Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Blog

The Ups and Downs of Ending Affirmative Action Preferences

By Carol Allen

In their highly readable book on the California Civil Rights Initiative, co-authors Harry Glynn Custred, M. Aliz Raza, and A. Janell Anderson describe the Ups and Downs of Affirmative Action Preferences. Were they to write a sequel today, they might aptly title it The Ups and Downs of Ending Affirmative Action Preferences. With the decision this month to close down the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative campaign and last month’s similar decision in Oklahoma, it would seem that the battle to end race preferences is facing some major setbacks. Has there, perhaps, been a downturn in the popular support for this quest?

A good place to start in answering that question is with a brief review of the ten-year history of efforts to end affirmative action preferences (by voter initiative or legislation). In 1996, Californians voted decisively to end the use of such preferences in public contracting, education and employment. But, it is worth remembering that the progenitors of the California Civil Rights Initiative (Tom Wood and Harry Glynn Custred) had first tried and failed to place the question before voters in 1994. The setback that year did not deter their renewed efforts in 1996, which – with the added support of many other leaders (including Ward Connerly) – were met with success.

The CCRI victory inspired citizens and legislators in many states to emulate that success. Ballot drives were launched in Colorado, Florida and Illinois in 1997, but each failed. That same year, legislation to end or curtail affirmative action preferences was introduced in eleven states (Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Carolina). Although these efforts also failed, the idea that preferences based on race, gender or ethnicity have no place in our democratic republic was embraced by a growing number of adherents.

The defeat of the Houston Civil Rights Initiative in 1997 (and earlier legislative failures in Washington state) did not discourage state representative Scott Smith and businessman Tim Eyman from launching a petition drive that year, modeled on the CCRI. With substantial support from Ward Connerly and the American Civil Rights Coalition, their campaign led 58 percent of the state’s voters to pass the Washington State Civil Rights Initiative in November 1998.

From 1994 through 2001, a series of appellate court decisions (including Podberesky v. Kirwan, Hopwood v. Texas, Smith v. University of Washington Law School, and Johnson v. Board of Regents of University of Georgia) began to curtail the practice of affirmative action preferences in college admissions and scholarships – at least in the regions directly affected by the rulings. Many colleges and universities outside those regions also chose to moderate their use of preferences in an effort to limit potential exposure to legal challenges. Opponents of race preferences saw some hope that the practice would be eliminated through the court system.

But, the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 23, 2003 split decision on the Gratz and Grutter cases made it clear that the courts seem unlikely to take a firm position on the constitutionality of affirmative action preferences in the near future. On the one hand, the Gratz ruling declared that the outright, systematic, and heavy-handed practice of race preferences in college admissions is unconstitutional. On the other hand, the contradictory ruling in Grutter left open the possibility that colleges and universities could continue to give preferences and make decisions on the basis of race – so long as it was done in a subtle manner. The nation’s institutions of higher education seized this opening and re-invigorated (and cloaked in layers of subtlety) their practice of granting preferential treatment based on race and ethnicity (and sometimes gender – but with the gender-based preferences in admissions now going to men).

Within weeks after the Grutter-Gratz decisions, state legislators Leon Drolet and Jack Brandenberg launched the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, with the support of Ward Connerly. Eventually – and under the leadership of Jennifer Gratz – their campaign led to a 16-point margin of victory at the polls in November 2006. But, that campaign had many setbacks also; in fact, the original plan was to place the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative on the November 2004 ballot.

What is the lesson to learn from this history? The clear pattern is that persistence will pay off. Popular support for ending preferences based on race and gender is widespread and it is growing. The American people have not lost their belief in the premise upon which this nation is founded: that all men are created equal. In the short term, activist groups on the left such as BAMN and ACORN can – through tactics of fear-mongering and deceit – temporarily thwart efforts to end the unconstitutional practice by the state of preferring one individual over another on the basis of that person’s skin color, gender, or ethnicity. But history plainly shows the long-term and progressive movement of the American people toward the goal of creating laws and adopting practices that entrench our commitment to the moral equality of all individuals.

Carol Allen is a research specialist in the Political Science Department of Michigan State University and the author of Ending Racial Preferences: The Michigan Story.

Immigration and the 2008 Presidential Campaigns

by Margaret Sands Orchowski

Washington DC. Democratic leaders don’t want to talk about immigration issues right now. Neither do Republican leaders. Unfortunately for them all, however, immigration hot buttons underlie almost all the big issues in this election from universal health care to national and economic insecurity. Once the Democrats choose their Presidential nominee, candidates’ stances on immigration will become an election issue, like it or not.

