Rethinking ANWR
by Forrest Dunbar on June 7, 2010 in Opinion
You know what doesn’t happen if we drill there? Underwater oil geysers.
As BP finally reports a modicum of success in capping or diverting the spouting Macondo tap, perhaps putting the end of the largest oil spill in America history in sight, this is a time for reflection not only for oil execs, Dick Cheney, and the Mineral Management Service, but also for environmentalism-inclined Democrats.
It almost seems like fate that the worst environmental catastrophe in 20 years would occur just three weeks after a Democratic President approved an expansion of the very activity that led to the spill. And while the Administration has now effectively ordered a moratorium on further offshore drilling, the question remains: why did they approve such drilling in the first place?
The reason is that while a majority of Americans believe that domestic production should be part of our national energy strategy, the Democratic Party has become myopically focused on keeping the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) closed even if that may lead to far more damaging activities.
A number of people in Washington have pointed out the illogical precedent of allowing drilling in deep water, particularly in earthquake and hurricane-prone areas, but forbidding it in a flat, open, easily-monitored, and geologically stable region of Alaska. These voices had mostly been ignored or swiftly dismissed. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, responding to Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) point in a recent congressional hearing, summed up the Administration’s stance succinctly: “The President has been clear, and I have been clear, that we will not drill in ANWR.”
These calls for policy change likely would have remained in obscurity (at least left-of-center) had not Sarah Palin sounded off from the pulpit that is her Twitter account: “Extreme Greenies: see now why we push “drill,baby,drill” of known reserves & promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it?” This comment was roundly criticized in liberal circles, and with cause, given Palin’s accusatory tone, questionable logic, and past history on environmental issues. And yet, putting the histrionics and political opportunism aside, there may be some kernel of truth to the idea that closing off places like ANWR to drilling contributed to what we are seeing in the Gulf.
Most Democrats, even those who consider environmentalism and global climate change a central motivation in their political participation, acknowledge that in the short and medium term, oil and gas are of vital importance to our economy. We cannot wave a magic wand and instantaneously transform every plane, train, automobile, and power plant into solar and tidal powered green machines. If we must burn hydrocarbons in the present, there are a great number of reasons why we would want that fuel to come from domestic sources, the most important of which are national security and Gaia.
In the long term, of course, a nation that consumes 25% of the world’s oil while sitting on less than 3% of the reserves cannot drill its way to energy independence. But that does not mean we have to so egregiously fund those who wish us ill. The White House itself used the term “energy security” five times in its brief announcement of its updated energy policy – including the title of the document itself. We must acknowledge that shipping billions of dollars a year overseas, often to countries that fund the killing of our soldiers, is both morally wrong and geopolitically suicidal. It should be prevented with every tool in our toolbox—wind, energy conservation, nuclear power, and domestic fossil fuel production.
With respect to Gaia – the theory that the Earth’s global ecology forms one interdependent whole, perhaps conceptualized as a single, mega-organism – let’s get all tree-hugger for a moment. Because despite what some may think of Alaskans (“spill, baby, spill!”), many do care deeply about environmental issues. One cannot grow up surrounded by such over-the-top natural splendor, and not develop a desire to protect it. Some of the smartest people you will ever meet on environmental issues are hunters and fishermen who understand that their lives, livelihoods, and culture depend on sustaining the land and its bounty.
You don’t need to think that the Earth is literally alive, Krakoa style, to understand the broader point: environmental damage in one region of the planet concerns everyone, everywhere on the planet. An oil spill off Spain, a swathe of destruction in the Amazon, a toxic gas cloud in China are all problems for the whole world, not just the immediate impacted areas.
So the question remains: if we have to get oil from somewhere, shouldn’t we get it, or at least as much of it as we can, from domestic sources, where we do have environmental regulations (even if they seem to have been skirted in the Gulf), where we do have a free press to highlight violations, where we do have a vibrant environmentalist community holding companies’ feet to the fire—rather than, say, the Sudan? Do we think Brunei cares about the environment? Just because we have pushed drilling abroad does not mean we have saved the environment at home. Because everywhere is home. Say what you will about the American government, but at least they have not attempted a clumsy cover up of a huge oil spill or used military police to defend thousands of tons of oil contamination per year.
