Life in a Palestinian Refugee Camp: Al-Fawwar

As humanity faces the worst global refugee crisis since World War II, the challenge of ensuring that the proper rights and protections are granted to those with “refugee status” has been brought to the top of the agenda of heads of state, policymakers, and humanitarian aid workers alike.

For one group of refugees however, the hope of their crisis being addressed has all but faded: Palestinians.

For those living in Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, “refugee” is not merely a legal status, but a symbol of a painful and ongoing struggle for rights yet to be materialized.

an aerial view of fawwar

an aerial view of fawwar

One such camp that highlights this struggle is “Al-Fawwar Refugee Camp,” henceforth referred to as Fawwar, which I was able to visit while working with a Palestinian community center in Hebron. Located in the South Hebron Hills, Fawwar is home approximately 8,000 Palestinian refugees housed in a space less than a quarter of a square mile. At the entrance of the camp stands an Israeli watchtower and an outpost hosting armed soldiers, who maintain a firm grip over the residents’ movements in and out of the camp. The soldiers often conduct raids into the camp, imposing blockades or curfews when tensions are high.

At the entrance, one could be forgiven for believing they’ve entered a downtrodden town. A refugee camp is usually seen as a temporary dwelling for a displaced population with services designed to address the population’s immediate needs. It is also understood that if the conditions of displacement are redressed, the population can return home. With no signs of redress or return in sight, Fawwar, like almost all of the refugee camps in the West Bank, has indeed become more of a town.

Upon walking further, you pass by schools, mosques, and a line of stores that form the “main street” of Fawwar. Once you’ve passed the main street into more residential areas, it becomes difficult to distinguish between sidewalks and streets in Fawwar, because there is no room to have both. The narrow confines of the alleyways measure only a few meters, leaving very little space for both cars and people to move at the same time on most streets. The clustered homes and unequally leveled roads throughout the camp make movement much more suffocating.

a residential street in fawar

a residential street in fawar

There exists only one venue for the entire camp, an elevated public square approximately the size of two regular classrooms, where all community events from sports games to social gatherings are held. The venue was built recently, though its construction received blowback from residents who believed that establishing such a space would a create a feeling of permanence among its dwellers, or a feeling of “being at home.” 

The only public square in fawwar

The only public square in fawwar

Fawwar’s facilities are subsidized by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which states that it bears responsibility for “providing services and administering its installations,” including medical and educational centers. The provision of basic services – which often, if not always, fall short – suffice only for survival, leaving virtually no chance for social or economic mobility. Workers are heavily dependent on working manual labor inside Israel, which entails traveling out of the camp and enduring the humiliation of checkpoints on a daily basis to reach work, often risking their lives in the process. These abysmal social and economic conditions are exacerbated by the yoke of Israel’s military occupation, which leaves Fawwar’s residents as victims of a vicious cycle for survival.

The inside of a home that was demolished and filled with cement barrels so that it could not be rebuil

The inside of a home that was demolished and filled with cement barrels so that it could not be rebuil

As you walk through the camp, you will pass by homes riddled with bullet holes; homes filled with cement barrels after being demolished so that they couldn’t be used again; and wreckage from what remains of people’s homes. When a local tells you that “this used to be someone’s house before it was raided,” a numbing chill immediately drops down your spine as you are faced with the sobering reality of where you are.

 

 

 

A History Never Forgotten

For many Palestinians, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 is inseparable from Al Nakba, or “The Catastrophe,” the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their native villages in what became Israel. Fawwar was established shortly thereafter, between late-1949 and early-1950, with the sole purpose of housing some refugees that originated from those villages. Many of Fawwar’s residents came from the Gaza, Hebron, and Beersheva areas, while others settled there after moving from another refugee camp, Al-Arroub. The few remaining inhabitants of Fawwar who’ve been there since its inception have lived to see at least two generations come after them.

Inside Fawwar, if the locals are comfortable speaking to you, you may come across the few elderly men and women who still carry the keys to the homes they were expelled from in 1948, narrating painful stories of their ordeal whilst expressing faith in a future that gives them a right of return. For Fawwar’s residents, the Catastrophe is not a distant memory long forgotten, but a definitive characteristic that continues to shape their very existence. It is through the lens of this history that they see their present. As you listen to their stories, you begin to see how the presence of Fawwar, a camp of indefinitely exiled refugees, serves as a microcosm of the tragic politics that underscore the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

An Unwavering Hope

Fawwar was indeed established as a consequence of expulsion and war, but in spite of its reality, you will nonetheless find pockets of optimism. The camp’s walls are decorated with colorful murals depicting keys, flowers, and prayer invocations, signifying themes of freedom, hope, and faith. Fawwar’s residents still cling tightly to their keys, with the unwavering hope that they will have the freedom to return home one day.

the young girl to whom i gave my glasses

the young girl to whom i gave my glasses

The children here are a source of faith for everyone else. Their jovial expressions, glistening smiles, and playful laughter represent an unwavering resilience in the face of relentless gloom and despair. They may not completely be aware of where they are or why they are there, but like all children, they possess an angelic bliss, not realizing that their gentle smiles are what keep everyone going. For Fawwar’s adults, the children make striving towards a brighter future worth it.
 

 

As I depart the camp, I recall one young girl who noticed the sunglasses tucked into my shirt. Pointing to the shirt, she says, “you have two glasses, give me one!” Without hesitation, I hand them to her, wishing that I could do more.

I wasn’t able to get the young girl’s name, but I will always remember her smile.

As I depart the camp, I think about how, if ever, there can be a durable solution to this young girl’s plight and to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With previous peace deals all but dissolved, the rapid installment of Israeli settlements into the West Bank, and a political gridlock on all sides, sustainable progress towards a solution seems to be gradually fading. For many of Fawwar’s residents, any conversation centering around a solution is incomplete until the conditions that created the need for such a conversation are redressed. They hold that any sense of peace must be coupled with a sense of justice, and despite all of the odds pitted against them, their struggle to achieve both will always continue.

- Asad Dandia

 

 

The Smoking Gun of the Second Amendment

In the cold, snowy day of December 15, 1791, our Founding Fathers crafted the Constitution, the document that would come to serve as the bedrock of every law that would come after it. Out of the Constitution’s 27 Amendments, the 2nd Amendment is one of the most divisive ones. At first glance, the 2nd Amendment’s definition seems clear cut: each and every citizen has the right to keep and bear arms. Upon further inspection, the statement is vague and hence has led to a myriad of interpretations, also making the 2nd Amendment one of the most controversial. Especially as gun tragedies happen in the United States with an alarming frequency, gun control is becoming a hot issue and the 2nd Amendment is at the center of it all. As the debate on whether restrictions on gun sales and ownership rages, it has become clear that conservative or right-leaning citizens do not favor changes to the 2nd Amendment.

The Guardian, one of the United Kingdom’s major news sources, conducted research on the frequency of mass shootings in the United States, starting from January 1st of 2013 to October 1st, 2015. Mass shootings were defined as four or more people shot in a gun-based incident. The results were startling; there were 994 mass shootings within 1004 days, the time period of the study. This number of mass shootings is part of an upward trend; in 2014, according to the New York Times, the FBI confirmed there has been a sharp rising of mass shootings since 2000. Specifically, from 2007 to 2013 there was an average of 16.4 mass shootings a year, while from 2000 to 2006, there were 6.4 shootings annually.

