At 9:45 a.m. on April 20th, an explosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon, an offshore drilling rig owned by British Petroleum (BP) in the Gulf of Mexico. Survivors had mere minutes to escape the inferno as black, multi-story clouds of smoke rose into the sky. The captain of a rescue boat reported the fire as being so hot that it melted the paint off of his boat. One hundred and fifteen were evacuated, 17 of whom were injured. After burning for two days, the Deepwater Horizon sank at 10:21 a.m. on April 22nd. By that time the United States National Guard had already covered more than 1000 miles by sea and air in a massive rescue operation. The next day, the Guard called off the search for 11 missing persons who were probably incinerated on the spot and are now presumed dead. At a press conference on April 30th, BP still did not know the cause of the explosion. Interviews with rig workers conducted during BP’s internal investigation revealed that a bubble of flammable methane gas escaped from the oil well and shot up the drill column, expanding rapidly and bursting through several barriers before igniting and exploding in what is known as a blowout.

According to the most recent estimates, the oil spill emanating from the site of the sunken rig measures an area of at least 2,500 square miles and is viewable from space. Five to twenty-five thousand barrels, or between two hundred thousand and a million gallons, of crude oil from the Macondo Prospect deepwater oil field is being discharged into the Gulf daily. Efforts have been made to contain the spill, including the construction of a hundred ton steel-and-concrete box, and the controlled burning of sections of oil slick in open water. However, the spill will surely eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez as the worst US oil disaster in history. The oil slick has already reached the Gulf coast 48 miles away. On May 8th, blobs of tar appeared on Alabama’s white beaches. Like the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, also caused by a blowout of an Union Oil rig, this oil spill will undoubtedly cause black tides and the unnecessary deaths of endangered turtle and bird species. The spill will damage fishing and tourism industries in addition to destroying or disrupting hundreds of estuaries, deltas, ecosystems and habitats that house thousands of species. This is the Gulf Coast environment’s 9/11. Like the human version, this 9/11 is a call to arms, not against the Middle East, but the United States’ continued reliance on oil, coal and other fossil fuels, whether dredged from the Middle East or from off our shores.

Like the recession, the blowout wasn’t supposed to happen, and like bailout companies such as AIG and GM, Deepwater Horizon was “too big to fail.” Reminiscent of the Titanic, Deepwater was built to epic proportions. The ultra-deepwater, column-stabilized, semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) or floating drill rig was completed for Transocean Ltd. by South Korean Hyundai Heavy Industries in 2001 and leased to BP until 2013. One of the largest of its kind and built to tap leftover oil beds once inaccessible due to ocean depth, Deepwater measured 396 by 256 feet, could operate in waters of eight thousand feet deep, and drill up to 30 thousand feet deep. BP churned out a lovely 52-page safety report in February 2009 to condone the necessity of drilling that deep, saying it was “unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur from the proposed activities,” and that “due to the distance to shore and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected.” In fact, seven BP executives who were later injured but survived were celebrating Deepwater’s safety record when the blast occurred.

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, a lost race of dwarves unearthed a fiery demon while mining for precious metal. Likewise, BP “delved too greedily and too deep,” expressing an eagerness to violate the law by drilling to depths of 22-25 thousand feet instead of the 18 thousand feet maximum depth allowed by its permit. Such eagerness and greed contributed to the calamity.

BP was named as the responsible party by the US government, and will be held accountable for all costs of the clean-up. The company has accepted responsibility but, anticipating multiple lawsuits, now argues that the accident was not entirely its fault because the rig was run by Transocean personnel. Adrian Rose, vice president of Transocean, has said that there was “no indication of any problems” just prior to the blowout. Workers were performing standard routines and the rig was drilling but was not in production. Rose then passed the buck to US oil company Halliburton, which had completed a delicate operation of reinforcing the drilling hole’s metal pipe casing with concrete only 20 hours before the blast. Pressured by Congress on May 1st, Halliburton confirmed that it cemented the Macondo Prospect oil well but never set a cement plug to properly cap the hole, claiming that “operations had not reached a stage where a final plug was needed.” Rose concluded that “undoubtedly abnormal pressure” accumulated in the drill column contributing to the massive destructive power of a single fiery methane bubble. Eighteen of the 39 oil rig blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico have been triggered by poorly-done concrete reinforcements of oil pipes. Meanwhile Haliburton, which has been associated with the Bush family and once had former Vice President Cheney as its CEO, is already under fire in Australia for an earlier catastrophic 2005 blowout in the Timor Sea caused by its faulty application of concrete casing.

Some politicians are still touting a “drill, baby, drill” approach to solving the nation’s up and coming oil crisis. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), for example, still supports offshore drilling and downplayed Deepwater, saying “accidents happen.” Some conservatives see this as an opportunity to criticize President Obama. On May 5th, former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin tweeted “learn from Alaska’s lesson w/foreign oil co’s: don’t naively trust.” Palin, however, seems to forget not only that a Valdez oil tanker leak in 1989 off the coast of Alaska was the fault of ExxonMobil, a U.S. company, but also that BP once employed her husband, Todd. Due to this oil spill’s proximity to New Orleans, right wing pundits have been quick to call Deepwater President Obama’s Katrina. But this comparison is a dangerous one for conservatives if they are trying to make Obama look bad. First, the Bush Administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2007 was abysmally slow, while in less than a month the Obama Administration has assigned personnel from the Coast Guard, the Corps of Engineers, the Interior Department, the Departments of Commerce and Defense, the EPA and NOAA to the task of investigating and cleaning up the spill. Second, long-term culpability for the disaster belongs to the Bush Administration for the utter corruption of the Minerals Management Service (MMS), an Interior Department oil drilling oversight agency.

Like the recession, Deepwater was another “accident” that was a long time in coming. Both problems can be linked to the Bush Administration’s rabid efforts to deregulate, whether it was Wall Street or “Big Oil.” Between January and March 2001, incoming Vice President Cheney sat down with more than a hundred oil industry officials in secret meetings that eventually drew up a “wish list” of industry demands to be implemented by the Big Oil-friendly administration. Cheney also packed the MMS with many of his oil-loving cronies, who lead the corrupted regulatory agency to go to bed with the industry– often literally. In 2009, the Inspector General conducted an investigation into the MMS that found that MMS officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.” Female employees and sexual favors were sent to industry big wigs in return for illegal oil contracts for agency workers. Agency workers were more likely to turn a blind eye to unsafe or unfair oil company policies if they could do things like get so drunk at a golf event sponsored by Shell that they had to stay in a hotel paid for by Shell. Lobbyists also paid out agency officials with personal contracts, concert tickets, golf, paintball or ski outings and other bribes.

This “culture of ethical failure” that pervaded the industry and its regulatory agency not only cost the American taxpayers millions but also went out of its way to produce bad science to justify unregulated offshore drilling in the tempting, never-before tapped oil prospects of the Gulf of Mexico. The comprised regulatory agency encouraged companies to take dangerous risks, such as BP’s failure to install a deep pipe shut-off valve. Also in 2003, the MMS released a study saying that “acoustic systems are not recommended because they tend to be very costly.” An acoustic regulator or a remotely triggered “dead man’s” switch could have shut off Deepwater’s gushing pipe at the seafloor oil well opening when the manual switch failed or couldn’t have been reached. However, no such switch was installed on BP’s oilrig because President Bush’s 2005 energy bill dropped an earlier 2000 MMS requirement for such regulators, claiming that industry standards at oilrigs were “failsafe.” An “expensive” acoustic trigger costs $500,000 while the cost of Deepwater will be more than $14 billion.

However, in the wake of Deepwater, it looks like there could be political movement in a better direction. An energy bill in the works that sought to expand offshore drilling will no longer hold water with Democrats, especially those from Gulf Coast states. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said such a bill was “dead on arrival.” Governors have also shown solidarity, most notably Arnold Schwarzenegger of California who said, “You turn on the television and see this enormous disaster, you say to yourself, ‘Why would we want to take on that kind of risk?’” Greenpeace is already out protesting in the capital. They also have an online petition touting clean energy, citing the dangers of not only Deepwater, but another, earlier methane gas explosion that took the lives of 29 West Virginian coal miners in April.