Why do both parties’ leaders treat the immigration issue like the plague?

The truth is that both parties are split over immigration. Or rather, they are split over one major point in the immigration reform debate: whether or not Congress should legalize millions of foreign nationals currently living and working in the country illegally, and allow them to earn U.S. citizenship if they meet certain conditions. In other words, the split is over conditional amnesty (is there any other kind?).

Throughout 2006 and 2007, Republican President Bush urged Congress to support his Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bills which included “a pathway to citizenship”/amnesty. The bills were co-sponsored by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Teddy Kennedy (D-MA). But the majority of Republicans (and some Democrats) insisted that existing and enhanced immigration laws should be enforced first, before deciding what to do with the estimated 12-20 million illegal immigrants who came and stayed in the U.S. after the last amnesty bill of 1986. The CIR failed in Congress. So McCain (the presumptive Republican Presidential candidate) changed his mind. “I get it, I get it,” he repeats constantly. “Enforcement first. Legalization later.”

Now the Democratic split over immigration is becoming more visible. On the one side are the “Blue-dog, moderate Reagan-Democrats”. Congressman Heath Schuler (NC), a 2006 “Blue-Pup”, has introduced the SAVE Act -- an “immigration enforcement only” bill. But Congressional Hispanic Caucus leader Luis Gutierrez (Il) insists that there can be no Democratic immigration bill that is not “comprehensive” (the buzz word for “includes amnesty”). Democratic leaders are scheduling hearings for these bills in eight! different committees – enough time to probably stall any floor vote until after the election, if then.

So far both Democratic Presidential candidates have ignored immigration questions unless asked directly. Then, differences appear. While both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have admitted that they do NOT include illegal aliens in their universal health care plans, Barack favors giving drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants while Hillary is against it. But Barack also told a Texas audience of Latinos that “the first bill I will sign as President is the DREAM Act” – a proposal to give instate college tuition and public scholarships to young adults illegally in the country who have graduated from an American high school. Hillary has not made so public a stance for the DREAM Act, which has never passed a Congressional committee nor a chamber vote, and which many states’ laws prohibit.

Barack’s stances on immigration place him on the most “libertarian” end of the immigration political horseshoe. It puts him at odds with many moderate middle class blue collar workers -- voters he already is struggling to win over.

For Democrats hopes in 09, however, McCain is their biggest danger on immigration. The Arizona Senator manages to straddle firmly both sides of the immigration amnesty line-in-the-sand.

Margaret Sands Orchowski is the Vice President of Programs of the Woman's National Democratic Club and the Washington correspondent and columnist for the Hispanic Outlook on Higher Education and is author of Immigration and the American Dream: Battling the Political Hype and Hysteria.

Make Them Answer the Tough Questions: The Realities of Political Debate and Health Care in 2008

By Carey Kriz

The elephant is in the room, and it is time that the political parties seeking to run the U.S. government start acting like they understand the issues of U.S. health care in 2008. First a couple of questions that we need to start asking: Will universal health insurance fix our health care system? The answer is easy: absolutely not. A bumper sticker approach to solving problems means identifying one big emotional issue and suggesting an obvious solution. For health care there a number of these, with the big story being the unfeeling administrator denying benefits to a patient with real needs. Ultimately, this story comes back to the failure of our insurance industry to be portable, to be with you throughout your lifetime and generally to be fair.

And yes, this is a great cause. But it is not the answer.

Will more doctors bring more health care to our communities? The answer to this one is also easy: absolutely not. The U.S. system of educating and branding physicians is arguably the best in the world. Yet we have an imbalance in knowledge and need to think about why our neighbors are getting so fat, or indulging in behaviors that are obviously bad for them. Do any of us understand that we are actually in charge of our bodies?

Will blockbuster science and new drugs cure disease? Dreaming is good for us, and we do have a number of major scientific advances that impact the world of health care – and how that health care can lead to improved longevity and a better quality of life. But science alone is not the answer here. We have a problem in health care that cuts across treatments, diagnosis and infrastructures.

