December 10, 1964, Oslo, Norway

I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when twenty-two million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.

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So rather than sit down today and write out a "Get out there and VOTE!" column, I thought I'd re-run a column I wrote ten years ago. This was the first time I ever saw Ferguson, and when I did my jaw hit the floor. People (at least, back then) just didn't say stuff like this on television, no matter how late the hour. I was so enthralled by Craig's rant that I sat down and transcribed it the next day. It remains the best "get out and vote" rant I've ever seen, so while the political references are dated (this was during the McCain/Obama race), the sentiments are not.

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I accept the Nobel Prize for Peace at a moment when twenty-two million Negroes of the United States of America are engaged in a creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice. I accept this award in behalf of a civil rights movement which is moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice.

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Momentarily, the Internet is inherently screaming. A whirlwind of events has occurred within the last couple of weeks throughout the U.S. such as the Inauguration of Donald Trump, the Women's March, as well as other protests towards other governmental actions that are currently being put in place. Before I reflect on the Inauguration protest, in which I witnessed both violent and nonviolent action, I want to make it clear that I am a white woman and I am aware of my privilege. With that being said, I also think that as a young adult, and as a woman, it is my duty to participate in the loud, unapologetic statement that millions of Americans are making. Throughout this rollercoaster of events, it made me realize that it's important to be vocal and to stop stooping my views to those that don't necessarily agree with me just to create a rose-colored-glasses kind of unity. There is still so much wrong with the way society views marginalized groups and contentious issues, and along with many, I have chosen not to pretend that it's not a problem. Always fight for what you believe in. So many people contemplate the idea that "protesting does nothing," but I'm here to rebut that and say: "Yes, protesting does do something."

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Recently, Salon (not a right wing outlet, let's say) published a series of charts that show how much better the economy does under Democratic versus Republican administrations. This is a popular meme that appears regularly in the news feeds of the left-inclined, such as myself.

Even Donald Trump chimed in on this (although I think he has probably changed his tune since). In an interview with Wolf Blitzer in 2004 he commented that: "I've been around for a long time and it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans."

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We've spent the past two weeks travelling to and from the Democratic National Convention, but due to the three-week period we've got to cover, we're not even going to attempt to adequately revisit everything that's happened in the political world since our last column.

In fact, we're not even going to write our talking points this week, and we're only briefly going to touch on what's going on and quickly hand out the awards, before we get to a rather extraordinary (and extensive) essay at the end, by guest author Eric Varela.

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I am an Irish and American woman reporting from the 2016 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. I say I am Irish and American because I am an Irish citizen who is now an American citizen too. I have noticed a theme in recent blogs posted to the Irish Times' Generation Emigration blog. Many fellow expats are wondering if they are still really Irish, given they have lived outside of Ireland for many years and in some cases longer than they lived in Ireland. I too have been thinking that I am losing my connection to my native land. The recent Irish elections that did not have a clear majority, and then the Brexit results, have opened up even more questions than the votes sought to resolve. I am now trying not to get too excited about the possibility of seeing a united Ireland in my lifetime.

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Donald Trump is clearly no Adolf Hitler. Trump does not preach Hitler's most hateful domestic policies, and Trump's foreign policy is not imperialist but isolationist. Trump's slogan, "American First," resembles "Deutschland über alles" ("Germany above all else") more in chauvinistic simplicity than evil intent. But it does underscore that Trump is, as Hitler was, a demagogue, appealing to voters' emotions and prejudices in order to win election.

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Today I am once again turning my column space over to a regular commenter at my website, who wishes only to be identified by her login name "Paula."

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On Friday, March 11th, 2016, I was responding to one of Chris's posts and wrote the following: "Anecdotally: we walk our dog around the neighborhood every day, criss-crossing several blocks in different patterns. The other day I stopped to talk to a lady out raking her yard (a middle-aged black woman -- a stranger) and asked her if she was leaning Hillary or Bernie, anyone else, or no one. She said Hillary, because she thinks Hillary is experienced, going back to having been married to a president, and will know how to handle the job. She said she likes Bernie but he's old and she's not sure he'll make it through the campaign season, but Hillary seems so energetic."

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