Dear Mr. President

Today, you called on support at M. Luis Construction in Rockville, Maryland. Close to my own home. You spoke to construction workers, using their disbelief at the Republican party shut down to fuel your own spite, continuing to harass your adversaries where you should be channeling your energy into resolving glaringly obvious issues with them. Do you really think heckling them is going to encourage their cooperation? 
"This isn't happening because of some financial crisis! It's happening because of a reckless Republican shutdown in Washington!" you proclaimed. 
Who said anything about a financial crisis? 
It's happening because in 2008, when you could have taken advantage of the Democratic-ruled government bequeathed to you, you instead traveled the world playing diplomat (efforts that were completely undone by the Syria fiasco, but that's a different letter for a different time).
When Republicans took majority, you watched as they stripped the Affordable Care Act down to the bare minimum. And now, you watch as they struggle to have the program defunded completely. 
I agree with the Affordable Care Act's elimination of discrimination against patients with pre-existing conditions, and its efforts to provide baseline affordable (affordable to the nearly non-existent American middle class family, that is) health coverage, among other things. However, I cannot say that the efforts made by big businesses to drastically cut hours for employees who need them so as to avoid taxation laws implemented by the Act is a positive outcome. Not to mention to ludicrous amount of money actually being used to fund the bill. With Obamacare, the deficit will increase by $6.2 trillion dollars. Additionally, multiple sources have confirmed that the promise to lower health care bills by $2,500/per annum are optimistic at best. 
The GOP are threatening to throw our country into default, obviously a step too far, but the positive measures they are taking to try and reopen national parks, museums like the Smithsonian, and allow Washington D.C. to use local revenue to reopen basic services (like trash collection) will be foiled by the Democrats as soon as the bill reaches the Senate. How is this productive? 
"Yes we can", your slogan for the 2008 elections. Apparently, we can't even do the basics.
In an aside to both parties, I'd like to say that this is an absolute disgrace.  It's unfortunate I split the bill at election time, I apologize for assuming that seasoned politicians such as yourselves could come to a mature and hasty decision regarding something so basic as a budget which has already been spent. 

Syria-ness Business

It is exhausting to watch as the Assad regime taunts the Obama administration. A year ago last week Obama eloquently stated in an address that, "we have been very clear to the Assad regime... That a red line for us is if we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized." Secretary of State John Kerry continued, confirming that the CIA alongside other American intelligence agencies have assessed with "high confidence" that the Assad administration are using chemical weapons against its own people. But considering the recent revelations involving the NSA, how high is American confidence in these assessments?

It seems we have backed ourself into another war. If America intervenes, we risk lives. But if not, credibility. The Obama administration is faced with the difficulty of determining which is more important. 

After having spoke with friends and family, it is clear that the American psyche is weary in the aftermath of the Iraq-Afghanistan war. It is strange to find myself siding with Syria's allies in oppression, knowing that Russia and China will follow through and veto the movement for military action on the UN Security Council, even though it will be for all the wrong reasons. 

I refuse to believe that military intervention is the only option. I am unsure why the West thinks it is our duty to "spread good" in the world, when what we need to be doing is focusing on our own issues and working to solve them before involving ourselves in controversial international affairs.
Are we even a force for good anymore? With claims that if the West intervene militarily, it will result in the Middle East will hating us even more? The Taliban bombed an American base in Afghanistan just yesterday, and there are more threats that terrorism will flourish. 

Obama believes this is the only way, the right way. Time will tell, and so will congress. 

Good Morning, Baltimore.

I listen from London as rumors concerning the National Guard intervening in Baltimore flutter about an old friend circle. Army vehicles line up I-95, shielding Marylanders from an unseen threat. Unlikely rumors, but not unwarranted ones. Twenty-eight murders in one week, “Are we headed down the same path as Detroit?” My mother asked me on FaceTime one evening, concerned. Another friend provided an answer in a different conversation, “We’re just as bad.” A grim conclusion.

Baltimore-Detroit: a connection hard to ignore as news of Detroit’s bankruptcy poured in. As I read on the widening gap between promised pensions and companies ability to pay them to their employees, dim statistics about Maryland’s similar pension schemes floated to the top of my mind.

