News + Politics
We the people, by the people.
Dear Comrades
This is going to be a recurring theme in a lot of these essays, so I might as well get it out of the way now. We all love our liberties, or think we do, and I'm no exception. Yet most of you, as you read what I have to say, will feel that those liberties are being threatened at least once. So before you stick a knife in my side and daub in blood the legend SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS on the nearest wall, I think you deserve to know exactly what you'll be killing.
Robert GregoryPublished 7 years ago in The Swamp- Top Story - August 2017
What Is the National Guard?
Despite having one of the strongest militaries in the world, many Americans don't really know much about their country's defense forces. This is especially true about the National Guard.
Rowan MarleyPublished 7 years ago in Serve Not Like a Business
Leading up to the last election, a lot of people said things along the lines of, "Trump will be good because he's a businessman, not a politician, and he'll run the government like a business." Somehow, enough people were confused enough to think this was a good idea, and enough of them voted that way, so with the help of the winner-take-all electoral vote distribution in all but three states, Trump managed to win by the largest losing margin in American history. It was a big margin. Really big. And he lost by it, but the Electoral College turned that around and gave him the White House anyway.
J.T. McDanielPublished 7 years ago in The SwampDear Theresa, Who Are You?
I'm not from the UK or even Europe at all. I live here in grand ol' America (sarcasm emphasis on grand), though I do come from Europe (born, but not raised, in Moscow, Russia). I've heard a lot about you, both from the other Dear Theresa pieces on this site and in the news. I kind of know what Brexit is, and I know that most people who believe in the same things as me don't like it.
Katie MarchbankPublished 7 years ago in The SwampRacist British Media Ruined Carnival
Notting Hill Carnival is the second biggest carnival in the world, after Rio de Janeiro. Given the almost polar opposite climate and demographic of the UK, I would say that’s quite impressive and really pays tribute to the amazing contributions of Caribbean people to British culture.
Cicely BlainPublished 7 years ago in The SwampFighting the Good Fight
That quote from John F. Kennedy is based on one in Dante’s Inferno and boy is it applicable to the recent events happening in the United States. On Friday, white supremacists marched on the Virginia Tech campus wielding tiki torches. I shit you not. The Internet got their jokes in (as they always do) because nothing is intimidating about a mob of preppy, privileged white kids supporting a disgusting cause — I guarantee it won’t get you laid. If you’re reading this, and you fall into the “preppy and privileged” category, I’m sorry that Julie didn’t kiss you during spin the bottle in 7th grade. Also, I’m sorry you have no moral compass.
Zach CroninPublished 7 years ago in The Swamp- Top Story - August 2017
Indian Guides
A truly moral nation, wishing to leave as its legacy the foundational principles and guiding ideals of freedom, fairness, justice, responsibility, and love and regard for future generations, must fully own the sins of its past and bend over backward to rectify crimes against humanity, which have too often been fueled by the American government’s unlawful interest in favoring the greed of a master population over the survival and viability of the oppressed peoples from whom its power was unlawfully derived. Particularly victimized have been this continent’s and nation’s First Peoples. As the majority of Americans continue to be beneficiaries of unconscionable acts of brutality, malice, racism, religious bigotry, theft, and other wanton acts of avarice against First Peoples, it is incumbent upon us and future generations to show the moral courage, stamina, sound judgment and wisdom the generations before us abdicated, for the evils exist not only in the past, but much as our own continued benefits from the crimes and privations of genocide sustain us, so do those crimes and privations continue to inflict undue suffering upon the most marginalized, impoverished, and vulnerable among us—a people so marginalized, indeed, that even the most well-meaning of liberals, rejecting the overt and cynical racism of President Trump’s brand of immigration reform, rally to the cry, “We’re all immigrants!” — seemingly or happily oblivious to the reality that some 5.2 million of us are not.
Padma ThornlyrePublished 7 years ago in The Swamp Trump's Truth
Armed men march with swastikas, Nazi flags fly high and racist and anti-Semitic White supremacist slogans are shouted without shame. This is not Germany in 1933, but Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Counter protestors cried out in opposition only to be crushed by the terroristic roar of an engine and the death of Heather Heyer. I sit here in Israel, writing from Tel Aviv, heartbroken. Heartbroken that this brand of vitriolic hatred is still a loud voice in my American home, heartbroken that the President of the United States struggled to condemn Neo Nazism and White Supremacy and heartbroken that the land of the free and home of the brave may no longer a home for me, an LGBTQ+ Jew.
Micah ThauPublished 7 years ago in The Swamp