Don’t Mention the War! by Lesley Docksey

Image by chrisjohnbeckett via Flickr

by Lesley Docksey
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
England
March 1, 2013

Why is it, just when you think the British Government can sink no lower and visit no more embarrassment and shame upon the country they are supposedly there to represent, that within a week or less one of the Ministers will open his mouth or put pen to paper and demonstrate just how arrogant and useless they are?  Arrogant because they believe that whatever they say will be accepted as the final word on the subject; useless because they apparently can’t foresee how their statements will be received.

Displacement, Intimidation and Abuse–Land Loyalties in Ethiopia by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
February 27, 2013

With the coming of industrial-size farms in Ethiopia, local people, villagers and pastoralists (deemed irrelevant to the Government’s, economically-driven development plans) are being threatened, and intimidated by the military; forcibly displaced and herded into camps, their homes destroyed. Along with vast agricultural complexes, dams are planned and constructed, water supplies re-directed to irrigate crops, forests burnt, natural habitats destroyed. Dissenting voices are brutally silenced – men beaten, children frightened, women raped, so too the land.

You Can’t Wash Away Fracking’s Effects by Walter Brasch + Fracking Hell?

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
February 23, 2013

Image by Marcellus Protest via Flickr

José Lara just wanted a job.

A company working in the natural gas fields needed a man to power wash wastewater tanks. Clean off the debris. Make them shining again.

And so José Lara became a power washer for the Rain for Rent Co.

“The chemicals, the smell was so bad. Once I got out, I couldn’t stop throwing up. I couldn’t even talk,” Lara said in his deposition, translated from Spanish.

The company that had hired him didn’t provide him a respirator or protective clothing. That’s not unusual in the natural gas fields.

Guy Fawkes Mask Banned–Tyrants Unmasked in Bahrain by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from PressTV
March 3, 2013

Image by donnaidh_sidhe via Flickr

The Bahraini regime last week issued a new law that shows just how wobbly-scared it is of its own people. Anyone found in possession of a false face mask is liable to be jailed.

The mask in question is the stylized face of Guy Fawkes – the 17th Century English revolutionary who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the failed gunpowder plot.

Trevor Aaronson: The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

C-SPAN Book TV
March 2, 2013

Trevor Aaronson says that since 9/11, the FBI has built up a network of over 15,000 informants in Muslim communities around the U.S.  He argues that these informants spearhead phony terror plots which are then exposed by the FBI with great fanfare to make it look like the bureau is doing a good job of keeping us safe.

During this event, Mr. Aaronson is in conversation with Monika Bauerlein, co-editor of Mother Jones magazine.

watch via C-SPAN Book TV

Two Afghan Children Killed Tending Their Cattle by NATO

by Hakim
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://ourjourneytosmile.com
Mar. 3, 2013

Image by isafmedia via Flickr

ourjourneytosmile·Mar 3, 2013