A long history of Maryland politicians have promised heightened pensions to constituents, a cop-out:  it’s easier to push the promise to the future rather than raise wages in the present. Maryland politicians Stephanie Rowlings-Blake and Martin O’Malley tried and failed to put pension reform at the head of agenda, only to be drowned out by merciless screams of crime victims that propel Baltimore to number 9 on Buisness Insider’s list of 25 most dangerous cities, claiming its place as “Heroin capital of America”.

 Maryland is riddled with corrupted (and naive) government; highlighted by Sheila Dixon’s recent 2009 trial, the only upside of which stripped her of an $83,000 pension to be put back into the dwindling money pot. Simultaneously, Bob Erlich blithely voted to raise pensions for Maryland teachers (the education system being a conversation for an entirely different time).

But what can be done to solve the pension crisis, when Maryland’s voters are being murdered before they have a chance to speak their opinions? Firstly, we need someone to step forward to organize. Someone who can place the problems in an identifiable loop that will allow us to determine which problem set off the domino effect that is destroying our state. Secondly, someone who can reunite the discouraged police force, and enforce legislation that will demand gangs leave. Thirdly, positivity: though The Wire is bringing big money to Hollywood tycoons, it is advertising Baltimore’s bad reputation and giving gangs a bar to measure themselves against.

I only lived in Baltimore for 7 years before moving away for University. It was long enough to fall in love with it. I want people to know of our quirky traditions, to experience a crab feast in summer warmth, to know Old Bay, to watch an Orioles game at a student night. To be able to smile when people sing the opening line of Hairspray, knowing how perfectly that movie embraces our small town.

It makes me sad to hear these rumors from the place I used to love, but it gives me hope thinking that one day, eventually, surely, someone will step forward to help restore Baltimore to the place it used to be. 

BRICs: building more than houses

Although BRIC nations seem to have hit their economic stride, it is not preventing them from laying foundations in other regions; particularly India and their growing interest in Africa.

Though the $65bn of Indian investment pales in comparison to China’s $200bn, they are investing with purpose. While China focuses on shallow, short-term investment almost exclusively limited to resources, India sees itself in Africa’s ever-growing economy. Their investments in sectors such as telecommunications, agriculture, automotive, and education reveal a strategy more likely to pay off in coming years. China, however, continues to view Africa similar to how European nations did during colonization, rather than as potential market worth investing in.

Africa’s finite resources, eager population, and open areas of investment seem to mirror images of India twenty years ago.  Then, India took work too expensive to do in the West and outsourced it domestically, where the same amount of labour could be done at a significantly lower price. They have since adjusted to modernity; as such an advantage is only applicable for a short time. Now, India is increasingly looking to recruit professionals from the United States and Europe, which will allow them to make their international businesses more global, and thus more versatile.

Africa is fast realizing their place within the global economy. While China’s continued investment in African resources heightens demand, Africa can in turn raise price, which could eventually cost the Chinese more than they intended. However, India invests in growing sectors of the economy. Strengthening relations with Africa now means more openness for trade in the future, within the fields that they will have helped advance.

Though India’s surge in growth at the beginning of the 21^st century has declined, projected to be around 5%, nearly half what it was, signs indicate that we have not seen all India has to offer. 

What price tradition?

As royalists and media tycoons cooed at the birth of the royal baby, Facebook critics take it upon themselves to harsh the vibe.
"It's a 'royal' baby, it denotes that the baby is special by virtue of blood," says one Facebook user. Another continues, "I just thought that seeing as we're supposed to be enlightened people we would have moved past this by now."
A fair point, one that seemed to accumulate quite a few 'likes'. But the royalists countered back, "but tradition?!", incredulous at how anyone could be so pessimistic at such a glorious birth.
Well, money.
Republic, a campaign base against the monarchy, found that the royal family costs Britain roughly £202.4 million a year, £7.9 of that coming from public funds (i.e. taxpayers money) to "support the exercise of her duties as head of state".
But is abolishing the monarchy worth the price of the roughly 1200 people the royal family employ? A small number in the long run, but in these financially difficult times any number is significant.
Or the price that would come with changing the branding of the "royal" mail, or bank? Who would grace pound notes? And Buckingham Palace?
It is as if abolishing the royal family would be done simply because it could be.
"Being the royal family now means almost nothing. They are not the kings and queens of old. It's like their keeping the tradition for traditions sake and nothing more".
Another fair point; but consider: if royalty was so  unnecessary, why hasn't it been abolished already?

