Our Defeat is Certain, and it is Soon by Daniel N. White

by Daniel N. White
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
February 13, 2010

I wrote the below nigh on three years ago.  Things haven’t changed any in Iraq since–how could they?  The key factors are the geography and the logistics, as is generally always the case in warfare.  Geography, logistics, and the will to fight–that’s most of warfare.  We have all three against us in Iraq, and hell it is even worse in Afghanistan.

I freely  confess to being a military amateur.  I gladly encourage persons with more military expertise than me to comment on the article.  I don’t see how I am wrong anywhere in it.  And as far as military amateurism goes, well, history records a book that came out in 1912 by this Polish civilian nobody named Bloch who predicted that the next European big war would involve massive armies fighting each other in trenches behind barbed wire with huge artillery bombardments and machine guns making infantry maneuver impossible; that the next war would be a mobilization of the entire industrial capabilities of Europe and the entire adult male populace, and it would last years, and would be more costly and destructive by far than any war that ever came before.  Expert military opinion at the time universally said Bloch was a crank and was wrong on every single prediction.

“Libertarian” capitalism’s corporate sponsorship

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mr1001nights
February 13, 2010

Why would big corporate interests sponsor an ideology that supposedly undermines their power? Could it be that the ideology of “libertarian” capitalism supports the status quo (or an even worse corporate one)?

This section of An Anarchist FAQ shows the true nature of capitalist “libertarianism” http://infoshop.org/faq/secFcon.html

Jacques Pauwels on the 65th anniversary of Dresden bombing

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RussiaToday
February 12, 2010

The bombing of Dresden in February 1945 has remained one of the more controversial aspects of World War Two. Dresden, the ancient and was attacked three times on Feb 13 and 14 — twice by the RAF (Royal Air Force) and once by the USAAF (United States Army Air Force) in an operation involving well over 1,000 bombers. Today is the 65th anniversary of that excessive attack, some say that it was revenge for Germans attack of London. However, Jacques Pauwels views the attack as a warning and to intimidate to the Soviets because it was suspected that they would arrive in Dresden in a few days.

How to Create a New World Order By Roland Michel Tremblay

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By Roland Michel Tremblay
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
13 February 2010

In science fiction there is a specific category of books called alternate history where you simply travel into the past and suddenly change history. What if you could travel to 1754 just before the French and Indian War in America with a modern army of the future, and decided to build a new world order? Would you stop the Seven Years’ War that started in 1756? Where would you begin, how would you go about it?

These could sound like strange questions but this is precisely what many science fiction authors must deal with, they have to think of ways of changing history for the better. Like stopping wars through wars or demonstration of power in order to build a new world order. I am writing such a novel right now and it is not as easy as that. Because suddenly my small town in Quebec from the year 2039 is sent to 1754, becoming instantly the most fearsome power in the world (don’t worry, Celine Dion remained safely in 2039, she was in Las Vegas when it happened).

Haiti, Forgive Us by Amy Goodman + “The plan of death” + FAD: a charitable organization run by Haitian youths

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by Amy Goodman
Truthdig
Feb 9, 2010

The tragedy of the Haitian earthquake continues to unfold, with slow delivery of aid, the horrific number of amputations performed out of desperate medical necessity, more than a million homeless, perhaps 240,000 dead, hunger, dehydration, the emergence of infections and waterborne diseases, and the approach of the rainy season, which will be followed by the hurricane season. Haiti has suffered a massive blow, an earthquake for which its infrastructure was not prepared, after decades—no, centuries—of military and economic manipulation by foreign governments, most notably the United States and France.

[…]

via Amy Goodman: Haiti, Forgive Us – Truthdig

Citizen Radio interviews Greg Palast about Citizens United VS. FEC

by Greg Palast
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.gregpalast.com
13 February, 2010

CitizenRadio
February 12, 2010

Subscribe to Citizen Radio for free at http://wearecitizenradio.com to hear the FULL interview with Greg Palast. (Interview originally aired February 6, 2010).

Allison and Jamie spend the hour interviewing muckraking investigative journalist, Greg Palast (http://gregpalast.com) about Citizens United VS. FEC and the power of corporations to buy elections.

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse, and an investigator of corporate fraud and racketeering. He has been called the “most important investigative reporter of our time” [Tribune Magazine] in Britain, where his first reports appeared on BBC television and in the Guardian newspapers.

Palast joins Citizen Radio to discuss the Supreme Courts decision to invest corporations with the same rights afforded to American citizens (Citizens United VS. FEC) (Correction: the secondary header in Part 1 erroneously refers to “Citizens United VS. FCC”)

Socialism or Barbarism: the Choice is Ours by Finian Cunningham

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by Finian Cunningham
Global Research, February 12, 2010

Time is of the essence. Given the descent into barbarism that the world is witnessing as a result of the breakdown in capitalism, there is a very real danger that US-led militarism could escalate even further from its existing criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan into an all-out conflagration with any number of countries designated to be geopolitical rivals or miscreants: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba. History proves that this is always the brutal outcome when the profit system is threatened with total collapse.

For those committed to creating a world of social justice and peace, it is vital to communicate as widely as possible as to the precise cause of the present economic failure, with its consequent social misery and violence. Let’s not be under any illusions about the root of barbarism today: it is, as Rosa Luxemburg and others have pointed out, the failure of capitalism as a system of production and distribution to meet human needs in an equitable, democratic and sustainable way.