Christopher Hitchens and Michael Parenti Debate: Iraq and the Future of US Foreign Policy (2005)

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by Michael Parenti
Writer, Dandelion Salad
originally published Dec. 23, 2011
June 24, 2017

Here is a debate held at Wesleyan University in 2005 between Christopher Hitchens and me. Hitchens went to his grave as a supporter of the Bush/Cheney venture. He supported Bush in 2004. His turn to the right (from weak leftish/center) won him the attention of all the mass media, especially Fox and the like, and lecture invitations at fat fees. Others of us were less enthralled about his anti-Islam warrior politics.

When The Revolution Comes by Gaither Stewart

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by Gaither Stewart
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rome, Italy
Previously published August 8, 2011
June 22, 2017

The Historical Gastonia Textile Mill Strikes Are Not Forgotten

When in the early part of this millennium I was writing a rather surrealistic novel, ASHEVILLE, about the town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina where I started out my life, I ran into the story of the Asheville-based self-professed Communist writer, Olive Tilford Dargan, of whom I had never heard before. Visiting then her gravesite in the little known Green Hills Cemetery in West Asheville and researching her and her activities I fell into a gossamer review of early 19th century labor struggles in the good old U.S. South.

Abby Martin: The Roots of the Philippines Trafficking Epidemic, Part 2

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

Dandelion Salad

with Abby Martin

teleSUR English on Jun 20, 2017

In this sequel to The Empire Files’ report on trafficked Filipina domestic workers, Damayan’s Linda Oalican provides a deeper context to the epidemic of human trafficking by guiding us through the history of colonialism, resistance and US domination of the islands.

Britain’s Gambling Tories Now Risk Irish Peace by Finian Cunningham

Image by Tim Dennell via Flickr

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation, June 15, 2017
June 16, 2017

Like a crazed gambler who bet the house – and lost – Theresa May’s Conservative (Tory) government is now doubling down to risk peace in Ireland so that she might cling on to power. Having lost her party’s overall majority in the House of Parliament in last week’s humiliating British general election, May is having to rely on a rabidly sectarian party from Northern Ireland to cobble together a working government.

Jesus against Hillel on Usury by Roman A. Montero

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by Roman A. Montero
Writer, Dandelion Salad
June 15, 2017

I would argue that the best summation of Christian ethics is found in the sermon on the plain in Luke 6:20–49. What I love about the sermon on the plain is just how radical it seems on the surface, it seems almost impossible; however, when you think about what it’s saying, and think about it deeply—it makes sense. Probably my favorite example of this is found in Luke 6:34–35 (NRSV):

Chris Hedges: Stop Fascism

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

KBOO Radio on Jun 7, 2017

Truthdig columnist & Pulitzer Prize–winner Chris Hedges speaks at the Aladdin Theater for KBOO Community Radio on May 26th, 2017. Hedges takes a provocative look at the current state of revolt in the United States and recounts the US’s continuing history of domestic terrorism while outlining ways for communities to resist before it’s too late.

Chris Hedges, Richard Wolff and Kate Crehan at The Left Forum 2017: Gramsci’s Importance for the Left Today

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges, and Richard D. Wolff

OpenUnivoftheLeft on Jun 5, 2017

Left Forum 2017, Gramsci’s Importance for the Left Today, John Jay College, CUNY, 6-2-2017, New York City, Laura Flanders, Chair, The Laura Flanders Show, Chris Hedges, Truthdig, On Contact RT, Richard D. Wolff, Democracy at Work; Left Forum, Kate Crehan, College of Staten Island, Graduate Center, CUNY

Obama: A Hollow Man Filled With Ruling Class Ideas by Paul Street + Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama and the Limitations of Liberal Criticism

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by Paul Street
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Official Website of Paul Street, June 6, 2017
June 8, 2017

A “Hollow” Man Who Was “Unwilling to Fight the Good Fight”

What on Earth motivated the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and law professor David J. Garrow to write an incredibly detailed 1078-page (1460 pages with endnotes and index included) biography of Barack Obama from conception through election to the White House? Not any great personal affinity for Obama on Garrow’s part, that’s for sure. Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama is no hagiography. On the last page of this remarkable tome, Garrow describes Obama at the end of his distinctly non-transformative and “failed presidency” as a man who had long ago had become a “vessel [that] was hollow at its core.”