How many more will the U.S. sacrifice for our quest for fossil fuels? Even if Deepwater had not happened, the oil it would have ultimately pumped to the surface would have been later burned for fuel, releasing tons more carbon dioxide into the air. Forget offshore drilling; the U.S. is already scraping the bottom of the barrel with our aging on-shore oil wells and our dependency on OPEC’s volatile gas prices, which were more than four dollars a gallon before the recession. Worldwide, oil wells will only hold out at the current rate of consumption for 30-50 more years. What will we do when those wells run dry? How much more of the environment and the economy will we be willing to lift as a burnt offering to our faulty faith in high profit margins? Surely, the money can’t be worth what we are doing to our planet. Humanity’s funeral pyres of flaming rigs, scrubbed and un-scrubbed smokestacks, and avid coal mining in China are all a part of a fossil fuel complex that is trapping heat in the atmosphere. Doomsday preachers predict the world ending in fire, but their apocalyptic myths can’t be all that far from the reality of global warming.

Thankfully there’s hope on the horizon. By May 12th, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) hopes to unveil his long-awaited bi-partisan energy and climate bill, which aims to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. No longer will the Senate pander to the obstructions of Big Oil and special interests which perpetuate America’s addiction with dirty, unsafe fossil fuels. Capitol Hill will finally penalize pollution and push the car industry and the national grid into a new era of clean, safe energy. In January’s State of the Union Address, President Obama proposed a plan to combat fossil fuels and unemployment by offering funding to green start-ups that will provide the technology for alternate energies as well as a new wave of “green” jobs. President Obama knows that China, or any nation, that produces a viable industrial alternative to oil or coal will become the world’s future green giant and stands to benefit from the future jobs and capital flowing in from such a venture. President Obama rightfully wants the United States to be that nation. Not only will such a coupling of interests allow the U.S. to get back on its feet, but it will allow us to fulfill the disreputable BP’s early green moniker and finally move “Beyond Petroleum.”

Despite the green movement, even the most optimistic must fear that people tend to care a lot more about terrorism, immigration, abortion and gay rights than the future of the environment. The green revolution, worryingly, has become something of a fad—especially for commercial corporations trying to tap the media’s next great new hype. Terrorism and other topics are indeed very important, but only a few people seem to realize that a planet in peril is just as important and pressing. Somebody has to take green beyond the fad; somebody has to take it seriously. Green jobs must be, have to be, in America’s future. Between oil spills and oils wells drying up, the stakes are just too high for things to be otherwise. Our environment and our world cannot afford another Deepwater.

Last issue, I reported on Dr. Dambisa Moyo’s talk on her book Dead Aid in which she argues that the billions of government-to-government aid to Africa is not only an inefficient mess, but is also hurting African countries. She reasons that aid harms development directly by causing foreign dependence and inflation, and indirectly through corruption, mismanagement of resources, lack of foreign investments, inadequate healthcare and civil unrest. Moyo believes that greatly reducing and eventually eliminating aid will reduce the dependency of African governments on first-world countries and allow them to pursue investments and encourage entrepreneurs and microfinance on their own. The West’s low expectations for the potential of African economic success has kept these nations on a seemingly never-ending stream of aid.

Moyo received her MA from Harvard and her PhD at Oxford. She has worked on hedge funds and macroeconomics for eight years at Goldman Sachs. Hailing from Zambia, she has seen first-hand the effects of the band-aid of aid. Others such as New York University economist William Easterly also agree with Moyo, yet her argument is still up and coming. For years, more aid has been the only way to go. Surprisingly, the man who has backed billions of dollars in Western aid to Africa is none other than Moyo’s former mentor and lecturer: Jeffrey Sachs.

Who is Jeffrey Sachs? Raised in Detroit, Sachs received his BA, MA, and PhD all from Harvard, and was appointed the special advisor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and from 2002 to 2006 he was the director of the UN Millennium Project. Sachs currently also serves as special advisor to the current UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. He’s been named as one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” twice, once in 2004 and again in 2005.

Despite Sachs’ impressive education, he still believes that the only way to end extreme poverty, (defined by living below a $1 a day, as 70 percent of the billion people in Africa are) is through donations in the form of billions of dollars from Western governments. He wants to raise worldwide aid from $65 billion a year in 2002 to $195 billion in the 2015. In his New York Times bestseller The End of Poverty, he cites India and China as examples of aid success stories; in the span of two decades (70’s and 80’s), 300 million people in China alone were lifted out of extreme poverty. However he fails to realize that China received little economic aid packages from national governments when it was making the shift from a communist economic framework to capitalist. A major internal land reform was the primary force that lifted thousands of Chinese peasants from the communes into the middle class. Africa instead has received billions of dollars in external aid, yet since 1970 the continent has actually grown poorer. While the rest of the world, for the most part, has grown richer, the GDPs for African nations continue to lag behind.

In a 2009 article in the Huffington Post, Moyo responded to one of Sach’s Huffington Post articles continuing the ongoing dialogue regarding foreign aid. According to Moyo, when Sachs was her lecturer at Harvard he made the statement: “the path to long-term development would only be achieved through private sector involvement and free market solutions.” Nonetheless, Sachs still pushes foreign aid. William Easterly, in his book review of The End of Poverty in the Washington Post and his subsequent book White Man’s Burden, argued that nations stuck in a “poverty trap” can escape without the massive scaling up of government-to-government aid. He offered statistical evidence that many emerging markets in Asia, i.e. China, Singapore and South Korea, have gained momentum without the help of billions of dollars of aid. There is an inherent bigotry in Sach’s approach to ‘helpless Africans.’ Moyo feels that “Mr. Sachs’s development approach was made for countries such as Russia, Poland and Bolivia, whereas the aid- dependency approach, with no accompanying job creation, was reserved for Africa.” Instead of allowing elected officials to represent Africa nations, seven of which have said they don’t need a continuous flow of aid, Sachs and his celebrity friends Bono and Angelina Jolie dictate what Africa needs during UN and G8 conferences.

On the weekend of April 17th, the Dartmouth Great Issues Scholars and yours truly went to YaleUniversity for the 7th Annual Unite for Sight Conference on Global Health and Innovation. Conference sessions were held in a host of different fields, such as: the non-profit sector, philanthropy, medicine, public service, microfinance, human right advocacy, and health policy. There were a number of keynote speakers, including Sachs himself. The Great Issues Scholars had already had lunch with Moyo, heard her talk, and obtained signed copies of her book. That weekend we heard the argument from the other side—Jeff Sachs.

Sachs began his talk by pointing out that it has been a decade since “We the Peoples,” the creation of the Millennium Development Goals: eight commitments against global issues like poverty, treatable disease, discrimination against women, and illiteracy. In 2000, Secretary-General Annan and Sachs challenged the world to achieve these goals by 2015. With only five years left, is the world any closer to ending problems like poverty and hunger? Sachs felt that advances made in technology such as cell phones, the improvement of primary health delivery, new HIV/AIDS medicines, and new finance and business models were helping the whole world work toward achieving the MDGs. Sachs also believed that if the richest one billion in the world each gave $30 year, in one year $30 billion could be put towards the MDGs. Ten cents on each $100 could go to funding health services for the third world.

Sachs remains dedicated to aid because he feels that since African governments have so little to budget, spending on one sector means not having enough to allocate to another sector like, say, healthcare. Because of this, supposedly an African government lacks the ability to improve their entire nation. He sees no window for microfinance and he wishes to quadruple world aid and pad the World Fund. According to Sachs, the UN should also open another global fund and pump troubled economies, such as that of the US, for more money that will be ineffectively used and will contribute to the conditions that necessitate aid in the first place. Sachs says donor countries don’t give enough, and although he makes a good point that the US spends too much on military funding, he wants to press world leaders into passively dumping aid on Africa instead of actively seeking investments in Africa.

For the final question in the Q&A period after the talk, I asked Sachs about his thoughts on Moyo’s position and those of other intellectuals who say aid isn’t working. Sachs became quite spirited, to say the least, and lashed out at Moyo, referring to her as “that Goldman Sachs employee.” One Great Issue Scholar remarked afterward “I thought he was going to jump off the stage and throttle you.” Sachs defense of aid was constituted almost entirely by what Moyo calls the “emotional argument for aid”; his position was mainly ‘Children are dying!’ Indeed, Sachs did mention how he has been to Africa and has seen children suffering and dying but he offered no economic or logical argument for why aid would work just as well as or better than microfinance or investments in the private sector. He offered no rebuttal to the poor track record of aid and offered no end date for aid. He did not even address Moyo’s most powerful argument: that bucket loads of aid may actually be contributing to the continued destitution of the African continent. In a nutshell, Sachs said there are horrible problems in Africa, so don’t criticize aid; just send more money.

