The Fall of the U.S. Empire and the Coming Economic Crash + The Growing Ruling Class Fears of a Communist Resurgence by Rainer Shea

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by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, Feb. 28, 2020
March 5, 2020

Haruki Murakami said that “Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.” It’s with this self-awareness of my attraction to the apocalypse that I confront the converging crises of our era. These crises point towards an outcome that’s not as dire as the literal end of the world, but that still conjures the sense of fascinated suspense which Murakami described.

Anya Parampil and Danny Haiphong: Busting Pro-War Propaganda: What China Is Really Like

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Dandelion Salad

with Anya Parampil and Danny Haiphong

The Grayzone on Jan 22, 2020

Red Lines host Anya Parampil speaks with Danny Haiphong, a contributing editor at the Black Agenda Report, about his recent two week trip to China.

The 2010s: America’s Self-Delusional Decade of Imperial Collapse by Rainer Shea

Image by Josh Bartok via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, Dec. 28, 2019
December 31, 2019

Ten years ago, Americans were beginning to confront the reality that their nation was irrevocably in decline. The economy had entered into a downward spiral, the country had been in a nine-years-long war, and democratic rights were disappearing. Given the history of collapsing empires, it’s unsurprising that all of these trends have continued since then. And the geopolitical and cultural dynamics that have developed throughout the 2010s aren’t surprising either.

Abby Martin and Lowkey: Talking About Deadly Neoliberalism

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Dandelion Salad

“We’re talking about deadly neoliberalism–this bipartisan foreign policy that supersedes Democrat Republican Tory Labour. Why is it that there’s so much focus on the electoral process yet nothing seems to really change with the oppressed people living under the boot of Empire and it’s collaborators?” — Abby Martin

John Pilger: The Dirty War on the NHS: Privatisation, Profits and the Impact on Patients

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
See video below

Dandelion Salad

with John Pilger

goingundergroundRT on Dec 18, 2019

On this episode of Going Underground, we speak to legendary journalist and filmmaker John Pilger on his film ‘The Dirty War on the NHS’. He discusses the issue of the film not being allowed to air during the general election and questions the role of OFCOM as a regulator, the negative impact of management consultants, how the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 opened the door to NHS privatisation, how privatisation causes money to be wasted in the NHS despite more funding promises, the reality of the private healthcare system in the United States, R.A.M volunteering in the US, the 2019 UK general election, the reason why Brexit has been taken over by the extreme right since 2016, anti-Semitism allegations against Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, allegations of BBC bias against the Labour Party in the election and more!

Landslide… To Totalitarianism by Gaither Stewart

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by Gaither Stewart
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rome, Italy
December 16, 2019

I find surprising the detailed manner in which history repeats itself. The result of the landslide described here seems to have been replicated in the USA of our times in ways that all of us witness each day. The Germany of say 1939 seems like the blueprint for the US role in the world of today.

Will Griffin: Afghanistan Papers–Another Circus Show

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by Will Griffin
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Peace Report
December 10, 2019

The Afghanistan Papers arrived way past due. Everything in the Wash-Post article is something the world already knows: waste of money, waste of time and waste of lives. The gov’t lied, the corporations made money. Same shit, different war.

Chris Hedges: Empire Striking Back In Latin America

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Watch the video below

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Dec. 6, 2019

Journalist and “On Contact” host Chris Hedges joins Rick Sanchez to discuss Washington’s continuing interference in Latin America. He explains how money, disinformation, false popular movements and even religion are used to keep the countries in the region under the yoke of “corporations and oligarchs.”

John Pilger: American Exceptionalism Driving World to War, interviewed by Finian Cunningham

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by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation, Nov. 27, 2019
December 3, 2019

Australian-born John Pilger has worked for over five decades as a reporter and documentary film-maker covering wars and conflicts all over the world. In the following interview, the award-winning journalist says the world is arguably at a more perilous geopolitical juncture than even during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 at the height of the Cold War. This is because American “exceptionalism” – which, he points out, mirrors that of Nazi Germany – has developed into a hyper-rogue phase. The relentless denigration of Russia by American and Western media show that there are few red lines left to restrain aggression towards Moscow, as there were, at least, during the past Cold War. Russia and China’s refusal to bow down to Washington’s dictate is infuriating the would-be American hegemon and its desire for zero-sum world domination.

Iran, Hong Kong, and the Desperation of a Declining U.S. Empire by Rainer Shea

Image by Debra Sweet via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, Sept. 19, 2019
September 22, 2019

The U.S. empire’s global influence projects, especially the ones in Iran and Hong Kong, have a different nature from the ones that were carried out when American power was still in a stable state. There’s now an aspect of desperation to what America is doing abroad, an unacknowledged but ever-present reality that the purveyors of Western imperialism are fighting a losing battle against the inevitable process of imperial collapse.

Capitalism, Imperialism, and their Genocidal Consequences by Rainer Shea

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, Aug. 7, 2019
September 8, 2019

The story of how America became an empire is one where a group of ambitious and egotistical men rationalized implementing a governing model which would lead to massive death and suffering. Its main forerunner was Theodore Roosevelt, a narcissistic politician from an upper-class household who was determined to turn his childhood obsession with war into a foreign policy model which would make the United States into a conquering nation. He and the other political elites who supported the Spanish-American War and the subsequent rush to empire received support from William Randolph Hearst, the businessman who used his vast newspaper network to manufacture public opinion for war because war stories would help him sell papers better than the lurid gossip that he otherwise used to gain the public’s attention.

Chris Hedges and Danny Haiphong: Myths of American Exceptionalism

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges and Danny Haiphong

RT America on Aug 31, 2019

Host Chris Hedges talks with journalist Danny Haiphong about how the myths of American meritocracy and individualism are used to legitimize the accumulation of inherited wealth by the ruling elite class. Haiphong’s new book with Roberto Sirvent, American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News – From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.

The U.S. Is Trying To Turn Hong Kong Into A Corporatized State by Rainer Shea

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by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, Aug. 17, 2019
August 26, 2019

I’m very grateful for the fact that my ideological development as a socialist has lead me towards the principled anti-imperialist worldview which informs my opposition to the project for colonialist insurrection in Hong Kong. I could easily have gone in the opposite direction; for a while, I routinely sought out the authority of the World Socialist Website, the Trotskyist publication that’s given very sympathetic coverage to the anti-Beijing protesters. But my views on Hong Kong have developed the opposite way that the U.S. empire and its narrative enforcers in outlets like the WSWS have tried to steer me towards.

The New Cold War and the Redoubling of U.S. Propaganda Power by Rainer Shea

Image by tq2cute via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, Jul. 27, 2019
August 19, 2019

The American ruling class decided that it would be necessary to start a 21st century cold war with Russia and China when it became apparent that U.S. global hegemony was being replaced by a multipolar world. And even before this new level of warfare became the priority, it was apparent that a long-term era of tensions between great powers would require much greater government control over information than was previously the case.

The Occupation of the American Mind (must-see)

Image by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

Dandelion Salad
Previously posted April 24 2018

Warning

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

[Film made in 2016]

The Real News Network on April 6, 2018

A documentary film narrated by legendary musician and activist Roger Waters of Pink Floyd trains a harsh light on Israel’s decades-long propaganda war in the U.S.