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by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy
May 10, 2018
TheRealNews on May 9, 2018
Writer and activist David Swanson discusses his new book Curing Exceptionalism, with TRNN’s Ben Norton, exploring how American nationalism and the myth of US superiority is used to justify hyper-militarism and capitalist oppression.
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with Chris Hedges
RT America on Feb 19, 2018
Shehla Rashid Shora, Indian Activist, discusses Hindu fascism through religious and political unrest and classism in India.
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with Chris Hedges
RT America on Nov 6, 2017
Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger: A History of the Present, discusses the poisoning of civil society and undermining of political liberty that is fueling “a global turn to authoritarianism and toxic forms of chauvinism.” RT Correspondent Anya Parampil looks at how the New Deal saved the U.S. from political anarchy.
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by Arthur D. Robbins
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained
April 4, 2017
War has indeed become perpetual and peace no longer even a fleeting wish nor a distant memory. We have become habituated to the rumblings of war and the steady drum beat of propaganda about war’s necessity and the noble motives that inspire it.
Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
with Abby Martin
teleSUR English on Mar 22, 2017
People of the Sikh faith, commonly mistaken for both Muslims and Hindus, are frequent targets of bigoted hate crimes—in fact, the first victim of post-9/11 hate crimes was a Sikh man. In 2016, attacks against Muslims—and people perceived to be Muslims, in particular Sikhs—has reached an all-time high.
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with John Pilger
goingundergroundRT on Dec 3, 2016
We speak to award winning journalist and filmmaker John Pilger about his newest film, The Coming War with China. Dr. Hong Bo on China’s economy and Chair of the Bhopal Medical Appeal on the Bhopal Disaster thirty two years on.
by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
April 13, 2014
Along with the choking fumes and piles of putrid waste, sound systems and a constant bombardment of honking horns from cars, lorries and screaming buses assault residents and the unprepared in towns and cities throughout India. Loudspeakers are used to spread political propaganda; celebrate and circulate expensive arranged and prolonged weddings; and, mounted outside temples and mosques, loudly proclaim the jargon of the just and the righteous path to salvation. Continue reading
Updated: May 16, 2014
democracynow on Apr 9, 2014
democracynow.org – As voting begins in India in the largest elections the world has ever seen, we spend the hour with Indian novelist and essayist Arundhati Roy. Nearly 815 million Indians are eligible to vote and results will be issued in May. One of India’s most famous authors — and one of its fiercest critics — Roy is out with a new book, “Capitalism: A Ghost Story,” which dives into India’s transforming political landscape and makes the case that globalized capitalism has intensified the wealth divide, racism, and environmental degradation. “This new election is going to be [about] who the corporates choose,” Roy says, “[about] who is not going to blink about deploying the Indian army against the poorest people in this country, and pushing them out to give over those lands, those rivers, those mountains, to the major mining corporations.”
by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
March 14, 2014
A suffocating patriarchal shadow hangs over the lives of women throughout India. From all sections, castes and classes of society, women are victim of its repressive, controlling effects. Those subjected to the heaviest burden of discrimination are from the Dalit or Scheduled Castes, known in less liberal democratic times as the ’untouchables’. The name may have been banned but pervasive negative attitudes of mind remain, as do the extreme levels of abuse and servitude experienced by Dalit women. They experience multiple levels of discrimination and exploitation, much of which is barbaric, degrading, appallingly violent, and totally inhumane.
by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rajasthan, India
February 16, 2014
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You can see it glistening in colours red, white and blue, smell its choking fumes through the fogs of ambition and greed and mac-taste its convenient food; fast and furious, no time to waste, to pause, to question and wonder. Market fundamentalism pervades all areas of contemporary civilization, has saturated every corner of the world, and created what Pope Francis recently described as the “Globalisation of Indifference”, a world in which “we have become used to the suffering of others. Continue reading
by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
October 17, 2013
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Developing divisions
Participation is a cornerstone of the democratic ideal. It sits alongside those other marginalized tenets: social justice, freedom and equality. Forgotten principles in a world of corporate politics driven by the quest for endless economic growth and maximum market share. Hailed as the world’s largest democracy and touted as ‘an emerging economic powerhouse’, India’s economy is beginning to cough and splutter with the rupee trading at an all time low, and the ‘current account’ showing an $88 billion deficit.
by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
September 4, 2013
Image by Rita Willaert via Flickr
To be born poor in our world, is to be born vulnerable and in danger of exploitation of one kind or another; to be incarnated female and poor is to greatly intensify the risks. If you are born a girl to parents of tea-pickers in Assam in North Eastern India (earning as little as US $1.50 a day) there is a good chance you will be sold to a local recruitment ‘agent’ by your loved ones for around $50, he will sell you on to a city ‘employer’ for up to $800 and into a life of abuse and suffering. Continue reading
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TheRealNews on Aug 8, 2013
In part two of Reality Asserts Itself, Paul Jay and Vijay Prashad discuss the limits imposed on questioning the roots of inequality and how those who own the majority of property set the terms for everyone else. Continue reading
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TheRealNews on Aug 6, 2013
On the second episode of Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay, Vijay Prashad talks about growing up in India and coming to the realization that liberalism could never eliminate poverty. Continue reading
by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
May 3, 2013
The primary colours of any civil democracy are we would agree, social justice, freedom of expression, freedom to protest and participation. India, with a population of 1.3 billion people is regularly hailed as the largest democracy in the world. At first glance the governments pretentions to democracy would appear to be justified, after all there is, on paper at least, an independent judiciary, a free press – freely owned from top to toe by corporations – a thriving civil society and, of course, the cornerstone of any democratic state: the haloed parliamentary elections, totally funded and (therefore) fully owned, top to toe, by the same corporations that count the national and regional newspapers, radio and television networks as their own, as well as growing portfolios of natural assets; rivers, forests, water supplies, mountains (full of bauxite), and other mineral resources.