The Unite for Sight Conference was, for the most part, a pro-aid community, and Sachs answer was met by applause. Yet it was obvious that introducing the opposing argument was troubling not only Sachs but to the audience. After Sachs left the podium, his wife Sonia Ehrlich-Sachs, MD came up to talk on the Millennium Villages’ progress on the MDGs in Africa. Dr. Sachs wasn’t as charismatic as her husband and her presentation relied more on its power point instead of effective speaking. Those who questioned her wanted to know if the facts and figures she had up on the screen translated into actual lasting improvement on the ground or in the nation’s government. One questioner wanted to know if this was enough evidence to justify that aid was working, especially for “the other side of the debate.”

Now this isn’t meant to villainize Jeff Sachs. Sachs’s privileged position does not prevent him from taking a deep-seated interest in those in need. However, I think his benevolent character prevents him from seeing that there are other, better ways to help Africa. Moyo doesn’t want the West to ignore the needs of Africa, but she feels that continuing to catch all the fish for Africa will keep it in continuous poverty and is not a sustainable economic course for the West, and the US in particular. As Daniel Quinn describes in his book Ishmael, feeding a group of starving people will only allow them to thrive enough to raise the next generation, and unless these children are taught to feed themselves, they will have no choice but to demand even more.

We cannot hold the Continent’s hand forever and then blindly hope that African governments will suddenly become less corrupt and the common people will magically become entrepreneurs and hedge fund managers. And there are signs that others in the aid community think so too. Although Unite for Sight was pro-aid, it appeared from this conference that the not-for-profit sector is in a transitional stage. More and more people want to empower Africa through investments, loans and business models.

The first keynote speaker of the conference, Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund, gave a presentation entitled “Patient Capital for an Impatient World.” The Acumen Fund supports entrepreneurs in Kenya and other parts of eastern Africa who start projects to alleviate poverty. One entrepreneur started a housing project in the slums of Nairobi, offering small, clean houses with indoor plumbing to people living in tin shanties. Most importantly, these houses are not handouts—they aren’t free, but are offered at reduced loans that once paid off are used to build more houses. Novogratz notes that the fact that houses are not free is key because it gives people a sense of dignity rather than shame at being the recipient of hand-outs.

Innovation in aiding Africa doesn’t stop there. Scott Hilstrom, Co-founder and CEO of the HealthStore Foundation helps create local franchises to dispense much needed medicines as an alternative to the many companies selling counterfeit medicine. HealthStore’s franchises not only have local Africans as business owners and mangers, but also provide the needed oversight to prevent the dispensing of fake pills. Ted London, PhD from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, believes in empowering the people and hidden assets at “The Base of Pyramid” (BoP) through nurturing innovators and encouraging social enterprise balanced with traditional enterprise. The new business model for developing economies involves a development community, a private sector and most importantly, interdependence.

Andrew Wok is the CEO of Root Cause, which according to its website is a research and consulting firm dedicated to “mobilizing the non-profit, public and business sectors work together in a new social impact market.” Wok argues that after trillions of dollars have been poured into poor communities, there has not been a corresponding amount of social progress in return. He wants to create a social impact market that nurtures relationships between non-profits, embraces citizens on the ground as public innovators, and engages Western governments as well as local government. Billy Shore of Share Our Strength, a national organization committed to fighting hunger in the US, spoke on achieving global health through small community wealth. The culture of the non-profits must be recast to capture untapped wealth and aspiring entrepreneurs. How the aid community works right now is “good, but not good enough” he says. Shari Barenbach, President and CEO of the Calvert Foundation, also believes in investment at the “base of the pyramid” instead of handouts. Her foundation works to maximize the flow of capital to developing nations through mainstream investments. Allen Hammond, co-founder and chairman of Healthpoint Services sees the need for hybrid profit/non-profit models. In poverty stricken communities, the poor either pay exorbitant amounts for simple things like sanitary napkins from crooked merchants or they receive free medicine, food and other goods and services from the NGOs. However, due to shame, pride or social stigma, they will avoid the NGOs and will continue to pay exorbitant amounts or go without. It is not immoral to charge a small fee for medicine or clean water if a poor community will buy those goods.

Kevin Starr MD, affiliated with the Mulago Foundation for tactical philanthropy, pushed for an overhaul of the entire way the non-for profit sector does business. Instead of focusing on sad anecdotes to attract donors, NGOs need to start thinking like a capitalist business. He offers the microfinance non-profit Kiva as a good example of a successful NGO that is run well and helps poor communities through loans. Moyo is an avid supporter of Kiva.

The bureaucracies of NGOs right now are for the most part flabby and ineffective. They must start thinking about results in impact rather than profits, and the scalability of their projects and efforts. You can’t have an NGO delivering aid but only 25% of its aid recipients actually climbing out of poverty. A successful intervention in a poor community must be replicable, scalable, and engaging to the local and later national government. Most importantly, the efforts of an NGO must have a staying power so that when the NGO eventually leaves, the community will not revert back to poverty. Aid is like war; there has to be a way to get out once the intervention is over. As the eloquent Dr. Starr put it, “What happens when the donor dollar is gone?”

The face of the aid community is changing, and fortunately Sachs was the only person I heard at the Unite for Sight Conference advocating for billions more in aid. Sachs has done great work drawing attention to global hunger and poverty with the Millennium Villages and the Millennium Development Goals, but he’s stuck in the old way of helping the poor, through free handouts. Although handouts in the billions may alleviate a problem temporarily, they offer no lasting change and do not strike at the root of sustained extreme poverty: lack of investments, capital or participation in global bond markets. Moyo, Starr, Wok, Hammond, Easterly and others are the faces of a new era for aid that will hopefully bring about the end of the current aid situation. “I think Moyo and Sachs desire the same things,” commented Amy Newcomb, director of the Great Issues Scholars program, “but they’re going about it differently.” While Sachs’s vision sees no end in sight for poverty in Africa, Moyo offers a way to systematically revamp Africa’s economy. Sachs would do well to end his long rivalry with Moyo and join in efforts to move Africa beyond aid.

The crowd chants the name of the valiant hero as he prepares to make his entrance and address the rabid crowd of 80,000 who stand jam-packed in the stadium in anticipation of his arrival. A fighting song is played and the wrestling superstar makes his way to the stadium where he is greeted by thousands of screaming fans. In his speech, he vows to prove his opponent wrong at their big showdown. As he finishes, the crowd again cheers “OBAMA, OBAMA! OBAMA!”

Wait, Obama? I thought we were at a wrestling show. Truth be told, I love professional wrestling with a passion despite its theatrical, fake plotlines. But I can’t help but notice the similarities between modern-day American politics and wrestling. Not only do election campaigns incorporate elements of professional wrestling, it seems wrestling is willing to incorporate political elements into its “sport.”

Take, for example, the 2008 Presidential campaign. Barack Obama made an appearance on the April 21, 2008 edition of WWE RAW, where he, alongside other presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and John McCain, were shown campaigning via pre-taped videos. The Pennsylvania primary imminent, the three decided to send special messages in order to boost voter appeal and gain extra political points. Clinton, in fact, promised then-WWE champion, Randy Orton that “if things get a little tough [in Washington], I may even have to deliver the People’s Elbow because this country is worth fighting for. Now, I promise to stick to the political arena, so don’t worry, Randy Orton; you’re safe for now.”
Although elected officials might cringe at the thought of appearing at professional wrestling events, it’s not uncommon for wrestling shows to deal with important political and social issues. In fact, it happens on a pretty regular basis.

Perhaps the most brazen attempt to on tackling on a hot political issue occurred in September 2002 on Smackdown. That month, wrestler Chuck Palumbo asked his tag team partner Billy Gunn for his hand in marriage. The elated Billy Gunn happily accepted his partner’s proposal and not one for long engagements decided to hold the wedding the very next week. Initially, WWE got a lot of positive mainstream press for taking this issue on, even receiving praise from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Sadly, the WWE took a 180 degree spin and one week later turned their relationship into a typical pro-wrestling storyline. During the show, Gunn and Palumbo admitted that it was all a publicity stunt and that they weren’t actually gay. If that was not enough, WWE had Gunn and Palumbo portrayed as good “straight” guys and the gay storyline was soon forgotten.WWE’s next attempt at tacking the political issues of the day came on the April 14, 2003 edition of WWE RAW when Christopher Nowinski, a 2000 Harvard graduate, debated fellow wrestler Scott Steiner on the issue of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Nowinski’s side of the debate was a well-articulated critique of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and war effort while Steiner’s argument featured such moronic lines as, ”I’ve wrestled a lot of countries” and “The Dixie Chicks and all those Hollywood numbnuts can go straight to Hell or France, same difference.” As you can probably tell, WWE took advantage of Nowinski’s Ivy League background and cast him into the role of the snobby Ivy League elitist intellectual. Although I commend WWE for raising awareness about the Iraq War, I regret that they make the liberal, more informed position “nerdy,” unrelatable, and stigmatized.

