So it has a voice. People also have voices, but since there are so many of them speaking at once, it’s hard to hear them well enough to take them seriously. There are billions of people, billions of opinions, billions of assholes. All of them slightly different. But all more alike than they would care to admit. It’s important to remember that all people like to eat, breathe, screw and sleep. Those are biggies. Everybody shits, everybody dies. Everybody tries, everybody fails. Humans fall in love, build houses, sweat, piss and attempt to avoid pain and taxes. They want safety, they want respect, and they want good hot showers at a decent pressure on cold Monday mornings in January.

This alikeness is taken for granted by all but the most stoned and peaceful of hippies. The rest generally share the human condition with their eyes closed to their commonalities. This shouldn’t be, if only because of this: the sooner people realize that their needs are practically identical, regardless of politics, the sooner the Rearguard can stop watching the news.

The Rearguard is not kidding. That shit is hard to watch.

Not only is it hard to watch, it’s apparently easy to confuse with real life. This is a huge mistake. Never trust anyone who is completely unaccountable for their actions. Nowhere are people more unaccountable than in the media. It just goes by too fast for anyone to notice. Lies fade as readily as a good feeling on a bad day. And even if someone gets busted, there is always a replacement on hand.

The disturbing part is that these are the loudest voices that we hear – the word “people” being used loosely. More than anything, these TV pundits are characters. Characters in search of audiences and ratings, characters that manage to convince Americans that they are real. Maybe the Rearguard has become cynical in it’s eleventh year of college. Maybe the Left and the Right each un-erringly represent equal portions of the population. But it seems unlikely. More likely is that in the search for sport and entertainment, the American population has let its media institutions turn into bad reality shows.

Again, that shit is hard to watch.

The bullshit has left one portion of America’s youth to cower in cheap bars, soaking in narcissistic squalor, and the other to spend more time in virtual worlds than real ones. Are they less interested than previous generations, or were previous generations not so special after all? When was the real golden age of a committed citizenry? The 1760s? The 1860s? The 1960s? Will the world have to wait another fifty years for the spirit of change to swing back around? The Rearguard believes that it’s time for the people to take back the airwaves. Join together, get involved. Rally behind a newspaper that is so desperate for content (such as this one) that they will get your voice heard. But please let it be a rational one.

A call for action by a newspaper may seem quaint in a time when print publications are supposedly desperate for an audience. Supposedly printed matter is being killed off by the internet. But it’s not. It’s actually quite the opposite. Technology exists to bridge the gap between print and online, and the Rearguard intends to keep up with new media. For example, the Rearguard is using QR codes in the print version, which will enable students to use their smart phones to connect directly with relevant online content. No messy URLs. No forgetting that thing you were going to look up when you got home. It’s all right here.

The Rearguard would like to see people relax about party lines, rediscover what we’ve got in common, and work from there.

It’s no secret that the Rearguard leans to the Left. But it doesn’t want to lean so hard that it falls over. And it doesn’t want that for PSU students either. The Spectator is the conservative voice on campus and in the humble opinion of the Rearguard it has grown to be a fairly rational one. While it is likely that there will be no end to the disagreements between the two publications, the smart student will read both and then decide for themselves. Because if there is one tenet that the Left can agree on it’s the citizen’s right to choice and to free expression.

Unfortunately, agreements don’t make for very exciting news. Take healthcare, for example. The televised Right would have you believe that the Left will not be happy until we are living in a brutal, fascist, socialist country that provides only the worst possible healthcare to every human in America. TV’s Left would be happy if everyone thought that the Republicans actually, deep down inside, wanted people with low incomes to suffer horribly painful, medically untreated, disease-ridden deaths. With the exception of the crazies, it seems unlikely that anyone actually feels this way. But that’s how good guys and bad guys are created, and that’s what Americans like to see on TV.

The Rearguard does not care if you are a Democrat, Libertarian or Republican. It doesn’t care about your racial background or your sexual proclivities. It just does not want you to grow up and become another contentious asshole on TV. That, and it cares that you try to get involved. -Ed

All the Rearguard asks of the student population, besides its unwavering adoration and participation, is that when confronted with the ridiculousness of the media it remember this: Important events are happening in our world, and like it or not, the people battling on TV and the internets are controlling the dialogue. But doesn’t have to be that way. The rules are changing as new methods of communication roll out each day.

The Rearguard wants to represent you, the PSU community. Politicians have a hard time doing it, and lawyers are expensive. This paper is about starting a dialogue. Stop by the office. Send in a letter. Comment on the site. Get involved. -g