The Righteous Road to Ruin by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
June 28, 2012

Image by greenwise art via Flickr

“The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”

A book by Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion” trumpets yet another grand theory of evolution, this time in the form of evolutionary psychology, which purports to unravel the mystery of moral behavior. Such theories, whether in the form of dialectical materialism, Social Darwinism, biblical inherency or its more bizarre subsets of phrenology or eugenics, never hold up against the vast complexity of history, the inner workings of economic and political systems, and the intricacies of the human psyche. But simplicity has a strong appeal for those who seek order in the chaos of existence.

Five Years for Dandelion Salad … So Time for a New Focus by Lo

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

by Lo
Editor
Dandelion Salad
June 27, 2012

Well, it’s been 5 years now on Dandelion Salad and most of my regular readers are well informed of the death and destruction running amok in the world, so I’m going to change the focus of the blog.

The Julian Assange Show: Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali (E10)

Image by Andrew Rusk via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Jun 26, 2012 by RussiaToday

A surprise Arab drive for freedom, the West’s structural crisis and new hope coming from Latin America. That’s the modern world in the eyes of Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali, two prominent thinkers and this week’s guests on Julian Assange’s show on RT.

Gareth Porter: Economic War Against Iran Continues; Still No Evidence of a Weapons Program

with Gareth Porter
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 26, 2012

Jun 25, 2012 by TheRealNews

Gareth Porter: US continues to insist Iran gives up all nuclear enrichment and offers no concessions on sanctions

Michael Parenti: Lesser of Two Evils?

with Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Michael Parenti Blog
www.michaelparenti.org
June 25, 2012

Abandoned church – Camden NJ
Image by Joscarfas via Flickr

by AkashaTempleRadio
Progress Toward Democracy
Blog Talk Radio

Brian Stetten and Ruthann Amarteifio, looking for Democracy!

Michael Parenti, http://www.michaelparenti.org, author of 23 books, is our guest.  He’ll be talking against the Empire, along with other current topics.

Are Wars Inevitable? by William T. Hathaway

by William T. Hathaway
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 20, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

“We’ve always had wars. Humans are a warring species. Without an army to defend us, someone will always try to conquer us.”

These assumptions have become axioms of our culture. They generate despair but also a certain comfort because they relieve us of the responsibility to change.

Some politicians and pundits declare that human nature makes peace impossible, that war is built into our genes.

Drone Zone: Rep. Ed Markey on the Proposed GOP Operational Control (HR 1505)

by Bruce Gagnon
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
June 25, 2012

“House Republican leaders are pushing legislation to waive up to 36 key environmental, public land management, and other laws. Setting up military style border control surveillance, detention, patrol and searches — potentially including the use of unmanned flying drones — 100 miles from the northern and southern border of the United States.”

Time for Corporate Patriotism! by Ralph Nader

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
June 20, 2012

Image by watchingfrogsboil via Flickr

What would happen if we asked the executives of the giant U.S. corporations, whose products constantly surround us, to show some corporate patriotism?

After all, General Electric, DuPont, Citigroup, Pfizer and others demand that they be treated as “persons” under our Constitution and our laws. And, they expect unfiltered loyalty from American workers even to the point of blocking the organization of unions so workers can band together for collective bargaining.

Are Palestinians Being Scapegoated Over Army Killings in Lebanon? by Franklin Lamb

by Franklin Lamb
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Beirut, Lebanon
June 22, 2012

The killings of three Palestinian refugees this past week including Ahmad Qassim  from Nahr al Bared (‘cold river’) camp near Tripoli and 15 year old Khaled al-Youssef from Ein el Helwe (‘ the beautiful eye’)  30 miles south of Beirut in Saida, and the wounding of more than a dozen others by the Lebanese army were not, as some Lebanese  politicians are claiming, “accidental security incidents”.  They were avoidable negligent homicides as much so as Zionist occupation forces and settler/colonists in Palestine regularly commit.

NATO Expands Military Network To All Continents by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
June 22, 2012

The top military officials – chiefs of defense staff – and other representatives of 55 North Atlantic Treaty Organization and partnership states met in Croatia on June 18-20 for the 2012 Strategic Military Partnership Conference.

NATO’s Allied Command Transformation, established at the 1999 fiftieth anniversary summit in Washington, D.C. and the first alliance command based in the U.S. (in Norfolk, Virginia),

Paraguay Coup: Will Obama Join Latin America and Condemn Ouster of President Fernando Lugo?

Dandelion Salad

An enlargeable map of the Republic of Paraguay (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jun 25, 2012 by democracynow

DemocracyNow.org – Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo has been ousted in what he has described as a parliamentary coup. On Friday, the Paraguayan Senate voted 39-to-4 to impeach Lugo, saying he had failed in his duty to maintain social order following a recent land dispute which resulted in the deaths of six police officers and 11 peasant farmers. A former priest, Lugo was once called the “Bishop of the Poor” and was known for defending peasant rights. Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile and Uruguay have all condemned Lugo’s ouster, but the question remains whether the Obama administration will recognize the new government.

Adrienne Pine: Honduran Scholars Call on US to Cease Support for Military and Police

Dandelion Salad

Image by davidNallah via Flickr

Transcript

Jun 24, 2012 by TheRealNews

Adrienne Pine: 40 Honduran scholars, supported by 300 academics from 29 countries, sent a letter to President Obama demanding the end of U.S. support for Honduran military and police training—and that the war on drugs is not a rationale for supporting a regime that is violently suppressing its own people.

“Netanyahu has decided to attack Iran before the U.S. Elections in November.” by Michael Carmichael

by Michael Carmichael
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
PlanetaryMovement.org
June 25, 2012

Senior Israeli officials now confirm that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has, “decided to attack Iran before the U.S. elections in November.”

Netanyahu’s agenda is much broader than knocking out Iranian nuclear installations for his aim is to reshape the political landscape in the USA and Israel shifting everything to the far, far right in order to create a new comfort zone for religious fundamentalists.

“Everything is gone” by Chris Hedges

Note: retitled on June 28, 2012

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
June 25, 2012

Abandoned church – Camden NJ
Image by Blake W.B. via Flickr

I park my car in the lot in front of the rectory of Sacred Heart in Camden, N.J., and walk through a gray drizzle to Emerald Street. My friend Lolly Davis, whose blood pressure recently shot up and whose kidneys shut down, had been taken to a hospital in an ambulance but was now home. I climb the concrete steps to her row house and ring the bell. There is an overpowering stench of garbage in the street. Her house is set amid other brick and wooden residences, some of which have been refurbished under Monsignor Michael Doyle’s Heart of Camden project at Sacred Heart, a Roman Catholic parish. Other structures on Davis’ street sit derelict or bear the scars of decay and long abandonment.

World Refugee Day: “Crusaders” Collateral Damage by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
London, England
21 June 2012

Image by unicefiran via Flickr

“We travel like other people, but we return to nowhere …
We have a country of words.
Speak, speak so we may know the end of this travel.” (Mahmud Darwish, 1942-2008)

Wednesday, 20^th June was World Refugee Day.

This acknowledgement of the tragically displaced was declared an annual event on the 50^th anniversary of the establishment of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR.). Thus, in December 2000 the United Nations General Assembly unanimously designated June 20^th as annual World Refugee Day.