In late 2004, WWE tried to address racism in America, but unfortunately began endorsing racist policies. In December of that year, it introduced a new character, Muhammad Hassan (portrayed by Italian-American Mark Copani), through a series of vignettes as an Arab-American who was tired of facing racial profiling after the September 11th terrorist attacks. When he first debuted, the Hassan character had well-articulated points about racism in America; however, after a couple months, he had already became a caricature who merely cried “racism” at every given opportunity. His racist opponents were even portrayed as heroic. Upon encountering Hassan, Stone Cold Steve Austin proclaimed, “I see sand people.”

WWE eventually decided to cast Hassan as a villain by making him excessively bitter about the racism he encounters. The character quickly devolved and his last appearance on television came on July 7, 2005 on WWE SmackDown. On this episode, Hassan and various masked men attacked The Undertaker and then proceeded to simulate the beheading proceedings depicted in the various videos of Iraqi militants decapitating American hostages. Needless to say, this would offend any member of the Arab-American community.
See? Pro-wrestling has been far from quiet when in comes to politics. It really comes at no surprise then when we hear of former WWE CEO Linda McMahon, wife of current WWE CEO Vince McMahon, is vying for the Republican nomination for one of Connecticut’s US Senate seats. Yet in spite of a spotty record as an employer (McMahon had actually abolished mandatory drug testing for WWE employees in 1996), McMahon leads her primary opponent by ten points.

Despite many of the problems with the WWE shows, it is surprisingly good at engaging the public political in politics. In 2000, the then-WWF launched the “SmackDown Your Vote” campaign, designed to encourage 18-34 year olds to register to vote. The campaign made an appearance at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions and asked George W. Bush and Al Gore to appear on their television shows (though both declined their invitations). “SmackDown Your Vote” continues to this day and in 2008 began to receive notice from politicians as evidenced by Obama’s appearance on WWE RAW.

See? Pro-wrestling and U.S. politics are starting to go hand in hand. In fact, one could draw several parallels between the two: both feature larger than life characters, displays of power, mass influence, and homophobia and racism. Obama’s popularity is equally mirrored by that of wrestling superstars.Let’s just hope Linda McMahon doesn’t lay the “smackdown” on Connecticut’s “candy ass.”

Whether you’re Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Allied (LGBTQA) or anything else (XYZ), this week has certainly been a spectacle of sexuality: men dressed as women, women dressed as men, androgyny, genderbending. Once again Dartmouth has had an educational, fun-filled, and successful PRIDE Week. Our celebration here in Hanover was not a part of a national PRIDE holiday—Ally Week, Day of Silence, International Drag Day, and National Coming Out Day—so considering our independent effort, the full schedule of Dartmouth PRIDE Week was something of which we can all be proud. Despite the inopportune weather, our rainbow-spangled banners were still there looking better than ever. Can’t rain on this parade!

This year’s PRIDE week events ranged from the inspirational Bishop Robinson talk, the fabulous gender-bending fashion show TransForm, and the hilarious Drag Bingo Night, to the slightly underwhelming Dartmouth CookOUT and 24-hour SpeakOUT chat, to the downright deplorable Denis Dison’s keynote address. PRIDE week had its weaknesses, and sure, Frank Karger may not triumph in his campaign to become the first gay president in 2012, but just like Jesse Jackson before him—or any pioneers for that matter—we all have to start somewhere. Without a doubt, continuing these pioneering traditions will lead to important advancements for the LGBTQ and straight communities of this College and the nation.

Here at the DFP, we support the LGBTQ community in its quest for equality. The goal of PRIDE Week at Dartmouth is to allow the students and faculty to evolve and develop into a more inclusive community. Bishop Robinson said it best: PRIDE Week is not only a celebration of how far the LGBTQ community has come, but also a reminder of how much work there’s left to do. PRIDE Week promotes visibility and discussion of LGBTQ issues.

The College has hosted numerous famous speakers in the past—Urvashi Vaid of the Arcus Foundation and writer and trans activist Kate Bornstein—and it added New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson this year. These speakers had distinct voices, and have shared their ideas for making the world better for LGBTQ people by offering real solutions.
The Dartmouth PRIDE committee also hosted an online chat that was designed to create an open, anonymous environment for students’ opinions on queer topics. Unfortunately, the chat was poorly designed, and the premise of anonymity, while it certainly allowed people to speak freely, interfered with any focused conversation. For the first hour, most of the contributions were either egregiously homophobic or whimsical remarks about lesbian porn. We should not assume that people wouldn’t want to participate in a forum just because they must be responsible for their own opinions. The LGBTQ community is brave, and we should have let its members speak for themselves. Anonymity, here, sent the wrong message about the confidence and pride of today’s LGBTQ community.

As tough as it is discussing these issues at Dartmouth, a college with a long history of lagging behind in gender/sexuality issues and a Greek System that lives and breathes heteronormative values, we must insist on pushing the discourse into the open. With the exception of one or two sororities and fraternities that have begun to support the PRIDE movement, we have yet to see any large-scale participation by Greek organizations. Even if these organizations think they are separate from PRIDE issues and do not consider themselves “alternative social spaces,” they are still responsible for representing their LGBTQ membership, which is present whether they acknowledge it or not.

Even students who are convinced they hold no responsibility for gender equality and sexual freedom for others can benefit from educating themselves of the values and motivations of the gay community. Is the LGBTQ community more concerned with acceptance or changing society? Where is the modern gay rights movement heading? What is the ideal vision of queer people within society? These questions concern queer and straight people alike, and the queer community cannot answer them alone.

It’s unfortunate that this year’s keynote speech with Denis Dison was so poorly attended. Dison is the Vice President of External Affairs for the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a political action committee that helps train LGBTQ political candidates. We admit that the Victory Fund is not very well known, and we don’t necessarily agree with the Victory Fund’s blanket support of LGBTQ candidates. Nor do we claim that his speech would have produced any goosebumps or sudden changes of heart. But potential audiences couldn’t have known this beforehand, and the meager attendance therefore hinted at our campus’ disinterest in having a discourse about the emerging role of LGBTQ people in politics.
There is still much work to be done. Bored at Baker is full of homophobic comments. The 24-hour SpeakOUT blog was host to numerous trolls spewing anti-gay remarks. The Greek system at large is still too heteronormative and gender exclusive. But we should be able to recognize and rectify these issues while celebrating the achievements of the LGBTQ community: the addition of gender-neutral housing, for instance, or the formation of an LGBTQ mentor program, OUTreach. This week, we can celebrate: dress in drag, play bingo, and dance. But come Monday, we must continue the push to raise LGBTQ awareness on campus. We’re here, we’re straight and we’re queer, so get used to it.

New England is cold. But even so, saying ice was one of the region’s largest industries in the early twentieth century sounds more like a joke than reality. Truth is often stranger than fiction, however, and in truth, ice production in New England was not only a huge industry—it was a cross-country and sometimes international one as well. This amusing factoid is one of many presented by Dartmouth professor of Geography, Susanne Freidberg, in her new book, Fresh, In it, Freidberg investigates the history of perishables in the American economic and physical landscape. Fresh explores the curious history of food preservation and transportation, covering how improvements in technology changed the American diet and what people could afford to eat.

Fresh is an informational book in several respects. Freidberg explores ways in which attitudes towards food preservation have changed over time. Some seem jarringly different from what we’re familiar with now—for example, with most foods, it is now unthinkable to not have them neatly preserved in cold environments. Previous generations had a vastly different view, however, and there was a longstanding hostility in American society towards refrigerated food. Part of this hostility can be explained by bad press and marketing; since “fresh” foods went for higher prices, merchants only refrigerated soon-to-spoil (or spoiled) food in a bid to keep them for longer. Thus, anything that came out of a refrigerator was usually already long past its prime.

Another part of the stigma against refrigerated food was suspicion as to what it would mean for the consumer welfare. Eggs, for instance, easily keep in refrigerators, but this wasn’t seen as a virtue for old-time American consumers. They instead saw it was dangerous—after all, how could one figure out if an egg is truly “fresh” if refrigerated eggs keep and are indistinguishable from others that didn’t undergo the “tainting” influence of a refrigerator? Refrigeration also had unintended economic effects as well. Since it allowed certain foods to be available during more times of year than before, consumers just saw this as meaning that merchants didn’t have to sell low during gluts.

