Letter to the Editor
by Elliott Prasse-Freeman, Dalia Al Kadi, Marcos Ferreiro on March 10, 2010 in Letter to the Editor, Opinion
Dear Editors of the Harvard Kennedy Citizen,
The earthquake in Haiti has shocked and saddened us all. We have been inspired, though, by the outpouring of support from the Harvard Community. At the same time, relief and reconstruction are currently entering a critical stage: while concerned actors must continue to mobilize support, the challenge becomes to utilize donations and efforts in the most efficacious ways. The task is not as easy as simply giving money: experiences during natural disasters have taught harsh lessons – namely that financial donations that are forthcoming in the immediate aftermath of a disaster often pour in and overwhelm local systems, yet, after the initial deluge, monies are not sustained long enough to address longer-term challenges. Facilitating disaster-stricken countries’ abilities to address such challenges, including the rebuilding of critical infrastructure and security systems, social service investments, and institutional capacity building, is an essential component of humanitarian relief strategies and greatly impacts the degree to which disaster-stricken countries are able to rebuild themselves. The 2004 Tsunami is an iconic example of the ill-effects of uneven funding flows that are solicited and allocated without in-depth – or any – capacity and needs assessments; it is essential that we not reproduce these same mistakes.
With this in mind, we raise the following issues based on our respective experiences assisting in crises in Somalia, Burma, Lebanon, many places affected by the Tsunami, etc – arguing that citizen donors are ultimately responsible for maximizing the impact of their donations:
1. Money is often not the limiting factor: Coordination (interagency and with governments), logistics, human resources/capacity, and security are often larger constraints; excessive funds often exacerbate these problems;
2. High-Impact Short-term Funds: Given these constraints, funds designated for immediate use should be allocated strategically, contributed to NGOs based on each organization’s absorption capacity. Even organizations with great capacity and may face legal restrictions that limit the amount of funding they can carry over from one fiscal year to another. For this reason, many organizations opt to disburse funding hastily on endeavors of limited impact. The donor community should emphasize transparency in aid monies received, so that funds can be allocated in the most effective ways (see below).
3. Sustained Long-term Funding for long-term Institutional Capacity Building: Funding that exceeds current absorptive capacity can be better utilized by:
a. Disbursing funds to organizations that have the legal and administrative capabilities to manage and spend the funds over a longer time period, as well as the competency and experience to engage in post-natural disaster redevelopment work;
b. Placing funds with organizations that will have the long-term scope, organizational reach, and capacity to disburse funds to viable but capacity-constrained NGO’s on the ground;
c. Build on previous models (in Pakistan, for instance ) that encourage donors to make long-term incremental pledges rather than one-off donations.
Funding distributed this way is more likely to contribute to the development of civil society institutions (educational, associational, market-based/cooperative, and political) that can continue to utilize and amplify the impact of contributions for years to come. This may allow Haiti to emerge from this tragedy with greater capacity to improve the long-term social welfare of its citizens.
Finally, we would also encourage all members of the Harvard Community to go beyond disaster relief support to consider the deep and enduring problem of Haiti’s underdevelopment. Poverty exacerbated the effects of the earthquake, something made clear in Chile just last week: a quake some one hundred times more powerful there killed only hundreds, rather than hundreds of thousands who have perished in Haiti. And yet some who focus on Haiti’s underlying poverty, such as columnist David Brooks of the New York Times (“The Underlying Tragedy” Jan 14, 2010), have distorted the issue by advancing an argument that it is Haiti’s ‘culture’ that has determined its poverty. Harvard Professor Paul Farmer, who as a physician anthropologist has navigated Haiti’s cultural nuances for 20 years, reminds us that “systemic studies of extreme suffering suggest that the concept of culture should enjoy only an exceedingly limited role in explaining the distribution of misery…’Culture’ does not explain suffering; it may at worst furnish an alibi” (Pathologies of Power (2003), pp 48-49). Here that alibi – Brooks’ idea that one should blame voodoo for Haiti’s underdevelopment (also demeaning a value system, while apotheosizing Judeo-Christian ethics as the standard bearer) – encourages an elision of the far more relevant political and economic variables that helped contribute to Haiti’s underdevelopment. To wit, Haiti’s 20th century has been characterized by direct and indirect U.S. military occupation and domination. In the 1910s, the US invaded and occupied Haiti directly for twenty years, at which point it literally rewrote the country’s Constitution, allowing ownership and exploitation of Haitian resources by foreign capital, and in which document it refashioned the police in order to put down peasant resistance to these policies, killing thousands in the process. Throughout the rest of the century, the US supported Haitian military coups and presided over unsustainable extraction of natural resources by transnational corporations. These realities contributed to and compounded Haiti’s economic and political decline, leading to a collapse of the country’s agriculture sector, the onset of massive emigration, political coups, and the rampant spread of diseases such as AIDS (see Farmer’s AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, 1992: pp 178-190). These historical events also explain, in ways that no myopic or culture-based analysis can, why it is that Haiti’s latest – and perhaps greatest – challenge yet, the 2010 earthquake, has exacted the toll it has. The “underlying tragedy” of the challenges that Haiti has and will face is neither an accident of history, nor the result of unique cultural traits; it is the result of geopolitical and global economic machinations that we have the capacity and obligation to change if we want to support Haitians in their quest to fashion a brighter future.
