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NO TO KEYNESIAN PRINCIPLES
By Jonathan Labib

The results of the French Presidential election are in; the center-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated by socialist challenger Francois Hollande. I don’t blame the French electorate for throwing Sarkozy out of office; he failed to deliver on his campaign promise of revitalizing the French economy. I do however think that electing a socialist candidate who plans on restoring economic growth by raising taxes to crushingly high levels and expanding the already massive French state isn’t the answer either.

One of Hollande’s major economic platforms that he ran on is raising the marginal income tax rate on French millionaires to a staggering 75%. The wealthy, such as French millionaires, are able to move around the world to escape such onerously high tax rates. A country with such a high tax rate is uncompetitive compared to other countries with lower tax rates. Many French high income earners will probably leave the country if such a punitive tax is levied to protect their assets. If a French businessman is presented the choice of paying a 35% marginal tax rate in America as opposed to a 75% tax rate in France, the choice seems clear, at least in my opinion. A 75% tax rate will kill investment by causing massive amounts of capital to flee the country. Raising taxes can sometimes lead to an increase in revenue for the state, but not when they are raised to absurd levels.

Speaking of the state, the French state already controls 56% of French GDP. For comparisons sake many American’s feel that the American government controls too much of the American economy at around 25% of GDP. Hollande plans to jump-start the French economy by promoting growth over austerity. Unfortunately Hollande’s idea of growth is inflating the already bloated French state via increases in government spending. France’s government spending is already above levels that are thought to have deleterious effects on a countries economy, a major increase in spending will most likely further crowd-out the struggling private sector. France’s debt is also an issue, as it is already at 90% of GDP. A massive increase in tax rates and government spending will inevitably increase the French debt problem, much to the chagrin of the European bond and stock markets.

The answer to France’s economic woes isn’t massive Keynesian stimulus and confiscatory tax rates, but instead to enact meaningful structural reforms that will make France more competitive in the global marketplace. Such reforms would include raising the retirement age, loosening labor laws, lowering government spending to reduce bureaucracy, getting rid of unnecessary regulation, and keeping taxes at competitive levels. Hopefully the fiscal pact that France signed upon joining the EU will preclude it from doing anything reckless economically. France has the choice to become more like Greece or more like Germany, for the sake of the French people they should opt for the latter.

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WHY HOLLANDE IS GOOD FOR EUROPE
By Zach Goldaber

François Hollande’s election as President of France shows that the French people have a strong desire for a new blood and new answers in the search to save the French and European economies. Frankly, his solutions just might work.

Hollande is something of a French Barack Obama in that he campaigned on the issue of change and unity. Despite the inroads that he made in making France more of a player on the international scene, outgoing President Sarkozy left France a socially fractured and more divided nation internally. In particular, Sarkozy drew a great deal of flak for courting the far-right nationalist party Front National, further bringing to the forefront contentious questions about immigration, racism, and the economic disparities that plague the nation.

His ousting indicates that the French people want unity, not separation.  In the New York Times marketing professional Sebastian Mondat summed up how many of the French people feel about the president-elect: “I found that Hollande had the power to bring people together,” he said. “The right was compelled to take up its traditional topics, creating tension among people.”While not an especially charismatic figure, Mr. Hollande has rightly recognized that desire for an end to the tension and seized upon it.

Many take issue with Hollande’s opposition to austerity measures as a means of fixing the European economy. Hollande supporters have rightly pointed out that austerity measures have thus far solved nothing, and that there have been eighteen months of economic chaos in the Eurozone. The citizens of Greece spoke out against austerity measures in droves last Sunday by rejecting the two leading political parties there, and now the French have done the same. Hollande offers a gleam of hope in a bleak landscape where nothing seems to be working.

There are potential problems, of course. With Germany standing tall as the gorilla in the EU, Hollande must come to some kind of middle ground with Angela Merkel and the German government. He almost assuredly shall, but in the process Merkel will likely have to compromise on her strong pro-austerity stance to some degree. Germany, for all its might, cannot act effectively without the support of nations like France and Britain. Hollande’s installment thus represents a positive measure on that end. He is certainly a step up over Sarkozy, who looked like Merkel’s French hand puppet at times.

His taxation policies – Hollande favors raising the tax rate to 75% on those making over a million euros and wants to raise the corporate tax rate as well – have been cited as policies that might drive business out of France and greatly damage its economy. While Hollande is a socialist, he is not an idiot. He undoubtedly realizes the importance of keeping jobs and money in France, and has some awareness of the concept of fiscal responsibility. His economic plan, in fact, calls for balancing the French budget by 2017 and creating economic incentives that will put 60,000 more teachers in the French school system. When tested, Hollande may show an astonishing capability for sensibility and moderation.

This is undoubtedly what the French people expect. Hollande got his start working for François Mitterrand, the first Socialist French president. No one gave Mitterrand a chance in the polls, and as Hollande put it himself, “they used to call him badly dressed, old, archaic, he knows nothing about the economy!” Mitterrand shocked Europe, however, and went on to successfully govern France through the shaky economic era of the early ‘80s and remained in office for 15 years. Today he is broadly adored by the French public as a man who had a remarkable capacity to adapt to the times and climate and govern well. It does not seem like a stretch to believe that history might well repeat itself during the presidency of Mr. Hollande.

The race is on.

Nicholas Sarkozy, incumbent president and candidate of the Union for a Popular Movement, is running for a second term against Socialist Francois Hollande in the French presidential election.

Representing the far right, Sarkozy’s platform can be summarized by his vow to protect “the French way of life.” He seeks to reduce legal immigration by 50 percent, reform the welfare system to tackle unemployment, and introduce national referendums to encourage involvement in policy planning. In an effort to refute allegations that he favors the wealthy, he also aims to apply a minimum 15 percent tax on major French corporations, establish a levy for those who have fled France to avoid taxes, and establish stricter regulations on banks.