Norman Finkelstein: Six-Day War, 50-Year Occupation: What Really Happened in June 1967? Parts 1-3

Image by Chris Beckett via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Norman Finkelstein

TheRealNews on Jun 3, 2017

In the first of an extended three-part interview on the 50th anniversary of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war, author and scholar Norman Finkelstein debunks the enduring myths surrounding that historic confrontation — myths that have sustained​ the ensuing Israeli ​occupation of Palestinian lands​.

Chris Hedges: The History of Oppression of African Americans

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jun 4, 2017

On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges is joined by Larry Hamm, Chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress. They discuss the history of oppression of African Americans in the U.S. and the relentless struggle for racial equality. RT Correspondent Anya Parampil looks at how Americans continue to erase uncomfortable parts of their past.

Mosul’s “Liberation”: Another Fallujah, Dresden or Hiroshima? by Felicity Arbuthnot

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by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
June 1, 2017

“In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.” — Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

When the US, UK and their fellow destroyers of nations embarked, in October last year, on erasing Iraq’s ancient Mosul in order to save it, did they reflect on the enormity of the cost to humanity and history of their actions now and that of their genocidal, illegal invasion and fourteen year occupation – and counting? (Not forgetting the bombing of the country 1991-2003.) There was a quasi pull out in 2009, but a reported 16,000 mercenaries remained in the US Embassy compound.

War Is A Racket By Major General Smedley Butler

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Dandelion Salad
Originally published January 16, 2011

numoleen on March 11, 2009

War is a Racket by Smedley Butler is a famous speech denouncing the military industrial complex. This anti-war speech by two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient exposes war profits that benefit few at the expense of many. Throughout his distinguished career in the Marines, Smedley Darlington Butler demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree. To Hell with war.

Michael Parenti: The 1% Pathology and the Myth of Capitalism

Image by Julian Stallabrass via Flickr

with Michael Parenti
Writer, Dandelion Salad
originally published October 28, 2012
May 23, 2017

freespeechtv on May 16, 2013

“A man who steals a goose from the commons is punished, while a man who steals the commons itself is rewarded.”–unknown

Chris Hedges: The Humanity of the Marginalized

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on May 21, 2017

On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges is joined by Russell Banks, author of Cloudsplitter, The Sweet Hereafter and Lost Memory of Skin. In his books, screenplays and short stories, Banks uncovers the humanity of the marginalized. RT Correspondent Anya Parampil explores deindustrialization in the US.

Strutting Fascism And Swaggering Militarism By Gaither Stewart

Image by Henrik Ström via Flickr

by Gaither Stewart
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rome, Italy
Originally posted June 12, 2008
May 20, 2017

“We work for the moral and traditional values which Socialists neglect and despise….”

–Benito Mussolini

It’s their strutting. That detestable image of the strutting that links them, the strutting and prancing Fascists and their swaggering and parading military cousins, up front for their conveniently concealed corporatist controllers. A strutting and swaggering couple they are, Fascism and the entrenched class of war. Their distorted visions of gallantry and nation come so naturally to both. The spick and span generals, employers of mercenaries and killers, chin in, chest out, and their majors and their colonels (especially the generals in the offices and the majors in the tents), thick chests covered with ribbons and medals and rows of multicolored decorations—awarded for killing. And the political Fascists! Defiant chins thrust forward, hard fists clinched, swaggering and prancing and strutting across the stages of piazzas nations and continents—in support of the killing.