Therefore, fighting reactionary and opportunistic discourses such as Brooks’, both in our Harvard Community and beyond, is the responsibility of those committed to justice. Indeed, speaking back is a critical aspect of ‘what we can do to help’ – provided that it duly leads to a deeper interrogation into the ways in which we are complicit in the political-economic foundations that exacerbate disasters like these, and to the extent that such an interrogation spurs a commitment to work to alter systems and structures that allow such exploitation to endure (from unequal trade laws, to militarized ‘development’ schemes, and beyond). To truly assist Haitians in their long path to recovery, and the millions of people elsewhere who experience similar states of vulnerability, we must not only commit our money – we must also commit our voices to demand fundamental changes.
Sincerely,
Elliott Prasse-Freeman, Dalia Al Kadi, Marcos Ferreiro
MPA-ID-1
Scholar’s Unacceptable Call to Curb Palestinian Births
by HKS Palestinian Caucus and HKS Arab Caucus on March 9, 2010 in Opinion
Several weeks ago, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs sparked outrage with comments that have reverberated across the university and beyond. Speaking to a conference in Israel, Martin Kramer said that Western nations ought to halt food aid to Gaza in order to stem population growth. Lest there be lack of clarity, he later spelled it out online: UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of services for Palestinian refugees, “assures that every child with ‘refugee’ status will be fed and schooled regardless of the parents’ own resources”—an offense which, in Kramer’s mind, amounts to a pro-natal subsidy encouraging the birth of “superfluous” Gazan youth.
In response to the criticism that followed, the Weatherhead Center defended Kramer and said it would be inappropriate “to pass judgment on the personal political views of any of its affiliates.” Calling Kramer’s comments appalling, Professor Stephen Walt of HKS pointed out the irony of invoking academic freedom given Kramer’s own “past efforts to bring external pressure to bear on academics”—Walt included—“who made arguments about the Middle East that he found objectionable.”
Mr. Kramer’s stance in favor of halting humanitarian aid to refugees as a means of population control would be morally atrocious whatever the context. But in Gaza, it is particularly lethal. Gaza is under a near-total blockade: despite its obligations as an occupying power to ensure the basic welfare of the people there, Israel severely limits the import of basic materials and bans nearly all exports out of the Gaza Strip.
As a result, Gaza’s trade and food production are at a standstill. Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem estimates that 80% of Gazans would starve without food aid. To advocate halting that aid as a tool of population control is not only hateful, it is homicidal. What’s more, such a move would do nothing to curb the extremism that Kramer deplores: radicalization is the product not of excessive education and sustenance but rather of the very besiegement, deprivation and dehumanization that has characterized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades, and which Kramer now advocates deepening.
The Weatherhead Center has responded to criticism of Mr. Kramer’s remarks by saying it “takes no position on any issue of scholarship or public policy.” This stance does a disservice to any legitimate notion of academic freedom. Advocating for starvation, sterilization or any other means of forcibly diminishing the size of a persecuted and impoverished population is not academic discourse. It is not diversity. It is hate speech, and were it to be perpetrated against any other group on the basis of race, religion or nationality, Harvard would surely consider it a gross misuse of the University’s institutional platform.
As Walt wrote on his blog, “What if a prominent academic at Harvard declared that the United States had to make food scarcer for Hispanics so that they would have fewer children? Or what if someone at a prominent think tank noted that black Americans have higher crime rates than some other groups, and therefore it made good sense to put an end to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other welfare programs, because that would discourage African-Americans from reproducing and thus constitute an effective anti-crime program?”
Such speech would likely garner a far weaker defense from the Weatherhead Center, though it is no less reprehensible. Harvard should welcome no group or individual who proffers racist, repugnant views under the guise of scholarship.
The Weatherhead Center needs to act on its mission to promote global knowledge by taking a stand against unproductive hate speech of this nature and disassociating from Mr. Kramer immediately.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Olympics
It is February 12, 1980. Over the past decade, the United States has seen stagflation, gas lines, a president resign in disgrace, a catastrophic war end, and, exactly one hundred days before, 53 Americans taken hostage in Iran. The 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid began the next day. The U.S. Olympic Hockey Team, a squad of amateurs, defended the U.S. at home against the Soviet juggernaut and prevailed, 4 to 3, on their way to gold in perhaps the greatest moment in sports history. It marked the dawn of an era of neon leggings, Reagan optimism, and a Top Gun love of country.
Fast forward thirty years to February 12, 2010. The U.S. is again emerging from a difficult decade. Two wars, a near-depression, and political gridlock have exhausted the country and left citizens and columnists questioning our leaders, culture, and political system and admiring those of China. The 2010 Winter Olympics at Vancouver began that day, and I eagerly hoped to see the U.S. regain some of its swagger and optimism.
