My Political Meme

Creating my own political meme in class was so much fun. At first, I didn't know what I wanted to do, because there were so many options. I was thinking about doing an actual cartoon, but my creative juices were not flowing in that department today. 

I get nervous when displaying my political voice so overtly that it makes me shut down. However, I think that the trick is to purely look at political situations through a journalistic viewpoint. This ensures that the work is honest. 

As a class we started looking at memes and I got super inspired. I wanted mine to be straight and to the point. Instead of making a meme about a historical event of the past, I decided to make one about what we are facing right now as a country. 

I used a meme generator website to make my meme. It is an amazing website for anyone wanting to make memes, but don't know how to make them from scratch. This website has multiple base images to choose from and plenty of examples to consult. 

 In class the last couple of weeks, we've been talking about free speech and the implications of big companies censoring citizens. The biggest culprits in this censorship have been Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter so I decided to put them all in my meme. 

My meme is pretty self explanatory and the overall message is that these big companies only allow the facade of free speech as long as it is to their advantage. I think it is pretty funny and a hard truth that everyone has to realize going forwards. Just because you only see one viewpoint on social media, that doesn't mean others don't exist. These billionaires have the power to silence so many people and they can get away with it.           

Censorship in the Mainstream Media

These are scary times to live through as a journalist or even just as an American citizen. We pride ourselves on being the land of the free and the first amendment. However, is this nation going down a dark path where freedom of speech is no longer a valued right? 

Just recently, Twitter banned President Trump from using their app. They completely dismantled his account and he was silenced from talking to the people of the United States. When Trump moved on to Parler, Amazon and the App Store took the steps to shut the app down completely. One can make the argument that Twitter and Amazon are private companies so they can do what they want. However, silencing the most powerful person in the country is a dangerous precedent to set. Essentially these businessmen are telling the world that they single-handedly have the power to influence politics and public opinion on any issue. Nobody should have this much power and use it to influence politics in this nation. There is a reason checks and balances are a thing in the government. It seems like there was a checks and balances law conveniently left out for these oligarchic businesses. 

The sad fact is that a lot of people consume their daily news from Social Media sites. How can anyone trust what is being said when it is a known fact that they censor opinions and viewpoints that they don't like or disagree with? They may have the advantage of controlling the political dialogue but they might be doing the country a greater disservice. People are smart enough to be weary of the information being thrown at them. Twitter and other companies have blatantly silenced the voices of so many people, censoring half the country. Citizens living in a free country hate nothing more than being silenced and fill fight to have their voices heard. What will happen when eventually, nobody trusts the mainstream media at all?

Julian Assange: Hero or Traitor?

Is Julian Assange guilty of all of the charges against him? The Australian citizen is currently facing a plethora of charges against him. The 49 year old is currently dying in prison and it was widely believed that President Trump was his last hope. However, Trump did not pardon Assange before leaving office and his fate is now in the hands of corrupt law enforcement. Let's take a deep dive into the career of Julian Assange in order to properly come to the conclusion of whether or not he is a patriotic hero of the public or a traitor who deserves prosecution. 

Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks in 2006 which is a company that leaks classified information to the public under anonymous sources. This company took off but Assange soon found himself in a lot of trouble. In April 2010, WikiLeaks released a video of a United States airstrike on innocent civilians in Baghdad. Later that year, thousands of documents were released that were secret U.S. military reports on the Afghanistan war and blunt analysis's of foreign leaders and security threats. This greatly angered the United States and set a target on his back. 

Julian Assange

In 2016, Assange angered the United States once again. At this point he has already been granted political asylum by Ecuador. Just months before a major election, he released thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton's private server. WikiLeaks also released emails from Clinton's campaign chair, John Podesta, and the Democratic National Committee. This was a big deal because the whole world was watching and any incriminating information on a presidential candidate had great power. The Democrats blamed and still harbor resentment toward Assange because they believe that he caused Hillary Clinton to lose the 2016 election. Assange claims to have had no desire to influence the outcome of the election and says that if he had information on Donald Trump, he would've released it. 

Flash forward to today and Assange is still facing harsh repercussions for his actions. He is facing up to 175 years in jail for releasing information on the United States. It is challenging to determine whether to not Assange deserves everything happening to him. The matter is increasingly controversial. On one hand, Assange is leaking classified information that was deemed classified for a reason. Many believe that some of the information was incriminating and could've compromised United States citizens. On the other hand, the general public believes that they have the right to know what their elected officials are doing. They see his trial as a threat to all journalists and believe that he should be released. 

The United States is currently trying to have Assange expedited to U.S. soil from the United Kingdom. On January 4th, a British judge turned down the request to have him expedited. This is an ongoing war that will likely not be resolved soon because there are too many powerful players on each side. If Assange is convicted, many journalists are fearful of what that means for the future of the career. 

Regardless of the outcome, everyone should be following this case closely. The United States has always been regarded as the land of the free, however this case questions that ideal. It has always been the job of the people to keep their government in check. When there happens to be a brave citizen that takes on that challenge, it is controversial because of the labels the government has put on the information. The question is whether to not citizens have a right to know what their government is up to. Julian Assange is a hero in my eyes for having true loyalty to the people.