Defeating Single Issue Politics by Luke Hiken

Image by adamgreenfield via Flickr

by Luke Hiken
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
February 22, 2013

Nobody to the left of Karl Rove would consider sending a petition to the Koch brothers to do anything that was in the interest of the people of this country. That’s because everyone realizes that these greedy, vicious dogs restrict their actions to stealing from the poor and causing whatever harm they can to the largest number of people.

Similarly, nobody in his/her right mind would send letters to General Betray-Us, McChrystal or any of the Pentagon power-brokers that define our foreign policy, asking them to stop murdering defenseless civilians around the world. 

Strategies of Containment — Kettled by the Thought Police by William T. Hathaway

by William T. Hathaway
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
January 26, 2013

Image by Bob Elderberry via Flickr

Many of us on the left have been kettled at demonstrations: surrounded by a wall of police, herded into a small area, and prevented from reaching our goal. The term is a translation of kesseln, the German military tactic of enclosing an enemy force within a tight cordon of troops and gradually wearing it down rather than attacking it directly.

Senator Tom Harkin: No Deal Is Better Than This Very Bad Deal + US Goes Over Fiscal Cliff

Dandelion Salad

By Kay Steiger
Raw Story
Dec. 31, 2012

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

[...] “Well I just think that’s grossly unfair. Grossly unfair,” Harkin continued. He pointed out that those who make $250,000 or more a year are the top 2 percent of income earners in America. By moving the tax cuts to $400,000, Harkin said, it sends a message that earners who make that much are “middle class.”

Lifting the Veil: Barack Obama and the failure of capitalist democracy (must-see; repost)

Dandelion Salad

Reposting in case you missed it or would like to view it again.

Warning

Image by Mayu ;P via Flickr

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

[...] Sub-headed “Barack Obama and the failure of capitalist democracy”, this film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the “graveyard of social movements”, the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.

Rocky Anderson: Democrats Line Up For Obama Even With War Crimes, Police State, Indefinite Detention and Assassination of Citizens

Image by amcunningham72 via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Nov 7, 2012 by breakingtheset

Abby Martin speaks to Justice Party Presidential Candidate, Rocky Anderson, about how we [are] changing the way we vote and building a progressive base.

Ralph Nader: Both Parties, Two Heads of Same Corporate Beast

Image by KAZVorpal via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Ralph Nader

Nov 2, 2012 by breakingtheset

Abby Martin talks to author and former US Presidential Candidate, Ralph Nader, about the US electoral system and breaking out of the “lesser of two evils” mentality.

Does Voting Even Matter? by Jill Dalton

by Jill Dalton
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
recoveringarmybrat
October 30, 2012

Image by Nney via Flickr

I remember sitting in the large impersonal lecture hall in my American History 101 class feeling a bit forlorn and overwhelmed. I’m a freshman at the University of South Carolina. It’s 1968, the Vietnam War is raging, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King have been assassinated, riots erupted in several U.S. cities, the antiwar movement, woman’s movement and civil rights movement are in full swing, my father’s currently serving in Military Intelligence, Saigon and my mom’s hospitalized after suffering 3^rd degree burns because she’s having a nervous breakdown trying to deal with my father being at war leaving her responsible for raising 4 kids ranging in ages from 5 and 18. I feel like I’m hanging on by my fingernails.

Why I’m still not voting for Obama by Todd Chretien

Dandelion Salad

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

by Todd Chretien
SocialistWorker.org
October 29, 2012

Does Barack Obama deserve the votes of activists and radicals?

FOUR YEARS ago, I wrote an article for Socialist Worker titled “Why I’m Not Voting For Obama.” The atmosphere in which President Barack Obama is running for reelection could not be more different from the high hopes and expectations that surrounded his 2008 campaign. But I believe socialists and the left must take the same attitude to this election.

