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Interns' Favorite Pieces of the Week (7/30/13)
Members of the Republican Guards stand in line at a barricade blocking protesters supporting deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi near a Republican Guards headquarters in Cairo on July 9, 2013. (Reuters/Khaled Abdullah)
This week: Malaysia’s resource curse, racial indicators for breast cancer survival, and the destructive constellaton of defense contractors and diplomats in post-revolutionary Egypt.
— Darren Ankrom focuses on climate change.
“Climate change slowdown is due to warming of deep oceans, say scientists,” by Fiona Harvey. The Guardian, July 22, 2013.
Few climate change-denying arguments are more frustrating than the simplified narrative of “It’s colder, therefore it’s not happening.” This article notes that although warming has slowed of late, it’s likely because deep oceans are absorbing heat, not because climate change has suddenly stopped. A warming ocean brings up a whole host of environmental problems—thermal expansion and decimated marine life habitats, to name a few—and the point that temporarily slowed warming is expected by climate scientists, and in fact built into many models, is an important one.
— Humna Bhojani focuses on the “War on Terror” and the Middle East.
“Transforming Pornography: Black Porn for Black Women,” by Sinnamon Love. Guernica, February 15, 2013.
African-American porn star and adult film director Sinnamon Love strives to be a voice of sex-positive black feminism. Through her work she hopes to help transform the porn industry into a space where black women can take charge of their own sexuality. Love is not alone. Other female directors and performers are also challenging traditional portrayals and stereotypes of women of color in porn, carving out a space at the unlikely crossroads of feminism, pornography and race.
— Rick Carp focuses on media, psychology and environmentalism.
“‘Sometimes We Had A Brick’ An Interview With Former SHAC 7 Prisoners Jake Conroy And Josh Harper,” by Mike Klepfer. The Portland Radicle, July 22, 2013.
Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty was an animal rights activism group that ran a divestment campaign against Huntington Life Sciences, which tested products on animals for corporations like Procter & Gamble. They would attempt to get businesses with financial ties to HLS to quit working with them, which was often easy to do when a company had no large needs or interests directly related to animal testing. But as part of the ongoing Green Scare, the SHAC 7 ended up in prison via the Animal Enterprise Protection Act—a precursor to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. The SHAC 7 did not engage in terrorist activity or property damage, but ran a website that appeared to encourage it. The website posted personal information of HLS executives and employees. Activists—who were not directly connected to SHAC—would utilize this information and engage in acts of like mass phone calls, hacking computers, gluing ATMs, breaking windows and more. This is an interview with two of the members of the SHAC 7 reflecting on their time in prison.
— Keenan Duffey focuses on Middle East national politics.
“Partners in Profiteering: Defense Firms and Diplomats in Post-Revolutionary Egypt,” by Shana Marshall. Jadaliyyah, July 24, 2013.
Shana Marshall has uncovered a slideshow prepared by the US Commercial Service for distribution to American defense firms in May 2011. The slideshow touts the instability in Egypt as a golden opportunity to make security related sales to private firms in Egypt and to strengthen relationships with the Egyptian military. It demonstrates that the enduring relationship between the US and Egypt is not about developing democracy but subsidizing US defense export markets.
— Prashanth Kamalakanthan focuses on racism, imperialism, and student/worker activism.
“Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep by Jonathan Crary: Sleep is a standing affront to capitalism,” by Steven Poole. New Statesman, July 18, 2013.
This is a review of what should be a fascinating and important new book, which I haven’t yet read: Jonathan Crary’s 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. Beginning with an account of current research (military, soon commercial) into removing the need for sleep through bioengineering and pharmaceutics, Crary’s argument, subjected to a balanced critique here, is a striking one. He compellingly links the shrinkage of sleep time from “ten hours in the early 20th century” to “eight hours a generation ago,” and finally “approximately six and half hours” today with the intensification of economic pressures, both productive and consumptive. It’s strange to think of sleep as a bastion of dissidence and anti-productivity, but certain forces are certainly taking it away.
— Eunji Kim focuses on gender, race, media and East Asian politics.
“Black-White Divide Persists in Breast Cancer,” by Tara Parker Pope. The New York Times, July 23, 2013.
About 12 percent of American women will develop breast cancer at some point in their lives. This translates to a woman born in 2012 having about a one in eight chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer, according to National Cancer Institute. This could be you, your mother, aunt or daughter. And how many of these patients will be survivors? Well, it depends on a lot of things, such as family medical history or employment. A recent study suggests yet another addition to the list—race. This article shares the recent findings but also reminds us that race isn’t (always) political; it’s tied to so many things in our lives, starting with the basic needs and wants of a human being—good health.
— Samantha Lachman focuses on reproductive justice, healthcare access and intersectionality.
“We Pardon Spitzer, But Still Judge Former Sex Workers (Like Me),” by Melissa Petro. New York, July 23, 2013.
Petro scrutinizes the media’s gendered portrayal of both current and former sex workers. “I would be fine with Spitzer’s return to politics if sex workers were allowed the same dignity of returning to normalcy. But apologizing and getting my career back wasn’t exactly an option our society supports,” she writes. New York City fired her as a teacher after she wrote an op-ed arguing that not all sex workers are victims—yet we see Eliot Spitzer leading in the polls to serve as the City’s next comptroller. It’s an indicting piece about whom society redeems.
— Rebecca Nathanson focuses on social movements, student organizing and labor.
“Student loan debt should be treated like Detroit’s,” by Tim Donovan. Salon, July 24, 2013.
The numbers speak for themselves: over $1 trillion in student debt nationally, an average of $26,500 in student debt per student in 2011, a 1,120 percent increase in tuition since 1978 and a 7 percent decline in state and local funding for higher education in 2012. There’s no question that higher education in the United States is in crisis, and a large part of that is due to student debt. This article examines one of the reasons for that crisis—the fact that student debt is the only type of debt that cannot be forgiven through bankruptcy—while linking it to the problems of rising tuition and administrator salaries and rooting it in the bankruptcy deregulations of the late ’90s and early 2000s.
— Jake Scobey-Thal focuses on human rights and conflict in Asia and Africa
“Malaysia’s rich natural resources are standing in the way of an Arab Spring,” by Nithin Coca. Quartz, July 25, 2013.
Does any of this sound familiar? Country X has seen massive GDP growth due to extractive industry exports, accompanied by ever increasing inequality. Country X is a former British colony with deep ethnic divisions borne out of a history of the colonial ethnic hierarchies and neo-imperial racial politics. And Country X had an election where the opposition party won a clear majority of the vote, but—because of the gerrymandering of the party in power—retained only 40 percent of the seats in parliament.
Malaysia has all the ingredients for political unrest—so why hasn’t it had its Arab Spring moment?
— Aviva Stahl focuses on Islamophobia in the US and the UK and its links to racism, homophobia/transphobia and the prison industrial complex.
“Malala Yousafzai and the White Saviour Complex,” by Assed Baig. The Huffington Post, July 13, 2013.
