War – Part 2: Anybody’s Son Will Do (1983; must-see)

Updated: April 27, 2010, added a link to a related story

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Image by Ted Swedenburg via Flickr

Thanks to Emily Spence for sending this to DS.  Please send this http://wp.me/p5qmX-kfh (short link) to anyone you know who may be considering joining the military.  Thank you.

By Bill Willers
20 April, 2010
Opednews.com

In 1983, the National Film Board of Canada produced a 57-minute film, “Anybody’s Son Will Do”. Arguably the best anti-war film ever made, and tailored for public television, it scared the hell out of the U.S. military machine, which has done its best to “disappear” it. For years it has been nearly impossible to find a copy, but some kind soul has posted it on YouTube where it can be seen in six segments.

Ulysses S. Grant, Ronald Reagan, and the $50.00 Bill by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
April 20, 2010

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Representative Patrick McHenry, a Republican appropriately enough of North Carolina, has proposed replacing the visage of Ulysses S. Grant with that of Ronald Reagan on the $50.00 bill. This man thus would replace the picture of the man who militarily did more than anyone else to win the Civil War for the Union with that of the man whose current followers want more than anything to tear it asunder. Funnily enough, this man is of course a close namesake of one of the heroes of the American Revolution.  By the time of the creation and the adoption of the US Constitution, Patrick Henry was a strong anti-Federalist.  Indeed he opposed ratification of  the Constitution by his former colony, Virginia.  The Constitution begins with the words “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union” and provides for very significant powers to the Federal government.  Henry was very definitely against it and them, just as many so-called “Tea Partiers” are today.

Relentless Global Drive: NATO On Six Continents In Seven Days by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
Stop NATO-Opposition to global militarism
April 20, 2010

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During the twenty years following the end of the Cold War the military alliance whose founding signaled the advent of an armed East-West confrontation in Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has transformed itself into history’s first international military formation.

In the process the bloc has progressively substituted itself for and attempted to supplant the 56-nation Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Eurasia and the United Nations globally.

Over six years ago the current U.S. permanent representative to NATO, Ivo Daalder, co-authored an opinion piece in the Washington Post that was titled “Global NATO.” The theme of the article was encapsulated in one sentence: “With little fanfare – and even less notice – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has gone global.” [1]

Can Lebanon come in from the Cold? Part II: Resistance and Rebuttal by Franklin Lamb

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Thanks to Franklin Lamb for sending this to DS.

by Franklin Lamb
Dandelion Salad
20 April, 2010

Part I: Hiba’s Story, Ein el Helwe Palestinian Refugee Camp, Lebanon: Can Lebanon Come in from The Cold

Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp
Beirut, Lebanon

As of mid-April 2010 there are no fewer than six draft laws, half of them ‘embargoed for now’ being circulated and debated in Lebanon, any one of which if adopted by Parliament, would grant Lebanon’s Palestinians, for the first time since their 1948 expulsion from Palestine, some elementary civil rights including the right to work, to have an ID, and to own a home.

Part Three of this discussion will reveal publicly for the first time, with the permission of the various Drafting committees, the changes in Lebanon’s laws each one advocates.

Despite the fact that bookies and odd makers at Lebanon’s main Casino in Jounieh decline to give odds on any of the drafts actually being enacted by Parliament, Lebanon’s political leaders are talking sweet.

A Mad Tea Party by William John Cox + cartoon by Helen Cox

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by William John Cox
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.thevoters.org
April 20, 2010

by Helen Cox, used with permission

© All rights reserved.

There are good reasons why the tea partyers are mad; however, their solutions are equally mad.

John Kerry in Austin by Daniel N. White

by Daniel N. White
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
April 20, 2010

John Kerry’s last visit to Austin was on Earth Day, 2007.  Austin is a big enough city nowadays to attract political heavy-hitters some–not like it did when LBJ was president, but more than most flyover states’ cities its size do.  For reasons I don’t know and never will and don’t care to anyway John Kerry chose to make Austin, Texas his book tour stop for Earth Day, 2007, for his new book on the environment that he and his wife Teresa supposedly wrote.

Kerry drew a crowd of around 150 to the local independent bookstore for his and Teresa’s presentation of the book.  Audience was the typical demographic for a mainstream Democratic politician–most of the audience was affluent, white, and social security age or better. They were all spry and well preserved for their age, none I remember showed physical decrepitude any, which shows that every one of them had had indoors professional jobs their entire lives, that none of them had worked outdoors doing physical work in Texas for a living.  Something to be said for indoors jobs after all, I guess. 

Resigned To Truth by Philip A. Farruggio

by Philip A. Farruggio
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
20 April, 2010

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President Barack Obama. I did not vote for you, because the two party system you are part of is corrupt and non productive. Yet, you seem to be a good and decent man. Alas, you think you can accomplish what some presidents before you have attempted, which is ‘ Work inside the system to change it. ‘ They either could not do it, or became corrupted themselves by the allure of greatness. They traded in justice and truth for expediency and compromise. To compromise with the devil one still accepts his dirty deeds. Have you, sir, read the fine new book ‘ JFK and The Unspeakable ‘ ? Have you watched the fine films The Good Shepherd and Syriana , whereupon good men became corrupted and corrupted men became good? Mr. President, you are now approaching that ‘ ledge of reason ‘ yourself. It took Eisenhower eight years to finally find the courage ( much too late ) to speak the truth when he gave his farewell address. He knew of the Military Industrial Complex before he even ran for office. As President, he allowed himself to become complicit in it. You know what happened to JFK when he had his epiphany after the Cuban Missile Crisis. He became ‘ born again for peace ‘ and the rest is history.

Lynching greedy bankers is not the solution by Finian Cunningham

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by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Finian.cunningham@gmail.com
20 April, 2010

Six out ten Americans have a hostile view of Wall Street, according to a recent poll. And this survey was taken before the news last week that the US government is charging top Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs and its vice president with fraud over trade in mortgages and derivatives. The charge is serious, given that Goldman Sachs is accused of being aware that there would be an imminent collapse in the US housing market. Nevertheless, the bank went ahead anyway, merrily trading its toxic assets.

Other leading banks and their chief executives are likely to be probed for acting likewise. Such investigation is necessary and long overdue, especially given the trillion-dollar bailouts these profiteers have received from the majority of ordinary tax payers who have borne the brunt of the misery, many of them losing their jobs, houses and retirement plans.