The California Dream aCT BiG moVeS in TUrKeYinside:

For today’s youth,recovery is far from sight

The aUSTeriTY GeneraTion

2 bpr.berkeley.edu 2 bpr.berkeley.edu

Dear Reader,

When I joined the Berkeley Political Review in the Spring of 2010, the magazine was on its knees: funds for the Spring

and Summer issues had evaporated, staff were resigning, and the editorial board struggled to keep the website up-to-date. By year’s end, it

looked as though Berkeley’s only nonpartisan political quarterly, which had provided a forum for thoughtful student analysis for close to eight years, was about to disappear from the shelves.

The few of us who remained, however, refused to let the publication die. Late that summer, a group smaller than the one that founded BPR in 2001 (see founder’s article p. 5) convened to draw up a plan for the magazine’s rebirth. We had little money to our name, and could count the number of staff writers on one hand. But we were determined to succeed. We scraped together three issues in total, and recruited enough additional staff to fill all editorial board positions. In May of 2011, we were awarded ‘Best Journal’ on campus.

Thanks to the hard work of last year’s team, BPR enters its tenth year with renewed vigor. We have a full staff of forty-three producing content in print and online. Our newly redesigned website (http://bpr.berkeley.edu) features daily blog entries that dramatically expand our web presence. We are also one of the founding members of the Alliance of Collegiate Editors, a consortium of college political publications whose goal is to generate cross-campus dialogue at a national level.

Most importantly, the magazine has returned to its founding mission: to provide an informed and much-needed student perspective on the most pressing issues facing California, the nation, and the world. Precisely because we have inherited a crippling recession, rising unemployment, and a distribution of wealth more unequal than at any time since the 1920s, college students have a duty to bring fresh solutions to tired political and economic puzzles. We are the next generation of journalists, policymakers, professors, and business leaders, and as such must prove unafraid to lead efforts to revive the state and the nation in the years to come.

While these are difficult times, my hope is that you will find inspiration in these pages. Just as the staff refused to give up on this magazine, young people continue to forge a vision for a better future. May that passion propel BPR for another ten years.

Yours,

Editor-in-ChiEfJeremy Pilaar

dEputy Editor-in-ChiEfAndrew Postal

Managing EditorMihir Deo

dEputy Managing EditorDaniel Tuchler

California EditorJonathan Goldstein

national EditorLuis Flores

intErnational EditorHinh Tran

opinion EditorAlex Kravitz

arts & EntErtainMEnt EditorMelanie Boysaw

Blog EditorChristopher Haugh

layout EditorsNiku Jafarnia

Feilisha KutilikeCoVEr artAlyssa Nip

staffChristina Avalos, Norman Cahn,

Chris Chan, Daphne Chen, Yu Jin Cheon, Josh Cohen, Zac Commins, Tom Hughes, Mandy Honeychurch,

Alexandra Heyn, Elena Kempf, Nicholas Kitchel, Tanay Kothari,

Alex Lee, Michael Manset, Amanda McCaffrey, Katie McCray, Wil Mumby, Nicole Orlov, Caroline

Paris-Behr, Doug Perez, Brendan Pinder, Neetu Puranikmath, Brynna Quillin, Siddhartha Shankar, Arjan Sidhu, Harkaran Singh, Charles Smith, Eva Stevenson, Matthew

Symonds, Dorothy Zuniga

WEB EditorSamir Makhani

adVisErsSusan RaskyEthan Rarick

The content of this publication does not reflect the views of the University of California, Berkeley or the ASUC. Advertisements appearing in the Berkeley Political Review reflect the views of the advertisers only. They are not an expression of editorial opinion or

views of the staff.

Editor’sNotE

Jeremy PilaarEditor-in-Chief

3OctOber 2011

volume 11, No. 1

OpiniOn

a&e

califOrnia

natiOnal

internatiOnal

6| a dream devOlvedCalifornia passes the DREAM Act

7| sOlyndra and the future Of

8| the cOrpOrate initiativeThe “Amazon Tax” and the rise of corporate influence

9| kicking the plastic baning initiativeCalifornia attempts to ban single-use plastic bags

green technOlOgy

10| the bOOmerang generatiOn

11| clOsing the incOme gap

12| demOcracy fOr the marginalized?Accountability in the Information Age

13| the end Of sOcial security as we knOw it?How political rhetoric may devas-tate generations to come

Income-diverse admissions policies to grow the economy

14| turkey’s turn tO the eastErdogan’s drive for regional influence

15| china’s less than stellar demOgraphics

16| yes, tunisia can! but can the middle east?The difference between Tunisia and the rest of the Arab World

17| recessiOns and riOts, austerity and anarchyA look at riots and protests in Britain and Berkeley

How China’s dual demographic crisis may undercut its path to superpower status

18| dOn’t mess with dilmaBrazil breaks with the West for a new foreign policy

19| switching tO teaHow the Tea Party can attract college students and proxy for Occupy Wall Street

20| tOma hawk #1What is TOMA?: An introduction to marketing lingo

21| an incOnvenient beverage Brought to you by PepsiCo

The neglected victims of the Great Recession

22| pOlitical campaigns as reality tvDoes Snooki represent the Apoc-alypse?

23| bOOk reviewLoyal to the Sky

4 bpr.berkeley.edu

Photo source: Associated Press

After having fled to Saudi Arabia, the former hairstylist and wife of Ben Ali, Leila Trabelsi, faces serious constraints in her way of life. Being part of the “Tunisian Mafia” does not excuse her from the conservative Wahabi interpretation of Islam, so she suffers se-verely at not being allowed to show off French Haute Couture in public anymore.

Leila Trabelsi

New Jersey Governor and once-speculated presidential candidate Chris Christie will announce that he’s endorsing Mitt Romney for president. A Romney staffer confirmed the news to Politico and the AP.

Chris Christie

During a Democratic primary debate Tuesday, Warren said she kept her “clothes on” when asked how she paid for college. The questioner had mentioned Brown’s decision to pose nude for Cos-mopolitan magazine as a law student. Brown laughed during a radio interview Thursday and said “Thank God” when asked about Warren’s comment.

Scott Brown

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty says he might have stayed in the Republican presidential race longer had he known it would be this volatile. Pawlenty says he would have persisted in the race “if I would have known then what I know now.” He has endorsed former rival Mitt Romney in the race. He says he is pursuing pri-vate-sector career options but won’t rule out a future political run.

Tim Pawlenty

.

5OctOber 2011

AnniversArysPeCiAL

The original Berkeley Political Review crew took root in the summer of 2001 in Washington, D.C. We were a group of Berkeley students interested in sharing our newfound expertise in American politics through a public affairs journal to rival and eventually transcend those pub-lished at the expensive universities out East.

By early September, we were ready to go. The first issue of BPR, entitled The State of Cali-fornia, was set to cover the burgeoning (and ongoing) economic crisis in California, the world’s seventh largest economy. A great subject, we thought, for a West Coast magazine attempting to push its way onto the media map.

When the 9/11 attacks occurred, we immediately changed course.In less than a month we produced BPR issue #1 on the September 11th attacks and were

soon the talk of the town (at least in campus political circles). Our role on campus caught the media’s attention, and soon my affiliation with BPR resulted in interview requests from various newspapers and radio stations. BPR even made a small cameo on CNN in those early days.

Of course, we made many editorial mistakes. One day, while distributing the magazine on Sproul Plaza, an older man who claimed membership in the Black Panther Party (only in Berke-ley) came up to tell me that he thought the numerous photos in our first issue of people waving American flags (not to mention our cover, which featured a reproduction of Jasper John’s Flag) discredited our claim to non-partisanship. In retrospect, I would have to agree. What’s more, I still regret not thinking to run an in-depth profile of Cal Alumnus Todd Beamer, who died lead-ing a resistance to the hijackers on the fourth plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.

Thankfully, we improved. More and more talented writers, editors, illustrators, and business staff joined BPR and we were blessed with the mentorship of three talented journalists from Berkeley’s faculty and staff: my dear friend Susan Rasky of the Journalism School, the great Jerry Lubenow at the Institute of Governmental Studies, and my mentor, the late Clay Felker.

BPR would not be here today were it not for the dedication of individuals from those early days: Matt Odette, Liz Renner, Bret Heilig, Daniel “Street” Hernandez, Kevin Deenihan, Rajiv Batra, Ansel Halliburton, Victor Pineda, Anand Upadhye, Christina Hioureas, Dan Enemark, Aaron Azlant, Megan Glasson, Kristin Esbeck, Eric Ostrem, Pav Singh, Kristyn Garrity Roth, Chris Chang, Veena Parekh, Derek Yu, Anne Benjaminson, Jose Luis Lopez, Josh Defonzo, Ma-lalay Arghestani, Brian Johsz, and countless others that I cannot thank enough. They were the best staff any editor could ask for and the friends that made my Berkeley experience so special.

Political leaders told us that we were attacked on 9/11 because “they” (Muslims we could only suppose), “hate freedom.” Thankfully, later issues of BPR, led by the aforementioned staff, proved that most of us knew early on that there was something wrong with that xenophobic conceit.

To the dustbin of history go those theories as the world watches the courage of the Middle Eastern and North African Mario and Maria Savios; Muslim, Christian, and non-religious alike. They are the men and women who are leading their people into an “Arab Spring,” into locally led movements against the tyrants of the region. A mass movement that, dare I say it, is fighting for the right to be free on its own terms.

For those of us, like myself, who closely follow the Middle East, this outcome seems obvious today. How I wish we could have predicted this with absolute certainty in BPR issue #1. Then again, as Susan Rasky used to tell me, “in hindsight everything is 20/20.”

Congratulations to the BPR crew for bringing the magazine into its tenth year. Those of us who came before you are infinitely proud of your accomplishments. Proud in a way that you will not understand for at least another ten years.

Onward friends.

Matteen Mokalla, Berkeley ’03

Matteen Mokalla is the founding editor of The Berkeley Political Review. He currently works as a producer for Al Jazeera English in Doha, Qatar and is at work on a book about Iran and World War Two.

