Arundhati Roy on Her New Book, “Capitalism: A Ghost Story,” and World’s Largest Election in India

Dandelion Salad

Updated: May 16, 2014

democracynow on Apr 9, 2014

democracynow.org – As voting begins in India in the largest elections the world has ever seen, we spend the hour with Indian novelist and essayist Arundhati Roy. Nearly 815 million Indians are eligible to vote and results will be issued in May. One of India’s most famous authors — and one of its fiercest critics — Roy is out with a new book, “Capitalism: A Ghost Story,” which dives into India’s transforming political landscape and makes the case that globalized capitalism has intensified the wealth divide, racism, and environmental degradation. “This new election is going to be [about] who the corporates choose,” Roy says, “[about] who is not going to blink about deploying the Indian army against the poorest people in this country, and pushing them out to give over those lands, those rivers, those mountains, to the major mining corporations.”

Gender and Caste Discrimination–Apartheid in ‘New’ India by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
March 14, 2014

Image by waterdotorg via Flickr

A suffocating patriarchal shadow hangs over the lives of women throughout India. From all sections, castes and classes of society, women are victim of its repressive, controlling effects. Those subjected to the heaviest burden of discrimination are from the Dalit or Scheduled Castes, known in less liberal democratic times as the ’untouchables’. The name may have been banned but pervasive negative attitudes of mind remain, as do the extreme levels of abuse and servitude experienced by Dalit women. They experience multiple levels of discrimination and exploitation, much of which is barbaric, degrading, appallingly violent, and totally inhumane.

Iraq’s Cabinet Approved a Draft Law Lowering the Age of Legal Marriage for Girls to 9 Years Old by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
March 14, 2014

Less than a month before the eleventh anniversary of the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq, the near destruction of much of the country, heritage, culture, secularism, education, health services and all State institutions, the country is poised to revert “two thousand years” say campaigners.

On 25th February Iraq’s Cabinet approved a draft law lowering the age of legal marriage for females to nine years old.

Abject Poverty or Domestic Servitude by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
December 23, 2013

Image by J.Maillard via International Labour Organization – ILO PHOTOS via Flickr

They work as maids, housekeepers, cleaners; they take care of children, the elderly and infirmed for wealthy and middle class families in rich and upwardly mobile nations. They are found throughout the world: in the G20 countries and the Gulf States, Latin America (where they account for 60% of internal and international migrants), and developing countries in Africa and Asia where vast numbers of poor and vulnerable live alongside the privileged few.

Malalai Joya: The Hypocrisy of the U.S. Government + Chomsky Scorns So-Called “Humanitarian Intervention” + The Afghan Peace Volunteers and Luke Nephew: Rap Against Impunity as the Afghan War Turns 12

Dandelion Salad

Image by FJJ via World Can’t Wait via Flickr

strugglevideomedia on Oct 8, 2013

Famed human rights activist Malalai Joya speaks in Boston at the meeting along with Noam Chomsky. Joya is on a 10 city tour of the U.S. Joya is speaking about her updated version of her book “A Woman Among Warlords”. She is introduced by Marilyn Levin of the United National Anti-War Coaltion. www.unacpeace.org 10/6/2013 

Children and Women for Sale In India by Graham Peebles

by Graham Peebles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London
September 4, 2013

Image by Rita Willaert via Flickr

To be born poor in our world, is to be born vulnerable and in danger of exploitation of one kind or another; to be incarnated female and poor is to greatly intensify the risks. If you are born a girl to parents of tea-pickers in Assam in North Eastern India (earning as little as US $1.50 a day) there is a good chance you will be sold to a local recruitment ‘agent’ by your loved ones for around $50, he will sell you on to a city ‘employer’ for up to $800 and into a life of abuse and suffering.

American Foreign Policy – Have Our War Lovers Learned Anything? by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
February 7, 2013

Image by World Bank Photo Collection via Flickr

Over the past four decades, of all the reasons people over a certain age have given for their becoming radicalized against US foreign policy, the Vietnam War has easily been the one most often cited. And I myself am the best example of this that you could find. I sometimes think that if the war lovers who run the United States had known of this in advance they might have had serious second thoughts about starting that great historical folly and war crime.