So why is it that Republican-leaning citizens are so adamant to changes to the 2nd Amendment, when it seems to be clear that guns are causing thousands of deaths annually? One reason is that conservatives believe in limited government,; rather than creating new laws, they want strict enforcement on current laws. On the other hand, liberals tend to believe in a bigger, more influential government, and hence more laws to control not just the sales of specific guns, but also on who can obtain them at all. Another major reason is the conflicting evidence that fuels both sides of the gun-control debate. For example, Chicago and Washington D.C. are two of the nation’s leading states with strict gun control, and yet their annual homicide rates actually increased after their gun bans went into effect. Similar statistics have been found for nations known for strict gun control, such as England and Australia, regarding not just homicides but also violent crime and petty theft. On the other hand, there are numerous studies claiming that guns do not deter crime or that guns contribute greatly to annual crime statistics. Combining these two opposing bodies of research and a desire for limited government, it is clear why conservatives tend to oppose gun restriction laws and changes to the 2nd Amendment much more so than liberal-leaning citizens.

All in all, the 2nd Amendment was meant to be a general guideline on the right for citizens to protect themselves against the government, and other potentially invasive forces. The general nature of the 2nd Amendment makes the Amendment vague and controversial, but also provides room for improving our society’s safety. Violent crime rates, such as those for murder and assault, have plummeted from 80 to 20 crimes per 1,000 people in the last twenty years. Gun homicide rates have also declined, as from 1993 to 2014, the death rate by firearms per 100,000 people have fallen from 15.2 to 10.5.  At the same time, the US has the highest gun-homicide rate in the world. Furthermore, the linear increase of firearm-based deaths since 1999 has a strong correlation with the decline of funding for gun research. The evidence indicates that guns play a role in keeping people safe, and that the majority of their owners are law-abiding citizens who want to protect their loved ones. In fact, gun ownership has slightly fallen since 1993. However, as our society continues to become more complex, our funding toward gun research should increase to account for this increasing complexity. This way, researchers can make more well-informed, frequent recommendations toward public policy, and ultimately provide for a safer society. 

- Daniel Hyun

Steinem and Albright are Heroes Turned Hypocrites

In an attempt to gather the force of young female voters, Hillary Clinton’s older female supporters have come to her side. However, rather than encouraging women to recognize Clinton’s platform in an insightful manner, feminist icons Gloria Steinem and Madeline Albright have done the exact opposite: shame them.

In an interview with Bill Maher this week, Steinem and Maher discussed Clinton’s inability to resonate with young female voters in the way that her opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, has. When asked why this was the case, Steinem claimed that girls supported Sanders to appeal to boys. “When you’re young, you’re thinking, where are the boys?” she said. “The boys are with Bernie.”

To imply that women are incapable of possessing their own judgment on issues is outrageously offensive and, quite frankly, hypocritical. Not to mention that Steinem’s statement also disregards lesbian women entirely. When claims were made by anti-Hillary advocates that many women supported Clinton simply because she was a woman, the remarks were slammed by various campaign supporters for being blatantly sexist. They portrayed female voters as unequipped to formulate legitimate, critical political views and were, without a doubt, unacceptable. So what makes Gloria Steinem’s remarks any less insulting? How can a figure, who has been a symbol for female empowerment to generations of women, think such comments are justified?

At a Clinton rally this past weekend, former secretary of state Madeleine Albright urged women to come together in their fight for equality. Her method of doing so was by brashly scolding them.  Albright warned the crowd with her words of wisdom from 2006, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!”

Why Ms. Albright found it acceptable to shame women for holding views that vary from her own is beyond belief. Feminism strives to empower women with autonomy to make decisions for themselves. Instead of being told what to do, women are encouraged to use their own voice. Ms. Albright, or anyone for that matter, is certainly not entitled to diminishing that liberty.

Sanders is nearly doubling Clinton in New Hampshire polls. In Iowa, he won female voters 29 and younger by nearly 6 to 1. So yes, it should absolutely be an objective for

Clinton to resonate with young voters— especially female voters. However, the recent tactics of her supporters will only push more women away. They come off as desperate attempts and portray Clinton’s campaign in a manner that she is certainly above.

As an unapologetic feminist and passionate Sanders supporter, I can assure Ms. Steinem that my political support is not a result of any desire to impress boys. I can guarantee Ms. Albright that my decision-making skills go far beyond one qualification. Issues such as campaign finance reform, single-payer healthcare, and systemic racism are just a few areas in which Sanders has spoken to my beliefs directly. The fact that I have to defensively justify my support for him, just to prove that I am capable of engaging in critical thinking and decision making, is an insult to me as a woman. The use of harassing rhetoric aimed to pressure women to feel ashamed and insecure about their intentions as voters discredits everything feminism stands for.

While I have looked up to both Steinem and Albright as role models in their fight for women’s rights, they have left me disappointed and distraught. Steinem has since apologized for her statement, claiming she misspoke. However, her words still echo a message that women have heard for far too long. A message, now coming from the very women we looked up to, telling us that maybe we can’t do things by ourselves after all. 

I don’t deserve to be bullied into feeling as though I am betraying women for simply having different beliefs, nor does any female voter. I respect Hillary Clinton greatly, which is why I find these recent remarks from her supporters tremendously unsettling. We are at a time where the political sphere is thriving with energy. Discourse has spurred on a number of serious, relevant issues. It is my hope that every woman feels confident in exploring those issues and, ultimately, powerful in whatever decision she chooses to make.

- Jami Tanner

 

The Other Way to Fight Terror: Our Door is Open

The above picture shows Justin Trudeau, the newly-elected Prime Minister of Canada, greeting Syrian refugees into Canada on December 10th. He is providing them with coats, handshakes, hugs, and from time to time, selfies.

“Tonight they step off the plane as refugees,” the Prime Minister said at the international airport in Toronto. “But they walk out of this terminal as permanent residents of Canada.”

According to the New York Times, Canada will be accepting at least 25,000 refugees by the end of February 2016. “We get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult straits,” Trudeau said.

Meanwhile in America, a video of Trump’s interview has resurfaced. In the video, Trump can be seen stating how he believes the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, seems to be spreading “some very negative vibe.” In the interview conducted by the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) in 2011, Trump continues to state, “Now, I don’t know if that’s from the Qur’an...But there’s tremendous hatred out there that I’ve never seen anything like it.”

This statement is coming from someone who has neither studied the Qur’an nor tried to learn the customs of Islam. I would also like to point out the irony of Trump claiming the existence of hatred in a religion when he himself is promoting exclusivity and anti-Muslim sentiments.  

Trump still seems to believe in his statement from four years ago, seeing that one of his campaign releases back in December introduced his proposal for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” entering America. Trump has prompted controversy for many of his statements. He is providing more fuel for those who increasingly believe in the false correlation between Islam and terrorism. Many media outlets and politicians have paired together the words “extreme” or “extremism” with  Islam. We have to keep in mind that extremism is not a doctrine. It is a term that is used , especially today, to describe the unjustifiable acts of violence, but it is nowhere near what the religion is built from.