Returning to potential ANWR development itself, many Democrats think opening it would constitute a free-for-all of environmental exploitation. This is simply not what is being proposed. In reality, the refuge contains 19 million acres—about the size of South Carolina— but the 1002 area, where the proposed drilling would take place, is 1.5 million acres of that, about 8%. Slant and horizontal drilling allow the oil to be extracted while only impacting 2,000 of those acres, scattered throughout the 1002. Ice roads for the trucks and ice pads to support the platforms will melt in the summer, reducing environmental impact. And any legislation that opened 1002 would doubtlessly include provisions requiring equipment removal, land restoration, and strict environmental oversight, as similar legislation has required in the past.
Are there risks with opening ANWR? Of course. The 1002 area is a caribou calving ground, and research suggests oil development may displace birthing to other areas. But the herd around the Prudhoe Bay development has tripled in size since drilling began, and vast tracts of undisturbed land in ANWR could accommodate displacement should it occur. The Gwich’in also have real concerns and should be brought into the development process at every stage. But most of those concerns tie back to the caribou, which can and must be protected.
Opening ANWR will not solve all of our energy production problems. At the end of the day, there simply is not enough oil there. Moreover, as Alaska itself vividly illustrates, global climate change requires that we shift away from greenhouse gas-releasing fuels in the long-term. Yet drilling there could be a vital piece of a comprehensive plan, focused on development, alternative fuels, and conservation. The federal government could take the revenue from the ANWR lease sales and plough it entirely into alternative energy research. A bipartisan bill with ANWR as a centerpiece could be a step away from fossil fuels, even as it mitigates our energy constraints in the short term, improves energy security, and frees Democrats from a bizarre world in which offshore drilling is the preferred, environmentally responsible alternative.
Unfortunately, opposition to ANWR has become an ideological issue for the Democratic Party—a talisman—disconnected from the science of what is possible in terms of responsible development and rational cost-benefit policy analysis. Drilling offshore is risky—much more so than drilling in ANWR. So long as we allow the former but dismiss off-hand proposals for the latter, we hamstring efforts to comprehensively tackle our energy challenges while further endangering the environment. Just because Sarah Palin said it does not mean it is untrue.
Forrest Dunbar is a joint MPP/JD candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School and Yale Law School. He is originally from Cordova, Alaska, and is currently living in Anchorage.
Ode to Mothers
by Jacob Stefanik, Opinions Editor on April 29, 2010 in Opinion
As Mother’s Day is around the corner it is worth noting that the 192nd most used word in English is “mother”. According to Oxford, the English language comprises over a quarter of a million distinct words. If you were to include technical and regional vocabulary words, inflections, and distinct senses, the number would approach a million. Considering that English is the official language in 53 countries and is the most commonly taught foreign language in the rest (given Americans’ inability to learn another), coming in at a 192nd is no small feat.
A Gallop Poll conducted in 2001 found that nine out of ten Americans have a positive relationship with their mothers. Only the notion of school recess received a higher positive response, when Gallup surveyed 1,951 principals last year about its impact on general well-being. But that’s like competing with rainbows, puppy dogs, or Dan Levy teaching statistics.
Asked how they would characterize the relationship with their mother – from very positive, somewhat positive, neither positive nor negative, somewhat negative, or very negative – an astounding 76 percent described it as “very positive.” That’s a higher positive approval rating than Obama during the peak of his popularity as President (68 percent) and even surpasses the standard-bearer John F. Kennedy after his initial period in office (72 percent).
And it is another “mother”, Mother Teresa that is, who received the most votes in Gallup’s heralded “Most Admired” poll. When asked to name “one of the people you admire most from this century,” Mother Teresa beat out the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, and Mahatma Gandhi in two randomly selected national samples – one with and without prompting of names. (For the MPP1s preparing for the econometrics final, the survey had a 95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects was 3 percentage points). Perhaps it is no coincidence that someone who embodied the characteristic that most people cite about their mothers – that of sacrifice – surpassed all others by wide margins.
As students at one of the world’s premier higher education institutions we are faced with a plethora of public policy issues to close the gender gaps in health, education, and politics and thereby improve the lives of women around the world. Indeed, tackling the plight of mothers suffering from HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the single mother trying to keep a roof over her family’s house in Detroit, are desperately needed. Yet in discussing tangentially the importance of service vis-à-vis copious amounts of case studies and talks laced with great platitudes, we often forget about the woman at home who made it possible. The one who, according to several HKS students: worked two jobs to put you through college, who challenged you, who ensured you always had the best food on your table, who raised you in a refugee camp with unwavering passion to provide you the chance to succeed, and who did all of this while asking for little in return.
