US Politics

CHOOSE YOUR RICH OLD WHITE MAN – AN UNINSPIRING ELECTION

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By Howard Green

Every 4 years, the world’s attention turns to the US presidential election. It is widely seen as the most important election in the world, and it’s hard to argue that it will be any less than that this year. In a time of racial injustice, climate crisis and global pandemic, many in America have been looking for their politicians to put forward an inspiring, achievable vision of the future. Instead they have a choice between an egomaniacal incumbent and a lacklustre opposition.

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VOTING IN THE WEST WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN

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By Gunnar Eigener

“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing”

Malcolm X

The US midterm elections will just about be complete by now and regardless of the outcome, something fundamental has changed. It’s subtle but significant, obvious but difficult to place. The will of the people (how many times have we heard that) will be followed but it is how the will of the people has been coerced that has changed. In the past, while campaigning has never been a polite business and politicians of all parties seek to undermine their opponents, the ultimate goal has always been the unification of a country, the understanding that whoever wins, the idea is to help the country achieve success and to help individuals thrive. Yet this year, more than most, is seeing the accumulation of toxic politics, which may foreshadow how politics will be carried out in the future.

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THE GLOBAL FATIGUE

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by Alice Thomson

It seems like the world is going to hell. I look at my newsfeed and am presented with scenes that make me feel gut-wrenching desperation. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that the last year has left us horrifically battered, and that we face a future where that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon.

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PUBLIC LANDS ARE UNDER THREAT IN AMERICA

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by Tara Debra G

America’s National Park Service (NPS) has been catching a lot of attention in the press recently. After tweeting out pictures from Obama’s 2008 inauguration and Trump’s, the NPS’s twitter account was instructed to temporality stop using twitter. The account for Badlands National Park defied the gag however, tweeting out facts about climate change, leading to speculation that this was an act of criticism directed at President Trump’s past comments concerning global warming. So-called “rogue” accounts from NPS employers have since sprung up on twitter, though it should be said that the identity of the account-holders are not verified.

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THE TROLL VOTE: WHAT TIPPED TRUMP TO VICTORY?

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by Sunetra Senior

In a socio-political climate where rape jokes and racism are very much in the mainstream, let’s not be afraid to call a troll a troll. The left is falling into the tendency to self-chastise after election defeats, even as a sinister phenomenon rises outside of our camp, and now more than ever requires our passionate standing. Over the past couple of months, the “Alt-Right” movement – a storm of right-wing publications primarily driven by Neo-fascist groups that use the web to circulate hate gossip and headlines to forward the far right’s agenda – has been confirmed to be a significant factor in the dissented zeitgeist of the US elections.  The Guardian’ s Jason Wilson said of the self-professed ‘platform for the Alt-right’– Breitbart News – that ‘the ideal Breitbart headline is provocative and designed to offend progressive sensibilities’, and that ‘they went with the stuff that got them the most hits and the most attention using the most extreme clickbait they could come up with’. For me, a further examination of this extremist social runaway train signals an alarming topple over an ideological precipice: the end to free-thinking and western democracy as we know it.

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OBAMA’S COMPLICATED ENVIRONMENTAL LEGACY

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by Tara Debra G

By the time you are reading this, Trump will be president of the United States. Soon Scott Pruitt will be head of the EPA (or behead the EPA). As I’m writing this, Obama is singing his swan song and making his final goodbyes as President. The gulf of time between me writing and you reading is small but salient. It is the time to reflect upon what it is Obama leaves in his wake. Contradiction has characterized so many aspects of Obama’s presidency, but what of his environmental record? Well – it’s complicated.

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DONALD TRUMP: THE RESULT OF FIFTY YEARS OF RACISM

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By Ben Pavey

Donald Trump has been drawing a lot of flak recently regarding his call to deny all entry to the US to Muslim immigrants, a call which has been derided by a spectrum of people from his own party to politicians abroad. But the weakness of some of the condemnations- Ted Cruz’s “Not my policy” or Reince Pribus’ “I don’t agree”- hint that the fervor is not as heartfelt as it should be. The problem for most of the party is that the Republican party has made unashamed racists part of their base. Trumps remarks are not, as various candidates have tried to suggest, an outlier of republican thought, but the logical end point of the past 50 years.

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HUMAN RIGHTS FOR SALE

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By Gunnar Eigener

“The State shall protect human rights in accordance with the Sharia”
Article 26, The Basic Law of Governance, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia have been let onto the UN Human Rights Council. Who thought this would be a good idea? Well, apparently the UK and US governments do. The US State Department welcomed the news, while the recently exposed deal between the UK and Saudi Arabia leaves us with little doubt over how the government feels about this appointment. David Cameron’s inability to justify the secretive deal in an interview with Jon Snow shows just how hollow any beliefs he proclaims to have in defending human rights are.

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