6 bpr.berkeley.edu

California

Though the definition of who is an American has never been broad-er, the enduring question of who

should be allowed to cross America’s borders and join its community re-mains without a clear answer. Re-cently, a new trend has emerged: U.S. states, especially those that share a border with Mexico, have been pass-ing their own sweeping immigration laws while the federal government, paralyzed by partisanship, remains incapable of taking major action.

Though major immigration reform at the federal level was passed during both the Reagan and Clinton admin-istrations, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were unable to act through legislation. Bush saw a com-prehensive immigration reform bill he supported blocked in the Senate, and Obama was unsuccessful in his attempt to push through the federal DREAM (Development, Relief, and Ed-ucation for Alien Minors) Act, which would have given undocumented im-migrants who came to this country as minors a path to citizenship condi-tional on higher education or military service. Instead, both presidents were forced to resort to executive orders to take more limited policy actions; Bush increased border security and expe-dited an existing guest-worker pro-gram, and Obama ordered the Depart-ment of Homeland Security to close many low-priority deportation cases.

While the federal government has been unable to act, the states have done so, with border states taking the strongest measures. Arizona made headlines in 2010 with the passage of Senate Bill 1070, the strictest anti-illegal immigration measure passed in decades. Texas and California, mean-

while, have followed in the spirit of the federal DREAM Act and passed col-lege financial aid bills intended to as-sist undocumented college students.

Both the federal DREAM Act and the “California Dream Act” were pushed by Democratic lawmakers in legislatures with large Democratic majorities. The debate on each fol-lowed similar lines. Proponents sought compassion for undocu-mented students, arguing that they have overcome enormous obstacles to reach college and that their legal status is no fault of their own. Oppo-nents bemoaned potential increases in the deficit and warned that such laws would contribute to the problem of illegal immigration by attracting immigrant families looking for edu-cation for their children. Despite the Democratic majority, the U.S. Sen-ate’s filibuster rule allowed the Re-publican minority to block the federal bill multiple times. In contrast, no such procedure exists in the Califor-nia Legislature, where the bill passed.

Passage of the California Dream Act is likely to cause some celebration among UC Berkeley’s undocumented student population, an estimated 75 students, and their friends and al-lies. The Act is composed of two bills that were recently signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. It allows un-documented students that meet in-state tuition requirements to receive college-administered financial aid programs and Cal Grants, which help students at public universities pay for tuition, fees, books, and living al-lowances. Each year, 25,000 young undocumented immigrants, most of whom are in the state by no choice of their own, graduate from California

high schools, but are unable to legally work or apply for federal grants and financial aid. These AB 540 students, so called because of the law passed in 2001 that allowed them to pay in-state tuition at California’s public universities, still struggle to pay for basic living expenses after having to pay in-state tuition without finan-cial assistance. Professor Lisa Gar-cia Bedolla of UC Berkley’s Graduate School of Education notes that “hav-ing access to financial aid would make a huge difference in terms of their ability to pursue higher education.”

However, without the federal bill in place, even California’s most aca-demically successful “Dreamers” will still be denied citizenship, meaning that they will continue to live with-out certain rights most Americans are granted at birth. They will not be able to vote or run for office, will have a harder time finding jobs, and will remain ineligible for important social programs. But if the Califor-nia Dream Act proves to be effective, it may be able to give new political life to the federal version of the bill.

While the long-term political im-plications are unclear, there is no doubt that immigration will continue to be a major topic of contention in California, where Latinos are expect-ed to become the majority of the pop-ulation within a few decades, and in the U.S., which has historically main-tained a dynamic culture by accepting and assimilating each new generation of immigrants. One thing is certain, though: if another serious national ef-fort to comprehensively reform immi-gration is made soon, California will certainly be part of the conversation. •

California passes the Dream Act

By Tom Hughes, Staff WriterSource: Associated Press

7OctOber 2011

califOrnia

Despite President Obama tout-ing Solyndra as a beacon for the future of alternative ener-

gy, on August 31, 2011, the Fremont-based solar technology manufacturer declared bankruptcy. The loss of this solar energy company, despite a $535 million federal loan, dealt a significant symbolic blow to California’s green energy sector because it demonstrat-ed the industry’s instability. Support-ers of green technology, like President Obama, also fear that the collapse of green technology companies like Solyndra may jeopardize further po-litical movements for green energy.

Severin Borenstein, professor and Co-Director of the Energy In-stitute at the Haas School of Busi-ness, explained that while there may not be a causal effect of Solyn-dra’s bankruptcy on the economy, the failure still signals trouble.

“China has gotten into this busi-ness and is willing to spend a lot of money for a large market share…So they’re subsidizing manufac-ture heavily. And they’re taking away market share from U.S., Ger-man, Spanish, and other solar manufacturers. That’s real trou-ble if you’re a solar manufacturer.”

While there has been much speculation as to the reasons for the bankruptcy, what is clear is that the government policy of investing heavily in specific businesses is not the most effective way forward. Despite China’s commitment to heavy subsidization of the industry, Prof. Borenstein re-mains convinced that this is not the best strategy for the U.S. to pursue.

Given the competing political in-terests in the U.S., it would be impos-sible for the U.S. to try and compete in a subsidy race against China. In-

stead of playing venture capitalist, the U.S. government should consider other avenues to stimulate growth.

One way to aid alternative energy businesses would be to invest more wisely across the entire green market sector instead of singling out specific businesses to receive large loans, a strategy that has been implemented by many Europeans nations like Ger-many. Using feed-in tariffs, which use long-term contracts of more widely distributed investments, German so-lar industries were able to flourish over time. However, unlike the U.S., Ger-many possesses a much more emphat-ic environmental movement, but they are still vulnerable to growing Chinese power in this sector of the economy.

Therefore, Prof. Borenstein suggests a different method to address Chinese competition.

“I think the money is much better spent investing in the potential for new science that could really change the renewable landscape…There is just no way that current solar PV technol-ogy is going to ever compete with coal.”

In fact, research into future green technology has, thus far, been un-derfunded. The ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy), a branch of the Department of En-ergy responsible for funding renew-able energy research, has a budget of $200 million for the 2012 fiscal year (less than half the money spent on the Solyndra loan). Consequently, re-search lacks sufficient funding to make the important breakthroughs to make green technology like solar affordable.

Green technology industries in-evitably rely on the ability of alter-native energy to compete with fossil fuels. Currently, despite pressure for the U.S to become less dependent on

oil and coal, the government contin-ues to rely on these sources to keep energy cheap in bad economic times.

Other alternatives include a dirty energy tax, which would be cru-cial step forward for renewable en-ergy as it would discourage the use of cheaper but more environmen-tally harmful fossil fuels. However, this initiative has failed to gain po-litical traction, making it difficult to enact. Without a higher price on carbon, worries of energy security dominate the debate, which result in defaulting to cheaper, more acces-sible sources of energy, while neglect-ing the environmental implications.

Despite the political difficulty of establishing a carbon tax, improve-ments in green technology science may help ease these political tensions by restoring the damaged credibil-ity of solar in the wake of Solyndra. This will help reestablish the prom-ise of a dependable green energy sec-tor in the economy and may make other alternatives possible. However, while the green energy market is still growing, it will still need consider-able time before it can take front-runner status in the U.S. economy.

Investment in research towards new solar technology is crucial to catalyze this process and help green technology win the fight against dirty energy like coal. New solar projects require more government funding than the companies that are cur-rently struggling to compete with China. Scientists are currently re-searching new ways to make solar cell production cheaper and more efficient. With a larger budget, these discoveries could help pave the way for a greener energy future in Cali-fornia in a shorter time frame. •

Source: Solyndra.com

By Wil Mumby, Staff Writer

8 bpr.berkeley.edu

California

Unknown to many Californians, this month marks the centen-nial of a profoundly influen-

tial feature of the state’s politics: the initiative system. On October 10, 1911, Californian’s voters overwhelm-ingly approved an amendment to the state constitution to legislate this form of direct democracy. The cam-paign to amend the constitution was extraordinarily anti-corporate; the Los Angeles Times declared that the amendment “thrust from power the Captains of Greed.” Recent events, however, cast light on an increasingly prevalent aspect of the initiative sys-tem that would have astounded the Progressive thinkers behind the 1911 amendment: corporate sponsorship.

Over the past few years, online re-tailers such as Overstock and Amazon have reaped large profits to the detri-ment of rivals engaged in more tradi-tional forms of retail, such as Wal-Mart and Barnes & Noble. In California, many online retailers hold an advan-tage over their competitors since they do not maintain a physical presence in the state, and therefore are not re-quired to collect sales tax. Efforts in California to change the definition of a “presence” to include affiliates of on-line retailers, and thus require the col-lection of the state sales tax by those retailers, were stifled by former Gov-ernor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was unsympathetic to the lobbying of the California Retailers Associa-tion and Democrats in the legislature eager for the estimated two hundred million dollars in revenues to assuage a budget deficit. In 2010, however, Californians elected a new governor who revived prospects for the “Ama-zon sales tax.” A year later, on June 29, 2011, Jerry Brown signed into law legislation mandating the collection of sales tax by Amazon and other online businesses with affiliates in the state.

Amazon’s reaction to the bill was swift and aggressive, with the corpo-ration ending its affiliation with thou-

By Michael Manset, Staff Writer

The “Amazon Tax”and the Rise of

Corporate Influence

sands of California associates. Most notably, a mere two weeks after the law took effect, the online retailer announced that it would advance an initiative to overturn the new law. This unusual move by a corporation to involve itself to such a degree in the initiative process gained national atten-tion. Not long after the announce-ment, signature gatherers for the initiative were already patrolling California supermarket entrances.

Despite all of its efforts to over-turn the law, Amazon dropped the initiative after only a few months. Though the state legislature was fearful the initiative would succeed

at the polls, Amazon was consider-ing opening a distribution center in the state, which would subject it to sales tax no matter the success of the initiative. Thus, a deal was struck between the two parties in mid-Sep-tember: Amazon would end its foray into Californian direct democracy, while the legislature would pass leg-islation deferring collection of sales tax by online retailers for one year. The bill was passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the legislature and signed soon after by Governor Brown.