Despite all of these misunderstandings, Fresh is effective in showing how similar the fears of consumers back then are to those expressed by American consumers now. Americans didn’t see freshness as simply lack of spoilage or low bacteria counts—they saw freshness as something more, a fantasy where one could imagine, by drinking milk or biting into an apple, the farm next door that grew and produced it. Never mind that the actual business of farming is a messy and difficult one—the image is what the eaters were after.
In the past, freshness meant local. And without the science, that was the only way they could be assured that their food was wholesome. As such, consumers wanted, supported, and took a long time to be convinced that a California fruit was just as good, if not better, than a Vermont one.

Today, locality matters, but for different reasons. We have the science, so instead of vague notions of healthy “stuff” we assert lack of pesticides, genetic-modification, a small carbon footprint, or a host of other qualities that the term “local” appears to imply, whether or not this is actually the case. These aren’t arguments that the early American consumer would have recognized, but the result is one that is all very much the same.

Fresh is an important book because it is a comprehensive history of freshness in a digestible, reader-friendly form. Beyond the factoids, it paints a story that shows us why we are here today—not in the manner of angry diatribes or by invoking exposé-style disgust in readers, as books like Fast Food Nation or other recent investigations about food and the American diet are prone to do. It instead shows us what our food is, and presents the deeper complexities in the messy world of growing our food. From this, we can decide what we truly want to change—and what is merely a fantasy of a time of pure food that never was.

Last week I visited my hometown of Burlington, VT to conduct an interview with Senator Bernie Sanders (I -VT). Seeing as he is the longest standing independent congressman in American history, and that I also consider myself independent on most political issues, I was excited to ask him about what I consider the most important progressive issues in politics right now.

His office stood on the second floor of the largest building at the top of Church Street. I couldn’t picture the bustling cobblestone avenue in the years before Sen. Sanders took office as mayor of Burlington in 1981, when the paved Church Street had no pedestrians, no national chains, and no fancy restaurants to speak of.

My first impression of Sen. Sanders was not what I had expected from a seasoned United States Congressman: His rapid-fire Brooklyn accent had a rugged intensity, and his wispy white hair spilled over his forehead irregularly, more like an edgy professor than a politician. I couldn’t tell whether his unadulterated appearance was authentic or just a well-crafted persona. Either way, he conveyed a genuine interest in our conversation. In order for the reader to experience some of his presence, the interview below is unchanged from its original form.

DFP: How did you develop your “no bullshit” persona? A lot of people view your persona as being very straightforward. Is there a specific reason why honesty is so important to you?

Senator Sanders: Thank you for the compliment. It’s just kind of the way I am. I sometimes think things aren’t as complicated as people make them out to be. You have to be straightforward and tell people what you think. Even if people disagree with you, they appreciate you if you’re being forthright with them. Now we don’t have a lot of time, so let’s get down to the questions.

DFP: OK. One thing that seems to be on your mind a lot is how you think the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, Ben Bernanke, appointed during the Bush Administration, needs to be replaced. Why do you think that and what kind of person do you think should replace him?

Senator Sanders: Well, it isn’t my job to come up with a name but I do think that the chairman of the Fed is a very powerful position. The primary function of the Fed is to protect the safety and soundness of our financial system. It is very clear almost by definition, because under Bernanke’s watch we came very near to a financial collapse. The second goal of the Fed, an important goal, is to try to provide as close to a full-employment economy as we can. Obviously, we are very far away from that—we’re in the midst of a major recession. So I think what you need at the Fed is somebody whose main interest is protecting the interest of the middle class and the working families of the country, rather than just the powerful interests on Wall Street. That is what I believe Bernanke’s record has been. You need to use the tools of the Fed—which are very many—to help ordinary people rather than just large banks.

DFP: Do you think the Goldman Sach’s fraud issue speaks to Bernanke’s failing policies?

Senator Sanders: Yes, I do. I mean, that is precisely what the job of the Fed is. The Fed is there to protect the safety and soundness—well, you’re not going to have safety and you’re not going to have soundness when major, major financial institutions are, according to the SEC [Security and Exchange Commission], engaged in fraud. In this case, they worked with a hedge fund manager to put together securities which are designed to fail, so that the hedge fund managers can place the bet that they’re going to fail, while investors are buying thinking that they think they’re going to make money because of the value of that security. So that’s fraud, if the SEC charge is correct. And frankly, I think you will see that charge leveled against a number of other financial institutions as well; I don’t think Goldman Sachs is unique. But, to answer your question, where was the Fed during all of this? Clearly they were not doing their job.

DFP: So you’re saying this might open up a whole new slew of fraud issues?

Senator Sanders: I think what people have been talking about now is mostly the recklessness and irresponsibility of Wall Street. This is the first major charge where there is not only recklessness and irresponsibility, but there is fraud as well. What I’m saying is I think this will not be the last major charge against financial institutions. My own guess is that fraud was probably rampant.

DFP: I know you serve on the Congressional Committee of Energy and Natural Resources. You also just received a grant of $3.2 Billion for alternative energies.

Senator Sanders: Right. What that was about was that I helped write legislature with Sen. Menendez (D-NJ) which is called the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program. It’s a national program, and what it does is to provide money to cities, states, and towns to help them move to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. In the stimulus package, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the president put $3.2 billion into that program, and that brought $12 million dollars into the state of Vermont, and billions around the country. I think it’s going to help us transform our energy system, and in the process involve people at the local level to think about how they could best go forward in terms of energy sustainability and efficiency.

DFP: Is that related to “Smartgrid”?

Senator Sanders: Well, there’s a lot of money coming down the pike, and there are a lot of programs. This is a separate program. What it has funded, for example, in the state of Vermont, is promoting energy efficiency. You’ll have older buildings that will be able to use this money to be able to add new insulation, new windows, a new heating system, new roofs, when necessary. Also, communities can use it for photovoltaic, geothermal, and wind, biomass, and so forth. So it gives communities a wide range of opportunities to move in the right direction. On top of that, there’s another large grant coming into the state for $79 million which is called “Smartgrid”, which will allow some 90 percent of buildings in the state of Vermont to have meters, which will allow them to identify how their energy is being used. We know that can help in a significant way in making energy use more efficient.

DFP: In some ways, your ideas on energy are against the current in Washington. For example, Obama just funded loan guarantees to build two nuclear reactors in Georgia. Do you think the Obama administration’s energy policy is headed in the right direction?

Senator Sanders: Well, what you have to understand is that the answer is yes and no. The Bush administration’s policies on energy were a disaster and refused even to acknowledge the reality of global warming. [On the other hand] President Obama understands that global warming is real and it is a very serious problem for the planet. He has, in the last year and a half, invested far, far, far more than we have seen almost forever in energy efficiency and sustainable energy, so that’s the good news. For example, generally speaking we spent $200 million a year as a nation on weatherization, which is helping lower income people retrofit their homes to make them more energy efficient and save fuel. In the stimulus package, we put $25 billion. It was a huge increase in the amount of money we spent on weatherization, and that is a positive step forward. It’s cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions; it is saving consumers money; it is bringing us to energy independence. The president is also appointing Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, who is very good on energy issues and very good on global warming issues. I disagree with the president when he provides loan guarantees for nuclear. We still haven’t solved the issues of how to get rid of nuclear waste, not to mention that nuclear construction is a very expensive proposition. I’m also disagreeing with the president on his view on coal sequestration. But, having said that, in terms of sustainable energy and energy efficiency, they are making some very significant steps forward.

DFP: Do you think Obama really is pro-nuclear—because I know he has come out against it before—or do you think he is just pandering to the Republican Party?

Senator Sanders: No, I think he really is pro-nuclear. Energy is a big word. I think he can take credit for moving the country forward in some very progressive ways. I mean, all of the money that is coming in to the State of Vermont is a result of his initiatives, and support from those of us in Congress who are moving in this direction. That’s a positive. On the other hand, I think there are areas in which he’s moving in the wrong direction.

DFP: Some people are still saying that the healthcare reform bill is a socialist development. As an Independent Senator and self-proclaimed Socialist, do you find the Healthcare Reform Bill to be leaning towards some Socialist ideas by your standards?

Senator Sanders: No. It’s a pretty conservative idea. It’s using primarily private insurance companies to expand health care to many people who do not have health insurance. It is raising Medicaid by raising the level by which people can qualify for Medicaid. So you’ll have another 15 or 16 million people getting Medicaid, which is a government run health insurance program. But the other people are going to come in the subsidies or private insurance companies. I voted for the bill. It is not a particularly strong bill, but it will provide health insurance to some 30 billion people who don’t have it today. I think it has to be improved over the years, but I support it. Socialism has nothing to do with it.

DFP: Yes, I don’t really see why it would, but there are still people out there who call it that.