Throughout the next two weeks, I watched the U.S. hockey team capture the nation’s attention by beating the heavily favored Canadians in the preliminary round, prevail against long odds to reach the gold medal game, silence a raucous home-town crowd by forcing overtime in the last half-minute against the locals, and…lose.
There was no miracle this time. The game ended and brought us all back to reality. Yet, despite the loss, the bad conditions, terrible coverage, and nonstop glitches, I’m happier than ever with the Olympics.
Is it wrong to imbue the Olympics with such importance – as a test of country? Maybe I should be content with appreciating the athletic feats and moving on. Plenty of reasonable people, including former Olympians, feel the geopolitics of the Olympics hurt the Games. Charles Banks-Altekruse, a former Olympic rower, wrote an op-ed this week in the New York Times (“Give the Olympics a Home”) saying just that.
Banks-Altekruse was forced to settle for a Congressional Gold Medal instead of an Olympic Gold because he honored the U.S.’ boycott of the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow. Yes, Olympic politics are frustrating, trivial, and a nuisance. Yes, cities build unnecessary venues, lose money, and sometimes – as we saw with these Games – don’t have the weather conditions to properly host the Games. A permanent site for the Olympics, he argues, would insulate the Olympics from geopolitical and financial excesses.
But he misses the larger point of the Olympic Games. The Olympics are more than just a venue for international athletic competition. They are more than a site for cultural exchange. The Olympics present a chance for a country, particularly the host country, to make a statement to the world through its athletes.
Canada made such a statement by owning the ice – and the Games in general – and showing the world it is more than just our nice northern neighbor. China made a statement in 2008 by announcing its arrival on the world stage with its Olympic size and dominant performance. The Cold War boycotts of 1980 and 1984 were statements of protest. The 1980 Miracle on Ice was a statement to the American people that there would be brighter days ahead. I was hoping for that same statement in Vancouver.
I’ve moved on from the loss, and I am comforted by the fact that one in three Americans watching TV at the time tuned to that game. It was the highest rated sports event after the NFL season and BCS National Championship Game. A hockey game, of all things.
The beauty of the Olympics is that it simplifies a complex world into wins and losses, where I root relentlessly for the U.S. against anyone else, and where the measure of success is how many times one’s national anthem is played. The U.S. didn’t get a new miracle on ice, its anthem played, or a rebirth of hope after its overtime defeat, but there is enough cause for optimism that the entire country was watching and cheering on the underdog Americans that day. For a day, it was fun being the underdog again.
The SIF Scandal
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on March 9, 2010 in Heresies, Opinion
The auction held recently to support this summer’s Student Internship Fund (SIF) was a fun affair. Attendees competed for classy stuff, and first-year MPPs Casey Osterkamp and Meaghan Jennison did a great job as organizers. By all appearances, the auction went off without a hitch.
Except for one. A big one.
Almost every person bidding was a Kennedy School student. Not alumni. Not donors. Not faculty. Students.
Sure, a few professors and staff members wandered around the silent auction area to make small bids. But in the live auction, which featured the big-ticket items, students were doing most of the bidding. So the very people the SIF is supposed to help — you know, poor grad students who are knee-deep in debt and live off of bad pizza — were the ones putting money into their own assistance fund. As a result, virtually every item garnered significantly less than it should have.
Take, for instance, a weeklong stay for 15 at an Orcas Island vacation home in Washington State. The top bid was $1300. Retail value? $6000.
Or how about a Harvard commencement week stay for a whole family in executive education housing? That one got $575. You can’t get two nights in the Charles Hotel for that.
A nice lunch for 10 with three big city mayors? $225. That’s less money than 10 people would pay for a nice lunch without getting to chat up political bigwigs.
Et cetera, et cetera, ad infuriatum.
By the end, the auction had grossed just over $17,000. The cost of putting it on was $10,000. So all told, the net benefit was $7000 — not counting whatever costs donors are incurring to make their gifts. That was the end result of Casey and Meaghan putting in 20 hours a week of unpaid, quality work for months.
So what happened?
The answer seems to lie with the HKS administration, particularly the Alumni Relations Office. Casey and Meaghan wanted to contact alumni and donors, but the school’s top brass said no.
“We’d have meetings with the administration, and they’d come in and say they want us to succeed but we can’t contact the big ticket donors,” said Casey. No one ever told her why.
The KSSG tried to help. But it, too, was stymied. “They asked us not to contact alumni,” said one KSSG representative on the condition of anonymity. “They didn’t want to impair their own fundraising efforts.”
Casey, ever the gracious Midwesterner, speculates that the administration was trying to look out for the best interests of the school. “With the economic downturn, a decision was probably made to target donors in a different way. On the one hand, this makes sense: they want big donors giving $10,000-20,000, not coming to an auction and spending $3000.”