Despite the national attention it received, Amazon’s flirtation with the initiative process is hardly novel for a corporation. In 2010 alone, there were three major corporate-spon-sored initiatives: Propositions 16, 17, and 23, respectively backed by PG&E, Mercury Insurance, and the alliance of Valero and Tesoro Com-panies. All three efforts attempted to institute legislation that would better each corporation’s bottom line. One wonders why a company would pur-sue that route over more traditional methods, like lobbying. According to Rick Claussen, a consultant for God-dard Claussen West with substantial experience with some of these cam-paigns, these efforts were undertaken due to the corporations’ “failure to

achieve their legislative goals through the legislative process.” Therefore an alternative to lobbying was taken.

It is certainly possible that Ama-zon’s success in forcing the legis-lature to strike a deal might inspire other corporations to also seek to put initiatives on the ballot. The political make-up of the legislature might also influence those decisions: Claussen believes that a Democratic state leg-islature and a Democratic gover-nor might provoke more pro-active behavior by businesses. Claussen also suspects that if the new legisla-tive districts and the top-two primary “produce a more moderate legisla-ture, then… that will reduce the over-all reliance on pro-active ballot mea-sures by the business community.”

Despite the populist origins of the initiative in California, the re-sources of powerful interests like corporations allows these groups to circumvent traditional lobbying and bring about favorable policy through the ballot. The past few years have seen several notable examples of this practice, including Amazon’s at-tempt to overturn unfavorable leg-islation. One suspects that if the political calculus does not change, then Californians will not have seen the last of the corporate initiative. •

Credit: Aaron Glantz of the Bay Citizen

california

The “Amazon Tax”and the Rise of

Corporate Influence

California Attempts to BanSingle-Use Plastic Bags

By Caroline Paris-Behr, Staff Writer

Plastic bags are a seemingly standard fixture in our Ameri-can lifestyle. We use them to

carry our groceries, protect our be-longings from the rain, hold our lunches, and pick up after our pets. But as frequently as they appear in the average home, we also see them drifting along state beaches, clogging gutters and storm drains, and linger-ing indestructibly in garbage heaps. A groundswell of opposition to the ubiquity of plastic bags began in the late 1990’s, but the issue was really brought into the spotlight in 2007, when the Los Angeles Times’ exposé on the millions of plastic bags that were clogging the ecosystems of the Pacific Ocean won the Pulitzer Prize. Since then, bills forbidding or limit-ing the use of plastic bags have been adopted in Malibu, Santa Clara, San Francisco, and Santa Monica.

Despite those successful move-ments to outlaw plastic bags in sev-eral California cities, AB 1998, a bill forbidding plastic bags in California, failed to pass in 2010 and does not seem likely to fare any better when it will be reintroduced in 2012. En-vironmental activists argue that single-use bags harm the planet from the time they are produced from natural gas and petroleum by-products - both non-renewable natural resources - to their end as urban waste damaging coastal eco-systems. Furthermore, they note that the massive pollution the bags cause is also expensive to the tax-payer: because less than 5% are ac-tually recycled, the state spends $25 million annually on their disposal.

Principal proponents of the bill include Assemblywoman Julia

Brownley (D- Santa Monica), the Si-erra Club of California, many Califor-nia grocers, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Heal the Bay. Assemblywoman Brownley, who au-thored AB 1998, has long been an advocate of reusable bags and has succeeded in getting single-use gro-cery bags banned in her congressio-nal district. However, her efforts were not as victorious on the statewide lev-el. “It was a David and Goliath fight, and we were not able to accomplish - at least last year - what we all know is the right solution: a statewide ban on plastic bags”, said Ms. Brown-ley in a speech in November 2010.

The main opponents of AB 1998 were “industry backers” who manu-facture plastic products, such as Exxon and Dow Chemical, both of whom are represented by lobbyists for the American Chemistry Coun-cil (the A.C.C. did not respond to a request to comment for this article). In a statement released after the bill failed to pass, the A.C.C. reas-serted that the legislation threatened “1,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs for hard-working Californians, placed a hidden tax on grocery bills and created a $4 million new state bureaucracy” as well as recycling infrastructure built around the in-stitution of single-use bags. Lower income shoppers, too, would have to shoulder the additional monetary burden of purchasing reusable bags to replace the formerly free single-use ones, although food kitchens or other “public eating establishments”, nonprofit organizations, and custom-ers on government assistance pro-grams would be exempt from the ban.

Several of the Republican law-

makers who objected to AB 1998 also claimed discomfort with the level of control the bill would give the government over citizens’ daily personal decisions - a debate that, in general, is sparking heated discus-sion on a national level. However, the actual language of the proposed law describes its purpose as encour-aging establishments and consum-ers to make informed decisions, and readily cedes that certain clauses are severable if found to be uncon-stitutional by any court of competent jurisdiction. With these two socially driven counterarguments virtually negated by the facts of the law, the most obvious reason for dissent by large corporations is, understand-ably, the profitability of producing the 19 billion single-use bags that are used in California each year.

Legislation requiring the use of reusable bags has been successful in many other countries, including China, India, and the majority of Western Europe. While the degree of interest in adopting comparable programs in U.S. states is lower, given the successful citywide move-ments throughout California, it still remains to be seen what the long-term effects of such a bill would be. If the citywide bills prove effec-tive at reducing pollution with little cost to the consumer, it may only be a matter of time before a state-wide ban passes the California leg-islature. Nonetheless, while oppo-nents of such measures would argue that imposing such a ban would be costly, as Assemblywoman Brown-ley emphasizes, “banning single-use plastic bags is no longer just an en-vironmental and economic issue.” •

9october 2011

10 bpr.berkeley.edu

the

generationBy Katie McCray, Staff Writer

“I’m constantly worried that I won’t be able to find a job and support myself. I never planned on moving

back in with my parents, but I feel like I might have to,” says Berkeley senior Nicole Xu, aptly echoing the sentiment felt by many other students her age as she describles her post-college plans.

The economic downturn in the United States has hit the youth (peo-ple aged 15-25) workforce harder than any other. According to the US Bu-reau of Labor Statistics, the youth un-employment rate in the United States is 18.1%, almost two times higher than the national unemployment av-erage of 9.1%. Young people are gen-erally less educated and experienced, and are often the first to be laid off when the economic climate encourag-es employers to cut corners. Though youth unemployment seems easy to ignore, losing the early years of one’s career has serious long-term conse-quences. Youth unemployment is an issue that the United States must face upfront and take steps to prevent.

Youth who are out of school face many consequences of unemploy-ment that threaten to plague them for the rest of their career. The Economist succinctly describes the phenomenon as a “wage scar” in its article “Left Be-hind,” stating, “Take two men with the same education, literacy and numer-acy scores, places of residence, par-ents’ education and IQ. If one of them spends a year unemployed before the age of 23, ten years later he can expect to earn 23% less than the other.” This takes a significant toll on those who struggle to keep up with their peers.

This downturn has created what journalists are calling a “boomerang” generation of young adults who leave home for college, but are forced to re-turn because they cannot find steady employment needed to live on their

own. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of people living in multigenerational households grew by 2.6 million between 2007 and 2008. This has had troubling effects on the attitudes of young workers. The feel-ings of failure due to unemployment have been linked to higher risk of heart attacks later in life, lower life ex-pectancy, and higher rates of suicide.

The first step to solving jobless-ness among our country’s youth is adequate preparation for employment from an early age. Programs such as the Career Academy Support Network ( C A S N ) , based out of UC Berke-ley’s Gradu-ate School of Education, create learn-ing commu-nities and career acad-emies in high schools that focus on preparing students for college and beyond. According to David Stern, Berkeley professor and principal in-vestigator for CASN, “one of our main activities is to work directly with teach-ers, administrators, and local employ-ers in strategically chosen sites around the country.” CASN has also been modeled to adapt and change in order to best serve its students. According to Stern, “We plan to incorporate data analysis into an ongoing process of self-improvement for the career acad-emies… One of the ultimate goals is to contribute to the continuing improve-ment of the academy model itself.”

Germany is one of the only coun-tries that has been able to boast low-ered youth unemployment rates in re-cent years, largely due to its unique

apprenticeship system that employs two-thirds of German high-schoolers and is utilized by 25% of employers. Apprenticeships offer part-time sala-ries (a cost shared by the company and the government) for students in vocational schools to spend about three days a week working as an ap-prentice for two to four years, fre-quently resulting in job offers. Though this model has worked well for Germa-ny, it must be adapted to the cultural and economic climate of the United States. President Clinton’s “school to

work” initiative, which was based on the German apprent iceship model, was cut down as a second-rate education.

Rather than simply filling jobs, more focus should be put into creating them. Entrepreneurship may be an under-exploited means of reducing youth

unemployment. In 2008, the Univer-sity of Miami began “Launch Pad,” a program dedicated to sending the mes-sage that starting your own company is a viable career option. Stephen A. Schwarzman, the billionaire head of private equity firm Blackstone Group, was intrigued and inspired by the no-tion and began a similar program at the Wayne State University and Walsh College in Michigan. He plans to ex-pand to five more cities, promising $50 million over the next five years.

With the right programs and a unified push toward solving youth unemployment, future students will anticipate graduation with ex-citement, rather than anxiety. •

NATIONAl

Source: zunia.org

11OctOber 2011

What do Warren Buffet, Mi-chael Bloomberg, and Eric Schmidt have in com-

mon? You may have been able to guess: A) They are all multibil-lionaires, and B) they all attended prestigious American universities.

While 80 percent of children that fall into the top economic quintile will enroll in college (and many in pres-tigious colleges), those in the bot-tom quintile only have a 34 percent chance of receiving a postsecondary education. Those who attend college are much more likely to have high-er paying jobs, so when the bottom quintiles are vastly uneducated, it is not surprising to find that the top one percent of Americans own about 35 percent of the wealth and the bottom 80 percent own 15 percent.