Senator Sanders: Yes, it has been called that by Republicans to scare people. But what people don’t know that there are countries around world who have socialized or national health insurance programs which are much more cost effective than our system. We are the only country in the industrialized world that does not provide health care to all people as a right of citizenship.

DFP: Do you think if we open up trade to Cuba, it will stay a socialist country in the future, or do you think that it will open up to capitalism and go back to the way it was.

Senator Sanders: A few weeks ago we had the Ambassador from Denmark, which would not consider itself a socialist country, but which has very progressive social programs. It provides health care to all people without virtually any out of pocket expenses, college education there is free, every worker there has six weeks paid vacation, they are very strong on the environment, workers are overwhelmingly in unions, and so on and so forth. So I look to countries like Denmark, Finland, Sweden as models we can use as models and learn from. Cuba is obviously a small, developing country, which is an authoritarian Communist country which has done some good things in terms of health care. I haven’t studied it lately but I think their education system is pretty good. I think what you will see on votes in the House and the Senate in recent years is a desire to establish a more normal relation with Cuba and ending the embargo. What I think American businesses understand is that countries all over the world are investing in Cuba, and businesses in the U.S. can’t do that. So there is pressure to open up to allow businesses to invest in Cuba, to have Americans to freely visit Cuba in a normal way. The question is, if you can’t have normalized relations with Cuba, then how can you have normalized relations with a country like China, which is of course a Communist country and is also much more powerful.

DFP: Do you think there is ever going to be a time when the progressive voice on issues like these—financial regulation, energy policy, health care reform, and US-Cuba relations—can have a strong voice, not just as a third party, or the “other,” but truly included in the dialogue?

Senator Sanders: Well, you’ve seen that take place in a number of countries around the world. For example, if you go up to Canada, which is just an hour away from here, and you go up to the most conservative person in parliament up there and you say ‘do you think you should abolish your health care system,’ which is a single-payer health care system, and in fact they have a conservative government up there, none of the conservatives think they should abolish it. So the idea of saying, so in Canada, the idea that health care is a human right is a part of their culture. I think that’s what you’re asking; whether progressive values become a part of people’s culture. That’s certainly true all over Scandinavia and many European countries. We have a long way to go. There are millions of Americans and, you know, many people in Congress who do not believe health care is a human right, that quality education should be a right regardless of their income. So we are behind many other countries in achieving a culture in which progressive values are accepted. We have a long way to go.

You’re in a foreign country. Water, food, and supplies are rationed. The Government deliberately starves people yet everyone is unquestionably loyal to the political party in power—the only party in power. This may seem like an Orwellian dystopia, but for those living in North Korea, it’s reality.

On April 6th, 2010, Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) and its Dartmouth chapter, the North Korea Project (NKP), hosted a screening of the documentary Inside North Korea. Inside North Korea differs from other documentaries in that it tries to vividly show the lives of North Koreans, albeit only the privileged ones, as opposed to Kim Jong Il’s craziness or the lives of the refugees. Considering the dearth of information about the most secretive nation in the world and its people, a peek into the lives of North Koreans was a rare chance to understand the political situation in North Korea.

But of course, North Korean officials did not grant such a rare chance graciously. In the documentary, Kim Jong Il invites Dr. Sanduck Ruit to treat 1,000 North Koreans suffering from cataracts in order to maintain the loyalty of his people. Ruit, a Nepalese eye surgeon, regularly travels to third-world countries to heal penniless patients. Because North Korea is hostile to foreigners entering the country, especially American journalists, National Geographic Explorer host Lisa Ling accompanies Dr. Ruit into North Korea disguised as a member of his medical team. Six North Korean officials accompanied Lisa Ling and her cameraman, escorting Ling, Ruit, and their crew from Kathmandu, Nepal to Pyongyang, North Korea and back. Any suspicious activity endangered the entire medical team.

Despite the constant supervision of the officials, the footage Ling and her cameraman filmed officials is nothing short of shocking. Ling paid particular attention to the extent in which North Koreans were brainwashed to believe in the greatness of their Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. Ling’s cameraman was almost kicked out of North Korea when he lay down to get a single shot of the 82-feet statue of Kim Il Sung. The officials warned in rage that no human being is worthy to take a picture of the Great Leader while lying down.

In another scene, the officials allowed Ling to visit one of Dr. Ruit’s patients, a privileged North Korean citizen. But in the house, Ling didn’t find family photos or pictures of beautiful landscapes. Instead, numerous portraits of the Dear Leaders Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung decorated the walls. Ling asked the family members a few questions about Kim Jong Il. When asked what the hardest part of being blind was, the patient replied without hesitation that her blindness prevented her from admiring portraits of the Great Leader. When Ling asked what were the origins of North Korea’s willingness to stand apart from the entire world, one family member replied, “Our unity is stronger than nuclear weapons, and we serve the greatest leader in the world.” Finally, Ling inquired whether Dear Leader Kim Jong Il could ever be wrong. The family responded with confusion. They genuinely could not grasp the idea of their Dear Leader ever making a mistake or doing something wrong.

The most shocking part of the documentary came towards the end. All 1,000 patients were waiting in an enormous room with a large portrait of each Dear Leader. They had all finished their surgeries in the past week, and waited for Ruit to take the bandages off their eyes and bring light back into their worlds. Ruit walked up to each patient, greeted him or her warmly, and took off the bandages. What ensued was a scene not witnessed in even the most extreme personality cults. Each patient determinedly walked up to the portraits of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung, bowed to them, and delivered a brief speech vowing to dedicate his or her life to the well-being of the Dear Leader and vanquish all enemies of Kim Jong Il, including Americans. After each speech, a thunderous roar of applause and cheer followed. Many in the crowd were moved to tears. I couldn’t help recalling George Orwell’s 1984 and Winston Smith’s four last words: “He loved Big Brother.”

Is North Korea a brutal dictatorship? Perhaps. When we normally think of North Korea, we naively conjure up the image of an insane Kim Jong Il oppressing poor, starving people. But Inside North Korea shows that it’s more than just that—Kim Jong Il brainwashes his citizens in order to further his political agenda. He intends to be worshipped as God. It’s hard to imagine an entire population of a state worshiping and defending an individual, especially in America where extreme, blind loyalty to anything is feared and frowned upon. But the message of Inside North Korea is clear: there are millions of people who now genuinely believe in the North Korean political system and are ready to defend the system with their lives. Due to this devotion there is the possibility, often overlooked, that the self-sustaining system of North Korea may continue even after the death of Kim Jong Il.

This message sounds obvious, but it isn’t—the way our governments normally approach North Korea is through unsuccessful attempts at sanctions or coercion through the United Nations. North Korea occasionally or temporarily yields to our demands depending on its needs and wants, but soon reverts back to threatening to test missiles. Of course, I’m not saying that our government is not doing anything productive, but we should also make efforts for longer lasting change in North Korea. And to bring about that long-lasting change, we need a bottom-up, grassroots movement that can change not just Kim Jong Il and his co-conspirators, but also the brainwashed cataract patients whose only wish is to open their eyes up and admire the portrait of Kim Jong Il. That means we need more people like Dr. Ruit who are willing to reach out to North Korea through their expertise and directly interact with North Koreans. We need more Lisa Lings who are willing to venture into North Korea and bring to the outside world more information about what really is going on there, so that we can plan our actions. In order to make this happen, we should take North Korea more seriously than simply giving it an indifferent glance while reading newspapers over morning coffee. We should care.

April 1st is Census Day in the U.S., and as the US Census Bureau continues to collect data, some conservative politicians like Representatives Michelle Bachmann (R- Minn) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) are concerned that census questions may be “too personal” and “invasive.” They think the census counts as “government intrusion.” But their criticism is more likely aimed at how the census has changed over the past two centuries, and their claims are less substantiated by fact than by paranoia (C’mon, your telephone number is “too personal”? Yeah, right!) Though silent on the issue, these conservative politicians are probably more peeved by the increasingly LGBTQ-friendly policies adopted by the US Census Bureau in order to make sure that data on LGBTQ people is collected. Bachmann’s argument that the census isn’t private enough is in opposition to society’s push to do the right thing and “queer the census.”

LGBTQ people must be aware of the covert homophobia laced throughout Bachmann and Paul’s condemnation of the census. Although their attack on the census may be a shallow ploy to win political points and galvanize the conservative base, it’s ultimately demeaning to the community. It’s a position whose logic suggests that we can’t count LGBTQ people, which makes gathering hate crime statistics even more difficult.

Ever since the census was first conducted in 1790, it has always asked questions beyond the number of people living in each household. Bachmann and Paul, in particular, have argued that the census can only ask people how many people are living in their house; anything else is unconstitutional. But this claim has no merit whatsoever.

