Manifesto

In the USA, at the beginning of 2017, we are passing through some trying times. Some of us voted one way, some voted another. All of us are on edge, many are angry. Both sides are pointing fingers and casting blame.

This blog takes the position that most of us are far more the same than we are different. Trump voters, Hillary voters, Democrats, Republicans, Communists, and Neo-Nazis, most of us are concerned about the same things. Will we be OK? Will our children, or the children of our family and friends, be OK? Will we have enough money, enough food, shelter? Will we die in a war, or of not enough health care? Will we be able to get a job?

We're all humans. We share roughly the same needs, desires, hopes.

One thing is certain, if we don't look after one another, nobody else is going to. Only the most naive really think that our leaders, whatever party they are currently attached to, truly love us.

This blog aims to emphasize the sameness that we, the ordinary American People, share. Take away the signs, the words, and we all look pretty much the same.

This is why this blog is about photography. The visual arts allow us to remove the words without losing the message, and without the words our unity becomes clear. Photography records, in some sense, truth, which is why this blog excludes drawings, paintings, etchings, and so on.

Photography best expresses that truth of our oneness as human beings in the USA.

It's what this blog is about. No more, no less.

Do you have some work that expresses our unity? Submit it. We're looking, generally, for smallish groups of photos. 3 to 20 pictures is the ideal, but we're not committed to it. Do you have a single image that expresses the oneness of the American People? Submit away. An essay of 1200 pictures, well, maybe! The editor, Andrew Molitor, reserves the right to reject or accept any work at all, based on any criteria whatsoever, but I will try not to be a jerk about it.

Please have the right to grant TUSOAS the right to publish whatever it is you're submitting. No stolen pix, no appropriated pix, not your boyfriend's pix, please. Partisan rhetoric, however presented, will be rejected silently. This is about unity, not division. Submissions to tusoas.contact@gmail.com please.