So what will fix our health care system? For the answer to this question start asking your political leaders where all the money is going – and whether we have any idea of the cost/benefits of our investments. When we think of spending money on health care what we fail to also mention is that we spend more than anyone else in the world, that we have declining productivity in our quality of life indices, and are making a “business” out of something that comes close to being a survival requirement. Guess who pays the highest cost for drugs in the world? Yes: we do. Not your neighbors in Australia and Singapore – or Europe.

Imagine how stupid we would look as a society if we charged for the right to breathe air. Now imagine denying someone access to care because they slipped through the coverage cracks – or discriminating against them because they already had a disease. Now add to this reality that a ton of people were making money from this mess, including big investment funds, management, professionals and shareholders. Yes we have cancer and it has metastasized into every corner of the health system. The fix will not be pleasant and will definitely be painful. But it is a requirement and it will be hard on all of us.

So it’s time to put some real debate into health care and start looking at the elephant of big business, profits and motivation. Hiding from a problem, or misleading the public about how bad it is, will not solve it.

Carey Kriz is the author of The Patient Will See You Now (Rowman and Littlefield).

Silda Spitzer: Why Was She There?

by Nichola D. Gutgold

“She looked like she aged.” That’s what former New York mayor, Ed Koch, said about Silda Spitzer when he saw her standing by her husband, Elliot Spitzer, during his shameful admission that he had violated his obligations to his family and his “sense of right and wrong.” It seems to me, that while accompanying your political spouse to his swearing in and glitzy round of inaugural balls, this first lady ritual – the standing by your man silently while he apologizes for his mistakes—seems like a ritual worth abandoning. It is no wonder if Ed Koch is right and Silda Spitzer seemed to age overnight. I imagine that being internationally humiliated can take its toll. Maybe Ed Koch should put himself in Silda Spitzer’s shoes: trying to look together while your whole world is unraveling. To endure such a humiliation is first lady media waterboarding. And she did it again when Governor Spitzer resigned. She didn’t say a word: so why was she there?

Why do these women allow themselves to appear in public when their husband announces his wrongdoing? It is becoming an all too familiar sight. By participating in these public spectacles, what do these women accomplish? Silda Spitzer, looking forlorn and all cried out, is as accomplished as her husband. A Harvard trained lawyer, she played the role of the political spouse to perfection and the media quickly showed the vignettes of happier times. Dressed up for the inauguration, beautiful family photos, swelling with pride at her husband’s inaugural swearing-in ceremony. And there she was on Monday at the press conference: perfectly groomed, gloomily enduring the public humiliation of the “I messed up” speech. Silda Spitzer brought back images of Dina McGreevey, the ex-wife of former New Jersey Governor James McGreevey who resigned in 2004 over a gay affair with a man. As McGreevey announced to the world, “I am a gay American,” Dina McGreevy stood there, with a forced, partial smile, but saying nothing. It begs the question: “Why are they there?” I want to say, “Go home.” Even if her goal is to keep the family together, this seems like one outing she could skip and still fulfill her goal. America doesn’t need the wronged woman visual. We’ve come too far. Stay with him if you choose, for your own, very personal and private reasons, whether they are religious or political, but save the public and yourself the sad replay of the painful event. This isn’t your wrongdoing, so why participate?

Despite the rich first lady tradition in our country and the visual of looking supportive is an important one as first lady, this is where first ladies should draw the line. Why don’t these women say, “We can deal with this in private. Go make your speech. I’m sitting this one out”? She could save herself the international humiliation since she is only standing there, and she isn’t speaking. When Hillary Clinton appeared on 60 Minutes in 1992 and defended her husband, she spoke, like Wendy Vitter did when she commented on her conservative husband’s name appearing on the client list of a D.C. madam. Though she previously criticized Hillary Clinton for staying with Bill Clinton through his infidelities, she commented that, "To forgive is not only always the easy choice, but it was the right choice for me.” Forgiving is divine, but must it include standing in public while your spouse makes his speech of mea culpa? As the role of the political spouse continues to evolve with some spouses who are as qualified to be president as the one who is elected, it makes sense that future spouses would refuse the public humiliation of standing by her spouse in a public speech that declares his wrongdoing.

It begs the question: Would a male political spouse stand next to his wife in such a situation?

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor or communication arts and sciences at Penn State University at Lehigh Valley and is author of Paving the Way for Madam President (Lexington Books) and Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (Lexington Books).

Issues Raised by Writers Guild of America Strike

by Vincent Mosco

The strike of the Writers Guild of America captured a lot of attention because it deprived millions of their favorite television programs. But the issues it raised will persist long after people comfortably settle into new episodes of CSI. Here are some observations to consider.