Nour Obeidallah, first year student at NYU studying marketing and technology, weighs in on the issue of mixing extremism with Islam. “The media acts like there is one Islam,” she says. “When in reality, the .0003% of the Muslim population that make up Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and ISIS are not on the same spectrum of Islam as [I am].”

Obeidallah adds that for her, Islam is a way of life. “It’s a religion that I take pride in that teaches how to be kind, patient, responsible, and behave correctly.”

Unfortunately, ever since the Paris attacks, along with other terrorist attacks conducted on the same day, anti-Muslim sentiments have grown. According to Al-Jazeera America, the sentiment is becoming “more mainstream” due to more politicians and political pundits voicing their negative opinions of Islam. Al-Jazeera further states that American Muslim communities are now seeing unprecedented amount of “hate crimes and bias incidents” due to the recent terrorist attacks. This leaves more and more Muslims in our country to fear for their safety, including those who are subject to harassment, bias, and discrimination due to their outer resemblance to the religion. In one incident among many, an Indian store clerk who called himself “Tony” was shot in the face by an American who called Tony a “terrorist.”

 French journalist and former ISIS captive Nicolas Henin, who was held in Syria for ten months, states that military action against ISIS is not the correct way to approach the growth of terrorism. He commented in an interview that the invovlement of British airstrikes—alongside Russian and American ones—are encouraging more acts of violence from ISIS.

 “We are just fuelling our enemies and fuelling the misery and disaster for the local people,” he said in the interview. Instead, he called for no-fly zones in ISIS’s territory. He further added that the focus of defeating ISIS should rest on providing safety for those in danger. “Providing security for people [there] would be devastating for ISIS. That’s what the international community should focus on.”

 Sarah Schecker, first year student at NYU, illustrates what Henin is trying to say. With the start of Hanukkah, Schecker showed sharing knowledge and compassion is what leads to defeating the creation of international hatred against Muslims. In a Facebook post made on the evening of December 9, Schecker could be seen smiling with her friend, Ahmed, who is Muslim. Candles were lit in the background and blue Hanukkah signs were hung up on the wall.

“Tonight I was accompanied by someone who you wouldn’t typically find lighting the candles,” Schecker wrote in the post, adding that Ahmed, born and raised in Cairo, provided her company. “After the blessings and the traditional songs, I told him the story of Hanukkah,” the post continued. “I admire [Ahmed’s] interest in Judaism and his willingness to learn. I know that there are many more Muslims out there that are just like him.”

In more recent news, President Obama visited the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque on Wednesday, February 3rd, making headlines across America. According to the New York Times, President Obama read passages from the Qur’an as well as emphasized how Muslims in America play a crucial part in its past and future. “I’m speaking now to my fellow Christians who remain the majority in this country,” he said. “We have to understand an attack on one faith is an attack on all our faiths.”

In the same article from Times, the President commented on how many Americans’ knowledge of Islam increased only after terrorist attacks. He further commented on popular culture’s view of Muslims, saying that TV shows should have Muslim characters that have no relation to national security. “There was a time when there were no black people on television,” the President added. “It’s not that hard to do.”

According to Times, President Obama had previously waived visitations to mosques due to people’s popular perception of his “Muslim” image. But during his Wednesday visit to a mosque, the President seemed at ease as he mentioned how Thomas Jefferson was also politically targeted by opponents of his time, being called a Muslim.

America needs to let its gates stay open. In the midst of terror and hatred, individuals must start to understand the roots of the problems instead of being swept by what the most popular sentiment tells them to think. It is a justifiable question to ask if America needs to begin stricter security measurements of immigration. But to treat Muslims any differently from immigrants of other religious backgrounds is the wrong way to approach the migrant effects of terrorism.

What must be enforced is protection of those who are facing hate crimes, whether that be speedy and just prosecutions of those who terrorize Muslims (or those who look Muslim). Another solution is to follow President Obama’s words by pressuring popular culture to lend its hand in portraying Muslims correctly. The big issue behind religious hate and racism is rooted mostly due to what the younger generation are taught through television shows.

It now seems easy to forget that the “United States” was built from immigrants and refugees. We are sons and daughters of immigrants and refugees. No matter whether your ancestry dates back to the 1600s, or no matter whether you are first generation American, or even a recent immigrant, we need to step back and think about the consequences of shutting out a population that is vital to the functioning of national and international politics. Saying no can only restrict the options to resolve problems. Saying yes, on the other hand, will show the politics of peace that will have a big impact in fighting off domestic and foreign terror.

- Yeho Hwang

Trade Enforcement Act and Its Consequences

The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 has passed in the U.S. House and the Senate and is on its way to President Obama’s desk. The international trade bill includes a provision that speaks on “competitiveness issues facing the U.S. economy and competitive conditions for certain key U.S. industries,” according to the brief summary of Section 908. What this section really contains transcends this vague goal and seems to be a direct response to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement , which aims to change the treatment of Palestinians facing Israeli occupation.

            It is no secret that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands since 1948, especially in the West Bank, violates international law and human rights. The settlements in the West Bank  came after Israel’s military occupation of the area in 1967. (A helpful timeline). Despite the land being officially considered Palestinian, Israeli presence in the area is only expanding. West Bank settlements have attracted commercial operations that take advantage of cheap labor, low rent and taxes, and government subsidies. These businesses not only ignore Palestinian history and right to freedom from occupation and violence, but are also in direct violation of several international treaties and guidelines for human rights. These include the Fourth Geneva Convention, which stipulates that an occupying power cannot transfer its citizens into the territory that it is occupying, the 1907 Hague Regulations, which prohibit an occupying power from exploiting the natural resources of the area they are occupying for their own benefit, and theUN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights which hold businesses responsible for avoiding and mitigating human rights violations that occur under their watch.

            The Israeli settlers in the West Bank are protected under Israeli law, unlike Palestinians who are subjected to completely different standards under Israeli military law. Palestinians make lower wages, experience daily discrimination, and are under constant threat of being displaced from their homes and their land as their forefathers before them. Because of the different set of standards that Palestinian businesses are subjected to, Israeli businesses in the settlement areas are at a distinct advantage in operating and growing. Thriving Israeli companies on unlawfully confiscated, occupied Palestinian land are doing so because of, not in spite of, discriminatory policies put in place by their government.

When the United States trades with businesses in the settlement areas, they are encouraging and perpetuating these violations of treaties and human rights. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement calls for a change in the way that the world trades with Israel, ceasing trade with companies made by or in the country “until Palestinian rights are recognised in full compliance with international law,” according to their website. Whereas the EU has taken steps towards labeling Israeli products made in the West Bank settlements , the U.S. is passing legislation that takes us in the opposite direction. By existing laws that “discourage and prohibit U.S. companies from furthering or supporting the boycott of Israel sponsored by the Arab League,” the Office of Antiboycott Compliance (OAC) was created to remind us that boycotting foreign products is prohibited when not sanctioned by the government. The U.S. government does not sanction the Arab League boycott of Israel. But Section 908 of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, titled United States-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement, calls for zero recognition of any of these issues. Emphasizing Israel as “dependable, democratic ally in the Middle East,” the provision lauds the Free Trade Agreement and repeatedly states Congressional support of United States-Israel trade cooperation.