Unfortunately, one thing is marring his campaign: popular opinion. It is a well-known fact that the French dislike Sarkozy. With a disapproval rating of 64 percent, Sarkozy is considered the most unpopular president in French history, according to Journal du Dimanche. He is disliked for his far-right politics—the French traditionally glorify the far left, à la revolution and romance—and flashy, undiplomatic behavior.

Is this disapproval merited, however?

“There is an irrational hatred of Nicolas Sarkozy among much of the public…. I say ‘irrational’ because that is what it is. Polls show that if you ask people about this or that policy of Sarkozy’s—but don’t mention his name—they will tend to support it,” says Jean-Sebastien Ferjou of Atlantico.

One may relate the way in which image overshadows politics to the 2008 American presidential election. Just as Sarkozy’s infamy takes precedence in the French public’s mind, Obama’s status as America’s first black president was a defining characteristic of his campaign. Obama was likewise touted for his youth and charisma as much as, if not more than, his platform. It thus appears to be a recurring theme that personal traits play a considerable role in politics.

In contrast to Sarkozy, Hollande has been continually backed by the French public. Opinion polls from Tuesday, April 24 showed him to be ahead of Sarkozy with 54 percent of the vote.

Representing the Socialist Party, Hollande aims to alleviate France’s debt by 2017 by getting ridding of tax cuts and exemptions for the wealthy, increasing the retirement age to 60 for those who have worked 42 years, and recreating 60,000 public education jobs. Perhaps most controversially, he plans to raise the income tax for those who earn over one million euros by 75 percent.

Hollande defends his move as “a patriotic act.” Critics argue that it is only a move to draw more leftist supporters, however, while opponents have responded in outrage. Such an increase would override the tax shield Sarkozy implemented in 2007, which capped tax at 50 percent of all income.

“It’s a populist measure,” says Emiliano Grossman, a political-science professor at Sciences Po of Paris, “because it concerns very few people and it’s not going to bring a significant amount of money into the public coffers.”

Neither candidate gained a majority in the first round of voting. Hollande led with 28.6 percent of the vote, while Sarkozy followed with 27.2. National Front leader Marine Le Pen trailed behind with 18 percent. While this result marked an improvement for Sarkozy, this is the first election in which the incumbent president did not win the first round. As such, it seems unlikely that Sarkozy will be re-elected.

The two candidates are currently under fire for pandering after Le Pen’s far right supporters, which number over 6 million. Analysts estimate that Sarkozy may need as many as 80 percent of her votes to win. While her supporters could determine the next president, Le Pen herself does not support either candidate and has announced that she will cast a blank ballot. The outcome will not be revealed until May 6, when Sarkozy and Hollande face off in the second and final round of elections.

The upcoming French election should have politicians stirring. With unemployment and an economic crisis on hand, you would think political debate is focused on these large issues. Instead, the most prevalent matter of discourse seems to be the issue of Halal meat in France.

In order for meat to be considered Halal, the animal must be slaughtered in a specific manner and a prayer must be said. In this sense, the ritual of slaughtering an animal is similar to Kosher rituals. However, French politicians are now trying to pass a law that bans the slaughtering of meat in this manner, and thus have stirred up a debate about the “true French identity” and multiculturalism.

This issue was called into question when far-right politician, Jean-Marie Le Pen, made the claim that many French diners were unknowingly consuming Halal meat. While  it’s understandable why people want to know what they are eating, it’s not clear why this issue has become the crux of the French election.

From an animal rights perspective , a ban on no-stun slaughter may make sense. However, from the perspective  of human rights, it is wrong and unjust to prevent people from following the mandates of their religion, so long as it does not harm others. I do not see why eating Halal or Kosher meat would harm anyone who does not desire to eat the meat, but this is a problem that can easily be solved. Despite the fact that current president Sarkozy visited multiple slaughterhouses and confirmed that the majority of the meat in France is not Halal, this issue remains at the forefront of the election.

Why is this even a problem? If the majority of the French populous does not want to eat Halal meat, would it not be easier to enforce stricter labeling laws? Preventing not just one, but two, large religious groups from abiding by their religious mandates seems extreme, and much too harsh a reaction to an unsubstantiated remark.

What I cannot grasp is why this is such a seemingly important issue in the election. With larger problems to worry about, who has the time or effort to care about an issue that only concerns certain members of the French population? This seems like a problem that can easily be solved; there is no reason for it to be a matter of such concern. Banning Halal meat in school cafeterias serves no greater purpose other than to further an agenda that is staunchly against multiculturalism.

This ban would hurt the French economy, which is already fragile enough as it is. By preventing the ritual slaughter of animals in line with Islamic and Judaic mandates, the French government is effectively banning a multi-billion dollar industry.

Ultimately, the debate about Halal meat is a proxy debate about multiculturalism, and it should not have a place in the upcoming election. Politicians should focus on actual issues-an increasing unemployment rate and a crumbling economy, not the personal dietary habits of their citizens.

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HITCHCOCK VISITS ALASKA
By Charley Kargman

For the last five years or so, I have been somewhat of an outlier amongst my group of friends, being a less than whole-hearted admirer of Christopher Nolan.  While I recognize that he is a talented director, his filmography hasn’t proved to me that he has the insight, individuality, and instincts of a great director like Martin Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino or the Coen Brothers. I loved the looping mind games of Memento and the provocative thrill ride of The Dark Knight, but his other films have always come off to me as mostly style over substance, typical 2000’s action movies with muddled philosophical messages. That aside, Sean and I thought that with the bound-to-be blockbuster Dark Knight Rises coming out later this year, it seems an opportune time to revisit some old entries in the Nolan catalog. Mine: the 2002 mystery Insomnia.