The strike demonstrated the importance of new media for old media industries and especially for their workers. After all, a central issue in the strike was the distribution of revenues from new media uses of traditional television programming. What, if any, compensation should writers receive for work that is increasingly repackaged for the digital world, especially the internet? With the producers proposing to end the system of residuals and develop new forms of compensation, and the writers determined to press for expanded residual payments, it came as no surprise that the WGA took to the picket line on November 1, 2007. The strike, which lasted three months and cost Hollywood an estimated $2.5 billion, was resolved with a deal that promised writers a stronger foothold in the online world. In the first two years of the three-year contract, writers would get a maximum flat fee of about $1,200 for programs streamed online. In the third year, however, they would receive two percent of a distributor’s gross, a key union demand. Other provisions include increased residual payments for downloaded movies and TV programs.

No one is sure what the size of the revenue stream will be from streaming and downloading, but it should be clear to anyone familiar with research on labor, especially in the communication industry, Hollywood workers would benefit from greater solidarity among its many unions. With separate unions representing directors, writers, actors and technicians, it is difficult for them to speak with one voice against increasingly integrated media conglomerates that dominate both old and new media. The Communication Workers of America which represents journalists, telephone workers, media technicians, and high tech workers has benefited from solidarity. But attempts to bring together the Hollywood unions have failed, often on very close votes. There are many reasons for this but a narrow craft consciousness and a guild, rather than a union, culture have been especially difficult to overcome. In essence, they have failed to match technological and industry convergence with the labor convergence that would provide Hollywood workers with the resources to defend their interests.

Finally, as a communication scholar, it was disappointing to observe how few researchers in the field commented on the strike to offer the historical background and context for the events. Academics, especially those working on the issues swirling around new media and the internet, need to spend more time on the labor dimension. It is not enough to ask: What will be next new thing? We also need to ask whether media workers of the world will unite.

Vincent Mosco is professor of sociology and Canada Research Chair in Communication and Society at Queen's University and co-author with Catherine McKercher of Knowledge Workers in the Information Society.

From Silence to Prominence; The Story of Women is Evident in Their Television Images

by Nichola D. Gutgold

Being First Lady seems like a dread for any woman who wishes to be known for her own achievements. Louisa Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams was so unhappy and desperate that most of the time she could be found indulging in chocolate and penning a biography titled  Adventures of a Nobody.  Eleanor Roosevelt carved out a life for herself as first lady, though the press pounced on her unorthodox role as she traveled around the country serving as the legs of her husband. But at least she had a voice. To see the progress that women have made in society we need only to turn on our televisions and see that women are not only major figures in the news, they are major figures reporting the news, too. Hillary Clinton as a viable presidential candidate is major progress over the symbolic presidential aspirations of Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Pat Schroeder, Elizabeth Dole and Carol Moseley Braun. As she said, she is “in, and in it to win.” Being a front runner, even if she doesn’t win the nomination, is closer than any woman in American history. And she was first lady. To be seen and heard is progress for women in politics and in broadcasting. From curvaceous weather forecasters hired more for their looks than their understanding of meteorology, women have become forces in television news. Women like Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley and Dana Bash, who are front and center reporting on the latest political developments. Crowley has become a presence on CNN, reporting on Washington politics. She has distinguished herself with witty, yet serious and intelligent coverage of the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, George Bush, Pat Buchanan, Paul Tsongas, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Since the nomination of Jimmy Carter, she has reported from all but one of the national political conventions. Her strong, confident voice and insightful questions and commentary make her a fixture on the political scene. She is a self described “political junkie” who revels in participating in the campaigns and the other political rituals that she covers. Dana Bash represents the younger broadcast journalist who grew up with role models, including her own father, who had long and productive careers. Though her career trajectory demonstrates her strong work ethic and persistence—she started out labeling archival tapes--she recognizes that several women in broadcasting who went before her have paved the way for her to be successful at the most difficult and prestigious levels of journalism. She recalls telling Judy Woodward one day as she prepared for a stand up report from the White House, “I’m standing here on the North Lawn of the White House because you stood here before me.” She told me that though both her mother and father graduated from one of the top journalism schools in the country, her father immediately landed a good job in television, while the best job her mother could find was as a secretary. And we should remember some of the trailblazing women in journalism – women like NBC’s Nancy Dickerson whose son, John Dickerson is chief political correspondent of Slate.com. Dickerson was the first woman to cover the White House for television on a regular basis. She tenaciously studied speech at Catholic University while she was a producer at CBS with the hope that she could become a correspondent, though the idea of that was outrageous at the time. In 1965 Liz Trotta was television’s first woman assigned full-time as a foreign correspondent. She stayed with NBC for thirteen years, covering major stories in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In 1962 Barbara Walters became a reporter for NBC’s Today show and is still a major presence—with a Star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame-- she has interviewed every American president and first lady since Richard and Pat Nixon. Many of the most controversial world leaders have sat down to tell their stories to her including Menachen Begin, Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro, Anwar Sadat, Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin, King Hussein of Jordan and Premier Jiang Zemin. Her tenacity and hard work were especially evident she was the first of the three big network news anchors to conduct a joint interview with Egypt’s President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Something that Walter Cronkite noted in his autobiography he “did not count on.” Lesley Stahl joined CBS as a correspondent in 1972 and was the first woman to co-anchor election night coverage.  And of course, Katie Couric is making history as the first sole anchor of CBS Evening News. So, yes, we are seeing women make gains not only as major figures in the news, but as major figures reporting the news.

