“Brigands of the World, They Create Desolation and Call it Peace” by Clive Hambidge

Image by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

by Clive Hambidge
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
October 28, 2015

Sitting in Committee room G in the Houses of Parliament on 23^rd October from 6 to 7.30 pm was a sobering affair. While hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues and chaired by Lord Alderdice, the event’s speaker was Professor Padraig O’Malley who had recently published The Two State Delusion which the New York Times described as both “impressive and frustrating”. It is indeed impressive in its observations.

Pentagon Dominated America by Clive Hambidge

by Clive Hambidge
Writer, Dandelion Salad
May 15, 2013

Part One: Integrated Systems

In Wikipedia we find this, concerning an overview of the meaning ‘integrated systems’

“A system is an aggregation of subsystems cooperating so that the system is able to deliver the overarching functionality. System integration involves integrating existing often disparate systems. System integration is also about adding value to the system, capabilities that are possible because of interactions between subsystems.”

The above we can understand in the engineering context of machinery and technology but also integrated human development.

When a Mother dies – For all Mothers by Clive Hambidge

My deep sympathy and condolences to Clive and his family. ~Lo

by Clive Hambidge
Writer, Dandelion Salad
March 29, 2013

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

“The ultimate existential issue is, of course, death-and, like all other philosophical and existential questions, the matter of death avoided as much as possible.” — Fritjof Capra

When a mother approaches death in a small hospital, and, you are with her to meet that unacceptable end, one’s thoughts reel and collide with ‘God particles’ in your very own Hadron Collider.

The American Manifest Destiny by Clive Hambidge

by Clive Hambidge
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
February 3, 2013

Image by Madison Guy via Flickr

Killing from afar

Americans and their European poodles coiffeured red white and blue in American power salons are unlawfully targeting, and killing from afar, suspected militants innocent bystanders, and helpers, labelled “collateral damage,” whilst avoiding more politically toxic body bags containing returning American “heroes” to military bases and more lachrymose wailing from American politicians. Today, this day, men and women with “games console mentality” can kill your brothers and sisters and mine, by pressing a button caressed by their dutiful hands in America, for a drone strike against suspected militants and thereby international law, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, then take a burger lunch without fear of reprisal? I don’t think so.

The Twinning: Palestinian Children in Israeli Military Detention by Clive Hambidge

by Clive Hambidge
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
January 14, 2013

Image by frecklebaum via Flickr

Here in South Tottenham (London), attending a Twinning Conference organised excellently and robustly by Haringey Justice for Palestinians[1], a creative branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, I am just recovering from the icy cold outside, in possession of a brimming coffee and in the company of good people doing good things.  Just past registration and no interrogation! Gosh! I must have been an activist too long or not long enough!?  The issue for me amongst many and the reason for attending this Twinning Conference is to hear addressed a pre-eminent issue that focuses on the needs and support of the systematically abused children of Gaza and the West Bank held in Israeli military  detention centres under the most harsh conditions.

A Deadly Déjà Vu–Operation Pillar of Cloud by Clive Hambidge

by Clive Hambidge
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
November 22, 2012

Image by Kevin Vanden via Flickr

“Now we can sense the sweet scent and the soulful breeze of the spring, a spring that has just begun and doesn’t belong to a specific race, ethnicity, nation or region, a spring that will soon reach all territories in Asia, Europe, Africa and the US.” This cloud of words, this gentle precipitation, came from the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when addressing the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on the 26th September 2012. The truth of these words by Ahmadinejad had, once again, penetrated my waking consciousness in stark contrast, and simultaneously, of another cloud, an Israeli thunder cloud, that rains down death and destruction upon the innocent, seldom a militant, in the open air prison that is Gaza today.

Transformational Politics: Awakening an American Society and the Global Community by Clive Hambidge

by Clive Hambidge
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
February 15, 2012

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

Be Part of the Evolution

“Julian Assange” said Noam Chomsky “should be congratulated for carrying out the responsibilities of a citizen in democratic societies, where the population should be aware of what their selected representatives are doing and planning.” Assange is perhaps to pay a heavy price for disclosure, as simultaneously, Bradley Manning, a soldier of conscience, is to pay the ultimate one. The effectiveness of these two men’s actions should be taken to heart, and into our collective activism “For those that have the privilege to know have the privilege to act (Einstein).

A.I.P.A.C. – Persuading Americans to break the law? by Clive Hambidge

Image by mar is sea Y via Flickr

by Clive Hambidge
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
January 15, 2012

Habituation writes James Austin M.D “means that repeated stimuli yield a decreasing response.” Conversely and importantly he goes on, “Sensitization implies that responses increase when stronger stimuli are repeated.” For in this understanding, “we are addressing the basis of the freshness of vision of the artist or poet; focusing on the possible ways to relieve the depressed person held in the grip of a dreary grey world”, or indeed a Nation, Palestine, gripped by the dreary politics “free of law” of an increasingly violent Israel.

American Presidents: Romancing A Stone by Clive Hambidge

by Clive Hambidge
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Dec. 25, 2011

An American past in an Israeli future for an ever present and brutal occupation

Happy Christmas Mr President or may I call you Barack this Yule Tide? As you know “Christmas is the day that holds all time together” (Alexander Smith) certainly as you rustle through your Christmas stocking and wrestle with your conscience perhaps to find as you dig deep in both and  past ‘hegemonic imperatives’ an  olive twig or a so-called ‘peace process’? Perhaps not. But as you dig, can you hear the whispers?  No. They are not the whispers from the Presidents of Christmas past, we will come to them; no?

O Captain My Captain – America’s Aid for Israel’s Political ‘Continuum’ by Clive Hambidge

by Clive Hambidge
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Dec. 22, 2011

A military conquest

“… We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours … When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do will be to scurry round like drugged roaches in a bottle.” (Rafeal Eitan)

A ‘moral articulation’ by successive American administrations as to the primary reason for their unilateral support of 0.001% of the world’s population, namely Israel, is not standing up to international law or American scrutiny.