But then there’s the other hand. Asking Casey, Meaghan, and several other volunteers to do months of work — and then ask the student body and faculty to donate valuable items — is a big deal. People’s time and effort matter. Why should all of that energy have been expended for a four figure gain?
Perhaps administration officials didn’t realize the final tally would be so low. But what exactly did they think would happen when they excluded everyone with a bank account from the auction?
To be sure, HKS gave a $50,000 donation to the SIF. So there’s that. But if it had just given a little bit more it could have canceled the auction, saved everyone the time, and let the SIF fare better anyway.
The real losers, of course, are HKS students. At a public policy school, not everyone does fancy schmancy internships at consulting firms that pay thousands of dollars. Many of us want to invest time in nonprofits that offer a great experience but can’t pay interns. Financial assistance from HKS is sometimes the only thing that allows us to participate in such internships. And this year, there won’t be very much assistance to go around.
Some of the auction’s most competitive bidding was over a Venezuelan brunch for six with Professor Dan Levy and his family. Levy, the most popular professor in the history of the universe, raised $350 with this one. But the brunch could have raised more.
“Imagine if we’d been able to invite alumni who love Dan Levy and get them back here to bid on that,” Casey said. “That would have gone for big bucks.”
The Republican Caucus at the Kennedy School
by Ray Martin on March 9, 2010 in Dems v. Reps, Opinion
At a time when our country is facing its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, it would be easy to give into xenophobia when it comes to the issue of illegal immigration. The nativist wing of my party, the Republican Party, would have you believe that there is something hugely alarming, that we need to be afraid of illegal immigration. The Republican Party and the United States would instead be better to reject the rants coming from the nativists and turn their ear to the great communicator, Ronald Reagan, who said the following at the 1986 re-dedication of the Statue of Liberty:
“I have always believed there was some divine providence that placed this great land here between the two great oceans, to be found by a special kind of people from every corner of the world, who had a special love for freedom and a special courage that enabled them to leave their own land, leave their friends and their countrymen, and come to this new and strange land to build a New World of peace and freedom and hope.”
President Reagan’s words were not just the empty rhetoric of a president reading off of a teleprompter hoping for a bounce in the polls. Instead, they were backed up by action when he signed the November 1986 Immigration Control and Reform Act that provided a path to citizenship for 2.6 million people. The Republican Party of 2010 would be wise to follow the words and actions of its most fabled president if it wants to remain relevant in future elections – the party will only be able to ride the mistakes of Barack Obama for so long.
The Latino vote will be instrumental in deciding upcoming elections and is a voting bloc that Republicans cannot afford to dismiss. Rather than advocating for the draconian round-ups and deportations advocated by the Minutemen and other fringe groups, Republicans should unite behind the immigration reforms advocated by former President George W. Bush. Providing a path to citizenship that favors skilled workers coupled with a fine that would ensure that no one would be allowed to flaunt the laws of the United States would help to protect America’s own vulnerable working class from the ills of illegal immigration.
In addition, a guest worker program along the lines of the 2007 bill would ensure that America would retain enough unskilled labor to avoid any adverse impacts on the agricultural industry. Such an immigration plan would also increase border security and help root out gang members and criminals from amongst our midst.
The benefits of adopting a Reagan-Bush immigration policy should be obvious to the party. By helping millions of Latinos gain citizenship, Republicans could draw many of these new citizens into the party. After all, it was only six years ago that President Bush captured 44 percent of the Latino vote during the 2004 election. This possible gain in the Latino vote would help to offset any loss from defections by nativists to the Tea Party movement or the Libertarian party.
A path to citizenship is consistent with Republican ideals. Upon signing the 1986 immigration bill, President Reagan said, “We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.”
The sooner the Republican Party and the nation see that a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is the only tenable immigration policy, the sooner our society can move towards being more open, inclusive, and true to our founding principles.
The Democratic Caucus at Harvard Kennedy School
by Mary Smith on March 9, 2010 in Dems v. Reps, Opinion
The American public has been simmering angrily on the issue of immigration for too many years. Conservatives have played politics with this issue, driving a wedge between voters while offering little in terms of real ideas on this issue. As Secretary Clinton highlights in her comments on this debate, what we are doing now is not working. Let’s drop the politics and talk seriously about the issue.
Immigration reform should be comprehensive, fair, and tough. Illegal immigrants are coming to the US for many reasons: in search of jobs, in search of the American dream, reconnecting with family members, and many other reasons. We have to address the immigration issue in a deep and complex way, or else we will solve one problem but potentially create several other problems.
The primary reason to have comprehensive reform is to secure US borders, and ensure the safety of our people. Reform must include prosecution for illegal trafficking of people into the United States and identification fraud, as well as tightened security at the borders. Reform packages, stalled over political wrangling, have highlighted the need for border security first before any current illegal immigrant can apply for legal status. But tightening border security alone will not solve the immigration issue. If we do not address the reasons people are illegally crossing the border, we will never achieve full security.
