Image by Daniel Huizinga via Flickr
by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page, Apr. 14, 2023
April 16, 2023
Spring, the season of renewal, is here. The ants are diligently building their little symmetrical ant hills. The robins are in their nests occupied with posterity. And the anointed members of Congress, after a long recess, aka vacation, return to work on April 17th. The next day, April 18th is the deadline for filing taxes.
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by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy
April 12, 2023
The New York Times routinely tells bigger lies than the clumsy nonsense it published about weapons in Iraq. Here’s an example. This package of lies is called “Liberals Have a Blind Spot on Defense” but mentions nothing related to defense. It simply pretends that militarism is defensive by applying that word and by lying that “we face simultaneous and growing military threats from Russia and China.” Seriously? Where?
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by Scott Scheffer
Struggle ★ La Lucha, Mar. 26, 2023
March 27, 2023
Last week, before the capitalist crisis of bank failures crowded it out of the headlines, news of a congressional hearing to further investigate the origins of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic was splashed across the front pages and websites of major U.S. media.
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by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer’s Newsletter, Mar. 10, 2023
March 20, 2023
American workers are stuck in a prison, a prison that they’re kept in through the perpetual threat of homelessness. This isn’t truly a rhetorical point, it’s an empirically proven reality. Nearly two-thirds of the country’s workers are now living paycheck to paycheck, meaning this last year’s inflation has made them easier to coerce. That’s the directly stated goal of the capitalist ruling class at this stage. A Bank of America memo from last year said decreased worker living standards will represent greater leverage for employers. The consequences of this are the destruction of these people’s mental and physical wellbeing. They’re being strained, abused, and exploited while having to choose between this and living on the streets.
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by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy, Mar. 10, 2023
March 15, 2023
Here’s how this works each year.
1) Biden proposes a massive increase in military spending — above and beyond both what he proposed the year before and what the Congress increased that to. If you look at U.S. military spending according to SIPRI in constant 2021 dollars from 1949 to now (all the years they provide, with their calculation adjusting for inflation), Obama’s 2011 record will probably fall this year. If you look at actual numbers, not adjusting for inflation, Biden has set a new record each year.
Image by
Luis Penados via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
TheRealNews on Feb 24, 2023
Veteran New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth dissects the role of the media in concocting a false narrative portraying Trump as a ‘Russian asset’ rather than a homegrown horror.
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by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer’s Newsletter
February 21, 2023
The systemic breakdown that our socioeconomic system is creating has the potential to do more than worsen the suffering of the people. Capitalism has survived so long because it’s been able to exploit the crises it creates, to profit off of wars, depressions, pandemics, and environmental catastrophes. Yet in certain instances, these crises have instead produced victories for the working class. World War I made the Russian revolution possible, World War II made the Chinese revolution possible, the living standards crisis that the IMF engineered across the Global South made the formation of many anti-imperialist governments possible. When the capitalists disrupt society, they do so with the risk that the outcome will be not greater profits but an end to their rule.
Image by Stuart Rankin via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
TheRealNews on Feb 10, 2023
Matt Taibbi has published an investigation about a vast propaganda campaign called “Hamilton 68,” launched a year after Donald Trump won the presidency, to smear critics of the Democratic Party, from the left and the right, as Russian assets.
Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
with Abby Martin
Empire Files on Jan 29, 2023
Legendary rapper Immortal Technique joins Abby to discuss the escalating tensions of the post-Trump era, the duopoly playing Americans, right-wing cooptation of conspiracy theory and deep-state critique, teaching real history and much more.
Image by Felton Davis via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
Democracy At Work on Jan 30, 2023
In this week’s show, Prof. Wolff explains why capitalism does not deserve credit for improved living conditions, Home Depot billionaire blames US capitalism’s problems on US workers being “lazy, fat, and stupid,” Southwest Airlines as example of failures by both corporations and their gov’t “regulators,” George Santos as creature of capitalist advertising.
Image by Wayne S. Grazio via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
TheRealNews on Jan 6, 2023
Democratic debate and dialogue have all but vanished in the United States. There is widespread censorship imposed by social media platforms, private corporations about which we know nothing, while they know everything about us. Mainstream news outlets champion censorship and deplatforming in the name of democracy.
Image by Cheshire County Democrats via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
TheRealNews on Dec 16, 2022
There was once a wing of the Democratic Party that stood up to the war industry. J. William Fulbright, George McGovern, Gene McCarthy, Mike Gravel, William Proxmire, and, of course, Dennis Kucinich. But that was largely decades ago.
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Painting by Charles Lock Eastlake, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
by Gary Olson
Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published Dec. 22, 2021
December 14, 2022
Lately, I’ve been musing about religion and politics. And more specifically, the thought that keeps recurring to me is the following: Is the idea of born agains and other Christians becoming political radicals, a far-fetched one? Or, should the question be, how could they not become politically radical Christians?
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by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Ireland
December 4, 2022
Finian Cunningham on Dec 1, 2022
Daniel Lazare in this interview with Finian Cunningham says that the United States of America is locked in a fateful political and economic crisis that will produce either of two outcomes. Either the country is heading towards more authoritarian rule or there will be a second American revolution.
Image by Loco Steve via Flickr
by Liberation Staff
LiberationNews.org, Nov. 29, 2022
November 30, 2022
Joe Biden has shown his true colors: he stands with corporate bosses over union workers. In a statement released last night, Biden stabbed rail workers in the back by calling on Congress to pass legislation imposing the terms of a tentative deal that was rejected by the members of key unions in the industry. Top Congressional leaders immediately announced their intention to do just that.
Dandelion Salad 