ThePoliticalReview

For years I had been teetering on the edge of vegetarianism, a strong moral sense pulling me one way and a delicious, savory sense pushing me the other. I finally made the leap this January and after several months of no meat, what still surprises me is that when I tell someone I am a vegetarian, they ask "why?". So without further ado, I present...

Five good reasons why vegetarians are helping save the planet:

1) Hunger: There is enough food producing land in existence right now to feed every single person in the world and eliminate hunger. But much of the food produced is used to feed livestock, so wealthier people can have meat, while over a billion people in the world are hungry.

2) Economics: Animals are 10%-30% energy efficient. In cattle, for example, it takes around 100 calories of feed to create 10 calories of meat. That extra energy is simply wasted.

3) Global Warming: Every year cows produce thousands of tons of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 20 times more heat per unit that carbon dioxide.

4) Deforestation: Deforestation in the US and South America has reduced forest size by almost 40% in the last 50 years, and is on pace to reduce forests by the same amount in the coming 50 years, simply for the sake of generating grazing land.

5) Ethics: Factory Farms are cruel. You wouldn't stick your dog in a carrying case for its entire life, nor would you simply snap off your cats claws. Yet the animals raised for meat in the US are subject to unimaginable forms of torture.

So there you have it. Meat causes big problems, and it's something that I would like not to be a part of, at least for a while.

Alex Kaufman can be contacted at akaufman10 [at] gmail.com

I'm being coy here, because Economics is, of course, a real field of study.  There is a nobel prize for economics, and some of the most important evens of the decade have been due to economic factors.  As a professional field, however, it has key differences with other social sciences. Rather, it is a quantitative science , and yet some of the most contentious political debate of our time revolves around central issues of the field.

The problem is that there is a huge split in opinion and what is considered "true" within the field of Economics.  Even the most leading minds in the field can't agree on basic issues like the effect of taxes and government spending.  Paul Krugman and Milton Freidman, both Nobel Prize winners, would barely agree that the sky is blue.

One of the common rebuttals to this seeming disparity in views is the argument that Economics is essentially all about modeling: a process that predicts broad trends without always yielding perfectly accurate results.

Perhaps. But often, the real reason Economic forecasts fail are because they are politicized: any result can be interpreted to justify most ends. Indeed, instead of testing theories based on observations, partisan economists come up with models that appear to work to them and then use them to explain current phenomena. A glaring example of this is the debate over who caused the housing crash. Ask a conservative, and it was the government's cheap money and low-income housing legislation that saturated the market and undermined the benevolent forces of free market competition.  A liberal will tell you that thanks unrestrained capitalism, credit default swaps took all the risk out of lending, so sub-prime lenders could make money by giving bad loans.

It's amazing that the influence of politics (and big money as well) is so strong it can completely overwhelm an entire academic discipline. Academic integrity and the public that needs relevant, accurate information are the losers.

Alex Kaufman can be contacted at akaufman10 [at] gmail.com

Media bashing, a traditional staple of politicians, has become an especially hot trend lately. In fact, it has become so popular that even major media outlets are starting to partake. The latest trend is to point out cases of overreaction, bemoaning the over-inflation of events that are not actually significant. When Michael Jackson died, the major networks gave the story about 24 hours of live coverage. Then, in a supreme act of ironic meta-journalism, the networks all switched focus, suddenly reporting on how much focus was being wasted on an issue that was not as important as many of the other stories that were pushed aside in all the hype. Likewise, after the "Underwear Bomber" failed to hurt anyone but himself in December, the story quickly became how everyone was overreacting. Even Fox News has conceded that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's now-infamous "negro dialect" comment from the presidential campaign of Barack Obama was not so much racist as politically incorrect, leading many to wonder why so many people were talking about it.

The entire phenomenon is pretty bizarre to begin with; the media majors usually maintain the idea that they know whats important, and squabble about the biases of their rivals. To step back and acknowledge the unimportance of what they are talking about is a whole new step. I'm inclined to say, "So What?" The media is only lumbering its way toward a conclusion that most people have know for years: Journalism as we know it is dead. The internet has arrived, eliminating any hope of survival for the human attention span.  Search as you might, you will not find important news, in depth reports or investigative journalism on any major news outlet. The few outlets that still provide this type of service (e.g. The Nation or Current TV) are small and have only a niche following.