These great disparities in income levels have caused the United States economy to become very vulnerable. “With so much income at the top, the vast middle class doesn’t have the purchasing power to keep the economy going at or near full em-ployment – without going deep into debt. As we’ve so painfully seen, that strategy isn’t sustainable,” said Robert Reich, Chancellor’s Profes-sor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley.

In addition to reforming the tax system, Reich, who served as Secretary of Labor under the Clin-ton Administration, claims that improving education of children from lower income households will aid in repairing our economy and strengthening the middle class.

California’s public universities are well known for being world-class institutions but also for having very

economically diverse student bodies. According to the US News, 37 percent of UC Los Angeles and 36 percent of UC Berkeley undergraduates receive Pell Grants, while the number of Pell Grant recipients at schools like Yale, Harvard, and Stanford hovers in the 13-17 percent range. The reason be-hind this can be traced to the meth-ods in which the admissions offices make their decisions. At California in-stitutions, the ability to overcome sig-nificant obstacles – like being raised in a low-income family and not hav-ing access to benefits such as private SAT tutoring – is seen as an indicator of ambition and the capacity to be-come very successful. At many oth-er selective institutions, legacy and SAT scores are more highly valued.

“If your ultimate goal is to try to make America a better place, one way of doing so is to make sure you have low income students, who are deserving and have worked hard, to eventually become graduates from those [prestigious] universities,” said Henry Brady, professor and Dean of Goldman School of Public Policy.

Institutions like the University of California indeed set an example for others to follow, but these col-leges alone cannot remedy the ailing economy and fortify the middle class – many more colleges must adopt similar admissions standards. There are two things that all universities in the United States should seek to do: Admit a higher number of deserv-ing, low-income students and ensure these students can afford the educa-tion by guaranteeing appropriate aid.

Henry Brady, in collaboration with Michael Hout and Jon Stiles, con-

ducted a study in 2005 that proved just how valuable college education is to boosting the economy. The report shows that for every additional dol-lar that California invests in getting 18-year-olds in and through college, it will gain an additional net return of $3 from tax contributions and reduc-tions in expenditures for social servic-es and incarceration. Even in a cut-all economy, policy makers must realize that investment is required for fu-ture growth. This additional revenue would assist in funding dwindling ser-vices affected by government budget-ing woes. Private institutions would benefit, as well, from increased di-versity and the byproducts that come with an educated populace: higher employment rates, higher produc-tivity, lower crime rates, and so on.

Amherst College is a golden exam-ple of a private institution that realized the value of admitting more low-in-come students and then implemented the policy to do so. When Anthony Marx became President of Amherst, more than seven years ago, he set out a goal to serve a “greater national purpose” by admitting a higher num-ber of low-income students and using endowment funds to aid them. Over the course of his tenure, the num-ber of students receiving Pell Grants increased from 13 to 22 percent.

To bring America out of its cur-rent slump, to foster a stronger mid-dle class, and to allow for a more equal dispersion of wealth, postsec-ondary institutions must begin to ad-mit greater numbers of low-income students and must use their funds, in conjunction with state and federal aid, to provide afforable education. •

By Nicholas Kitchel, Staff Writer

Income-diverse admissions policies to

grow the economy

NatiONal

Source: The Daily Record

12 bpr.berkeley.edu

NatioNal

Mobilizing the Internet Generation

A brand of activism unique to our generation has emerged and, judging from the contro-

versy that surrounds it, the tactic seems to be working. “Hacktivists,” frequently characterized as national security threats and technological-ly adept teenagers, imagine them-selves more nobly as defenders of the public good. But whether their activity is well-intentioned, illegal, ill advised, or all of the above, on-line activists are out of reach of the arm of the law and escape the pub-lic eye. Unlike the activists of yester-year, they prefer to work in obscurity.

Following the dramatic fall of Ju-lian Assange and Wikileaks, a loosely affiliated collection of hackers called Anonymous has come to dominate online activism. The group’s name is the crux of the challenge it presents to law enforcement: with as many as 9,000 volunteer computers involved in each attack, Anonymous’ directors’ web addresses aren’t traceable from the scenes of their cyber-crimes. Pay-Pal, one of Anonymous’ former tar-gets, has had unique success tracing the attacks, producing evidence that led the FBI to dozens of arrests this summer. But these defendants aren’t the brains of the operation; they are lower-level hackers who work under the command of coordinators. This system of activism is decentralized and unpredictable, making it dif-ficult to manage, much less police.

However, it is not entirely unfa-miliar. In many ways, hacktivism is a re-imagination of nonviolent protest. Organizers choose a target they feel is infringing on public liberties, and deploy protesters to halt the target’s business; when framed this way, hacktivism, with the exception that it’s online and participants are not

a c c o u n t -able, does not sound all that different from an occu-pation or a sit-in.

A n o n y m o u s ’ attacks are carried out in the name of free-dom of information, free-dom of speech, and avenging Wikileaks. Some feel that attacks by Anonymous and similar groups constitute cyber terrorism. Profes-sor Daniel Farber at Berkeley’s Boalt Law School points out that while “one part of free speech is certainly the right to criticize, [...] trying to punish one’s critics by harming their ability to operate is itself a form of censor-ship.” Professor Farber notes that the legality of online activism can be un-clear, but feels that hacktivism may not do justice to its alleged cause.

Professor Carlos Muñoz of UC Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies depart-ment, an expert on social movements, agrees. He is unconvinced that civil mobilization efforts using the web as its prime meeting place can be effec-tive. Muñoz finds email petitions and other online attempts to make the public heard to be inadequate, “deper-sonalized” versions of their pre-inter-net equivalents. In this new genre of communication, “there’s a mistrust” that results from invisibility. “Right now I think that what is missing,” Muñoz says, “is the person-to-person contact.” In protests past, participants were “not just allies, but friends,” people with real face-to-face relation-ships that Muñoz considers integral to a movement’s success. Internet ac-tivism can breed apathy by filling up inboxes with propaganda and stealing thunder from protests. Muñoz has no-

ticed small turnouts at protests and other events

in recent years; he thinks

people feel less compelled to show up

when they can show their support from their computer

at home. For Muñoz, the act of gathering is paramount in ac-

tivism. Coming together for a cause creates camaraderie, and gives pol-icy-makers and the public a chance to see the faces behind a movement. Those are strengths that Muñoz thinks the web lacks. “The bottom line,” he says, “is you cannot build mass people’s movements online.”

But online activism is dynamic, and recent developments contra-dict Muñoz’ bottom line. The Oc-cupy Wall Street movement that’s made its way into headlines is par-tially the result of online organiza-tion, including an endorsement from Anonymous, which increased public interest in these protests directed at the US response to the global eco-nomic crisis. Like Anonymous, this movement is loosely defined and has no clear leadership. Nonetheless it’s a unification of individuals with shared complaints against govern-ment and policy, and may represent new potential for the translation of online protests to in-person action.

As Berkeley students we inherit a legacy of activism, an inheritance that is increasingly shaped by technology. Online activism has its limitations, but in its ongoing development many of those may be overcome. As this fall’s events on Wall Street unfold, the fu-ture of activism will come into focus. •

By Amanda McCaffrey, Staff Writer

13OctOber 2011

NatiONal

The Republican presidential pri-mary debates, focused prin-cipally on decreasing the size

of government, have reignited the debate over Social Security. While most use the program as an exam-ple of the inefficiency of government initiatives, some like Texas governor Rick Perry have likened it to an ille-gal “Ponzi scheme.” Concerned poli-ticians claim to oppose the program in the name of our generation, on whom they say the burden will be placed. However, many economists disagree with this popular narrative.

How dire are the institutional and demographic problems facing our na-tion’s largest entitlement program? The number of workers per retiree has decreased from 40 in 1940 to 3.3 today. Consequently, according to the Social Security Board of Trustees, the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhaust-ed by 2036 if Congress does not act.

Ronald Lee, a professor of demog-raphy and economics at UC Berke-ley, points to an aging population as the main cause of the depletion of the Social Security Trust Fund. “The number of retirees per worker will approximately double relative to cur-rent levels and we are just in the first stages of that happening,” he said. “That happens partly because people are living longer but the main reason is that fertility is lower than it used to be earlier in the century. Lower

fertility means that the labor force, which used to be growing rapidly, is going to switch to growing very slowly while the number of elderly Ameri-cans is going to grow rapidly and may grow more rapidly in the future.”

However, Lee notes that demo-graphic issues are minor relative to those faced by other industrial-ized nations. “The US has fertility at around replacement level where-as other industrial countries typi-cally have fertility at, instead of be-ing two children per woman, about 1.5 children per woman, which causes much more rapid and ex-treme population aging,” Lee said.

Yet, even though the Social Se-curity’s woes are much smaller than those of comparable programs in other nations, politicians have ex-ploited misleading statistics to ad-vance their personal agendas.

“Perry is right that Social Se-curity has long-term problems and they should be addressed and most politicians would rather not think about it, Lee said. “That said, his rhetoric is over the top but poli-ticians’ rhetoric is often over the top. I think we have a good system and think we should stick with it.”

Lee suggests a multi-prongued approach that would both reform the payroll tax system and increase the retirement age; possibly to 70 by the time today’s undergraduates retire.

“I think we have a pretty well-bal-anced system,” Lee asserted. “I don’t think we got to this point by being particularly clever or farsighted but, for whatever reason, I think we’re in quite a good place and we ought to protect Social Security mainly by rais-ing payroll taxes but by also cutting benefits in the sense of raising the re-tirement age. I myself would also be in favor of eliminating the cap [on income used to determine payroll taxes] just as already is the case for Medicare.”

Although the public’s outlook on Social Security has become in-creasingly pessimistic over the past few years as a result of the ongoing recession, the Trust Fund’s count-down to bankruptcy, inflammatory rhetoric, and a distrust of govern-ment, Social Security will remain relatively stable for decades to come.