The inherent tragedy would be to simply take these sacrifices for granted. As such, for those who are fortunate to still have your mother around, don’t let a Hallmark hijacked holiday encompass the expression of your 76 percent approval. Indeed, it was Mother Teresa who left home at the age of 18 to embark on one of the most exemplary careers in public service, never to see her mother again. So here’s to my Mother, and all the rest, who embody what service and sacrifice truly are.
The Self-Extinction of Well-Educated Women
by Jeb Breiding on April 29, 2010 in Opinion
Stanford’s Carl Djerassi, now 85 years old, discovered the birth control pill in the early 1960s. With his discovery, for the first time, women could reliably regulate child birth, freeing them up to pursue educations and careers.
For many, the past generation has witnessed the flowering of the women’s emancipation movement made possible by Dejerassi’s transforming invention. So it was surprising to learn that he recently issued a remorseful commentary calling the demographic deterioration in western civilization a “catastrophe” brought on by the pill’s invention and the resulting ‘’gradual divorce between sex and reproduction.’’
Economists, unlike Djerassi, have been thrilled with the invention of the pill. Women made up less than 20 percent of the work force at the turn of the 20th century – they now make up 46 percent of all workers. Their wages have grown at double the rate of men’s during the past generation. While gaps remain, they are narrowing.
Djerassi does, however, feel that the winds of change currently favor women as the economy continues to migrate towards jobs where brains matter more than brawn. Women complain rightly about centuries of exploitation, yet, to a strict economist, women are not exploited enough. Indeed, it will be the closure of income gaps and the achievement of positions commensurate with a woman’s ability that will contribute even more to our future economic growth and prosperity.
Yet education, status and income does not equate to power. Women are severely underrepresented at the top of organizations. Only 2 percent of the bosses of Fortune 500 companies and 5 percent of those in the FTSE 100 are women.
The irony remains that despite massive improvement during the past generation, to most women, work still represents necessity rather than liberation. Raising a family and pursuing a career is still a greater challenge for women than for men and it remains very difficult for women to ‘have their cake and eat it too.’
To make matters worse, the higher the degree of education and the loftier the position, the less likely women are able to find partners. Today, 55 percent of women 30-45 years old with university degrees are single, and among those who are married, 40 percent do not have children. Of women in senior management positions, 75 percent do not have children even though a majority desires to have them.
The source of this growing problem is more likely to be found in genes than in society. Males compete for women because the more females they inseminate, the more genes they will leave behind. This is at the heart of Darwin’s evolutionary and Freud’s psychological (libido) methodology. Females, in the main, have been happy to let males get on with this, and concentrate on picking the winners. Harvard Professor Jane Mansbridge, a longstanding proponent of women’s rights believes that is because of genetics that women are hard wired for ‘status’, while men are hard wired for ‘reproduction’. Studies by Professor Ricardo Hausmann show that women, irrespective of nationality and ethnicity, strongly prefer marrying ‘up’.
Therefore, while the women’s emancipation movement has succeeded in many ways, it hasn’t come cheaply. Since the invention of birth control pills, marriage as an institution has been in something of a free fall. Divorce rates in the U.S. are now among the highest in the world and only surpassed by countries such as Sweden.
Today, women 30-50 are the result of everything their mothers and grandmothers have fought for. They can vote, study, drink alone in a bar, choose whether and when to have children, go to university and pursue highflying careers.
But society faces a choice: Do we excite the hopes and dreams of female youth, and then leave them all dressed up with no place to go precisely at the moment when their talents have flowered and should be unleashed? Do we work together to raise humanity to a higher plane, to their, and our, enormous and mutual benefit. Or do we simply risk losing the entire treasure that has resulted from collective women’s emancipation efforts as the world’s most capable women fail to pass on their superior genes?
Ellen Carol Dubois, a pioneer of the women’s movement, got it right when she casted her famous words cast in 1903: ‘If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down.’