The objectives of the provision are “to discourage actions by potential trading partners that directly or indirectly prejudice or otherwise discourage commercial activity solely between the United States and Israel” and “to discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel and to seek the elimination of politically motivated non-tariff barriers on Israeli goods, services, or other commerce imposed on the State of Israel.” These can be nothing else but a renouncement of the growing support for the BDS movement. By including “Israeli-controlled settlements” alongside Israel, this provision requires the treatment of trade with companies operating from Israeli settlements on Palestinian land to be the same as the treatment of trade within the rest of Israel. This ignores a necessary distinction and makes it more difficult for the plight of Palestinians to gain recognition, not only throughout their entire country but specifically in the West Bank under Israeli control.

In disallowing the ability of U.S. entities to boycott products made on illegal and immoral Israeli settlements, the government is disallowing the ability for people to respond to and help combat violations of human rights that are widely ignored internationally. “Prejudice in commercial activity,” as the provision calls it, can be a powerful tool in political movements and the United States should not discourage or prohibit this in the case of the BDS movement. Foreign direct investment in Israel dropped 46% in 2014, according to a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development. BDS successes include Romania’s refusal to employ workers on settlement land, the University of Johannesburg’s severance of ties with Israel, and growing divestment movements in the U.S. and Canada. This shows that the international community has responded positively to the efforts of boycott movements and the U.S. government should not let strong trade ties with Israel affect its response to the mistreatment of thousands of Palestinian people. 

- Alexie Schwarz

The Dark Matter of Politics

Seventy years ago, scientists discovered matter that was hard to see, but made up most of the universe. They coined this mystery “dark matter,” a fitting term for such a powerful force, yet invisible to most people. Similar to dark matter, super PACs go unnoticed by most people while they perform a mammoth task: using financial means to portray their candidates in a good light and denigrate the opponents. In an increasingly complex world, raising money at the grassroots level and holding intimate town hall meetings is no longer enough. Candidates must also be vigilant of the media, which can make or break them no matter how qualified they may be.

As a result of the infamous Supreme Court case Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (2010), corporations, billionaires, and other mega wealthy groups can funnel unlimited sums of cash into Super PACs, or political action committees. Super PACs often raise tens of millions of dollars and use them to create TV ads supporting the candidate of their choice. Historically, ads have been known to devastate opponents. In the 1988 election, George H.W Bush’s PACs created the “Willie Horton Ad” against his opponent Michael Dukakis, portraying him as a heartless politician who was fine with releasing murderers into the public. Combined with his numerous gaffes and inability to counter Bush’s PAC’s attack ads, Dukakis was crushed in the general election. Nowadays, airtime has become essential to a candidate’s run since Super PACs can overwhelm candidates with attack ads. Specifically, the Sunlight Foundation discovered 76% of all Super PAC ads in the 2012 election were negative. The importance of Super PACs to a candidate’s success was highlighted in Newt Gingrich’s run against Mitt Romney in the 2012 Republican Primaries. Romney’s Super PACs aired over 13,000 ads while Gingrich fielded only 300. Romney ended up winning 74% of all delegates in the 2012 Republican Primaries, while Gingrich won only 6.5%. Even though strong Super PAC support does not guarantee a candidate’s success, election results show a strong correlation between political support and well-funded Super PACs.

Many correctly believe candidates need strong finances in order to succeed, but Super PAC money is not always effective. Super PAC leaders cannot coordinate with the candidates nor help pay campaign costs, like staff payments or traveling costs. This flaw was directly exposed in Scott Walker and Rick Perry’s exit from the 2016 race. Lack of campaign funds played a large role in their exits, yet their Super PACs still raised $20 million and $17 million respectively. It is also important to note both men were accomplished conservative governors; specifically, Scott Walker conquered Wisconsin’s labor unions while Rick Perry led Texas to become the best state for business. Despite their records, their lackluster debate performances and voters’ preferences toward outsider candidates made megadonors’ support meaningless.

Just as importantly, a massive war chest does not always mean a Super PAC will be effective. The Sunlight Foundation analyzed Super PAC spending in the 2012 election, and calculated their returns on investment. They discovered there was no clear link between the amount of money Super PACS raised and how effective they were. For example, the main Republican PAC, American Crossroads, spent over $103 million to support Romney’s general election prospects. Over $95 million of that sum was used for negative ads against Democratic candidates, specifically those running for the House, Senate, and the president himself. Every single Democratic candidate they spent over $1 million opposing won, and most of the PAC’s money was figuratively thrown away, as it used $85 million to oppose Obama. Ironically, he would achieve a landslide victory against Romney in the electoral college, indicating American Crossroad’s barrage of attack ads did little to dissuade the public from voting for Obama. On the contrary, a Democratic, liberal group named Planned Parenthood Action Fund Inc. raised only $6.9 million but had a 98.11% return on investment. Not only did their financial support of Obama’s re-election bid succeed, but also most of the House and Senate Republican candidates they opposed did not get into office.

Despite the influence super PACs can wield during election cycles, overall voters’ sentiments toward conservatism or liberalism plays a major role in deciding how effective the PACs will be. In April 2015, the Pew Research Center discovered that there are more potential Democratic voters in the United States than Republican voters, and hence the country is leaning left. The Republicans have a 9% advantage in the white male vote and a 48 - 49% surplus in the Mormon and Protestant votes, but the Democrats hold a 16% lead with women, 22% lead with those with postgraduate degrees, 16% lead with Millennials, and up to 30% leads with minorities, such as African, Asian, and Hispanic Americans. It is projected that the white population is set to decrease from 63.03% in 2010 to 60.9% in 2017, while the percentage of minorities increase across the board. To further worsen the Republicans’ electoral problem, the Silent Generation, or people born from the 1920s to 1940s, will be dying out, meaning the Republicans will lose a large chunk of conservative voters. Just as importantly, CNN reported that the percentage of Christians in the US has dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.2% in 2015, with further downtrends expected in the future. This means there will be less Christian votes, which tend to lean Republican. In summary, the changing demographic and hence political landscape is a large buffer or support against super PACs’ intentions, depending on whether or not they lean Democrat or Republican.  

- Daniel Hyun

 

 

Irony of Safety: The Rise of Rape Culture Among Female Refugees

There is no easy way to portray the violence millions of female refugees face. To write about this issue in simpler terms is to disregard the reality that women face on the road to freedom and opportunity. I urge readers to understand that this piece solely focuses on violence inflicted on females due to not only the world’s neglect of gender-based violence, but also due to the failure of international law to provide explicit guidelines for punishable gender-based violence. Yes, male refugees face great dangers as well. Refugees fleeing from any conflict face risks. Their experiences should not be categorized by their race or gender. They are all human beings facing dangers as a result of displacement and unforeseeable circumstances. But female refugees have stories of their own that have not been sufficiently shared. Let us lend our ears and hear their voices.

* * *

Women’s bodies, throughout history, have been conditioned to be commodified. This historically-implemented societal phenomenon has manifested itself through prostitution, sex trafficking, rape, and more. Men face their share of sexual exploitation, but women are far more victimized to practices that objectify their gender.