Many illegal immigrants are coming over the border because there are American companies that will purposefully hire undocumented workers. Reform must address businesses like the Agriprocessors company in Potsville, Iowa, which knowingly hired illegal immigrants and helped these illegal immigrants get false Social Security numbers. According to the Des Moines Register, the company paid workers below minimum wage, hired underage workers, and had many cases of unreported worker abuse, including a supervisor striking one employee with a meat hook. The federal government raided this company two years ago, and more than 300 undocumented workers were taken into custody. The behavior of this company is something that, as Americans, we should not condone.
If we gloss over such behavior, we will keep all of the same incentives in place that draw undocumented workers across the border in the first place. Businesses that hire illegal immigrants have shirked their public duty – taking advantage of low-wage immigrant workers, encouraging violation of laws, and avoiding payroll taxes. This must end, and comprehensive immigration reform should take a hard line against businesses that hire illegal workers. If we address the individual illegal immigrants, but ignore the businesses that purposefully hire illegal workers, we will not stem the tide of immigrants for very long.
We must acknowledge a harsh reality: there are more than 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. Mass deportation of illegal immigrants is impractical and expensive. Illegal immigrants, searching for the American dream, have built lives here in the US for themselves and their families. We have to get beyond the political squabbling around the deportation issue and find a way that is fair to American citizens. I believe that an earned path to citizenship is a way to do that.
As proposed by some recent bi-partisan bills, illegal immigrants should be able to earn a path to citizenship by becoming taxpayers and paying off owed back taxes. This proposed reform will bring illegal immigrants out of the shadow economy and bring them forward as taxpaying members of society. If a reform package allows for this earned path to citizenship, this will be fair to current American citizens, while providing a practical solution to the 12 million people who have built lives in the US – making them honest, law-abiding members of American society.
What Steele Should Have Said…
by Zachary Kushel, Opinions Asst. Editor on February 24, 2010 in Opinion
Three weeks ago today, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele addressed a packed house at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. His performance in the Q & A portion of the event was impressive, as he showed the crowd why he has the reputation for being a frank, tell-it-like-it-is provocateur. But his prepared remarks were less consequential; it was difficult to understand why he would use this opportunity to offer a broad view of the political landscape rather than attempt to tackle the ‘elephant’ in the room – that a Republican leader had a captive audience of mostly young Democrats.
Steele told a rousing story about debating Al Sharpton at an African-American church in Detroit during the 2004 election cycle. He indicated that, while most left the church with their opinion unchanged, they appreciated his vociferous and unapologetic defense of his principles. Unfortunately, Steele failed to heed the lessons of this story in his remarks.
While the speech may have served as an effective installment in the HKS leadership series, Steele missed an important opportunity. Kennedy students deserved to hear a passionate appeal from the head of this country’s Republican party. They desperately needed the sales pitch. They needed to have their own biases challenged. They ought to have been told that, under Steele’s leadership, the party was changing and that they were being actively courted in the wake of the empty promises made by President Change.
Yes, such an attempt was likely to be futile – but it did not even appear that Steele was seeking converts. Instead, he seemed resigned to the fact that those in the audience had their minds made up. In the spirit of not offering criticism without proposing an alternative, here is an excerpt of the speech he should have given:
One of the most dangerous facets of our current political environment is the prevalence of these litmus tests. Do you believe that there ought to be specific, make-or-break criteria that determine your support for an individual? Do you think that such a test should be applied to nominees for the Supreme Court, to candidates for public office, or to applicants seeking private sector jobs?
I would assume that your answer would be no. I would assume that, as Harvard students, you would tend to approach the world in a more nuanced way. You would prefer to take a holistic approach, to weigh potential merits and pitfalls of specific traits, and make a final determination after such a process. To do otherwise, to generalize, would not be prudent.
So, then, if we agree that litmus tests are undesirable and even un-American, allow me to pose a question: what litmus tests have you applied to the Republican Party that have precluded you from seriously examining the party as a home? What litmus test did you impose on me tonight before I even began speaking that convinced yourself to oppose me regardless of what I had to say?
I’ll bet that many of you here have been identifying as Democrats simply by default after imposing some sort of litmus test on the Republican Party. Possibly because of a particular social issue, because of the difficulties of a particular war, or, dare I say, because it’s fashionable right now to be for change, however ambiguous it may be.
So I want to introduce you tonight to some of my friends. I want you to meet Mark Kirk and Mike Castle, both of whom will be elected as U.S. Senators in November, while representing so-called ‘blue states.’ And yes, both are – like new Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, former Governor Tom Ridge, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and countless other Republicans before them – pro-choice and loyal, life-long Republicans.
But your party lacks ethnic diversity, you might say next. Well, I represent a party this evening that has selected an African-American, a White-American, a Hispanic-American, and a Jewish-American as its last four Chairmen. I urge you to contrast this with the DNC Chairmen of the past decade.
I also want to introduce you to Edward Brooke. In 1966, Senator Brooke became the first African-American elected to the United States Senate since Reconstruction. Brooke represented this great state, Massachusetts, for twelve distinguished years in the senate. And yes, Senator Edward Brooke was a Republican.
