Extra Credit

2009 Nation Student Writing Contest Winners

By The Nation

The winners are:
Jim Miller, Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, AK
Deborah Ghim, Buffalo Grove HS, Chicago, IL

Each winning essay will be published in a special youth issue of The Nation in early November. All of the finalists will be published at TheNation.com on Thursday, November 5

The finalists are:

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October 23, 2009

The Right Goes Viral

By The Nation

By Frank Reynolds

CampusReform.org has many of the features you would expect from a university review site: you can rate your teacher, comment on textbooks, and let other students know about exciting upcoming events. But unlike sites such as College Prowler or Students Review, on CollegeReform, you can also report leftist abuses on campus, organize a Tea Party and "raise awareness about America's slide to communism." That's because CampusReform, launched last month by Morton Blackwell's conservative Leadership Institute, is a social networking site with an agenda: to provide training to future leaders of the political right by harnessing the ground-level organizing capabilities of social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter and Myspace.

According to the site's mission statement, "CampusReform.org is designed to provide conservative activists with the resources, networking capabilities, and skills they need to revolutionize the struggle against leftist bias and abuse on college campuses." To this end, CampusReform has sub-sites for 2,376 four-year colleges in the US, all easily accessible from the site's main page. From the sub-sites, students can connect with conservative groups in their area, rank faculty on a scale from conservative to leftist, and rate textbooks for their degree of liberal bias (reviewers should be on the lookout for "Politically Correct Language," "Radical Feminism" and "Reverse Discrimination"). Students can also network with alumni to find jobs and internships with conservative organizations.

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October 21, 2009

Seeing Through the 'Morehouse Mystique'

By The Nation

By Daniel Chandler

Morehouse College, an "elite", historically black all-male College, boasting such eminent alumni as Martin Luther King Jr., puts its popularity amongst the "best and the brightest" African American men down to the "Morehouse Mystique":

The Mystique is joining a brotherhood like none other. And after being ignored, stereotyped or marginalized, it's about finally finding that "home" that, deep inside, you always knew existed, where you are the heart, soul and hope of the community. And where you are not alone.

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October 20, 2009

The Curious Case of Meghan McCain

By The Nation

By Fernanda Diaz

In a 2007 Salon piece about Meghan McCain's debut into the mainstream, her father, John McCain, responded to a question about whether he approved of his daughter's openness about her tattoo and music tastes on her blog project about the campaign trail. In retrospect, his answer seems almost prophetic: "She's having fun. I want her to enjoy the campaign. It's once in a lifetime. And then I want her to get a job."

Almost a full year after McCain lost the election, Ms. McCain, age 24, seems to like sticking with the "fun" part and only teasing us about the "job" part. It's possible that she's under the impression that the practice of generating baseless buzz constitutes a politically-minded career, but it seems like the right time to agree, as her audience and generational peers, that it's not enough.

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October 20, 2009

"Safe-Schools Czar" Under Attack

By The Nation

By Elisabeth Garber-Paul

In the latest attack on progressive White House staffers, fifty-three Republican members of congress signed a letter to President Obama yesterday urging him to ask Kevin Jennings, the "safe-schools czar," for his immediate resignation. The letter, penned by Steve King (R-IA), sites Jennings's earnest dialogue and roots as a gay educator as the reasons he's unfit for office.

Their first qualm, which surfaced in September--not long after the demonization and subsequent resignation of Van Jones--had to do with a description in his memoirs and speeches of some problematic advice he had given a student over two decades ago: a young man confessed that he'd had a sexual encounter with an older man, and Jennings first question was if he'd used a condom. Even though this was during the peak of the AIDS epidemic--which makes the condom question seem relevant enough, to me--Jennings recently apologized for the incident.

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October 16, 2009

NYC Mayoral Debate: Clash of the Dullards

By The Nation

By Nathaniel Herz

New York City mayoral candidates Michael Bloomberg and Bill Thompson each had about twenty minutes during last night's debate to use as many words as they wanted to. But the most revealing portion of the evening was actually the five-minute "lightning round," in which the candidates were limited to responding with a simple "yes" or "no."

In responding to questions ranging from the personal (Have you ever had a manicure or a pedicure?), to the political (Do you think more troops should be sent to Afghanistan?), the candidates conveyed far more about their own views and beliefs than they did in the rest of the one hour session.

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October 14, 2009

Time to Raise Pell!

By The Nation

By Pedro de la Torre

Congress is facing a stark choice this month between doing the right thing and bowing to special interests.

In May, President Obama proposed a major reform that would cut wasteful subsidies to student loan companies by eliminating the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and originating all future loans through the already operating Direct Loan Program. This plan would create $87 billion in savings over ten years, which would be reinvested in grants for low and middle income students. The plan would also help millions of young people benefit from higher education by investing in community colleges and minority serving institutions and creating state/federal partnerships for college access and completion.