Al Pacino stars as Will Dormer, a veteran L.A. detective with a guilty past who flies with his partner to a small Alaskan fishing town to help solve the murder of a teenage girl. Ellie Burr, played by the ever-dependable Hilary Swank, is the local, plucky, aspiring chief detective (and admirer of Dormer’s work), who leads the case. Things start to unravel when Dormer accidentally shoots and kills his partner during a chase after a suspect in the fog. He lies about it to the local police and hides all the evidence, only to discover that the killer, Walter Finch, a creepy Robin Williams, witnessed the whole thing. To make matters worse, it’s summer in Alaska, and the eternal daylight prevents Dormer from getting even a wink of sleep, affecting his mind and judgment more and more each day. It’s one of the viscerally uncomfortable pleasures of the film, watching and feeling Dormer become increasingly strung out with each successive scene.

If the plot sounds a little clichéd, it is. It rehashes a lot of the stock characters and ideas that have appeared in a plenty of thriller mysteries before it: cop with a past, a benevolent-appearing serial killer, and a small town setting, among others. Fortunately, Nolan makes expert use of his Alaskan setting and Academy Award-winning cast to push Insomnia above its uninspired material. The film punches above its weight.

Probably the most notable character in Insominia is the Alaskan setting itself. In contrast to his later work, Nolan derives dream-like mystery and strangeness from a real, living place rather than some hand-made, artificial world. Reminiscent of early 80’s wilderness action movies like The Thing and First Blood, Wally Pfister’s cinematography provides the viewer with plenty of breathtaking shots of the towering mountains, endless trees, and crashing waters, always bathed in the natural light of the never setting sun. This makes for a wonderfully bizarre environment for a police procedural, and Nolan adroitly exploits the settings in which Dormer finds himself to drive the plot. Beyond the obvious light-induced insomnia and the fatal chase scene in the fog, he has Dormer chase Finch over a log farm, interrogate the victim’s best friend on the desolate Alaskan tundra, and chat with the killer on an intercity ferry. In almost Hitchcockian fashion, Nolan allows the setting to define Insomnia, and the movie is made more thrilling because of it.

It was almost inevitable that someone like Al Pacino would play Will Dormer. Pacino has done this type of role to death in the last two decades – the strong, but vulnerable veteran of films like Scent of a Woman, Carlito’s Way, and Heat. That said, watching Pacino inhabit these “old hand” characters is always a joy; his loud, raspy, New York-meets-North Carolina voice, wide, sad eyes, and weathered face manufacturing the anxious energy that marks these roles.

We’ve seen Robin Williams’s role before, too: the deceivingly pleasant lunatic sociopath. Williams will act and speak calmly enough to make you question the very possibility of his culpability, only to have your assumptions upended by a surprise ruthless act, or “wildcard” as Finch calls it. He does this so well that when the doomed protagonist and antagonist finally meet on the ferry, the tables seem to turn multiple times within a matter of sentences, morality becoming more and more relative by the second.

The familiarity of these characters (in contrast to most of Nolan’s other efforts), and particularly Dormer’s, enhances a central message of the movie, the ability for humankind to compartmentalize and get on with life even under the load of a heavy conscience. Sleepless dream sequences and recurring images constantly remind us of Dormer’s past, yet we also witness time and time again, despite these demons, the detective breezing through interrogations and picking up clues from seemingly meaningless objects like painted nails and a ripped picture. Most of the themes and motifs in Insomnia are typical Nolan fare – dreams, obsession with the past, guilt – but by substituting a pedestrian occupation, here a cop, for his more usual exotica (a playboy crime fighter, rival magicians), they become more relatable.

This choice also has implications for an assessment of the movie-at-large. While its Alaska location, clever direction, and strong cast make Insomnia a memorable thriller, they never make it a completely original one. Originality has never been a requirement for me, but the frequent return to past structures and past ideas prevents the film from reaching greatness. Insomnia remains a very enjoyable derivative of Hitchcock’s work, something to watch for entertainment rather than enlightenment.

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A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE PLOT
By Sean McClelland

Whether or not you love his films, it’s hard to dispute that Christopher Nolan is one of the most interesting directors of the last decade. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but most can agree that Nolan has pushed the envelope in developing entertainingly visceral flicks for the geek cinema culture that has emerged since the dawn of the current millennium. That is to say that Nolan has achieved tremendous critical and commercial success by producing movies that are intellectually and emotionally captivating for large swaths of the population. Structurally, Nolan’s movies thrive by taking the familiar and adding a twist, playing to his audience’s expectations while trying to trick the viewer into believing the twisted world he has created. Sometimes this ploy works; sometimes it doesn’t. When it works, the twist becomes central to the movie’s themes, character and narrative structure, as in the neo-noir psychological thriller Memento from 2000.

As with Charley’s pick, Insomnia, the plot of Memento is fairly straightforward at first glance. The protagonist Leonard (played by Guy Pearce), grieving over the death of his wife, vows to exact revenge upon the man responsible. Along the way, he is assisted and manipulated by those with whom he comes into contact, most notably jovial Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and sullen Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), two acquaintances that ultimately try to use Leonard for their own ends. Of course, the central story is rife with clichéd tropes; backstabbing drug dealers, sneaky barmaids and vigilante off-duty cops all make the required appearances. Recounting the story as I just did, however, disregards everything that makes a Nolan movie significant—Memento’s narrative twist makes the tropes seem fresh and dynamic and sets up the most significant themes explored by the film as a whole.

