Socialism and Obama By Timothy V. Gatto

By Timothy V. Gatto
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
liberalpro.blogspot.com
June 29, 2009

If you believe that you are fully aware of what the Federal Government, the media and the two major political parties are doing in regard to the economy and also our civil liberties, you needn’t read on. If you have a nagging feeling that something is definitely wrong with the direction that this country is headed, or you believe that the situation is somehow different than what’s been reported and what you have heard from the politicians and the mainstream media…read on. I’m going to attempt to clear away all of the rhetoric and fear-mongering, and try to give you a perspective that isn’t a Democratic or Republican perspective, but one that once the rhetoric is cleared away, is very simple and straight-forward.

Let me start by telling you that everyone in the so-called Middle-Class and those that fall below the median income are all being taken for the biggest ride in recent history. The GOP tries to portray President Barack Obama and his administration as “Socialists”. The truth is that the people who claim this know that it just isn’t true. This is just another way to influence people that have difficult time thinking for themselves. Unfortunately, that accounts for 80-90% of the American public. Why do I say this? Let’s look at the facts.

Free Gaza: The Spirit of Humanity Departs + Israeli Navy surrounds the ship

See: Israel Attacks Justice Boat; Kidnaps Human Rights Workers; Confiscates Medicine, Toys And Olive Trees

Updates below

Dandelion Salad

gazafriends
June 29, 2009

The Spirit of Humanity left Cyprus on the 29th June at 7:30am. Will arrive in Gaza on 30th afternoon.

update at 8.30pm 29th June:

Dear Friends,
We’ve just heard from everyone on board the Spirit of Humanity. They are almost halfway to Gaza, a little over 100 kilometers off the coast of the Lebanon/Israel border. They’re a bit tired, but everyone is in good spirits and determined to reach Gaza. So far they have not seen any Israeli warships or had any radio contact with the IDF.

From aboard the Spirit, Free Gaza organizer Lubna Masarwa stated that, “We’re intent and unworried – we’re sailing on. We will go to Gaza, in solidarity with the people. We want to break the Israeli siege in a practical way, and not just with words. Our message to Gaza – from all the Palestinians in ’48 and in the West Bank, and from all the good people in the world is – You are not alone!”

Images by Greta Berlin
the song “Free Gaza” by Anis Hamadeh

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The latest news from Cynthia McKinney via Anita Stewart:

The Spirit of Humanity, a Free Gaza ship is surrounded by Israeli Navy-radios jammed!

652PM ESTAt 1:40 am (local time), the Israeli Navy surrounded the SPIRIT while it is on its way to the Gaza Strip. We got a call from the boat saying that they were being threatened, told to turn back or they would be fired on.

Honduras-The CIA Never Quits by Gary Sudborough

by Gary Sudborough
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
29 June 2009

Just after I had written three articles about the alleged voter fraud, street demonstrations and violence in Iran being a classic example of a CIA destabilization operation because of Iran’s oil, and even more importantly its strategic location, there is a coup in Honduras, which certainly suggests another CIA operation. Two of the leaders of the Honduran coup are School of the Americas graduates. The School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia has trained some of the most brutal dictators and death squad leaders in Latin America. Two of those who immediately come to mind are the former brutal dictator of Guatemala, Rios Montt, and the Salvadoran death squad leader, Roberto d’Aubuisson, who was responsible for the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. The names of these Honduran SOA graduates are General Vasquez and General Suazo, the first from the army and the latter from the air force. President Zelaya, the victim of the coup, was flown to Costa Rica and the ambassadors from Cuba and Venezuela were arrested. It is very reminiscent of the time when President Aristide of Haiti was arrested by US forces and flown to the Central African Republic. President Aristide was trying to raise the wages of the sweatshop workers employed by American corporations in Haiti, and this situation simply could not be tolerated. President Zelaya, being a leftist, was probably trying to do something for the poor in Honduras, also.

Coup in Honduras: Military Ousts President Manuel Zelaya, Supporters Defy Curfew and Take to the Streets

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Democracy Now!
June 29, 2009

Coup in Honduras: Military Ousts President Manuel Zelaya, Supporters Defy Curfew and Take to the Streets

In the first military coup in Central America in a quarter of a century, the Honduran military has ousted the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. Former Parliamentary speaker Roberto Micheletti, who was sworn in as Zelaya’s replacement on Sunday, has imposed a two-day nationwide curfew. But hundreds of Zelaya supporters remain on the streets, and shots were fired at protesters near the presidential palace early Monday morning. We go to Honduras to speak with Honduran medical doctor and award-winning human rights activist, Dr. Juan Almendares, and NYU professor of Latin American history, Greg Grandin. [includes rush transcript]

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via Coup in Honduras: Military Ousts President Manuel Zelaya, Supporters Defy Curfew and Take to the Streets

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mediagrrl9
June 29, 2009

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Honduras: Indigenous people condemn plot

Posted with permission from Green Left Weekly

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Green Left
June 28, 2009

The article below is abridged from a June 24 statement by the Civic Council of People’s and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).

