Another of the Many Charming Examples of Cold War Anti-Communism by William Blum

Image by J Duval via Flickr

by William Blum
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Killing Hope
April 19, 2018

Unpersons

One reason it’s so easy to get an American administration, the mainstream media, and the American people to jump on an anti-Russian bandwagon is of course the legacy of the Soviet Union. To all the real crimes and shortcomings of that period the US regularly added many fictitious claims to agitate the American public against Moscow. That has not come to a halt. During a debate in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, candidate Ben Carson (now the head of the US Housing and Urban Development agency) allowed the following to pass his lips: “Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: Our spiritual life, our patriotism, and our morality.” This is a variation on many Stalinist “quotes” over the years designed to deprecate both the Soviet leader and any American who can be made to sound like him. The quote was quite false, but the debate moderators and the other candidates didn’t raise any question about its accuracy. Of course not.

Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff: A Parliamentary Coup

Image by Renato Gizzi via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

RT America on Aug 31, 2016

After a nine-month impeachment process, the Brazilian parliament voted 61-20 to impeach Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and remove her from office. University of Rio de Janeiro Professor Maria Luisa Mendonca tells RT America’s Anya Parampil that the lawmakers’ vote was a “parliamentary coup” and that there was “no legal basis for impeachment.”

Chris Hedges: Voices of Hope in a Time of Crisis

Image by Light Brigading via Flickr

Last Updated: Nov. 25, 2014

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

The Economics of Happiness on Nov. 12, 2014

This talk was part of symposium organized by Local Futures (formerly ISEC) at Cooper Union in New York City, November 8, 2014. For more information about Local Futures’ work or to listen to other talks from the symposium, go to localfutures.org.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s Speech at the United Nations Assembly Sept. 24, 2013 + Transcript

Image by Roberto Stuckert Filho/PR @ Blog do Planalto via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

RT on Sep 24, 2013

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lambasted US spying on her country at Tuesday’s UN summit, calling it a “breach of international law.” She further warned that the NSA surveillance, revealed since June, threatened freedom of speech and democracy. READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/o2u7py

The Stimulator: How to Paralyze a Country

Image by Erik Anderson via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

www.submedia.tv

This week:

1. ReReRepeat
2. Akira was right
3. Colombianarquía
4. Brazil Black Bloc

Glenn Greenwald on Secret NSA Program to Crack Online Encryption + Bruce Schneier on NSA’s Secret Online Spying

Dandelion Salad

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

democracynow on Sep 6, 2013

www.democracynow.org – A new exposé based on the leaks of Edward Snowden have revealed the National Security Agency has developed methods to crack online encryption used to protect emails, banking and medical records. “Encryption is really the system that lets the internet function as an important commercial instrument all around the world,” says Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian, which collaborated with The New York Times and ProPublica on the reporting. “It’s what lets you enter your credit card number, check your banking records, buy and sell things online, get your medical tests online, engage in private communications, it’s what protects the sanctity of the internet.” Documents leaked by Snowden reveal the NSA spends $250 million a year on a program which, among other goals, works with technology companies to “covertly influence” their product designs. “The entire system is now being compromised by the NSA and their British counterpart, the GCHQ,” Greenwald says. “Systematic efforts to ensure that there is no form of human commerce, human electronic communication, that is ever invulnerable to their prying eyes.”

Worldwide Social Activism Demanding Change by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
July 19, 2013

Image by Izaias Buson via Flickr

Change is afoot. Confronted with state corruption and corporate greed, abuse of human rights, environmental chaos and extreme levels of economic and social injustice, the people, overwhelmingly the young are taking to the streets demanding change, and a new political/economic system, that is inclusive and just.

Edward Snowden on Why He Stood Up to the NSA + Glenn Greenwald: “Rogue” Actions of U.S. in Snowden Row Yield Latin American Offers of Asylum

Dandelion Salad

Image by Abode of Chaos via Flickr

Edward Snowden on Why He Stood Up to the NSA: Mass Spying “Not Something I’m Willing to Live Under” (Part 2 of the interview)

democracynow on Jul 9, 2013

Transcript: www.democracynow.org – In a newly released interview conducted just before he came forward early last month, Edward Snowden explains why he has devoted his life to expose how the United States is spying on the world. Snowden says he thinks the biggest revelation to emerge from his leaks is the National Security Agency’s collection of all communications into and out of the United States — despite NSA claims that it only targets foreign traffic. Snowden also predicts that the U.S. government would seek to demonize him and accuse him of aiding America’s enemies. Journalist Laura Poitras filmed the exchange, and Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald asked the questions. “America is a fundamentally good country,” Snowden says. “We have good people with good values who want to do the right thing, but the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedoms of all.”