French or Freedom; they're fries however you cut them

It was three years ago my father remarked to me about how similar the French and Americans are. I balked-- laughing to myself at the absurdity of such a statement and thinking back to my home in small town Baltimore, where I could imagine many of my neighbors cringing at the comment.
When I mentioned in passing to my friends' father that my dad called France home he said, "I'm sorry to hear that."
We laughed, drunk on American pride.
But now, as I read an article concerning the man who overzealously jumped to his wife's defense when asked to remove her burka during a routine identity check, and unnecessarily began to strangle the officer, I am reminded of the law passed in 2004 banning the wearing of religious medallions in public schools.
An intention of separation of church and state, not much different from the American model. A separation that did not seem to apply to the catholic girls who wore crosses to school in France, or the use of our, "One nation under God" in the pledge of alliegence.
In fact, our pompous American pride in that moment doesn't seem too alien to that of the stereotypical French one.
As I think more on it, I wonder if the dislike between these two countries is in fact just a clashing of pride. Too stubborn to admit that our foreign enemies may just be a mirror image.

The United States of Equal Opportunity

“We promise equal opportunity, not equal outcome,” says Paul Ryan, Republican nominee for Vice President during the 2012 election. Ryan makes a valid point, one that is painfully obvious where gender equality in Congress is concerned. In 2013, only 18.3% of the United States government consists of women, 20 of them holding seats in the house and the remaining 78 in the House of Representatives. Says Senator Hillary Clinton, “There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country." But how are women’s voices heard equally in a country whose beliefs are fundamentally traditional? There is a strong argument for the implementation of political quotas, where government would set a standard of how many women must participate in congress through reserved seats, party percentages, or candidate quotas. “You need quantity participation to ensure quality participation later on,” says Fawiza Koofi, the first woman to be Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament in Afghanistan. While quotas may be an appropriate option for other countries, modern American identity makes such equality a nearly impossible task. 

What is perhaps the most perplexing is the movement of American women against the implementation of quotas. Designed to minimize stress on both genders, quotas prevent men from  straining themselves by being overly sympathetic to women, and women do not have to act as the sole representatives for their sex. Another misconception is that quotas discriminate against men, while their intention is simply to limit the tendency of political parties to nominate only men. Quotas allow women to have equal footing in a male-dominated government. It has been shown through the experimentation of quotas in a number of other countries that quotas led to an active recruitment of women by political parties, ultimately resulting in a larger minority of women. By implementing a quota system and increasing this minority, they can not only allow for a more equal government, but change the perception of women in a positive way.

However, not all American women agree that the perception of female politicians elected via quota would be positive. “I didn't run as a woman, I ran as a seasoned politician and experienced legislator,” says Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to be elected to Speaker of the House. The fear is that if quotas are implemented, female politicians will be delegitimized. There may also be a preconceived notion that they are only in congress because they are women, belittling the qualifications and standpoints they were elected for. Women do not only want to be elected because they are women, they want to be elected because they have the right to stand for government, and they have earned it.

Each of these oppositions to quotas have one thing in common: they defend the American notion of "equality". One deeply rooted in its traditional individualist, and by extension capitalist, ideas. The classic liberal notion of equality was one of a “competitive equality”, in which individuals begin at a similar starting point, but may not end at the same destination. At first, all of these individuals racing towards “equal outcome”, to use the phrase coined earlier by Paul Ryan, were white men that formed the “White Man’s Democracy. Tolerance or else”. In theory, this democracy has evolved over time to include peoples from all walks of life, regardless of race or sex. However, this fails to explain why women have been left behind, especially where politics are concerned.

Quotas, given the above assumption is correct, allow women individuals a preference above that of all masculine individuals. The quota would eliminate “competitiveness” of equality, even though “removing formal boundaries does not create equal opportunity”. What the modern United States fails to realize is that their traditional notions are no longer valid. The modern world is no longer a “white man’s democracy”, and though Americans today to recognize this on some level, the concept is still ingrained in their traditionalist views of the world; views that show through their denial of quotas even in Iraq’s democracy, or in their failure to sign United Nations legislature against sexism in the workplace or elsewhere.