“Personally, I believe Social Se-curity will exist [as a safety net to current students] and it won’t be so very different from the way it is now,” said Lee, contradicting the mainstream tide of pessimism on the subject. “I don’t think the fixes pro-posed are particularly painful. And this generation is way too pessimis-tic about the future of Social Secu-rity. I would, personally, advise this generation to count on Social Secu-rity being there in some form not too different from the way it is now.” •

By Zac Commins, Staff Writer

How Political Rhetoric May Devastate Generations to Come

Source: New York Times

14 bpr.berkeley.edu

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Er-dogan became a hero to many in the Middle East when he stood

up at the 2009 Davos World Economic Forum and accused the Israeli del-egation of “killing people!” Since then, Turkey has begun a surprising shift under the leadership of the AK Party towards increasing assertiveness in both domestic and foreign policy. As a result of the Arab Spring, newly liber-ated countries are looking to build new governments, and Turkey appears to present a model form of democracy.

Since the fall of the Ottoman Em-pire, Turkey has been guided by Mus-tafa Kemal Atatürk and his later suc-cessors in the military and the CHP Party, which has been for decades the fiercely secular and modern leaning bastion of the Middle East. However, after years of gradual transition from military rule, the electoral victories Recep Erdogan and his Islamic-lean-ing Justice and Development party (AK) won in 2003 and 2007 were her-alded as a new era in secular Turkey. It was one of the first times that Tur-key had not only allowed an Islamist party to have a seat at the table, but also take a majority of the seats in the legislature, displacing the venerable CHP Party as the leading coalition in Parliament.

Indeed, with the AK Party firmly in control of government, Erdogan has moved quickly to roll back mili-tary-era restrictions, while pledging to maintain Turkey’s modernist and secular policies. They have reversed anti-terror laws used to muzzle free speech and dissent and have also lib-eralized policies towards the country’s embattled Kurdish minority. More sig-nificantly, Erdogan has managed to subordinate the powerful military to

civilian control; since the beginning of the Turkish Republic, the military has overthrown five separate governments that it perceived as violating Ataturk’s modernist and secular legacies. The climax of the struggle came with the sacking of several heads of the Turk-ish military and the arrests of several high ranking officers over “Operation Sledgehammer”, a military drill de-signed to simulate a coup d’état.

Turkey has also made significant shifts in its foreign policy. Although Turkey applied to the European Union in 2003 and began the long process of aligning its policies to European standards, the frustration of Turkey’s European hopes by countries such as France and Germany has led it to shift its aspirations to the East. In re-cent years it has improved ties with countries such as Syria and Russia, even paying a state visit to the latter in May 2011. The AK government has also improved relations with the Arab world through increased diplomatic activity and trade agreements. This shift has led Turkey to become an al-ternative to regional leaders such as Iran or Saudi Arabia and even argu-ably the United States.

Erdogan has also severed the country’s long-standing alliance with Israel, following the Mari Mavmara incident and has since expanded Tur-key’s presence in the Arab world, even as tensions with Israel continue to escalate. Indeed, Turkey took a lead-ing role by urging President Mubarak of Egypt to resign from the beginning and recognizing the rebel government in Libya soon after NATO forces inter-vened. Furthermore, Turkey has tak-en a strong line in the Syrian protests, threatening to intervene in Syria if the government sponsored bloodshed

continued and creating buffer zones on the border to protect Syrian refu-gees. The Turkish military, the second largest in NATO and experienced af-ter years of activity against the PKK rebels, has also engaged in military maneuvers near the Syrian border to send a strong warning signal to Dam-ascas. These steps demonstrate Tur-key’s ability and willingness to assert its influence in support of both its own interests and the Arab Spring.

The ascent of Turkey coupled with the Arab Spring leads to the question: can and will Turkey become the lead-ing force for democracy in the Middle East? While Saudi Arabia and Iran have long jockeyed for leadership of the Muslim world, Turkey’s foreign policy has evolved from “cause no trouble” to increasing assertiveness. Despite clashing with the United States on the Israel-Palestine issue, Turkey has also been widely praised by both the West and countries such as Russia for its role in promoting de-mocracy and stability. Nevertheless, its ascent will not come without oppo-sition. Iran’s influence permeates Iraq and Assad remains a staunch Iranian ally, while Saudi Arabia, concerned at the collapse of several of its authori-tarian allies, has invited Jordan and Morocco, both monarchies, to rein-force the Gulf Cooperation Council, an organization formerly consisting of wealthy Gulf monarchies.

Ultimately, Turkey’s rise in promi-nence has not only inspired recently liberated states but shifted the geopo-litical balance in the Middle East. All of these factors point to both why Tur-key is the best model for democracy in the Arab world and why Turkey will have a lasting influence in the wake of the Arab Spring and beyond. •

Credit: Associated Press

Erdogan’s drive for regional influence

By Christopher Chan, Staff Writer

international

15OctOber 2011

internatiOnal

By Alexandra Heyn, Staff Writer

For the past several years, China has experienced a meteoric rise in global power and status. The

nation’s unprecedented combination of capitalism and communism in-trigue scholars and strategists while a booming population and economy has enabled it to become a strong contender for world superpower. Its exports are found the world over, and its national language is the fastest-growing among new learners. How-ever, it is quickly becoming clear that China, with the world’s largest popu-lation of 1.3 billion, may in fact not have enough people. The controver-sial one-child-policy, while successful in its intended slowing of population growth, has led to both an imbalance in the male-female ratio and a rap-idly aging population. This two-fold demographic crisis has profound im-plications not only for China, but also neighboring developing countries, like India and Bangladesh, and trading partners, such as the United States.

Although much has been made of the nation’s population boom, the population growth rate has actually dropped from 1.67% in 1987 to 0.37% in 2010. When paired with its increas-ingly low fertility rate (1.3 children per woman, rather than the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population), it is not surprising that 74% of the Chinese population is 15-64 and mostly male. While the reduction in population growth has in the short term alleviat-ed the problems of overpopulation, the dramatic drop in fertility has resulted in a population that is top-down and aging at a highly-accelerated rate.

As a result, by 2015, the popula-tion is likely to peak and then decline. By 2030, one-fourth of the population will be over the retirement age of 65, giving the nation two elders for every five workers. While the strong role fam-ilies play in taking care of the elderly has resulted in a weak pension system that is limited to urban, government workers, the added costs of a shrinking worker to retiree ratio meas that there will soon simply not be enough care-

givers, both formally (through pen-sion burdens) and informally (through family care). Improvements in the healthcare system have also increased the country’s life expectancy, which exacerbates the demographic strain.

On the positive side, the large, current working-age population has been key to the rise of China’s politi-cal and economic influence. As this changes, an aging workforce will mean less competition for jobs and higher wages especially, as Chinese compa-nies vie for the shrinking number of workers. While many companies are moving inland to the more rural ar-eas of China to access cheaper labor, this will eventually lead to a rise in rural labor incomes, and thus a nar-rowing in the wage gap and a higher standard of living. As a result China’s comparative advantage is expected to shift to less labor-intensive, more complex manufacturing (more elec-tronics, less lead-laden toys), which opens the door for other developing countries such as India and Thailand to fill the simple manufacturing gap.

China’s cultural history has also been a strong factor in the country’s demographic fluctuations. In Chinese culture, having a son means the family name is passed on to the next genera-tion, and elderly parents have someone to take care of them after retirement. Daughters are married off, and thus are less-valued in terms of so-called “returns on investment”. However, the one-child policy is, like many things in communist countries, not always applicable to the elite. Richer families can pay a fine to have a second child. However, with the existing social pres-sure to have a son, this loophole has done precious little to prevent a short-age of females in China. The institution of the one-child policy has resulted in what has been termed a “missing-girl” crisis, with many baby girls being aborted or killed. The true number of missing girls that would have existed in China today is unknown, but is speculated to number in the millions. The current gender imbalance of 100

girls to 119 boys is expected to cre-ate social tension in the near future, as more and more Chinese come of age. Historically, this had led to in-creased violence, crime, and social unrest, which may pose a challenge to China’s authoritarian government.

Despite all this, China’s prospects are not yet entirely grim. In the short term, as a younger generation takes over, we can expect to see increased consumption and social progress. In the long term, as the country ages, simple manufacturing will wane, while more complex industries and the ser-vice sector will boom. With China’s present disproportionately-large work-ing-age population, there’s still time for consumers to spend more and save less, and hopefully limit the amount of damage this issue is likely to cause. There’s also still a chance (however slim) that the Chinese government will revise the one-child policy to allow two children. Of course, since any sea-change in the population would take 20-plus years to show results, even if the one-child policy is reversed tomor-row, any improvement wouldn’t start to show until after the negative impacts of the population crisis have surfaced. China could also lift its immigration restrictions to mitigate the aging of its population. But lifting such restric-tions has historically been proven to only serve as a stopgap measure, as well as putting considerable burdens on an already-strained infrastructure. The solution that seems most likely to help China now, when all seems bleak and quite literally grey, is to both raise the retirement age and encourage fer-tility. Unfortunately, an aging popu-lation is a problem shared by many countries, including much of Europe and Japan, and is without a solution. Whatever China eventually decides to do, the impact of the one-child policy is undeniable, and at least some of its consequences will be unavoidable. The full effects of this unexpected de-mographic crisis have yet to be fully realized, but it is clear that China’s rising star may not be so bright. •

How China’s dual demographic crisis may undercut its path to superpower status

16 bpr.berkeley.edu

Nine months after the self-im-molation of the Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, the

outcome of the Arab Spring is still undetermined. The optimism sur-rounding the relatively peaceful res-ignation of two autocrats early this year has disappeared, and the Middle East now faces fear and uncertainty.

The event that started every-thing, Bouazizi’s self-immolation, took place in the small village of Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia on Decem-ber 17th 2010. The protests that followed led to the ouster of Presi-dent Ben Ali less than a month lat-er, on January 14th 2011. Protest-ers in Egypt, inspired by Tunisians, began assembling in Tahrir Square in Cairo on January 25th. Within a month, Hosni Mubarak was history.