Americans’ fascination with Malala isn’t simply a product of her story, or her formidable oratorical skills: her narrative has gained so much prominence because it shores up the narrative we’ve constructed about how Muslim men treat Muslim women. In this article, Assed Baig provides a brave, nuanced and necessary analysis of why Malala Yousafzai feeds our white saviour complex.
— John Thomason focuses on pieces that situate contemporary American political debates in historical and/or intellectual contexts.
“Revolutionizing Ethics,” by David Johnson. Jacobin, July 22, 2013.
This piece argues that popular appeals to morality are usually cynical attempts to place severe constraints on the potential demands of morality (broadly defined) and to foreclose political solutions to genuinely moral problems. However, it sidesteps one thorny issue, which is that in many traditions ethics does entail a kind of isolation and individualism: Ethics is how one leads a good life. Perhaps the real question, then, is if it is even possible to live a good life under present geopolitical conditions.
Stop Locking Up Nonviolent Juvenile Offenders
Inmates at the Department of Youth Services juvenile boot camp wait to go outside for physical training, December 22, 2005, in Prattville, Alabama. (AP Photo/Rob Carr.)
Anyone who has ever spent time in a high school knows that students and teachers are no strangers to crime and rule-breaking. At my large public high school, expensive items like iPhones routinely vanished from backpacks and lunch tables. Many days, I saw huddling bands of sophomores in the bathroom, checking their backs, exchanging drugs for money. Occasionally, two drug dealers would emerge from a stall with eyes slightly glassy and movements just exaggerated enough to provoke suspicion. Sometimes, groups of eight or more kids would fight in the bathrooms.
Rule-breakers came in all shades and grades. Although suspected delinquents were a mixture of working-class and rich kids, only the non-rich regularly had the cops called on them for drug possession at school. The punished, rejected and humiliated students often transferred or dropped out.
My school was less forgiving of “delinquents” than was my younger sister’s private high school. For example, my school administration regularly deployed police officers on drug dealers; her administrators dealt with drug-related matters internally and often informally with families. My public school peers caught possessing marijuana thus have fewer options applying to college and looking for jobs than do private school kids guilty of a “youthful indiscretion” with drugs. I have some classmates who have already spent time in juvenile hall for theft, an offense that, at many private schools, would have spawned a reprimand or suspension.
I don’t like the inequity of these arrangements, but I don’t advocate “cracking down” on pot-smoking rich kids just as ferociously as we antagonize the poor. That would simply spread the misery more thickly, and I have a hunch it wouldn’t really happen anyway. It might make us feel better in regards to equality, but expanding intensive “police oversight” to rich communities and private schools would not actually create a system of equal justice. In the real world, Al Gore III, and Jenna and Barbara Bush, and Todd Cunningham, and Danny Burton (and all the other children of politicians who oppose drug legalization but pull strings to get their kids off the hook) are never going to endure the sort of harsh treatment leveled towards poor students.
Real fairness would have us stop locking up nonviolent juvenile offenders altogether and reform the juvenile justice system to maximize prisoners’ capacity for learning and self-improvement. Let’s not pretend to treat the rich like the poor; let’s treat the poor like the rich.
We should not put young people in cages for nonviolent offenses, and certainly not before we have tried to reform them through less severe means. A cursory examination of contemporary juvenile detention centers should alone stop us from locking up even the most obnoxious nonviolent offenders. When people say, “Tommy, if it were your house that were robbed by high school thugs, you would want them put away,” I respond that, first, I have already, many a time, had expensive objects stolen from my property, presumably by juveniles, and that, although my anger was fierce, my more enlightened pursuit of security still turns me against incarcerating thieves who steal bikes. Think about it: if the gang of, say, ten kids who stole my bicycle last year entered juvenile hall, at least one of them would be sexually abused, and would thus increase his odds of further abuse to 81 percent.
Bike-stealing, although maddening and reprehensible, should not put a teenager in the slammer with the 34 percent of juvenile offenders who are there for rape, armed robbery and other violent offenses. Our failure to meaningfully distinguish among child criminals rounds them all down to the lowest common denominator, making petty offenders far more likely to continue and accelerate a life of crime. Fully 80 percent of incarcerated juvenile offenders again end up behind bars, suggesting that juvy’s deterrent effect against child crime is nothing compared to its effects in deepening alienation from society and teaching the skills of full-blown criminals.
Two-thirds of incarcerated kids have mental illnesses that are only exacerbated by their residence in over-crowded, violent facilities. A shortage of therapists, coupled with draconian cuts in funding for juvenile mental health facilities, endangers children offenders—and the rest of us—even further. If it is hard to keep children focused in a school where most students have mental disorders, it is nearly impossible to keep them focused on learning in a population of juvenile delinquents.
We cannot reform kids by intensifying the rage that may have contributed to their misbehavior in the first place. Let’s take young first-time offenders of all backgrounds out of intellectually and physically restrictive detention centers and put their variety of talents to good use. Engage them in community work projects that require them to use their bodies (through, say, construction on dilapidated parks and homeless shelters). Engage their minds through the arts and music, and discussion and therapy-like sessions in which the value of community-oriented thinking is inculcated. Crime is an affront to the very foundations of community, so its response must reinforce communal bonds by affirmatively reversing young, petty criminals in their tracks.
Localize This! An Action Camp for Progressives
Members of Philadelphia Students for a Democratic Society protest near City Hall in Philadelphia, Friday, November 14, 2008. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
This week, young activists from across the country will converge outside Seattle, on Vashon Island, to attend the Backbone Campaign’s 5th annual Localize This Action Camp. Focusing on artful activism and engaging progressives in the strategic use of creative tactics, the camp will feature a week of workshops, panel discussions and seminars on nonviolent direct action, strategy campaign design, silk screening, community building, how to use projection as protest, eviction protection, youth incarceration, the fight against coal power and fracking, and building power and developing leadership through community organizing.
Student debt, a major focus of attendees especially given the recent Federal inability to come to terms with the crisis, is a recurring issue for the Backbone Campaign. Last year, Backbone played an instrumental role in organizing “Occupy Graduation” which attracted media attention from the New York Times, Yahoo News, The Thom Hartmann Show, The Nation, The Blaze, and many others. Graduating seniors at campuses coast to coast attended their graduations prominently wearing the number of their total graduating debt on their caps and gowns.
In another creative direct action, Backbone organized a student debt protest in Washington, DC in which protesters wore chains attached to a massive 11 foot-wide ball of student debt. These student debt slaves then delivered the massive $1 trillion ball of student debt to Sallie Mae and to the Department of Education.
It's still not too late to attend this year’s Localize This Action Camp. To make a donation to the Localize This Scholarship Fund and find out more about the program and related projects and initiatives, visit LocalizeThis.org.
