Pennsylvania Legislators Shoot Down Pigeons—Again by Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
December 17, 2011

Image by Focx Photography via Flickr

If the first year gross anatomy class at the Penn State Hershey medical school needs spare body parts to study, they can visit the cloak room of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. That’s where most of the legislators left their spines.

The House voted 124–69, Dec. 13, to send an animal welfare bill back to committee, in this case the Gaming Oversight Committee. The bill, SB 71, would have banned simulcasting of greyhound races from other states.

Christopher Hitchens, Once Vidal’s Dauphin, Now Cosmic Stardust! by Sean Fenley

by Sean Fenley
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Anything and Everything
December 17, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Good ole Hitch is gone, once one of the most prescient and incisive critics of American imperialism — he cheerled for it — during the abominable administration of George W. Bush. Still a record as impressive as his should not be eviscerated, by one conspicuously and egregiously recognizable mistake. Estimates as high as a million dead, have been recorded, though, and he put himself in league with some very dark-hearted and malignant folks.

On the Dark Side in Al Doura – A Soldier in the Shadows (graphic)

Dandelion Salad

Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

by Pulse TV & Maverick Media

http://vimeo.com/33755968

WARNING: Graphic and disturbing photos between 38:47 and 40:00.

Image by Bird Eye, via Flickr

U.S. Army Ranger John Needham, who was awarded two purple hearts and three medals for heroism, wrote to military authorities in 2007 reporting war crimes that he witnessed being committed by his own command and fellow soldiers in Al Doura, Iraq. His charges were supported by atrocity photos which, in the public interest, are now released in this video. John paid a terrible price for his opposition to these acts. His story is tragic.

Euro Crisis: Britain’s Financial Arsonist Returns to the Scene of the Crime by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
14 December 2011

The incendiary finance capitalism unleashed by Britain 25 years ago is at the heart of Europe’s raging debt woes

You either have to admire British Prime Minister David Cameron’s brass neck, or wince at his arrogant stupidity. The smart money is probably on the latter option.

For here you had the British leader heading to the European Union summit convened last week to “salvage” the EU from its the terminal debt crisis – a crisis that is threatening the survival of the Euro single currency, the political future of the European Union and may even be sounding the death knell for the faltering capitalist world economy.

Return to Sorman – Anatomy of a NATO war crime by Franklin Lamb

by Franklin Lamb
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Sorman, Libya
December 18, 2011

It was a warm early Monday morning along the Libyan coast on June 20, 2011.

At approximately 0200 GMT the next day in NATO Headquarters in Brussels and 30 minutes later in its media center in Naples, staffers finished tabulating NATO’s 92nd day of aerial attacks on Libya and began to post the data on its website (www.nato.int).

Must We Adore Vaclav Havel? by Michael Parenti (1997)

by Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Michael Parenti Blog
www.michaelparenti.org
Dec. 18, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

From Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds (1997) pp. 97-99.

No figure among the capitalist restorationists in the East has won more adulation from U.S. officials, media pundits, and academics than Vaclav Havel, a playwright who became the first president of post-Communist Czechoslovakia and later president of the Czech Republic. The many left-leaning people who also admire Havel seem to have overlooked some things about him: his reactionary religious obscurantism, his undemocratic suppression of leftist opponents, and his profound dedication to economic inequality and unrestrained free-market capitalism.

Rich Lang and John Helmiere: Occupy Chaplains Under Assault

Dandelion Salad

Image by Sophiakristina via Flickr

talkingsticktv on Dec 18, 2011

Interview with Rev. Rich Lang, Pastor at University Temple United Methodist Church and Rev. John Helmiere. founder of the Valley & Mountain Fellowship Church, about their recent assaults during Occupy Seattle protests.

Noam Chomsky: The U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement is ‘part of a global program of world militarization’

Dandelion Salad

by Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
Waging Nonviolence
December 16, 2011

photo by Hakim
used with permission

The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers is an Afghan youth group committed to building non-violent, non-military and egalitarian ways of life for Afghanistan. Their can be found at Our Journey to Smile.

[Editor’s. note: This is a transcript of a conversation between members of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Noam Chomsky, which took place on September 21, 2011. Each question was asked in Dari and translated by Hakim.]

O Little Town of Washington by Ed Ciaccio

by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
December 11, 2011

Image by Brendan Hoffman - Public Citizen via Flickr

(to the tune of “O Little Town of Bethlehem”)

O little town of Washington
How we still see thee lie.
Above thy bloody, corrupt work
The weeping stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The Everlasting Fear:
Of losing your most cushy job
In elections next year.

Ralph Nader: It’s Time for the People to Get Steamed!

Dandelion Salad

Image by LianaAn via Flickr

liamh2 on Dec 16, 2011

A Book Talk with “Mr. Public Citizen,” Ralph Nader, was held on Friday evening, Dec. 16, 2011, at Busboys & Poets in Washington, D.C. His latest tome is entitled: “Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win.” During the Q&A session, Nader had high praise for the “Occupy Movement.”

CELAC: Is This the Mayan Prophecy? by Sean Fenley

by Sean Fenley
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Anything and Everything
December 17, 2011

“Celac is the greatest event in the last 200 years.” – Raul Castro, President of the Council of State Cuba

“The OAS is the meeting of the colonies with their empire, while the CELAC is the summit of peer countries in search of joint development, through the value of solidarity.” – Nicmer Evans, International Affairs Analyst

Small Town Sebastopol Contributes to Occupy Movement By Shepherd Bliss

By Shepherd Bliss
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://www.vowvop.org
Dec. 11, 2011

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Good things can come in small packages. Sebastopol in semi-agrarian Sonoma County, Northern California, has a population under 8000. Occupy Sebastopol (OS) recently has been home to a bee-hive of activity in this town’s square that describes itself as “Peacetown, USA.”

The Council on Foreign Relations and the “Grand Area” of the American Empire, by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Empire and Economics
December 13, 2011

NOTE: The following is a brief six-page excerpt from a 60 page chapter on the origins of the American Empire at the end of World War II. The chapter, nearly complete, is one of several chapters in a book being funded and facilitated through The People’s Book Project, which is aimed at producing a multi-volume book on a modern history of institutions and ideas of power and resistance. Included within the volumes are: the emergence of nation-states, capitalism, and central banking; the rise of the European empires and colonization; the emergence of new dynastic powers, namely the banking and industrial families of the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans, et. al.;

Immorality Accomplished! by Philip A. Farruggio

by Philip A. Farruggio
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
December 16, 2011

Don’t you just love the word mission?  Organizations of any type, especially political parties, love to have a ‘mission statement ‘. The Christian religion in particular has its ‘missionaries ‘going out to convert the heathens and ‘non believers ‘. We don’t go to war anymore…. No, we are on a ‘mission to spread democracy ‘. Junior Bush even let the cat out of the bag when he uttered that we were on a ‘crusade ‘in Iraq. His handlers quickly nipped that in the bud… the truth hurts.

How To Occupy A Bank by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
Dec. 16, 2011

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Occupy Wall Street has been both criticized and applauded for not endorsing any official platform. But there are unofficial platforms, including one titled the “99% Declaration”, which calls for a “National General Assembly” to convene on July 4, 2012, in Philadelphia. [1]