Is Israel preparing a new war on Gaza? by Eric Ruder

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

by Eric Ruder
SocialistWorker.org
April 4, 2011

Eric Ruder reports on Israel’s new attacks on Gaza–and the threat of worse.

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE marched in Gaza in a funeral procession for three Hamas members killed by Israeli air strikes while driving in a car near Khan Younis on April 1. Ten days earlier on March 22, Israeli air strikes and shelling killed four members of Islamic Jihad east of Gaza City and four civilians–including three youth aged 12, 16 and 17–in two separate attacks. The day before that, 19 Palestinians were wounded in air strikes throughout Gaza.

These are some of the casualties in a sharp escalation in Israel’s pounding of the people of Gaza–with the threat of worse to come.

I believe I Saw Muammar Gaddafi On My Way To the Colosseum by Gaither Stewart

by Gaither Stewart
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
4 April, 2011

Image by MarcelGermain via Flickr

The sting of satire can often underscore certain truths that straight prose rarely manages to touch.

(Roma) A cold wind was blowing down Mussolini’s showpiece avenue. The Via dei Fori Imperiali is the site of victory parades. The victory over the duplicitous Ethiopians. The victory over the ambitious Libyans of East and West. The victory over the ferocious Albanians. It was about 3 p.m. Rain was in the air. The Roman Forum alongside the great avenue was relatively empty this last day of March. As each time I pass I stopped to observe the tourists looking at the ancient Roman ruins of numerous basilicas and arches and statues extending from the Campidoglio to the Colosseum.

“White City” in Afghanistan – Black Heart in Florida by Kathleen Kirwin

by Kathleen Kirwin
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
April 4, 2011
Kabul, Afghanistan

As Pastor Terry Jones revels in his victory against Islam while he basks in the Florida sun thousands of miles away savoring both limelight and vindication, the city of Kabul, from where I write, and the rest of Afghanistan has been declared “White City”, which is a United Nations order requiring that all of its personnel remain locked down in their compounds. Although “White City” is technically a UN security alert…its highest security alert…it is a well-known and long-standing signal to everyone else on the ground here, both Afghan and foreigner alike, that extreme danger is at hand and that they too should secure themselves accordingly. Credible rumor has it that the UN will decide in the next few hours whether to completely pull out of the country, despite multiple assertions to the contrary by the UN Special Representative to Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, who is based in Kabul.

This Is What Resistance Looks Like by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
April 4, 2011

used with permission
photo by William Bowles
http://williambowles.info/

The phrase consent of the governed has been turned into a cruel joke. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. Civil Disobedience is the only tool we have left.

We will not halt the laying off of teachers and other public employees, the slashing of unemployment benefits, the closing of public libraries, the reduction of student loans, the foreclosures, the gutting of public education and early childhood programs or the dismantling of basic social services such as heating assistance for the elderly until we start to carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience against the financial institutions responsible for our debacle.