Prelude

It’s easy for you to sit and make judgments about me, isn’t it? It’s easy for you to tell me what is right and wrong with my life and how to change it. Isn’t it? It’s oh so easy to understand what the other guy is going through when it isn’t you. When you don’t have to suffer the pain and sorrow that is hanging over your brother’s head it’s easy for you to say ‘I understand.’ It’s easy when you have no knowledge whatsoever of the plight that one suffers when someone dies, or something is lost that was cherished. I don’t know where you get off with this belief. This feeling that you’re right and I’m wrong. Where do you get the nerve and courage to stand before me and my God and say that you know it all, you’ve seen it all, and you are the all. You couldn’t have been born with it. It wasn’t something that you brought. It must be something that you were taught somewhere down the line in your life. Somewhere that is make-believe, not of the real world that I live in. Do you live in this world? In my world?

Sunday, September 3rd, 2023 was a beautiful day in Columbus, Ohio. The air was warm but not brutally hot, and the sun shined brightly without a dark cloud in the sky. People sat on the park benches or in the grass staring at their phones or lying on blankets chatting with their fellow guests. Around the park, one of the city's busiest sections hummed along on an unusually busy Sunday; with Labor Day preceding this Sunday, the Short North experienced the same activity it would on a usual Friday evening. The familiar bike carts, powered by drunken tourists fully exploiting the novelty, chugged along the streets cheering loudly at any notable event or witty remark made by their driver. They often worked to entice those around them stuck walking on the sidewalks to join in their excitement, but they were usually ignored.

At the zenith of the mass protests in Egypt on January 25, 2011, Twitter, Facebook and other Western-based social media platforms appeared to be the most essential tools for the Egyptian Revolution. 

 Though some observers later contested the use of the terms ‘Twitter Revolution’ or ‘Social Media Revolution’, one cannot deny the centrality of these platforms in the discussion around the events which attempted to redefine the power structures of Egypt. 

 It was hardly a surprise that, on January 26, the Egyptian regime decided to block access to social media in a desperate attempt to prevent the spread of the protests. 

Ever since Donald Trump became a former president, news outlets and commentators have cited polls showing that many Republicans believe violence might be needed to save the country. As Trump’s legal woes increase, so do mainstream media alarms about the specter of violent responses. But we’ve heard virtually nothing about connections between two decades of nonstop U.S. warfare overseas and attitudes favoring political violence at home.