So is the media about to blow the cover off itself? Will MSNBC do a report on how unimportant everything we see in the news today is? Will FOX decry its own nightly murder/abduction stories as nothing but sensationalism? Not likely. These companies are not purely made of idiots. But they are walking a fine line by admitting that sometimes they go to far.  Hopefully this coverage of over-coverage will make people realize that most of what they see on news channels is garbage, no more useful, important or relevant than anything you can see on MTV. (Actually, that may not be fair to MTV.)  At the very least it may plant the seed of doubt in the viewers mind, which at this point seems to be all we can hope for.

Alex Kaufman can be contacted at akaufman10 [at] gmail.com

Editor's Note: The following is a response to a piece by Alex Hoogland that appeared in November's edition of the Washington University Political Review. That article may be read in its entirety here.

Alex Hoogland contends that Walmart is good for America. He points out that Walmart employs millions of people and delivers inexpensive goods to American consumers. To be fair, Walmart does “save” Americans money, and yes, clearly American consumers want the benefits (cheap goods) the store provides. I don’t want to downplay the fact that Walmart has financially benefited a great deal of Americans.

But Hoogland brushes off the more significant problems that Walmart causes. By muscling out all its competition, Walmart has killed thousands of businesses across America, costing people their livelihoods and obliterating small towns. Many people don’t realize that small town America no longer exists. It has been slowly strangled by the strong grip of large industries, and Walmart is the worst culprit. Ghost towns and abandoned corpses of former business litter the main street of almost every small town in America. These communities have had their jobs, stores, and vitality drained by the corporate money vacuum. People in these towns either find themselves unemployed or are forced to work for Walmart, two options that are almost equally bad.

That’s because Walmart's business plan involves exploiting their workers, draining them for all they are worth. The company pays terrible wages (below cost of living), often forces employees to work overtime, and is infamous for prohibiting workers from organizing. Worker “medical benefits” are virtually non-existent and employees who miss work, even for legitimate reasons, can be fired on the spot without severance. This is part of the reason why Wall-Mart has been so successful; the company is willing to exploit its workers to the fullest. To take this a step further, Americans should understand that the cheap prices at Walmart come not just from economies of scale but from the backs of the workers themselves. It is a system by which many Americans save a little money at the expense of serious hardship to a few.

2.1 million people are trapped working for Walmart, deprived of any other options. Although this claim seems to beg presumptions, the reality is almost any job would pay better and be less demanding than one at Walmart.

Hoogland tries to paint Walmart as an altruistic organization that looks out for the good of the US. He point out that the company gave $20 million worth of goods to the hurricane Katrina relief effort. But this act was nothing more than a slick public relations move on the part of CEO Lee Scott Jr. Can anyone really believe that a man who is willing exploits millions of workers for profit is a great humanitarian, let alone one who is ready to damage his bottom line for the greater good? Of course not! What does make sense is that the crafty businessman saw in Katrina a fantastic opportunity to improve the company’s public image.  In 2005 Walmart was facing a growing number of boycotts increasingly negative publicity due to its mistreatment of workers. On top of that, the anti-Walmart documentary The High Cost of Low Price was about to be released that November. $20 mil was a bargain for the good press the company received.

Walmart engages in this sort of deception all the time. Think of those smarmy Walmart commercials that show a smiling employee explaining how important it is to save you money. Now think of the last time you actually saw a happy employee working at Walmart.  I bet you can’t.

None of this is to say Walmart is not capable of being a force of good.  The company is big enough now that they could pay decent wages without losing their competitive edge.  But the current strategy of muscling out the little guy and exploiting every available opportunity does more harm than good to America.

Alex Kaufman can be contacted at akaufman10 [at] gmail.com

We are all used to being spoiled here on campus; our dorms, classrooms, and food are indulgent to say the least. But up till now we were at least paying for it ourselves.

An email I just got a few weeks ago proclaimed “$80 million in stimulus grant awarded to WashU.” It seems or beloved institution will be nicking a cool 80 mil out of the government pocket. For the record, I support the stimulus, government spending and public funding for education and research… I’m not a crazy tea bagger, but RAHHHHHHHH!! I can’t take it no more! ROARRR!!! Those knuckleheads in Washington are screwing everything up!!!!! What are they thinking??? The entire system is a huge mess!!!

*Whew.

Ok, I got that rant out of my system. But now that I have regained some semblance of rationality, I have to ask, do we really need this money, and do we really deserve it?

I think not. First of all, WashU has one the largest endowments in the country, over $28 billion. As University’s across the country are thrashing and clawing to keep their heads above water, Wash U faces a paltry $30 million budget gap. Other universities, including state universities that are actually supposed to get public money, could use it more. Whether or not the government should be giving that kind of money to private institutions to begin with, public schools should come first.

