The “Real” Recovery: Welcome to the Network of Global Corporate Control, Part 2 by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com
February 1, 2013

Image by watchingfrogsboil via Flickr

The following is the second of a three-part series exclusive for Occupy.com.

Part 1: Meet the Global Corporate Supra-Government

How have your personal finances been since the global economic crisis began in 2008? Are you in debt? Unemployed? Struggling? Are you below the poverty line? Has your standard of living stagnated – or declined? Turns out, it doesn’t matter how the population is doing, because, we are told, we are in an “economic recovery,” or haven’t you heard?

Green Party candidates Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala Arrested for trying to enter the Presidential debate

Image by Sunset Parkerpix via Flickr

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Updated Oct.18, 2012

Oct 16, 2012 by NothingIsNew88

While President Barack Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney will get the red carpets rolled out for them at Hofstra University Tuesday night, Green Party candidate Jill Stein got a far chillier reception when she and her running mate were arrested near the debate site.

Green Festival: Amy Goodman: Democracy is a Process — Everyday You Must Fight For It

Image by PaulSteinJC via Flickr

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Sep 30, 2012 by Mark Webster

Amy Goodman Green Festival DC September 29, 2012

The Loss of American Democracy By Timothy V. Gatto

By Timothy V. Gatto
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
liberalpro.blogspot.com
June 10, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

We can evaluate Obama’s track record using statistics and apply them to unemployment, GNP, military spending and inflation (or deflation). This is probably how the GOP will try to portray his presidency. It’s an effective strategy mainly because many economic indicators were better when he took office then they are today. It’s easy to point to statistics and convince people, based on empirical evidence, that this nation was in better shape when George W. Bush was President. In fact, it’s so easy to manipulate numbers, that even a brain-dead candidate like Romney could “prove” that things have undoubtedly gone downhill since Obama took office.

Economic Inequality’s Impact On Political Voice

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Image by M i x y via Flickr

May 11, 2012 by joefriendly

Discussion at Demos think tank about new book, The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy about the devastating effects of economic inequality on our political process with moderator Kenneth Prewitt and authors Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba, and Henry E. Brady,

Moyers and Company: Big Money, Big Media, Big Trouble

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Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com
April 27, 2012

Image by Photo by Brendan Hoffman by Public Citizen via Flickr

Big money and big media have coupled to create a ‘Disney World’ of democracy in which TV shows, televised debates, even news coverage is being dumbed down, resulting in a public less informed than it should be, says Marty Kaplan, director of USC’s Norman Lear Center and an entertainment industry veteran. Bill Moyers talks with Kaplan about how taking news out of the journalism box and placing it in the entertainment box is hurting democracy and allowing special interest groups to manipulate the system.

Andrew Gavin Marshall: Class War and the College Crisis

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com
April 17, 2012

Andrew Gavin Marshall joins us to discuss his latest three-part essay on “Class War and the College Crisis.” We talk about how the education system is used to create and maintain national identity, how this process is used for the benefit of the ruling class, and possible ways that students, academics, and the public generally can use this knowledge to empower a meaningful critique of the dominant social hierarchy. If you appreciate Marshall and his work, don’t forget to support his People’s Book Project.

Class War and the College Crisis: The “Crisis of Democracy” and the Attack on Education by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com
April 2, 2012

The following is the first part of a series of articles, “Class War and the College Crisis.”

Today, we are witnessing an emerging massive global revolt, led primarily be the educated and unemployed youth of the world, against the institutionalized and established powers which seek to deprive them of a future worth living. In Chile over the past year, a massive student movement and strike has become a powerful force in the country against the increasingly privatized educational system (serving as a model for the rest of the world) with the support of the vast majority of the population; in Quebec, Canada, a student strike has brought hundreds of thousands of youth into the streets to protest against the doubling of tuition fees; students and others are on strike in Spain against austerity measures;

Liberty, Anarchy, Property, Democracy and Power by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com
February 7, 2012

I have had a number of debates and discussions recently, largely through various social media networks and similar avenues, on some issues that are of major concern to those who seek to confront the challenges of the present and construct a better path for the future. So I thought I would take this opportunity, with ideas fresh in my mind, to simply share some thoughts on these subjects and issues. There is also a relevance between these thoughts and The People’s Book Project, for it is the research for the book which has shaped the conclusions and/or directions of these ideas, and which will be supported with historical facts throughout the book(s).

