Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in The Swamp.
MK-Ultra
The 1960s was a time of intense rebellion against the government because of the Korean War, and later, the Vietnam War. MK-Ultra was a secret project from the CIA that wanted to test LSD on the American public. Prostitutes would bring their clients to a building where they were dosed with LSD, which was invented in Switzerland, 1938. Victims had euphoric emotions or paranoia, and extreme fear. The CIA wanted to drug people to commit acts of violence without remembering the actual events. They wanted to figure out how people would do things they wouldn’t normally do like outright kill somebody.
By Iria Vasquez-Paez8 years ago in The Swamp
Neoliberalism and Minimal State Intervention
It is suggested that we are currently living in the "age of Neoliberalism," a political concept drawing on the traditional ideas of economic liberalism, believing that states ought to intervene as little as possible in the economy, allowing individuals (including corporations) to participate freely in the self-regulating market. There is an abundance of critical literature on Neoliberalism, most of which exhibits the incoherence of the claims of those economists who favour a limited state. I will be drawing on a number of these criticisms to demonstrate why the pursuit of neoliberalism as a set of political and economic principles by a given government is neither economically nor politically beneficial to the vast majority.
By Katie Kenyon8 years ago in The Swamp
Help Save Our Oceans
Going to the beach has been something that I enjoy doing every day and night. I have learned so much about life just from going to the beach and always had a passion for studying marine biology. We all know that we receive so many health benefits from the ocean, right? Like sea salt, omega three from fish, vitamin D from the sun, vitamin K from kelp, etc. Now with some of us human beings traveling on cruises and boats, or even having a day or night out on the beach, we sometimes throw plastic products on the sand, depending on the people who clean our beaches to do the work. Now when we do that, sometimes the plastic products end up in the water by the wind. When a thing like this happens, it puts the marine life in danger, and ours. About 6.3 billion gallons of oil each year to make plastic bottles is used. More than 90 percent is used once, especially in medical fields and at home. In this year alone, 300 pounds of plastic, which is 136 kilos of single-use plastic, is in our oceans. Many human beings dump about eight million tons of plastic every year, but only 70 percent sink to the bottom of the ocean. As the plastic slowly breaks down its particles in the ocean, many marine lives, including coral reefs, feed on it. In the Western Mediterranean, approximately one to two ratios of plastic are in plankton and coral reefs. There are approximately five trillion pieces of plastic found around the world. The polyethylene used worldwide in products of toothpaste, cosmetics, and facial scrubs are significant sources of polyethylene.
By Maydha Rani Sheomangal8 years ago in The Swamp
America's Colonialist Relationship with Puerto Rico. Top Story - May 2018.
Politicians are in league with corporations hellbent on destroying an entire American territory. High unemployment, high poverty, austerity measures, natural disaster, and an unwieldy amount of debt: it sounds like something an evil cabal would admit to in an 80s action movie right before the team of Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone blow the whole place up. But year after year, such justice doesn't come. And, unfortunately, too few Americans care because that territory is Puerto Rico.
By Ben Kharakh8 years ago in The Swamp
The National Day of Reason? Or the National Day of Prayer?
America Could Lose Their National Day of Prayer (Originally written in 2014, updated May 2018) A few months ago on one of the major television news stations, a small note of concern showed up saying, "The National Day of Prayer is now being known as the National Day of Reason." What the heck is the National Day of Reason, originating in 2003? How can they, whoever they are, do this? I must admit I was angered.
By Carolann Sherwood8 years ago in The Swamp
The Rising Power of the Turkish Kurds
In a country of almost 80 million, any Presidential candidate would be stupid to ignore 20 percent of their people. But that is what has happened to the Kurds in Turkey for decades. The Kurdish population, long ignored and marginalised by the political establishment, is now beginning to rise in importance. With Presidential and Parliamentary elections only six weeks away political organisations that have a long history of opposing or ignoring Kurdish rights and issues are suddenly finding themselves in need of their votes. What has changed? What would cause such a deeply nationalist country, led by an almost authoritarian President, to suddenly consider these people a viable support base.
By Jack Holton8 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'Babylon Berlin'
I can't think of a better time -- or maybe worse time -- to watch a 16-episode German series (streaming on Netflix) about the police in the Weimar Republic in 1929, just a few years before the Nazis won a plurality in the Reichstag, Hitler became Chancellor, and by 1934 had seized power, ended democracy, and declared himself Führer. Weimar police detectives are comprised of people who would give their all to save democracy and people bent on destroying it. Police on the street often react with deadly force to protests, unable to distinguish peaceful demonstrators from those with darker motives. Politicians are much the same. The parallels to our age of Trump, who has systematically attacked the press and other bulwarks of democracy, are obvious and chilling -- more than chilling, given that we know how this battle turned out in Germany, and the impact of that result on the rest of the world.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in The Swamp
Fake Art, Fake Government, Fake Democracy
An art gallery in France has just discovered most of its exhibits are fakes. They found out after experts looked at the pictures. Had it been the UK, a third rate Tory would have been wheeled out to say we are tired of experts and they would have carried on as normal. As it was that benighted (because it is not England), miserable (because it is not England), ignorant (because it is not England) country they withdrew the exhibits and are being threatened with a fraud charge.
By Axel P Kulit8 years ago in The Swamp
Review of 'The Americans' 6.7
Throughout previous seasons of The Americans, I've wondered why Stan, looking at the sketches of Philip and Elizabeth in disguise, didn't recognize them as his nextdoor neighbors. I mean, the disguises are good, but not that good. The sketches of the Soviet-agent suspects sure looked to me like Philip and Elizabeth, and, if anything, Stan knows them much better than I do. I see them just once a week, for an hour or so, for ten or a few more weeks once a year. Stan sees them all the time.
By Paul Levinson8 years ago in The Swamp