Empowering the Urban Voter
by Evan Hutchison on April 29, 2010 in Opinion
Soccer moms, tea partiers, swing voters, NASCAR Dads - American politics today is dominated by amorphous, pollster produced paradigms of who we are as a polity. These represent derivations of issue driven, temporal surveys - not underlying political realities. The reality is that, by and large, we are an urban nation. Seventy percent of Americans live in census defined urban areas. 86 percent of our country’s GDP is generated in urban areas. Yet there is little talk of the needs and desires of this great majority of the U.S. populace. The urban voter is ignored. There is no well defined, national vision of urban politics.
There are deep structural reasons for this. At the federal level, the violation of the one person, one vote principle embodied in the Senate gives disproportionate influence to rural states in Congress. An obsession with God, Guns and Gays on both sides of the aisle largely leaves out cities; these are non-issues in most urban areas. The majority of federal transfers are filtered down to cities through state legislatures, then cities have to gain state authorization for spend those funds.
On the state level, the very nature of the city as the creature of the state leaves urban areas at the mercy of state legislatures and executives. Under this arrangement, the ability of cities to raise revenues, implement transportation projects and basically do anything of substance is subject to state authorization. State authorities and development corporations, constituted of boards appointed by governors, have the ability to declare areas as blighted, exercise eminent domain and give massive tax breaks to private sector actors with little or no oversight from municipal governments and civic associations.
How do we change this situation? First, those of us who consider themselves Democrats and progressives have to recognize that some of the most corrupt city governments and state legislatures are dominated by Democrats. Case in point: Sheldon Silver, the Democratic Majority Leader of the New York State Assembly. Silver has repeatedly undercut the interests of the city in order to sustain statewide power. As chair of the rules committee, he didn’t even allow congestion pricing package to get to the floor for a vote. Congestion pricing would have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants and toll revenues on East River bridges while cutting congestion in his very own district.
Second, we need to take a page from Newt Gingrich and define a contract with the city by identifying the structural and policy changes that all cities need. The first clause of that contract should be the creation of urban caucuses in state legislatures that are dedicated to undoing decades of gerrymandering that have diluted the power of cities in Congress. The same state legislatures must give more autonomy to cities, so innovative policies like congestion pricing have half a chance of going ahead.
Third, once we have identified those politicians that fail their cities, we need to launch insurgent primary challenges by running candidates at every level that embrace the contract with the city and fight for its realization in city councils, state legislatures and Congress. Then, maybe, we’ll start to hear about “The Urban Voter” on CNN and FOX.
Gender Imbalances at the Kennedy School
by Lauren Murphy and Heather Milkiewicz on April 29, 2010 in Opinion
Gender – what does it mean to you at HKS? Is it a common variable included in regressions, a box included on applications, a buzz word, a ‘women’s’ event, or a dimension that you feel the HKS pedagogy seems to be lacking?
Given the school’s pride in having a diverse student body and its emphasis on shaping future leaders, one would think there would be sufficient inclusion of an important dimension such as gender within coursework. However, entering their final semester, MPP2s Lauren Murphy and Azadeh Pourzand found that there is not and felt something must be done to improve the current situation at HKS. Were they the exception or the rule?
In order to gauge student sentiment, a survey was sent to a random sample of students from each degree program, and it uncovered hopeful results. First, respondents revealed that gender-related topics are not being integrated sufficiently into either the curriculum or the classroom experience on the whole. In particular, when asked how often gender issues were incorporated into class discussion, 87 percent of respondents said rarely or sometimes.
Among specific complaints, some of the most common were the lack of female protagonists in cases and readings – such as examples of women leaders – particularly in leadership and politics classes. Others include the need for mainstreaming gender dimensions within all policy analysis and mindful integration of gender issues, not merely token offerings. The survey results also show a disparity among the various degree programs’ core curriculums. For instance, the MPA/ID core seems to most effectively incorporate gender dimensions.
Results surrounding classroom interactions between students and teachers are consistent with previous research. In particular, respondents attributed a gender imbalance in class discussions to both lower participation by women and a lack of encouragement to women on the part of the professor. In addition, the low number of female faculty at HKS is a frequently reported problem – only 24 percent of tenured faculty are women.
The good news is that the faculty members who do a good job of addressing gender have an impressionable impact on their students. When asked to name a professor who “weaves gender issues into his/her coursework with great effectiveness,” students most often named Kellerman, Pande, Mandell, Zellecke, King, Heifetz, Mansbridge, and Gonzalez. Kudos to these and other faculty members who are leading the way – let’s hope more will follow their example.
