Being Blue at PSU

By Tim Klaum Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, on many levels of government and from both sides of the aisle, we've head it said that there's no "federal solution" to ending this, and that the states have autonomy to make rules as they see fit. Most recently, the president himself said those words almost verbatim. And while they may see this as true, I can't help but look at countries around the world who have handled this pandemic farm more gracefully and efficiently than we ever did. Granted, a lot of these countries are smaller than the United States, in both population and just by land mass. However, I can't help but be jealous of countries like New Zealand, which has been relatively covid free since June 2020, while the United States is still struggling. For instance, in New Zealand, they were able to shut down the country altogether, and for the most part their citizens followed protocol. In doing this, the nation was able to quarantine those who had con...

By Annmarie Rounds-Sorensen | President 2021-2022 The women in my life taught me from a young age that I needed tough skin to get through life. My great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother have been my heroes for my entire life, and I consider myself supremely lucky to have them as my guideposts. I grew up watching them survive challenges I consider myself too weak to handle, and they shared their stories and advice with me. Now, when I am faced with seemingly unbearable situations, I have the tools to survive. As I grew up in less than favorable conditions, I found political organizing and activism to be a cathartic way to fight the barriers I saw not just for myself, but for those around me who had even less than I did. I saw up close when I was 17 at the New York City Women's March how huge our fight is. It reminded me of a Rupi Kaur poem. "we all move forward when we recognize how resilient and striking the women around us are" Political organizing is deeply pe...

  By JT Thomas Okay, so lately I’ve been thinking about the military-industrial complex and the absolutely absurd amount of money the US gives to the Pentagon each year. I’m far from an expert, but really, what in the world could the military possibly need with $768.2 billion? Nobody else on the planet spends nearly as much as that. The bottom line is that we need to cut the the Pentagon’s paycheck down to size. Now, I realize that I’m probably preaching to the choir here. So how do we preach to the rest of the people in the room? My friends, allow me to take you on a journey. I call it: the Car Metaphor. Imagine you have a car. Let’s just say it’s a Subaru. User friendly, dependable, long-lasting. Your Subaru is a 2016 model; it’s not too old, but it’s not brand-spanking new either. Still, it gets you from point A to point B. It’s comfortable and reliable. It’s even got a bluetooth speaker. In other words, you like your 2016 Subaru. It works for you. Then, they release the 2022 ve...

By Biz Lynch Architecture is inherently political, it can not escape that fact. At its core, architecture has a purpose; a set of values it follows to become what it represents. When a nation’s government decides to construct a new building, the values of the country are expressed in the architecture. The use of architecture as a form of communication helps future generations dissect how every day citizens interacted with their governing officials.  The Forbidden City in Beijing, China, for example, is miles upon miles of gates that the people were not allowed to enter until 1925.  The placement of the compound directly in the center of the city gives us an idea of the importance of those who are allowed inside. Despite access being granted through guided tours, there is still a foreboding picture of their leader that stares them down upon entering. Even the mile long trek through the city is heavily monitored by security and the police to protect the integrity of the fortress...

By Bianca Walder Have you ever opened up Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media and see your feed flooded with posts in support of a social moment? An example can be the black out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in June of 2020. This demonstration accomplished nothing, and potentially did more harm than good. The blackout was a demonstration that called for people to post just a black screen with the hashtag, “BlackoutTuesday”. The posts buried black creators and activists, the people who are actually doing productive work in reforming our current systems of racism. Most of the participants in this movement stopped at the square. They didn’t go out and protest, organize for candidates that could fix our system, or donate/ support black organizations. The idea of performative activism is that you look like you are doing something productive by posting a woke quote on your instagram story, but that post does nothing to enhance the conversation surrounding t...

  Happy Halloweekend, College Dems! Hope you all have fun and stay safe! First and foremost, remember to get out and vote on Tuesday, and to encourage others to do the same! Republicans have been trying really hard to unseat Democratic judges, which could have devastating implications for our democracy. We need people to VOTE BLUE to keep them in those seats. October is almost over, and all I can say is yikes. Just yikes. I won’t lie to you all, this has been a rough month, what with midterms and elections stuff and now the Event-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named coming up next week.  Just as a reminder, the official stance of the PSU College Democrats is to support the Love Is Louder event taking place in the HUB on Wednesday. It is a protest, it’s just a protest that will be in a controlled environment. This is in order to ensure the safety of anyone who wishes to stand in support of the LGBTQIA+ community. You can find the full statement by the PSU College Democrats on our Instagram....

 By J.T. Thomas (Just a disclaimer, this piece is my own personal opinion, not that of the PSU College Democrats) Earlier this month, we did a fun little activity at a meeting. We wanted to see what would happen if the Pennsylvania Senate primary were decided that day, by the PSU College Dems.  It was a standard caucus setup; people who wished to vote for a specific candidate got up and went and stood in a specific place corresponding to that candidate. But this is where it gets interesting: after a few minutes of preparation, each group would have to elect one representative to get up and speak on why their group supports their candidate, and to try and convince others to switch sides and join their group.  Things broke down pretty much how you’d expect. A few different lesser known candidates got a few votes, Malcolm Kenyatta got a sizable portion, and John Fetterman got the majority. Representatives got up and spoke, mostly without incident. In the end, Fetterman won o...