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October 7, 2009

Young Activists Gear Up for the Green Fight

By The Nation

By Nathaniel Herz

As nations around the world prepare to negotiate a new international climate change agreement in Copenhagen in December, youth activists are gearing up to fight for passage of a "clean, bold, and just energy bill" here in the United States.

This month, as part of a nationwide effort, students and young people will come together in a series of eleven regional "Power Shift" summits on energy and climate. According to organizers, the focus of these conferences will be to put pressure on elected officials to pass new climate legislation, as well as to provide training for youth activists to allow them to continue building the movement's momentum.

While climate change itself doesn't give organizers the same obvious foes like the burning rivers or massive oil spills that galvanized the youth activists of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Power Shift's planners are still trying to get people involved by finding ways to make the fight against global warming more immediate. They cite the massive impact of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia and coal-burning power plants in the Midwest.

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October 6, 2009

AFL-CIO: Young Workers Unite!

By The Nation

By Alana Levinson

At a noontime rally on September 22, the newly elected leadership of the AFL-CIO gathered on Wall Street to confront the briefcase-and-blackberry set with promises to "demand more accountability from our financial system." Richard Trumka, who was chosen to replace John Sweeney as president of the labor union federation at its recent convention in Pittsburgh, was joined on stage by new top officers Liz Shuler and Arlene Holt Baker, where they let the corporate elite know that Main Street no longer works for Wall Street.

The rally was part of whistle stop tour that also brought the new AFL-CIO leadership to Ohio, Georgia and Pennsylvania and marked the beginning of a fight to rebuild the economy amidst the current recession. But perhaps another motive in these rallies, in addition to invigorating the existing base, is to draw others, especially young people, out to support the labor union's cause. As shown during the last election, mobilizing a younger base can be extremely effective, and in the case of the AFL-CIO, it might be what they need in order maintain relevancy to coming generations.

Of the AFL-CIO's 11.5 million members, only one-quarter is under 47 years old. This means that many young people are putting in hours without the much-needed benefits that a union promises. The AFL-CIO acknowledges the sagging wages and moral of the young worker, having recently released a 44-page report entitled, "Young Workers: A Lost Decade" on just that. When the numbers in this study are compared to that of the same one done in 1999, the results are even more shocking. Currently, only 31% say that they can afford to pay their bills (down 22 percent from '99) and 31 percent are uninsured (7 percent more than '99). Even more disheartening, is that only 53 percent of young workers say they are optimistic about their economic future (a 22 point drop from the '99 statistic). This should be of concern not just to young workers like me, but to the entire country, which has always depended on both the mind-power and physical strength of its youth to fuel the economy.

Liz Shuler, the youngest AFL-CIO vice-president to ever be elected, showed her support for young workers despite their some-what lacking presence at the rally."The younger generation is supposed to be doing better than their parents, we owe that to them!" she shouted to the crowd. The next step will be continuing an even greater conversation with young Americans themselves, even if that means re-branding what being a "union worker" means. In an interview with the Associated Press, Shuler noted, in a hark back to Obama during the campaign, that one of the main things blocking the AFL-CIO from reaching a younger base is a barrier in communication:

They speak a different language and I think the labor movement has been a bit behind in how they communicate with those young workers. Even the term "worker" may be something that younger people may not identify with as much.

But everyone, especially young people with student loans looming overhead, can identify with the need for, in Trumka's words, "an America that rewards work as well as investment." If educated on how being part of a labor union would benefit them, I'm sure the youth would be quick to wildly support Trumka's proposed plans of action: a small global tax on stock transactions to curb reckless trading, increased financial regulations at both the state and federal level, and the public option. I hope that in addition to these goals, Shuler and the other top officers reach out to young Americans in the workforce whether they be coal miners or freelance writers. This will ease the pockets and minds of stressed young workers, diversify the scope of the labor union, and finally, help restore the economy's health.

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September 30, 2009

Activists Build on Historic Israel Divestment Victory

By The Nation

Andrea D'Cruz

Hampshire College, Massachusetts were years ahead of the activist curve even in 1977 when they became the first American institution of higher education to divest from South Africa. Some three decades later Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine (HSJP) launched a campaign to press their university to divest from companies involved in Israeli occupation and violence against civilians. In doing so they called upon the legacy of that historic anti-Apartheid move, which Ilana Rossoff, a HSJP activist, explains was "a huge motivator behind why divestment was such an imperative and that it was possible." After two years of mobilizing popular support--their petition gathered 800 signatures, from students, faculty and alumni, quite a number for a school of 1,350--that possibility was finally realized and Hampshire made history (and controversy) again as the first college to divest from Israeli occupation--an injustice whose architecture many have compared to that of apartheid.

Alan Dershowitz was so incensed by the news that he took it upon himself to call up HSJP members individually with the threat, "I'm starting a boycott of Hampshire College and of you personally." A creepy experience to be sure. Still, if you manage to rile up Dershowitz enough for him to personally get on your case (Against Israel) then you know you're doing the right thing, and well.

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September 25, 2009