Since then, however, revolution has become much bloodier. Libyan rebels, organized under the National Transitional Council, have fought an eight month long civil war against Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, only re-cently capturing the capital of Tripoli and all but overthrowing the Qad-dafi regime. In Syria, activists still demand President Bashar Al-Assad’s resignation, whose family has ruled for 41 years, even as government forces respond with brutal violence.

In all these revolutions, people unified to get rid of brutal, corrupt autocrats. But Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, which catalyzed all the following uprisings, is special. In Tunisia, people always asked why the country was not a democracy. It is little surprise that Tunisia’s democratic reforms are moving for-ward, while tensions mount in Egypt against the ruling military council.

How feasible, then, is democracy in the Middle East? Except for Turkey and Israel, a Jewish enclave of the West, there are no democracies in the Middle

East. Turkey strives for free elections and pro-Western policies. However, free elections alone do not ensure a legitimate democracy. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, of the Islamist-lean-ing AK Party, once said “Democracy is like a train: you ride it to your desti-nation, and then you jump off.” This illustrates the dangers to democracies that display autocratic tendencies.

Before the revolutions, the author-itarian leaders of Egypt, Libya and Syr-ia led the countries to economic, so-cial and political stagnation, but they also fought religious fundamentalism. In the current situation, however, it is likely that religious extremists will win at the polls. Religion and democ-racy usually are not mutually exclu-sive. However, it is hard to determine whether political Islam paves the way for oppression, or whether it is a legiti-mate expression of a person’s individ-ual identity. Either way, the religiously and culturally determined domina-tion of men challenges active female participation in political discourse.

One reason why political life has been shaped by religion is that govern-ments have failed to provide essential social services such as health care. Islamist groups filled that gap, and a tradition of trust in religious leader-

ship has evolved which is missing in regards to political institutions. Is-lamists are therefore able to influence free elections because needy, mostly uneducated people are susceptible to their promises. This is made possible in the first place because the rural pop-ulation of the Middle East has a long tradition of religious, ethnic or tribal identities rather than national identi-ties. The foundation of every democra-cy is a people’s cumulative identifica-tion with their state. This is not given in many Middle Eastern countries.

While all these claims hold true for most Middle Eastern countries, Tunisia has a different story to tell. The existence of an educated middle class, a secular society and national pride that manifested itself in the slo-gan ‘fier d’être Tunisien’, make a legiti-mate democracy likely to succeed. Ul-timately, the world should have a deep respect for what the Tunisian people did when they stood together patiently and fought for that one common idea, a free Tunisia. However, while it is remarkable how the Jasmine Revolu-tion inspired people across the Middle East to strive for freedom and democ-racy themselves, these countries still have a long and troubled road ahead. •

Credit: Elena Kempf

By Elena Kempf, Staff Writer

international

17OctOber 2011

In December of 1964 Jack Wein-berg sat in the back of a police cruiser surrounded by 10,000

student protesters. Weinberg’s crime was political organizing on campus, which the Regents of the UC sys-tem had recently banned. The police car holding Weinberg was unable to move for 36 hours as students sur-rounded the vehicle day and night, even mounting it to give speeches.

Among the men who spoke from the top of the police car was Ma-rio Savio, the leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Days later he famously told thousands of his fellow students to “put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the appa-ratus”, to send a message to the Re-gents and grind the school to a halt.

Nearly 50 years later across the Atlantic Ocean riots erupted across England after the controver-sial killing of one Mark Duggan in an exchange with police. What be-gan as a peaceful protest ended in an estimated £200 million worth of property damage and several dead.

These outbursts of civil unrest are divided by time and place but are both wedged in forces of economics. In Mario Savio’s speech he discusses the comparison between his school and the structure of a business. Savio, the son of a Sicilian steel worker, framed the conflict in terms of a struggle over resources “this is a firm, and if the Board of Regents are the board of di-rectors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I’ll tell you some-thing: the faculty are a bunch of em-ployees, and we’re the raw material!”

The connection between recession, austerity and riots is clear. According to a study by the Center for Economic Policy Research there is a strong cor-relation between austerity measures and civil unrest. Once cuts reach 3% of spending incidents of unrest dou-ble; austerity measures preceding the rioting were at 10% of total spending.

Who were the rioters themselves; where did they come from? Rioting erupted primarily in parts of North

London like Tottenham and Birming-ham. In Birmingham 1 in 4 are unem-ployed. British Member of Parliament David Lammy stated that Tottenham has the highest unemployment rate in London and that there are at least 23 people chasing every job opening. The austerity cuts preceding the rioting in-cluded tuition hikes and cuts to public services. With 20% of the workforce in the public sector, as opposed to less than 10% in America, these cuts will in-evitably be damaging. Riots also flared in cities like Birmingham where over 1 in 4 are employed in the public sector.

Activism in Berkeley was in many ways fundamentally different from unrest across Europe. Protest at the University is an intellectual affair. It was spurred on by clear administra-tive action. The riots in London ignited after a death unrelated to the rioters economic troubles, suggesting deeper social and structural roots of the riots than the protests in Berkeley. College students do not suffer from the same trials of unemployment as the Lon-doners of Tottenham. They also repre-sent a group of privilege while the riot-ers of London certainly do not. Thus, the degree of destruction in Britain is perhaps reflective of social despair.

Protests on campus are now large-ly centered on economic issues of aus-terity. In 2009 students barricaded themselves in Wheeler Hall to protest fee increases and in 2011 students chained themselves to the roof of the same building in protest of further fee

increases. “No cuts, no fees, education must be free!” has become a mantra for the Berkeley protest movement.

The most recent September 23rd protests made the economic forc-es behind Berkeley protest explicit. Upper Sproul Plaza was lined with not only students but also many la-bor leaders of the UC Berkeley staff. Speakers described the joining of the student movement with the la-bor movement. Picket signs read, “Workers and Students United” and “Workers and Students Against Cuts”.

Professor Walker explains the importance of unions to the modern campus protest movement, “In Cali-fornia the most important progressive political force over the past decade has been the labor movement”. Pro-fessor Walker, referring to recent cam-pus protests, remarks,“I have never seen this level of mobilization of the campus unions before…this is some-thing new.” The presence of unions exposes the clear economic sources of protest. Organizing on the Berkeley Campus, however, has had mixed re-sults. Recent protests have struggled to reduce budget cuts and the crowds at the September 23rd protest pale in comparison to those of the 1960s. However, as austerity sinks in, and in-equality grows, these movements may gain support. Perhaps no better ex-ample is Occupy Wall Street. •

By Charlie Smith, Staff Writer

internatiOnal

Credit: ShockYa

18 bpr.berkeley.edu

international

Latin American history is rife with the struggles of citizens at the hands of military leaders.

Responsible for appalling abuses of power ranging from Augusto Pino-chet’s “Caravan of Death” to Jorge Vi-dela’s “Dirty War” to Rafael Trujillo’s “Parsley Massacre” (in which 20,000 people were killed for mispronouncing “parsley”), the traditional caudillo, or military strongman, has largely been shown the door as an archetype for Latin American leaders. In Brazil, this transition occurred in 1985, when the nation’s final military regime fell and democratic elections began. Since then, the nation has adopted a new constitution, undergone economic re-forms that have led to historic growth, and opened its borders to foreign in-vestment. Much of this progress has been attributed to former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who stepped down at the end of 2010 to the high-est approval ratings of any leader in Brazil’s history. Lula’s hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff, channeled his popularity into her own campaign, promising that her coalition would work “for Brazil to keep on changing”. However, Rousseff, who spent years imprisoned by the government for her role as a Marxist guerrilla before as-cending through the ranks of Brazil-ian politics, has fashioned a distinct identity, specifically in foreign policy. While Lula’s term was marked by pragmatic, conciliatory measures in-tended to establish Brazil as a credible global power, Rousseff has seemingly taken the next step, using Brazil’s newfound influence to stake out more provocative foreign policy positions. Western observers would be remiss to assume that Brazil’s foreign policy will align it perfectly with the Unit-ed States or Europe much longer.

After so many years spent culti-

vating economic and diplomatic ties with the West, President Lula pro-posed a nuclear deal between Turkey and Iran in 2010. Shortly afterward, Brazil voted against U.S.-backed sanc-tions on Iran, marking the first time in history that Brazil voted against the United States at the United Nations. While this will largely be remembered as Lula’s most substantive state-ment on the global stage, Rousseff has been shakier in her approach to Iran. Although Rousseff evoked her own traumatic experiences in prison to bash Iran for its human rights re-cord during her campaign, her na-tion has grown closer to Iran during 2011. Rousseff’s refusal to meet with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, a women’s rights activist who spent years in prison for opposing Iranian judicial policies, alarmed many in the international community who saw the two as logical allies on human rights. Rather, it seems, Rousseff has focused her attention on maintaining friend-ly relations with Iran’s government, hoping to expand trade in the future. Given that most developed nations have stopped trade with Iran, Brazil has much to gain by filling this void.

From a pragmatic standpoint, none of this should come as a sur-prise. The rise of Brazil is directly at-tributable to economic liberalization. As one of the world’s largest sources of raw materials ranging from gold to oil to coffee, the nation has grown by find-ing willing consumers in global mar-kets. By keeping a low profile on most controversial issues, Lula made Brazil an appealing trade partner for nations with widely varying conditions, includ-ing the United States, Venezuela, and Syria. With the prospect of economic and social tumult in many of these states, Rousseff must forge a deci-sive foreign policy identity for Brazil.

Thus far, she has pursued a for-eign policy increasingly independent of that of the West. Since Rousseff took power, Brazil has opposed the West on a variety of issues in the Unit-ed Nations. As a growing trade part-ner of Libya, Brazil opposed NATO’s air strikes on that nation. More strik-ingly, Brazil’s envoys to the United Na-tions defended Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s record on human rights while the Security Council pondered the possibility of freezing Syrian fi-nancial assets. Though these actions, taken individually, do not necessarily threaten Brazil’s relationships with Western nations, Berkeley professor Barry Carr argues that they are symp-tomatic of changing attitudes with-in Brazil. Professor Carr states that Brazil’s recent actions demonstrate a “greater commitment to cooperation across borders”, and that Brazil is “fol-lowing an agenda that is no longer the one which Washington was setting.”