Thousands Protesting On The Streets In Brazil

Image by Izaias Buson via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

RTAmerica on Jun 18, 2013

Nearly 200,000 demonstrators took to the streets of eight cities in Brazil to protest the rising cost of public services and the government’s spending on next year’s World Cup. The protests originated in Sao Paulo where people showed their opposition to increased public transportation fare, but now that sentiment has spread across the country. Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research takes a closer look at the protests.

Ms. Rousseff Goes to the White House by Sean Fenley

President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff wearing the presidential sash. Português: Presidenta brasileira Dilma Rousseff vestindo a faixa presidencial. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Sean Fenley
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Anything and Everything
April 2, 2012

“One of Lula’s foreign policy advisors told a friend of mine that when Brazil looks at Iran, it doesn’t see just Iran, it also sees Brazil.” – Larry Rohter, New York Times Reporter

Barack Obama recently visited with current Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. President Obama didn’t receive her, however, with the kind of pomp and circumstance, that has been given to nations like Indian and China. President Rousseff only met with Obama in a brief meeting, she did not receive a state dinner, and Obama spent most of the day rolling Easter eggs on the South Lawn.

Public Sector Banks: From Black Sheep to Global Leaders by Ellen Brown

by Ellen Brown
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
webofdebt.com
March 8, 2012

Once the black sheep of high finance, government owned banks can reassure depositors about the safety of their savings and can help maintain a focus on productive investment in a world in which effective financial regulation remains more of an aspiration than a reality.

— Centre for Economic Policy Research, VoxEU.org (January 2010)

Wikileaks: Documents Confirm US Plans to Destabilize Venezuela by Eva Golinger

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

by Eva Golinger
Global Research, December 16, 2010
chavezcode.com

State Department documents published by Wikileaks evidence Washington’s plans to “contain” Venezuela’s influence in the region and increase efforts to provoke regime change

A substantial portion of the more than 1600 State Department documents Wikileaks has published during the past two weeks refer to the ongoing efforts of US diplomacy to isolate and counter the Venezuelan government.

Latin America’s Twenty First Century Capitalism and the US Empire by Prof. James Petras

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

by Prof. James Petras
Global Research
December 2, 2010

Political Power and the World Market

The twin nemesis of Latin America’s quest for more equitable and dynamic development, US imperial and local oligarchic power have been subject to profound changes over the past decade. New capitalist classes both at home and abroad have redefined Latin America’s relation to world markets, seized opportunities to stimulate growth and forged cross class coalitions linking overseas investors, agro-mineral exporters, national industrialists with a broad array of trade unions, and in some countries peasant and Indian social movements. Parallel to these changes in Latin America, a new militarist and financial political configuration engaged in prolonged wars, colonial occupations and widespread speculation has weakened the structural economic links – dominance – between US imperial economic interests and Latin America’s dynamic socio-economic classes.

South of the Border

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Replaced video Oct. 11, 2017

MrJacktemplar on Jul 14, 2014

Image via Wikipedia

There’s a revolution underway in South America, but most of the world doesn’t know it. Oliver Stone sets out on a road trip across five countries to explore the social and political movements as well as the mainstream media’s misperception of South America while interviewing seven of its elected presidents. In casual conversations with Presidents Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Nestor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raul Castro (Cuba), Stone gains unprecedented access and sheds new light upon the exciting transformations in the region.

Global NATO Raises Alarms From Arctic To Brazil by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
Stop NATO-Opposition to global militarism
Sept. 17, 2010

The current century’s only and history’s largest military bloc will hold the latest of what have become annual summits in Lisbon, Portugal this November 19 and 20. Heads of state, defense chiefs and chiefs of general staff from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 28 full members will be in attendance, as will be leaders from an unannounced number of the military alliance’s forty some odd partner states.

Starting last year a 12-member Group of Experts headed by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and ex-president and chief executive officer of Royal Dutch Shell Jeroen van der Veer toured Europe and North America to promote NATO’s new Strategic Concept, its first in the 21st century as the current version was adopted in 1999, the year of the bloc’s first expansion into Eastern Europe and its 78-day air war against Yugoslavia, the first military assault against a sovereign nation in Europe since World War II.