Plutocracy I-V (must-see)

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Dandelion Salad
Part I originally published Jan. 2, 2016, Part II on Dec. 30, 2016, Part III on June 28, 2017, Part IV on Apr. 29, 2018, and Part V on June 4, 2019.

by Scott Noble
Dissident Voice
December 31, 2015

Plutocracy is the first documentary to comprehensively examine early American history through the lens of class. A multi-part series by filmmaker Scott Noble, Part I focuses on the the ways in which the American people have historically been divided on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex and skill level.

Danny Haiphong, Margaret Kimberley and Ajamu Baraka: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the American Empire

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Dandelion Salad

with Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley

Black Agenda Report Presents: The Left Lens on Jan 18, 2021

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is often celebrated without any regard for his radical political legacy.

Cracks Appear in Peru’s Neoliberal Agriculture, by Yanis Iqbal

Image by Samantha Hare via Flickr

by Yanis Iqbal
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Aligarh, India
December 14, 2020

Farm workers in various regions of Peru – such as Ica, Viru La Libertad and Piurahad – went on a strike in the first week of December 2020, blocking the strategic Pan-American motorway to demand wage increases, basic social security benefits and the repeal of the decades-old Agrarian Promotion Law, enacted in 2000, as a mechanism to bolster the bourgeoisie’s power in the agro-export sector. The law benefits agro-export corporations in two ways. Firstly, it cuts the corporate tax rate by 30 to 15%, making the government lose out on more than $1 million in tax revenue. Agrokasa, Beta and Miranda are some of the companies benefitting from such hefty income tax cuts.

Chris Hedges and Paul Street: American Discontent

Image by Chris Piascik via Flickr

with Chris Hedges

and with Paul Street
Writer, Dandelion Salad
November 7, 2020

RT America on Nov 7, 2020

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Professor Paul Street about the outcome of the US presidential election, and how despite likely losing, Donald Trump has solidified an angry, disposed working class that cuts across racial lines and has embraced a right-wing populism.

Chris Hedges: The Nature of Resistance, White Supremacy and The Rise of a New Black Militancy

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Oct 17, 2020

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to former Baltimore Black Panther leader, Eddie Conway, about the nature of resistance, white supremacy and the rise of a new black militancy.

Chris Hedges: This Is The Unraveling Of The US Empire + The Childish Mania of Hope

Image by Matt Katzenberger via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

Katie Halper on Oct 9, 2020

Journalist Chris Hedges and Historian Gerald Horne discuss the “perilous moment we’re facing,” which reminds Hedges of the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the wars in the Middle East, which he covered.

Chris Hedges: American Empire Collapse: It’s About To Get Much Worse

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

act.tv on Sep 21, 2020

Julianna welcomes back Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author, Chris Hedges, to discuss how in his current book, America: The Farewell Tour. Hedges takes a close look at the array of pathologies that have arisen out of a profound malaise of hopelessness as the society disintegrates due to the “slow moving [corporate] Coup d’état” instituted by the ruling classes in the ’70s in reaction to the activist movements and reforms of the ’60s. And how this disintegration has resulted in an epidemic of diseases, despair, and a civil society that has ceased to function.

Chris Hedges: The Rise of the New Black Militancy

Image by Susan Melkisethian via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Sep 19, 2020

On the show this week, Chris Hedges discusses the rise of the new Black militancy with film director and producer, Mobolaji Olambiwonnu.

Fascism and the Quickening of History + The Empty Theatre, by Kenn Orphan

Image by Anthony Crider via Flickr

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
August 30, 2020

Over the last few months I have been revisiting research I did a long time ago on fascism. Pinochet’s Chile, Sukarno’s Indonesia, Montt’s Guatemala, Hitler’s Germany and beyond. I’ve spent time poring over the accounts of the survivors, the details of the crimes, the descriptions of the torture, of the camps, of the dehumanization, the cruelty, the terror, the photos of the train cars headed to concentration camps, the mass graves, the massacres, the piles of corpses. And reading through the accounts of people who knew things were going in this direction, that something ghastly was being done to other people, yet did nothing, not even raised their voice when they had the chance.

Defund Fascism, Blue and Orange, by Paul Street

Image by duncan c via Flickr

by Paul Street
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Official Website of Paul Street
August 23, 2020

The American ruling class says it is opposed to “big government.” It isn’t. The wealthy Few are only against what the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called “the left hand of the state” – those parts of government that reflect the victories of past and ongoing social movements by serving the common good, regulating Big Business, and offering support, protection, inclusion and empowerment to the lower and working classes. That is the “big government” the rich and powerful don’t like. That is the big bad State they want to “starve” and “drown.”

David Swanson and Greta Zarro: How to Demilitarize Police

Image by rowensphotography via Flickr

with David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy, July 31, 2020
August 6, 2020

WorldBeyondWar.org on Jul 30, 2020

World BEYOND War’s David Swanson and Greta Zarro on how to start and win a campaign to ban militarized policing in your locality, anywhere on earth. We recently did this in Charlottesville, VA, U.S., and are now working with a number of cities to do the same.

The Tactics of Terror, by Kenn Orphan

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
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by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
July 20, 2020

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” — Vladimir Lenin

Between 1973 and 1990 scores of people were disappeared by the US supported fascist regime of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. They were incarcerated, tortured and thousands were murdered. In fact, the official total of those killed by the regime is just over 40,000. But some critics suggest it was much higher. Pinochet was able to do all of this with the blessing of the CIA who assisted him in the coup against the elected President, Salvador Allende, and in his reign of terror afterward in Chile. The painful lessons of the Pinochet years has often been obscured under neoliberal historical revisionism, but with what is currently unfolding in cities like Portland, Oregon, it is urgent to revisit them.

Chris Hedges: Our National Conversation on Race and Crime is Based on a Fiction

Image by Tony Webster via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jul 18, 2020

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to activist and writer Philip McHarris, on the latest calls for police reform in the U.S.

Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley: Free Speech Against Black Lives

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Dandelion Salad

Black Agenda Report Presents: The Left Lens on Jul 14, 2020

In the second episode of The Left Lens, Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley discuss emerging developments relating to the debate about “free speech” that has surfaced amid the mass uprising against racist policing in the United States.

Shelter In Places Apart And Unequal: Topple All The Monuments You Want, But The Real Racism’s Going Unaddressed, by Paul Street

Image by Becker1999 via Flickr

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

America pulls down monuments to racist oppressors, renames streets and paints Black Lives Matter all over them. But the real inequalities of cities like Chicago – rooted in class as well as race – are left to fester.