Let The Sun Shine In: California Could Be The Golden State Again by Dr. Ellen Brown

by Dr. Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
July 13, 2009

Four Wall Street banks, which received $15-25 billion each from the taxpayers, have rejected California’s IOUs because the State is supposedly a bad credit risk. The bailed out banks would seem to have a duty to lend a helping hand, but they say they don’t want to delay an agreement on further austerity measures. State legislators are not bowing quickly to the pressure, but what is the alternative?

In the latest twist to the California budget saga, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase (which each got $25 billion in bailout money from the taxpayers) and Bank of America (which got $15 billion) have refused California’s request for a loan to tide it over until October. Until the State can get things sorted out, it has started paying its creditors in IOUs (“I Owe You’s” or promises to pay bearing interest, technically called registered warrants). Its Wall Street creditors, however, have refused to take them. Why? The pot says the kettle is a poor credit risk!

I’ve Seen 1,200 Torture Photos By David Swanson

Dandelion Salad

By David Swanson
ICH
July 13, 2009 “Democrats.com“

This moment, in which the Attorney General of the United States claims to be considering the possibility of allowing our laws against torture to be enforced seems a good one in which to reveal that I have seen over 1,200 torture photos and a dozen videos that are in the possession of the United States military. These are photographs depicting torture, the victims of torture, and other inhuman and degrading treatment. Several videos show a prisoner intentionally slamming his head face-first very hard into a metal door. Guards filmed this from several angles rather than stopping it.

The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) of Australia revealed several of these photographs, video of the head slamming, and video of prisoners forced to masturbate, as part of a news report broadcast in 2006. But the full collection has not been made available to the public or to a special prosecutor, although it was shown to members of Congress in 2004. When these photos are eventually made public, I encourage you to take a good look at them. After you get over feeling ill, it might be appropriate to consider Congress’ past 5 years of inaction. You’ll be able to feel sick all over again.

What Sotomayor Could Mean for Network Neutrality and the First Amendment + Franken

Crossposted with permission from The Free Press.

Dandelion Salad

By Marvin Ammori
Save the Internet
July 13, 2009

Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will ask Judge Sonia Sotomayor questions this week and has said he will ask about network neutrality.

As the Daily Show once explained, “network neutrality” is a proposed law that would forbid phone and cable companies from interfering with your Internet access. These companies have announced a desire to cut special deals with Web sites, to slow some down, speed some up, and just block others. On wireless platforms, the carriers already limit Internet access, for example, by not permitting you to use Skype on the mobile Internet.

Will Eric Holder Be The Anti-Torture Hero? by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
13 July 2009

In an important article for Newsweek, “Independent’s Day,” Daniel Klaidman manages not only to present a convincingly intimate and sympathetic first-hand portrait of Eric Holder, the first African-American Attorney General in US history, demonstrating how “[h]is first instinct is to shy away from confrontation, to search for common ground,” and how he remains haunted by his role in the pardon of Marc Rich at the end of the Clinton administration, but also to explain how “[f]our knowledgeable sources” told him that Holder is “leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do.”

As Klaidman notes, “Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama’s domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. ‘I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president’s agenda,’ he says. ‘But that can’t be a part of my decision.’”

The Man in the Mirror by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 13, 2009

In celebrity culture we destroy what we worship. The commercial exploitation of Michael Jackson’s death was orchestrated by the corporate forces that rendered Jackson insane. Jackson, robbed of his childhood and surrounded by vultures that preyed on his fears and weaknesses, was so consumed by self-loathing he carved his African-American face into an ever changing Caucasian death mask and hid his apparent pedophilia behind a Peter Pan illusion of eternal childhood. He could not disentangle his public and his private self. He became a commodity, a product, one to be sold, used and manipulated. He was infected by the moral nihilism and personal disintegration that are at the core of our corporate culture. And his fantasies of eternal youth, delusions of majesty, and desperate, disfiguring quests for physical transformation were expressions of our own yearning. He was a reflection of us in the extreme.

US Afghan forces “bomb own base”

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[note: replaced video]

AlJazeeraEnglish
July 13, 2009

Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage of US forces bombing one of their own outposts after it was overrun by Taliban fighters.

This particular incident happened two months ago in Kunar province, and it’s having repercussions on the way forces operate.

Al Jazeera’s Clayton Swisher joined US troops on patrol.

more about “US Afghan forces bomb own base – 13 J…“, posted with vodpod

see

Afghanistan on Dandelion Salad

Exclusive: Why The Davinci Code is a Brilliant Racist Book by Rocket Kirchner

by Rocket Kirchner
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Rocket Kirchner (blog)
Rocket Kirchner (youtube channel)
July 13, 2009

How does one take a universal nonviolent message that is all inclusive, and pervert it into an exclusive violent message that is steeped in a specific family passed on through the ages instead of the family of man? TALENT. And writer Dan Brown has it.  Somehow this great author after 4 books has managed to strike a nerve where we are most vulnerable: our racism. The Divinci Code would have been a hit all on its own just by the mere pacing and intrigue of the book with its strong characters and amazing sense of detail to plot. It is a thriller of the first degree and it appeals to our intellect as well as the kind of action that we all love in a book. But in all its aesthetic greatness, let’s look deeper into what the writer is trying to say.

