Greg Palast: Lobbyists benefit from BP oil spill + Gulf Coast, grab your gas masks!

with Greg Palast
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.gregpalast.com
30 June, 2010

RTAmerica | June 30, 2010

BP is claiming it’s willing to pay back people who suffered from the Gulf oil spill. But the legal road ahead remains arduous. As with the Valdez, experts say litigation could take up to 20 years and many analysts have said BP will be paying billions more until it is all cleaned up. The big question is whether actual victims of the disaster are going to get this money or the largest bulk of it will go to pockets of lawyers?

Dennis Kucinich Introduces Cell Phone Research, Warning Label Bill

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by Congressman Dennis Kucinich

Washington, Jun 30, 2010

Today Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) announced his intent to introduce a bill to create a new national research program to study cell phones and health, require an update of the decades-old Specific Absorption Rate (SAR), and grant a consumer’s right-to-know by providing for warning labels on cell phones.

“Consumers have a right to know whether they are buying the phone with the lowest – or the highest – level of exposure to cell phone radiation. They also deserve to have up to date standards, which are now decades old,” said Kucinich.

The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom Part 2: Revolution and Repression in America by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 30, 2010

This is Part 2 of the series, The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom

Part 1: The Global Political Awakening and the New World Order

Introduction

As outlined in Part 1 of this series, “The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom,” there are two major geopolitical realities in the world today, both largely brought about as a result of the “Technological Revolution” in which technology and electronics have come to define and shape our society.

The Technological Revolution has led to a diametrically opposed, antagonistic, and conflicting geopolitical reality: never before has humanity been so awakened to issues of power, exploitation, imperialism and domination; and simultaneously, never before have elites been so transnational and global in orientation, and with the ability to impose such a truly global system of scientific despotism and political oppression. These are the two major geopolitical realities of the world today. Never in all of human history has mankind been so capable of achieving a true global political psycho-social awakening; nor has humanity ever been in such danger of being subjected to a truly global scientific totalitarianism, potentially more oppressive than any system known before, and without a doubt more technologically capable of imposing a permanent despotism upon humanity. So we are filled with hope, but driven by urgency. In all of human history, never has the potential nor the repercussions of human actions and ideas ever been so monumental.

Living on a dying delta by Dahr Jamail

http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1108805

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

by Dahr Jamail
Dahr Jamail Dispatches
June 30, 2010

Our first full day in Louisiana finds us venturing south from New Orleans to Houma, a town about an hours drive to the southwest. It is from here we are to take a flight over the marsh to inspect the damage, thus far, caused by the ongoing BP oil catastrophe.

Walking into the office of Butler Aviation Services at the airport, the downtrodden mood, and accompanying anger, are palpable. Of course this is not assisted by the fact that Vice President Joe Biden is visiting Louisiana today.

Naomi Klein to police: Don’t play public relations, do your goddamned job! + Judy Rebick: We won’t shut the F*ck up!

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rabbletv | June 28, 2010

After the widely condemned police brutality during the G20 Summit in Toronto, crowds gathered for a protest in front of Police Headquarters in Toronto on Monday, June 28, 2010. There, Naomi Klein tore into the Toronto Police for choosing to “play public relations” instead of doing their job.

Who Will Pay, Wall Street or Main Street – The Tobin Tax or The Vat? by Dr. Ellen Brown

by Dr. Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
June 29, 2010

Wall Street banks have been saved from bankruptcy by governments that are now going bankrupt themselves; but the banks are not returning the favor. Instead, they are engaged in a class war, insisting that the squeezed middle class be even further squeezed to balance over-stressed government budgets. All the perks are going to Wall Street, while Main Street slips into debt slavery. Wall Street needs to be made to pay its fair share, but how?

The financial reform bill agreed to on June 25 may have carved out some protections for consumers, but for Goldman Sachs and the derivatives lobby, the bill was a clear win, leaving the Wall Street gambling business intact. In a June 25 Newsweek article titled “Financial Reform Makes Biggest Banks Stronger,” Michael Hirsh wrote that the bill “effectively anoints the existing banking elite. The bill makes it likely that they will be the future giants of banking as well.”

Inheritance Lost: Must Baby Turtles Die for Oil Rigs To Live? By Robert S. Becker

by Robert S. Becker
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
rbecker@cal.net
June 29, 2010

photo by Katy Pye
used with permission
© All rights reserved.