Daughters of India Violated and Abused, by Graham Peebles + The ‘Genocide’ of India’s Daughters

by Graham Peebles
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
London
January 6, 2013

Image by Imagens Evangélicas via Flickr

A woman’s lot

In the ancient land of India, where female deities deeply revered, Kali and Lakshmi, Sarasvati and Parvati, are held high upon the alter of Hinduism, where each day thousands of Hindu’s ritually bathe in the Holy waters of the Ganges, cleansed within and without by the Goddess Ganga, women and girls; in the forests, cities, villages and towns, on buses and trains, in the street, the office, at school and in the home are being violated, abused, raped and trafficked into prostitution and domestic slavery.

Heart Attack Without Heart Disease: The Chickens Come Home by Cameron Salisbury + Monsanto Taking Over Global Agriculture

Image by MillionsAgainstMonsanto via Flickr

by Cameron Salisbury
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Opedinfo.com, April 29, 2012
May 1, 2012

Something strange and ominous is happening to young people, especially women but also to lesser numbers of men. They are dying of sudden heart attacks (acute myocardial infarction, AMI) without the classic symptoms of heart disease, chest pain or blocked arteries. They die quickly, as though blind-sided by a devastating accident.

John Pilger: Obama’s Greatest Achievement: To Seduce and Silence the Anti-war Movement

Dandelion Salad

with John Pilger

John Pilger speaking at Marxism 2010, the annual conference hosted by Socialist Alternative. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Apr 23, 2012 by marxismconference

Marxism 2012: Revolution in the air hosted radical journalist, writer and film-maker John Pilger. Back for his fourth year, Pilger says about the Marxism conference:

“Marxism in Melbourne is now Australia’s premier festival of debate and free speech on issues that are either excluded from or suppressed by the mass media: issues such as the government’s agenda for Indigenous Australians, Palestine and propaganda in its many disguises.”

Lebanon’s Oppressed: Domestic Workers, Women, Palestinians by Franklin Lamb

by Franklin Lamb
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Beirut, Lebanon
April 10, 2012

University students surveyed last month in Lebanon on the subject of how to improve their society and move it in the direction of meeting international human and civil rights norms identified three groups most in urgent need of immediate Lebanese governmental action.

Occupy Boston Student Summit: Noam Chomsky

Image by thelastminute via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Chomskyan on Mar 8, 2012

Occupy Boston Student Summit
Feb. 12th, 2012
Harvard University

Sam Roberts Christiansen, Instructor, Northeastern University

Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor, Mass. Institute of Technology

Video produced by Charngchi Way, Boston IWW

Declaring an End to War by Ariel Ky

by Ariel Ky
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Peacevisionary’s Blog
January 5, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

The Earth Council of Women declares the end to all wars of any kind: hot or cold, declared war on another country or people, undeclared war, military, cyberspace, space command, economic or psychological, and most certainly, planned wars, in particular, WWIII.

We demand:

The Lady By J. Brett Whitesell

By J. Brett Whitesell
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Come The Revolution
Sept. 22, 2011

Image by Jan van Raay via Flickr

When we were kids living in the city we would walk around for hours solving all the world’s problems. One day we decided to patrol another neighborhood we hadn’t seen for sometime, and found a huge construction site. We ran down to find what looked like a fifty-foot plywood wall surrounding the entire city block. You could hear the incredible amount of noise on the other side and a gigantic crane with a ball on the end that we knew could only be for one purpose, to tear something down. We had to see in. We ran around the block until we found an open knothole in the plywood, everyone took turns looking into the site.

Michael Parenti: Free Speech (2011)

Image by Toni Kaarttinen via Flickr

with Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.michaelparenti.org
Sept. 4, 2011

48South7th on Aug 31, 2011

Author Michael Parenti challenges his audience to learn about and advocate free speech in the face of oppression. From the origins of the Bill of Rights up to today’s challenges by the FBI and other government entities, Parenti says, it is essential to stand up for one’s rights. He spoke at an event sponsored by the South Bay Committee Against Political Repression. See michaelparenti.org for more information.