Human Trafficking Protest, NYC

Save the Children? A Sound of Freedom, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), and the White Savior Complex

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on July 24, 2023 | Reading time 10 min

Sex trafficking is an incredibly serious issue within the larger context of human trafficking, that transcends international borders and involves perpetrators across “racial, ethnic, and gender demographics”. Of all human trafficking victims worldwide, some 27% are children and are used for forced or sexual labor. Child sex trafficking is a serious human rights issue and combatting it should be (and already is in many cases) a priority for all international organizations and nation-state governments. There is also no denying that this issue is often not placed at the forefront of mainstream Hollywood films. If they are, such as in “Taken” (2008), they are quite problematic. The recent release of Sound of Freedom has changed that.

Henry Kissinger at Vietnam War Meeting in Paris

Still at Large: The Crimes of Henry Kissinger and the Dark Side of U.S. Foreign Policy

Brief Analysis By Alan Cunningham on June 6, 2023 | Reading time 6 min

Henry Kissinger is one of the most renowned statesmen in the world and the last surviving member of Richard Nixon’s Cabinet. Kissinger has remained a force in American politics and heavily influencing policy abroad and being sought for his insights by presidents as politically diverse as George W. Bush and Donald Trump to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. However, a critical examination of his life and work is needed.

A monument for the leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist and Branch Davidian movements and the Branch Davidians who died in 1993, Mount Carmel Center, outside of Waco, Texas

Turning Point: The Rise of Right-Wing Politics, the Waco Siege, and the Response of American Law Enforcement

Brief Analysis By Alan Cunningham on February 25, 2023 | Reading time 5 min

30 years ago, federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives serving search and arrest warrants for a fundamentalist Christian cult known as the Branch Davidians became involved in a firefight which developed into a nearly two-month-long siege with the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the helm. The changing of the conservative movement in the U.S. into one largely dominated and controlled by extremist parties who do not have an interest in making medially or statistically informed policy, but rather in appealing to their own base and ideology, remains the legacy of the siege until today.

Permanent Memorial to Honour Victims of Slavery

Black Genocide: Classifying the Transatlantic Slave Trade and U.S. Slavery of Africans as a Genocide

Brief Analysis By Alan Cunningham on February 6, 2023 | Reading time 7 min

The American slave trade remains one of the most horrific periods of American history. Many in the United States classify the Atlantic Slave Trade, the American slavery system, and the Jim Crow laws as reprehensible acts, crimes committed by White Americans and English, and a stain upon the United States, and rightly so. However, these events should also be classified as genocide as they meet the legal criteria for such crimes and also follow a very similar line when looking at other, more internationally recognized forms of genocide.

Confederate and U.S. Flag

Winning Hearts and Minds: How the United States Lost the Civil War

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on December 12, 2022 | Reading time 6 min

The age-old aphorism “History is written by the victors” exemplifies the belief that, whoever wins a conflict, writes the history books in favor of themselves and their message. In effect, with one’s goals accomplished and victory gained, they are able to construct the future’s telling of this battle, war, or event to better suit their own desires. This belief is often incorrect and does not account for a substantial number of historical events in which the “losers” of a conflict or event have written history to suit themselves. In the United States, perhaps the most prevalent form of pseudohistorical and false thought is our nation’s collective understanding of the U.S. Civil War.

Hayley Elizabeth Atwell as Peggy Carter in Captain America The First Avenger

Women in Power: Peggy Carter, the World of Intelligence, and a Powerful Role Model for Women

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on November 6, 2022 | Reading time 8 min

Representation in media (comics, films, television series, and video games) has become a hot button issue over the past decade. In March of 2022, the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film of San Diego State University found “that men outnumbered women onscreen by a factor of 2 to 1 in 2021”. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is no exception and has had its share of sexist, derogatory, and stereotypical depictions of women. However, in at least one, rather niche area, the MCU does excel in their representation of women: particularly in their representation of women within Intelligence Communities (IC) around the globe via the character of Peggy Carter.

Amadou Diallo Anti-Police Brutality Protest March

41 Shots: Bruce Springsteen’s American Skin (41 Shots) and Police Violence

Brief Analysis By Alan Cunningham on September 24, 2022 | Reading time 6 min

Bruce Springsteen is one of the greatest songwriters and performers in American musical history. His lyrics are full of simultaneous hope and despair, reflecting the changing and evolving social fabric of the United States resulting in a sound that resonates with hundreds of millions of Americans coming from all faiths, socioeconomic, racial, age, and ethnic backgrounds. While many Americans have misunderstood Springsteen’s politics through his 1984 single “Born in the U.S.A.”, mistaking him for being a symbol of Reagan-era politics and staunchly Conservatively patriotic, his politics are far more Progressive and Liberally focused. His lesser-known work, the 1997 single titled “41 Shots (American Skin)”, is an example of this.

Richard Grenell served as Acting Director of National Intelligence in President Trump’s Cabinet in 2020

Presidential Delegates: The Politicization of Intelligence and Political Appointees

Brief Analysis By Alan Cunningham on August 31, 2022 | Reading time 6 min

The politicization of intelligence products is a recurring issue that can have extreme effects on how foreign policy is conducted, how military operations and orders of battle are planned, and how intelligence is presented to policymakers. This politicization can clearly have an effect on intelligence and how it is presented to policymakers and the public. One of the most contested and interesting examples of the politicization of intelligence was in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War.

Dismantle White Supremacy Protest

Fan Power: The White Supremacy Movement of the 1990’s as a Fandom

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on August 7, 2022 | Reading time 17 min

In the past year, since the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol, white supremacy and right-wing extremist militant groups have been experiencing a rise in recruitment and have been undergoing many changes, largely due to the changing social and political structures within the United States. Renewed discussion about fandoms and white nationalist/right-wing movements has been occurring in the media since the January 2021 storming of the Capitol building. Partially classifying the white supremacist movement as a fandom can have benefits in the study of these organizations and the individual relationships of domestic terrorists to one another.

Alejandro Mayorkas, United States Secretary of Homeland Security

Damage Control: What Ms. Marvel Tells Us About the State of Homeland Security in the United States

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on July 17, 2022 | Reading time 7 min

Marvel Studios’ latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is Ms. Marvel, the TV series which showcases Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American high school student who gains cosmic energy powers from a family heirloom, fights crime and becomes a superhero in her native home of Jersey City, NJ. One area that has been often overlooked in the discourse surrounding this series has been the behavior of the U.S. Department of Damage Control (DODC), a rather lesser agency than S.H.I.E.L.D or S.W.O.R.D, yet one that has been around for many years within the background of the MCU. With Ms. Marvel, however, we get a rather different view of the agency, one that has been hinted at before but never fully seen.