The Unjustifiable Defense of Torture and Gitmo by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
5 May, 2011

With the reported assassination of Osama bin Laden, one of the most alarming responses has been a kind of casual and widespread acceptance that the death of  America’s number one bogeyman would not have been achieved without the use of torture, and without the existence of Guantánamo.

This is wrong on both fronts, as Jane Mayer of the New Yorker explained in response to an early manifestation of the story, put out by torture apologists Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol:

White House PSYOP Script Falls Apart by Sibel Edmonds

by Sibel Edmonds
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Originally published by Boiling Frogs Post
May 5, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Bin Laden Story Keeps Changing-Obama’s Nose Keeps Growing

The standard, call it classic, definition of PSYOP is badly in need of an update. When you look it up, you see something along these lines [Emphasis are mine]: planned propaganda operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. It is way past time to add ‘domestic’ in there. Isn’t it? Come on; remember our mini PSYOP cases like Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. I say ‘mini’ because they were mini, thus, eventually exposed. The ‘major’ ones, at least here in the US, tend to go unnoticed or not widely debated. Right now, we may be very well looking at one of those major ones as it is unfolding: White House Osama Death PSYOP Script.

Elite Commandos or Assassins with Cameras? by Cameron Salisbury

by Cameron Salisbury
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Opedinfo.com
May 5, 2011

The American media has been joyous about the U.S. trained SEAL guerrillas who murdered an unarmed man in cold blood. The are described as heroes, supermen, and courageous, but one national correspondent got it right. She said they were assassins.

Some questions:

If Bin Laden could have been eliminated with 25 commandos, why have 4800 Americans, so far, been sent to a desert to die?

Pres O: What the F… Don’t You Get About Republican Intentions? by Cameron Salisbury

by Cameron Salisbury
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Opedinfo.com, December 2, 2010
crossposted at Arthritis-Alternatives
May 5, 2011

Image by SEIU International via Flickr

You came out of the meeting with Republican leaders and stood in front of cameras saying that you were optimistic about compromise to improve serious domestic problems.

They came out of the meeting saying that their base liked gridlock and they intended to maintain it.

Were you at the same meeting?

How much clearer can those troglodytes be? What in your background has made conciliation and suck up-ness your most important priorities?

Exclusive: Is the U.S. Economy Too Big To Fail? by Ariel Ky

by Ariel Ky
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Peacevisionary’s Blog
China
May 5, 2011

Despite all the hype about the U.S. economy still being the largest in the world, and certainly too big to fail without dragging the rest of the world along with it, a close analysis of several factors reveal that it does indeed appear to be failing. I’m writing this because every once in a while, I just seem to enjoy mucking around in doom and gloom.

Like William Bowles in his article, “The Imperial Mindset”, I think the collapse of a once great nation can happen rather suddenly, just as the usual glacial pace of changes in the natural world can also happen suddenly (think volcanoes erupting, tornadoes slamming homes apart, typhoons destroying buildings, earthquakes collapsing billions of dollars of property in minutes, floods submerging streets and whole cities near rivers, and tsunamis crashing into coastlines, destroying life and property on a massive scale in seconds).

“Inverted Totalitarianism” by Guadamour

by Guadamour
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
May 5, 2011

Image by sakuraknight2000 via Flickr

Review of Democracy Inc.

A friend of mine recently remarked she currently views a lot of parallels with the totalitarianism she sees developing and manifesting itself in the United States with what she saw when as a young woman the Nazi took over her native Germany. This confirms this reviewers opinion that America has become a “Free Country.” One is “Free” to do what he or she is told!

Revolution: The Commercial by Cindy Sheehan and Gregory Vickrey

by Cindy Sheehan and Gregory Vickrey
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
May 5, 2011

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Cue the sappy music.

Enter Activist: I really enjoy hanging out with a close-knit group of friends at Saturday rallies that end before dinner, and posting a bunch of articles and commentary on Facebook and Twitter so friends can ‘like’ them. It makes me feel like I am doing my part, and appreciate solidarity.

Music turns ominous.

Activist: But I began to experience a sense of emptiness when I realized that feeling self-important didn’t really change much on this planet. In fact, things seem to be getting worse no matter who is in office, no matter which huge organization I join, and no matter how many petitions I sign and share and send.