The Chris Hedges Report: The Bankrupt Liberalism and Gilded Absurdities of the Democratic Party, with Paul Street

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges and Paul Street

TheRealNews on Sep 9, 2022

What are we to make of a Democratic Party that has embraces an election strategy that includes demobilizing the majority working-class non-Republican electorate; legitimizing right-wing agendas and narratives; seeks bipartisan cooperation with right-wing politicians such as Liz Cheney; refuses to attack archaic minority rule institutions including the Electoral College and the Senate filibuster; repeatedly backs down from hauling Donald Trump into court and funds far-right Republican candidates in this year’s primary elections, repeating the disastrous Hillary Clinton campaign’s “Pied Piper” ploy of promoting the supposedly “more beatable” Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries?

Silencing the Lambs: How Propaganda Works, by John Pilger + John Pilger: The Coming War on China is Here

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Dandelion Salad

by John Pilger
John Pilger, Sept. 8, 2022
September 9, 2022

In an address to the Trondheim World Festival in Norway, John Pilger charts the history of power propaganda and describes how it appropriates journalism in a ‘profound imperialism’ and is likely to entrap us all, if we allow it.

William I. Robinson: Capitalism’s Structural Crisis and the Global Revolt

Image by Brett Weinstein via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

theAnalysis-news on Aug 22, 2022

According to William I. Robinson, the COVID pandemic has further intensified the structural crisis of global capitalism and has caused numerous uprisings and revolts around the world, which global elites are trying to suppress via militarization, police repression, and surveillance.

The Far-Right Crusade Against Human Sexuality, by Kenn Orphan

Image by Marco Fieber via Flickr

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
August 23, 2022

It has become impossible not to notice the trend. Whether it is banning the word “gay,” or banning books that contain topics related to human sexuality, or the Supreme Court decision to overturn a woman’s federal right to an abortion, the war on human sexuality and those who are sexually divergent is ramping up on multiple fronts. Even I’ve been a target of this war. Because of my outspoken advocacy for LGBTQ+ youth, I have been labeled a “groomer” by a few figures on the far right.

The Chris Hedges Report: Inside the Minds of White Nationalists

Image by zen Sutherland via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

TheRealNews on Aug 19, 2022

On Jan. 9, 1966, the White Knights of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan murdered the Black civil rights activist Vernon Dahmer in Hattiesburg, Mississippi after fire-bombing and shooting into his house. It was one of thousands of hate crimes conducted in the south by whites who waged a reign of terror against Blacks to frighten them from abandoning calls for desegregation and voting rights.

The American Nightmare, by Kenn Orphan

Image by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
July 5, 2022

A father hid his young son in a dumpster as he searched for the rest of his family amid rapid gun fire…

This Is What It Looks Like When An Empire Cannibalizes Itself, by Rainer Shea

Image by Jürgen Telkmann via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea’s Newsletter, June 30, 2022
July 2, 2022

In front of us, something is unfolding that we don’t want to properly see, but that we subconsciously recognize. The warning signs for a fascist crackdown in America have been here for years, if not decades. It’s now that they’ve become too big for much of this country’s complacent left to ignore. We’re accelerating towards a level of direness which people living under fascism so often can’t perceive at first, until the reality of their situation has finished creeping up onto them. By George Jackson’s definition of fascism, which is when capitalism forcibly maintains itself through reform, we’ve already been living under fascism for generations. With the Supreme Court’s decision and its ramifications, this is becoming more visible to more people.

A Post Roe World: Fascism Has Never Needed A Majority To Create A Hell-Scape In The Nations Where It Rises, by Kenn Orphan

Image by risingthermals via Flickr

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
June 25, 2022

The overturning of the landmark Roe v Wade case providing federal protection for a woman’s right to choose is both appalling and enraging. Now, several conservative states have already begun outlawing abortion rights. It is undeniable that women’s rights have taken an enormous blow, and the effect will have repercussions around the world.

The Chris Hedges Report: The Dirty War in Argentina, with Robert Cox

Image by David Bacon via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

TheRealNews on Jun 24, 2022

Chris Hedges speaks with Robert Cox, the former editor of the Buenos Aires Herald, about his campaign during the Dirty War in Argentina to report on the disappeared and the essence of journalism.

Under His Eye in the Republic of Texas, by Kenn Orphan

Image by Glendale United Methodist Church – Nashville via Flickr

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
June 23, 2022

If you’ve never traveled around the state of Texas, you won’t really get an accurate picture of this odd land of extremes. The cities, especially Austin and Houston, are islands of relative sanity surrounded by a sea of crazy. All this considered, the unveiling of the Texas GOP’s platform should come as no surprise. They have merely tapped into the paranoid, hyper-nationalist, fascist zeitgeist so prevalent among a large swath of its white, Christian population.

The Chris Hedges Report: The Rise of Authoritarianism in the US and Around the Globe, with Vijay Prashad

Image by Ivan Radic via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges and Vijay Prashad

TheRealNews on Jun 17, 2022

Chris Hedges speaks with historian Vijay Prashad on the rise of authoritarianism in the US and around the globe and what we must do to fight back.

Stonewall was a Call for Revolution, Not a Celebration of Conformity, by Kenn Orphan + Stonewall Forever

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the video below

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
June 15, 2022

As we observe Pride Month, we should remind ourselves that the original Pride Parade was a riot, not a celebration of conformity to society. There were no permits issued to the people who marched down those streets in New York City. There were no corporate, bank or military floats participating. And it was mocked by mainstream press like the New York Times.

End the Occupation of the Corporate State, by The Man From the North

Image by Public Citizen via Flickr

The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published on Jan. 31, 2018
May 18, 2022

It happened so subtly, we missed the corporate coup. Like shadows, corporations surrounded our country and slowly strangled it. They crept into Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, the FDA, the military, the Department of the Interior: everywhere you look, a corporation controls the decisions of this nation. We have become the occupied territory of brand names, corporate logos, monopolistic power, and corporate greed.

21st Century Fascism: The Bid For Survival By A Dying Capitalist Order, by Rainer Shea

Image by Chris Barker via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea’s Newsletter
May 7, 2022

In the midst of the threat of Roe V. Wade being overturned, and abortion being automatically banned in 13 states within the next two months, the calls from liberals to vote come across as totally vapid. This is because over the last several decades, we’ve seen dozens of times what happens whenever Democrats become the dominant party: they fail both due to their own lack of principles, and due to the reactionary nature of America’s political structures. Because of this, the paradigm is pushed further towards fascism regardless of which party is in charge. In the present moment, where U.S. hegemony is in decline and capitalism is the most unstable it’s ever been, this dynamic is intensifying.

Fascism is Intentional, by Kenn Orphan

Image via Joe Flood

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
May 5, 2022
Revised July 7, 2022

Author’s note: this essay is an updated and expanded upon version of one published in May of this year.

There was a part of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, that is perhaps the most unsettling to me. The protagonist, Offred, is walking past the notorious Wall in the Republic of Gilead. This Wall, once part of a prestigious university in Cambridge Massachusetts, is now being used as a place of public execution, where corpses are left hanging for days to send a message of compliance and terror to the citizens of this authoritarian, theocratic state. Defy “God’s law” and you will suffer the punishment for doing so.