What’s wrong with lesser evilism

Dandelion Salad

Image by By beachblogger42 via Flickr

Editorial
SocialistWorker.org
October 24, 2012

Those who advocate a vote for the “lesser evil” hope to defeat the “greater evil” of the right wing–but they enable the Democrats to shift further right themselves.

DOES BARACK Obama deserve your vote? That’s the question people on the left should be asking as Election Day approaches.

Why I’m Voting Green by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
October 29, 2012

Image by ra_hurd via Flickr

The November election is not a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is not a battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It is a battle between the corporate state and us. And if we do not immediately engage in this battle we are finished, as climate scientists have made clear. I will defy corporate power in small and large ways. I will invest my energy now solely in acts of resistance, in civil disobedience and in defiance. Those who rebel are our only hope. And for this reason I will vote next month for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, although I could as easily vote for Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. I will step outside the system. Voting for the “lesser evil”—or failing to vote at all—is part of the corporate agenda to crush what is left of our anemic democracy. And those who continue to participate in the vaudeville of a two-party process, who refuse to confront in every way possible the structures of corporate power, assure our mutual destruction.

Are We Becoming an Orwellian Nation? by Thomas Baldwin

by Thomas Baldwin
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
PROGRESSIVE ACTIVISTS VOICE
October 26, 2012

Image by PropagandaTimes via Flickr

Our Corporatist Two Party System is Rushing Us Toward Totalitarianism

In the current election cycle of 2012, we have an excellent example of how both of the dominant political parties, Democrat and Republican, continue to propagate the lies and misinformation that allow them to maintain total control of the political system. Both candidates for election to president, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, are not only willing participants but active representatives of this process.

George McGovern: He Never Sold His Soul by Chris Hedges + McGovern Dies at 90

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
October 21, 2012

Image by cliff1066™ via Flickr

In the summer of 1972, when I was 15, I persuaded my parents to let me ride my bike down to the local George McGovern headquarters every morning to work on his campaign. McGovern, who died early Sunday morning in South Dakota at the age of 90, embodied the core values I had been taught to cherish. My father, a World War II veteran like McGovern, had taken my younger sister and me to protests in support of the civil rights movement and against the Vietnam War. He taught us to stand up for human decency and honesty, no matter the cost. He told us that the definitions of business and politics, the categories of winners and losers, of the powerful and the powerless, of the rich and the poor, are meaningless if the price for admission requires that you sell your soul. And he told us something that the whole country, many years later, now knows: that George McGovern was a good man.

The Gitmos: Why Vote? + Rap News 16: Obama v Romney – the Final Presidential Debate

Dandelion Salad

Image by beachblogger42 via Flickr

Oct 15, 2012 by CornFlu

Video by Marshall J. Baumgartner and Scott Hughes.
The Gitmos Great Seal artwork by Todd N. Kennedy
Tell us why or why not you plan to vote!

Why vote?
When there’s no one worth voting for
Why vote?
Every politician is a whore

Barry Commoner, The Citizen Scientist by Chris Williams

Dandelion Salad

by Chris Williams
SocialistWorker.org
October 9, 2012

Image by Indiana Stan via Flickr

IN THE same sad week that saw the deaths of several globally renowned revolutionary voices, another intellectual giant of the left passed away at the age of 95: ecologist, activist and scientist Barry Commoner.

A life-long champion of the need for scientific engagement with the public at large, Commoner constantly sought to bring to light the iniquities of industrial capitalism, beginning with his campaign against above-ground nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s, and continuing with his opposition to nuclear power–that is, the transition to more polluting and toxic but highly profitable synthetic compounds in place of natural ones.

“That Personally Irresponsible 47%” by Joseph Natoli

by Joseph Natoli
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Sept. 29, 2012

Image by RafePhoto via Flickr

Only 51.3% of the voter age American population came out to vote in the infamous 2000 George W. Bush/Gore “chad” presidential election. According to the wisdom of 2012 Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, 47% of Americans who pay no income tax will vote for Obama because Democratic candidates attract voters who believe they are “entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it.”