Additionally, a majority of respondents expressed a desire for change in next year’s curriculum. 77 percent said they preferred both mainstreaming gender issues into all classes and/or additional classes with a focus on gender issues.
Change must start with student-driven action and lobbying professors. So how can we translate the impetus for a positive change into concrete action? There are a wealth of resources and faculty working on gender issues at HKS who can be enlisted in the effort, such as the Women and Public Policy Center (WAPP).
Increasing the number of case studies including a relevant gender dimension or a successful woman leader is a place to start. Cases have to be faculty driven, so find a faculty member and use your summer internship to write a great case! In addition, you can gather a group of students and ask to speak with a professor about changes you’d like to see in the classroom. Encourage faculty interested in improving their teaching to contact Lee Warren, HKS Director of Pedagogy, at lee_warren@hks.harvard.edu.
More immediately, today we are kicking off a week-long sticker campaign, “Women Speak Out,” encouraging both students and faculty to be more cognizant of the complex gender dynamics that exist within the classroom and throughout HKS. Both men and women are encouraged to pick up a sticker in the Forum. We hope that this campaign will serve as a simple reminder for all of HKS to become more aware of the interaction of students and professors in the classroom as well as the issue of gender integration within current coursework.
Just as HKS seeks to push the frontier on many political and development issues, it must do more to address topics that are either ignored or seen as controversial to the population at large. So let’s start to openly acknowledge gendered issues inside the classroom. Let’s write case studies featuring women. Let’s change the dynamics and discussions within HKS so we can better affect change outside. It is our job as students to make a concerted effort to ask for this focus from our faculty, staff and administrators. It starts with you.
The Revival of the Word “Nazi”
by Pierre Thielboerger on April 29, 2010 in Opinion
Are you very tidy? Then maybe you are a bit of an “Order Nazi”. Or you like to remind people to stick to the rules? Then you can easily become the “Nazi of the day”. Or you tend to dominate discussions with your peers? Well, I guess, you shouldn’t “Nazi around” your mates that much. And if you like the sitcom “Seinfield”, you will know its famous “soup-Nazi”.
The word “Nazi” is back. Not in its original sense, of course. A new version has entered our everyday language. We hear it in conversations with friends, in the Forum, sometimes even in the classroom from teachers. So what’s the big deal about it? Certainly using it doesn’t mean accusing someone of being an actual Nazi. It’s just a way to say: don’t be so strict. A funny way to say that, but, is it really funny?
I believe it is not. In fact it is not only unfunny, it is disrespectful and dangerous.
Let’s think it through step by step. Why is it not funny? For something to be funny, someone must find it funny. How do we ever know that? We don’t. But if nobody smiles, if nobody chuckles, if nobody laughs – we don’t consider something funny, do we?
So, who in this school laughs about something strict or stringent being called “Nazi”? I don’t know. But I do know who does not laugh: the large Jewish community at HKS, and the German students – of which I am one.
Would you find it funny if we started using the word “slave” in our everyday language? No, you would not. Already writing it here, or reading it, makes us feel uncomfortable. One of the reasons why we don’t use the word “slave” for a servant is that slavery in its modern forms does exist until today. But the same thing is true for the word “Nazi”: Genocidal murder is still real in the world of today.
So, I hope you agree: the use of the word “Nazi” is not funny. But is it really dangerous?
Sometimes, the more we use a word, the less it actually means. Think of swear words in everyday language. In the 19th century, blasphemy was a serious offence in countries around the world. People would have been shocked at the average HKS student exclaiming “oh my god” at their latest bad grade, the prices of the salad bar or Cambridge’s bad weather. Now, that expression is an everyday part of our language. Something we say without reflection. “Nazi” is on its way to becoming the same thing. Something that banalizes a historical tragedy; something that is just a trivial statement, something that people say but do not think about. The more we use the word to refer to trivial circumstances, the less its impact when we actually discuss the Nazis and their crimes.
And even more importantly, the everyday use of the word is not only inflationary, it is simply wrong. What Nazis were, what they stood for, is not “strict”. Not primarily. History obliges us to remember what the Nazis were, and what they were not.