From the Deep South to the Midwest, a Generation Demands Justice
Members of Dream Defenders sit-in at Rick Scott’s office. (AP Photo)
E-mail questions, tips or proposals to studentmovement@thenation.com. For earlier dispatches, check out posts from January 18, February 1, February 15, March 1, March 15, April 2, April 15, April 26, May 10, May 24, June 7, June 21 and July 9.
1. Dream Defenders Occupy the Florida Capitol
On Saturday, July 13, George Zimmerman was found not guilty. This was the moment Florida showed the world that it does not care about its youth, especially young black and brown people. If neighborhood watch vigilantes are given the license to kill, what instructions are given to black and brown youth such as me? How do I stand my ground when I feel threatened? Am I not allowed to defend myself? Dream Defenders have been joined by community members and students from Jacksonville, Gainesville, Orlando, Miami, FAMU, FSU, UF, FAU and UCF, as well as the Advancement Project, Power U and USSA. We are occupying the state capitol until Governor Rick Scott meets our demand to convene a special session of the legislature. During this session, we want a new Trayvon Martin Civil Rights Act to be passed. It will focus on the Stand Your Ground law, racial profiling and the war on youth. This is deeper than just the Zimmerman murder case. This is a movement to unravel the system that allowed Trayvon to be criminalized, profiled and killed in the first place. We will stay in the capitol until the governor meets our demands. We have gotten support from across the country and around the world. This is what the student movement looks like.
—Melanie Andrade
2. Black Youth Strategize in Chicago
Black Youth Project 100 is a group of 100 young black activists from across the country convened by the Black Youth Project to mobilize communities of color beyond electoral politics. As we convened for our first Beyond November Movement gathering, we collectively mourned over the Zimmerman trial verdict and produced this video response to affirm the humanity of black life. We are committed to connecting the tragic loss of Travyon Martin and this recent miscarriage of justice in Florida to countless other examples of American systemic racism and injustice. Moving forward, we will be mobilizing a black youth contingency to attend the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington and offering civic engagement training to young people. We are organizing local chapters to build political power nationwide while simultaneously supporting the efforts of other youth-led organizations such as Dream Defenders. As stated in our video, we see the hopelessness of a generation that has been broken trying to find its place in this world, and we understand that we need to turn anger into action and pain into power.
—Rahiel Tesfamariam
3. Moral Monday, Everywhere
In response to North Carolina’s extreme right agenda that disproportionately harms people of color and the poor, the state NAACP has led twelve “Moral Mondays,” resulting in 900 arrests. The unjust acquittal of George Zimmerman is symptomatic of systems of white supremacy that are enacted both nationally and locally. While people in North Carolina mobilized for Trayvon Martin and against racial profiling on Sunday and Monday, we know that this is only one part of the resistance. Governor Pat McCrory recently repealed the state’s racial justice act, and youth of color across the state are being racially profiled and pushed into the school-to-prison-pipeline. The NC–Student Power Union and NC HEAT will continue massing on “Moral Monday” and “Witness Wednesday”—but also around issue-based campaigns, including a Moratorium on Out-of-School Suspensions and a people’s budget.
—Q. Wideman and Bryan Perlmutter
4. As Congress Talks, Immigrant Youth Hit the Streets
As congressional immigration debates simmer, the Immigrant Youth Justice League and Undocumented Illinois, a state-wide undocumented youth collective, have been staging direct actions targeting the president’s deportation policies at fundraisers and detention centers. Just as black men are consistently and unfairly singled out in the American criminal justice system, a system of intense police surveillance threatens more of our families for the price of misconstrued congressional priorities. IJYL has met with the individuals in deportation proceedings and their families; held press conferences in front of ICE offices and rallies and vigils in their name; and rallied alongside other organizations to fight against immigration officials and local police who have strategically profiled day laborers and flea-market merchants. IYJL will continue to devote vocal, physical and soulful efforts to fight any gross mischaracterization of equity and justice, from DC to Sanford to Chicago. We will step up our efforts to stop the trend of deportations, like that of Octavio.
—Uri Sanchez
5. As Obama Ramps Up Policing, Students Strike Back
Following the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, President Obama introduced a proposal that included increasing funding for more school resource officers and law enforcement grants as a solution to safety in our schools. In response, the Community Rights Campaign organized weekly vigils in remembrance of all lives lost to violence and to honor daily struggles and historical violence, particularly against black and brown youth and communities. Our demands: to direct all funding towards resources and interventions that truly support school safety without harming students, and to set strong limits on the role of police on our campuses. This is a national dialogue led by youth of color who are gathering through regional Action Camps to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. Obama’s proposal is now a bill that is progressing through the US Senate Appropriations Committee this week. The Dignity in Schools Campaign organized a day of action on July 15 to push back on the idea that police and SROs are the answer to safety on our campuses.
—Mello Lemus
6. In Detroit, Young Workers Take Over the Manager’s Office
On July 12, members of AFSCME’s young worker group, Next Wave, assembled in Detroit. We marched around the Municipal Center and other government buildings with chants and signs letting Governor Rick Snyder—who has put over half of Michigan’s black population under state receivership—and emergency manager Kevyn Orr know that we’re unhappy with the destruction of democracy. Through a variety of sessions over the weekend, we shared experiences and visions as young rank-and-filers. One workshop, “Mentoring for Success,” helped me appreciate being a mentee—and, as someone who is new to Next Wave, gave me the confidence to become a mentor despite having little experience being one. Our next steps for Next Wave include building coalitions with other unions and groups, building leadership among our members and continuing to grow by engaging in direct action.
—Fatima Brown
7. In Ann Arbor, Students Win Tuition Equality
On July 18, the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents passed tuition equality for undocumented students from Michigan. Under the new policy, which takes effect in January 2014, undocumented students from Michigan qualify for in-state tuition. Whereas former university policy effectively denied admission to undocumented students, the new policy dramatically improves financial access. The decision comes on the heels of a year and a half of organizing by the Coalition for Tuition Equality. Through speaker events, silent protests and civil disobedience, we’ve leveraged our status as students to pressure our university to end discrimination against undocumented students.
—Coalition for Tuition Equality
8. At Rutgers, Tuition Spikes—With a Fight
On July 11, Rutgers students staged a protest demanding that university officials stop the yearly cycle of tuition hikes. Loud chants filled the air outside the Board of Governors meeting. During the open session, dozens of students flooded the meeting floor and gave powerful personal testimonies—but to no end. The board was determined to raise tuition to recoup the costs of irresponsible spending, including a $900 million merger with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. As the board moved to raise tuition by 3.5 percent, students held a mic-check to drown out the sound of the votes. Students will be organizing for more state funding for Rutgers and an end to tuition hikes.
—Rutgers Student Union
9. Title IX’s Ground Game
On July 15, campus survivors and activists from across the country converged on the US Department of Education demanding an end to campus sexual violence. Survivors shared their stories and chanted: “Whose campus? Our campus! Whose rights? Our rights!” The rally concluded when boxes containing 112,000 signatures from the ED Act Now petition were handed to ED officials. Rally leaders then met with Secretary Arne Duncan and department staff to present a list of asks: timely investigations of Title IX complaints; proactive enforcement efforts; stricter sanctions and public non-compliance findings; and school guidance on same-sex and LGBTQ sexual violence. At the White House, these were repeated to officials from the president and vice president’s offices, as well as ED and the Department of Justice, with a demand for executive action. In the coming months, activists will push ED to reform its policies and offer legislation improving Title IX enforcement.
