“I have never written a political song. Songs can’t save the world.” – Bob Dylan In 1961, Bob Dylan arrived in New York City to meet his idol. Woody Guthrie, by then dying of Huntington’s, had been the prototypical hero of early 20th-century folk music, authoring celebrated pro-labor and anti-fascist classics. Dylan settled in New […]
Tag: America
Why Identity is Important: How Exploring Ethnicity Can Help Fight Racial Divides
It feels like every other day we hear about a young black person who was murdered by police. In 2023, 1,160 black people were shot to death by law enforcement. African Americans are 12% of the population, but they were 24% of those killed in police shootings, which is a stark contrast when one considers […]
The Child Tax Credit: How American Individualism Destroyed Welfare
There’s a Joseph Campbell quote you’ve probably seen on one of those fake deep Instagram accounts you get recommended on your Explore page that has 30 followers but follows like 8000 people. It reads, “You can tell what’s informing a society by what the tallest building is.” A corollary could be that you can tell […]
A “Shattered” U.S. Democracy: Understanding the Dominating Forces of the Status Quo
“Shattered, washed-up has-been”—the title given to the American government by its foreign allies in a 2021 “Summit for Democracy.” Once a respected representative model, today’s American democracy is now characterized as a “washed-up” system in which the status quo is an environment where ideologies that are conveyed by powerful leaders have established a sharp socioeconomic […]
A Simple TikTok Trend? Or Blatant Jingoism?
On August 30th, 2021, after 20 years of military occupation, the Pentagon announced the completion of withdrawal of US forces in Afghanistan. Marine Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie stated, “The last C-17 lifted off from Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 30th, this afternoon….” Weeks prior to the withdrawal, Taliban forces had swiftly regained control of […]
To Boldly Go Where No Military Branch Has Gone Before
In 1969, the United States became the first country to land a man on the moon. While this was not the first time America had set its eyes upon the stars, it was one of the first realizations of that dream. Nearly fifty years later, a new era may have arrived as serious conversation has […]
Why Do We Still Have States?
In America, we are made to believe that politics should be discussed in terms of states. Blue states and red states dominate our electoral maps, our Congress is filled with state representatives, and state elections are second only to national elections in terms of relevance to the average American. But states and state borders are […]
Aftermath: The Milo protests and where Berkeley went wrong
This article is part of a series examining the anti-Milo Yiannopoulos protests and their aftermath — a campus event that has since pierced and provoked people nationwide — from various different perspectives. Several of these pieces include first person testimonies and narratives that illuminate facts of the protests not necessarily highlighted in mainstream media coverage. […]
America’s ADHD Nation
Image source: The Japan Times After a summer filled with doping scandals, barred athletes, and the Rio Olympics, Russian hackers exposed American gymnast Simone Biles in September for taking prohibited medication during the games. No scandal came of the revelation because the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) pre-approved Biles of her Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) medication. […]
The Forgotten Migrants Of Central America
America’s Harsh Rhetoric On Immigration Policy Bleeds Across The Border By Adrian Hernandez-Morales The Northern Triangle, a region in Central America surrounding Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, is perhaps one of the poorest and most violent places in the world. The predominance of gang rivalry, post-civil war instability, repressive political regimes and extreme poverty […]