A war is waged on gender worldwide, and women face the bulk of it. According to the United Nations, violence against women still continues even after the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women was introduced in 1993. The same site states that one in every three women will face “physical or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner.” There is also cyber-harassments performed on one in every ten women, as the UN continues to point out, which include sexually explicit messages.

A term pops up in the midst of this realization: femicides. Sources describe it as motivated violence inflicted on women. There is no real rationality or reason behind this act of violence other than the insidious knowledge that legal and societal systems were constructed to make females “easier” targets and that the justice system will not be as diligent on solving cases regarding female deaths.

For female refugees, signs of gender-motivated violence are fear factors, which make their journey even more daunting. Not only do they have to consider their own safeties but also that of their children, who often times travel with them. The constant instability and danger of being uprooted adds to the never-ending anxiety of being targets of human rights violations. Such instances of danger leading to rape and sexual harassment from refugees have been shared in western media countless times.

According to the Daily Mail, sexual assault and rape occur frequently, but often go unreported. In the case of the German refugee camp featured in the Daily Mail article, women and children are often left unprotected from assault. Although the number of rape cases is yet to be confirmed, Giessen City Counselor Astrid Eibelshaeuser does acknowledge the presence of rape in these camps.

Women’s rights organizations, such as Women for Refugee Women, have made efforts to raise awareness of rape and sexual assault of refugee women. Letters have been written, such as the one featured in the Daily Mail article, stating the rise of a “culture of rape and violence” in refugee camps. The article has a short excerpt of the letter that reads: “[The refugee] situation is opportune to those men who already regard women as their inferior and treat unaccompanied women as “fair game”. As a consequence, there are reports of numerous rapes, sexual assaults and increasingly forced prostitution. These are not isolated incidents.”

In Jordan, the Zaatari refugee camp is going through a similar situation of growing presence of rape and sexual assault of women. One solution for families is to marry off their daughters, some of whom are be as young as thirteen-years old. Because there is no concrete international law that protects refugees from traumatic encounters including sexual violence, there is little they can do to seek justice. The only solution nearest to these refugees’ is at their own hands.

The lives of women and, especially young girls who are fleeing warzones for a better life, have shortened lives not only due to geopolitical circumstances, but also through assaults that occur to their own bodies and their own livelihoods. Marriage is a mature subject, as Ruwaida, a bride-dresser in the Zaatari refugee camp, states. These young girls who have no choice but to use marriage as protection are not able to live freely as other girls are; they are forced to grow up faster and adjust to the injustices that are directly affecting how they view the world.

Due to the recent terror attack on Paris initiating further controversy regarding the Syrian refugee crisis, the overall refugee conflict, especially that in the Mediterranean, will be prolonged with debates on whether or not nations should accept more refugees. The House of Representatives already passed a bill that will potentially screen refugees on more rigorous terms. President Obama has stated he will veto the bill.

The underlying problem of this latest conflict on the refugee crisis is that women will continue to live in fear of their bodies being used without their consent. To disregard the growing presence of rape and sexual assault of these women is to disrespect their value as human beings, and is an ethical failure on our part. To say that eliminating rape overseas is not our responsibility is never the right answer. One of the least confronted issues of human rights violations is rape. The international community and international law must face this problem together and come up with a concrete solution that will protect women all over the world. It is never the time to nod and agree; it is always the time to confront and act.

Consolation is not the solution, but justice is.

* * *

Female refugees’ stories will continue as long as displacement exists. We cannot fully promise safety and protection on behalf of those who are living through real fear every single day. But we can promise to be their voices when they lose theirs.

Let us tell the world something: She was not raped. She was not sexually assaulted. She was not forced into prostitution.

She lived.

-Yeho Hwang

The Inconsistencies in Bernie Sanders’ Platform: How “Socialism” Doesn’t Fit

Bernie Sanders, a United States senator from Vermont, came into the 2016 presidential race largely unknown and yet wildly popular among left-leaning Democrats and younger voters. While Sanders’s campaign has brought necessary attention to the income inequality that exists in the United States, as well as provided much-needed support to various social movements, there are some glaring inconsistencies within his policies and rhetoric that need to be addressed; paramount among these the inherent contradiction between his infatuation with Scandinavian style socialism and his dedication to cutting taxes for the middle class.

The issue that Sanders keeps rehashing in his debates and the one on which he has built almost his entire presidential platform is income and wealth inequality, specifically the way that a small proportion of the American population holds nearly all of its wealth. “The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time,” his website states.

How does Sanders plan on fixing this? He wants the wealthiest 1% of the population and big corporations to pay more taxes: their “fair share,” as he puts it. This is not unreasonable and, at first glance, looks appealing to those who Sanders surely assumes is his main demographic -- the middle class. An increase of taxes on the upper class seems to imply a decrease on the middle and lower classes.

But this is not the only thing that Sanders has promised the country. Under the same section on his website, Sanders tells us that he will make tuition at public colleges and universities free, expand Social Security, and provide universal healthcare under a single-payer system. He admires these qualities of Scandinavian countries and often mentions them when giving his definition of democratic socialism. In an interview with Vox’s Ezra Klein he says:

“One takes a hard look at countries around the world who have successful records in fighting and implementing programs for the middle class and working families. When you do that, you automatically go to countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and other countries that have had labor governments or social democratic governments, and what you find is that in virtually all of those countries, health care is a right of all people and their systems are far more cost-effective than ours, college education is virtually free in all of those countries, people retire with better benefits, wages that people receive are often higher, distribution of wealth and income is much fairer, their public education systems are generally stronger than ours.”

While these countries certainly sound nice to live in, they could not exist in the way that they do without heavily taxing the middle class. Someone in Denmark earning $60,000 will pay a 60% marginal income tax rate. Not to mention that Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland all have lower corporate tax rates than the United States. Enacting all the policies that Sanders considers necessary for his socialist America, complete with newer and bigger welfare institutions, would require huge amounts of money, all of which he could not make simply from taxing 1% of the population. This kind of capital requires tax raises among all classes, including the middle class, as they are the only group large enough to generate that money needed to create the system Sanders is promising to build. He has admitted grudgingly that tax hikes would hit everyone in order to enact some of his proposed reforms , but he has not hit upon how regressive the tax system would need to be.           

Sanders may find reconciliation of Scandinavian democratic socialism and his own domestic priorities difficult because of socialism itself. Based on a speech given at Georgetown University, one might argue that Sanders cannot call himself a socialist because he seems to fundamentally misunderstands socialism. While the definitions of socialism vary widely across the world, they should all have in common one thing: they pertain to ownership within an economic system. The  textbook definition of socialism --“a social and economic system characterized by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production” --  is not what Sanders is talking about. He brings up things that have no bearing on socialism at all: universal health care, climate change, mass incarceration, and free tuition at public universities, to name a few. All important issues that deserve to be addressed, but none of them really have any impact on socialism, which was the point of Sanders’ speech. Socialism is about ownership whereas Sanders mostly talks about creating a welfare state, and when he does talk about the economy, he talks about making it less marked-oriented. “I don’t believe the government should own the means of production,” he says in his speech. That is something on which socialism is dependent. “When you go to your public library, when you call your fire department or the police department, what do you think you’re calling?” Sanders asked in Iowa. “These are socialist institutions.” They really aren’t. The elements that tie into his vision of a welfare state could feasibly exist in the most capitalist country in the world.