—ED Act Now
10. Texas’s Bloody Hands
On July 18, members of Rise Up /Levanta Texas gathered outside the auditorium in the capitol to grieve the signing of HB2 into law. Demonstrators dressed in black, carried wire hangers and covered their mouths with a piece of black tape covered with the image of a coat hanger. With the passage of this bill, many may resort to dangerous methods to terminate pregnancies. Thousands of Texans will also lose access to potentially life-saving services if the affected clinics are forced to shut their doors. The group mostly stood in silence until approximately 9:35 am, when Rick Perry was about to sign the bill. At that time, five women staged a die-in directly below the auditorium. Each held a piece of paper that spelled “SHAME” and led the group in shouts of “The blood of Texas women is on your hands.” Rise Up / Levanta Texas, a coalition of students, community members and organizers, will continue fighting for the human rights and dignity of all in Texas.
—Rocío Villalobos
Interns' Favorite Articles of the Week (7/19/13)
A banner from a December 8, 2012 rally at Cooper Union. (Creatice Commons)
This week: the effects of climate change on animals, radical fundamentalists in Egypt, public space in the Internet age and insight into one of the most powerful committees in America that you’ve never heard of.
— Darren Ankrom focuses on climate change.
“Why climate change has Darwin down for the count,” by Chris Mooney. Grist, July 15, 2013.
With so much climate change discussion devoted to effects on human beings, here’s a nice change of pace targeting how it could threaten animals. One statistic was particularly memorable—it took animals, on average, a million years to adapt to a temperature change of less than two degrees Fahrenheit. This could be quite a problem for those not walking on two legs, as the article predicts a 7.2 degree F temperature rise in just the next 100 years.
— Humna Bhojani focuses on the War on Terror and the Middle East.
“A Former Ira Hunger Striker Talks About The Guantanamo Hunger Strikers,” by Danny McDonald. VICE, July 16, 2013.
Former IRA member, Gerard Hodgins, who was on a hunger strike for twenty days in a Northern Irish prison. Fasting, hunger strikes and self-starvation have been used at various points in history for non-violent resistance. Faced with few other ways to protest their circumstances, more than a hundred Guantanamo Bay prisoners are currently on a hunger strike, forty-four of those who are being force fed against their will through an inhumane and incredibly painful procedure. Hodgins outlines the similarities and shared experiences, both emotional and physical, that hunger strikers at Gitmo and those at the Northern Irish prison faced.
— Rick Carp focuses on media, psychology and environmentalism.
“Too Many Jobs,” by Max Kummerow. Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, July 9, 2013.
People need jobs. But jobs are a part of our economy. And our economy is destroying the planet. What is to be done?
— Keenan Duffey focuses on Middle East national politics.
“You Thought the Brotherhood Was Bad?” by Marina Ottaway. Foreign Policy, July 16, 2013.
Marina Ottaway, a senior director at the Carnegie Endowment, describes the new and dramatically improved political positioning of Egypt’s Salafists. The sudden and foolish removal of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Egyptian Army has removed moderate Islamism from the political playing field. Through no effort of their own, the radical Salafists of Egypt’s Nour party are now the only alternative available to Egyptian voters other than voting for secular parties. The fear of the “radical” Brotherhood has empowered the true radicals in Egypt, the fundamentalist Salafists.
— Prashanth Kamalakanthan focuses on racism, imperialism, and student/worker activism.
“Open Wide,” by Tom Slee. The New Inquiry, June 12, 2013.
This wonderful essay, which was recommended by a friend, addresses some of the broader questions of public space opened up by recent discussions about the NSA. Tom Slee uses geographer David Harvey’s reading of the tension between public and private space in the world’s cities to draw striking parallels we’re beginning to see unfold online. A central insight is that open, common spaces like public parks are “traded upon” by private capital (like real estate developers or web startups), in turn destroying essential qualities that made these spaces beautiful in the first place—through gentrification, homogenization, privilege, isolation and so forth. An interesting perspective on a shared space we’ll only spend more of our lives in the future.
— Eunji Kim focuses on gender, race, media and East Asian politics.
“Richard Cohen and Kathleen Parker, Racial Profiling, And The Choice To Live In Fear,” by Alyssa Rosenberg. ThinkProgress, July 17, 2013.
From the moment when news spread that George Zimmerman was acquitted, many spent hours and days in emotion-filled moments. Some cried out in the streets as they marched in solidarity. Others stayed at home, reading about Zimmerman’s weeping family or watching their the television interview of Juror B37, the first one of the six to speak out. While many regard this as a civil rights violation and that justice has yet to be served, others seem to disagree, such as Richard Cohen who recently titled his Washington Post column, “Racism vs. reality.” And this is a response for Cohen and others.
— Samantha Lachman focuses on reproductive justice, health care access and intersectionality.
“A Special Deal,” by Haley Sweetland Edwards. Washington Monthly, July/August 2013.
As a Canadian I’ve always found the US healthcare system bewildering and beyond comprehension. This article highlights an especially troubling part of its composition: the process by which Medicare payments to doctors are determined. As Sweetland Edwards explains, “one of the most powerful committees in America you’ve never heard of,” the RUC, is convened tri-annually to decide upon the relative values of medical procedures. Its composition begets polarization (it’s dominated by specialists rather than primary care physicians) and price-fixing (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rarely reject the committee’s recommendations). A highly informative and thought provoking long-read.
— Rebecca Nathanson focuses on social movements, student organizing and labor.
“Can Cooper Union Find A Way To Continue Free Tuition And Its Social Mission?” by Sydney Brownstone. Co.Exist, July 17, 2013.
After sixty-five days, the occupation of the president’s office at Cooper Union, in protest of the announcement that the historically free university will begin charging tuition, has come to close—but the fight to keep Cooper free is far from over. This piece offers a great overview and analysis of the post-occupation situation at the school, looking at how organizing will continue and what the prospects are for the students and Board members who will, along with alumni and faculty, form a working group to search for a way to keep the university tuition-free. As the cost of higher education skyrockets and students graduate with record-levels of debt, this struggle is of vital importance.
— Jake Scobey-Thal focuses on human rights and conflict in Asia and Africa
“Abolishing Burma’s feared border force: PR or reform?” by Francis Wade. Asian Correspondent, July 15, 2013.