The first census, for example, asked for respondents’ sex and free or slave status. In 1840, the census asked for the number of blind, deaf, and “insane or idiotic” persons living in each household. And in 1850, it asked for respondents’ race and occupation. 2000 marked the first year multiracial people were counted. The census has always been an indication of the socially progressive direction the U.S. is taking.

Data collected by the Census is also used to shape much-needed policies that promote equality. Data related to race is used in our judicial system in order to help rule on cases related to discriminatory voting practices. Asking demographic questions is not invasive; the census has proved, then and now, extremely effective in rolling back past social bigotry. Yet despite the many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people around the country, they are still not accurately represented in the census..

As it stands, there is no question on the census that asks about a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. However, the US Census Bureau for the 2010 Census has enacted some LGBTQ-friendly policies. For example, same-sex couples living together can mark themselves as either “married” or as “unmarried partners,” whichever they consider
themselves in spite of legal obstacles. Previously, if same-sex couples living under the same household marked “married,” the Census would automatically modify their answer to “unmarried partners”—or in some cases modify the gender of one partner. Additionally the US Census Bureau has urged transgendered individuals to mark the sex with which they identify, rather than their “legal” gender.

Although these policies are steps forward for the queer community, they ultimately fall short. Like their heterosexual counterparts, LGBTQ people are far more likely to be single than coupled. Bisexual people in mixed-gender relationships are simply treated as heterosexual. Transgendered people are just ignored. To bridge the gap, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force put together the Queer the Census campaign, which seeks to add a question about sexual orientation and gender identity to the census in order to get a larger, more accurate picture of the number of LGBTQ individuals in the United States.

Of course, even if this question were asked, the census would still underreport the number of LGBTQ individuals on both local and national levels. Given the shame and oppression LGBTQ people face in society, LGBTQ people sometimes choose to stay in the closet. But any number of LGBTQ people, even if it represents less than one percent of the population, means that we know where we stand in terms far more concrete than any approximation can offer. As the old saying goes: “We’re here, we’re queer, get over it.” The census is long overdue to heed this call.

As society has changed, the census has reflected a long history of both demographic and, whether implicit or not, sociological change. We no longer count the number of slaves in our country; they simply don’t exist. And with same-sex marriage now being performed in five states and in DC, same-sex couples can self-identify honestly with state and country. It’s progress, and it’s happening. Let’s keep this going.

Aid and the well being of Africa are so inextricably linked in today’s culture that to question the value of the former seems utterly sacrilegious. However, this is exactly what Dambisa Moyo PhD discussed on April 1 over lunch with the Great Issues Scholars. Born and raised in Zambia, Moyo received her BA and MBA at American University in Washington, D.C., her Masters at Harvard and her Ph.D in economics at Oxford. She went to work at the World Bank in D.C. and now has worked for eight years at Goldman Sachs in debt capital markets, hedge fund coverage and in global macroeconomics. She signed copies of her book Dead Aid for the scholars. Her book expounds on the controversial topic of her talk in Moore Hall.

The simple truth is that Western aid doesn’t help; it actually hurts.

There are three things that everyone can agree on whether one is pro-aid or not. The first is that someday Africa should not need aid. Second, everyone knows that in order for Africa to climb out of poverty, African governments need to be motivated to help their people. Third, everyone knows that aid contributes to Africa’s problems, whether they believe aid should be curtailed or not.

It is important to distinguish which aid is hurting Africa. There are three kinds of aid: emergency or humanitarian aid, charity aid sponsored by NGOs, and government-to-government aid. Moyo argues that emergency and charity aid are not the problem. Rather, government-to-government aid, Moyo claims, is holding Africa back and perpetuating the need for aid in the first place.

Government-to-government aid has been so ineffective that since 1970, Africa as a continent has actually become poorer. Today seventy percent of a billion people—a sixth of the world’s population—live on less than a dollar a day. Yet despite the massive failure that government-to-government aid has incurred, the initiative had noble intentions. In the middle of the twentieth century, government-to-government aid seemed like it would work — the Keynesian model illustrated that savings created from aid would lead to investment which would lead to growth for an Africa newly-emerged from colonialism. In 1944, the Bretton Woods Conference lead to the creation of the International Monetary Fund, which oversaw the transactions of huge loans to help nations ravaged by World War II and Africa get back on their feet. For Europe, and much later, India, short but effective aid projects such as the Marshall Plan and the Green Revolution, respectively, helped jump-start economies. However, a continual stream of government-to-government aid to Africa has actually allowed growth to stagnate and poverty to rise. Today, Africa needs to grow its GDP a whopping seven percent per year (almost China’s rate of development) in order to even put a dent into the poverty it has sunk into. At this point, aid is not even scratching the surface.

One reason large scale aid has been allowed to continue for so long is because it’s virtually impossible to have logical discussion about aid. Many of those who staunchly back aid do so for reasons steeped in emotion. Seven African presidents, people elected to represent the interests of the African people, have stated that their nations to do not need this continual stream of aid. However, no one cares about what these elected officials have to say. Instead, it is celebrities like Bono who actually represent Africa in the eyes of the global community. According to the emotional appeals of celebrities, Africa needs aid. Isn’t it odd that the international community doesn’t hold elected leaders responsible for their counties, but it turns to non-Africans for counsel on African interests? Would Americans like it if a foreign pop star represented our interests in the international sphere?
Exactly why does aid not work? Most people think that aid does not work because its effects are stymied by corruption. It’s true; African governments no longer have to be held accountable for their people’s needs and interests. Those in power concern themselves only with holding on to power; aid money doesn’t reach people because it is being stolen by people who will continue to receive aid and remain in power even if they are not providing basic goods and services to the people they claim to serve.

Aid also doesn’t work because it leads to inflation. Too many dollars clogging a small economy make goods and services excessively expensive for ordinary people. People lose their jobs and can’t afford to obtain the basic necessities. Coupled with Dutch disease, the exploitation of natural resources and depressed manufacturing, inflation is the major economic reason for why aid, in the long run, fails. However, an imagined moral duty reminiscent of a modern-day White Man’s Burden continues to prevail.

The problem of dependency also prohibits development since African governments abdicate their responsibility to the people who pay taxes. The governments that depend on aid neglect budgeting and allotting tax money for basic public goods such as healthcare, national security, and infrastructure. This is especially evident when governments don’t lift a finger while waiting on the West to do everything for them. Now the West provides adequate services and billions of dollars in aid. But most of the aid money is squandered on personal gain by aforementioned corrupt officials or is lost in bureaucracy. Western governments are not African governments nor the African people. We cannot be called upon to know an African nation’s needs or do the African government’s jobs for them.

Despite this, the West insists on giving aid to complacent, even corrupt African governments. We maintain an embassy in Zimbabwe and still send aid to Zimbabwe’s government even while we express outrage over the corruption and oppression of Mugabe’s regime. In following our hearts rather than our minds, we are hurting those we intend to help. Africa has the youngest population in the world, but with economic stagnation in many of the continent’s countries there are few job opportunities for these nations’ youth. There is little impetus for these young adults to pursue a degree beyond high school. Disenfranchised unemployed, and uneducated, these youth have little where to turn but to crime and delinquency. Many youths start families early and remain in poverty, in a country with few opportunities and very little economic mobility. Aid has created a continent without a future.

In most African countries there is virtually no middle class—only a huge gap between the rich and the poor. As a result, there are constantly coups in African countries, as different groups of people revolt and try to seize the Presidency and their only chance at a decent life. The high political uncertainty and instability engendered by the economic problem of aid is not just a domestic problem, but an international problem. Restless and unemployed—or worse, underemployed—youth will not only turn to crime and rebellion but will become pirates and terrorists. The hijacking of cruises of the coast of Somalia or the Ugandan underwear bomber is just the beginning. We will only see more of these cases if the question of systematic poverty and negligence resulting from problems that aid engenders is not addressed.

Yet such aid continues to be wasted for reasons not easily grappled with. The international community simply does not expect Africans and black people in general to be able to fend for themselves. There is a quotation from President George W. Bush which (believe it or not) adequately describes this notion: “Beware the soft bigotry of low expectations.” India and China, both with populations larger than a billion, each have a greater percentage poor people than that of the African continent. Yet, we do not see charities trying to entice donors to give money using pictures or videos of Chinese or Indian children on the internet or the television, as neither the Chinese nor the Indian government will allow this, and for good reason.

