The Week of May 5th, 2014
Care
1. Boko Haram
Over the last week it has emerged that the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram abducted over 300 schoolgirls in northern Nigeria, sparking an international outcry against the group. The Nigerian government has thus far proved unable to find the girls, and a growing chorus of observers, both within and outside of Nigeria, have called for international assistance. The kidnapping incident comes at a heightened point in the conflict between the terrorist group and the Nigerian government. Boko Haram, a name derived from Arabic and local Hausa that translates loosely as being against western education, has carried out an increasing number of terrorist attacks in the Northern, predominantly Muslim, region of Nigeria. The attacks have been aimed both at the central government and Christians. Nigeria’s south is predominantly Christian, including the location of Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, and its capital Abuja, while the north of the country is Muslim, where provincial level governments are allowed to institute localized sharia law.
Because of the nature of the kidnapping, a large number of schoolgirls literally taken from their schools, as well as their likely sale into sex slavery or, at the very least, forced marriages, the issue has evolved from a domestic Nigerian issue to one drawing concern from the international community. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has lost a huge amount of public credibility due to the government’s inability to stop Boko Haram from such an audacious attack (as well as many other previous attacks). This loss of credibility damages his government even more when coupled with popular perception of the national government as corrupt. This puts Jonathan in a tough position, if he calls for international help he is showing he is unable to solve a domestic issue on his own, but if the Nigerian government fails to strike back at Boko Haram or recover any of the kidnapped girls then it will lose legitimacy with already disenchanted Nigerian citizens. The biggest concern remains, of course, that somewhere in northeastern Nigeria 300 girls have lost their freedom.
2. Government Prayer Ruling
The Supreme Court recently upheld a New York town’s practice of beginning meetings with a public prayer. The decision was split along both party lines and religious divides. The majority was composed of Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel A. Alito Jr., all Catholics. The dissenters were Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, all Jews, and Sonia Sotomayor, a former Catholic who doesn’t currently practice.
Although this decision may seem shocking given the supposed separation of church and state in the US, a 1983 Supreme Court ruling upheld the use of a public chaplain in the Nebraska state legislature, so long as the chaplain spoke of God without specific reference to the Christian God. Even with this restriction, all chaplains to the legislature since the ruling have been Christians, and speaking of a God already excludes pantheistic religions and secularists.
Although the minority opinion cited separation of church and state, the majority stated that people to which the prayers do not apply can ignore them and that hearing something disagreeable is not equivalent to suffering oppression. This ruling is a major win for pro-Christian groups in America and may have far reaching consequences.
3. Political Turmoil in Thailand
On May 7, Thailand's Constitutional Court demanded Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's resignation after ruling that she had illegally removed a civil servant from government. The fact that the act does not seem severe enough for resignation has sparked accusations that the ruling was politically motivated. This comes months after the Court also invalidated elections held under the government. With new elections scheduled for July, "Red Shirts" that support Yingluck and Thaksin, her brother and Prime Minister-turned criminal, will again mass in support. It remains to be seen whether opposition parties and "Yellow Shirts" will participate in the next election, or continue to boycott it and instead demand a non-democratic solution to the problem.
The conflict over the legality of the Shinawatra political machine is nearing a decade old, having involved countless protests, four elections, and a coup d'état. If it seems odd that the conflict has lasted so long, it is because it is no longer focused on the Shinawatras. It has mutated into a schism between a class of Thais around Bangkok and a class from the nation's periphery, traditionally ostracized by the country's elite. Having seen the immense support for Thaksin, a renegade oligarch and populist, the aristocracy in opposition is unsure of how they must respond. This current drama is eventually leading up to the biggest political event in the country - the death of King Bhumibol and the royal succession, where the heir apparent can deal a decisive blow to the Yellow Shirt class. The chaos leading up to and resulting from that event may paralyze the Thai government for years to come, with real consequences for Southeast Asia's development.
4. Scott Walker Probe Canceled
A campaign finance investigation into Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has been halted. Walker, who first rose to national prominence with a successful battle against his state’s labor unions, was being investigated for having possibly coordinated with outside conservative groups. The groups in question are meant to campaign only for issues and not candidates; they face no restrictions on spending on advertisements and do not have to disclose donors but are not allowed to directly work with campaigns.