Sanders needs to make more of a point to distinguish himself as a proponent of democratic socialism, not just because his definition of socialism seems a little rusty, but also because of the stigma that surrounds it. It’s interesting that he goes out of his way to  self-identify as a socialist and an independent, despite consistently voting Democrat and caucusing with the Democrats, considering socialism’s not-so-stellar reputation in the United States. In a poll, 36% of New Hampshire Democrats said that a socialist president would be unacceptable. While younger Americans have a better opinion of socialism , the older generations still look at the word and think Soviet gulags. It is safe to say that Sanders has helped to change the public opinion of democratic socialism, but it still remains a real issue to be tackled in his campaign.

Perhaps he doesn’t need to tackle it; maybe he should just drop it. Sanders cannot have both his idea of a democratic socialist state (one with huge welfare institutions) and lower taxes for the middle class. They are irreconcilable. While they both sound nice in theory, his supporters deserve to know that in voting for him, they are voting for only one of the two. Sanders should let them know which one will win out. You can “feel the Bern,” but don’t let his progressive rhetoric hide his weaknesses, mainly his lack of comprehensive planning needed to back up his lofty economic promises.

-Alexie Schwarz

The Ins and Outs of Accepting Syrian Refugees


Since the recent terrorist attack in Paris that killed 129 people, the topic of accepting Syrian refugees has become rapidly politicized. If you came here to find an exhaustive editorial, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place. I have little to add to the chorus of editorial boards at  virtually every media outlet that have sounded their opinions loud and clear.

Instead, I am focusing on one particularly important aspect on which the question of accepting Syrian refugees hinges: the screening process the U.S. government undertakes to scrutinize refugee seekers. In principle, if we were able to guarantee with absolute certainty that all refugees were in fact refugees and not in fact extremists in disguise, then the main concern voiced against accepting refugees would be diminished.

So let’s get into the nitty, gritty details of what the screening process actually entails.

A Prospective Refugee Seeker (hereafter referred to as “PRS”) flees his home and makes his way to a refugee camp. Once there, PRS applies for refugee status via the U.N. High Commission for Refugees and encounters his first hurdle along the path to resettlement: UNHCR background checks. Only a small percentage of refugees who pass are referred for overseas resettlement. This cohort is comprised of the most vulnerable refugees: families with multiple children and a female head of household, the medically needy, and targets of political persecution, etc. Such scrutiny is reflected in data we have on the roughly 2,150 refugees who have already been admitted to the U.S., half of whom are children, one quarter adults over 60, and merely 2 percent males of ‘combat age.” One can only imagine the circumstances that warranted the admittance of this latter group.

 Lucky for PRS, the UNHCR has determined that the U.S. is best suited to be his new home (he does, after all, love liberty, fried food, and endless election cycles). From here, the U.S. conducts an independent screening process involving nine government agencies including the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, and the National Counterterrorism Center. PRS is interviewed by a DHS official and undergoes biometric security checks, all of which take place at refugee hubs outside Istanbul, Amman, Cairo, and elsewhere.

18 months after the process began, PRS is finally accepted. Half of his fellow applicants aren’t so fortunate. One of nine networks of  nonprofits, in conjunction with the State Department, will assist PI in the resettlement process. He’ll likely end up in a medium-size, low-cost city such as Nashville, TN, or Buffalo, NY. Within a year, his status will be adjusted to legal permanent resident.

After tracing the legal refugee’s journey from beginning to end, I’m willing to draw a couple conclusions. First, it would be really, really difficult for a terrorist to beat the system. Highly improbable, maybe impossible. Anyone who would suggest otherwise has not looked critically at the safeguards already in place. Attaining legal refugee status would undoubtedly be one of the toughest paths for a terrorist hoping to penetrate our borders, and I’m sure ISIS realizes this. Here’s one thing to keep an eye on: the Obama administration plans to ramp up the number of refugees it accepts to 10,000 in 2016 alone. While there’s been no indication otherwise, we should we should pay close attention to how the system accommodates this great influx.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        -Luke Shapiro

 

 

Trudeau’s Environmental Promises at Risk in Support of Keystone Pipeline

On October 19th, the election of Justin Trudeau, leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, as Prime Minister left many Canadian citizens ripe with hope for change. They were ready to see the nearly ten-year reign of Conservative Party member Stephen Harper come to an end. This campaign captured many records, being, at 78 days, one of the longest in Canadian history and putting into office the second-youngest and first prime minister to follow in the footsteps of a parent. Trudeau is in many aspects the polar opposite of Harper: young and charismatic, liberal, and willing to throw himself down a flight of stairs in the name of comedy. Only 43 years old, he is the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Growing up in the spotlight and shadow of his father gave him visibility rarely afforded to political candidates early in their lives. A politician only later in life, Trudeau dabbled in acting, teaching, and advocacy before seeking the Liberal Party nomination in the Papineau electoral district in 2007.

While his youth, relatability, and visibility may seem refreshing to younger voters, it was these qualities that gave cause for smear campaigns by his opposition. The Conservative Party launched attack ads that questioned Trudeau’s ability to run a country with relatively little experience and policies that looked to secure votes from the younger generations. They beg Canadian voters to consider: is he a celebrity or a politician?. If his campaign, wisely tailored to millennials and the middle class, is anything to go by, the answer is politician. A focus on tax cuts for the middle class and social issues currently important to liberal Canadians gave Trudeau an edge in a political climate turning sharply left. Intentions to legalize marijuana, opposition to the anti-Islam policies of now-former Prime Minister Harper’s time, such as the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, and pledges to face climate change quickly and efficiently have raised expectations of a liberal and progressive Canada under the Liberal Party.

Trudeau’s election comes only weeks before the United Nations Convention on Climate Change in Paris, where hundreds of key players will be searching for an agreement ammenable to every country to keep average global surface temperature below two degrees Celsius. Trudeau will be attending and has himself made promises to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, a welcome change for Canadians used to Harper’s conservative environmental policies. In 2014, we saw Harper green light the Northern Gateway pipeline, a project of which Trudeau steadfastly disapproves. A project that was first introduced to the public in 2004, the Northern Gateway pipeline was proposed to stretch from Alberta to the coast of British Columbia, carrying natural gas condensate to the east and oil sands to the west. The pipeline, developed by Enbridge, Inc., was to cost CND 7.9 billion, and has received criticism from environmental and First Nation aboriginal groups due to economic and environmental risks. Trudeau firmly believes that the northern coast of Canada is no place for a pipeline and that the economic costs to the aboriginal peoples of the area would far outweigh the future gains. But despite his opposition to this project, Trudeau is in no way opposed to the idea of pipelines in Canada and remains dedicated in his support of the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Harper was a strong proponent of the XL Pipeline and Trudeau follows in his footsteps in this regard. A project that would carry petroleum from the oil sands of northern Alberta to the border of Nebraska then connect with various other Keystone pipelines to carry it down to Texas for exportation, this pipeline is one that the Obama administration is highly skeptical of. Obama’s veto of the bill has come as a relief to environmental groups throughout the United States and Canada. Highly regarded among Democrats and liberals as a project that puts the progress of reforms aimed at slowing climate change at risk, even Trudeau himself realizes that his support comes as a shock. But when considering his dedication to investments in national infrastructure , his support follows the reasoning one can find in any argument for the construction of the pipeline: the Keystone XL Pipeline will create thousands of jobs. But this dedication is incompatible with his promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, many environmental groups say. Not only would the pipeline disrupt the unique boreal forests of northern Alberta, but it would also travel over the United States’ largest freshwater aquifer. While it is hard to ignore the need for job creation in both countries, it is even harder to look past the environmental issues that may come up should this project be approved.