Of course, the real blame here falls on the government. You can’t really blame WashU for trying to get money. So why are we being given $80 million of federal stimulus money? The fund will support, among other things, productive activities like putting seismographs on the ocean floor and researching how seeds spread. Not particularly stimulating, is it?

The whole idea of stimulus money was to

• Create new jobs as well as save existing ones


• Spur economic activity and invest in long-term economic growth

That is, to provide productive spending that would have an immediate impact. The would seem to imply that building infrastructure and providing services should take priority over esoteric research. Yet WashU still ends up with a sizable chunk of change, even though university research is notoriously inefficient and will probably take years to spend all of the money.

Saving jobs is also a key function of the stimulus, but I doubt the “talented and experienced faculty who have distinguished themselves as world-class researchers” as the WashU press calls them, are going to have to join the unemployment line with or without this money.  These jobs were not on their way out before this money came along.

So yes, research is useful, indeed it is necessary. The stimulus is a good idea in principle. And yes, we need stimulus money to increase consumer spending in the US and save jobs from a downward spiral. But stimulating the economy through slow academic research and saving jobs that don’t need to be saved is a stupid way to do it.

Alex Kaufman can be contacted at akaufman10 [at] gmail.com

I’m not afraid to say it. I’m a loud, proud, out of the closet liberal. There is an ever-growing stigma attached to liberals, so much so that no politician would dare use the word to describe themselves. Any idea that is “liberal” is immediately discredited in the media and often equates liberals with terms like with “far-left,” “radical” and “socialist”. Liberals are, in fact, none of these things. The ideas of liberalism are based around basic principles of human rights and well-being. Liberals have long been the defenders of basic freedoms and rights. While Republicans like to tout the fact that Lincoln was a member of their party, they neglect to mention that he was a liberal who managed to defeat his conservative foes. Liberals are the champions of working Americans; they created programs like Social Security and Medicare that millions of Americans rely on, programs that conservatives actively try to dismantle. Liberals have long fought for the separation of Church and State, even as religious conservatives push in the opposite direction. Liberals put human welfare before nationalistic or economic concerns. It was liberals who fought to implement the first anti-trust and minimum wage laws to protect Americans from exploitation.

But somehow we have come to associate liberals with big-government, unfair taxes, and elitism. This is simply slander. Conservatives have lied and misinformed the pubic about liberals for decades.  Ever since the 1980’s, when Reagan invoked the image of a welfare system made to support “a welfare queen,” misinformation about liberal ideas has become widespread.  “Liberals don’t care about you, they just want to take your money,” goes one refrain.  “They want to make the government as big as possible and tell you how to run your life.” Yes, it true the solutions to big problems often involve taxes or government regulation, but many people confuse the means with the ends. If government is needed, it is for a social cause, not to infringe upon your rights. Nobody in the world wants government for government's sake as these ideas seem to suggest. Consider that the ACLU is a liberal organization and has drawn criticism from the right, including from pundits like Bill O’Reilly and senior Bush administration officials. Even the idea of liberal elites is unfounded. There is this idea that snotty, rich, New York, wine-sipping, poodle walking-sweater-vest-wearing “elites” want to impose their will on America. Yet there has never been a scrap of evidence provided for the liberal elite theory. Of course obnoxious and ridiculous liberals exist. And yes, there is some disconnect when wealthy people propose more taxes. Yet the same could be said of the Right.  Plenty of stereotypes exist, from the dumb hillbilly to the trailer park Texan, but we don’t assume these people are setting policy or running the government. As with Republican stereotypes, it simply doesn’t follow that all liberals fit the “mold” or that elite, out of touch people are making policy and screwing with American lives.

To be fair, liberals don’t always get it right. Welfare is imperfect and Medicare leaks like the Titanic. But that doesn’t mean the ideas behind them are wrong. Just because a particular welfare system doesn’t work efficiently, should we really just let everyone in poverty fend for him or herself? Wouldn’t it make sense to reform these programs so they work well, as do countless other government programs? The modern liberal is not some tax and spend fiend committed to creating a big brother government, but rather someone who acknowledges that if the government works the way its supposed to, we will all be better off. Liberals are dedicated to protecting the people of this country, to preserving their rights, liberties, and to not only protecting, but also enabling their pursuit of happiness. And I, for one, am proud to count myself among them.





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