Noam Chomsky–2013 Annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture: Violence and Dignity–Reflections on the Middle East

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Updated: Added the Q&A

with Noam Chomsky

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TheChomskyVideos·Mar 23, 2013

Friends House in London on 18th March 2013

Professor Noam Chomsky, delivering the 2013 Edward W Said Lecture: Violence and Dignity — Reflections on the Middle East at Friends House in London on 18th March 2013. This video shows the full lecture, with introductions by Omar Al-Qattan and Mariam C Said.

Defeating Single Issue Politics by Luke Hiken

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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. 

Erik Laursen: The War Against Social Security

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Joe Friendly·Feb 21, 2013

Erik Laursen, author of The People’s Pension, The Struggle To Defend Social Security Since Reagan, describes the three decade long war against Social Security, beginning with its origins in the bowels of the Reagan administration, and the dynamics behind an effective long-term strategy, a look at the decades-long ideological attack on this all-important program, the hydra-headed campaign to cut and kill Social Security, conducted over decades by rightwing bankers, foundations, economists and politicians.

Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream

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WhyPoverty·Jan 5, 2013

PARK AVENUE: How much inequality is too much?

740 Park Ave, New York City, is home to some of the wealthiest Americans. Across the Harlem River, 10 minutes to the north, is the other Park Avenue in South Bronx, where more than half the population needs food stamps and children are 20 times more likely to be killed. In the last 30 years, inequality has rocketed in the US — the American Dream only applies to those with money to lobby politicians for friendly bills on Capitol Hill.

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

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By Kay Steiger
Raw Story
Dec. 31, 2012

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[...] “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.”

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

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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

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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
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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.

What’s wrong with lesser evilism

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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.

Are We Becoming an Orwellian Nation? by Thomas Baldwin

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

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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.

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

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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

“The 15% Solution,” Serialization, 30th Installment: Appendix V: On Poverty, Sin, Regulation, and Freedom

Note: The Preface and Chapters One through Twenty can be found here: The 15% Solution.

by Jonathan Westminster, Ph.D. aka Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on TPJmagazine.us
October 14, 2012

Image by mariopiperni via Flickr

This is the thirtieth installment of the serialization of a book entitled The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022.  Herein you will find Appendix V.  This Appendix, purportedly written by the 20^th century political analyst, (the fictional) “Dino Lewis” presents a discussion of the contrasting views of the right and the left on the correct role for government in regulating personal behavior, economic activity, and environmental health, safety and preservation, the relationship, if there is one, between poverty and “sin,” and the whole religious concept of “sin.” It is certainly fully relevant to the United States and what we might face in a future governed fully by the Republican Religious Right.

“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.”

Fire Congress, Vote Out Incumbents by Joel S. Hirschhorn

by Joel S. Hirschhorn
Featured Writer
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www.foavc.org
September 21, 2012

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For politicians to do what is right, first citizens must do what is right.

Of all the many, many stupid things that most Americans do, nothing is more insane than the ritual every two years of reelecting incumbent members of Congress.  Countless opinion polls find that the public has incredibly low levels of positive regard for Congress.  Just one in 10 Americans approves of the job Congress is doing, according to a Gallup poll released a few weeks ago, tying the branch’s lowest approval rating in 38 years.

Barack to Mitt: Corporations Run the Economy by Ralph Nader

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by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
Sept. 27, 2012

Image by RafePhoto via Flickr

Here is an open letter that Barack Obama should write to Mitt Romney – pronto!

Dear Mr. Romney:

Not a day goes by without you blaming me for every slumping or stagnant economic indicator. Unemployment, increases in the number of food stamp recipients, government borrowing, and spending, home foreclosures, economic uncertainty for businesses, trade deficits – you name it. Only for droughts and hurricanes have you absolved me from responsibility.