Conservatives called for the probe to be ended, charging that it was politically motivated and that Walker had been unfairly targeted; special secrecy rules in Wisconsin also made it difficult for accused groups to defend themselves because the exact nature of the probe was unclear. US District Judge Rudolph Randa was sympathetic to the Wisconsin Club for Growth’s argument that the investigation was harming conservative groups’ First Amendment rights. Randa found that the investigation’s evidence raids and extensive subpoenas produced a chilling effect on political activity and that the investigation itself was misguided since the groups were advocating for issues, rather than for Walker himself.
The ruling could pave the way for even greater campaign finance freedom in the future. While Randa acknowledged that the groups in question had attempted to bypass campaign finance laws, he declared that such activities were still protected by the First Amendment. The prosecutors claim that such political groups are now free to coordinate with campaigns; critics charge that candidates will now be able to spend limitlessly without revealing donors by using independent advocacy groups as proxy campaigns. With the Supreme Court passing down the Citizens United and McCutcheon cases in recent years, it seems the trend is for fewer constraints on campaign spending.
5. Net Neutrality Developments
In the latest development in the high-stakes debate on net neutrality, many of the nation’s largest tech companies signed a joint letter on May 7 in opposition to recently released F.C.C. policy proposals, which they argue violate the core tenets of a free and open Internet. The letter, signed by Google, Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo!, and dozens more Silicon Valley titans, labels these new proposals a “grave threat to the Internet.” The proposals were announced by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler on April 23 and would allow Internet service providers (ISP’s) to offer faster service pathways at a premium price. Although Wheeler claimed that these new rules are in no way “gutting the open Internet rule,” they do seem to blatantly violate the concept of net neutrality which the F.C.C. professes to support. Under these rules, ISP’s like Comcast and Time Warner Cable (non-coincidentally in the process of gaining F.C.C. approval on a massive merger) could implement fast-track service for high-traffic websites like Netflix and Amazon, in the process both boosting their revenue and potentially degrading service for other traffic.
The proposals stand in stark contrast to the F.C.C.’s previous stance on net neutrality and go directly against one of President Obama’s 2008 campaign promises. In 2010, then-Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the Open Internet Order to enforce net neutrality. When the Order was subsequently challenged by Verizon Wireless and struck down by the D.C. Circuit Appeals Court this January, current Chairman Wheeler vowed to continue pursuing net neutrality, only to then two months later announce a drastic about-face in April with the latest proposals, which are seen as a death knell for an open and free Internet. In opposition, on Wednesday, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) called on President Obama to uphold his campaign promise and protesters rallied at the F.C.C.’s Washington, D.C. headquarters.
Don’t Care
Lewinsky Essay
The American obsession with the royal dynasty that is the House of Clinton continued this week with a redux of the 1990s. Monica Lewinsky, or “that woman”, as how President Clinton once called her, is coming out of the shadows to write a piece for Vanity Fair about the aftermath of the most notorious extramarital affair in American history.
While hoping to reinvent herself, Lewinsky, now 40, writes about the abuse she experienced in which, she says, “I was made the scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position.” She soberly writes of her own mistakes while also painfully describing the global humiliation she experienced.
Of note, Lewinsky takes to task feminists, and in particular, Hillary Clinton, who as first lady of the nation, described Lewinsky as a “narcissistic looney tune” while also blaming herself for her husband’s infidelity. In response to Clinton, Lewinsky, writes, “I find her impulse to blame the Woman – not only me, but herself – troubling.”
Lewinsky’s reentrance into the political atmosphere has stirred up a major response by columnists and politicians alike. Even more, the affair is being talked about in relationship to a potential Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential run.
While it is admirable how Lewinsky presents herself and the situation, there is a tragic irony here. In her valiant attempt to reinvent herself, Lewinsky is using the media – the medium that so brutally stigmatized and ruined her life – as her primary pathway toward redemption. As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. For her own sake and well-being, perhaps Lewinsky should address this traumatizing period of her life in privacy.
Tianfang Cui, Sam Ide, William Kirkland, Wooyoung Lee, Ben Koltun, and Sam Houskeeper contributed