The $5,000,000,000,000,000 Question? by William Bowles

Image by Wolfgang Sterneck via Flickr

by William Bowles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Investigating Imperialism
London, England
June 30, 2019

Apparently, if we add up all the ‘values’ that make up Planet Earth, we arrive at the figure of $5 quadrillion![1] We’ve reduced the irreducible to the level of an accountant’s spreadsheet. Yet, it’s exactly this kind of thinking that’s created the disaster that, forget 10 years, it’s already with us and it’s been building to this since the start of the Industrial Revolution approximately 200 years ago.

Chris Hedges: Ralph Nader on the Importance of a Civic Life, Part 2

Image by Daniel Huizinga via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader

RT America on Jun 29, 2019

“Trump has taught us a lot about ourselves. He has taught us what happens when we don’t do our homework. He has taught us what happens when we don’t spend time on our civic duties back home….” In the second part of Chris Hedges’ interview with Ralph Nader, activist and attorney, on the importance of a civic life.

Boycott America! by Bruce Gagnon

Image by txmx 2 via Flickr

by Bruce Gagnon
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes, June 20, 2019
June 28, 2019

Don’t buy our cola
our chips
and our not so good chocolate

Libra: Facebook’s Audacious Bid for Global Monetary Control by Ellen Brown

Image by Christoph Scholz via Flickr

by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog
June 27, 2019

Payments can happen cheaply and easily without banks or credit card companies. This has now been demonstrated – not in the United States but in China. Unlike in the US, where numerous firms feast on fees from handling and processing payments, in China most money flows through mobile phones nearly for free. In 2018 these cashless payments totaled a whopping $41.5 trillion; and 90% were through Alipay and WeChat Pay, a pair of digital ecosystems that blend social media, commerce and banking. According to a May 2018 article in Bloomberg titled “Why China’s Payment Apps Give U.S. Bankers Nightmares“:

Blowing Up The Armory

Image by Pamela Drew via Flickr

The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published Jan. 26, 2014
June 26, 2019

We have been losing ground. Corporate politics has invaded many sectors of our lives. In times of tactical retreat (in preparation for later advances), the military uses a tactic called blowing up the armory to describe a situation in which they will destroy any unsecured weapons and munitions to prevent their opponents from capturing them and using the arsenal against the retreating forces.

Are You Complicit? by The Anti-Social Socialist

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the video below

“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.” — Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, 1963

Aviva Chomsky: Are Immigration Detention Centers Concentration Camps?

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the video below

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews on Jun 23, 2019

Aviva Chomsky discusses the reality of refugees coming to the U.S in light of the controversial statement of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that refugees are kept in concentration camps.

Eve of Destruction: Iran Strikes Back by Jim Kavanagh

Image by r2hox via Flickr

by Jim Kavanagh
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Polemicist
June 23, 2019

It was a helluva week on the Iran front. It started with attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman on June 13^th and ended with Donald Trump ordering, and then calling off, a military attack on Iran on June 20-21. How we got from beginning to end of that chapter in ongoing US-Iran saga is worth close consideration.

Chris Hedges: Ralph Nader Would Become the Most Effective Advocate for Citizens Subjected to the Abuses of Corporate Power, Part 1

Image by nocwg2010 via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges and Ralph Nader

RT America on Jun 22, 2019

Chris Hedges discusses the lifetime achievement of activist and attorney Ralph Nader, in his creation of government regulation and regulatory agencies to protect the rights and lives of the public. His work began with seat belt regulation and lead to the passing of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act.

Caleb Maupin: Can Socialism Be Achieved Through Voting? + What’s Up with Andrew Yang? A Conversation on UBI

Image by Chase Elliott Clark via Flickr

with Caleb Maupin
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Caleb Maupin (website)
Caleb Maupin (Facebook Page)
June 21, 2019

“Socialism is a society coming together and taking control of the major centers of economic power: the banks, factories and industries, the major natural resources, the major sources of energy, all the centers of the economy. All the centers of economic power being controlled by society and functioning to work in the benefit of society. If you think that that could come into being as the result of a bunch of people going to the polls and clicking for one candidate, that’s delusional, could never happen.” — Caleb Maupin

Who Actually Believes America and Its Flagrant Attempts To Corner Iran? by Finian Cunningham + Vijay Prashad: Where Are the Skeptics? + Wilkerson: US Further Isolates Itself

Image by Debra Sweet via Flickr

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Sputnik
June 20, 2019

The drama of attacks on oil and tanker assets in the Middle East can’t seem to get any more tense. The danger of war breaking out between the US and Iran is reaching a crescendo. However, if this goes down, it is a war scripted by Washington.

Keep the War Machine Out of the Galapagos Islands

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the videos below

Dandelion Salad

Take Action!

Republished with permission from David Swanson at World Beyond War

World Beyond War, June 17, 2019
June 19, 2019

The government of Ecuador has recently agreed to allow the U.S. military to base aircraft and naval ships at one of the Galapagos Islands in violation of the Constitution of Ecuador, which both forbids any foreign military installations and provides the natural environment with the right to be protected.

Christian Sorensen: War Industry Muster–Why Work for the War Industry? + Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab is a Part of the War Industry

Image by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

by Christian Sorensen
Writer, Dandelion Salad
June 18, 2019

C.P. Sorensen on Jun 13, 2019

Welcome to the War Industry Muster. In this episode we analyze how people justify working for the U.S. war industry.

John Pilger: Extradition Process a Very Long Uphill Road for Julian Assange

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the video below.

Dandelion Salad

with John Pilger

TheRealNews on Jun 17, 2019

Britain’s Home Secretary signed off on the U.S. request to extradite Julian Assange, and now UK courts will decide his fate. But if the process until now is any indication, he will not receive a fair hearing, says journalist and filmmaker John Pilger.

Chris Hedges: Imperialism on Trial – Free Julian Assange + Ex-Icelandic Interior Minister: US Tried to Frame Julian Assange in Iceland

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the videos below

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

#Unity4J on Jun 12, 2019

Event: “Imperialism on Trial – Free Assange” (chaired by Greg Sharkey)
Date: 11 June 2019
Place: London
Clip: Chris Hedges