This week, Burma’s President announced the disbandment of the Nasaka the security forces that patrol the border between Burma and Bangladesh. For years, the Nasaka have been implicated for serious human rights abuses, and most recently have been responsible for some of the most violent attacks on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State. But Wade calls into question the significance of the new policy. Coming on the heels of the President’s trip to Europe, the announcement is clearly a strategy to pre-empt questions about the state’s failures to curb sectarian violence in its western regions. Moreover, Burma has a history of “disbanding” abusive security forces by simply folding them under a new banner. While the Nasaka may gone, some form a security personnel will reform in Burma’s restive western border. Until abuses are met with accountability and not simply a makeover, the crisis will remain.
— Aviva Stahl focuses on Islamophobia in the US and the UK and its links to racism, homophobia/transphobia and the prison industrial complex.
“Shariah courts for women, by women to come up in 4 cities,” by Zeeshan Shaikh. The Indian Express, July 9, 2013.
Stories like this one confound the overwhelmingly simplistic and calamitous take on Shariah law we read in the American and European press. The Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), which advocates for the rights of Muslim women and the codification of Muslim Personal Law in India, is in the process of setting up four Shariah courts, which will adjudicate on women’s matters like divorce, polygamy, maintenance custody of children and property rights. Said a founding member of BMMA, “Women have failed to get justice from the Imarat-e-Shariah, or Shariah courts run by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Their decisions are not based on Quranic principles. Therefore, we have decided to set up Shariah court which will be run by women.”
— John Thomason focuses on pieces that situate contemporary American political debates in historical and/or intellectual contexts.
“How Does the Ruling Class Feel When It Rules?” by Andrew Seal. n+1, July 15, 2013.
In this re-review of Chris ‘Christopher’ Hayes’s Twilight of the Elites and Corey Robin’s The Reactionary Mind, Andrew Seal argues that recent leftist thought fails to consider the actions of the ruling class as a class, rather than as the discrete actions of self-interested individuals with overlapping interests and a common psychology (or pathology, as the case may be). He thinks this leads to analytically limited analogies that compare contemporary plutocracy to feudalism. His critique is sharp, but he does seem to give short shrift to the thinkers he reviews—Corey Robin’s recent essay on Nietzsche and Hayek is deeply interested in the ruling class’s interest in itself as a politically and culturally essential collective.
Student Debt Crisis Deepens
(Creative Commons.)
For many Americans, economic forecasts can seem a lot like Chicken Little, constantly screaming that the sky is falling. But for college students and recent graduates dependent on federal financial aid to fund their educations, that’s exactly what is happening.
On July 1, interest rates on subsidized federal student loans doubled, adjusting from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent overnight. That means that the already economy-busting student loan issue just got a whole lot worse. And a legislative attempt to bring the rates back down failed this week.
Americans have $1.1 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, more than credit card debt or car loans. And unlike those debts, it’s nearly impossible to get out from under student loans—borrowers usually can’t discharge it in bankruptcy, refinance it or modify the loan. There’s no time limitation on collecting a student debt. In fact, students who become disabled can even have their social security payments garnished to pay off their education loans. It’s a system that Salon’s David Dayen refers to as indentured servitude—because unlike other types of loans, you literally cannot break free until you have worked off the debt.
This is particularly true for students in states like Mississippi, where 54 percent of students have college loan debt and, on average, graduate with about $24,000 in student loans. With the national unemployment rate for new college graduates holding steady at around 8 percent, our best and brightest are left with a terrible choice: try to start making payments while unemployed or underemployed or go to graduate school, taking out more loans in the process.
It’s a financial burden that will weigh down all sectors of the American economy. People who earned college diplomas used to be more likely to become homeowners than those without—now, college graduates with student loan debt are 36 percent less likely to own a home. They are also less likely to purchase cars or start small businesses and more likely to delay starting families. Instead of contributing to the state and national economy, those with student loans are contributing only to the narrowest of financial balance sheets—those of debt collectors and banks.
Congress must address the growing student debt issue. Students aren’t takers—they have worked hard to get into college and graduate school, and have shown that they are dedicated to improving themselves and their communities. They deserve better than lifelong debt and crushing educational loan bills.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has suggested allowing students to borrow from the federal government at the same rates banks can—0.75 percent. Others have discussed introducing bills allowing loans to be discharged in bankruptcy, modified or exempting Social Security from garnishment for student loan debt. While activists organize for redress and politicians bicker, many of today’s college students are worrying about how they’ll be able to pay up.
Take Action: Tell Your Representatives to Follow Oregon's Lead to End Student Debt
Interns’ Favorite Articles of the Week (7/12/13)
This week: Tariq Ramadan calls a coup a coup, California prisoners begin a hunger strike for basic human rights, and Dinyar Godrej unpacks the exploitation of debt.
— Darren Ankrom focuses on climate change.
Follow @darren_ankrom
“Hurricanes Likely to Get Stronger & More Frequent: Study,” by Andrew Freedman.
Climate Central, July 8, 2013.
While it is generally agreed that climate change causes stronger cyclones, a recently released study by an MIT-based hurricane researcher predicts the storms will not only get worse, but will occur more often, too. His chilling results forecast a 40 percent rise in major hurricanes, Category 3 or higher, a bold leap against the scientific grain. The one-two-punch of more and deadlier storms could be a knockout blow for low-lying, coastal areas.
— Humna Bhojani focuses on the War on Terror and the Middle East.
Follow @bhojani_h
“Woman’s work,” by Francesca Borri. Columbia Journalism Review, July 1, 2013.
As an aspiring war reporter, I was particularly stirred by this freelancer's brutally honest account of reporting from Syria. Journalism is ruthless enough as it is; war makes it even more so. Borri gives penetrating insight into the frustration, the fear and the flimsy financial prospects that freelancers face.
...wish me luck?
— Rick Carp focuses on media, psychology and environmentalism.
“What I learned from the Tar Sands Healing Walk,” by Emma Pullman. Rabble.ca, July 10, 2013.
The author traveled with First Nations members during the fourth annual Healing Walk last week (during the same time as an oil spill in the Athabasca River and the train disaster in Quebec). The author recites old prophecies (related to a boy who was born last Thursday) that apparently came true last week, which "signal the time to act." She relates the story of one group of Cree peoples who wanted to fight against settlers who couldn't be reasoned with. The tribal elder told them it would be futile and a losing battle, but that one day "there will be a generation of their children that will be our friends. So that's the time to stand." Amid a variety of near-constant extraction-related disasters, continued conversion of diverse cultures to consumer capitalism and looming ecological catastrophe, it is clear that day has arrived.
— Keenan Duffey focuses on Middle East national politics.
@LarryOfMcArabia
“Egypt: Coup d’État, Act II,” by Tariq Ramadan. TariqRamadan.com, July 9, 2013.
Tariq Ramadan, the renowned intellectual, dispels the justifications offered by many Westerners and secular Egyptians for the overthrow of the Morsi government and calls the events of last week what they truly are: a coup d'etat. A revolution hard won by the people has been swept away in the name of Western ideals but in reality, it is nothing more than a military power grab. The Obama administration's silence demonstrates that while the United States might speak about democratic principles, in the end it will always support those actors who will best guarantee American strategic interests.