 

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor or communication arts and sciences at Penn State University at Lehigh Valley and is author of Paving the Way for Madam President  (Lexington Books) and Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (Lexington Book, forthcoming, March 2008)

 

Questions and Answers about Fidel Castro’s Resignation

by Philip Brenner

I answered many questions for reporters on February 19th about Fidel Castro’s statement that he will not be a candidate when the Cuban National Assembly chooses Cuba's president on Sunday. Readers of Rowman and Littlefield’s blog -– and of its recently published anthology, A Contemporary Cuba Reader, of which I am a co-editor –- also deserve to know the answers to these questions. So here are a few of the Frequently Asked Questions about Castro, and my answers.

Question: Is Fidel Castro finally stepping down from power?

Answer: Not quite. He holds three key offices: President, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, and Commander-in-Chief. When he became gravely ill on July 31, 2006, he temporarily turned over these positions to his brother, Raúl Castro. It appears that he may continue to hold the titles of First Secretary and Commander-in-Chief. Those are not at issue in Sunday’s election. Raúl Castro is the Minister of the Armed Forces, and in effect heads the military. If Fidel Castro remains as First Secretary of the Communist Party, it is likely that he will essentially serve as Cuba’s titular leader. Raúl Castro, if he is elected President on Sunday, will be the official head of state and operational head of the government.

Question: Well, this still seems like a pretty big change. What kind of transformation in Cuba can we expect from this?

Answer: The transition in Cuba has been underway already for more than 18 months. Contrary to expectations in Washington, there was not a huge explosion when Fidel Castro gave up the reigns of power in 2006. Instead, there was extraordinary calm, and daily life for Cubans continued without a blip. Fidel Castro actually had stopped running the daily affairs of the Cuban government several years earlier, and the people he designated as the collective leadership in his absence had been the very people who were already doing those jobs. And so, we have a fairly good picture of what is likely to happen in the near future. Raúl Castro tends to prefer working in a team, and to delegate considerable responsibility to others. The values of the group of men in the collective leadership – which includes Vice President Carlos Lagé, Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, Central Bank President Francisco Soberon Valdés – very much resemble those of Fidel Castro. These officials are determined to maintain as much social equity as possible in the country, and to avoid plans that will increase inequality. They are also very wary about economic or political reforms that they believe will make Cuba more vulnerable.

Question: So, does this mean that there will be very little political change in Cuba?

Answer: No, and yes. There already has been some change. Notably, Raúl Castro’s daughter initiated a round of criticism about the government in a public statement that was printed one of Cuba’s major papers. Raúl himself has attacked corruption and poor services. Recently, the president of Cuba’s national assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, had an open meeting with university students in which he discussed some very harsh critiques they made about current affairs. Last week, several dissidents were released from prison, well short of their full sentences. There may well be some relaxation of the stringent requirements imposed on those who want to open small businesses. The number of such operations has declined 50% in the last 10 years, but there is a great clamor for more to open. On the other hand, there is not likely to be a major restructuring of the economy that would permit Cubans to invest in large enterprises, that would allow foreign capitalists to operate without much restraint, or that would establish political liberalization – with a free press and elections. Apart from concerns about equality, the Cuban leaders fear that the United States would seize the opportunity that such openings provide, to intervene covertly, in order to destabilize the regime.