It is not necessarily that the USA has difficulty understanding what a quota is, but rather that they are incapable of applying it to their own ideology. 

To see the original draft of this essay, please click here. 

How western is "development"?

First, second, and third worlds. Expired terms of class pressed upon the world during the Cold War. Though used significantly less than nearly forty years ago, referring to these countries less developed than the west as "third world" has become common place, almost colloquial, despite its political incorrectness. Is this a revelation of how western the term "development" has become?
Modern refiners of development have changed almost as much as their definitions, swapping out ambiguous terms such as "third world" for Highly Indebted Poor Countries (as used by the European Union), or using factors such as GNI and GDP to determine how developed a country is. However, a majority of these definers have one thing in common: they all originate from a western background. Even eastern Asian aid coalition groups, such as China Eximbank and China Development Bank, have undeniable links to the west. The EU, World Bank, IMF, and even the UN were inspired by western practice, and took it upon themselves to assist the "third world" in developing, especially during the Cold War.
A time of great animosity, the Cold War pitted countries against one another, the U.S.A. Especially taking built up aggression and channeling it into policies such as "containment" and the relentless spread of democracy. It's here the "third world" originates; nuteral countries who aligned neither with the communist Soviet Union  nor the democratic United States, as well as countries who were too underdeveloped to be considered either "first" or "second" world.
And so the world was divided accordingly.
Today, such divisions of the world are irrelevant. It seems now to simply be "developed" or "underdeveloped". Former Cold War enemies have now found alliance in each other, especially where the United States and China are concerned. In fact, the American and Chinese Eximbanks (Banks of Import and Export) have recently agreed on terms proposing a $47 BN USD loan to Sunyani Water Supply System Expansion and Rehabilitation.
That is not to say China cannot be independent in their loan disbursement, but it is relevant to note that most of China Eximbank and China Development Bank loans are issued based off of London Interbank offered rates.
Additionally, all of Official Development Aid (ODA) given in 2008, Only 10.3% of $28.8 BN USD was given by eastern nations, China and Japan.
This information is not to suggest that China is less willing to provide aid, nor that they are less able to do so without western assistance. If anything, it proves how dominate the west is in the field of development aid. A western tradition, modernized by Asain involvement. Whether or not such aid is beneficial to these "third world countries" is a seperate question; however, one thing remains certain: so long as there is money to give, someone will be willing to take it.

Sources:
China and USA Eximbanks deal
Chinese Development Aid in Africa

Student of Life; Disclosure

18 years old, I can barely see the world through the London smog I am immersed in. Studying International Relations at London Metropolitan University, I frequently find myself asking why I'm researching things only time can understand. Theories of human interaction, states, cause and effect, the diplomacy in politics (which I'm quickly realizing is one of the least diplomatic fields to involve oneself in), and the history of each of these are all crucial to my degree.
I've always been interested in English literature and linguistics; my favorite writer being Ernest Hemmingway and The Sun Also Rises claiming its place as my favorite novel, but felt majoring in English would narrow my career path to fields I was unsure suited me. In an apparent underlying desire to confine myself to a life of poverty, I applied to university almost exclusively for journalism courses- except for one: International Relations.
When I clicked "apply" I wasn't entirely sure what International Relations comprised of, beyond self-explanatory assumptions. Now, I realize it is just what I had searched for. It allows me to observe life, its patterns, utilize my skills as a writer and my passion for linguistics, all while maintaining a more substantial academic platform.
I am a student of cause and reaction, an observer of the causers and reactors, with an ambition to eventually be one of those. Though, to say I'd any indication of which would be a lie.
I hope this blog will be an exploration of just that.
Disclosure: politically, I consider myself an "independent". I know, what a cop out, but consider: maybe I am more unwilling to admit to myself which side I stand for, rather than a stray reader.
Religiously, I believe in God. Again, maybe this is left over from nearly 13 years of Catholic education- but I consider myself less of a Catholic and more of a human, desperate to believe in something just for the rush of faith, or doubt.
I am in London on my own terms. I try my best to survive with student loans, and take great pleasure in making coffee for people in return for minimum wage.
Like I said, I am an independent.