— Prashanth Kamalakanthan focuses on racism, imperialism, and student/worker activism.
Follow @pkinbrief
“Debt—a global scam,” by Dinyar Godrej. New Internationalist, July 2013.
Reviewing the contours of global indebtedness, Dinyar Godrej makes a powerful moral argument (heard increasingly) that we can no longer view debt to global finance as "something owed"; it has become "just senseless exploitation." Across cultures there have always been boundaries for what constitutes usury and extortion, and Godrej argues we need to understand the creditor class as doing this on a global scale. Outside of this rhetorical framing, he also cites interesting research showing the current state of affairs is in strict economic terms a regression from past gains, maintained through brute force.
— Eunji Kim focuses on gender, race, media and East Asian politics.
Follow @eunjiiikim
“Automatic throttle faulty in crash: pilot,” by Seo Jee-yeon. The Korea Herald, July 10, 2013.
When the initial chaos following Asiana Airline plane crash died down, officials began questioning what ended the seemingly normal flight in tragedy. Following the NTSB official's briefing that mentioned interviewing the crew of Flight 214, reports spewed out from both the US and Korean media. While two countries (or three, including China) focused heavily on the probable cause of the accident, the initial focus was starkly different, with the US weighing in on the trainee pilot while Korea pointed out Boeing 777's possible malfunction. This Korea Herald article presents Koreans' outlook on the issue, and shows how issues unrelated to politics or foreign affairs will still have strikingly different voices.
— Samantha Lachman focuses on reproductive justice, health care access and intersectionality.
Follow @samlachman
“Female inmates sterilized in California prisons without approval,” by Corey Johnson. The Sacramento Bee, July 7, 2013.
The Center for Investigative Reporting found that doctors contracted by California's prison system sterilized almost 150 inmates from 2006 to 2010 without state approval. Forced sterilization is just as much of a reproductive justice issue as restrictions on abortion access, but gets less attention from the media, and generates less of an outcry from the public. Every person, inmate or not, deserves control over her reproductive choices, obviously—but in a week when NC's GOP state legislators sneakily attached restrictions on abortions and clinics to a bill on motorcycle safety, we're reminded, again, that this concept needs to be fought on behalf of everyone.
— Rebecca Nathanson focuses on social movements, student organizing and labor.
Follow @beckynathanson
“From 20 cents to everything else — the struggle for the narrative in Brazil,” by Vanessa Zettler. Waging Nonviolence, July 10, 2013.
From a bus fare hike to a response to inequality embodied by new stadiums being built for the 2014 World Cup to a right-wing nationalist movement promoted by the media to a revolutionary one inspired by Turkey, the protests in Brazil have been explained in countless different ways over the past weeks. In this piece, Brazilian writer Vanessa Zettler walks through the chronology of the movement, explaining how it has, at various times, seemed to prove all of these varying explanations right and debating the balance between "breadth of discontent" and concrete demands that can produce tangible results.
— Jake Scobey-Thal focuses on human rights and conflict in Asia and Africa
Follow @jakescobey
“Buried Secrets,” by Patrick Radden Keefe. The New Yorker, July 8, 2013.
Why do Africa's most impoverished nations fail to reap the rewards of their vast natural resources? Patrick Radden Keefe weaves the story systemic corruption in Guinea, a new reformist president—and the iron ore deposits that prop it all up.
— Aviva Stahl focuses on Islamophobia in the US and the UK and its links to racism, homophobia/transphobia and the prison industrial complex.
Follow @stahlidarity
“Pelican Bay Prison Hunger-Strikers' Stories,” by Gabriel Reyes. Truthout, July 9, 2013.
On July 8, over 30,000 prisoners from across California began a work and hunger strike to demand basic human rights. Truthout is publishing a series of first-hand accounts from prisoners on strike inside the SHU (Security Housing Unit) at Pelican Bay State Prison, all of whom are plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights to challenge conditions of long-term solitary confinement. In this one, Gabriel Reyes describes what he's faced for the past sixteen years: spending 22.5 hours each day in what he calls a "living tomb"—a tiny, windowless cell, let out only to exercise in a dark, cement enclosure.
— John Thomason focuses on pieces that situate contemporary American political debates in historical and/or intellectual contexts.
@John_Thom_
“Reforming Michelle Rhee,” by Jeff Guo. The New Republic, July 8, 2013.
Too often the education reform movement is portrayed as a messianic force that descends from the heavens to fire bad teachers, close bad schools and give poor children a chance at college. This piece demonstrates that the movement (and its money) may indeed be a godsend, but only for red-state Republicans who see a once-in-a-lifetime chance to curtail public investment in a major way. A chance to make history, indeed. But even the Tea Partiers get cold feet when it comes to enacting these so-called reforms.
Student Loan Bill Fails Again
A Senate vote to restore low interest rates temporarily on some new federal student loans failed to advance yesterday, July 10, increasing the odds that college students will rack up additional debt due to Beltway inaction.
Supporters had hoped to restore the 3.4 percent rate of interest on subsidized Stafford loans, or loans made to undergraduate students from moderate- and low-income households, that had prevailed for the last few years. The interest rate on new subsidized Stafford loans doubled to 6.8 percent on July 1, as previously scheduled. The proposal on Wednesday was supported by fifty-one senators and opposed by forty-nine, needing at least sixty votes in order to advance to a final vote.
Last night, Huff Post Live brought on student debt expert and author Cryn Johannsen to discuss the student interest rate debacle, which Johannsen skillfully turned into a much broader and deeper exploration of the student lending crisis.
From Austin to Charleston, Students One-Up the Supreme Court
Students at CUNY’s Medgar Evers College hit the streets to demand input in university governance. (Credit: CSOME)
E-mail questions, tips or proposals to studentmovement@thenation.com. For earlier dispatches, check out posts from January 18, February 1, February 15, March 1, March 15, April 2, April 15, April 26, May 10, May 24, June 7 and June 21.
1. Chicago Board of Education Disrupts Peaceful Student Speak-Out
In June, Chicago Public Schools introduced a new per-pupil funding new system in which school budgets will be cut between $200,000 and $4 million. As a response to the massive budget cuts, Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools took action at the June 26 Board of Education meeting. At the end of the two-minute speech, students stood up one by one to speak out against the board. Students were escorted away from the meeting by security guards as audience members chanted in support. CSOSOS is expecting to take a similar action during the next board meeting on July 24.
—Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools
2. CUNY Students Rise Up Against Medgar Evers Takeover
The Medgar Evers College Student Movement originated out of students’ frustration over three years of administrative and fiscal mismanagement. Under President William Pollard, retention declined by 600 students, course options were drastically reduced and class sizes doubled. After a 300-strong walk-outin October and a January letter to Governor Cuomo and Brooklyn elected officials, Pollard resigned. Since then, students have met with elected officials and civil rights activists, ranging from Harry Belafonte to 1199 Purple Gold, to build support for shared governance. In April, CSOME demanded that all twenty-three student representatives remain on the college governance plan—which CUNY leadership unilaterally scrapped. Over the summer, students are campaigning to get 6,000 signatures in support of democracy at Medgar Evers.
