Lee Camp and Alex Vitale: Should We Abolish Police?

Abolish the police

Image by Chad Davis via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

“One way to undermine this lionization of violence and guns would be to downsize policing in as many ways as we possibly can and undermine these kind of cultural myths of people with guns as the solvers of all our problems.” — Alex Vitale

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Rents Will Continue To Rise As Long As Housing Remains A Capitalist Commodity, by Pete Dolack

Gentrification Zone

Image by Matt Brown via Flickr

by Pete Dolack
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Systemic Disorder, May 25, 2022
May 26, 2022

Capitalism marches on. And thus housing, because it is a capitalist commodity, has resumed its upward cost, putting ever more people at risk of homelessness, hunger, inability to access medical care and medications, or some combination of those.

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Michael Hudson: Polarization, Then a Crash

Collapse text on calculator screen on the hundred dollar bills

Image by Jernej Furman via Flickr

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
December 27, 2020

theAnalysis-news on Dec 23, 2020

Allied with landlords and monopolists, the finance sector is extracting economic rents from the economy that’s impoverishing US government, industry and labor says Michael Hudson discussing the chokehold of pro-finance, pro-rentier capitalism reaching into the present COVID-19 crisis.

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Abby Martin: Eradicating Homelessness

Tenting (Homeless in Los Angeles)

Image by Russ Allison Loar via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Abby Martin

Empire Files on Feb 9, 2020

Abby Martin meets with Nithya Raman, progressive candidate for LA City Council in District 4, about her campaign to end homelessness in the nation’s epicenter and how local politicians refuse to take easy actions to eradicate the phenomenon–but refuse to in the interests of big real estate developers.

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Chris Hedges: The Dark World of Silicon Valley and the New Capitalism

Chris Hedges: The Dark World of Silicon Valley and the New Capitalism

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the video below

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Nov 3, 2018

Richard Walker, Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley, discusses his new book, Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area with journalist Chris Hedges. The book reveals Silicon Valley’s tech giant elitism, its role as a symbol of new capitalism, and the dark world of underpaid workers who lack security and rising homelessness.

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Chris Hedges: Digital Monitoring Of The Poor

Homeless woman with dogs

Image by Franco Folini via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Oct 6, 2018

Author, Virginia Eubanks, explains to Chris Hedges how the goals of Victorian-era poorhouses have evolved with 21st Century high-tech to exert control and surveillance of needy, poor and homeless people. Eubanks is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University Albany, SUNY. She is the author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor.

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Dorothy Day: Our Problems Stem From Our Acceptance of This Filthy, Rotten System by Richard Sahn

Dorothy Day icon by Nicholas Tsai

Image by Jim Forest via Flickr

by Richard Sahn
Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
First published at The Contrary Perspective
Originally posted March 24, 2015
January 17, 2017

In 1933 Dorothy Day, a progressive journalist and Catholic convert, and Peter Maurin, a French peasant and philosopher, founded an anarchist-pacifist movement and newspaper they called the “Catholic Worker.” The paper was meant to be the Christian answer to the Communist Party paper, “The Daily Worker.” Not affiliated with the Catholic Church, the movement aimed to follow the Christian gospels by promoting peace—nationally and internationally—and serving the poor and homeless. It urged a culture where the scholar could be a worker and the worker a scholar. It advocated non-violent changes in the very structure of society, based on social justice and economic equality.

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Rivera Sun’s Billionaire Buddha, reviewed by Guadamour

Rivera Sun's Billionaire Buddha Book

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

by Guadamour
Writer, Dandelion Salad
June 18, 2016

Billionaire Buddha is Rivera Sun‘s third novel. In it David Grant, a self-made billionaire, goes from the pinnacle of a most unfulfilling and emotionally deprived material success to homelessness, destitution and the spiritual contentment of knowing himself (which is the embodiment of Buddhahood). Sun describes the changes Grant goes through in a clear writing style which holds the reader and compels them to turn the pages to see what happens next in this book which should be read by all Americans with their general love of money.

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Memorial Day Crocodile Tears from Those Who Create Wars by Walter Brasch

BTTH.Vigil.9.WDC.25sep05

Image by Elvert Barnes via Flickr

by Walter Brasch
Writer, Dandelion Salad
walterbrasch.com
May 29, 2016

A few million Americans may be thinking about it, but won’t be celebrating Memorial Day. For them, there’s not much to celebrate or to remember.

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Chris Hedges: The Company Town

Worker cutting lettuce

Image by Michael Davidson via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

teleSUR English on Feb 8, 2016

In this episode of Days of Revolt, host Chris Hedges sits down with two residents of agribusiness capital Salinas, California: civil rights attorney Anthony Prince and radical councilman José Castañeda. Together, the two have been fighting against the corporatization of Salinas’ political system, and its impact on agricultural workers and other residents. Hedges and his guests discuss the city’s growing homeless population, and the ways in which Prince and Castañeda have been able to make a difference.

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Gary Null and Chris Hedges: The Gut Wrenching Truth on Homeless Vets

with Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 23, 2011

Homeless Vet @ Ferry Building Farmer's MarketVideo no longer available.

pt1gard on Jun 21, 2011

Gary Null and Chris Hedges fascinating look inside this sad subject and more.

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Pennsylvania Borough Gives Homeless the ‘Cold Shoulder’ By Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
Spectrum Features Syndicate
January 5, 2010

SUGAR NOTCH, Pa.–A regional advocate for the rights of the homeless says actions by Sugar Notch officials to deny shelter to homeless men may be based upon fear and a lack of knowledge.

About 40 homeless men were scheduled to receive temporary shelter at the Holy Family Roman Catholic church in Sugar Notch for a week beginning Jan. 11. About three dozen churches in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton region each shelter the homeless for one or two weeks a year. Professional staff usually work with, and stay with, the homeless. However, borough zoning officer Carl Alber, apparently acting under Council direction, issued a letter that threatened the church with a $500 fine for each day it housed the homeless. Councilman Herman Balas, a member of the church, said that Council was acting for safety and citizen welfare. The Rev. Joseph Kakareska told the media he has no plans to deny shelter to the homeless for the week. Sugar Notch is a town of about 950 residents, about five miles southwest of Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania.

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