As David Frum recently pointed out, the GOP endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment in every one of its party platforms from 1940 through 1976. It was Richard Nixon that founded the EPA and signed more environmental legislation than any other president in U.S. history.
So I urge you, for the first time, to take a serious look at us. Please, turn to your classmates and friends who are Republicans and ask them why they are members of the GOP. I guarantee you that the answers you get back will be as diverse as this institution that I am privileged to speak at today. But I can also attest that there are common goals that unite all of us.
We are for free trade and free markets coupled with common-sense regulation. We are for fiscal responsibility and for the government and individuals living within their means. We are for protecting this country through a strong national defense. We are for trusting the power of the individual entrepreneur over the power of a government bureaucrat. We are for state and local government control wherever possible. We are for government getting off the backs of individuals.
I am leading the party of Abraham Lincoln back to its roots, where conservatives, moderates, and liberals feel welcome in the party. Yes, in recent years the party has strayed from many of these ideals, and I will be the first to admit that. But what made us great once before will make us great once again. Political parties are not static institutions. They shift to reflect the views and wants of its members, of the people. So, please, come join us and help shape our direction, help us install a better future for America, come be a part of our movement. Thank You.
No Doggie Left Behind
by Jesse Lava, Opinions Columnist on February 24, 2010 in Heresies, Opinion
“You’ve committed your life to Jesus. You know you’re saved. But when the Rapture comes, what’s to become of your loving pets who are left behind?”
So begins the homepage copy for Eternal Earth-Bound Pets, USA, a new company that pledges to care for your four-legged fuzzy wuzzies when the time of tribulation begins. If God whisks you from earth without warning, your pets will be put into the home of a caring atheist who stands no chance of going to heaven.
The price is reasonable — just $110 for 10 years of insurance. But be warned: no refund will be tendered if Boots and Precious die before the Rapture. All sales are final.
The brains behind this enterprise belong to one Bart Centre, a 61 year-old atheist from New Hampshire. He has admitted in the past to wanting to devise a way to “cash in on this hysteria to supplement” his income, but he now says that, “if you love your pets, I can’t understand how you could not consider this.” Over a hundred clients have already signed up.
The hysteria of which Mr. Centre speaks is dispensationalism — a theological construct that provides much of the “end times” language with which Americans have by now become familiar. This school of thought won massive attention in recent decades due partly to the staggering success of the Left Behind book series, now pushing 70 million copies sold. This series’ interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelation is a scary thing to behold. And for a lot of Christians, it has stuck.
To be sure, dispensationalism is rejected by Catholics, Orthodox Christians, many evangelicals, most mainline Protestants (like Presbyterians and Lutherans), and the vast majority of theologians. Indeed, early church leaders such as St. Augustine insisted on a metaphorical understanding of Revelation, which he took to symbolize the struggle of faith that Christians undergo in their personal lives. But the belief in dispensationalism remains widespread — certainly widespread enough for clever entrepreneurs like Mr. Centre to exploit.
The danger that this new pet business represents is not just that a few credulous people will lose their money, though there is that. More broadly, it serves as a reminder that the millions of people who think the end is near have very little stake in the future of the world.
Polling data suggests that about 20 percent of Americans believe Jesus will return to earth within their lifetimes. That’s no small fraction when we’re talking about one of the most populated nations on earth, and for now the most significant. If the world as we know it will be gone in a few years, why work to make things better? Why stop climate change? Why reduce the national debt? Why preserve Social Security and Medicare? Why pursue peace between Israelis and Palestinians? Why do anything to help future generations if those generations won’t even exist?
It’s no coincidence that we rarely hear about dispensationalists fighting for social justice. People won’t fight for a future that they think will never appear.
Accordingly, the biggest sin of dispensationalism is that it focuses people’s minds on exiting this world rather than caring for it. Its emphasis is on the waiting, not the doing; on being There, not being Here. In short, it holds that life is in the leaving. And that makes everybody in this world, our world — the only world human beings will ever have — worse off.
We can only hope that in the marketplace of ideas, more constructive views of human progress will eventually win out. And that those who prey on well-intentioned yet gullible people won’t find it quite so easy to make a buck.
“If we thought the Rapture was really going to happen,” Mr. Centre told BusinessWeek, “obviously our rate structure would be much higher.”
Narrowing the Aisle
by Erik Gregory on February 24, 2010 in Opinion
CHRIS:
Erik and I met as fellow students in the Kennedy School mid-career program. We have been discussing political issues, policy, family, and personal interests, while simultaneously forming a friendship that we expect will continue beyond our academic year together. We decided to share one of our conversations – about marriage – in The Citizen.
I am the father of 7 children; all are home educated. I am a military officer who has deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. I subscribe to conservative Christian values and believe wholly that Jesus Christ is my savior.