—Evangeline Byars
3. As Prop 8 Falls, Trans Justice Lunges Forward
In California schools, many transgender students aren’t able to get the credits they need to graduate—just because of who they are. Gay-Straight Alliance club activists across the state have been advocating for AB 1266, the School Success and Opportunity Act, to make sure all students have the opportunity to succeed. Last week, the bill passed the state senate, and now heads to Governor Jerry Brown for his signature. If the governor signs, transgender students will be able to participate fully in all school programs and classes. The bill is sponsored by the Gay-Straight Alliance Network, Transgender Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Equality California and Gender Spectrum.
—GSA Network’s Statewide Advocacy Council
4. In Texas, Students Build an Anti-Racist Majority
In the weeks leading up to the Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling in Fisher v. The University of Texas at Austin, students from We Support UTlaunched a social media campaign in support of the university’s usage of holistic admissions policies. In the past year, students from the Asian Desi Pacific Islander American Collective, Students for Equity and Diversity, Black Students Alliance and other groups came together to create WSUT, and have been collaborating with the NAACP, Asian American and Mexican American legal defense and education funds to educate students on the history of affirmative action and its importance in higher education. Now that the case has been remanded to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, WSUT is asking students and community members to join in support for holistic admissions. On July 10, students will host a FisherGoogle Hangout with civil rights allies to answer questions about the history of landmark affirmative action cases and discuss the future of expanding opportunity in higher education.
—Samantha Robles, Jennifer Tran and Andy Escobar
5. In South Carolina, the Struggle for Voting Rights Rolls On
The Supreme Court’s June 25 decision in Shelby Co. v. Holder to strike down Section IV of the Voting Rights Act was a bitter pill for democracy—especially for people of color. Section IV required counties and states with a history of voter disenfranchisement to obtain approval from the Department of Justice before making amends to election laws. Immediately after the ruling, the state of Texas passed its voter ID bill, while other states, including Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina, are working to implement pending voting laws created before the hearings. The NAACP issued a petition telling Congress to act against the rulings. Last election season, Francis Marion University’s Non Pan-Hellenic Council, College Democrats and NAACP conducted informational seminars and rallies to protest South Carolina’s voter ID Bill. As we await Congress’s response, the organizations will work to educate voters about the Shelbydecision and rally for reinstatement of the full Voting Rights Act.
—Asa K. Fludd
6. Will the Ed Department Act on Title IX?
Under Title IX, students are guaranteed essential civil rights to safe campuses and necessary accommodations in the aftermath of violence. However, forty-one years after this landmark legislation, nearly two in three schools do not fulfill their legal responsibilities. One reason for this continued abuse is that the Department of Education doesn’t levy sanctions against offending schools. The time is ripe for change on our campuses: an unprecedented number of students are filing federal Title IX complaints, and the department’s civil rights office issued a powerful clarification of standards with the 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter. To stop campus violence, though, the Department must back up this strong language with action. ED ACT NOW, a collective of campus survivors and allies, is calling on the Department to enforce anti-violence law with a petition, which will be delivered during a public rally on July 15 in DC. Activists are calling on students and allies across the country to sign the statement and join the DC demonstration.
—ED ACT NOW
7. Will “School Safety” Answer to Students?
From June 28 to 30, I traveled with a group of Gay-Straight Alliance activists from Los Angeles to Denver to join more than 200 youth and adults for the seventh school-to-prison pipeline ActionCamp, hosted by by the Advancement Project and Denver’s Padres & Jóvenes Unidos with the support of groups like the Dignity in Schools Campaign and Gay-Straight Alliance Network. As I know from my experience in South LA, youth are being pushed out of school and criminalized through the overuse of harsh discipline policies, police and juvenile courts. ActionCamp focused on what we can do in our communities to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline and ensure that youth of color, youth with disabilities, low-income youth and LGBTQ youth can stay in school and succeed. GSAs have worked against the school-to-prison pipeline by advocating for alternative discipline, like the peer mediation program we support in my high school, John C. Fremont, and by making sure students know they have somewhere to turn.
—Sandy Chan
8. Oregon Passes Landmark Tuition Bill
On July 1, the same day federal student loan interest rates doubled due to congressional inaction, the Oregon legislature unanimously passed HB 3472, Pay It Forward, a state-level solution to the student debt crisis. The bill begins the creation of a pilot-program in which students would attend public universities and colleges tuition-free. Instead of relying on loans to pay for college up front, students would pay a small, fixed percentage of their income into a public higher education fund after graduation. The proposal, which came out of a Portland State University class on student debt, eliminates the role of lenders and does not include debt or interest. Frustrated by inaction at the federal level to solve the student debt crisis, and by Oregon’s standing as 45th in the nation for per-student public funding for higher education, students worked with the Oregon Working Families Party and the Oregon Center for Public Policy to create the bill. The pilot program must still get final approval from the legislature in 2015.
—Sami Alloy and Kevin Rackham
9. Colorado Builds New Fronts Against Debt
After meeting with members of the Colorado Student Power Alliance on June 21, Congresswoman Diana DeGette pledged to co-sponsor the Student Loan Fairness Act, SB 1330, which caps federal interest rates for future student loans at 3.4 percent, reduces the public interest repayment to five years, allows borrowers to defer interest during times of unemployment and allows federal consolidation of private loans. Though the legislation doesn’t address the doubling of federal student loan rates that went into effect on July 1 after Congress was unable to reach a deal before the July 4 holiday, it offers a long-term solution to record-breaking levels of student debt. DeGette is the fifty-first sponsor of the bill, which is supported by the NAACPand the US Student Association. In addition to legislative advocacy, COSPA has organized with Jobs with Justice and the Student Labor Action Committee to launch divestment campaigns targeting Wells Fargo, pressure Sallie Mae through direct action and back walk-outs in protest of school privatization.
—Kaitlyn Griffith
10. Students v. Walmart
On July 29, protesters stormed the streets of SoHo, New York, joining over thirty-five cities in a national day of actiondemanding corporations sign the Bangladesh fire and safety agreement. Over 1,200 Bangladeshi workers died this past year in factories owned by brands and retailers including GAP, WalMart, H&M and Target. Bangladesh, the world’s second largest garment producer, has over 3,500 factories, where the majority of the four million workers are women, paid less than $37 a month, in an industry that makes over $20 billion annually. More than one hundred protestersfrom 99 Pickets, Desis Rising Up & Moving, United Students Against Sweatshops, NYNJRJB Workers United, the YaYa Network, Student Labor Action Movement, the United Auto Workers and the Rude Mechanical Orchestra picketed around these corporations, disturbing the consumer peace and bringing attention to the need for corporate accountability and consumer awareness.
—Sharmin Hossain
Interns' Favorite Articles of the Week (7/5/13)
This week: revolution in Egypt, reproductive rights in DC, elections in South Korea and solidarity with Bangladeshi workers everywhere.
