Obama: A Hollow Man Filled With Ruling Class Ideas by Paul Street + Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama and the Limitations of Liberal Criticism

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by Paul Street
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Official Website of Paul Street, June 6, 2017
June 8, 2017

A “Hollow” Man Who Was “Unwilling to Fight the Good Fight”

What on Earth motivated the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and law professor David J. Garrow to write an incredibly detailed 1078-page (1460 pages with endnotes and index included) biography of Barack Obama from conception through election to the White House? Not any great personal affinity for Obama on Garrow’s part, that’s for sure. Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama is no hagiography. On the last page of this remarkable tome, Garrow describes Obama at the end of his distinctly non-transformative and “failed presidency” as a man who had long ago had become a “vessel [that] was hollow at its core.”

Chris Hedges: The Rise of Trump

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

Earthbound on Mar 15, 2017

Truthdig columnist and Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges addresses fascism and the rise of the Trump war machine in the keynote speech at the “After Trump and Pussy Hats” event in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 3, 2017.

Chris Hedges: It’s The Failure of the Democratic Establishment To Cope With Why They Lost + Arrest of RT America Journalist

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

goingundergroundRT on Jan 28, 2017

We talk shop with former UK business minister Vince Cable over Theresa May’s attempts at post-Brexit damage control. We speak to the Director of a new Oliver Stone-exec produced film about mainstream media parroting government lies. We ask Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Chris Hedges about why if you are a journalist who cares, you don’t get a promotion.

The Enemy is Not Trump, It is Ourselves by John Pilger

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Dandelion Salad

by John Pilger
John Pilger, Jan. 17, 2017
January 21, 2017

On the day President Trump is inaugurated, thousands of writers in the United States will express their indignation. “In order for us to heal and move forward…”, say Writers Resist, “we wish to bypass direct political discourse, in favour of an inspired focus on the future, and how we, as writers, can be a unifying force for the protection of democracy.”

Chris Hedges: Fascism vs Neoliberalism

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

Watching the Hawks RT on Jan 11, 2017

Award winning journalist and host of RT’s On Contact Chris Hedges enters the Hawks Nest to discuss the future of the United States in the hands of Donald Trump and what is next for the neoliberal supporters of Hillary Clinton.

Chris Hedges: Liberal Elites Spoke The Language Of Values While Thrusting A Knife Into The Backs Of The Underclass

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jan 7, 2017

On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges discusses strategies of resistance with Michael Gecan, author of “Going Public: An Organizer’s Guide to Citizen Action”. RT Correspondent reports on the godfather of community organizing, Saul Alinsky.

The Stimulator: Meet Your New Overlord

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Dandelion Salad

from subMedia.tv on Nov. 15, 2016

In the wake of the election of Donald Trump, many peeps are freaking the fuck out. Well, step back, take a break and watch our analysis.

I Would Love to Share in Your Incredulity by Thomas S. Harrington

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Dandelion Salad

by Thomas S. Harrington
Common Dreams, Nov. 10, 2016
November 13, 2016

I would love to share, my liberal friend, in your sense of incredulity about the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of United States. I would love to stand with you in the sense of woundedness that, while certainly painful up front, carries with it the secondary compensation of a warm and nurturing solidarity. I would love to sit with you and fulminate in righteous anger about the unparalleled vulgarity and cruelty of Trump and his followers.

Transformation by Gaither Stewart

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by Gaither Stewart
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rome, Italy
September 21, 2016

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
George Bernard Shaw

Change is a word that both intellectuals and the intelligentsia of America are discussing in these times. However, one is justified to wonder what kind of change they mean. As a rule when intellectuals/liberals speak of change, they mean reform (and not enough of it, at that: that is, the leisurely conforming of the lives of the collective with their own. The radical, politically-socially committed intelligentsia means something else and their thought and conclusions take another avenue of meaning: their aim is transformation or, if you prefer, radical change. However, it is an unfortunate paradox that no more than liberals, the intelligentsia does not always know what to do with its convictions.

“Progressive”: Does its Meaning Depend on Whatever the Clintons Think is “Progress”? by Rob Hager

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by Rob Hager
Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
Older version published February 10, 2016
September 20, 2016

The battle between Sanders and Clinton over the term “progressive” presented an opportunity to discuss some history. Now that Sanders is supporting the very person who misappropriated the term it is even more important to define what does progressive mean, if it is more than a euphemism for the vague term “liberal.” This article argues on the contrary that “progressive” has a very precise meaning conferred by its history.

Marxism in Noir By Alan Wald

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Dandelion Salad

By Alan Wald
International Socialist Review
July 11, 2016

The culture and politics of race and class struggle in the 1940s

No one knows better than socialist activists of the twenty-first century that each generation must face its own “crisis” of Marxism. But we don’t face this challenge to our theory and social movements just as we please. The way we remember our past governs our own dreams for the future. Above all, at a moment like today, when thousands of newly radicalizing young people know pretty much what they are fighting against, but are unclear about what they are fighting for, there is no point in simply pummeling the gates of history with one’s fists. Sooner or later, we look to the past for shared, or at least recognizable, political experiences that might be retrofitted and rebooted; tactics and strategies that have succeeded or failed; causes and explanations for economic and social trends that have persisted or morphed; and even role models, candidly reported, for how to live our chosen lives as Marxists. Marxism doesn’t embalm history; it seeks to join a living past to present changes.

Silencing the United States as It Prepares for War by John Pilger

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Dandelion Salad

by John Pilger
johnpilger.com
May 28, 2016

Returning to the United States in an election year, I am struck by the silence. I have covered four presidential campaigns, starting with 1968; I was with Robert Kennedy when he was shot and I saw his assassin, preparing to kill him. It was a baptism in the American way, along with the salivating violence of the Chicago police at the Democratic Party’s rigged convention. The great counter revolution had begun.

Chris Hedges Asks Noam Chomsky: What’s The New Paradigm For Resistance? + Transcript

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Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky

TheRealNews Jun 17, 2014

Chris Hedges speaks with Professor Noam Chomsky about working-class resistance during the Industrial Revolution, propaganda, and the historic role played by intellectuals in times of war.

Vijay Prashad: Marx and Tolstoy Helped Me See the Limits of Liberalism

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Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews on Aug 6, 2013

On the second episode of Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay, Vijay Prashad talks about growing up in India and coming to the realization that liberalism could never eliminate poverty.

Chris Hedges: The Radical Movements Have Been Destroyed, Part 5

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with Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
July 22, 2013

TheRealNews on Jul 22, 2013

On Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay, Chris Hedges says The Democratic Party used to watch out for the interests of labor and even for the poor. But that all changed under Bill Clinton. Although Obama, like Clinton, continues to speak in that feel-your-pain language of traditional liberalism, they’ve completely betrayed the very people that they purport to represent and defend.