COPINH condemns before national and world public opinion the attempted coup launched during the night of June 24 against the constitutional government of Manuel Zelaya Rosales and the Honduran people and its most important aspirations.

This action is a desperate response by right-wing forces and their allies to frustrate the people’s will to find a democratic path for national transformation. The reactionary right wing has been desperately trying to block steps towards the creation of a constituent assembly to draw up a new constitution.

Debt Deflation in America – What the Jump in the U.S. Savings Rate Really Means by Michael Hudson

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by Michael Hudson
Global Research, June 29, 2009

Happy-face media reporting of economic news is providing the usual upbeat spin on Friday’s debt-deflation statistics. The Commerce Department’s National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) for May show that U.S. “savings” are now absorbing 6.9 percent of income.

I put the word “savings” in quotation marks because this 6.9% is not what most people think of as savings. It is not money in the bank to draw out on the “rainy day” when one is laid off as unemployment rates rise. The statistic means that 6.9% of national income is being earmarked to pay down debt – the highest saving rate in 15 years, up from actually negative rates (living on borrowed credit) just a few years ago. The only way in which these savings are “money in the bank” is that they are being paid by consumers to their banks and credit card companies.

An Obama Limerick by Ed Ciaccio

by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
June 29, 2009

Our President, Mr. Obama,
Governs with cool, never drama.
His sweet words can thrill,
But his policies kill.
Fine language won’t hide bloody trauma.

Pakistan Calls for End to Drone Strikes After US Attack on Funeral http://news.antiwar.com/2009/06/25/pakistan-expresses-concern-after-us-drone-attack-on-funeral/

687 civilians have been killed in 60 drone strikes since January 2008

“Since early 2009, Barack Obama administration officials have been claiming that the predator attacks in Pakistan have killed nine of 20 top al Qaeda officials, but they have refused to disclose how many civilians have been killed in the strikes.

In April, The News, a newspaper in Lahore, Pakistan, published figures provided by Pakistani officials indicating that 687 civilians have been killed along with 14 al Qaeda leaders in some 60 drone strikes since January 2008 – just over 50 civilians killed for every al Qaeda leader.”

(CIA Secrecy on Drone Attacks Data Hides Abuses by Gareth Porter http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2009/06/12/cia-secrecy-on-drone-attacks-data-hides-abuses/)

60 Americans die every day from lack of health insurance

22,000 Americans die every year from lack of health insurance. That is an average of 60 preventable, avoidable deaths every day (study from the Urban Institute: Uninsured and Dying Because of It: Updating the Institute of Medicine Analysis on the Impact of Uninsurance on Mortality. http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411588_uninsured_dying.pdf)

President Obama, as head of the Democratic Party, must tell House Speaker Pelosi, House Majority Leader Hoyer, House Majority Whip Clyburn, and Senate Majority Leader Reid, loudly and clearly:

“If there is no public option health care plan, any health care ‘reform’ bill arriving on my desk for my signature will be D.O.A.”

That means WE must tell Obama that same message: no health reform without a public option. And the only public plan that truly includes everyone and saves money is single-payer: H.R. 676 and S. 703.

Contact the White House now! http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Contact your Representative and two Senators now! 202-224-312

see

Deadly Reasons to Oust Incumbents in 2010 By Ed Ciaccio

Deadly US air-strike on Afghan village

Obama’s Emerging Legacy: Wars, Bankers and For-Profit Healthcare by Glen Ford

No Reason to Favor Private Health Insurers by Joel S. Hirschhorn

Imran Khan on US Drone Attacks

Like Killing Flies by Bruce Gagnon

Pakistan on Dandelion Salad

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The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
June 29, 2009

US war games signal intensifying tension over Arctic

Dandelion Salad

By Niall Green
http://www.wsws.org
29 June 2009

In more ways than one, things are heating up in the Arctic. Several large military exercises undertaken by the United States and members of the US-led military alliance NATO are proof of growing tensions between the major powers.

The stakes involved in the Arctic are enormous. A report issued last year by the United States Geological Survey estimated that the Arctic Ocean could hold 90 billion barrels of oil, up to a third of the world’s untapped natural gas deposits, and a possible 20 percent of natural gas liquids. In addition, the retreat of the Arctic ice sheet due to environmental warming could open up viable shipping routes between the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

For many years the United States has played a relatively muted role in the Arctic, while Russia, Norway, Canada and Denmark have actively pursued territorial claims in the region. US Coast Guard Real Admiral Gene Brooks has warned, “If there’s a five-nation race in the Arctic, we’re fifth,” while Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen has urged Washington to renew its fleet of icebreakers so as not to fall behind its rivals.