 

Question: Aren’t such paranoid rantings simply a show -– do Cubans really believe the stuff they say about the United States?

Answer: They do believe it, and not without reason. The official U.S. policy calls for regime change in Cuba. The main law governing the U.S. embargo against Cuba–- the Helms-Burton law –- stipulates in its first paragraph that the law’s purpose is to bring about regime change in Cuba. The United States government has spent more than $100 million in the last four years to support opponents of the Cuban government, to fund studies on how to bring about a change in the Cuban regime, and even to fund an office in the State Department for a U.S. government official named the Cuban Transition Coordinator – much like the position Paul Bremer held as transition coordinator in Iraq after the U.S. occupation there. Moreover, the United States has a sorry history of abusing democratic processes in countries where it disapproves of the policies. Latin Americans readily recall, for example, how the Central Intelligence Agency paid newspapers in Chile, Jamaica, and Nicaragua, to print lies that discredited leftist governments. Cubans are astounded that the United States has not prosecuted Luis Posada Carriles, an acknowledged international terrorist who entered the United States openly and remains free. He was convicted in Venezuela –- well before Hugo Chavez became president –- of planning the bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner that killed 73 people in 1976.

 

Question: But now that Fidel Castro will no longer be Cuba’s president, and George W. Bush will soon be out of the White House, isn’t it likely that relations between Cuba and the United States could improve?

Answer: Sadly, no. Cubans view the three remaining U.S. presidential candidates as having essentially similar policies towards Cuba. John McCain has called for toughening the already draconian economic sanctions against Cuba. Hillary Clinton has said that she favors continuing the policy of the Bush Administration. Barack Obama advocates relaxing the embargo so that Cuban-Americans would be able to travel to Cuba without restrictions. (In 2004 the Bush Administration tightened regulations so that Cuban-Americans are now permitted to visit immediate family members, for emergencies, only once in three years.) Sen. Obama also has said he would be willing to meet with Cuban leaders during his first year in office. But unless the United States is willing to renounce its ambition to overthrow the Cuban government, negotiations are not likely to accomplish much. In fact, unless the Helm-Burton law were changed, the next U.S. president would not be permitted to have normal relations with Cuba Helms-Burton stipulates that its sanctions can be lifted only if the Cuban government "does not include Fidel Castro or Raúl Castro." Moreover, Cuba has much more self-confidence now that it did sixteen years ago, when the Cold War ended and its economy went into a free fall without Soviet support. It needs the United States much less than it once did. The U.S. embargo was intended to strangle Cuba and isolate it. Instead it has isolated the United States. The U.N. General Assembly, by a vote in November of 184 - 4, condemned the U.S. embargo for the sixteenth year in a row. In January, Brazil and Cuba negotiated a major agreement under which the South American giant will explore Cuba’s coastal waters for oil, where there may be vast reserves. China is modernizing Cuba's nickel mines, which hold the third largest reserves in the world of that critical metal. And throughout Latin America, as the presidents of Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Nicaragua attempt to chart new directions that depart from the dictates of the United States, they appreciate that they are the children of Fidel Castro. They are taking a path that is different from the one on which he led Cuba. But they believe that his success has made their dreams attainable.

 

Philip Brenner is professor of international relations and director of the Inter-Disciplinary Council on Latin America at American University. He is co-editor of A Contemporary Cuba Reader: Reinventing the Revolution with Marguerite Rose Jiménez, John M. Kirk, William M. LeoGrande, and Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis with James G. Blight.

Valentine’s Day in DeKalb: Two, Three, Many Virginia Techs?

Ben Agger and Timothy W. Luke

Last Thursday, February 14^th, 2008, Steven Kazmierczak reportedly shot and killed five students, and then turned a weapon on himself at Northern Illinois University. At least sixteen students were wounded in the rapid-fire shootings in this large NIU lecture hall during class. We have few certain details about the shooter, except that he used four weapons, two of which were purchased legally within the past week—a shotgun and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic handgun. Ironically, he purchased two magazines and a holster for the Glock from the same online vendor which sold Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, one of his guns through a dealer transfer last spring.

Apparently, he was a good student (a former sociology major at NIU) who had no police record. He was pursuing graduate studies in social work at the Urbana campus of the University of Illinois. It was also rumored that he recently had ceased taking mood-modifying medication and had broken up with a live-in girl friend. He was 27 when he died in the large NIU lecture hall. Yet, there was another side to him. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in September 2001, but soon was “administratively discharged” within six months. More recently, he took a job as an officer at the Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana in September 2007, but he failed to complete his preliminary training after only two weeks, and then never returned to work.

