Setting the Record Straight on Venezuela and Hugo Chavez by Eva Golinger

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by Eva Golinger
Global Research, January 9, 2011
chavezcode.com

With so much misinformation circulating in different media outlets around the world about Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez, it’s time to set the record straight. Venezuela is not a dictatorship and President Chavez is no dictator. Just last evening the Venezuelan head of state participated in a meeting with a group of housing activists, who not only criticized – live on television – government policies and inaction on tenant and housing issues, but also proposed laws, regulations and projects that were received with open arms by Chavez himself. And last week, the Venezuelan President vetoed a law on higher education that had been approved by the prior year’s majority pro-Chavez legislature, calling for more “open and wide” debate on the subject, to include critics and those who had protested the bill. That is not the behavior of a brutal dictator.

Peak Oil and a Changing Climate

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videonation | January 03, 2011

The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world’s supply of oil runs out?

In a new video series from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and other scientists, researchers and writers explain.

Go here to learn more about “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate,” and to see the other videos in the series.

Yoko Ono, interviewed by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
January 9, 2011

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(SOAPBOX #82) – Cindy welcomes famous peace activist Yoko Ono.  Long before there was a John and Yoko, she grew up in Japan during the end of World War II.  It didn’t take much more to make her a committed peace activist.  It had a critical formative influence on her whole life.  They discuss the historical growth of the peace movement, plus rippling effects from the dawning public recognition of just how much our “democratically elected” government lies to us.  Yoko and Cindy both suffered great tragic losses in their lives.  Cindy asks how she could possibly keep going and stay so strong and so positive.  Yoko just answers, “It was the only thing I could do.”  Optimism is NEEDED.  Both observe we need to “take a sad song – and make it better!”

Violence: From Tucson to Datta Khel by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
January 9, 2011

“Violence is a part of America. I don’t want to single out rap music. Let’s be honest. America’s the most violent country in the history of the world, that’s just the way it is. We’re all affected by it. “ — Spike Lee

“I do not know a method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.” — Edmund Burke

January 8, 2011 was a tough day—six people were killed and many more wounded in a cowardly act of unspeakable violence.

Transparency in the Age of Obama by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
January 9, 2011

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.

Taken from the White House Website – A message from President Obama to his staff.

Israel’s witch-hunt against leftist organizations by Lincoln Z. Shlensky

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Crossposted with permission from Jewish Peace News

by Lincoln Z. Shlensky
Jewish Peace News
January 9, 2011

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Numerous public figures and organizations — from leftists and liberals in Israel and the US, to centrist journalists and mainstream Jewish Diaspora organizations — have sharply condemned the Israeli Knesset’s January 5th decision, passed by a lopsided 47-16 margin of lawmakers, to investigate the funding sources of Israeli leftist organizations. Many of the following commentaries (links below) discuss the bill’s alarming ramifications for Israeli democracy, even if the planned parliamentary committee never actually conducts the threatened “investigation.” Some see this as a disgraceful Israeli equivalent to the infamous anti-communist investigations of the US House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s and its proceedings against political activists in the 1960s.

Will labor challenge austerity? by Brian Tierney

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by Brian Tierney
SocialistWorker.org
January 7, 2011

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Brian Tierney looks at one reason why there’s been little response so far to austerity.

ACROSS THE U.S., working-class people are struggling, scraping together meager sums in order to get by. In state and local governments throughout the country, workers are watching public services slashed in the name of balanced budgets.

Trillions of dollars have been doled out to Wall Street titans and big banks. And while the epidemic of home foreclosures and cuts to public services rages on, corporate profits are soaring to record highs, and banks are sitting on hordes of accumulated capital. Still, we are told, there simply isn’t enough money to help the millions struggling in these economic hard times.