Blog Post #6

 Anti-War Voices: Why don’t we know about these sites?

As an eighteen year-old voting in her first presidential election soon, it can be disheartening to take time to learn about the current state of our country. We face many problems in the United States and everyone has their own opinion. But sometimes, it feels only certain voices are being pushed into our view. I enjoyed being tasked with visiting the sites ANTIWAR.COM  and The American Conservative because I had never read about events and politics in such a blunt form. 

The American Conservative is organized similar to most news websites, featuring the most recent published articles upfront. Once I had clicked on the first article, I could tell it was un-filtered, with the piece’s short description reading "Biden's snap press conference paraded all his weaknesses before the nation—but don’t expect the Democrats to do anything about it.” Being titled “Biden: Survival of the Unfittest,” already gave me the impression the article would be far from subtle, I just didn’t expect the amount of criticism it featured. I’ve had conversations with friends and family about politics in the past, but I often run into some hesitation because I am afraid I’m not educated enough or someone who disagrees with my thoughts will hold anger towards me. The author of this article, and the rest of TAC’s contributors, don’t seem to experience this fear. The author calls out the president's memory and uses harsh words sprinkled into political commentary.

I liked the line “different but compatible ways” in The American Conservative About Us page when referring to the website's founders’ views on conservatism. A large part about being involved in conversation is disagreeing with others, and with that comes the risk of being widely shamed or looked down on. It isn’t often people leave a conversation without attempting to convince the other people to side with their view instead of just accepting their difference in opinion and moving on. The site’s creators aim to not only check the government’s power, but conserve our values. Even TAC’s founders don’t share the exact same views, but found enough common ground to create an institution and start a national movement.

ANTIWAR.COM's layout consists of headings for different countries and continents with stories relating to them along with a highlighted articles section. Some of these articles are published directly to AWC, others are linked from other sites with similar missions. One being The Libertarian Institute, whose About Us pages simply reads “Whatever it is, we’re against it.” They feature articles with critical, while also sometimes humorous titles, giving views on current global issues. 

While anyone would think they had the right to share these strong opinions with the world if they are confident enough to do so, that has not been the case in the past. When the Sedition Act of 1918 was in place, private persons were being punished, many being anti-war activists, for publishing anything negative or false about the government. While that law is no longer recognized, recently when it was found our president was working with social media companies and censoring users, some similarities can be seen between the two times. Websites like the three discussed above most likely would not be enjoyed by our president and his supporters, so it is not surprising they aren’t very well-known or more popular.

As Professor Smith pointed out in a class discussion, if twenty five students can’t figure out if our country is at war, that is a problem. These obscure sites may be the only platform that will give a clear, unfiltered perspective and prove to be helpful. Especially if their observations are difficult to face and expose the need for change.