The shooting in DeKalb, Illinois occurred almost exactly ten months after the shootings at Virginia Tech last April, when 33 died, including students in classrooms, some of their professors, and the gunman himself. On November 7, 2007 Pekka Eric Auvinen walked into his high school in Tuusula, Finland, and shot eight people, killing five, and then also turned the gun on himself. There are parallels between these three bloody events: The shooters were young males; they used deadly semi-automatic weapons; they burst into school classrooms to do their damage; they took their own lives. There were apparent differences, too, although as yet we know next to nothing about the ‘real’ Steve Kazmierczak. Cho had already been identified in the Virginia mental health system as a troubled individual, and a potentially dangerous one at that. And Auvinen and Cho left video and written manifestos. In his testimony, Cho acknowledged the inspiration of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who killed twelve of their high-school classmates and a teacher at Columbine in Colorado on April 20, 1999.

How are we to understand the sequencing and connections among Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tuusula, and now Northern Illinois? It is unimaginable that the Valentine Day’s Massacre in DeKalb would have occurred in the way that it did without Virginia Tech having occurred, as the December shootings in Finland also demonstrated. Tech is imbedded in DeKalb as its prototype and possibility. Kazmierczak might have found other ways to kill and to die without the example of Tech (and Columbine or Tuusula before it), but he surely framed his actions last Thursday within the scenario of last April in Blacksburg, Virginia.

 

This is not to suggest that DeKalb is simply a copy-cat killing. What did Klebold, Harris, Cho, Auvinen, and Kazmierczak have in common that led them to enact these epic killings and suicides, on school grounds? It seems they were alone in a crowd; they were alienated, lacking social ties. Whether they were mentally ill or not is somewhat beside the point. They might have been stopped, helped, redirected—yes, even medicated. We are intensely interested in the experience of being alone in a crowd, in Cho’s case as an Asian-American outsider on a big-time college/fraternity campus, which considers itself ‘Hokie Nation,’ —the illusion of tight community achieved through the gridiron Gemeinschaft of the Virginia Tech campus. And in the hours after the NIU attack, the response in DeKalb, Illinois and around the nation was to appeal to the school’s athletic mascot, the Husky, and tout “Huskie Spirit.” Perhaps we know only this: people more on the inside do not tend to commit mass murder and then take their own lives.

It cannot escape notice that the killers at Columbine, Blacksburg, Tuusula and DeKalb were men.  Women usually do not embark on shooting/suicide escapades, even though not even a week before on February 8, 2008 at Louisiana Technical College a female student shot two classmates and then herself in a classroom. Four of the five killed at DeKalb were women students, and many of those killed in Tuusula and Blacksburg also were female. This is a potent admixture: social isolation, male gun culture, fantasies of revenge.

Were the killers evil madmen predestined to wreck havoc? Were they beyond social influence and redirection? They committed mad acts, to be sure. But there is a thin boundary between those who keep their demons within, and at bay, and those who erupt. The answer to these acts of deliberate madness lies not in armoring our campuses but in acknowledging people’s interior turmoil and trying to help, where possible. This is difficult amid a sea of faces in large college lecture halls. But can we afford to reduce such acts merely to irreversible psychopathology? Columbine and Virginia Tech have now become a set piece—a media spectacle--with a certain inexorable momentum.

Ben Agger is professor of sociology and humanities at University of Texas, Arlington.  Timothy W. Luke is professor of political science at Virginia Tech. They co-authored a book There is a Gunman on Campus: Tragedy and Terror at Virginia Tech forthcoming in April 2008.

Hillary Clinton's Tears

by Nichola Gutgold

I was feeling smug about my book Paving the Way for Madam President  because Hillary Clinton's "femaleness" wasn't getting much attention in the press all summer long and into the fall. UNTIL IOWA. It was her nomination to lose and it looks like she could be losing it.  CNN just featured a segment titled The Woman Question. And now, the former front runner Hillary Clinton has been cast as the aging, exhausted female who has worked harder and longer than anyone else for this promotion, only to see the rug pulled from under her by the young upstart male who seemed to come from nowhere with a message -– both visual and verbal -- that resonates better than hers.

