BlackRock’s Rise Shows the Dark Direction of Monopoly Capitalism, by Rainer Shea

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, June 30, 2020
July 1, 2020

Matt Taibbi concluded that the 2008 Wall Street bailout had “built a banking system that discriminates against community banks, makes Too Big to Fail banks even Too Bigger to Failier, increases risk, discourages sound business lending and punishes savings by making it even easier and more profitable to chase high-yield investments than to compete for small depositors.” In this post-crash environment, the largest financial institutions gained more of a hegemonic grip than ever, with the five biggest banks having come to own almost half the industry by 2015.

Imperialism Won’t Be Over After The U.S. Empire Falls + Covid-19 Commercialism Is About Undermining Social Cohesion, by Rainer Shea

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, June 20, 2020
June 26, 2020

Underneath the bluster of a Trump administration that still acts like the United States is the world hegemon, the ruling class is working to pragmatically respond to the loss of America’s status as a dominant power. In 2017 the Pentagon put out a report that admitted American global influence is rapidly declining, and now that the U.S. is sure to soon lose its superpower status, the corporatocracy has to address this issue.

Meet BlackRock, the New Great Vampire Squid, by Ellen Brown

Image by Steffi Reichert via Flickr

by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog, June 22, 2020
June 23, 2020

BlackRock is a global financial giant with customers in 100 countries and its tentacles in major asset classes all over the world; and it now manages the spigots to trillions of bailout dollars from the Federal Reserve. The fate of a large portion of the country’s corporations has been put in the hands of a megalithic private entity with the private capitalist mandate to make as much money as possible for its owners and investors; and that is what it has proceeded to do.

Chris Hedges: Change Doesn’t Come Through Voting—Change Always Comes From The Streets

Image by David Geitgey Sierralupe via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

acttv on Jun 16, 2020

Julianna welcomes back Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author, Chris Hedges, to discuss how as lawmakers and activists are working together to make real changes in policing that are worth celebrating, it is important to name the statements that are opportunistic and performative, like police officers taking a knee with protesters before proceeding to pepper spray them. Chris talks about why these faux actions are so insidious.

Chris Hedges and Jeff Gibbs: Criticism and Censorship of Michael Moore’s Film “Planet of the Humans”

Image by John Englart via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jun 20, 2020

On the show, Chris Hedges discusses the criticism and censorship surrounding Michael Moore’s film “Planet of the Humans,” with director, Jeff Gibbs.

Chris Hedges: This is a Class and a Generational Revolt

Image by Elvert Barnes via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jun 18, 2020

The US “War on Drugs” has ramped up in the Caribbean Sea, with the United States targeting alleged cocaine trafficking into the United States. Meanwhile, the United Nations reports the amount of land being used to grow the coca plant has decreased in Colombia. RT America’s John Huddy reports. Then Chris Hedges, host of “On Contact,” breaks down the “War on Drugs,” and comments on the recent US uprisings against police brutality and capitalism.

The Capitalist “Great Reset” and the Descent Into Techno-Tyranny + With the Economy’s Collapse, More Waves of Unrest are Inevitable, by Rainer Shea

Image by Tom Blackwell via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, June 15, 2020
June 18, 2020

Covid-19 has brought about the era of biopolitics, an era that will continue for the foreseeable future. This is because the virus is far from being defeated; a resurgence of it is likely to happen this fall, and the neoliberal world’s refusal to sacrifice business for public health is sure to perpetuate the pandemic for as long as neoliberalism exists. Biopolitics is also here to stay because we’ve reached a point in the climate crisis where global weather patterns are much more compatible with viruses than they used to be. More viruses are going to appear in the coming years with increasing ferocity, which will necessitate an irreversible series of changes to how society functions.

There Will Be No Social Or Racial Justice Worth Having On A Dead Planet, by Paul Street

Image by David Geitgey Sierralupe via Flickr

by Paul Street
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Official Website of Paul Street, June 13, 2020
June 14, 2020

I have never heard it louder than I did this morning.

The Interstate highway, I-80, that is, two miles or so north of my abode in Iowa City.

It’s a highway to Hell in the heartland of the deranged Superpower that leads the world in per-capita Greenhouse Gassing.

Chris Hedges and Glen Ford: Analysis of the George Floyd Protests

Image by Geoff Livingston via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jun 13, 2020

On the show today, Chris Hedges discusses the George Floyd protests, erupting in over 140 American cities, with Glen Ford, executive editor, Black Agenda Report.

The Corporate Origins of the Anti-Science “Reopen” Demonstrations, by Pete Dolack

Image by duncan c via Flickr

by Pete Dolack
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Systemic Disorder, June 10, 2020
June 11, 2020

Many of the same extreme right operatives who created the “Tea Party” are behind the anti-science and anti-intellectual spectacles opposing measures designed to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. And with much the same agenda.

Over the Rainbow: Paths of Resistance After George Floyd, by Jim Kavanagh

Image by Dan Gaken via Flickr

by Jim Kavanagh
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Polemicist
June 8, 2020

“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.” — Aristotle

It has been an extraordinary week. On the heels of a pandemic and months-long lockdown, a nationwide uprising erupted in response to the brutal killing of George Floyd. In some 75 cities across at least 16 states, and around the world, militant, multiracial gatherings of thousands of rightfully-enraged people overwhelmed police forces, prevented arrests, forced the evacuation of, and burned, a police precinct, and damaged and burned dozens of buildings. Mainstream news reporters from around the world were arrested and fired upon with rubber bullets on live television. Police SUVs drove into crowds of people. It has been the most extensive, and the most threatening, explosion of popular rage against the machine since the uprisings of 1967-8.

Chris Hedges: The Capitalist Class Wants To Keep The Working Class In A State Of Constant Distress

Image by Kelly Kline via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

“The longer the ruling elites refuse to address the root causes behind these protests, the more they loot the treasury to enrich themselves and their fellow oligarchs, the more they engage in futile and absurd efforts to deflect blame, the more unrest will spread. The last desperate resort by the oligarchs to save themselves will be to stoke the fires of racialized violence between disenfranchised whites and disenfranchised people of color.” — Chris Hedges

If The Capitalist State Isn’t Overthrown, Its Grip Will Tighten, by Rainer Shea

Image by Glenn Halog via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, June 3, 2020
June 4, 2020

The ruling class has more class consciousness than the lower classes do. They’re the ones who have to manage the relationship between the classes, and to keep this relationship in balance so that revolution is prevented. This makes them especially equipped to engage in what Marxists call dialectics—the practice of assessing material factors and opposing social forces. With this ability, they can adapt the power structure to be able to best respond to whatever threatens their interests.

Chris Hedges: The Real Looting of America

Image by Brett Weinstein via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

“But I can tell you that the ruling elites, given what they’re doing in Washington and their utter refusal to respond in a rational way to what’s happening to larger and larger numbers within the citizenry, are playing with fire and playing with their own destruction.” — Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges: How the Covid-19 Pandemic has Exposed the Weakness of American Society

Image by Daniel Arrhakis via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on May 30, 2020

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to John Ralston Saul, author and president emeritus of Pen International, about how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weakness of American society, and accelerated the decline of the American Empire.