Blog 5: The Progressive Era

War is not something that is new to any of us. I remember in 5th grade I started learning about the American Indian war and my knowledge about the wars that America has been involved in has only increased. Throughout our history we have fought in The Revolutionary War, World War I and II, the Mexican American War, The Civil War, and so many more. Unfortunately, war is something that is required in order for a country to flourish and grow as a nation. However, it has always been a divided argument on whether or not people believe that we should be involved in a war. This all started in the 1900s when the Progressive Era sprang up. This era started the business expansion and progressive reform throughout the United States. People during this time wanted to make America a better place. 

As a society, we have grown since the time of the Progressive Era. We have seen our nation come together in the past years with the Me Too movement, Black Lives Matter, and Greta Thunberg leading large protests to raise awareness for environmental issues. We were able to see these movements displayed on every news platform and social media site. However, I learned after looking at ANTIWAR.COM that there is so much that the news does not share with us. 

I was shocked by how much information is on there that we do not see highlighted on popular news sites and social media platforms. We have the luxury of being able to
protest freely; however, I learned that there were deaths in Niger as protesters confronted the French army. I remember seeing videos from the BLM protests on Twitter of people confronting the police but why have I not heard that people in Niger are dying because of the confrontation. Another website that I have never heard of, American Conservative, also had some interesting information that has never hit any of the news platforms I use. Did you know that the Biden administration decided to sell a $650 million in the air to air missell to Saudia Arabia? Neither did I . By selling this weapon, it now can be used in the war with Yemen which has killed a quarter-million of people since March 2015. This is a violation of Biden's pledge to treat Saudia Arabia as a "pariah." These are the news articles that we should be hearing about. Not the latest on Kim Kardashian's relationship with Pete Davidson or the latest Tiktok drama but the real-world issues that are happening around us. 

It's clear that the news does not want us to see many of the things talked about on these websites which is why it is so hard to find obscure websites in order to hear strong antiwar voices. I believe this could be because the government does not want Americans to find out about the things going on around us. I believe they don't want to inflict fear upon the American population or make themselves look worse. Fear can cause mayhem and with how the world is going right now, I would assume they don't want to cause any more of that. The government does not want us to look into what they are doing because a lot of the information that we don't see is messed up and should be stopped because of how unethical it all is. If the government kept us informed and updated on everything that they did they would not be able to get away with half of what they are currently doing.