When she was asked "how do you do it" at cafe in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, she choked and teared up when she explained:

"It's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country just don't want to see us fall backwards," she said. Her voice breaking and tears in her eyes, she said, "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it." "Some people think elections are a game, lot's of who's up or who's down, [but] it's about our country, it's about our kids' futures, and it's really about all of us together," she said.

Do Clinton's tears help or hurt her? Pat Schroeder was railed in the press in 1988 for shedding tears when she withdrew from the presidential race. Before her, Ed Muskie's steady image crumbled when he cried in New Hampshire in 1972 after mean spirited remarks were made about his family. Hillary's crying humanized her and can only help her in this emotionally charged race for the White House. Already, she won the first primary, when all the polls predicted she wouldn’t win.

For eight years as first lady, as a candidate for senate and in her presidential election race so far, Hillary Clinton was comfortable communicating in her usual masculine style. It is a style that I thought would work well for her because America is a surprisingly masculine country. Dutch communication scholar Geert Hofstede’s observation of feminine and masculine cultures is especially important to the prospects of a woman American president. Hofstede notes that “femininity stands for a society in which social gender roles overlap: both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.” Masculinity, on the other hand, “stands for a society in which social gender roles are clearly distinct: men are supposed to be assertive, tough and focused on material success.”

Then Barack Obama brought in Oprah Winfrey to endorse him and all bets were off. The nation became swept up with the pathos of a young, smart visual of everything American should be. And Hillary Clinton changed her communication style. Her emotional response to the woman in the diner showed that she is human--a working woman--ike so many of us. Before that, she responded very naturally in a debate that the impression of her that she isn’t likable, “hurts my feelings.” A peevish Barack Obama muttered, almost under his breath, “You’re likable enough.”

This is an emotional race. America needs a leader with heart and brains. Looks like Hillary Clinton is coming into her own to express why she wants to be president. It is her emotional communication style, tempered with her usual cerebral plan for the country that combined, may win her the prize.

California’s Proposition 93 May Have a Leveling Effect

by Rick Farmer

If approved by voters California’s Proposition 93 may level the playing field between the Assembly and the Senate. In 1990 Californians imposed term limits on members of the state legislature. Those limits prevent incumbents from seeking re-election after serving six years in the Assembly or eight years in the Senate and the limits are lifetime.

While term limits vary greatly among the states, California’s are some of the most restrictive in the country. Most states allow eight years in each chamber, and they only restrict consecutive terms rather than lifetime service. States that have lifetime limits generally restrict service to twelve years.

Proposition 93, set for a vote February 5, 2008, significantly realigns California’s state legislative term limits. It proposes that the limit become twelve years lifetime. On the surface this would seem to reduce the lifetime limit from fourteen years (six in the Assembly and eight in the Senate) to twelve years total. However, the practical effect likely will be much more experience in the Assembly.

The 1990 law, Proposition 140, pushed many Assembly members to run for the Senate. The result was an experienced Senate juxtaposed to a very inexperienced Assembly. This experience gap produced several problems specific to the Assembly. For example in an effort to build some leadership continuity, new Speakers tend to come from the freshman class. The Assembly is at a clear disadvantage when their rookie leadership initially engages negotiations with the more experience Senate. Another experience gap occurs with legislative staff. Assembly members, leaving for the Senate, often take their staff with them. This leaves the Assembly office with a freshman member and inexperienced staff assistance.

The effects can be easily seen in the functioning of committees. A major purpose of committees is to screen legislation before it begins to consume the resources of the general membership. In the California Assembly this function has largely broken down. Since the implementation of six year term limits a much higher percentage of bills have proceeded to the Senate. However, in the more experienced Senate committees continue to screen bills.

By allowing both chambers of the legislature to have members with twelve years of experience, Proposition 93, will change the dynamic of the California Legislature. Many Assembly members will choose to serve their full twelve year careers in that body. In fact, the choice to gain seniority in the Assembly or become a freshman with limited prospects in the Senate will be a strong inducement for many members to retain their current seat. Ultimately, the leadership in both chambers is likely to be more experienced than today and on par with one another.

Proposition 93 will not eliminate all of the effects of term limits, but it may level the playing field between the two chambers. The Assembly may begin to function better and it may be in a much stronger position relative to the Senate.

Rick Farmer is director of committee staff at the Oklahoma House of Representatives and a fellow at the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, and co-editor of a brand new book Legislating Without Experience (published by Lexington Books).