Holy Guacamole, Batman! What A Weekend!

Yes, this is a solid portion of Letts 6 South. And yes, we were on the front of the Washington Post.

A mere day before John Stewart and Stephen Colbert  donned the cover of the Washington Post, it was festively represented by numerous members of UC World Politics! Albeit a little disappointing, (there was very little foreign candy) the outing was worthwhile and memorable, such as walking into Japan's embassy even though they weren't participating because they opened the gate for us and being yelled at to get out after ominously walking up to the door. 

Then of course, was the rally. I cannot begin to explain the rally again (as I have already essentially replayed it for my mother, father, and boyfriend) but I will tell you that it was an experience I will never forget and that was well worth waking up at (or rather, staying up to watch a batman marathon until) 6 am and nearly losing my mind in a crowd of claustrophobia-inducing 215,000 people (according to CBS).

The Problem With the Lines We Draw...

A vast majority of the responses to this blog addressed the issue of national security imposing itself on civil liberties. This is a natural response. It is a trained response. It is what we have all been taught to ask, because that is how the system works. A security measure is proposed, some men in suits weigh it's imposition on civil liberties and pass it or don't on whether the loss of liberties seem worse it. But there is another factor falling under the radar...

or maybe rather flying over it...

Rather infrequently do policy makers ever make too much of a stink over whether the safety measures will actually ensure anyone's safety. They assume that if it's in the effort of safety, then it will, in fact, save lives. The truth is we are allocating our funds and resources to the wrong places. We need to draw our eyes away from the easy-to-object-to impositions on civil liberties, and turn them to the statistics. Terrorist attacks on American citizens have killed approximately less than 3000 people in the last 15 years, though some numbers are variable. That's about 200 people a year. Flu deaths (not even bird or swine... just flu) are estimated to kill 30,000 to 40,000 in a good year. Even if 3000 was a low number, that is still a DRAMATIC yet largely ignored gap. And the leading cause of death in the U.S. according to the CDC was Heart Disease in 2002, killing 576,301 citizens, as opposed to 9/11's 2,749 casualties. Instead of fueling things like data mining with millions of dollars, we could be subsidizing more vaccines or research into medicine. But terrorism is dramatic and receives a lot of media (just as the terrorists want it to) and thus it gets a disproportionate amount of attention.I'm not saying that terrorism isn't a threat, but that we need to prioritize our threats, and take security actions based on how well they will ACTUALLY SECURE US, not just based on how much they infringe on our individual rights. 

Cheerleading Follow Up

From the combined reflection that Elle and I wrote last week about the dynamics of cheerleading, we found that liberalism is the eventual goal of the team, with the use of realism and constructivism to reach that. However, at practice yesterday, this goal was actually made concrete in the words of our coach. The attempts at forcing the team to bond had, in fact, led more to factions splitting off, between not just rookies and vets, but the vets themselves. Our coach stood up yesterday and told us that we literally can’t do anything without each other, that we are all “allies,” to quote, out on the mat. The question still remains if the team will take this to heart and form the dependent alliances necessary to become an effective team. Because the focus is on rational actors choosing what benefits them, our coach and the captains are hoping now that each team member will choose to work with everyone else by using their talents and encouraging the growth and development of others.

Boundaries

I think that there should be boundaries on nation's security policies. For example, I don't believe that there should be X-ray body scanners at the security lines in airports. That is an invasion of personal privacy. I understand where lawmakers are coming from and how this could be a beneficial idea, however, it is at the expense of thousands of people's dignities. I agree with the NSC 2010 that security needs to be a community effort. Each person needs to play their part. If they do, then these X-ray body scanners will be almost completely unnecessary.

Boundaries to Security

Are there boundaries to security policy? Are there things that should not be part of "security"?

I would say that because every aspect of world politics could theoretically be a threat to the security of a country, the necessity to not stretch a nation's resources too thin forces a country to need to focus on only the most pressing threats. Therefore, there must be boundaries to security policy just for the sake of logical decision making. We can't focus on everything, and thus have to institute boundaries so we focus on what is more immediately essential to maintaining a country's security.

Therefore, although more preemptive initiatives like those President Obama mentioned including the environment and poverty around the world could cause security problems in the future if it isn't addressed. However, at the moment, it is better to focus our somewhat limited resources on military, as oppose to social threats. I would say that the bigger threat posed to the security of our country is countering terrorists and states that may cause a problem. As a result, I would say we must rank the security issues and determine what are most important to the country at the time, and that forms the boundaries of security policy. Therefore, this is ever changing – for example, during the Cold War, the boundaries to security policies were much different than now – we weren’t focused on stopping terrorism; that wasn’t in our policy. Now, a boundary to security policy would be not focusing on Russia.

The Boundaries One

In a world with planes that break the sound barrier and missiles that can pilot themselves halfway around the globe in mere hours, there are no physical boundaries a country can put on its national security. In a simpler time, a ruler could keep a strong perimeter and never have to worry about his national security until someone broke it. But now not only do we have to worry about being nuked from across the Pacific, we have to worry about being bombed from inside our own country, and apparently they're telling us the debt is a threat to national security now too.

