Obama Deplores World Poverty: Welcome to the Theatre of Absurd by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
finian.cunningham@yahoo.com
23 September, 2010

US President Barack Obama is the latest voice from the “great and good” to bemoan the lack of achievement in the United Nation’s Millennium goals, first declared 10 years ago, to drastically reduce world poverty and generate sustainable development. Earlier in the week, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and ex-UN chief Kofi Annan espoused similar sentiments of disappointment with the fight against poverty and all its miseries. Welcome to the Theatre of Absurd.

Here we have the very managers and apologists for the economic system that generates poverty and environmental destruction on a massive scale seeming to lament those manifestations. Not only that, but they affect a demeanour of brooding puzzlement over why poverty remains so entrenched across the world, with over one billion people (and counting) deprived of basic necessities for a decent life.

Law of Value 3: Das MudPie by Brendan M. Cooney

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

brendanmcooney | May 13, 2010

If you spend any time reading about Marx’s theory of value on the internet you probably will come across some version of this asinine excuse for a critique called “the mudpie argument.” The basic style of the mudpie argument is similar to many advanced by those who know nothing about Marx’s theory of value: one constructs a ridiculous strawman argument that has nothing to do with Marx and then proceeds to knock it down with “devastating” brilliance, moral outrage, and a few clever asides about Stalinism. The MudPie argument goes something like this:

Law of Value 2: The Fetishism of Commodities by Brendan M. Cooney

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

brendanmcooney | May 05, 2010

This phenomenon where objects have social power, in which things act as if they have a will of their own, is what Marx sought to unravel with his notion of “the fetishism of commodities.” When Marx talked about fetishism he wasn’t talking about whips and chains and leather outfits. He was talking about the way the relations between producers in a capitalist society take the form of relations between things.

Law of Value 1: Introduction by Brendan M. Cooney

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the video below

Dandelion Salad

Law of Value 1: Intro (Addendum)

brendanmcooney | April 27, 2010

This is a brief Addendum to the Introduction to my Law of Value video series. It gives some advice on how to watch these videos, cautioning to think critically about the way we contextualize information online.

Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson: Winner-Take-All Politics

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NewAmericaFoundation | September 20, 2010

In Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer – And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class, Jacob S. Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of Berkeley argue that America’s money-addicted and change-resistant political system is at the heart of the enormous and rapidly growing income inequality that they say is undermining America’s economic and political stability.

Robert Solow, Nobel Laureate in Economics, says of Winner-Take-All Politics: “Hacker and Pierson argue strongly that the concentration of income at the top is not just the work of deep economic forces. It is aided and abetted by politicians who favor the very rich or allow policies that once favored the rest of us to erode. Hacker and Pierson look closely, sharply, and entertainingly at the way that interest-group politics and the political power of money have allowed this travesty of democracy to happen. This book is a wake-up call. Read it and wake up.”

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones describe the book as “the most complete and sustained explanation I’veever read of why, over the past 30 years, America has gone the direction it has even while most other countries haven’t….a 300-page ‘Aha!’ moment.”

http://www.newamerica.net/events/2010…

Marx’s Vision of Socialism by Brian Jones

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by Brian Jones
SocialistWorker.org
March 4, 2009

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Socialism isn’t a utopian dream. It is a part of the real world, a struggle already in progress. Brian Jones examines Marx’s revolutionary ideas in this last of three articles.

KARL MARX is widely condemned as a utopian dreamer. The irony in this is the fact that Marx is distinguished from previous socialists precisely by his departure from a utopian approach.

The real utopians were the socialists before Marx. They dreamed of an egalitarian society, and drew up elaborate plans for them–rigorously detailed blueprints for industry, education and social life. The utopians hoped that if these plans were presented to rich and powerful people, they would be convinced by the rationality of socialism, and they–the bourgeoisie–would give us an egalitarian society.

Imperialism 101 – Chapter 1 of Against Empire by Michael Parenti (1995)

by Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.michaelparenti.org
Sept. 22, 2010

Image by jbartok via Flickr

Imperialism has been the most powerful force in world history over the last four or five centuries, carving up whole continents while oppressing indigenous peoples and obliterating entire civilizations. Yet, it is seldom accorded any serious attention by our academics, media commentators, and political leaders. When not ignored outright, the subject of imperialism has been sanitized, so that empires become “commonwealths,” and colonies become “territories” or “dominions” (or, as in the case of Puerto Rico, “commonwealths” too).

Denial, Selective Perception and Military Atrocities by Felicity Arbuthnot

Warning

This article and links to other websites may contain words/graphics depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be read/viewed by a mature audience.

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at Global Research
22 September, 2010

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“Wrong from the start.” (Ezra Pound, 1885-1972.)

When the horrors of the sadistic, near necrophile behaviour of U.S., personnel at Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, first showed the tip-of-the-iceberg-lie of “liberation”: cruelty, depravity and bestiality on a scale which apparently dwarfed all that Saddam Hussein’s regime had been accused of, President George W. Bush said: ” This does not represent the America I know.”