Darren Ankrom focuses on climate change.
“Are Simultaneous Floods, Drought an Omen in the Pacific?” by Terrell Johnson. Weather Underground, June 30, 2013.
As large countries bicker about climate change doubting what President Obama last week called “the overwhelming judgment of science,” low-lying nations such as the Marshall Islands are being hammered by the changing climate right now. Recently, the Marshalls (a chain of more than 1,000 islands in the North Pacific Ocean called home by an estimated 70,000 people) were hit with twin, seemingly paradoxical weather emergencies—an intense drought in the northern islands and heavy flooding in the southern parts. It’s a reminder that the Marshalls and other places like it, which have contributed virtually nothing to climate change, are simultaneously the most vulnerable and the first to feel its affects.
Humna Bhojani focuses on the War on Terror and the Middle East.
“US drone strikes more deadly to Afghan civilians than manned aircraft—adviser,” by Spencer Ackerman. The Guardian, July 2, 2013.
While the President and government officials have droned on about the precision of drone strikes and their ability to reduce collateral damage, a study found that drones were “an order of magnitude more likely to result in civilian casualties per engagement.” Precision targeting (by drones or otherwise) might be precise, but it may not necessarily be accurate. Accuracy and precision are two different concepts. While drones may be able to precisely target a building, there is no way of exactly knowing if that is indeed the building they should be targeting. The answer to that question (and the accuracy of a strike) depends on intelligence.
Rick Carp focuses on media, psychology and environmentalism.
“A Spiritual Way of Seeing,” by Peter Gabel. Tikkun via Truthout, June 27, 2013.
Drawing on the psychology of R.D. Laing, theology and film, the author demonstrates how our material-centered worldview leads to forms of alienation that are rooted in the inherent disconnection existing in our superficial, modern relationships, which lack genuine “‘mutual recognition’ of our common humanity.” But this loss of community facilitates the ability of a person to ignore the plights of the Other, which leads to even more hyper-individualism, the continued fraying of social bonds and more internalized alienation! How do we restore solidarity and collective care when we live in a market-based society (that pits people against each other in competition), which is “primarily characterized by the denial of this desire for mutual recognition, in the sense that we are primarily in flight from each other and experience each other as a threat?”
Keenan Duffey focuses on Middle East national politics.
“Is Egypt approaching revolution redux?” by Amro Hassan. The Egypt Monocle, June 26, 2013.
The situation in Egypt has changed rapidly in recent days. This piece from The Egypt Monocle, written last week, is an honest appraisal of the feelings of the Egyptian people and their willingness to challenge, or not challenge, the rule of Mohammad Morsi. Where these protests are headed is uncertain, but it is important to know where they began.
Prashanth Kamalakanthan focuses on racism, imperialism, and student/worker activism.
“Austerity Agonistes,” by Mark Levinson. Dissent, Summer 2013.
“Austerity Agonistes” in this summer’s Dissent (ironically paywalled) offers a usefully-distilled account of the political history of austerity economics. In a review of two recent books on austerity—Mark Blyth’s Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea and Robert Kuttner’s Debtor’s Prison—Levinson traces how neoliberal policy recommendations fostered a “privatized Keynesianism,” where credit markets for regular people and derivatives/futures trading for the wealthy came to stand in for actual growth in living standards, cyclically inflating bursting bubbles that redistribute upward. It is a dense, historically grounded economic narrative that suggests we would be better served embracing human communities instead of economic models.
Eunji Kim focuses on gender, race, media and East Asian politics.
“Liberal Lawmakers Question Legitimacy of South Korean Election,” by Choe Sang-Hun. The New York Times, June 26, 2013.
The 2007 meeting between the late South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has been dominating South Korean politics lately. Since this New York Times report, Congress passed a bill requesting the release of the meeting’s original text, recording and other related files. Some politicians’ objection that the law protects foreign affairs related documents out of the public eye for 30 years did little to stop the process. Too bad Korea doesn’t allow filibustering.
Samantha Lachman focuses on reproductive justice, health care access and intersectionality.
“Independence Day Rings Hollow for D.C. Women,” by Kimberly Inez McGuire and Mari Schimmer. RH Reality Check, July 2, 2013.
Though there’s been much national scrutiny of recent restrictions upon reproductive heath access in Ohio and in Texas (and rightly so), a huge injustice has sustained less attention is in DC, where lower-income women are unable to have their abortions covered through Medicaid. As the authors explain, Congressional GOP legislators routinely block DC from using local funds to provide health coverage for abortion. “Home rule” is a phantom concept for the District.
Rebecca Nathanson focuses on social movements, student organizing and labor.
“Global Movement to End Death Traps Mobilizes Supply-Chain Solidarity,” by Jeff Schuhrke. In These Times, July 1, 2013.
After more than 1,100 workers died when Rana Plaza collapsed in April, many companies rushed to sign the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. But more than two months later, a few retailers still refuse to sign the accord that will help ensure safer working conditions for workers who produce American garments. Those remaining hold-outs, including Gap and Walmart, say that signing will leave them open to “unlimited liability,” but that explanation isn’t good enough—this past weekend, activists around the globe, including myself, marched and rallied outside of Gap and Walmart stores to pressure the companies into signing the binding agreement that could help prevent another tragedy like the Rana Plaza collapse from happening again.
Jake Scobey-Thal focuses on human rights and conflict in Asia and Africa
“Critics Question Karzai Choices for Human Rights Panel,” by Rod Nordland. The New York Times, July 2, 2013.
Rights activists have publicly criticized Karzai’s objectionable appointments to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. With coalition forces set to pull out of Afghanistan in 2014, many donors have attached human rights and good governance benchmarks to continued aid commitments. These appointments are a test case as to what extent foreign donors are willing to leverage their influence to push the Karzai government on rights.
Aviva Stahl focuses on Islamophobia in the US and the UK and its links to racism, homophobia/transphobia and the prison industrial complex.
“In Jail, ‘Bowl Phone’ Takes Edge Off Inmates’ Isolation,” by Chris Hedges. Truthdig via Truthout, July 1, 2013.
In this revealing yet humorous piece—which (warning) tends towards lasciviousness at the end—Hedges explores the lengths to which prisoners will go to communicate when they face extended periods of isolation.
John Thomason focuses on pieces that situate contemporary American political debates in historical and/or intellectual contexts.
@John_Thom_
“The Criminal N.S.A.,” by Jennifer Stisa Granick And Christopher Jon Sprigman. The New York Times, June 26, 2013.
We thought that having a former constitutional law professor as president would mean we didn’t need pieces like this. The authors note that the administration’s interpretation of section 215 of the Patriot Act relies on a definition of “relevance” that is so expansive it’s rendered meaningless. This has an obvious parallel in the administration’s justification for its foreign drone strikes, which, as Jeremy Scahill points out in his reporting, rely on a similarly inflated definition of the term “imminence.”
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