In Memento, the twist in reality Nolan sets up revolves around Leonard’s anterograde amnesia caused by the same home invasion that resulted in the death of his wife. In effect, Leonard’s capacity for memory is frozen at the time that he was hit over the head by masked men in his bathroom. To make up for the lack of new memories, Leonard keeps himself cognizant of developments in his investigation of his wife’s death by taking notes on Polaroid pictures and tattooing himself with bits of important information.

What is more significant than the twist’s effect on the character, however, is how Nolan uses it to deliver the story and thematic messages. The narrative itself is framed in reverse, giving the audience a glimpse into the mental functioning of a man who cannot form new memories. The chronological end of the story is the opening scene of the movie; we become apprised of the rest of the story in chunks of time that link together chronologically but are presented in reverse order.

While Nolan used a similar chronological gimmick in Inception (wherein a gang of specialists infiltrate many levels of a corporate heir’s dreams to implant an idea in his mind), his use of this twist in Memento serves a more substantive end. In Memento, the narrative structure imbues upon the audience the same sense of psychological uncertainty felt by its protagonist. Characters that in one chunk of time seem benevolent are revealed to be conniving and vicious just minutes earlier in the film’s structure.

Ultimately, each new chunk of time revealed to the audience unseats the viewer’s perceptions about the balance of the movie and the nature of the film’s character development. People, memories and interactions become unpredictable and unreliable. As Nolan reveals more and more with each additional time slot, truth becomes less and less objective until, in the film’s climactic final minutes, the audience is led to the conclusion that perceived truth is just a lie that has the weight of reality through unconscious rejection of the facts.

Now, Memento is the best example of a Nolan film because it is the clearest example of his method functioning as intended. As Mr. Kargman eloquently addressed, Insomnia also avoids many of the pitfalls of The Dark Knight or The Prestige by constructing environments and characters whose relative banality makes them easy to grapple with intellectually. A cop in Alaska makes for a much simpler canvas on which Nolan can play with reality than does a crime-fighting billionaire in dystopic Gotham or rival magicians in Victorian London. Similarly, Leonard’s story in Memento becomes absorbed by the characteristic Nolan twist. What sets Memento and Insomnia apart, however, is that the signature twisted reality established in Memento comes to define everything within the world created by the movie while the unsettling eeriness of Insomnia only becomes overwhelming towards the climax of the film.

Memento is bled-through from the very start with Nolan’s unique narrative structure; the most significant explorations of truth and memory are directly tied to the gimmick format itself. The entire film becomes an exercise in forcing the audience’s chronological and temporal perspective. Insomnia’s sleeplessly eerie gimmick, by contrast, slowly builds and only becomes related to the film’s themes as Insomnia’s protagonist loses his mind and control over reality. In other words, Insomnia works as a film because it eschews the most traditional of Christopher Nolan’s reality-twisting techniques and Memento works as a film because it embraces them.

The world turned on the World Bank late last month. For the first time in the institution’s existence, a competitive contest for its traditionally American-held presidency seemed not only likely but also welcome. Still, the American candidate Jim Yong Kim’s victory over Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okjonjo-Iweala was anything but a surprise: despite the positive press and the half-hearted, not-quite endorsements of many First World leaders, it was always unlikely that the European voting bloc would split from Kim to join developing nations in supporting Iweala.

Despite the race’s disappointing outcome, developing nations and World Bank critics should be heartened by the accomplishments touted by the development banks of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – the five fastest growing developing economies) after their March 29 summit. The five countries signed a number of pacts dealing with a host of currently relevant geopolitical and economic issues (post-crisis financial investment, green energy, rising tensions in the Middle East etc.). Additionally and most significantly, the BRICS announced plans to form a new global development bank – essentially an alternative to the World Bank that would be both more representative of and useful to developing nations.

Given the BRICS’ rapidly growing place in the global economy and their demographic importance (the five countries control, as favorably mentioned by World Bank President Robert Zoellick recently, nearly half of the world’s population and a quarter of its landmass, as well as a quarter of the global economy) the idea of their having a shared development bank makes sense. Additionally, giving developing nations a new option for procuring loans, perhaps without the burden of policies like the World Bank’s infamous structural adjustment programs can hardly be a bad thing. Instead of demanding that developing nations receiving loans go through often arduous economic transformations in order to achieve fiscal solvency, the bank could provide a forum through which developing nations could express their views on relevant economic issues as valuable members of the global economy.

This possibility is in reach as many developing leaders already feel that the BRICS bloc is receptive to their ideas. Jacob Zuma said as much following the March 29 summit, claiming that among the BRICS, “we have a place where we feel Africa is treated with respect.” Indeed, the very act of admitting South Africa to the BRIC clique in 2010 seemed like a signal to both Africa and the rest of the developing world that the original four members of the bloc were willing to let regions previously part of the global economic periphery into the forefront of international politics.

But while there exist reasonable “Whys” for the creation of a BRICS bank, all the other relevant questions have yet to be answered by proponents: Who would lead the bank? What would its administrative structure look like? Where would it be located? And how much better, exactly, would the favored system of administering loans be than the World Bank’s current practices? Additionally, the entire plan could fall apart once the many inherent differences between the BRICS nations come into play.

After all, the BRICS bloc is far from being a politically or even economically cohesive unit; the five nations vary greatly in terms of their willingness to engage regularly with the West and their general political philosophies. Russia and China’s openness to being thorns in the side of the United States on Iran and intervention in the Middle East, among other issues, will make things awkward for the other three nations. who have closer ties to the U.S, if the bloc attempts to coalesce around a more unified foreign policy moving forward. Additionally, regional disputes between Russia, India, and and differences in the paces of development between the fast growing China and India and the other three steadier paced nations might potentially make for an unstable internal dynamic.

