Image by Lynn Friedman via Flickr
by Howard Zinn
Writer, Dandelion Salad
November 6, 2018
Gossip is the opium of the American public. We lie back, close our eyes and happily inhale the stories about Roosevelt’s and Kennedy’s affairs, Lyndon Johnson’s nude swims with unnamed partners and, now, Nixon’s pathetic “final days” in office.
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The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
November 2, 2018
The Vote – the beloved, abused, scorned, corrupted, stolen, hijacked, pointless, profound, hopeful, depressing, hard-won, cherished vote – is not the only way to take action for meaningful change. Currently, the elections operate in our nation like a cattle chute, all too often forcing us back into the deadly, no-win tracks of the two-party duopoly that serves only the moneyed class. It becomes a handy device for siphoning off the demand for revolutionary change by giving false hope that elected officials will actually enact their campaign promises once in office.
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The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published Dec. 13, 2017
October 23, 2018
Blockade the gangplanks of the Titanic! Shut down the boilers of the ship! Storm the stairs from steerage and seize the wheel!
We have passed the point where token victories, small handouts, and crumbs from banquet tables will help us. We have struck too many icebergs and the hull of our society has been breached. Band-Aids on shredded steel will not hold back the floodwaters of injustice.
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The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published Dec. 22, 2013
September 1, 2018
Wishful thinking and random action will not topple the corrupt and powerful collusion of extreme capitalism, the wealthy elite, and military force. For all the courage shown thus far by people across the country in demonstrating, petitioning, even throwing their bodies in the line of danger, I call upon an even greater courage now …
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The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published Nov. 3, 2013
August 19, 2018
You must believe that pockets of resistance exist. As America plunges into darkness, some people burn with resistance like fires in the night, aglow with respect for the civil liberties that define the modern ideal of freedom. The quiet murmur of their impassioned voices will call to you as they discuss nonviolent strategy and struggle, but you will not be asked to join them until you strike the matchstick of your heart, build a fire of your determination, ignite the blaze of your courage, and reach out to others.
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by Paul Street
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Official Website of Paul Street
July 2, 2018
The road to total tyranny is littered with tests — moments when those atop reigning oppression structures learn how far they can push the boundaries of decency without sparking potent people’s resistance. One such moment was when the demented jackass and imperialist butcher George W. Bush marched down a red carpet to screw up his evil, moronic face to announce the U.S. invasion of Iraq on openly false pretexts including the shamelessly idiotic claim that Saddam Hussein’s government had been involved in the September 11, 2001 jetliner attacks and the equally bogus charge that Iraq possessed a threatening stockpile of “weapons of mass destruction.” The president and his team of Orwellian Neocon war pigs faced two days of mass protest across the country and around the world. Still, they were not deterred from launching a brazenly criminal invasion and occupation that would kill more than a million Iraqis, displace millions more, and devastate Iraq almost beyond recognition.
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Take action and watch the video below
Updated: May 16, 2018 Please take action; write and call your Congress person now!
TheRealNews on May 8, 2018
Several dozen websites and organizations are launching a campaign in support of net neutrality ahead of an upcoming US Senate vote on whether to rescind the FCC’s decision to get rid of net neutrality. Craig Aaron on Free Press discusses the plan and the prospects.
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Dandelion Salad
Originally published on April 30, 2011
by Elizabeth Schulte
SocialistWorker.org, April 29, 2011
April 30, 2018
ON MAY 1, 1886–125 years ago this month–hundreds of thousands of workers were taking the streets of cities around the U.S. to demand an eight-hour day.
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by Michael Parenti
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published Sept. 4, 2011
April 26, 2018
48South7th on Aug 31, 2011
Author Michael Parenti challenges his audience to learn about and advocate free speech in the face of oppression. From the origins of the Bill of Rights up to today’s challenges by the FBI and other government entities, Parenti says, it is essential to stand up for one’s rights. He spoke at an event sponsored by the South Bay Committee Against Political Repression.
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by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
March 28, 2018
The secret to successful nonviolent struggle lies in understanding strategy and systems. All systems require participation and resources to survive. Deny those things, and the system will wither away … or concede to meet your demands.
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by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page, Mar. 22, 2018
March 25, 2018
Polls show that over 125 million adults in our country already favor full Medicare for all, with free choice of doctor and hospital without stifling networks. I say ‘already’ because, as of yet, there is no major national campaign underway showing that an ‘everybody in, nobody out’ system of health insurance costs less, with better outcomes, is simpler, without maddeningly inscrutable or fraudulent bills, co-pays, deductibles and additional trap doors set by a bunch of greedy corporations. The campaigns that exist today are receiving too little on-the-ground assistance for such a widely-supported issue.
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by Howard Zinn
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Previously published on November 25, 2013
March 22, 2018
[By the latter part of May, 1970, feelings about the war in Vietnam had become almost unbearably intense. In Boston, about a hundred of us decided to sit down at the Boston Army Base and block the road used by buses carrying draftees off to military duty. We were not so daft that we thought we were stopping the flow of soldiers to Vietnam; it was a symbolic act, a statement, a piece of guerrilla the after. We were all arrested and charged, in the quaint language of an old statute, with “sauntering and loitering” in such a way as to obstruct traffic.
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Sent to Dandelion Salad by Rivera Sun
by Tom Atlee
March 17, 2018
Rivera Sun always gifts us with usefully creative fiction in the face of daunting challenges to future generations, to current society, to marginalized communities, and to all of us as citizens of our planet. Her Roots of Resistance – the second novel of her Dandelion Trilogy – offers an inspiring story to help guide love-based strategic change efforts during what promises to be a very messy transition to a better world. The novel imagines deeply human responses to our civilizational predicament and to the challenges we (especially as change agents) will face as we try to put such responses into practice.
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The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
March 9, 2018
There are some who mince their steps and words, who hush the bold and outspoken, who advise moderation. But, a revolution by any other name does not smell as sweet. Reform does not cut it. Resistance is not enough. Massive change is vague. Transformation calls to mind change, yet does not invoke the burning urgency, the gritty intensity of the tsunami of change we need. Evolution implies an unrealistic image of our corporate political pawns awakening, growing, evolving.
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WSWS reporter Zac Corrigan addresses rally of West Virginia students