So, the inconsiderate use of the word “Nazi” is also dangerous. But maybe the price of taking this danger is worth paying? Maybe banning a word is more dangerous than allowing its inappropriate use? In the history of mankind, more harm has been done by censure than silly language.
Indeed, historians and politicians fight on this issue. Is it never acceptable to compare a genocide to the Holocaust? A populist politician to Joseph Goebbels? A fascist ideology to the Nazis?
This is a difficult question. It means balancing freedom of speech against respect for the victims of the Nazis. It is a question that we can’t answer here. Luckily, it is also one that we don’t need to answer. Because using the word “Nazi” as an everyday word is something different. It is not forbidding someone’s judgment. It is not forbidding an opinion. It is forbidding sloppiness. It is asking for consideration and thinking. At this school, this should not be too much to ask.
The Democratic Caucus at Harvard Kennedy School
by Mary Smith on April 29, 2010 in Dems v. Reps, Opinion
The world feels like it has changed drastically since the dawn of this new millennia, but in fact, the United States faces some of the same challenges that we have for generations. The quote here from George Kennan is more than half a century old and was in response to post-WWII changes and pressures. We may be in a new era of international relations, but we can learn from the accomplishments and the mistakes of our predecessors.
As Americans, we feel that the current world we live in is a frightening place, with two wars and an omnipresent threat of terrorism. Many Americans’ natural inclination is to revert to positions of power – a defense mechanism to ensure to safety of the country. Yet, historically we have seen great success by pursuing diplomacy that is entrenched with the principles of democracy and prosperity.
Americans themselves believe in certain core principles, even when frightened by the future that they face. These values include democracy, fairness, and the well-being of others. We cannot lose sight of these ideals, even in the face of a precarious world balance. American diplomacy must strive to maintain these principles at all times, even when tradeoffs exist. These are not idealistic slogans; they are values that can play an integral role in improving our world.
Acting upon these values does not make the United States weak. In fact, it actually may make us stronger. We have seen how when we lose sight of these values, our policies can undermine our standing in the world. At times in our past, the United States has supported dictators, authoritarian regimes, or turned a blind eye to human rights violations. These policies have frequently worsened the United States’ international position, especially in the long term. To take but one example, look at how our support of the authoritarian shah of Iran turned out for the United States.
I feel my fellow MPP1s would have much to say on this topic, considering their recent completion of the Spring Exercise on US-China relations. Encouraging democracy and an open-society in China is likely to be beneficial for both the Americans as well as the Chinese. Trying to strong arm the Chinese into doing our bidding will likely prove ineffective. Yet, if the American diplomatic community promotes a policy of democracy and fairness, we will likely see excellent outcomes for the United States, the Chinese people, and the rest of the world community.
We cannot simply frame this debate as George Kennan did here – it is not as simple as merely stating that these objectives are unreal, that power is the only successful tool, and that there is no room for idealism. Strong American diplomacy will include a full-range of techniques and options, but all of these must be grounded in the principles of why we are doing what we are doing. We will likely face diplomatic situations in the future that require tradeoffs, but if we take American ideals off of the table entirely, we are devaluing our country.
As many of us look towards our own futures and careers, I take immense pride in knowing that the future of American foreign policy and our diplomatic partners abroad rests in many of my fellow classmates. The people I have met at this school are smart, capable, and guided by principles. We may have learned some of those hard skills in our classes, but I believe my fellow Kennedy students are grounded in idealism. We were all drawn to this school in the first place because of our dedication to improving the world through public service. I have faith that the people that I have met here at the Kennedy School will strive to create a world with lasting international peace, freedom, and an open and fair society for all people.
The Republican Caucus at the Kennedy School
by Mary Catherine Andrews on April 29, 2010 in Dems v. Reps, Opinion
President Obama and his national security team sadly are missing the point on foreign policy. American foreign policy should support America’s security interests, protect our citizens, and support our values. To critics at home, the Obama Administration leaves the impression that their chief foreign policy objective is to raise the President’s image on foreign soil.
The Obama Administration, dangerously, also seems to be sending the message that those who do not share American values can get by with arresting dissidents – in China and Kazakhstan, for example – or developing nuclear weapons in Iran or North Korea. Is America being bullied by these countries into ignoring our core values and American national security interests?