The Nature and Effects of Imperialism by Fazal Rahman, Ph.D.

by Fazal Rahman, Ph.D.
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Originally published on imperialismandthethirdworld.wordpress.com
January 31, 2012

Multidimensional and complex nature and effects of imperialism on democracy, society, nature, and human nature

“At the same pace that mankind masters nature, man seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy.  Even the pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of ignorance.  All our invention and progress seem to result in endowing material forces with intellectual life, and in stultifying human life into a material force.”  Karl Marx.  Selected Works, Vol. 1, p. 500.   “That hideous pagan idol (imperialism), who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain.”  Karl Marx.  On Colonialism, Moscow Publication, 1968, p. 87.

Ecology and the Pathology of Capitalism by Charles Sullivan

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By Charles Sullivan
Information Clearing House
January 20, 2012

Image by Resident on Earth via Flickr

Contrary to everything we have been taught, there is no actual United States of America. The U.S. is an occupied territory that could more accurately be described as the Corporate States of America. If the geopolitical states are united, the people are not. We are a nation divided by ideology and by social and economic class. The U.S. is not a democracy and it never was. The systems of power do not allow the voice of working people to be heard or their collective will to be acted upon.

The World War on Democracy by John Pilger

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by John Pilger
www.globalresearch.ca
www.johnpilger.com
Jan. 19, 2012

Lisette Talate died the other day. I remember a wiry, fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief with a determination that was a presence. She was the embodiment of people’s resistance to the war on democracy. I first glimpsed her in a 1950s Colonial Office film about the Chagos islanders, a tiny creole nation living midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean. The camera panned across thriving villages, a church, a school, a hospital, set in a phenomenon of natural beauty and peace. Lisette remembers the producer saying to her and her teenage friends, “Keep smiling girls!”

The Myth of the Liberal Media: The Propaganda Model of News (2002; must-see)

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Please turn off your TV. Forever. ~ DS

Image by niiicedave via Flickr

by Spread Knowledge
http://vimeo.com/33442989

Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky demolish one of the central tenets of our political culture, the idea of the “liberal media.” Instead, utilizing a systematic model based on massive empirical research, they reveal the manner in which the news media are so subordinated to corporate and conservative interests that their function can only be described as that of “elite propaganda.”

Europe’s Transition From Social Democracy to Oligarchy By Michael Hudson

with Michael Hudson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://michael-hudson.com
Dec. 7, 2011

CapitalAccount on Dec 7, 2011

Eurozone leaders scramble for a solution to the European debt crisis, with Timothy Geithner joining the party now, and as Obama makes his rounds to small towns in the US asphyxiated with debt. S&P issues downgrade warnings for Europe, as the technocratic governments of Greece and Italy hope that unelected unity governments can help ward off the attack of bondholders unwilling to continue funding their nation’s debt at sustainable prices. Could this be why the CEO of Deutsche bank received a parcel bomb in the mail today from none other than the European Central Bank?

Democracy and Debt: Has the Link been Broken? By Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://michael-hudson.com
Dec. 2, 2011

*This article appeared in the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung on December 2, 2011.

Book V of Aristotle’s Politics describes the eternal transition of oligarchies making themselves into hereditary aristocracies – which end up being overthrown by tyrants or develop internal rivalries as some families decide to “take the multitude into their camp” and usher in democracy, within which an oligarchy emerges once again, followed by aristocracy, democracy, and so on throughout history.