NEPA News Week #2

This week had arguably less interesting things happen than the last, but there's still a few things to talk about - so let's start with the biggest event that, incidentally, happened just a few hours ago on Sunday evening.

The Biden Visit

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who himself is a native of Scranton, had visited the area, specifically Pittston, in hopes of campaigning for the election of Democrats Bob Casey and Matt Cartwright.

There wasn't anything particularly notable happening there beyond excitement from Democrats, but what should be noted is the proclaimed focus of Democrats on the working class. This has been happening a fair bit since Bernie Sanders helped normalize anti-capitalist rhetoric for the 2016 Presidential election, and it represents little more than a facade on the part of Democrats. By participating in the capitalist system and seeking to merely make alterations to it rather than fundamentally reform it, they represent not a party that aims to shift the tides of political discourse in favor of the marginalized but rather one that aims to uphold the status quo.

Granted, with that said, one still ought to prefer them over Republicans - certainly their policies tolerate minorities much more, and if we can at least temporarily have more minority rights in America, then we ought to elect Democrats instead of Republicans where viable.

Carbondale Police Dog

In Carbondale, a large fundraiser generating tens of thousands of dollars was underwent to train a new police dog, named Axel. This is treated as if it's a fun and exciting thing, when in actuality it's much more damaging on all facets.

For one, the dog is essentially being forced to partake in potentially dangerous tasks. It can hardly be said to be fair to him to put him on the front lines of whatever call that they're taking him on.

For another, all this does is expand the influence of an institution that serves to benefit the upper class and the status quo. Police are not interested in being our friends, in participating in socialist activity - they instead aim to uphold a legalist doctrine that has oppressed many for years. It shouldn't be forgotten how their fundamental structure was used to uphold slavery, and now it's used to further institutional racism, to expand benevolent misogyny, to pathologize the working class, to strengthen queerphobia. This is not something that'll help us - as any resident of the area can attest to, given the public knowledge of police corruption - but it's rather something that'll harm us even more going into the future.

Conclusion

And that's about it in the way of significant news for the region. It wasn't a particularly active week, nor was it a notable one, but there still was a bit to talk about all in all.