irrelevant to my life. And I think that oftentimes people turn to politics as a means of obtaining moral satisfaction for achieving a world that they want to see and I don’t really feel the need to do that. I think that personal moral agency is more important in involvement in formal politics and that acting as a good person is probably better. But you disagree?

Serio: You say that 80-90 percent of po-litical decisions aren’t relevant to you. It’s a basic assumption that this will affect you. You pay into a system that affects you—budgeting, et cetera.

Madore: How has any political decision impacted my happiness in the last fi ve years?

Serio: If you didn’t pay taxes, that would be a few hundred dollars you’d have every year and that could get you an Xbox.

Madore: So should I care about politics in that it will get me an Xbox?

Serio: If the government taxed everyone 100 percent, it would be a system of slave la-bor. If that pays for marginal consumption, then it’s kind of important.

Madore: I think this will come down to what I “should” care about. I don’t think my happiness will necessarily come from having—there are probably studies that show that my happiness has nothing to do with wealth.

Serio: Actually, if you make $70,000 and $200,000—if you’re above, it won’t really change, but if you are below that, your hap-piness does change. But your taxes also go to state parks and tourism, things that the gov-ernment does that will increase your happi-ness.

Madore: Decreasing my happiness will occur by taking part in political discourse by increasing my blood pressure as it does for everyone involved in it. I think there’s a cer-tain way that society’s going to go regardless of my own political actions, whether or not I really care. I think there’s a difference when I’m talking about political apathy between like if I’m faced with a political decision and buying into a culture of divisive and omni-present politics.

Serio: I think you’re straw-manning par-tisan politics and thus you’re saying that all politics is partisan. At local and state levels,

there’s less partisan politics. Decreasing hap-piness is just a superfi cial argument at that.

Madore: Now it will come down to how to live a good life. I don’t think being politi-cally apathetic necessarily means that I can’t, when presented with a choice, inform myself and make a decision. But, in turns of like, be-ing involved in the politics of the time—going to rallies, etc—while I don’t see the effi cacy of the actions, but even if I did, a certain level of human happiness can be achieved without doing those things.

Serio: You’re saying that you can have a tiny little portion of yourself that doesn’t do these things and that’s fi ne. You have such a low bar for political apathetic in that you’re saying that you’re only apathetic part of the time.

Madore: I think you can be politically apathetic, but you can also care about ethi-cal problems that occasionally come up in politics. I don’t know the names of people in Congress or in the President’s Cabinet. I think when I view politics as the best way to talk about them, I’m liming myself and I’m assigning too much moral agency to politics. I’m waiting for government to solve prob-lems, that they probably won’t end up doing. The last time I cared about politics was about health care, because I’m from a family where that is hard to come by, but I think that insofar that positive change is far away or that I can affect it a great deal, it’s much healthier for me to just try to live without those changes. It’s like I could either care a lot about the gov-ernment not doing anything to fi ght poverty, or I could do things to improve the lives of my friends and neighbors. Where do I start? It’s not in signing petitions.

Serio: You just have the worst had pos-sible. If you say that it’s generally good to be politically apathetic, then government fails, because no one fails—you don’t have a gov-ernment that provides basic social services. Just because you don’t want to run around in rallies—that’s fi ne, but when you get inter-ested and get active in something, then that’s not apathy, that’s political activism. It’s okay to not want to do everything, but most people don’t want to be apathetic to the point of do-ing nothing.

Madore: Insofar that I am able to be po-litically apathetic in a situation, I can guaran-tee that if society was collapsing, then I would be able to rally myself. If I live in a society where concerns are nebulous, and if I can af-ford political apathy, then I think it’s a good

investment.Serio: You live in a world where you have

no change where you can affect change in a large level. You cede all power to someone else and you limit yourself to live comfort-ably.

Madore: I think that’s a strawman of my argument. Are you still in French? I’m not saying we should be vegetables regardless, but I can say that right now, it’s okay to be a vegetable and it feels good. If something were to happen and Nazis were to happen in America, I would be politically active in being an anti-Nazi, presumably. But that’s not what we’re talking about—we’re talking about peo-ple telling me you don’t care enough about politics. I think a lot of your compatriots think that it’s ridiculous that there’s a large swathe of people who don’t care about poli-tics. If people have to actually tell me, but I’m not aware that my apathy is causing general harms—I think it’s kind of moot. This only re-ally holds when I choose to hold them out in the light—my radical political views.

Serio: If God was to give you eyes and you choose not to use them, but take them for granted…

Madore: A bear just ate your argument.Serio: You live in a world of darkness.Madore: You live in a world of bears. I

hope I’ve done a good job debating this in the most apathetic way possible, but I want to end on the belief, which I don’t really care about, but you can respond if you want. Government can certainly hinder human happiness, but I don’t think it can create it. Government can destroy human happiness, but it can’t create it. Insofar that I think that our government can inhibit human happiness, if falls to the individual to create the means in which they can become happy. In fact, the more people… My being politically active will just outweigh their value. Putting faith in human interac-tion and general self-actualization is better for leading a good life then waiting for some outside force.

Serio: I can prove to you that govern-ment can create human happiness. Let’s do a thought experiment. You live in Hobbes’ state of nature. A big, stronger man comes with a blunt object and takes your land from you. A government creates a world where you can be safe and you can bring such a complaint to court, and no one can take that from you. Through more politically active people, you create a greater government and create more happiness.

Questioning political apathy: Justifi ed or not?Ethan Madore, Deb. & Disc. Editor

Will Serio, Production & Design Editor

PAGE 19

Factory workers’ protest labor conditions in Bolivia, exercising political activism.Flikr.com

THE LAST PAGE“FOOLS ARE MY THEME, LET SATIRE BE MY SONG.” — LORD BYRON

Kris Adkins, Vassar Chronicle

Madeleine Morris, Vassar Chronicle