Despite the uncertainties that would surround a new development bank, I still believe that the BRICS nations should push ahead with what would likely be a worthwhile endeavor. There is no uncertainty whatsoever about the need for Western hegemony over global economic institutions like the World Bank to end; it’s hard for people who know about how the global economy has changed over the past few decades  to disagree with the assessment of Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: “The balance of power in the world has shifted and emerging market countries are contributing more and more to global growth – more than 50 percent – and they need to be given a voice in running things.”

Given the differences the BRICS nations have among themselves, a BRICS bank would probably not initially fulfill all that developing nations could hope for in a global financial institution. But the long-term cooperation that would be necessary to bring the bank to fruition and maintain its solvency might foster the collaboration needed resolve those very differences in the long run. In any case, even an imperfect BRICS bank would at the very least provide developing nations with an alternative to the status quo: a hegemonic international banking system that lacks an institution willing to aid development on developing nations’ own terms.

“Mitt Romney has no path to victory”: Like a broken record, that statement been a common theme amongst political junkies and much of the news media narrative since Mitt Romney has locked up the Republican nomination for the presidency. In making that statement, ironically, those making the statement have presented a path to victory for Mitt Romney. For any analysis of the 2012 election must include the age-old problem plaguing Democratic politicians all over the country – that of voter apathy.

Whether one agrees with the Republicans ideologically or not, it is indisputable that Republicans, particularly very conservative ones, vote early and vote often relative to their left-leaning peers. Looking back to the most recent date from the 2010 midterms, many metrics suggested that Republicans were more involved in party politics and more likely to vote in the upcoming election than their Democratic peers. The Democrats, of course, were the party in power at the time in both chambers of Congress, and they suffered enormous losses in the midterm elections as enthusiastic Republicans voted in scores.

That is why the Obama team needs to do everything they can within their power to prevent apathy and complacency among the Democratic base if they are to beat Romney and the GOP this fall. The Republicans have a boogeyman to rail against in Obama, and they will stop at nothing – whether it’s calling him a socialist, a communist, a fascist, or a promoter of class warfare – to instill rage in their base and ensure they cast their ballots for Mitt Romney come November. Democratic officials have a much harder job, as they must convince their base and independent voters that the changes over the last four years have been beneficial for the nation and that Obama is still capable of fixing a seemingly stagnating economy.

This fall’s election will not be a blowout unless the economy skyrockets, which does not seem likely at this point. Obama can reach 270 electoral votes and guarantee his victory simply by holding on to the 19 states that John Kerry won in 2004 and winning Florida. There are many more complex paths to victory as well, some of which look easy to achieve at first glance, some of which do not. But the crux of the point is that if the Democratic leadership cannot motivate their likely voters to get to the voting booth this November, many of Romney’s paths to victory become extremely viable.

Obama won many states in 2008 based on widespread voter enthusiasm for a new and exciting candidate. As an incumbent, he will not be able to muster that enthusiasm again no matter how hard he tries. If the Democrats want to win this fall, they need to emphasize the gains made over the last four years and be clear that Obama’s centrist policies of his first term will not continue into his second. They must make it very clear how imperative it is that the Republicans not take over the White House and gain more ground in Congress, for a Republican victory will spell immense trouble for healthcare reform, Wall Street reform, and the economic recovery.

All of this seems pretty clear-cut, and the President’s team conducted perhaps the best-run campaign of all time in 2008. But when the Democrats have such a strong history of missing obvious points of attack and missed what seemed like can’t-miss chances in 1988, 2000, and 2004, it makes sense to be a little concerned about complacency and missed chances moving forward. A path to victory is always present for any presidential campaign – and in this case, a complacent Obama and uninspired voter base is just the opportunity Romney’s people are looking to pounce upon.

Lately, I have heard many misconceptions about Muslim women who wear the hijab that seem to be because of a simple lack of knowledge. To me, it seems pretty amazing that this religious mandate is still carried out today, despite the fact that many religious practices, such as this one, are considered outdated. Although I personally do not wear the headscarf, many of my friends and family members do, and they were kind enough to help educate me about this particular religious mandate.

The term “hijab” actually refers to the way a Muslim woman should carry herself, encompassing more than just the covering of the head. The concept of the hijab is one of modesty, which women are directed to preserve. In the same vein, they are instructed to be modest in the rest of their clothing, as well as their character. All this is to ensure the power of the woman, making the hijab a mandate that demands that a woman be taken seriously. Because a woman appears modest, she should be heard for her thoughts and ideas, not her appearance.

Then there’s the question of whether or not women are forced to wear the headscarf. In Islam, religious tenets are not supposed to be enforced; rather, Muslims are instructed to reserve their judgments on the actions of others and make choices only for themselves. In almost all cases, women wear the hijab because it is their personal choice to do so. Although every woman’s choice is highly personal, the basis of this decision is generally the same: to prevent themselves from being objectified. By wearing the headscarf and embracing the concept of the hijab, the woman is making a declaration of her faith.

Many Western countries have started imposing bans on religious dress, with France as a notable example. Although the argument for separating religion from state is definitely valid, the ban imposes on many personal freedoms. This religious ban does not specifically target women of the Islamic faith; it also applies to the wearing of large crosses. However, the headscarf is easily noticeable and thus, has become a subject of intense scrutiny. This ban prevents women from expressing their religious beliefs, and furthermore, it prevents them from dressing in a manner that they believe is modest and empowering. In this sense, the ban on religious garments takes away women’s freedom to express their religion in a very powerful way.

