American Exceptionalism to the Rescue by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
June 4, 2012

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

U.S. Secretary of War Leon Panetta is making a tour of the Asia-Pacific where he is pumping up the next military conflict.  Yesterday I heard he was in Vietnam trying to close a deal to allow the U.S. Navy to once again have access to the base at Cam Ranh Bay.

Before leaving on this trip Panetta made the speaking rounds back home to consolidate U.S. media and build public support for Obama’s “pivot” into the Asia-Pacific. 

Moyers and Company: Moving Beyond War

Dandelion Salad

Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com
March 23, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Nine years after Baghdad erupted in “shock and awe,” we’re once again hearing in America the drumbeat for war in the Middle East. Now, the bull’s-eye is on Iran. But what we need more than a simple change of target is a complete change in perspective, says Andrew Bacevich, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran-turned-scholar who’s become one of the most perceptive observers of America’s changing role in the world.

History of Capitalism in the United States: Exposing the Myth of America

Image by Sterneck via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Warning

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

“Let your life be a counter- friction to stop the machine.” — Henry David Thoreau

ClassWarFilms on Feb 13, 2012

A brief and crucial history of the United States

Occupy American Exceptionalism by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
Dec. 2, 2011

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Some thoughts that OCCUPY my mind

When the Vietnam War became history, and the protest signs and the bullhorns were put away, so too was the serious side of most protestors’ alienation and hostility toward the government. They returned, with minimal resistance, to the restless pursuit of success, and the belief that the choice facing the world was either “capitalist democracy” or “communist dictatorship”. The war had been an aberration, was the implicit verdict, a blemish on an otherwise humane American record.

Worse than the Cold War or Vietnam – America Today by Timothy V. Gatto

By Timothy V. Gatto
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
liberalpro.blogspot.com
Sept. 30, 2011

Image by Adrian Kinloch via Flickr

I have to admit that I’m really pissed off. It’s no longer just being angry about the situation in Washington; it’s about what’s happening to America. This country is failing. People are unemployed, and we are neglecting the poor and homeless. What’s happening here? Where is the government when it comes to protecting the welfare of the people? Why are so many crazies in the House and Senate? I’m talking about my Senators; Jim DeMint and Bang-Bang Lindsey Graham who used to be sane. The South Carolina Senators do not represent me.

Michael Parenti: Superpatriotism (1988)

by Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.michaelparenti.org
July 5, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

City Lights Books, 2004

How hype, fear, and mindless flag-waving are supplanting informed debate, commitment to democracy, and real patriotism.

“In this skillfully argued book . . . with wit and humor and penetrating analysis, Parenti invites the reader to connect the dots.”  — Rufus Browning, co-author of Protest Is Not Enough

I Am a Dissident By Timothy V. Gatto

By Timothy V. Gatto
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
liberalpro.blogspot.com
June 4, 2011

Image by Public Citizen via Flickr

I am a dissident. This term allows my government to ignore my opinions and also enables the rest of America to discount any or all of my opinions. I am also a “conspiracy theorist”, because I believe that more than one person in my government are colluding together in order to dupe the American people to believe things that are not true. Therefore, I am of no consequence. Anything I say can be attributed to the “lunatic fringe”. I have been framed, that is, I have been relegated to the sidelines of any debate of consequence. I have been neatly packaged and categorized so that my opinions have no relevance.

“Whatcha Gonna Do?” by Philip A. Farruggio

by Philip A. Farruggio
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
February 26, 2011

‘You poisoned my sweet waters, you tore down my green trees; the food you gave my children is the cause of their disease. My world is slowly coming down and the air’s not fit to breathe, and those of us who care enough we have to do something! ’

Interesting how that song lyric was written over forty years ago by a rock group called Quicksilver Messenger Service. History does have this strange way of repeating itself, now doesn’t it?

A cautionary tale by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
3 February, 2011

The Anti-Empire Report

A cautionary tale

In July of 1975 I went to Portugal because in April of the previous year a bloodless military coup had brought down the US-supported 48-year fascist regime of Portugal, the world’s only remaining colonial power. This was followed by a program centered on nationalization of major industries, workers control, a minimum wage, land reform, and other progressive measures. Military officers in a Western nation who spoke like socialists was science fiction to my American mind, but it had become a reality in Portugal. The center of Lisbon was crowded from morning till evening with people discussing the changes and putting up flyers on bulletin boards.

Myth of “American Exceptionalism” – The Ultimate, Pernicious Howler by Robert Becker

by Robert S. Becker
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
rbecker@cal.net
December 3, 2010

God’s mysterious sense of humor strikes again, afflicting the lunatic fringe with this especially ludicrous zinger: the delusion of infallibility.  Beyond the ‘50’s jingoism of “America, right or wrong,” the right now stays this course, “America, never wrong.”  We must be special, the chosen elect, morally superior to every other country.  Why else would an omnipotent God put us in charge?   End of discussion.

Frankly, the Roman Empire was more culturally tolerant.

Put away the flags by Howard Zinn (2006)

by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at The Progressive (2006)
3 July, 2010

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

Is not nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder — one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?

These ways of thinking — cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on — have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

Howard Zinn: The Myth of American Exceptionalism (2005)

by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad

mitworld.mit.edu
March 14, 2005

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

Running Time: 1:32:02

Americans have long embraced a notion of superiority, claims Howard Zinn. Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony described establishing “a city on a hill,” to serve the world as a beacon of liberty. So far, so good. But driving this sense of destiny, says Zinn, was an assumption of divine agency—“an association between what the government does and what God approves of.” And too frequently, continues Zinn, Americans have invoked God to expand “into someone else’s territory, occupying and dealing harshly with people who resist occupation.”

Noam Chomsky Speaks to Birzeit University via video conference

http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1100712

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Chomskyan

May 30, 2010 — Noam Chomsky Speaks to Birzeit University via video conference.
5/24/2010

Chomsky was scheduled to speak at Birzeit University in person, but was denied entry to the West Bank by the Israeli Department of the Interior.
He delivered the talk by video conference in Jordan.

Official site: http://www.chomsky.info

Check out The Authority Smashing! Hour, Weeknights at 8pm Eastern
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/tash
and
http://www.authoritysmashers.wordpres…

The Exceptional US Constitution by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
May 13, 2010

As I have noted in a recent Commentary, the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States states: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Fascinating stuff. The “World’s Greatest Democracy,” no? Exceptional, no? Well, no, for the first. There may be a great democracy somewhere, but ours is more of a partial one. For many of our citizens, we surely ain’t it. But exceptional? Well, yes indeed. Why, both the Constitution and its implementation have been filled with exceptions since the document was first written.

Socialism? Un-American? I Think Not! By Timothy V. Gatto

http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1092771

By Timothy V. Gatto
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
liberalpro.blogspot.com
May 4, 2010

By Helen Cox, used with permission.
© All rights reserved.

The mood in America couldn’t be darker. I’ve noticed that many articles that bemoan the current state of affairs, i.e.; the corporate control of the two major political parties and the media, the outsourcing of American jobs overseas, the waste fraud and abuse of government and the unbridled military spending in support of major military adventures overseas that cannot be justified by logic, just to name a few, are accompanied by a persistent comment. Many readers of these articles have a comment that basically says “I know what problems we face, why aren’t you suggesting solutions?

I can understand why many political writers hesitate to put their views on what they think would offer solutions to the problems Americans face. I believe that many writers feel that it is more important for the people to understand what is happening than to offer their opinions on how to solve these issues.