Bahrain: Hospitals and health centres targeted in attacks by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted from Irish Times
March 16, 2011
Manama

used with permission
photo by Darren Shanahan
All rights reserved

The Persian Gulf island of Bahrain was in shock last night after two days of an unrelenting military crackdown against the civilian population. There were reports of widespread violence by state security forces in conjunction with troops and helicopters from the Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Unconfirmed reports put the number of dead to be at least 20, with hundreds injured and many people unaccounted for. “The death toll may be much higher,” said one pro-democracy activist, “because many of the injured were left to die in the streets. Ambulances were stopped from reaching villages where police, militia and army had attacked with Apache helicopters.”

Michael Hudson: Criminalization of the Economy

Image by subcomandanta via Flickr

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

with Michael Hudson
Bonnie Faulkner
Guns and Butter
http://www.kpfa.org
March 16, 2011

Financial and fiscal austerity policies; the appeal of economic austerity to bankers; economic depression and war; post-WWII vs. post-cold war economic policy; government to government grants vs. commercial lending; the euro and dollar; privatization in New Zealand and elsewhere; social unrest; speculation and prices; criminalization of the economy; impoverishment of the US.

Noam Chomsky: U.S. Imperialism and Fake Democracy + transcript

Noam Chomsky. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Updated: Mar. 30, 2011 Added link to the transcript.

shantiq on Mar 15, 2011

Noam Chomsky (2011.03.13) – Amsterdam Westerkerk

Noam Talks About Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi, Bahrain, Iran, US Imperialism & Fake Democracy

Legislated Dictatorship: Coming to a State Near You? by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on Buzzflash.com
March 17, 2011

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

In the past, modern dictatorships have been established in a variety of ways.  In 1919, in response to a short-lived communist revolution, the King of Hungary appointed the first modern civilian absolute ruler, Admiral Nicholas Horthy, who became the first fascist dictator in history.  In 1922, after much maneuvering, Benito Mussolini organized the “March on Rome” by his unofficial “Black Shirt” militia.  King Vittorio Emmanuel III acquiesced in replacing the sitting Prime Minister chosen by Parliament with Mussolini.  By 1924, with the acquiescence of Italian ruling class, Mussolini had established himself as dictator and in fact coined the modern meaning of the word “fascist” to describe his form of absolute rule.