There is nothing wrong with separating religion and state, but there is something wrong with trying to take away symbols of empowerment and modesty. This especially rings true in a country with a Muslim majority, such as Turkey, where many women do wear the headscarf. By attempting to keep displays of religion away from the public sector, the government is effectively cutting down the size of the workforce, giving women less independence and fewer opportunities.

By creating bans on religious garments, governments prevent women from entering institutions that can help better their lives. This level of discrimination seems unfair and heavily outdated in an age in which tolerance and understanding are promoted. In essence, the hijab is a sign of empowerment, not oppression. The hijab represents modesty and power; women who choose to wear the headscarf are making a conscious decision that they want to be heard for their voices and nothing else. It is not a symbol of oppression or extremism, but rather one of progressiveness and inspiration.

Ninety miles across the Caribbean from the Florida Keys lies an island.  Most United States citizens cannot trade (with this island). On this island, there are no television commercials, newspaper ads or billboards plastered with pictures of food or cars. It is as if this little republic completely rejects the very principles that American consumer culture is based o. After fifty years of trade-less relations with its behemoth neighbor to the North, it is as if the country has become frozen in time.

Of course, I’m talking about Cuba, which increasing numbers of Americans have been visiting, despite a decades-old embargo that prevents most types of travel to the island. What was once a country largely dominated by American commercial interests has, in the course of a half-century, gone from being an idealistic revolutionary state to soviet puppet, finally transitioning into a bankrupt nation that tries (and largely fails) to keep its people in check through paranoia and propaganda.

Interestingly, each phase of Cuba’s history is almost perfectly enshrined in the architecture, cars and decor of Havana and other Cuban cities. Ornately detailed post-colonial buildings stand adjacent to streets crowded with wonderfully streamlined American automobiles from the 50s, all in the shadow of monolithic Soviet-style concrete office buildings. Of course, years of disrepair and neglect have given the cityscapes a distinct post-apocalyptic hue; paint has long since peeled from most buildings, many of the cars are rusted (though just as many have been kept in pristine condition) and just about every other wall is plastered with a sun-bleached, decades-old revolutionary slogan.

Indeed, one of Cuba’s most shocking facets is the complete and utter lack of advertising. Most Americans will interpret that as meaning that there are no billboards, no television commercials and no newspaper ads. This perception is only partially true. There are many billboards—it’s  just that all of them are covered in propaganda del Socialismo. Driving across the country, you’ll see dozens of free standing billboards every mile, alternatively attempting to motivate the people (“It is ideas that drive history!”) or reinforcing the irreversibility of the Revolution—an event that is, in the Cuban imagination,  ongoing and currently in its 54^th year. These read more like: “Socialism or death!” In fact, even in casual conversation, La Revolución has become shorthand for the Castro regime; the people are supposed to be mesmerized by the constant action of the revolutionary government, despite its actual operation.

Television programs and the single approved newspaper are slightly subtler in their approach, but equally predictable in formula. On TV, what is loosely called the news is, in reality, extraordinarily rehearsed in format; every night of news is composed roughly of thirty minutes of criticizing the United States (with inordinate attention given to the “ongoing” police brutality against the Occupy movement) and thirty minutes of praising the remarkable productivity of a given Cuban industrial sector. This is the only news program broadcast on the only news channel in the country (there are only four channels in total).

The nightly news is preceded by a very interesting program titled Mesa Redonda (“Round Table” in English), which, at first glance, is formatted exactly like an American political commentary program. A moderator and commentators are arranged around a table much in the same way as would be expected from a show from CNN. Once the show actually starts, however, it becomes very clear how the program differs from those in the United States; instead of heated debate, discussion and disagreement, Mesa Redonda is composed entirely of consecutive fifteen-minute monologues wherein every commentator agrees with everyone else. As with most Cuban cultural institutions, it is almost as if an American explained to a Cuban who had never before seen American news how to format a talk show and, like a game of telephone, the concept had become warped and reconstructed in accordance to the demands of La Revolución.

The newspaper is similarly organized; of the six or so pages in El Granma—the only newspaper in the country—roughly half are devoted to analyzing the failures of the United States while the other half are feel-good pieces about Cuban production. In every news outlet, actions of the United States are invariably interpreted in the worst possible light. Notably, the NATO interventions in Libya (which were largely performed by British and French forces) produced the following headline in El Granma: “U.S. Invasion of Libya Continues to Produce Civilian Casualties”. On the up-side, the Cuban people avoid indoctrination by capitalist advertisements—the paper and the news are completely void of any commercials.

One story that transcends every advertising and propaganda medium is the story of Los Cinco Héroes (“The Five Heroes”). As much as can be surmised by any inquisitive visitor, the Héroes were, simply, Communist Cuban informants who had infiltrated anti-Communist Cuban-American terrorist organizations and were imprisoned (for crimes that they had likely actually committed) after Fidel Castro had provided information gathered from the informants to the FBI to assist with capturing actual anti-Communist terrorists. The story is really very complex; each actor in the story plugs into a web of terrorist activity (some of which is, within Cuban propaganda regime, sponsored by the CIA) that dates back decades to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Whatever happened in truth actually becomes much more interesting as a myth of La Revolución. Billboards everywhere inform the public that the Héroes must return, the television updates the people every night about the fate of their informant-heroes and the newspaper responds with bitter cynicism at every step the U.S. judicial system takes in their prosecution, imprisonment and parole. Most interesting of this whole ordeal is the length of time the story has been perpetrated on the Cuban people; the Five Heroes were arrested during the Clinton Administration.

At this point, the legend of the Five Heroes has come to embody everything about the Cuban cultural regime—it, like the Revolución itself, has tried to remain relevant by transcending time, creating a system of paranoia and establishing a David & Goliath story. In the end, the regime in Cuba has survived in recent years by setting itself as the underdog, persecuted by the Goliath of the North. Ultimately, the U.S. embargo has only helped sustain this cultural mythology.

