Congress, Get to Work! by Ralph Nader

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by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
Jan. 18, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

The editor of The Hill, a newspaper exclusively covering Congress, said that Congress was not going to do very much in 2012, except for “the big bill” which is extending the payroll tax cut and unemployment compensation, which expire in late February. That two month extension will likely reignite the fight between Democrats and Republicans that flared last month.

In 2012, Congress, the editor implied, would be busy electioneering. That is, the Senators and Representatives will be busy raising money from commercial interests so they can keep their jobs.

Bio-fuels, Speculation, Land Grabs = Food Crisis

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

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TheRealNews on Jan 17, 2012

New report calls for sweeping agricultural reform

The Stimulator: No Fracking Way!

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stimulator on Jan 23, 2012

http://submedia.tv/stimulator/2012/01/23/no-fracking-way

1. Oh Frack it!
2. Bullshit detector
3. Fugitive Methane
4. Romanian carbon offsets
5. Chinese rebellion

Tax Cuts, Privatization and Deregulation Disguised as Public Policy by Paul Kahnert and Sam Gindin

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Crossposted with permission from www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/

by Paul Kahnert and Sam Gindin
Socialist Project | The Bullet
January 20, 2012

Image by waywuwei via Flickr

Where are we going as a society? We once proudly invested in our schools, pools, libraries, daycare, healthcare, roads, electricity, water and sewers. Today we’re busy slashing social services and letting our infrastructure crumble. With new technologies in place, families are working longer hours and harder and our resources are demanded all over the world. Yet all we hear about is deficits and austerity measures.

Police State Chicago: Emanuel gets his clampdown by Brit Schulte and Caitlin Sheehan

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by Brit Schulte and Caitlin Sheehan
SocialistWorker.org
January 23, 2012

Image by G20 Protest Photos via Flickr

The City of Chicago has enacted new measures to restrict free speech and protest–but not without a fight, as Brit Schulte and Caitlin Sheehan report.

ON JANUARY 18, the Chicago City Council overwhelmingly approved Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s ordinances to give police new powers to crack down on protests ahead of the NATO/G8 joint summit coming to the city in May.

Americans Elect: The First National Online Primary

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AmericansElect on Jan 18, 2012

Americans Elect (www.AmericansElect.org) is a nonpartisan online primary that gives all voters an equal say in picking a third presidential candidate. In 2012, your choice will be on the ballot nationwide! Take part at http://www.AmericansElect.org.

NATO Member Turkey to Train Libya’s New Police Force by Sibel Edmonds

Warning

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

by Sibel Edmonds
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Originally published by Boiling Frogs Post
Jan. 18, 2012

Harvesting the Fruits of “Regime Change” in Libya

In the last few decades one never-changing modus operandi in our imperial pursuits and operations overseas has been the formation, financing, training, control and domination of our target countries’ military force. Egypt, Morocco, Kuwait, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia … whether here right in our backyard under joint Pentagon and military industrial complex mega corporations or abroad, through our tentacles-NATO member nations, we’ve always ensured holding the most important string in ruling and managing our overseas puppetries- their military. Because, admit it, the figure-head dictators come and go; rise and fall; are made and destroyed, easily and frequently.

A.I.P.A.C. – Persuading Americans to break the law? by Clive Hambidge

Image by mar is sea Y via Flickr

by Clive Hambidge
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
January 15, 2012

Habituation writes James Austin M.D “means that repeated stimuli yield a decreasing response.” Conversely and importantly he goes on, “Sensitization implies that responses increase when stronger stimuli are repeated.” For in this understanding, “we are addressing the basis of the freshness of vision of the artist or poet; focusing on the possible ways to relieve the depressed person held in the grip of a dreary grey world”, or indeed a Nation, Palestine, gripped by the dreary politics “free of law” of an increasingly violent Israel.

Democracia Real Ya: Spain’s “Indignados” and the Globalization of Dissent

Image via Wikipedia

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TheRealNews on Jan 19, 2012

The Occupy Movement has taken much of its inspiration from Spain’s “Outraged” Movement: what lessons does Spain have for Occupy now?

An Archaic Postmodern View of Occupy Wall Street by Joseph Natoli

by Joseph Natoli
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://readersupportednews.org
January 17, 2012

Image by waywuwei via Flickr

In a new kindle book, Occupying Here & Now: The New Class Warfare, I re-kindle a radical-in-theory approach to Occupy Wall Street. That approach is most likely most radical for representing any gasp of postmodernity or post-postmodernity as still “radical.”

The extinction of the word is apt within the postmodern’s own narrative of the rise and fall of the significance of signifiers in accord with the rise and fall of … narratives. The postmodern fell upon its own sword. Or, you could look at its demise as one impaneled at its very unclear and never quite nailed down beginnings. We were all anxious to see the end of such troubling and annoying opaqueness.

The Nameless by Guadamour

by Guadamour
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
January 15, 2012

The Nameless

I have to get out of here
the heat shimmers
and I know no one
Phoenix sucks

I dress in the shortest skirt I have
put on fishnet stocking
over-paint my face
look like a good presentable whore

Dethrone the Corporate State by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
Jan. 23, 2012

Moyers & Company: Crony Capitalism

Image by Helen Cox, used with permission via Flickr

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With Bill Moyers
Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com
January 20, 2012

Bill Moyers and former White House budget director David Stockman on how politics and high finance have turned our economy into a members-only private club.

Attack Iran? Nuclear Insanity by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
London, England
18 January 2012

“We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen, before Israel goes under.” (Martin Van Creveld, Professor of Military History at Israel’s Hebrew University, September 2003)

Iran: We have been here before. The year before the assault on and near destruction of unarmed neighbouring Iraq, George W. Bush, of course declared the “Axis of Evil”, Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World

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PressTVGlobalNews on Jan 17, 2012

http://www.presstv.ir/Program/221516.html

In this edition of the show we discuss the book Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World, written by William Cohan.

The book’s behind-the-scenes account shows how, supported by the most aggressive and sophisticated PR machine in the financial industry, Goldman Sachs has continually projected an image of being superior to its competitors – smarter, more collegial, more ethical, and more client-focused.

But William Cohan also reveals another way of viewing Goldman – as a secretive money-making machine that has walked an uneasy line between conflict-of-interest and legitimate deal-making for decades.

William Cohan is the first author to chronicle and to interview the leaders of Goldman Sachs since the 2008 crash, and has gained unprecedented access to the firm’s inner circle.

Every living former chief executive of Goldman Sachs has spoken to him, as well as its current chairman and CEO, Lloyd Blankfein. “Money and Power” is a penetrating study yet of these larger-than-life characters and their secretive world: the definitive account of an institution whose public claims of virtue look very much like ruthlessness when exposed to the light of day.