National security decision-making, such as the surge of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and our policy on Iranian nuclear weapons, is playing out on the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. The sensitivity of these decisions demands discretion. But instead, informed observers believe that government agencies are trying to push slow-moving policy decisions by leaking substantive disagreements among administration officials to the media. Here, we are told, President Obama’s prolonged consideration of some foreign policy decisions is risking America’s security interests because even small leaks can expose highly-sensitive security processes.
For 50 years, starting in the 1920s, debates raged in foreign policy inner-circles over whether America should actively support democracy advocates and punish human rights abusers. But with President Ford’s signature on the Helsinki accords, President Carter’s support for their implementation, and President Reagan’s 1983 speech at Westminster, the debate largely seemed to have been settled. America stands for some core values, and chief among these are respect for democracy and human rights. We have put American lives and largess to work fostering such rights in the last three decades.
The payoff has been great. The totalitarian Soviet Bloc has become mostly democratic. India, previously a pawn between the Soviet Bloc and the United States, has become the world’s largest democracy. Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, is now a democracy. Freedom House, the respected keeper of the democracy measuring tape, notes, “Many more countries were in the Free category and were designated as electoral democracies in 2009 than in 1989, and the majority of countries that made major progress 20 years ago have retained those improvements.”
This is critical to America’s national interest because free and democratic countries tend to not fight wars with each other. Instead, they support each others’ economies through trade and cooperate to solve some of the world’s most perplexing challenges such as fighting diseases or space exploration.
As evidenced by diminishing budget requests for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the current administration is seeking to decrease funding for important democracy promotion programs. The budget for the NED grew from barely $50 million in FY2001 to $115 million in FY2009. The Obama administration requested a decrease to $100 million in their first budget, and only action by Congress reversed this request.
The point of American foreign policy is not to find ways to make everyone love us. The point is to protect American citizens at home and abroad and optimize our political and economic interests in the world. To many informed observers, the Obama Administration is not meeting these basic objectives.
Morbid Curiosity Draws Moderates to Tea Party
by Jeanette Cajide and Paul Heorux on April 15, 2010 in Opinion
Call it morbid curiosity or building political acumen, we decided to check out the scene at the Tea Party held in the Boston Common with guest speaker Sarah Palin. We went to the rally hoping to learn first-hand about the Tea Party movement. A first observation was that there was nothing “common” about the Sarah Palin Tea Party Express unless common folks are capable of making $12 million dollars in speaking engagements. Can you imagine Sarah Palin’s tax bill for 2009? We personally would be protesting taxes too if we were her! It is curious why average Americans would trust a celebrity politician to represent their needs.
Our non-scientific scanning of the crowd yielded three seemingly equally represented groups: average Americans curious about the movement, Tea Party supporters, and peaceful protesters. There were a few extremists on both sides, who were certainly more of a nuisance than a substantive faction. The two polarizing political statements from the crowd which we witnessed were a young African-American man dressed as President Obama wearing a Hitler-like moustache, clearly portraying Obama as a fascist and on the other end of the political spectrum, a group of extreme liberals holding provocative signs stating “Abortion is Health Care” or “If she only had a brain” as they passed through the heart of the rally right before Sarah Palin took the stage. We appreciated freedom of speech but also appreciate discretion and respect.
So what exactly did Sarah Palin say in her speech? Any proud American regardless of the political party one identifies with could have been inspired by her speech. Making statements such as our troops being our greatest asset, that freedom is worth fighting for, and that we need to decrease our dependence on foreign sources of energy are ideological points that are difficult to argue with. Palin did inspire the people with her prose poetry however, in the end, her message had no real substance. Palin offered no solution to reduce taxes, to decrease the deficit, or to end the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, with the military representing the largest share of our national budget. Ironically Ronald Regan, the Tea Party favorite, also enlarged the deficit while he was in office. Palin did not bother to touch the issue of education or immigration, two major problems affecting our country. Instead, what we heard were sound bites from her vice presidential campaign. She encouraged drilling off-shore, declaring “Drill Baby Drill”, but failed to mention how it harms the environment that farmers, hunters and fishermen in the South depend on for food and their economy. Palin’s declaration of ‘clean coal’ energy being good for America is like saying processed sugar is good for your health. Frankly we think America can do better than just clean coal. Broadly speaking, she offered no insights into the documented consequences of her politics and this was a major disappointment.