STEROIDS ARE BAD – BUT THROWING OUT AN ENTIRE ERA OF BASEBALL IS WORSE
By Zach Goldaber

The steroids scandal in baseball, whispered about for years in certain circles, broke through to the mainstream in December 2007 with the release of the Mitchell Report. The Report, authored on commission for Major League Baseball by former Democratic Congressman George Mitchell, named 89 current and former major league players as users of performance-enhancing drugs. A furor ensued, with reporters and fans alike asking what this meant for the legacy of the accused players, how pervasive steroids were in the game, and how to distinguish the guilty and suspected from the innocent.

While the pure substance of the steroids scandal -performance-enhancing drugs yielding unquantifiable effects on player performance – represented something brand new, in reality steroids simply form the latest link in the long chain of baseball history. Since organized baseball’s birth, players have done whatever they think it takes to give them a competitive edge.

In 1889, Hall of Fame pitcher Pud Galvin injected himself with a concoction consisting of monkey testosterone and bull semen on a routine basis because he thought it could make him a more effective pitcher. It is widely known that former home run king Hank Aaron used amphetamines on a routine basis. Gaylord Perry made a Hall of Fame career out of using the spitball and emery board ball long after both were banned. Cheating, in other words, is ingrained in baseball history. Many players have been rewarded, and even admired, for trying to get ahead, even if they did so outside the laws of the game.

Steroids, for some reason, have provoked an entirely different reaction. In the wake of the Mitchell Report, the consensus among the writers and the fans seemed to be that those who admitted or were accused of steroid use would suffer. Surefire Hall of Famers like Mark McGwire have languished on the ballot, and some first-ballot candidates suspected of use with no concrete proof like Jeff Bagwell are engaged in struggles for their own legacies. All-time home run king Barry Bonds, statistically one of the top five hitters of all time, and Roger Clemens, a top ten pitcher, face their own reckoning this fall when they appear on Hall of Fame ballots for the first time.

It is undeniable that steroids violations are unfortunate. Organized baseball did not test for steroids until 2004, and most reports indicate that use began in the majors sometime in the late ‘80s. That leaves a 15 year gap where, admissions of guilt and Mitchell Report aside, the innocent are indistinguishable from the guilty and everyone is tainted with the brush of playing the so-called “Steroid Era”.  Every power hitter or power pitcher, regardless of what they actually did, is tainted with the idea that they might be dirty. That’s wrong and absolutely ludicrous, and harmful to many, many good or great players who had the misfortune to happen to become a pro baseball player in the 1990s or early 2000s.

Shamefully, organized baseball and the writers that vote for the Hall of Fame have placed 99% of the blame on the players for what happened. But they should be ashamed, because when players are willing to step forward and clear the air to establish a true image of who was innocent and who was guilty in the Steroid Era, those players are roundly assaulted. When Mark McGwire owned up to his steroid use last year, his Hall of Fame vote totals actually dropped. I am all for punishing players for wrongdoing, but in this situation punishing a player for admitting to his mistakes and being honest is counter-productive, as it completely de-incentivizes other former players’ desire to clear the air. Why be honest if you know you’re going to be punished for it?

So baseball needs a change in attitude. Major League Baseball needs to realize that their negligence for 20 years in testing and unwillingness to discuss steroids with players for so long makes them almost as complicit in the scandal as the offending players.  Put the allegations on Bonds’, Clemens’ and McGwire’s plaques, if you must. Do no more – because we have no idea how steroids truly impacted their performance.

The only proper thing to do in that situation is judge the Steroid Era players by their numbers, and no more, just like the writers do with every other player in baseball history. Doing so allows players to admit what they did and receive a degree of punishment while gradually establishing a picture of who was truly clean. It’s not the simplest solution, but it’s the one that baseball needs to truly move on from the mess it created.

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PRESERVING THE GAME’S INTEGRITY
By Jonathan Labib

The Baseball Hall of Fame is a venue to celebrate the greatest athletes who have ever played the game. But the sport’s rich history of cheating has prevented the venue from celebrating the true integrity of baseball, as many of its members were far from upstanding citizens. From the spitball and pitchers scuffing baseballs to players popping “greenies” before games, baseball has been riddled with cheating, especially during the steroid era of the 1980’s 1990’s and early 2000’s. This raises questions as to whether or not players who have been linked to steroid use should even be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

While personal integrity isn’t a factor considered for admission, integrity to the game of baseball certainly is. Two of the best to ever play the game, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and Pete Rose, are not in the Hall of Fame because they violated baseball’s cardinal rule. Both players were implicated in gambling on baseball with Jackson throwing games in a conspiracy, and Rose betting on the Cincinnati Reds while he was managing them. These two scandals were the biggest disgraces in the history of the game, until the revelations of the steroid era.

But the difference between steroid use and other forms of cheating is that we have positive tests, admissions, and league sanctioned reports that identify steroid users. Despite this there is lingering doubt about many players who played during the steroid era but were never implicated for using steroids. While suspected players should be given the quintessentially American treatment of being innocent until proven guilty, players that have been linked to steroid use should have to face the consequences of their actions.

Every player that took steroids during the steroid era knew that they were violating the integrity of the game and still chose to do so. Their cheating diminished the accomplishments of players that chose to follow rules, which forced them to play on an unlevel playing field. The most egregious cases are the players who tested positive for steroids once major league baseball implemented testing in 2005. Potential Hall of Famers Rafael Palmeiro and Manny Ramirez both tested positive for steroids, with Ramirez testing positive twice. Both players knew that they would probably get caught when they used steroids but decided to anyway, and for brazenly defying the rules of the game they deserve to be shunned from the Hall.

