The Arab Slave Trade In Foreign Workers Is Alive and Well by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from PressTV
January 2, 2013

Image by Imagens Evangélicas via Flickr

Recent legal moves by the governments of Ethiopia, Indonesia and the Philippines to protect their nationals working in the Persian Gulf Arab states point to this harrowing fact: the Arab slave trade in foreign workers is alive and well.

Rights groups estimate that there are up to 15 million migrant workers located in the Persian Gulf Arab countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Paid pittance wages and subsisting in dirty, overcrowded dwellings, these workers provide the labour backbone of the Arab oil economies.

Chris Williams: Hurricane Sandy’s Brutal Wake Up Call–Act Now or Face Catastrophe

Dandelion Salad

http://www.haymarketbooks.org/event/3663

Image by Restore_the_Rock via Flickr

Southern Connecticut State University
December 4, 2012

No longer is the impact of climate change a question of if, but rather a question of when. The New York Times says storms like Sandy could become a yearly event.

Featured Speaker: Chris Williams– author, activist and professor of physics and chemistry at Pace University.

Latvia’s Economic Disaster as a Neoliberal Success Story: A Model for Europe and the US? by Jeffrey Sommers and Michael Hudson

Image by To Uncertainty And Beyond via Flickr

by Jeffrey Sommers and Michael Hudson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
michael-hudson.com
January 3, 2013

A generation ago the Chicago Boys and their financial supporters applauded General Pinochet’s anti-labor Chile as a success story, thanks mainly to its transformation of their Social Security into Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) that almost universally were looted by the employer grupos by the end of the 1970s. In the last decade, the Bush Administration, seeking a Trojan Horse to privatize Social Security in the United States, applauded Chile’s disastrous privatization of pension accounts (turning many over to US financial institutions) even as that nation’s voters rejected the Pinochetistas largely out of anger at the vast pension rip-off by high finance.

Compare the 1912 Elections with the 2012 Elections by Ralph Nader

Image by Kheel Center, Cornell University via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
Dec. 31, 2012

Before the electoral year of 2012 slinks into history, it is worth a comparative glance back to the electoral year of 1912 to give us some jolting perspective on how degraded our contemporary elections, voter performance and election expectations have become.

One hundred years ago, workers were marching, picketing and forming unions. Eugene Debs, the great labor leader and presidential candidate that year, spoke to outdoor labor rallies of 100,000 to 200,000 workers and their families gathered to protest low wages and working conditions.

The Stimulator: Anarchy in Puerto Rico

Image by jonathonreed via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

http://submedia.tv
Jan. 3, 2013

This week:

1. Zapatistas Rising
2. Idle No More stops the flows
3. New year’s eve noise demo

A Political Odyssey: The Rise of American Militarism reviewed by Milina Jovanović

by Milina Jovanović
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
originally published at www.zcommunications.org
January 2, 2013

Image by jcolman via Flickr

Mike Gravel and Joe Lauria. A Political Odyssey: The Rise of American Militarism and One Man’s Fight to Stop It. 2008. Seven Stories Press.

When I finished reading the last pages of this book, I had to sit still and think about several discoveries. It is difficult for me to truly believe that I can actually like a life story, way of thinking, and actions of a high-level American politician. I come from a country, generation, and professional environment that didn’t encourage any naiveté about politics of any country. And we certainly didn’t grow up embracing any myths about the most significant characteristics of the global empire.

Michael Ratner: Obama Orders Assassinations with No Oversight

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Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews·Jan 5, 2013

Michael Ratner: Obama continues model of Presidential fiat, Congressional fiat, no due process, no trials, and indefinite detention.