Murder Is Our National Sport by Chris Hedges

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

by Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
May 13, 2013

Murder is our national sport. We murder tens of thousands with our industrial killing machines in Afghanistan and Iraq. We murder thousands more from the skies over Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen with our pilotless drones. We murder each other with reckless abandon. And, as if we were not drenched in enough human blood, we murder prisoners—most of them poor people of color who have been locked up for more than a decade. The United States believes in regeneration through violence. We have carried out blood baths on foreign soil and on our own land for generations in the vain quest of a better world. And the worse it gets, the deeper our empire sinks under the weight of its own decay and depravity, the more we kill.

The Struggle For Justice In Manipur by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
May 3, 2013

The primary colours of any civil democracy are we would agree, social justice, freedom of expression, freedom to protest and participation. India, with a population of 1.3 billion people is regularly hailed as the largest democracy in the world. At first glance the governments pretentions to democracy would appear to be justified, after all there is, on paper at least, an independent judiciary, a free press – freely owned from top to toe by corporations – a thriving civil society and, of course, the cornerstone of any democratic state: the haloed parliamentary elections, totally funded and (therefore) fully owned, top to toe, by the same corporations that count the national and regional newspapers, radio and television networks as their own, as well as growing portfolios of natural assets; rivers, forests, water supplies, mountains (full of bauxite), and other mineral resources.

Law Day, the ABA and Addressing Reality by Ralph Nader

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Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
May 1, 2013

In case you did not know, May 1 is Law Day! Initiated by the American Bar Association (ABA), established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and made official by Congress in 1961, Law Day was seen as a counterweight to May Day which celebrates the workers of the world within socialist and communist countries.

Lawyer’s Jail Torment Marks US Totalitarian State by Finian Cunningham

Image by Sue Peacock via Flickr

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from PressTV
April 24, 2013

Half a century ago this month Martin Luther King wrote his famous prison protest against racial injustice, entitled ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’. An excerpt reads:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality… Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

The Persecution of Lynne Stewart by Chris Hedges

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by Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
April 22, 2013

Lynne Stewart, in the vindictive and hysterical world of the war on terror, is one of its martyrs. A 73-year-old lawyer who spent her life defending the poor, the marginalized and the despised, including blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, she fell afoul of the state apparatus because she dared to demand justice rather than acquiesce to state sponsored witch hunts. And now, with stage 4 cancer that has metastasized, spreading to her lymph nodes, shoulder, bones and lungs, creating a grave threat to her life, she sits in a prison cell at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is serving a 10-year sentence.

Franklin Lamb: US Must End Gitmo Prison Horrors + A Huge Hunger Strike at Guantánamo

Image by World Can’t Wait via Flickr

with Franklin Lamb
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Beirut, Lebanon
Mar. 16, 2013

PressTVGlobalNews·Mar 16, 2013

An analyst says US citizens need to force US President Barack Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp by joining in solidarity with the prisoners’ hunger strike.

Over 100 inmates at the notorious US Guantanamo military prison and torture camp have joined a hunger strike, protesting their indefinite detention and worsening conditions there.

Leaked Bradley Manning Audio Recording + Daniel Ellsberg: Secret Tape Refutes Media Slander

Dandelion Salad

Image by hragv via Flickr

freepressfoundation·Mar 12, 2013

Leaked audio recording of Bradley Manning describing his response to the July 12, 2007 Baghdad Apache airstrike video that documented the killing of two Reuters journalists.

We Are Bradley Manning by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
March 4, 2013

Image by savebradley via Flickr

I was in a military courtroom at Fort Meade in Maryland on Thursday as Pfc. Bradley Manning admitted giving classified government documents to WikiLeaks. The hundreds of thousands of leaked documents exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as government misconduct. A statement that Manning made to the court was a powerful and moving treatise on the importance of placing conscience above personal safety, the necessity of sacrificing careers and liberty for the public good, and the moral imperative of carrying out acts of defiance.

Transcript of Bradley Manning’s Statement for the Providence Inquiry

Dandelion Salad

by Bradley Manning
Transcript by Alexa O’Brien
www.alexaobrien.com
February 28, 2013

Image by savebradley via Flickr

This statement below was read by Private First Class Bradley E. Manning at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses. He pled not guilty to 12 other specifications. This rush transcript was taken by journalist Alexa O’Brien at the Article 39(a) session of United States v. Pfc. Bradley Manning on February 28, 2013 at Fort Meade, MD, USA.

Bradley Manning pleads not guilty to “aiding the enemy” charge

Image by hragv via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Updated: Mar 1, 2013 added another video report

See also: Transcript of Bradley Manning’s Statement for the Providence Inquiry

Bradley Manning Tells Court Public had the Right to Know About US War Crimes

[replaced video]

TheRealNews·Mar 1, 2013

American Attorney for Julian Assange, Michael Ratner, reports he was in the courtroom and witnessed Manning speak with confidence and intelligence as he detailed the outrages that drove him to upload documents to Wikileaks.

Frontline: The Untouchables

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Dandelion Salad

www.pbs.org
January 22, 2013

FRONTLINE investigates why Wall Street’s leaders have escaped prosecution for any fraud related to the sale of bad mortgages.

Noam Chomsky: Prison Industrial Complex (clip from Long Distance Revolutionary) + Mumia and The Black Panther Party

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Noam Chomsky

mumiathemovie·Jan 23, 2013

Long Distance Revolutionary opens NYC February 1, 2013
Opens Seattle February 22, 2013
Opens LA March 1, 2013

Aaron Swartz: Is it time for an Internet Bill of Rights? + The Best Way to Honor Aaron Swartz

Image by Elizabeth Brossa via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

To honor Aaron Swartz’s memory, we must continue his work.

RTAmerica·Jul 3, 2012

In the US, the Bill of Rights maps out the fundamental privileges each citizen has in the country, but is it time to draft an Internet Bill of Rights? Congress has attempted to implement legislation that could stop online freedoms, but a group of online advocates are pushing lawmakers to sign the Internet Bill of Rights to allow the freedom of expression, access, openness, innovation and privacy. Aaron Swartz, founder and executive director for Demand Progress, joins us with his take.

The Unsilenced Voice of a ‘Long-Distance Revolutionary’ by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
December 10, 2012

Image by Prison Radio via Flickr

I am sitting in the visiting area of the SCI Mahanoy prison in Frackville, Pa., on a rainy, cold Friday morning with Mumia Abu-Jamal, America’s most famous political prisoner and one of its few authentic revolutionaries. He is hunched forward on the gray plastic table, his dreadlocks cascading down the sides of his face, in a room that looks like a high school cafeteria. He is talking intently about the nature of empire, which he is currently reading voraciously about, and effective forms of resistance to tyranny throughout history. Small children, visiting their fathers or brothers, race around the floor, wail or clamber on the plastic chairs. Abu-Jamal, like the other prisoners in the room, is wearing a brown jumpsuit bearing the letters DOC—for Department of Corrections.

Prison labor booms in US as low-cost inmates bring billions

Dandelion Salad

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

RussiaToday·Dec 9, 2012

US breeds a Chinese-style inmate labor scheme on its own soil. Both state and some of the biggest private companies are now enjoying the fruits of a cheap and readily available work force, with tens of millions of dollars spent by private prisons to keep their jails full.