Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a Washington ODE by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://antiempirereport.blogspot.com
www.killinghope.org
July 3, 2009

Much ado about nothing?

What is there about the Iranian election of June 12 that has led to it being one of the leading stories in media around the world every day since? Elections whose results are seriously challenged have taken place in most countries at one time or another in recent decades. Countless Americans believe that the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen by the Republicans, and not just inside the voting machines and in the counting process, but prior to the actual voting as well with numerous Republican Party dirty tricks designed to keep poor and black voters off voting lists or away from polling stations. The fact that large numbers of Americans did not take to the streets day after day in protest, as in Iran, is not something we can be proud of. Perhaps if the CIA, the Agency for International Development (AID), several US government-run radio stations, and various other organizations supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (which was created to serve as a front for the CIA, literally) had been active in the United States, as they have been for years in Iran, major street protests would have taken place in the United States.

Cynthia McKinney – Prisoner 88794 call Day 2 from Prison

Dandelion Salad

Updated: July 4, 2009 added transcript

RunCynthiaRun
July 03, 2009

Cynthia McKinney calls in to WBAIX.org, now as Prisoner 88794 during her 2nd day in Prison. She tells the story in more detail and talks about the people she’s meet in prison.

Listen to the latest breaking news and protest on
http://www.wbaix.org/

UN Expert denounces seizure of aid boat by Israeli forces

Dandelion Salad

Written by Free Gaza Movement

Friday, 03 July 2009 01:13
Last Updated on Friday, 03 July 2009 01:14
2 July 2009

GENEVA – The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, denounced the unlawful naval seizure by an Israeli gunboat on the high seas of a ship carrying medicine and reconstruction material to blockaded people of Gaza.

“This Israeli action implements its cruel blockade of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza, in violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention that prohibits any form of collective punishment directed at an occupied people”, said the human rights expert.

Behind the Honduran Coup By Alberto Vallente Thorensen

Dandelion Salad

By Alberto Vallente Thorensen
ICH
July 01, 2009 “Counterpunch”

In the classic Greek tragedy, Prometheus Bound, the playwright observes: “Of wrath’s disease wise words the healers are.” Shortly put, this story is about Prometheus, a titan who was punished by the almighty gods for having given humanity the capacity to create fire. This generated a conflict, which ended with Prometheus’ banishment and exile.

Currently, there is a tragedy being staged in the Central American republic Honduras. Meanwhile, the rest of humanity follows the events, as spectators of an outdated event in Latin America, which could set a very unfortunate undemocratic precedent for the region. In their rage, the almighty gods of Honduran politics have punished an aspiring titan, President Manuel Zelaya, for attempting to give Hondurans the gift of participatory democracy. This generated a constitutional conflict that resulted in president Zelaya’s banishment and exile. In this tragedy, words are once again the healers of enraged minds. If we, the spectators, are not attentive to these words, we risk succumbing intellectually, willfully accepting the facts presented by the angry coup-makers and Honduran gods of politics.

In this respect, media coverage of the recent military coup in Honduras is often misleading; even when it is presenting a critical standpoint towards the events. Concentrating on which words are used to characterize the policies conducted by President Zelaya might seem trivial at first sight. But any familiarity to the notion of ‘manufacturing of consent’, and how slight semantic tricks can be used to manipulate public opinion and support, is enough to realize the magnitude of certain omissions. Such oversights rely on the public’s widespread ignorance about some apparently minor legal intricacies in the Honduran Constitution.

[…]

via Behind the Honduran Coup     : Information Clearing House – ICH

see

Military Using “Brutal” Force Against Anti-Coup Protests in Honduras + Father Roy Bourgeois

Covering (up) the coup in Honduras – the BBC does its bit for the Empire by William Bowles

Military Coup Honduras Zelaya

“Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire” by Stephen Lendman

Dandelion Salad

by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, July 3, 2009

Review of Michael Hudson’s Book

First written in 1972, it was updated in a 2003 edition that’s every bit as relevant now – thus this review focusing on Hudson’s new preface, introduction, and detailed account of the book’s theme.

He revisited it in his 2008-09 Project Censored award- winning article titled: “Economic Meltdown – The ‘Dollar Glut’ is What Finances America’s Global Military Build-up” in which he explains the following – the “inter-related dynamics” of:

— “surplus (US) dollars pouring into the rest of the world for yet further financial speculation and corporate takeovers;”

— global central banks “recyl(ing) these dollar inflows (into) US Treasury bonds to finance the federal US budget deficit; and most important (but most suppressed in the US media),”

— “the military character of the US payments deficit and the domestic federal budget deficit.”

Frank Kucinich, brother of U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, dies at age 60

Dandelion Salad

Our sincere condolences and sympathies to Dennis Kucinich and his family on the passing of his brother, Frank.

by Grant Segall
The Plain Dealer
July 2, 2009

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

[…]

Frank Kucinich, 60, died suddenly on Tuesday at his long-time home, the Ohio Veterans Home in Sandusky. He was the third Kucinich sibling to die since December 2007.