State of Fear by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
January 7, 2013

Image by arimoore via Flickr

Shannon McLeish of Florida is a 45-year-old married mother of two young children. She is a homeowner, a taxpayer and a safe driver. She votes in every election. She attends a Unitarian Universalist church on Sundays. She is also, like nearly all who have a relationship with the Occupy movement in the United States, being monitored by the federal government. She knows this because when she read FBI documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) through the Freedom of Information Act, she was startled to see a redaction that could only be referring to her. McLeish’s story is the story of hundreds of thousands of people—perhaps more—whose lives are being invaded by the state.

Corporate Culture and Global Empire: Food Crisis, Land Grabs, Poverty, Slums, Environmental Devastation and Resistance by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com
January 7, 2013

Image by jonathonreed via Flickr

Corporate power is immense. The world’s largest corporation is Royal Dutch Shell, surpassed in wealth only by the 24 largest countries on earth. Of the 150 largest economic entities in the world, 58% are corporations. Corporations are institutionally totalitarian, the result of power’s resistance to the democratic revolution, which was begrudgingly accepted in the political sphere, but denied the economic sphere, and thus was denied a truly democratic society.

Out of Season by Lesley Docksey

by Lesley Docksey
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Jan. 2, 2013

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.
–William Henry Davies

Each year that passes I become more despairing over the lack of action to contain climate change, a despair echoed by George Monbiot.  This last year both the Earth Summit in June and the Doha Climate Change meeting in November were notable only for the reluctance yet again of those in power to take any real action.