When we talk about the definition of marriage, we’re talking about more than just the rights of two people; we’re also talking about reshaping the family, which I believe has a crucial structural role in our society. If we allow marriage between two men or two women, we shed the concept of a man-woman-child family structure. My opposition to gay marriage comes from the conviction that it is important – instrumental to the productive functioning of our society – to preserve that traditional family structure.
One of the most basic functions of a family is reproduction. This is not something I decided to conjure in my conservative closet of conspiracies; it is a widely accepted truth around the entire world. However, the logical question this raises is, “Should we prevent people from getting married just because they can’t procreate?” We should not allow gay marriage. If we allow gay marriage we have to consent to all the benefits, including adoption which leads to the question: “Can they provide a child adequate socialization?”
A few nights ago, I watched my daughter and wife sew together. At 13, she is my oldest child; I am not allowed to mention my wife’s age. I realized that there were things that only my wife could do with my daughter. As a father I have a role that only I can fill as a man. Some would say, “Well, if two gay men married and adopted a daughter they could always find a lady to help them.” If you agree with this you have acknowledged the reality that roles are important and that there are inherent roles men and women play in the life of a child. It is possible to imagine rare and special circumstances in which a particularly involved grandparent or aunt would play a very active role in the life of a young girl, but to assume that as the norm seems like wishful thinking. Let’s be clear though, the argument here is not whether a gay couple could or could not raise a child with the help of friends and family, but could they fulfill the socialization of the child as a couple? As distressed as traditional marriage is today, it still provides one thing a gay couple cannot – Mommy and Daddy.
I realize people will form relationships outside of marriage, both hetero and homosexual. I would be too naïve to say it doesn’t exist and too radical too say we should prevent these relationships. Nevertheless, I believe that protecting marriage is about preserving the family, which is the cornerstone of our society and its values.
ERIK:
Certainly historical texts – the Bible is one example – have provided models of how we as a society can best structure ourselves for lives that provide stability, security, and morality. I agree with you, Chris, the family unit has always been praised as an essential component to the health and well-being of a community.
It seems that every generation bemoans the loss of cultural and moral values held by the previous generation. There is something reassuring about maintaining traditions and rituals for our sense of connection to past and future generations. And since our traditions often capture customs and rules that help structure society in important ways, we should change them only carefully. But changing them is a necessary part of making us better. The roles of men and women have changed in the past and continue to change now, opening tremendous opportunities for individuals so quickly that as a society we find ourselves a bit confused about what framework to act within. Rapid change is indeed disorienting, and we have seen more change in the past 100 years than at any other time in human history.
Change gives us an opportunity to revise how we treat each other, and to create opportunities for groups and individuals. In particular, women, gay people, and people of color have benefited from tremendous change in the past 50 years. The same can be said about the evolving role of the family system. Families are made in so many combinations today that it can be mind boggling, but I don’t see that as decay. As a psychologist, I have worked extensively with families. I do see a problem in the focus on material consumption in the family unit today, and in the fact that half of marriages end in divorce. For many families, consumption has run amok, often replacing interaction, understanding, and appropriate guidance and supervision of children. Many children have access to their own computer and television; programming that is too mature for young children is upsetting to them, and access to Internet sites that are developmentally inappropriate for a child are potentially damaging and risky. Though I am not parent, much of my work feels like Parenting 101.
I see male/male parents, female/female parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and extended family members leading families today. Some work well, and some don’t, but it has nothing to do with whether the family is led by a man and a woman. In fact, as we have discussed, Chris, empirical research has demonstrated that the child of a same sex couple is in no way impaired by that structure. The issue for me is whether children grow up in an environment with love, security, stability, and a dedication to something greater than themselves. Chris, many people continue to value the family, just not what we have traditionally – and narrowly – defined as the family.
CHRIS:
Change isn’t always good. Historically, we can find as many instances of failure through change as we can success. I feel you are arguing that change is always good, but you have to agree that it’s not good in every circumstance. I don’t think the question of whether or not this change is benign, from the standpoint of the children raised by same-sex couples, is settled; I have objected to several of the studies you have shown me, and offered several in response.
So how do we decide when to change, and where to draw a line in the sand? I know many people who consider their pets to be members of the family; is this family also? What do we do when 3 people want to marry each other? These 3 people love each other and have a will, life insurance and all the other trimmings of a traditional marriage. And they want to adopt children. We could propose a family situation for just about any scenario imaginable. Do we change policy just enough to accommodate you?
ERIK:
I am in support of civil unions whether that be between man and woman, woman and woman, or man and man. I feel that civil unions are best addressed by the State and marriage by a Religious Institution. So, while I am not advocating for what you are describing, Chris, I do think that two people who have decided to live their lives together should be afforded equal protection and benefits under the law. Yes, this is a change and change can elicit fear, but Massachusetts has allowed this for five years now and neither the institution of marriage nor the moral fiber of the State have fallen through the earth. I am not sure that many people realize that if a same sex couple does not have these rights, one partner may not be eligible to visit the other in a hospital, gain custody of a child together, or maintain a residence that was shared together for years. In the recent film, “A Single Man,” the protagonist is not allowed to attend the funeral of his partner of 16 years, as he is not considered family. This does happen in reality. The amount of time, effort, and financial investment that has gone into this issue is astounding to me. It isn’t a matter of accommodation when we eliminate discrimination against groups of people that are different from the majority. Ultimately, I believe as a society we endorse love, compassion, and greater stability when we tackle the anxiety that often comes with change, question our traditions, and recognize more than one type of love and more than one type of family structure.
