Fascism is Intentional, by Kenn Orphan

Image via Joe Flood

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
May 5, 2022
Revised July 7, 2022

Author’s note: this essay is an updated and expanded upon version of one published in May of this year.

There was a part of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, that is perhaps the most unsettling to me. The protagonist, Offred, is walking past the notorious Wall in the Republic of Gilead. This Wall, once part of a prestigious university in Cambridge Massachusetts, is now being used as a place of public execution, where corpses are left hanging for days to send a message of compliance and terror to the citizens of this authoritarian, theocratic state. Defy “God’s law” and you will suffer the punishment for doing so.

Indifference, by Gaither Stewart

Image by Justin Norman via Flickr

by Gaither Stewart
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rome, Italy
September 14, 2016

Indifference is an American-European story. As French chansonnier Serge Gainsbourg sang of his love for Brigitte Bardot: “What does the weather matter, what matters the wind? Better your absence than your indifference.” Or Gilbert Bécaud: “Indifference kills with small blows.” The indifference of one person to the other in a dwindling love affair is emblematic of the terrible impact of indifference in any field at all.

The Ultimate Enemy We Must Take On and Out by Sibel Edmonds

by Sibel Edmonds
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published by Boiling Frogs Post
June 9, 2013

Image by occupyreno_media via Flickr

As the unending back-to-back scandals unfold, from the arrest and prosecution of courageous truth-tellers (aka whistleblowers), to the illegal wiretapping of all Americans, torture, indefinite detentions, the groping and handling of travelers, utilizing the IRS as the government’s hit-men and thugs … I am asked to provide statements, interpretations and/ or explanations as to what it is we are facing as a nation today. Some seek my opinion on what it is we are fighting against; on whom it is we are fighting against.