African children are the poster kids for aid even though that aid probably will not improve their futures. There is obviously a double standard similar to the outright paternalism and racism of old. We need to beware the pity that hides the smug smile of superiority. We cannot feel we are doing our best with the band-aid of aid. We cannot be so comfortable with a perpetually impoverished black continent. And yet, there would be a huge political backlash to any political candidate who suggested ending aid. The West should take a stand and let African nations know that over the next ten or twenty years, aid will gradually decrease and finally come to an end. If people are paid, they should be paid to innovate and thrive, not merely survive. Most importantly, if Africa begins to clean up its act we should reward it economically, not in aid, but in further investments, so that African economies can continue to grow.

There are already hints of an economic overhaul in the making. Kenya and Tanzania have already entered the global market, obtaining budding credit reports. More impressively, under the charismatic leadership of President Kagame, Rwanda has rebounded from the horrific genocide the nation experienced in 1994. Most Westerners only know Rwanda as seen in the film Hotel Rwanda. Yet Kagame’s Rwanda has jumped 63 places in the world economy since 1994. This drastic improvement is the result of a few big changes catalyzed by a simple motivation.

If aid is greatly reduced and Africa is allowed to succeed, the whole world will be better off. No longer will Africa be the ‘sick man’ of the global economy. No longer will we have an entire continent with GDPs lagging behind everybody else’s. Africa not only has great potential for investments and new capital, but also the many intellectuals who could be brought out of poverty and obscurity in order to give back to the global community. All it takes is a belief in the African people, a belief that they are people just like any other people, a people looking for economic and social opportunities for themselves and their children.[cap

Healthcare reform has become the law of the land. This is a momentous, yet tumultuous time in America’s history. A great victory has been won but like all great victories, health care reform is controversial. The great majority of Republicans have sworn to roll back healthcare. The Democrats have a huge struggle on their hands, but they have history on their side. Katrina Swett, wife of former Congressman Dick Swett and current Democratic candidate for Congress visited the Dartmouth College Democrats on Monday, April 13th. She believes healthcare reform is just one of the many aspects of a decent society. Democrats fought hard to erect socially progressive programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Civil Rights Equality throughout the twentieth century. All of these reforms, now sacrosanct in our society, met fierce backlash when they were first introduced. However, just like it is hard to imagine a United States of America without a commitment to racial equality or Social Security today, it will be hard to imagine a world without a better health care system tomorrow.

The healthcare reform bill is not perfect. Some Democrats feel this reform hasn’t gone far enough. And of course the reform bill will face modifications and improvements in the future. However, healthcare reform is a big step in the right direction when it comes to addressing the wrongs of so many insurance company abuses or making health insurance affordable to millions of everyday Americans. Here is exactly what healthcare reform offers, in case anyone is confused. According to http://www.healthcare.BarackObama.com:
1) 5.6 million people with pre-existing conditions will no longer be denied insurance. Starting this year, no child will be denied health insurance due to a pre-existing condition, and by 2014, discrimination against adults with pre-existing conditions will become a thing of the past.

2) Starting in 2014, tax credits for up to 29 million individuals will help pay for health insurance. Individuals and middle-class families who cannot get or afford health insurance through work will be eligible for tax credits that will provide affordable coverage through new health insurance exchanges.

3) 3.5 million small businesses that offer employees health coverage can receive tax cuts of up to 35 percent this year and up to 50 percent in 2014.

4) In 2007 medical expenses were the cause of 62% of all bankruptcies in the US. Healthcare reform will cap the annual-out-of-pocket spending on insurance in order to save 500,000 families from bankruptcy each year.

5) Most importantly, 48 million uninsured Americans will have the opportunity to purchase new, affordable insurance options. Young adults will now be covered by their parents’ insurance until age 26 instead of age 21 (something very important to many college students) and many Americans who were once denied healthcare or couldn’t afford healthcare can be covered, thanks to fairer insurance policies, tax credits and affordable health coverage at lower rates.

There’s definitely a lot of good in the healthcare bill. Yet despite this big step, there are many people who would just as much like to take an even bigger step backward. The new G.O.P slogan is “Repeal and Replace.” Another, less official slogan is “Fire Nancy Pelosi.” On the eve of the historic vote, tensions ran high. Immediately preceding the passage of healthcare reform, thousands of protestors descended on Capitol Hill. On Saturday, March 20th, House Democrats passing through the Longworth House office building were subjected to abusive and derogatory remarks and behavior. Members of the Tea Party spat on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), called Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) a faggot (in offensive lipsy screams no less) and called Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a former civil rights activist, a nigger.

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) commented on the mob-like mentality of the day, saying “It was absolutely shocking to me … I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit-ins… And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus.” He later received an anonymous fax with a picture of a noose. The next day, a brick was thrown through the front office window of Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-NY) district office. On Sunday night, Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) “in the heat and emotion of the debate” shouted “baby-killer” at conservative Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on the House floor. Neugebauer later claimed he was referring to the healthcare bill and not Stupak. That weekend a number of calls for President Obama’s assassination appeared on Twitter, Facebook and signs carried by Tea Party protestors. Death threats have been sent out to Democratic congress people, threatening to harm them and their families.

Frankly, having to resort to epithets and death threats only illustrates how very desperate Republicans are. Swett is also alarmed at the direction political rhetoric is taking. Vitriolic language steeped in extreme Republican ideology is not healthy for the overall body politic. This hyperactive hate towards healthcare reform does not produce an environment people would like to live in, much less discuss the issues in. The Republican Party and the Tea Party seem to want to keep their base whipped up with enough fear, hatred and paranoia to carry them over to November’s primaries. Threatening behavior is conducive neither to compromise nor to intellectual debate. However, while the Republicans are involved in an emotional, vengeful discourse against what Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky calls a “raft of sweetheart deals that were struck behind closed doors,” Democrats continue the fight for more accessible healthcare in a cool and collected manner.

Democrats need to believe in and continue fighting for healthcare. The battle isn’t over. In fact, it’s just begun. Throughout the blogosphere and news cycle a number of dark and gloomy predictions have been voiced over the Democrats’ future. One commentator believes that by throwing in his lot with House Speaker Pelosi and by resisting smaller reforms, President Obama has opened a Pandora’s box. Not only has he widened the gaping hole of the great partisan divide, but he has sharpened the Republican argument against him. Before, the Republicans were saying “no” just to get by. Their party had no real rallying point. After their tremendous loss in 2008, the Republicans were back at the drawing board, trying to revitalize and re-center the party with women and youth. Some even said the party was dead; now the Republicans have found their calling card. They hope everyone will look at the messy, drawn-out journey to healthcare and wonder how this perversion of democracy hacked together by a weak majority with socialist leanings ever became law. In contrast, a few disappointed liberals think that letting healthcare reform fail and then blaming “the party of no” for it would have been a better way to save face. Many in this apocalyptic camp, right and left alike, think that in betraying pro-choice (the President signed an executive order to cut funding for non-rape, non-incestuous abortion in the healthcare bill in order to please Stupak and other conservative Democrats), and in throwing the public option under the bus, only to still enrage the right, President Obama will pay in the ballot box, come 2012.

Yet to succumb to pessimism is to look at only one side of the coin. On the other hand, the Republican Party’s groundless, and stubborn behavior united The Left behind a call to action. Healthcare reform was long overdue. As candidate Swett put it, it was embarrassing to see that the US had fallen behind every other developed nation when it came to healthcare. The long ideological battle allowed President Obama to find his inner FDR and LBJ. The nation got to see President Obama use not his “celebrity status” but the wits and calm demeanor we elected him for. He was also fortunate to have powerful and determined allies such as Pelosi and Congressman Reid. After Brown won Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts, many liberals were ready to throw in the towel and run away from healthcare reform. But Obama and Pelosi were not fazed by the loss of the coveted majority. They bounced back. During last summer’s raucous town hall meetings, as his approval ratings were falling and his fresh-out-of-the-election political capital was dwindling, many said that President Obama’s campaign would live or die with healthcare reform. And healthcare reform lived. President Obama won.

By pushing healthcare reform through Congress, no one can hit President Obama with the “did-nothing” label. Come this fall, the Democrats can come before the people with a promise fulfilled. The elderly, the freelancers, the uninsured, the college students, the single moms, and the working class parents cannot forget what President Obama has just done for them. President Obama will be forever remembered for bringing healthcare reform to pass. As Paul Begala put it, “When David Obey swung that gavel—the same gavel used to hammer home Medicare—and struck it on that historic rostrum, it made a joyful noise unto the Lord. And I for one said, ‘Hallelujah.’”

The aftermath of healthcare reform will be rough but it is certainly not hopeless. The Democrats need to continue to believe that they have done something great for this country, even in the face of severe criticism. Eventually, everyone will come to realize that there is no going back; we can only move forward. Healthcare reform is here to stay.