Father-like Figure: Welcome to the Fox News Family
by Boris Jamet-Fournier on February 24, 2010 in Opinion
Did you say Fox News? The Obama-bashing, fake-frog-slaughtering, shut-up-yelling Fox News? Or some other Fox News, perhaps a cute and clever and furry Fox News – like real foxes are. Not Murdoch’s Fox News, right?
Whatever my liberal friends and I might say, Murdoch’s Fox News is today the most trusted news network in America. This result, revealed in a January Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey, should not come as much of a surprise.
For starters, the pollster asked what news channel was the most trusted, not the most reliable. While “trust” is what you ask for from a friend or a relative, “reliability” is what you expect from an expert, a car, or a computer.
Fox News has clearly chosen trust at the expense of reliability. A glaring example of the trust culture at Fox is Bill O’Reilly. The host of the “Factor” reiterates that he is “watching out” for his viewers with a caring, defensive, and sometimes vehement tone – as a father would. Fox News maintains a direct, vertical interaction with its audience: the network is based on a paternalistic family model where information travels from top to bottom.
Glenn Beck is another great example of this paternalistic inclination. On the eve of the State of the Union address, he warned his audience: “You know, you don’t even have to watch this stupid speech tonight, I’ll watch for you…I wanna hang myself over watching this.” Beck sure does sound like an old mallard watching over vulnerable ducklings.
He is such a protective figure that he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice by watching the address and putting his own life at risk. The very next day, Glenn Beck was back on Fox News at 5pm. His neck did not show any strangulation marks. How he managed to survive I do not know. A real father, I tell you.
Yet, at Fox News, information also travels from the bottom up. Over the last few months, Fox has been consistently promoting the Tea Party rallies and other populist movements, including Beck’s very own 9/12ers. The network is the self-declared voice of the people, allowing citizens to “speak without fear” in a country where, of course, free speech has been banned for about a year.
Earlier this month, Jon Stewart described Fox as a “perpetual emotion machine” and attacked Glenn Beck’s narrative of the Obama presidency while a guest on the “Factor.” O’Reilly’s response? “Glenn Beck is everyman.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. Beck seems to always be one notch above everyman, always ready to give a piece of advice, some fatherly guidance that only Danny Tanner could match. Yes, Fox News is an episode of “Full House” crudely applied to a journalistic model.
The next time you tune into the network, try and think about it this way – you, the smart and fragile kid, being guided by Bill O’Reilly, the ultimate incarnation of the father. Fox News and its viewers are one big happy family; a family in which trust, not reliability, is what matters.
Now think about other networks – CNN, for instance. Can you detect the same paternalistic tendencies? You might. I certainly don’t. What model would best represent CNN? A vertical flow of information, like on Fox News? CNN is more likely to fit a more horizontal model, lacking the hierarchical relationships so prevalent on its competitor.
The network’s recent conversion to Facebook and Twitter-mania reinforces this point. Perhaps Rick Sanchez has the news, or maybe it’s some guy with a video camera in Haiti, or maybe some kid tweeting from his college dorm room. Who cares, as long as it’s reliable? And reliable, nowadays, pretty much means backed by some sort of video footage. If it’s a 20-second clip taken with a 500-pixel phone camera, well, too bad – they’ll air it anyways.
Fox News did not split hairs about ‘Balloon Boy’ and his digestive failures. Instead, they aired condemning clips about the administration, ACORN, Michael Moore, or the climate change scientists, all the while criticizing the “liberal media” for hiding it from the public. Instead, they were ranting about how CNN, ABC, and MS-[borderline-nausea-gag]-NBC were not trustworthy and only Fox News was the people’s channel.
In that family, like in any other conservative clan, relationships are tight and relatives are loyal. The PPP survey reveals that not one of the other major networks receives more than a measly 20 percent level of trust from Republicans. Also of note is that 61 percent of the 18-29 year-olds declare trusting Fox News compared to just half of the general public.
So why do these young viewers like Fox News so much? According to Dean Debnam of PPP, the youth is “…turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.” This seems unconvincing. Social psychology teaches us that humans prefer to hear what they already think. Over the last 20 years, the media landscape has certainly evolved a lot more than the human need for confirmation bias; if the public is shifting, it probably has a lot to do with what the news channels are offering.
The ‘untrustworthy’ networks might want to ponder this. But for now, they should concentrate on understanding why Fox News is so different and so popular. It might be time to understand how Fox creates a relationship of trust with their viewers, and how other networks can replicate it. After all, maybe they too can create trust. But is that what they are after? Should that be what they are after?