If one puts aside politics, the articulated concerns of the people are valid, however, in the end; it felt the blame is on President Obama’s policies, forgetting that not too long ago, we had a Republican and conservative President in office. It is not the November elections that will solve America’s problems, neither is a Republican majority in Congress; it solved very little between 1994 and 2006. Moreover, as the GOP continues to support Sarah Palin, someone might want to get the memo out to America that Palin snubbed the GOP and claimed she was an Independent American at the Boston Tea Party rally. The GOP uniting with the Tea Party is simply a cop out for the fact that the GOP itself has no energy and no fresh ideas. In that regard, the Tea Party wins. The winners of this Tea Party are the politicians who are using this movement to get elected. Where was Scott Brown at this event? Doesn’t he have the “Independents” in the Tea Party to thank for his election? The least he could have done was show up for the people of Massachusetts.
In the end, we will have to wait and see if Palin continues down this path; will she have the Ross Perot effect in the 2012 Presidential election, dividing the conservative vote in America? If so, this will surely guarantee President Obama another four years in the White House.
A Progressive HKS
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on April 13, 2010 in Heresies, Opinion
A group of reformers once paid a visit to President Franklin Roosevelt to seek his help in passing a progressive bill. He replied, “I agree with you; I want to do it; now make me do it.”
His point was profound: social change doesn’t come from the good intentions of benevolent leaders. It comes from pressure — organized, effective pressure that compels leaders to make change happen. If the people lead, the leaders will follow.
Here at HKS, many of us think about change differently. Yes, we want to make a positive difference. But let’s not kid ourselves; this school is an establishment-minded place. Much of what we’re taught is about tweaking the system. Block grant or matching grant? Tax credit or deduction? Expand or shrink a program’s eligibility standards?
These kinds of questions are important, even crucial. But they too often pre-empt more fundamental questions: What kind of society do we want to be? How should our economy be structured? What about a foreign policy that isn’t centered entirely around U.S. interests? And how can we create the political climate necessary for our leaders to enact bold reforms?
In spending so much time learning how to fine-tune the system in a politically feasible way, we sometimes forget there’s another route to progress. This is the route of outsiders, of agitators, of social movements. It’s the route of progressive advocacy — of bending the arc of history toward justice. It’s about creating new political realities, ones rooted in human dignity and the common good, rather than merely reacting to the realities we already face. It’s about moving the political center instead of moving to the political center.
To be sure, we get a bit of this stuff in ethics class, and professors like Marshall Ganz teach grassroots organizing around shared values. But the culture of HKS tends to genuflect to the powers-that-be. It’s in the lingo we use, the questions we ask, the speakers we see, the essays we write. After all, when we spot a bunch of black, bulletproof SUVs outside the courtyard and know another head of state is here to grace us with a self-justifying, platitude-laden address, we all cram into the Forum to watch it.
This place could use more of the “audacity to hope” that Rev. Jeremiah Wright (ahem) talked about. If an endeavor doesn’t require audacity, it doesn’t require much hope.
The HKS Progressive Caucus was started last semester to help add a little more audacity to this school. The idea was that broadening the political conversation would do HKS some good. I recently organized the caucus’s first major event: a panel of activists discussing how to bring about positive change now that Democrats control Congress and the White House. Ganz moderated, and 115 people were on hand.
The Progressive Caucus will doubtless have additional events soon, but here at HKS, we need more than a few events. We need a cultural shift in how our school conceives of public service.
What would such a shift look like?
We would show as much reverence for the community organizer as we do for the big city mayor.
We would make it a priority to showcase independent journalists that uncover government and corporate wrongdoing, even if they’re not famous like the network talking heads.
We would ensure that students are familiar with alternatives to neoclassical economics.
We would give nonprofit advocacy as much airtime as nonprofit service delivery.
We would undertake a serious examination of the rise of corporate power — one of the defining characteristics of our time — and its implications for political and economic democracy.
We would give students an understanding of the West’s role in causing (not just failing to prevent) human rights abuses throughout the world, so that future policymakers are better prepared to acknowledge and uproot these abuses.
We would, in short, broaden the school’s vision of what’s possible in the world of politics and public policy.
That’s what a more progressive HKS would look like. And what a difference it would make, as we send hundreds of leaders into the world each year with the eagerness to dream big dreams for our country and our world. HKS wouldn’t just be the school that works the system; it would be the school that changes the system.
Can we get there? Here’s hoping.