Pictured above: The National Debt

Who can keep track of all that threat? Not I. So I'm going to break it down nice and simple: anything and anyone that threatens the safety and security of the nation as a whole, is national security. This does not include things that are only threatening to a small, select group of Americans, only things that threaten us all or our national identity. In that respect national security has no limits, no matter what, no matter where, if it was a threat to us all, national security would take care of it. But in another sense, it would have boundaries of who/how many it could protect. Another boundary of national security must be personal freedoms. For example, if smoking related deaths were considered a matter of national security, we would risk losing that identity that we work so hard to protect.

World Politics: Cheerleading Edition

This Sunday, while rolling out the mats for cheerleading practice and complaining about the annoying imbalance of power on the cheer squad (because this week they get to hang their seniority over our heads) we realized that hazing and "spirit" activities are an assertion of realist-like policies.

American's cheerleading squad has inadvertently utilized IR theories in creating their Rookie Week (or the less insane, cheerleading form of rush). In addition to a few other "-isms" we remember from AP European History, realism and constructivism are used to lead to (Kate's) eventual goal of liberalism (Elle doesn't think cheerleaders will ever cooperate), as well as extreme nationalism. Although cheerleading is by no means the same as the global political stage, we can use the "vets" and the "rookies" in this case as our two "states."

The eventual goal of the AU cheerleading squad is an orderly team which works together seamlessly. It would seem that a liberal approach would lead to more friendly cooperation and "happy" success. However, the vets are using realism and constructivism to reach this end.

The vets have a hegemony over the world of cheerleading. In layman's terms: seniority rules. It's a unipolar world - the rookies are nowhere near close to equal in power with the vets in such an extreme power imbalance. The vets want to maintain their power - losing it would cause them to be unable to control this week. Even though the goal is liberalism, they need to keep their power this week so it stays in their control and they can in effect bring about the team unity aspect on their own time schedule. Instead of using cooperation and encouraging mutual respect, they're using force. This force includes declaring events mandatory to attend and using constant text messages to keep in contact. They also use the team running concept (the team has to run if you fail to comply to their rules, and you have to sit out and watch them suffer) as an apparent consequence. If you don't know a cheer when confronted by a vet (a battle, per say), the rest of the team runs while you watch. The final example of force is that of almost bribery - if the rookies do well, the vets will give them candy, little gifts, etc. In return, if you don't follow the rules of rookie week (wearing pig tails with ribbons every day... anyone?), you get punished (mostly just the vets disappointment and dislike for you if you don't follow their orders). They're able to effectively use this self-interested strategy by tearing down the rookies to further increase and maintain their power.

Then how did they even get all of this power? Through the history (at least during their time) of the American cheerleading squad, the identity of the vets has developed and strengthened through tradition. The most common phrase heard this week from the vets is "we had to do this and it was so much worse!" The vets have changed from their usual (mostly) friendly attitudes to rather demanding and unpleasant because that’s what vets did in the past. They saw this change themselves as freshman and feel the need to carry on the history. The rookies were told that this is what past rookies have done, especially because the vets have lived through it. They have to deal with whatever standards are set because it's the identity assigned to them. This is an endless cycle unless one group is able to change their identity.

Instead of bullying the rookies into submission to build a coherent team, reaching out with a cooperative, liberal approach would lead to greater success. The underlying goal of the traditional rookie week is to prepare the rookies for the following week's basketball expositions. The rookies need to know the basics of cheers and where to be during games, as well as have the proper attitude (towards the team and the "job" of the team). The realist approach that is the traditional method for the cheer squad and greek life ("hazing"-lite), only works if those being "hazed" want the close bonds of the team/organization more than they dislike the sporadic time commitments (3 hours of scavenger hunts on the national mall, early morning breakfast with the team) and unusual dress codes (pigtails? uniforms? make-up? "if you don't look like a child prostitute you're not wearing enough make-up"). Constructivism also fails here because the "rite-of-passage" rookie week relies on the fact that the rookies accept the identity of the rookie. Which we don't. Instead, liberalism should be utilized so that everyone has an enjoyable week. Team bonding, for instance, at a mutually agreed upon time throughout the week. Fun activities--not 'we're going to leave this week intentionally ambiguous' so that you're stressed about not only school and the massive amounts of time you have to donate to cheer anyway, but also the "hazing" that you will be warned of only hours before. Eventual goal (all groups working together, forming alliances, etc.) The "rookies" and the "vets" are interdependent on each other for success on the mat. The team cannot be successful unless each group has at least a working relationship with them

The ends are admirable and necessary to the growth and strength of a team. However, the means to achieving this lead something to be desired. Much of this lies in the hands of the dynamic rookie group. Will they change their own identity this year and stage a revolution by doing as they wish? Or next year will they no longer demand insignificant things of the rookies? Will the tradition continue? Only time will tell.

By: Elle and Kate