In the coming years, much lies ahead for Brazil. The nation has proposed bailouts for the European Union, signaling that it wants to serve as a global creditor while its econo-my grows. The Brazilian government recently approved 25,000 scholar-ships to send promising students to prestigious global universities. Three years from now, Brazil will host the FIFA World Cup; two years later, the sprawling city of Rio de Janeiro will welcome the world for the Summer Olympics. Between now and then, it is likely that a Brazil led by Dilma Rousseff will pursue its own economic interests independently of Western opinion. The new Brazil will attempt to skirt the divides between the “West” and the “rest” that define global poli-tics today, and if it succeeds, it will be because of its Mama Grizzly. •

By Tanay Kothari, Staff Writer Credit: China Confidential

19OctOber 2011

OpiniOn

On college campuses across the nation, mention of the Tea Party elic-its snickers and scoffs. It has become, to many, something to be laughed at merely because it is custom to do so.

Such widespread misunderstand-ing is a big problem for this relative-ly new movement, as it desperately needs new adherents. Regardless of whether the movement merits the in-difference it receives from college stu-dents, it must focus on appealing to our generation. If it fails in this en-deavor, it will likely die. Therefore, we ask: What needs to be done to keep the movement healthy and pumping new blood?

The main problem with the Tea Party is its leaders’ inability to stay focused on its strongest fiscal points. Religious and moral overtones aside, the economic ideas of the movement should appeal to the average college student. At their core, Tea Partiers are merely misunderstood libertarians. Unclouded by their less economical-ly-themed points, the party platform would sound something like this: smaller government; less economic intervention; and, most importantly, fiscal responsibility in Congress. To-day more than ever, college students involve themselves with fiscal policy. Case in point: the Occupy Wall Street movement, which Joe Biden recently compared to the Tea Party. Composed largely of young people, Occupy Wall Street voices a message economically fraternal to its tea-toting counterpart. If the Tea Party keeps its fiscal points at the forefront, it can capitalize on the college generation as well.

Another problem is the group’s ex-cessive emphasis on very specific reli-

gious and “family” values. Such values are changing today, and many college students are shying away from the traditional conventions of organized religion. Yet the Tea Party continues to commit that highest of political sins: mixing theology with politics. For a group that draws heavily upon the Founding Fathers, the Tea Party must remember that during the forming of our great nation, the authors of the Constitution paid careful attention to ensure that the State never mandates a particular set of religious beliefs. In order to prove its true adherence to the ideals of our Forefathers, the Tea Party must likewise establish itself as a secular movement.

In addition, the Tea Party’s cur-rent demographics raise concerns about long-term efficacy. A New York Times/CBS survey found that 75% of those identifying with the Tea Party are over 45. Clearly, the movement is in desperate need of new blood, and, as we saw in ’08, the youth vote can be the key to success. And just as the party needs students, so, too, do students need groups like the Tea Party. Thousands of young people now occupy the s t r e e t s of cities across the n a t i o n , frustrated and un-emp l o y ed , but lacking a platform from which to articu-late demands. The Tea Party could be that platform. Failure to capitalize on this new gen-eration will result in the Democrats claiming the Occupy Wall Street move-ment for their own, just as the Repub-licans co-opted the Tea Party.

Furthermore, being merely anti-

Obama is not enough. The Tea Party must organize itself not as a group 100% opposed to a single president, but as a movement seeking to reform the runaway spending in Washington. Instead, the Party saturates its rheto-ric with unnecessary vehemence; its passion is too often misconstrued as anger, and its frustration as hatred. It must prove itself a positive move-ment, and not just a party of “no.”

Finally, the Tea Party needs a strong, conversation-fostering publi-cation to be circulated and discussed on campuses nationwide. Nobel Lau-reate for Economics Joseph Stiglitz gave a teach-in at Occupy Wall Street on October 2nd; the Tea Party, too, must attract such luminaries. Only through a serious academic journal can the Tea Party inspire college stu-dents and reverse the tide of intel-lectual backlash against its seeming anti-intellectualism.

If the Tea Party makes itself more appealing to students and dispels

any illusionary notion that its members are fanatics, it

will command more respect in the years

to come. It must prove that it is not merely an offshoot of the radical, evan-gelical right, but rather, it is a forward-thinking par-ty of reform. It must stick

with its fiscal points, capital-

ize on the grow-ing discontent of

young voters and drop the folksy, fi-

ery, Palin-esque rhetoric that has only served to feed

the media vultures. These chang-es are imperative if the movement is to generate support from the college community and thus attain any sort of long-term influence in American politics. •

By Brendan Pinder, Staff Writer

Credit: Joh

n Ten

niel

20 bpr.berkeley.edu

opinion

TOMA is an acronym for Top Of Mind Awareness, a term used in mar-keting to indicate the continuous goal of a particular campaign. Weekly on the BPR blog at bpr.berkeley.edu, I provide examples of TOMA campaigns and analyze them through an inter-disciplinary perspective.

As TOMA Hawk™, I employ a keen eye to detail instances of TOMA, and, with razor-sharp talons, dissect it publicly on this blog.

My purpose is thus: To highlight prominent and (usually) innovative ways corporations (known to some as “business”) enshrine or destroy values and places both domestic and foreign through gossip chains that land their campaigns in the realm of “news-worthy”. However hotly contested a campaign or technique might be, if it succeeds in breaking into the “news-worthy” category, it has succeeded, and the longer it stays in the news, the more its success expands. Off the Top Of my Mind, I’m not Aware of any in-stance in which a Big TOMA campaign has backlashed on its originators more adversely than it has changed [enshrined/destroyed] conditions [val-ues/places] for the short-term benefit of the company.

In the preceding paragraph, I used the qualifier “Big” to describe a variety of TOMA. Big TOMA is what makes a moment “Kodak” or the word “priceless” a MasterCard psychologi-cal monopoly (despite the inability to trademark “priceless”). Band-Aid and Kleenex number among the most successful Big TOMA campaigns of all time, so much so that they worry about losing profits due to the generi-

fication of their names. We must distinguish Big TOMA

from “small” or “local” TOMA. I use both Small TOMA and Local TOMA in a mostly interchangeable fashion, ex-cepting case studies where local TOMA is Big or Small TOMA is spread across multiple GMAs (Greater Metropolitan Area). Small/Local TOMA is the nick-el-and-dime stuff you see all over the place, the ads you instinctively ignore unless a certain image, color or catch-phrase pops out and you and seduces your ego. Local TOMA can dramatical-ly improve conditions for small busi-nesses, but only if it complies with the conventions Big TOMA dictates.

Corporations are generally suc-cessful at convincing municipalities that public space is better “used” than “wasted”, so they wrangle billboards, naming rights to public places and, in some cases, street signs (for their headquarters) from their rightful own-ers, the demos (the people). Once cor-poratized, a municipality accepts Big TOMA conventions as just and natu-ral, leading small business owners to overspend on marketing and causing city-dwellers in general to become out of touch with their own neighbors; those big blue eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckle-burg do not watch us, but we fixate on them rather than our surrounding life forms, hoping one day to achieve that vantage point and -- maybe then -- af-fect some sort of real change.

To be a TOMA Hawk™, one must look upward, toward the Eckleburgs. We do not desire Eckleburg’s van-tage point for ourselves, only for our research. We must understand what those who put Eckleburg in his place see as we remind ourselves that Eck-leburg sees nothing. What we see in

Eckleburg is generally what teams of very psychologically insightful individ-uals want us to see. Such teams have become so skilled that they now open-ly reveal their processes to the public in the form of television shows such as Mad Men, knowing all the while that the patterns they dictate are so ingrained in our lifestyles that inun-dating us in the “icy water of egotis-tical calculation” (to quote Marx) will not chill our cancerous drive for con-sumption. On the contrary, Mad Men is a premium show for advertisers; its influence has proved itself through the creation of new “vintage” Pan Am bags and an accompanying television show.

TOMA controls the way we per-ceive both time and space, but, even more saddening, it also controls the way we perceive our own identity. In March, MIT Sloan School of Manage-ment marketing professor Joshua Ackerman found that men generally say “I love you” sooner than women do, and they also feel happier hearing an unprovoked “I love you”. Ackerman immediately used the language of the marketplace and social Darwinism to describe his findings, pinpointing a difference in cost-benefit analyses be-tween men and women as the primary cause of female reluctance and male enthusiasm: Women are saddled with the costs of children while men ben-efit from passing on their genes. Such knee-jerk reactions dishearten we who believe humanity cannot be reduced to a spreadsheet. •

Please send comments, inquiries and examples of TOMA about which you’d like me to write to TOMAhawkColum-nist@gmail.com

By Alex Kravitz, Opinion Editor

Credit: ShockAlex Kravitz

21OctOber 2011

OpiniOn

If Philip Morris offered UC Berke-ley an annual $1.3 million sponsor-ship fee for the right to sell cigarettes on campus, there would be a public outcry. As of now, however, the ad-ministration is finalizing the terms of a $1.3 million contract with PepsiCo with little opposition.

This seemingly hyperbolic com-parison is warranted for the following three reasons:

1. Soda is loaded with high fruc-tose corn syrup (HFCS), and ground-breaking new endocrinology research strongly suggests that the liver cannot handle our current intake of fructose, leading to heart disease and type 2 diabetes;

2. Epidemiological trends prove sugar consumption has increased alongside incidence of these diseases since the 1980s; and

3. The corporate stake in creating lifelong customers outstrips any sense of obligation to inform the consumer of the health and environmental risks associated with the production and consumption of the product (notice this sentence applies to tobacco and soda corporations equally).