The message of The Davinci Code is that Jesus did not come to Earth to preach a universal message, but rather to start a family with all its keep off the grass signs firmly in tact, with a whole set of codes and knights to violently guard it. Mmmm. Beats me. When I read the new testament he seems to be tearing down the family by stating that only those who do the will of God are his mothers, brothers, and sisters.  No family values here folks.  He also firmly told his followers to love their enemies. The guardians of the grail seek to kill them. They have become exactly what they hate in the Roman Catholic Church. And then there is this whole bloodline thing. Jesus’ message was to end that. That was one of the reasons that his own people did not like his message being so universal.

Now this all makes for good fiction, but one question remains: why is it so damn popular? Being popular is one thing, but being Elvis popular is quite another. I think it is over the top popular because the world is still bloodline racist nuclear family exclusive in its thought and action. The real kicker is that those who appear to be so hip like it because it is taboo. But is it really taboo? It mirrors our selfishness, and shows how provincial we really are. That is not taboo.  Interesting yes, but taboo…no. Taboo is to be found in the revolutionary Jesus of the 4 gospels that subverted all of the values of the Roman Empire, the Jewish Law, the social structures of his day, and changed the hearts of men. Truth is always stranger than fiction. And more exciting too.

see

Jesus was a Communist by Darren Pedigo

Exclusive: The Importance of Christopher Hitchens By Rocket Kirchner

Exclusive: Why unbelievers love Christian hypocrites by Rocket Kirchner

Exclusive: The Moral Police 2036 by Rocket Kirchner

Angels, Demons and the Roman Catholic Church by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

The Banks’ Massive Theft By Dennis Kucinich

Dandelion Salad

By Dennis Kucinich
The Progressive
July 11, 2009

Why we desperately need monetary reform

Congress was taken for a ride, and the American people’s wealth went with it.

So now you have a system of checks and balances. The Treasury writes all the checks, and Congress doesn’t know what the balance is.

Trillions of dollars are being taken both from the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, which is printing money, which you, the American taxpayer, have to back up.

We need to begin to have a serious discussion of monetary reform because what’s been allowed to happen is that banks have been permitted to create money out of nothing, and they have not held sufficient reserves against their investments that could go sour. This caused the collapse of a financial system that’s being shored up with U.S. tax dollars and with trillions of dollars printed by the Fed as backup.

[...]

via The Banks’ Massive Theft | The Progressive

see

The Fed Under Fire

Is the Fed Juicing the Stock Market? by Mike Whitney

What the Big Banks Have Won – Regulatory Capture by Mike Whitney

Kucinich: Fed Deserves Audit First, New Authority Second

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2

Federal Reserve on Dandelion Salad

Feeling the Hate in Tel Aviv — The Sequel to the Video YouTube Censored

Dandelion Salad

mblumenthal
July 12, 2009

Max Blumenthal and Jesse Rosenfeld interview young Tel Aviv residents about Iran, Obama and right-wing laws limiting the speech rights of their Palestinian-Israeli neighbors. The shocking responses reflect the deepening of racist and authoritarian trends in Israeli society. This is the sequel to “Feeling the Hate in Jerusalem,” the video banned by YouTube, Vimeo and the Huffington Post after topping 400,000 hits.

 

Feeling the Hate in Tel Aviv — The S…

see

Not all Israeli youth are fascist and/or racist, but some are + Jews Gone Wild + What hate?

If Americans Knew – what every American needs to know about Israel/Palestine + Maps

Viva Palestina Updates 2 and 3

Dandelion Salad

Convoy Update 2

by Kevin Ovenden
Viva Palestina coordinator
July 12, 2009, 2:45 am
Cairo

The 100 Viva Palestina humanitarian volunteers have decided to stay the night in their buses at the Mubarak Peace Bridge over the Suez Canal despite pressure from the Egyptian security officials to return to Cairo.

The official reason given at the checkpoint for refusing to allow them to cross is that the officials there did not have a list of the names of the members of the convoy. Such a list was, however, at the request of the Egyptian authorities before any of the convoy members set foot in Egypt sent to the Egyptian ambassadors to Washington, D.C., and London.

[...]

via Viva Palestina US » Convoy Update 2

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Viva Palestina Convoy update #3

Jesus was a Communist by Darren Pedigo

by Darren Pedigo
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Red Star Journal
July 13, 2009

Image via Wikipedia

“Capitalism is the way of the devil and exploitation. If you really want to look at things through the eyes of Jesus Christ – who I think was the first socialist – only socialism can really create a genuine society.” – Hugo Chavez

Personally, I don’t think Jesus ever existed. I do not say this to hurt my Comrades of the Christian, Muslim, or Messianic Jewish faiths, but rather because I just haven’t seen enough evidence.