American Exceptionalism to the Rescue by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
June 4, 2012

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

U.S. Secretary of War Leon Panetta is making a tour of the Asia-Pacific where he is pumping up the next military conflict.  Yesterday I heard he was in Vietnam trying to close a deal to allow the U.S. Navy to once again have access to the base at Cam Ranh Bay.

Before leaving on this trip Panetta made the speaking rounds back home to consolidate U.S. media and build public support for Obama’s “pivot” into the Asia-Pacific. 

The Maple Spring and the Mafiocracy: Struggling Students versus “Entitled Elites” by Andrew Gavin Marshall

Image by ricardoara via Flickr

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com
June 3, 2012

It says a great deal about our society when hundreds of thousands of students – already largely indebted, a significant portion of whom live well below the poverty line, who already work what few jobs exist for a generation forgotten before we leave home – take to the streets in protest and are portrayed as “entitled”, “spoiled brats” as they attempt to “negotiate” their very chance of having a future in this society… with a government that supports and works with organized crime, which is beholden to an economic elite, and which supports only those who can already support themselves.

The Predatory Beast of Capitalism by William T. Hathaway

by William T. Hathaway
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 1, 2012

Image by Collin David Anderson via Flickr

As the living conditions of ordinary people inevitably worsen under capitalism and as its wars cause increasing devastation, tides of protest rise up from the population. The ruling elite then seek to stem these tides before they reach flood state.

In 2008 the tide was rising to dangerous levels as millions of people worldwide took to the streets to demonstrate against US economic and military imperialism.

Their enemy is our enemy by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
June 4, 2012

Image by fatseth via Flickr

I gave a talk last week at Canada’s Wilfrid Laurier University to the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Many in the audience had pinned small red squares of felt to their clothing. The carre rouge, or red square, has become the Canadian symbol of revolt. It comes from the French phrase carrement dans le rouge, or “squarely in the red,” referring to those crushed by debt.