But then there are players who never tested positive for or admitted to using steroids, but were identified as users in the Congressional Mitchell Report. The Mitchell Report identified 89 players who are alleged to have used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Implicated potential Hall of Famers include Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. I am confident in the veracity of the report, and feel that Bonds and Clemens should also be kept out of the Hall of Fame. If we do take the report at face value, those players implicated took the morally reprehensible action of using performance enhancing drugs to try and gain an edge. Many of these players were already good enough to be in the Hall of Fame before their alleged steroid use, it was their hubris that caused them to try and game the system. To put it bluntly, cheating is wrong, and the correct message to send to cheaters is that their actions are not acceptable and they will not be rewarded for them.

We know that there are already players in the Hall of Fame that have cheated at the game of baseball, and I don’t advocate for their removal. I do feel that we can’t in good faith vote in players that are up for consideration while we already know that they violated the integrity of the game. Every player that took steroids knew very well that what they were doing was wrong and chose to do so anyway, they need to face the repercussions for their actions.

Unless the Hall of Fame voters come down with any iron fist on anyone that has admitted to, tested positive for, or been implicated with steroids it will validate their cheating. For the sake of maintaining the Hall of Fame’s integrity as it pertains to athletic merit, players who took performance enhancing drugs should be kept out.

Even after game-changing Democratic electoral victories in 2006 and 2008, my home state of Virginia can still be a potent source of distress for liberals like myself.  Recent efforts by the state’s social conservatives to move from crafting fanatical bumper stickers   (a personal favorite of mine: a picture, in stark relief, of a fetus in-utero is captioned by the words “LIBERALS, pretend I’m a tree and SAVE ME.”) to crafting actual social policy in Richmond have been especially troubling. In 2009, Republican then Attorney General Bob McDonnell, whose briefly infamous 1989 Regent University thesis claimed that working women were “detrimental” to families, won the state’s most decisive gubernatorial victory since 1961.

It was a nationally significant event: Virginia, one of the nation’s newest and, arguably, most important bellwether states, had elected a governor who had once argued that “government policy should favor married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators” on the strength of a vague “pro-jobs” platform and empty sloganeering. Given the economic anxieties of most Americans, it seemed likely that similar worrying outcomes were possible across the country in 2010’s all-important congressional elections.

Now, almost a year and a half after those feared GOP victories became a reality, Virginia is once again the center of national attention. This time however, social issues and the radical conservatism of both Governor McDonnell and Republicans in the Virginia legislature sit squarely at the fore of debate. Virginia conservatives recently joined a seemingly concerted anti-choice effort by GOP lawmakers across the country to push two highly overreaching bills on reproductive rights.

The first bill, signed into law by Governor McDonnell early this month, mandates that all women receiving abortions undergo medically unnecessary ultrasounds. An earlier version of this bill was scrapped after a national outcry over provisions specifically calling for highly invasive and often painful transvaginal ultrasounds.

The second, which would have granted the rights of legal personhood to fertilized eggs, was passed by the House of Delegates but shelved by a Senate committee until next year. If passed, this bill would potentially criminalize abortion, stem cell research, In Vitro fertility (IVF) assistance for childless couples, and, possibly, contraception in general. All could potentially be classified as murder.

The palpable outrage from state and national pro-choice activists over the measures, compounded by the opposition, according to a February Christopher Newport University/Richmond Times-Dispatch poll, of 55% of Virginians to the ultrasound bill, as well as the taking of thousands of female protesters to the streets of Richmond last month, might suggest to some that the Virginia GOP’s partial victory in this latest front of the culture wars is a pyrrhic one. However, several factors suggest that the decision by Virginia Republicans to conspicuously take on an anti-choice legislative agenda will not prove to be as damaging to their political strength as some might predict

Observers should keep in mind that even though the majority of Virginians oppose the specifics outlined in at least one of the bills, the legislative success of both measures would not have been possible had the Virginia electorate not sent such staunch social conservatives to Richmond in the first place. Thus, the drama of the past few months should primarily serve as a reminder that Virginia, despite recent Democratic victories, is still a largely conservative state. Republicans have held the House of Delegates, where the personhood bill passed by a disconcerting 66 to 32 margin, since 2000.

Moreover, the electorate, as a whole, hasn’t changed very much since 2006, when 57% of state voters ratified an amendment to the Virginia constitution banning gay marriage. And although the GOP’s success in 2009’s state elections had more to do with economic concerns than social issues, the willingness of moderate state voters with reasonable economic concerns to put Republicans over the top by voting for conservatives with wholly unreasonable stances on reproductive rights does not bode well for liberal social policy in Virginia.

The fact that support for these anti-choice measures transcended the state’s conventional political boundaries is particularly worrying. Both bills received support from representatives from my region of the state, Northern Virginia, famously excluded from “real Virginia” by then McCain campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer in 2008 for its tendency to vote more Democratic than the rest of the state. This is proof positive that, even in fairly “blue” regions, social conservatives are perfectly capable of being both outspoken and effective in moving a right-wing agenda forward.

What has happened in Virginia can thus be read as a lesson in not only vigilance, but also diligence. As pro-choice liberals take on conservative legislatures across the country, it is more important than ever to remain cognizant of the fact that success on social issues depends on their constant presence in the public eye beyond election season.

The only way to prevent Republicans from reversing the progress made over the past half century on reproductive rights is to persistently illustrate to voters the absurdity of a political party that wishes for a government too small to deliver vital social services in the public interest, yet somehow big enough to wrest away a mother’s control over her own maternity.