Trudeau’s seemingly contradictory stance on crude oil pipelines speaks to a greater contradiction within his role as prime minister: how can he pay homage to his promise to boost the Canadian economy and protect the middle class while staying in line with his party’s position on environmental issues? An argument that permeates the Republican rhetoric on the XL Pipeline in the United States is that its construction will provide relatively long-term jobs in an economy that is desperate for them. In Canada, this holds true even more so. Canada’s unemployment rate is higher than that of the United States, 6.9 percent compared to our 5.5. But the State Department tells us that TransCanada, which would build the pipeline, plans to hire only 50 people during its operational phase, only 35 of which would be permanent employees. The construction phase would only create around 2,000 jobs over two years, not nearly enough to even act as a bandaid on the unemployment problem that the U.S. and Canada face. So rather than having to compromise on one of his winning points of focus, Trudeau should recognize that the benefits rarely outweigh the costs; the U.S. State Department estimates that Canadian energy production will grow at the same rate regardless of the pipeline’s construction. His support of the project already got him the votes he needed in Alberta, an area particularly hard hit by unemployment, and now that he has secured his position as prime minister, Trudeau can focus on fulfilling his promises of working towards a more environmentally friendly Canada.

 -Alexie Schwarz

 

The Rise of Artificial Intelligence: Welcoming Productivity or Accepting Economic Inequality?

This piece was originally published on LinkedIn

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"Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of 'gods,' and then the rest of us."

"Back to the Future" Day was roughly three weeks ago. As fans around the globe donned Marty McFly and Doc Brown costumes, many compared the 2015 technology imagined in the sci-fi classic to where our technology stands today. From the Lexus Hoverboard to Microsoft's HoloLens, we can see that our reality isn't too far off from the future predicted in the 1980s trilogy. However, not all sci-fi films were so optimistic. The first "Terminator" film was released in 1984, just one year before the first "Back to the Future." The film paints a grim picture: malicious artificial intelligence systematically attacking and destroying the human race.

Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk have all warned us about artificial intelligence. "Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history," wrote English theoretical physicist Hawking in an op-ed, which appeared in a 2014 issue of The Independent. "Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. In the near term, world militaries are considering autonomous-weapon systems that can choose and eliminate targets." Then, in a 2014 BBC interview, Hawking added, "Humans, limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded by AI."

In spite of these warnings, the technology sector speeds forward, creating fantastical machines that could easily be mistaken for Hollywood movie props (The robot in the photo above is not from an upcoming action sci-fi movie -- it's Japan's Kurata mech). While robots and artificial intelligence lead to discussions of morality and the human pursuit of power and immortality, such developments present economic concerns as well. In a new report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, it forecasts a catastrophic number of jobs being eliminated by AI: up to 35% of all workers in the UK and 47% of those in the US, including white-collar jobs. 

Source: Suidobashi Heavy INdustry

Source: Suidobashi Heavy INdustry

 

Are these numbers a cause for panic? Is this the advent of a mechanized takeover? Perhaps; but history has a different tale to tell. From the Industrial Revolution in 19th-century England to the print unions protesting in the 1980s about computers, there have always been people fearful about technological advancements. An even more fascinating trends is that the economy continues to produce new jobs in the wake of these developments. 

"The poster child for automation is agriculture," said Calum Chace, author of Surviving AI as well as the novel Pandora's Brain. "In 1900, 40% of the US labor force worked in agriculture. By 1960, the figure was a few percent. And yet people had jobs; the nature of the jobs had changed.

"But then again, there were 21 million horses in the US in 1900. By 1960, there were just three million. The difference was that humans have cognitive skills -- we could learn to do new things. But that might not always be the case as machines get smarter and smarter."

"Humans, limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded by AI." 

What if we're the horses to AI's humans? The combination of robotics and artificial intelligence is advancing at incredible speeds. MIT recently released a video of an autonomous drone flying at 30 miles per hour, avoiding obstacles -- all without a pilot, using only its onboard processors, essentially learning its environment throughout the course of its flight. MIT also built bipedal robots designed to soften their impact when falling over as well as a "robot cheetah," which can jump over obstacles of up to 40 centimeters without help.

Earlier this year, Toshiba released Aiko Chihira, an android, on the floor of a Tokyo department store. She was so lifelike that many shoppers confused her for a human being. "She's 165 centimeters [5 feet 5 inches] tall ... and she's supposed to be 32 years old," designer Hitoshi Tokuda said. "Her movement is done by 30-times-per-second data [transfers]," and she is powered by 43 motors, making her movements so subtle that she appears "90 percent" human-like.

Add to that Moore's Law, an observation made by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965, which  states that the power of microprocessor technology doubles and its costs of production halve every 18 months, and you can see why fear of a robot revolution isn't so far-fetched. 

sourcE: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

sourcE: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

However, the invasion of AI in our daily lives started well before autonomous drones and lifelike androids. From cooking systems with vision processors that can determine how cooked a burger is to robo-advisors that provide automated, algorithm-based portfolio management advice without the use of human financial planners, artificial intelligence has been an active component of human life for a long time.

The Associated Press has sports and business news stories written automatically by a system developed by Automated Insights. Even doctors and lawyers may be under threat. About 570,000 "robo-surgery" operations were performed last year. Oncologists at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York have used IBM's Watson supercomputer, which can read one million textbooks in three seconds, to help them with diagnosis. On the other hand, advanced databases can sort through giant files faster than any lawyer. The fact of the matter is computers and mechanization are continuously displacing work. 

So how will robotics and AI impact our jobs, our economy, and our society? In a 2013 paper The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerization?, Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne point out that even while some jobs are replaced, new ones are quick to spring up, often times re-allocating labor to focus more on service and interaction with and between people. In an interview with the Observer, Frey said, "The fastest-growing occupations in the past five years are all related to services." 

However, Frey finds that technology is leading to a scarcity of leading-edge employment. Fewer and fewer people have the skills needed to work in the front line of its advances. "In the 1980s, 8.2% of the US workforce were employed in new technologies introduced in that decade," he writes. "By the 1990s, it was 4.2%. For the 2000s, our estimate is that it's just 0.5%. That tells me that, on the one hand, the potential for automation is expanding -- but also that technology doesn't create that many new jobs now compared to the past."

This trend worries people like Chace. "There will be people who own the AI, and therefore own everything else," he says. "Which means homo sapiens will be split into a handful of 'gods,' and then the rest of us.