South Padre Island, Texas:

Sidestepping this week’s oncoming hurricane, my wife and I just returned from the south Texas coast where we observed 116 soup spoon-sized hatchling sea turtles marching boldly into the Gulf.  It was a heartrending turtle release full of beauty, promise and dread, an emblem of the fierce battle between life and death on the Gulf.  Today’s scorecard favors the grim reaper as spreading oil pollution menaces both our largest shrimp-turtle-fish nursery and up to one-third of the world’s oceans.

No Blow Movement Grows By Shepherd Bliss

By Shepherd Bliss
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://www.vowvop.org
June 29, 2010

photo by Dandelion Salad

Peter and Susan Kendall of Orinda, Northern California, are not your typical political activists. This couple really wants some peace and quiet, so they can be comfortable within their suburban home and with their backyard chickens, berries and tomatoes.

But wait! While at their home recently a siren-pitched, shrieking scream interrupted that serenity—a leaf blower, which some call a debris blower, since it kicks up far more than leaves. The couple had bought three different kinds of leaf blowers, not to use, but to demonstrate how much noise and air pollution they make, even the allegedly quieter ones.

Keiser Report №55: Ellen Brown on deficit terrorism

with Dr. Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
June 29, 2010

RussiaToday | June 29, 2010 | 26 minutes

This time Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, look at the latest scandals of invisible gorillas, virtual pay and China’s hi-tech underclass. In the second half of the show, Max talks to Ellen Brown, author of Web of Debt, about ‘deficit terrorism.’

If Ralph Nader was asking questions to Supreme Court Nominee Kagan

http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1108621

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
June 29, 2010

Supreme Court nominations are a rare opportunity for millions of Americans to watch, learn and converse about what the Court, the Constitution and the Justices mean for their way of life, their freedoms and their livelihoods.

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee should consider asking Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who has been nominated to be an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, some or all of the following questions.

1. Do you believe that for-profit corporations should have First Amendment political speech rights identical to those of humans?

John Pilger: There Is a War on Journalism

http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1108615

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Democracy Now!
June 29, 2010

John Pilger: There Is a War on Journalism

It’s been a week since Rolling Stone published its article on General Stanley McChrystal that eventually led to him being fired by President Obama. Since the article came out, Rolling Stone and the reporter who broke the story, Michael Hastings, have come under attack in the mainstream media for violating the so-called “ground rules” of journalism. But the investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger says Hastings was simply doing what all true journalists need to do.

Black Block get green light to rampage? + Jesse Freeston on Canadian national TV

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G20 Toronto Black Block get green light to rampage?

CanadiansNanaimo | June 28, 2010 | 4:17

A photo Journalist describes his experience following the black block as they rampage through the streets of Toronto during the G20 Summit.

20,000 police and security officials and a $1 billion security budget were not enough to stop 75-100 black block anarchists from smashing windows and torching police cars during a 1.5 hour rampage. The Black Block were able to rampage through the street for 24 blocks until they reached the ‘official protest zone’ where they quickly changed clothes dispersed through the crowd of peaceful protesters and then left the site.

The Iranian Threat by Noam Chomsky

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by Noam Chomsky
http://www.zcommunications.org
June 28, 2010

The dire threat of Iran is widely recognized to be the most serious foreign policy crisis facing the Obama administration. Congress has just strengthened the sanctions against Iran, with even more severe penalties against foreign companies. The Obama administration has been rapidly expanding its offensive capacity in the African island of Diego Garcia, claimed by Britain, which had expelled the population so that the US could build the massive base it uses for attacking the Middle East and Central Asia. The Navy reports sending a submarine tender to the island to service nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines with Tomahawk missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads.

Because we must… for their sake by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner June 26, 2010
June 28, 2010

Banging out this essay on my laptop as Delta Airlines ferries me from Kansas City to Portland, I’m once again preparing to table for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office at the Let Live Conference. It was about this time last year that I attended this same conference and met fellow press officers Jerry Vlasak and Camille Hankins for the first time. I also attended several demonstrations with some local Portland activists (for whom I have a great deal of admiration) and listened to several inspirational talks by powerful activists.

Paul Jay: Toronto G20 – The Shape Of Things To Come

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http://therealnews.com

Paul Jay: Are extraordinary police powers and cuts to people’s safety net the G-20 plan for the future?