The light shines, hope emerges, love perseveres by Eileen Fleming + Fingers crossed: US Cargo Heads For Gaza-again

by Eileen Fleming
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
July 28, 2010

“When we first learned of the opportunity to get these supplies directly to the people of Gaza via the Freedom Flotilla, we asked our partner NGOs in Gaza what we could send that would matter most to them, given the 3 year-long blockade. They asked Americans to send messages to children, along with backpacks, sports equipment, and cement to build a kindergarten.”- Donna Baranski-Walker, Executive Director of the Rebuilding Alliance.

In 2006 Father Manuel, the parish priest at the Latin Church and school in Gaza informed the world:

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Uganda: U.S., NATO Allies Prepare New Invasion Of Somalia by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
Stop NATO-Opposition to global militarism
July 28, 2010

The 15th biennial African Union summit in Kampala, Uganda ended on July 27 with mixed results regarding support for U.S. and Western European plans to escalate foreign military intervention in nearby Somalia.

The 35 heads of state present at the three-day meeting were reported to have authorized the deployment of 2,000 more African troops to back up the beleaguered Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Mogadishu and to bring the full complement of forces doing so to 8,000, but the new contingent will probably consist solely of troops from Uganda and Burundi, which supply the approximately 6,000 already serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

The Numbness of Awareness by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
July 28, 2010

I am numb, I think.

Since the U.S. Corporate Military Industrial Complex forced me into the World of the Aware after my son’s murder in Iraq, I feel that the news freshly assaults me on a daily basis.

I am numb, I think, from being abused by this Empire on a regular basis for years.

I am numb, I think, because it wears on one to care so deeply when so many citizens of my national community (reader excepted) barely even know we are at war, let alone that we live in a murderous Empire.

Beware Rich Political Saviors by Joel S. Hirschhorn

by Joel S. Hirschhorn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.foavc.org
July 28, 2010

Consumer confidence is terrible; citizen confidence is worse: Only 11 percent of Americans have confidence in Congress.  No surprise there is record-setting anti-incumbency anger rampant among Americans.  But the sad truth is damned if you do and damned if you don’t vote for incumbents.

The problem is that the reformers, populist outsiders, tea party candidates, surprise primary winners and others expecting to oust incumbents in the coming mid-term elections for members of Congress and state governors and other officials mostly suck.  Why?  They are nutty, ignorant, dishonest or racist.

Democracy Now!: Julian Assange: Transparent Government Tends to Produce Just Government

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Democracy Now!
July 28, 2010

WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange: “Transparent Government Tends to Produce Just Government”

We spend the hour with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, talking about the biggest leak in US history: the release of more than 91,000 classified military records on the war in Afghanistan. As the Pentagon announces it is launching a criminal probe into who leaked the documents, Assange asks what about investigating the “war crimes” revealed in the leaked military records? He also talks about the media, why he isn’t coming to the US anytime soon, and what gives him hope. “What keeps us going is our sources. These are the people, presumably, who are inside these organizations, who want change,” Assange says. “They are both heroic figures taking much greater risks than I ever do, and they are pushing and showing that they want change in, in fact, an extremely effective way.” [includes rush transcript]

Ahmadinejad: US, Israel plan to attack at least two countries in the Middle East within the next three months

compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
28 July 2010


1) President Ahmadinejad: US, Israel plan to attack at least two countries in the Middle East within the next three months (26 July 2010)

2) U.S. House of Representatives bill expresses support for Israel’s right to use military force against Iran (22 July 2010)

American Designs in Latin America By Timothy V. Gatto

By Timothy V. Gatto
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
liberalpro.blogspot.com
July 28, 2010

The United States has many fences in Latin America that need mending.  You can see by the attention the U.S. is paying to Costa Rica, Colombia and Panama that the government in Washington is keenly aware of this and is responding in the only way it knows how to respond…militarily. This is the only response that America knows. Not that it hasn’t worked, since the end of World War II, the United States has been involved in overthrowing a government in every nation in Latin America, some more than once. There has been more than one career spent in American clandestine organizations participating in regime changes from start to finish. By now the United States should have it down to a fine art. In fact, Americans thought that they had the formula for regime change down to a fine science until 2002 when they attempted to overthrow Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, there things went horribly wrong. The people there suddenly decided for themselves that they didn’t want any part of the right-wing government about to be forced upon them and marched Chavez back to the Palace and reinstalled him.

War Parties Join Hands In $$$ Orgy by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes July 27, 2010
July 28, 2010

There were two important votes today in the House of Representatives (one must wonder who is really being represented by most politicians these days).

The first was a vote on Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s resolution calling on the U.S. to remove its military forces from Pakistan. It went down in a blazing vote of bi-partisan unity 372-38. Those brave souls who voted in favor of the resolution were:

Will the U.S. Annex Latin America? By Timothy V. Gatto

By Timothy V. Gatto
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
liberalpro.blogspot.com
July 28, 2010

The United States seems to be rushing into potential confrontations all over the globe. When the voters rejected the policies of George W. Bush by voting for Barack Obama, many people thought that this country would find a way to communicate with the rest of the World instead of deploying soldiers and weapons of war. Clearly this has not been the case. The United States of America has turned this planet into a playground for the Pentagon and we have seen an influx of soldiers and materials for waging war filling the airfields of Colombia, Costa Rica, Afghanistan, Poland and scores of other nations that have allowed their nations to be forward operating areas for this American Empire.

Oil leaks = wikileaks by Roxanne Amico

by Roxanne Amico
Dandelion Salad
Spiritmorph Studio
July 28, 2010

Updated: July 29, 2010

Remember Sesame Street? Remember the song, “One of these things is not like the other” ? On that theme, I’d call this post, “One of these things is just like the other!”

Since the Wikileaks story about the US gov’t’s failed criminal war on Afghanistan broke this past weekend, I’ve been following the trail of the “truth hemorrhage “… Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks said, in this der Speigel interview, “…There is a legitimate role for secrecy, and there is a legitimate role for openness.

BP Response Crew Faces “Catastrophic” Conditions by Dahr Jamail

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

by Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t
26 July 2010

BP oil disaster response workers are reporting endemic problems, such as not being paid on time, low morale, rampant sickness, equipment failures and being lied to regularly.

“Yesterday was a catastrophe,” one worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Truthout. “People are waiting 2-3 hours for their paychecks to be brought to them and I know for a fact three people that didn’t get paid and no reason was given.”

The woman has been working as a clerk for Gulf Asphalt Contractors (GAC), a company that describes itself as “the leading provider of sitework (sic) and building construction services in the Florida Panhandle.” The company, based in Panama City, Florida, is a BP contractor.