Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in The Swamp.
US leads world in COVID cases
United States: America, according to a recent BBC News report, leads the world in Coronavirus related deaths. Thursday, 29 October 2020 saw, in the United States, no fewer than 91,000 new COVID-19 cases reported. Thus far, according to a report published by Johns Hopkins University, more than nine million COVID-19 cases have been reported.
By Shain Thomas5 years ago in The Swamp
The Fruit of Neoliberalism
Politics is a tangled web of lies. Purposefully Spun; insidiously premier, [from descending memos] of a high-powered neoliberal "Deep State." This coup of manufactured consent is orchestrated with overwhelming force; thusly, hammered via its indestructible-propaganda-apparatus - the Mainstream Media, as the right wing tends to reference. Additionally, this apparatus incorporates Hollywood influence and the assistance of social media technocrats in Silicon Valley, to produce what is admittedly a well oiled Cabal; persistent in action by way of business interests, war profiteers, and other deeply pocketed tycoons of corporate industry. There is a two-faced reality that transpires: behind the scenes of decorum, conventional wisdom and social norms; the monstrous prime evil evidence of organized and discrete shadow government influence.
By Thomas Saulsberry5 years ago in The Swamp
The Week That Could Have Changed Irish History, But Didn't.
In a tumultuous week in Irish politics, Hozier, among others, criticised the Irish Government on Twitter in the days following the controversial vote which inadvertently ‘seals’ the archives detailing the abuse suffered by Women and Children “tantamount to human trafficking” at the hands of the Catholic Church and The State. The Bill which brought an end to the Commission Investigation has left a nation with whiplash, and as we try to pick up the pieces of what happened - it is probably easiest to start at the beginning.
By Sorcha Murphy 5 years ago in The Swamp
What It's Like To Have Your Undergraduate Experience Defined by the Politics of the Time
Preface. I am straight, white, and male. My rights and value as a human being have not been under attack these past four years. However, as a young man in the arts, the rights of the people close to me, specifically women, people of color, and LGBTQA+ individuals have been. Not only that, but the elderly and the immunocompromised, many of whom are close friends of mine, are being treated as subhuman and expendable. No generation is without its share of conflicts, I admit. For my grandfather’s generation, it was the Nazis. For my father’s, trying to live peacefully under the constant threat of nuclear Armageddon. We, too, face our share of conflicts, and while in part that threat stems from Nazism (no one likes a rerun, but this time, they’re American, so that’s original), our generational conflict stems from a sudden awareness of the inequities within the system we were born into and the death throes of that system.
By Steven Christopher McKnight5 years ago in The Swamp
A Black Man Votes
Do you know that meme that depicts how dusty the hood is when Democrats are in the White House, then a picture of how dusty the hood is when Republicans are in office? Except, you guessed it, it's the same picture both times. Nothing changed. As a southern boy who grew up in a lower-middle-class Black family, I concur with the idea that nothing fundamentally changes in working-class and poor households, no matter which party is in the White House. It's a damn shame because our brightest Black leaders were shouting the same thing over 60 years ago. I'm an Independent. I've mostly voted Democrat as about 88% of Black male voters usually do, according to 2018 midterm exit polls. There's been talk lately that Black men vote selfishly, and somehow, we are not for the countries betterment. However, these numbers don't support that theory. While it is factual that Black women vote at higher rates than we do, it's Black people as a whole who hold the party up. We know that Black women have always been on the right side of history, from Harriet Tubman to Fannie Lou Hamer to Tamika Mallory. They hold this entire planet down. With that said, the Democratic Party owes Black people in a major way. According to exit polls, 82% of Black men and 94% of Black women voted for Clinton in 2016, while 63% of white men and 53% of white women voted for Trump. Now tell me again, who needs a good tongue lashing? Latinx support for Clinton was only in the '60s as well. I think that when the Democrats do better, support will be better. They suck right now. There's no wonder the calls to allow a third party have grown. The Democratic Party has become Republican Lite, while the Republican Party has become The 4th Reich. Both the Republican and Democratic establishments do share the same undying loyalty to special interest groups, billionaire donors, and corporations that pay them. Clearly, I'm not a fan of either party or their 2020 presidential candidates, but one guy wants to punish journalists he doesn't like, and the other doesn't. One of them wants to jail his political opponents, and that same cantaloupe-colored clown labels human rights activists as terrorists, but NOT murderous white supremacists like Dillon Roof and Kyle Rittenhouse.
By Ozy Reigns5 years ago in The Swamp
Continuing to Accomplish Small Things in a Great Way
In the days leading up to the upcoming Presidential Elections, it seems to be no coincidence that I would finish reading “Small Great Things”, a 2016 novel by best-selling author Jodie Picoult (known for novels like “The Pact” and “My Sister’s Keeper”) which discusses racism in America. It’s a story about an African American Labor and Delivery nurse by the name of Ruth Jefferson with twenty years of experience who is ordered not to act as the nurse for the newborn baby of a White Supremacist. When there’s an emergency with the newborn and Ruth is left alone with the child, being the only one around in the moment, she is forced to decide whether she should act and help the child, or risk disobeying her supervisor’s instructions; all of which will lead to a criminal case where Ruth is put on trial for her actions. This story is told from three first person accounts, Ruth Jefferson, the African American Labor and Delivery nurse; Turk Baurer, the father of the infant and White Supremacist; and public defender Kennedy, who is white, who doesn’t consider herself to be racist despite her more than apparent racial ignorance and biases. What these voices bring to the story is a realistic and believable account of the issue from all sides with one important point ringing true once you come to the end of the book. That racism isn’t just the angry white supremacists, though they do still exist as we’ve recently seen. Racism is also our own ignorance to the big picture, the way a white person might cross the street if they see someone color walking in their direction. The way a white woman might clutch her purse a little tighter if a black gentlemen steps onto an elevator with her. Or the way a white person might go out of their way to overcompensate how they speak around a person of color so the white person will not come off as racist.
By Chloe Medeiros5 years ago in The Swamp
How They Divide US
For ages the Democrat and Republican parties have been dividing the middle class against each other. one says it’s for law and order, the other says it’s for co-operative understanding and less harsher penalties. They use the divisive rhetoric of Gun control or abortion rights issues to get us grouped into camps either for or against specific key issues. What if I was to tell you they didn’t care about those issues? What if I said those were only catalysts for you to see your fellow worker as the "other" and not as a brother or sister?
By Andrew Legnani5 years ago in The Swamp
Waiting to be told
Waiting to be told- Information overload has political consequences. People in democracies are subjected to information saturation; the political reality of this is that the majority of voters have stopped being sceptical, they have stopped asking questions. Even the most necessary questions. Opinions which are repeated and “loudly” proclaimed, are often generally accepted as truth, until some one else makes equally loud and repeated denials.
By Peter Rose5 years ago in The Swamp