In his lecture, “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” (viewed 1.7 million times on YouTube), UCSF childhood obesity ex-pert Dr. Robert Lustig presents strong proof of a link between sugar consump-tion and metabolic syndrome, which affects 75 million Americans and is -- he contends -- the primary risk factor for obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Metabolic syndrome involves

the cells of the liver becoming insulin-resistant, which results from the way sugar -- fructose in particular -- is metabolized. Unlike glucose -- which is metabolized by every cell in the body -- fructose is metabolized primarily in the liver. If consumed quickly and in large enough quantities (as fructose in liquids like soda generally is), the liver will convert most of it to fat.

Fat in the liver leads to insulin re-sistance. In a study earlier this year, Yale School of Medicine’s Varman Samuel found that “if there is too much fat in the liver, the ability of insulin to activate [metabolizing] sig-nals is impaired, making those cells resistant to insulin.” Gerald Reavan of Stanford found as early as 1987 that a 66% fructose diet is the quick-est way to induce insulin resistance in rats. Colorado State University’s Mi-chael Pagliassotti followed Reavan in the 1990s, proving that cattle fed diets comprising 60-70% sugar developed fatty livers within days, and those fed 20% sugar (similar to a typical U.S. diet) reached the same result after sev-eral months. For both groups, removal from the sugary diet led to speedy liver health recovery.

Beyond the cellular level, epidemiological and caloric consumption data also pin sugar as the culprit for the American chronic illness trifecta of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Beginning in the 1980s, rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes greatly increased, and cardiovascular events in-creased at a more moderate rate. The increasing incidence of these dis-eases closely followed the skyrocket-ing consumption of sugar as HFCS be-gan to dominate the U.S. food system. (For more information, see The Omni-vore’s Dilemma or Food, Inc., in which Michael Pollan details the extent to which HFCS has invaded nearly every

consumer food product currently on the market.) Surprisingly, consump-tion of dietary fat as a percentage of total calories has actually decreased since the 1980s as consumer demand for low-fat products has increased; manufacturers generally replaced dietary fats with sugars, especially HFCS. U.S. citizens now consume on average 140 pounds of sugar per year, rejecting the FDA warning that con-sumption of 40+ pounds per year is hazardous to one’s health.

Unfortunately, despite compelling health-related reasons for rejecting a PepsiCo contract, to this University -- producer of 25 alumni Nobel Lau-reates and home to 22 faculty Lau-reates, 9 of them currently teaching -- money trumps science. The cur-rent contract stipulates not only $1.3 million in sponsorship fees, but also $235,000 in promotional marketing funds and a “sustainability” support program of $15,000. What this last point entails, we don’t know, but we assume it doesn’t involve stopping the sale of bottled beverages since that seems to be occurring unabated by last spring’s resolution passed against bottled water; University Health Ser-

vices’ Health*Matters program manager Trish Ratto even goes

so far as to suggest that actu-ally instituting the popular bottled water ban (passed with 84% of student votes discounting abstentions) will negatively affect student

health by pushing students to drink soda. Furthermore,

the environmental repercussions of plastic bottles are the same regard-less of their contents.

UC administrators apparently find no irony in allowing a soda corpora-tion to sponsor our athletes and help us market ourselves as the world’s greenest campus. Perhaps Philip Mor-ris should make us an offer. •

By Doug Perez, Staff Writer

22 bpr.berkeley.edu

A&e

Day in and day out, infamous local fixture Yoshua informs Berkeley students that the end

of the world is imminent. Credibility of colorful Berkeley characters aside, the man may have a point. And in re-gards to political discourse, Yoshua may actually be a little late with his prediction. Doomsday has already ar-rived.

With the 2012 Presidential Elec-tion but a year away, the nearly two-year media circus that has come to characterize American presidential elections is already in full swing. With artificially heated arguments and po-litical figures moonlighting as televi-sion personalities, these days it is getting harder and harder to differ-entiate reality television from political news coverage.

Former G.O.P nomination hopeful and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlen-ty may have said it best when he stat-ed on a recent Colbert Report appear-ance that the campaign races are, “taking on more and more of a real-ity TV component…You’ve got to have not just money but an entertainment component, too.” Regarding his deci-sion to drop out of the race, Pawlenty went on to say that he “brought for-ward a record of serious policy ap-proaches…to the campaign,” but the electorate was “looking for something else.”

According to Jason Wittenburg, Berkeley Professor of Political Sci-ence, although it is true that politics have taken on a more reality TV-like format, the former is in no way a symptom of the latter. Wittenburg said that this phenomena is, “a func-tion of underlying cultural changes” and, given technological and struc-

tural changes in media, there has be-come an increasingly “huge incentive to package things in a way that sells.”

Despite this, Wittenberg claims that the entertainment factor of poli-tics is not necessarily something new. “The gory details” of public policy is-sues,” Wittenberg says, “cause people to fall asleep.” Thus, creating an en-tertainment factor has always been a go-to strategy for political campaigns. The bigger problem may lie in the similar path news coverage of these campaigns has taken in recent years.

According to a University of Mis-souri at Columbia study, the average length of a typical political news story decreased about 20% and the num-ber of political news stories dropped by 20% between 1968 and 2008. To make matters worse, those stories that do make it into the news have become more focused on polling numbers and horse race style report-ing than concrete policy matters. As a result, the populace is growing in-creasingly reliant on receiving their political information from campaign commercials instead. The Missouri study found that, although voters have a good idea of which candidate is likely to win the presidency, they are far less knowledgeable about poli-ticians’ respective stances on issues.

Declining meaningful political coverage is further exasperated by the manner in which it is delivered. Where America used to have Walter Cronkite providing them with their news in a generally trust-worthy, im-partial manner, it now has multiple highly polarized news sources capi-talizing on the sensationalist nature of the 24-hour news cycle. Cronkite’s straightforward style of reporting has

been replaced with that of Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck. Political personalities like these spoon-feed viewers their own opinions instead of reporting in an unbiased, thought-provoking manner. Even more sectors of the population have turned to the faceless blogosphere or political cam-paign ads as the foundation for their voting behavior.

Given all of this, it is truly difficult to blame candidates on either side of the aisle for their use of reality TV-esque tactics on the campaign trail, or even the news outlets themselves for that matter. We exist in a society where Jersey Shore cast members can command up to $10,000 for a single appearance and a video of a cat doing pretty much anything can se-cure upwards of a million hits on You-Tube. The decline of political debate and coverage is really best viewed as a microtome of the decline of American civil culture as a whole.

When it comes down to it, an hon-est exchange of ideas about policy has never been particularly sexy or capti-vating. It certainly does not lend itself to the 2-minute format our YouTube generation has come to expect. These sorts of exchanges do not gain ac-cess to the publics’ hearts or pocket books. Catchy one-word slogans, polling-based reporting, and emotion-ally, ideologically, and often times re-ligiously charged rhetoric, however, does. So, what motivation does the politician, who wants and needs votes, or the media, which is dependent on viewers, have to change? As it stands, the prospects for improvement appear rather bleak. In the debate over politi-cal debate, everyone loses. •

By Nicole Orlov, Staff WriterCredit: Elena Kempf

23OctOber 2011

a&eBook Review

An attempt to escape the inequalities of apart-heid Africa brought Marisa Handler and her family to America in the hopes of living in a country of true freedom and democracy. In her first book, Loyal to the Sky, Handler recounts her experiences as an ambi-tious Berkeley student who comes face to face with the adversities of the interna-tional justice movement.

In her novel, Marisa Handler wittingly crafts her memories of a relentless campaign for global justice. She weaves her passion and knowledge of human rights into her stories in a way that ignites sympathy in the reader. Yet, Handler

also maintains a profes-sional style of writing in both her personal and jour-nalistic accounts on the current state of affairs. At times, this bridles the en-thusiasm she is trying to convey and her stories be-come a bit more verbose than necessary for such a personal account. This is partly because Handler originally intended for the book to be published as an academic piece. “My pub-lisher..proposed to me that I write a memoir..that would be a much more power-ful vehicle for these ideas.”

Beyond the literary veil, Handler’s activism covers issues that are heavily pres-ent on the current global stage. She reports on the corrupted monarchy in Ne-pal, the inflamed conflicts

between the Hindus and the Muslims in India, the Free Trade Area of the Americas campaign, and the dangers of oil excavation to indig-enous peoples in South America. Tales of arrests, police chases, personal di-lemmas, and fruitful travels take on a seemingly intimi-dating and cumbersome character. However, during our interview she pointed out that most of the move-ments she was involved with were grassroots ef-forts, affirming that “small groups of people can ac-complish amazing things.”

With her relentless pas-sion and benevolent rheto-ric, Marisa Handler hauls her audience through her adventures in the global justice movement. It should come as no surprise if you

find yourself nodding in fervent passion toward the causes she fights for and, perhaps, developing the im-pulse to get off of your couch and let your inner activist out. For those daring to join the ranks, she urges, “build your own vision and people will come.” And with Loyal to the Sky, Marisa Han-dler has done just that. •

By Christina Avalos Staff Writer

The Cal-in-Sacramento Program is the University of California’s largest—and one of the nation’s most prestigious—cam-pus-based public service fellowship programs. For over three decades, more than 500 Cal students have gone to Sacra-mento to experience politics, government, and public service under the program’s auspices. Fellows experience Califor-nia’s exciting political milieu for eight weeks in the summer. Cal-in-Sac Fellows work in Sacramento internships in the offices of Senate and Assembly members, the governor’s office, state agencies, nonprofit groups, or media organizations. Typical intern duties include: organizing public hearings, researching legislation, developing new bills, and monitoring crucial issues. Apply today!

Cal-in-Sacramento Fellowships

Applications!Now Accepting

Information session: 5 p.m., Tuesday, October 25, 2011

IGS Library, 109 Moses HallApplications available in 111 Moses Hall or at:

politics.berkeley.edu/state_intern.html

Deadline: Applications are due at 5 p.m., Monday, Nov. 7, 2011, in 111 Moses Hall or

by email to matsuicenter@berkeley.edu.