"I think our best hope going forward is figuring out how to live in an economy of radical abundance, where machines do all the work, and we basically play."

Might we already be part of the way there? As automation and AI become more accessible, wouldn't productivity lead to increased leisure time? Chace warns that a work-less lifestyle also means "you have to think about a universal income" -- a basic, unconditional level of state support. 

Source: ibm

Source: ibm

Perhaps it is still too early to properly assess the social effects of AI. Technology moves fast; figuring out what happened in the past is difficult enough, let alone what the future will bring. 

In business and academic circles, productivity is often hailed as the driver of economic growth. 18th century scholar Thomas Malthus notoriously predicted that a rapidly rising human population would result in war, plague, and famine. But Malthus failed to take into account the drastic technological changes -- from steam-powered transportation to enhancements in agricultural technology -- that would allow the production of food and other staples to expand even more rapidly than the number of hungry mouths. The puzzle and answer to economic progress is the ability to do more with the same investment of capital and labor. 

The introduction of robots has reduced the amount of time and resources needed in the production process. Yet as workers are laid off from production lines, new jobs are created elsewhere. To date, fears of mass unemployment as a result of a machine takeover are as unfounded as those that have always accompanied other great technological revolutions. 

This may sound hunky-dory and all, but there is an important caveat. The relatively low-skilled factory workers who have been displaced by robots are rarely the same people who miraculously become app developers or analysts. Technological progress is already a suspect for exacerbating inequality, a trend Bank of America Merrill Lynch maintains may continue in the future. 

Massive economic benefits may be reaped from the rise of machines and AI; but unless it is carefully managed, those very benefits may be monopolized by wealthier, upper-class members of our society, exacerbating inequality and perpetuating class-based issues. 

- Patrick Lin

The Politics of a Period

Half the world bleeds, has bled, and will bleed three to seven days every month from puberty to menopause, on average 38 years of a person’s life. Depending on where a person lives and what resources are available to them, menstruation can be anything from a mild inconvenience to a financial and emotional burden. This financial burden is more pronounced in certain areas of the world where an additional tax is added onto the price of feminine hygiene products. For many, this is a cost that makes an already expensive item that much more difficult to swing financially.

A recent topic of contention has been the taxation of tampons in the UK under the umbrella of a “luxury item,” a category from which things like exotic meats and edible cake decorations are excluded.  Tampons were taxed at a rate of 17.5% from 1973 to 2000, and while it has gone down to 5%,  many believe that there is much more to be done. The backlash from women all across the world has manifested itself in the form of parody videos  and blood-soaked measures of protest, like going without tampons or pads in public. The problem with the tampon tax comes down to two issues. First, many people cannot easily afford sanitary products during their periods. Second, the UN considers menstrual hygiene a human right akin to clean water and hygienic toilets, a fact that makes its inclusion in a group with non-essential, luxury items ridiculous. 

David Cameron has attributed the difficulty removing the value-added tax (VAT) on tampons to “the way tax is regulated and set in Europe.”  And this is true: all 28 countries that make up the EU would have to agree in order to have it changed. The EU plans to review taxation policies next year,  and there are many reasons why the tampon tax should be one of their first topics of discussion. Between 2010 and 2013, one third of the UK’s population fell below the poverty line at least once.   No person should be in a position of having to abstain from sanitary products in order to save money, a trend that food banks across the world recognize is happening.  The United States faces this problem as well, considering food stamps do not cover feminine hygiene products. Some resort to selling their food stamps to afford necessities like tampons. The Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Labour Party have brought this to the attention of the government, tabling an amendment to the Finance Bill that would exclude these items from the non-essential, luxury item tax and outright remove the 5% charge.  The amendment was rejected in the House of Commons, citing the UK’s inability to make changes without the approval of the 27 other member countries.  This doesn’t, though, mean that a change is completely off the table; it must be discussed next year with the entirety of the EU. 

Paula Sherriff, the Labour MP who backed the amendment, recognizes that these taxes hit the poorest parts of the population the hardest. “Imagine, for example, being homeless when that time of the month comes,” she says. “Think what it’s like to face a period without even having a bathroom.” Sherriff raises an important point. For homeless people, menstruation presents a persistent nightmare. Homeless shelters often overlook necessary feminine sanitary products, and this leaves those menstruating constantly worried about bleeding through their clothes. While condoms and other health-related items are provided for free at clinics and shelters, the tampon is mysteriously absent. 

For many human rights and feminist groups, removing the luxury tax from tampons is only the first step. The goal is to make tampons free and widely available. Walking into any public bathroom, one can find toilet paper, soap, and sometimes seat covers. Planned Parenthood and other health clinics offer condoms and contraceptives for free. Most universities also provide these for their students. Schools and health clinics pay for women to avoid pregnancy but do not follow through financially on that decision: the direct consequence of an unfertilized egg is menstruation, which is then considered the woman’s own financial responsibility. Of course, there are other things to consider in this decision, like the fact that pregnancy is more expensive than a box of tampons every few months. But sex is not mandatory, whereas menstruation for most people with a uterus is a recurring phenomenon. Condoms are important in keeping those participating in sexual activity safe and should be easily accessible, but no one has to use a condom three times a day for three to seven days every month, an average of over 3,000 days of their life.  This speaks to the stigmatization of feminine health and hygiene that exists in health education and the government.   

Who decided that we get toilet paper for free but not tampons or pads? Governments predominantly run by non-menstruating individuals. Paula Sherriff calls the VAT on tampons a “vagina added tax.”  The rhetoric surrounding menstruation is ripe with contradiction. The act is certainly stigmatized, meant mostly to be hidden and even shamed, and yet we have to pay to keep it invisible. There is an entire industry that capitalizes on female pain. They are bleeding us dry. If a person wants to stop their period, one of the few ways is pregnancy, and this is understandably not a viable option for most. You want your period to be less heavy, more punctual? Birth control is an option. But this leaves a person, yet again, in a heavily politicized space. The very act of menstruation is not a choice that can be made. It cannot be abstained from. 

Developing countries are hit hardest by lack of availability of hygiene products. For example, most women in Nigeria use rags to remain clean during menstruation.  UNICEF estimates that around 10% of girls in Africa miss school while on their periods. These sorts of statistics demonstrate the necessity for action. In a world where young girls are pushed out of school and 73% of women factory workers in Bangladesh miss work for an average of six days a month because of their periods, it’s not easy to imagine the stigmatization of menstruation going away anytime soon. This stigmatization enables health risks associated with poor management of menstrual hygiene to persist and perpetuates the further marginalization of women. The “tampon tax” issue is not just an economic one and is certainly not only present in Western countries, where its backlash is most visible. Beyond the idea of health, cleanliness, and comfort, making menstrual hygiene products free is an issue of human rights. By making tampons free and at the very least tax free, women’s health issues will become increasingly visible, especially in low-income countries and communities. In doing so, an emphasis can be placed on education and create an equality between men’s health issues and women’s health issues. This is what is needed to empower women across the globe and possibly eliminate the conditions that perpetuate poor health management and financing practices in the first place. 

 -Alexie Schwarz