[…]

via US war games signal intensifying tension over Arctic

see

Canada: Battle Line In East-West Conflict Over The Arctic by Rick Rozoff

NATO’s, Pentagon’s New Strategic Battleground: The Arctic by Rick Rozoff

Control Of the World’s Oceans. Prelude To War? by Rick Rozoff

NATO

North American Imperialism and the Extreme Right are Behind Coup in Honduras: Chavez

Dandelion Salad

Venezuelanalysis.com
June 28th 2009, by ABN – Tamara Pearson

This morning military personal kidnapped Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. According to one witness, 200 soldiers arrived at the president’s house at 6am this morning, 4 shots were fired and later they left in vehicles towards the air base. The soldiers also took over the government television station, Channel 8, and took it off air. Zelaya is currently speaking live on Telsur TV, from Costa Rica.

In Venezuela, protests are starting in main city plazas and outside the Honduran Embassy. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez spoke on Telsur earlier, with this statement, reported by the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN) and translated by Venezuelanalysis.com.

The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez Frias, manifested his rejection, this Sunday, of the kidnapping of the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, by that nation’s military, and said that North American imperialism and the extreme right are behind this act.

“It’s a brutal coup d’etat, one of many that happened over 10 years in Latin America. Behind these soldiers are the Honduran bourgeois, the rich who converted Honduras into a Banana Republic, into a political and military base for North American imperialism,” said the Venezuelan head of state.

[…]

via North American Imperialism and the Extreme Right are Behind Coup in Honduras: Chavez | venezuelanalysis.com

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Honduran president exiled to Costa Rica – 28 June 09

AlJazeeraEnglish
June 28, 2009

Manuel Zelaya, Honduras’s president, has sought asylum in Costa Rica hours after army soldiers seized control of his country in a military coup.

The coup came shortly before voting was to begin on a constitutional referendum, which had been ruled illegal by the supreme court.

Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari reports.

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Obama’s First Coup D’etat by Eva Golinger

Military Coup in Honduras + Father Roy: Inside the School of Assassins

Click here to send a message to President Barack Obama.

Military Coup Honduras Zelaya

Is the Fed Juicing the Stock Market? by Mike Whitney

Dandelion Salad

by Mike Whitney
Global Research, June 29, 2009

Why has the stock market been on a 3-month tear when the economy is undergoing the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression? The S&P 500 has shot up 40% from its low on March 9 and the Dow Jones Industrials have followed close behind. Is this a typical bear market rally or is the invisible hand of the Fed goosing the markets?

Everyone seems to agree that the Fed’s multi-trillion dollar quantitative easing (QE) is the jet-fuel that’s put stocks into orbit. But how is the money filtering into the market?

The first place to look is the Fed’s lending facilities which have provided trillions of dollars in loans and US Treasuries for dodgy mortgage-backed collateral. These loans are not collecting dust in company vaults, but are being used for speculation in the stock market. Unfortunately, Bernanke refuses to say which financial institutions have gotten the loans, or how much they have borrowed, or even what type of toxic garbage that’s been taken in exchange. It’s all very hush-hush. Bernanke’s even shrugged off the threats of legal action from Bloomberg News, which is demanding greater transparency in the Fed’s programs. What a joke. The Fed doesn’t have to comply with the law; it IS the law. Meanwhile Bernanke’s stealth monetizing operations have continued without pause, boosting market activity, driving up the price of commodities and inflating another equities bubble. It’s all just business as usual at the Fed.

Obama’s First Coup D’etat by Eva Golinger

Dandelion Salad

by Eva Golinger
¡Presente!
June 28, 2009

President Zelaya of Honduras has just been kidnapped

[Note: As of 11:15am, Caracas time, President Zelaya is speaking live on Telesur from San Jose, Costa Rica. He has verified the soldiers entered his residence in the early morning hours, firing guns and threatening to kill him and his family if he resisted the coup. He was forced to go with the soldiers who took him to the air base and flew him to Costa Rica. He has requested the U.S. Government make a public statement condemning the coup, otherwise, it will indicate their compliance.]

The text message that beeped on my cell phone this morning read “Alert, Zelaya has been kidnapped, coup d’etat underway in Honduras, spread the word.” It’s a rude awakening for a Sunday morning, especially for the millions of Hondurans that were preparing to exercise their sacred right to vote today for the first time on a consultative referendum concerning the future convening of a constitutional assembly to reform the constitution. Supposedly at the center of the controversary is today’s scheduled referendum, which is not a binding vote but merely an opinion poll to determine whether or not a majority of Hondurans desire to eventually enter into a process to modify their constitution.