What Do Empires Do? by Michael Parenti

by Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.michaelparenti.org February 2010
Sept. 22, 2010

When I wrote my book Against Empire in 1995, as might be expected, some of my U.S. compatriots thought it was wrong of me to call the United States an empire. It was widely believed that U.S. rulers did not pursue empire; they intervened abroad only out of self-defense or for humanitarian rescue operations or to restore order in a troubled region or overthrow tyranny, fight terrorism, and propagate democracy.

But by the year 2000, everyone started talking about the United States as an empire and writing books with titles like Sorrows of Empire, Follies of Empire, Twilight of Empire, or Empire of Illusions— all referring to the United States when they spoke of empire.

Marx becomes a Marxist by Brian Jones

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

by Brian Jones
SocialistWorker.org
February 25, 2009

Karl Marx developed his ideas in an era of when young people were dedicating their lives to a struggle for new rights and freedoms. Brian Jones examines Marx’s revolutionary ideas in this second of three articles.

HOW DID Karl Marx become a Marxist? Marx developed his idea not just through study–although he was a voracious reader (really, the word “voracious” doesn’t begin to touch it). Marx’s Marxism is really the theoretical product of his practical efforts to build a movement for radical change, and his observations of struggles taking place around him.

This is worth our attention because Marx is not only the author of a set of ideas about history, but the author of a unique method of looking at history. This method is widely known as historical materialism or dialectical materialism.

… Give Protest A Chance! by Philip A. Farruggio + Hearts and Minds (1974)

by Philip A. Farruggio
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
September 21, 2010

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Remember the song “Give Peace A Chance”? Yesterday they held an international day for peace throughout the world. In New Smyrna Beach around 100 people came to lobby for peace. A great occasion with many noble souls attending. A few days earlier we held a progressive discussion group on activism, at the Port Orange library. We were lucky to attract 8 people. The main topic of our discussion was the Military Industrial Complex and how it controls our government (both major parties, including the tea sippers). This group, the one that Eisenhower (a cold warrior himself) warned us about in his 1961 Farewell Address, is responsible for the current two phony wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Americans of good conscience do not buy into the propaganda of “Fight them there so they won’t come here” and “They attacked us on 9/11…. It’s payback time!” Question is: What are they doing about it?

NATO Provides Pentagon Nuclear, Missile And Cyber Shields Over Europe by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
Stop NATO-Opposition to global militarism
Sept. 21, 2010

The Pentagon’s number two official, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn, was in Brussels, Belgium on September 15 to address the North Atlantic Council – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s top civilian body – and the private Security & Defence Agenda think tank.

His comments at the second event, hosted by the only defense-related institution of its type in the city that hosts NATO’s and the European Union’s headquarters, dealt extensively with what Lynn referred to as a “cyber shield” over all of Europe, which he described as a “critical element” for the 28-nation military bloc to address and endorse at its summit in Lisbon, Portugal on November 19-20.

Newly Disclosed Documents Shed More Light on Early Taliban Offers, Pakistan Role by Jeremy R. Hammond

by Jeremy R. Hammond
Featured Writer
DandelionSalad
Foreign Policy Journal
21 September, 2010

U.S. government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and recently posted on the website of the George Washington University National Security Archive shed some additional light on talks with the Taliban prior to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including with regard to the repeated Taliban offers to hand over Osama bin Laden, and the role of Pakistan before and after the attacks.[1]

One of the recently released State Department documents, from March 2000, notes that a proposed “gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Multan, Pakistan figured prominently in discussions” about the mutual goal between the U.S. and regional players of stabilizing Afghanistan. Discussions on another proposed pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan had also been proposed that were “more advanced”, and the Pakistanis had gone to Tehran to meet with Iranian officials “to pursue these negotiations”. But neither “pipeline is likely to go forward in the mid-term”, the documented concluded.

Law of Value 6: Socially Necessary Labor Time by Brendan M. Cooney

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Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

brendanmcooney | September 20, 2010

[…] Our private labor doesn’t immediately become social. It must become value in order to be social. But in becoming value it is disciplined by socially necessary labor time. SNLT acts as an external force which disciplines our private labor, constantly compelling us to work more efficiently, yet never actually making our work easier or more fulfilling. SNLT creates the possibility for super-profits when one produces under the SNLT, and the search for super-profits drives much of the mad, chaotic development of the productive forces of a capitalist society, generating all sorts of unforeseen consequences.

The Return of Marx by Brian Jones

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

by Brian Jones
SocialistWorker.org
February 16, 2009

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The ideas of Karl Marx–that class society creates great wealth for the few at the expense of the many–ring truer every day. Brian Jones examines Marx’s revolutionary ideas in this first of three articles.

IN THE last 150 years of U.S. history, you can’t point to a generation whose most active, radical layers have not been drawn to the ideas of Karl Marx.

This was true of the abolitionist movement (Marxist immigrants even fought with the Northern Army in the Civil War), the early pioneers of our labor movement, the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) who passed through Socialist and Communist Parties in the first half of the 20th century, and of the many thousands who joined the Black Panther Party and other parties that declared themselves against capitalism and in favor of socialism in the late 1960s and early 1970s.