David Swanson and Margaret Kimberley: Zone of Peace

by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy
April 22, 2023

This week on Talk World Radio, we’re talking about a Zone of Peace in the Americas, and events in Uganda, and presidential indictments, and everything we find time for with Margaret Kimberley, Executive Editor and Senior Columnist at Black Agenda Report, member of the coordinating committee of Black Alliance for Peace, and author of a wonderful book previously discussed on this show called Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents.

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https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/22/david-swanson-and-margaret-kimberley-zone-of-peace/

Chris Hedges and Roger Hallam: The Climate Crisis Calls For Revolution + Extinction Rebellion Promises ‘Greatest Acts Of Civil Disobedience’ Unless Tories Meet Its Demands, by Sophie Squire

Dandelion Salad
April 21, 2023

with Chris Hedges

TheRealNews on Apr 21, 2023

Roger Hallam, the co-founder in 2018 of Extinction Rebellion, was recently released after nearly four months on jail. He was imprisoned for making a 20-minute speech on zoom. He was arrested and jailed because he called for civil disobedience by climate activists, specifically the blocking of major road networks in London.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/21/chris-hedges-and-roger-hallam-the-climate-crisis-calls-for-revolution/ 

Courage on the Picket Line, by Andrew Moss

by Andrew Moss
Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 20, 2023

They prepare in-flight meals for carriers like Air France, Singapore Airlines, and Lufthansa.

But not right now.

Workers for the Flying Food Group (FFG) plant in Inglewood, California are on strike, demanding a living wage, a decent pension, the retention of their health benefits, and their dignity as workers. Represented by UNITE HERE Local 11, the 350 workers at the plant voted overwhelmingly (99 percent) on March 15 to authorize a strike action against their employer, and they went out on strike on April 11.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/20/courage-on-the-picket-line-by-andrew-moss/

How to Convert a War to Peace, by Tom H. Hastings

by Tom H. Hastings
Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 19, 2022

Many attempts have been made to stop war.

Many fail.

Who has done it successfully and what can they teach us?

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/19/how-to-convert-a-war-to-peace-by-tom-h-hastings/

Will Griffin: The Pentagon’s Artificial Intelligence

by Will Griffin
Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 18, 2023

“As of April 2021, the Department of Defense has been working on 685 projects which are deeply invested in the development of artificial intelligence. Their budget mainly in the joint AI Center has increased dramatically from 89 million dollars in 2019 to 278 million dollars in 2021.

Clearly the DOD is very much invested into the research and development of AI and using this technology throughout the U.S Armed Forces. But what are their aims? What do they plan on doing with such technology? And what are some of the potential impacts of this?” — Will Griffin

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/18/will-griffin-the-pentagons-artificial-intelligence/ 

Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai: Russia Leaves Neoliberal West To Join World Majority

by Michael Hudson

Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 17, 2023

Geopolitical Economy Report on Apr 13, 2023

In this episode of their program Geopolitical Economy Hour, economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson discuss Russia’s economic transition away from the neoliberal West and integration with what it calls the “World Majority” in the Global South.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/17/michael-hudson-and-radhika-desai-russia-leaves-neoliberal-west-to-join-world-majority/

That’s What A Congress – With Both Parties Dominated By Corporate Predators, Looks Like, by Ralph Nader

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page, Apr. 14, 2023
April 16, 2023

Spring, the season of renewal, is here. The ants are diligently building their little symmetrical ant hills. The robins are in their nests occupied with posterity. And the anointed members of Congress, after a long recess, aka vacation, return to work on April 17^th. The next day, April 18^th is the deadline for filing taxes.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/16/thats-what-a-congress-with-both-parties-dominated-by-corporate-predators-looks-like-by-ralph-nader/

Mass Murder: Our Wounded Humanity, by Robert C. Koehler

 by Robert C. Koehler

Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 15, 2023

Once again… once again… once again….

I’m sure you know what I’m referring to. Yeah, another — the latest (?) — mass shooting in the United States, this one at Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky, on April 10, two days ago as I write. Five killed, eight injured. The shooter, an employee of the bank, was killed in a shootout with police. Three officers were injured, including a rookie officer (ten days on the job), who was shot in the head and is struggling to survive. The gunman’s weapon was a nice, reliable AR-15-style rifle, legally purchased at a local gun shop a week earlier.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/15/mass-murder-our-wounded-humanity-by-robert-c-koehler/

Chris Hedges: Haiti’s Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier: Gang Leader or Revolutionary? + Another Vision: Inside Haiti’s Uprising

Dandelion Salad

April 14, 2023

with Chris Hedges

TheRealNews on Apr 14, 2023

Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier has been placed in the international spotlight as an emblem of Haiti’s purported “gang problem.” But who is Chérizier really? A new documentary series, “Another Vision: Inside Haiti’s Uprising,” offers a different view of Chérizier—not as the leader of a criminal enterprise, but as a political figure leading an armed revolutionary movement. Directors Dan Cohen and Kim Ives join The Chris Hedges Report to discuss their new project.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/14/chris-hedges-haitis-jimmy-barbecue-cherizier-gang-leader-or-revolutionary-another-vision-inside-haitis-uprising/

Finian Cunningham and Clara Mattei: The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism

 by Finian Cunningham

Writer, Dandelion Salad
Ireland
April 13, 2023

Western liberal democracy and its ubiquitous “austerity economics” is a euphemism for fascism. And the charade is finally coming to an end.

Austerity is not some recent policy under neoliberal capitalism. It was born out of the historic crisis in the Western system following the First World War and during the 1930s when fascism became a way to curtail any democratic challenge to the prevailing capitalist system.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/13/clara-mattei-the-capital-order-how-economists-invented-austerity-and-paved-the-way-to-fascism/

New York Times Is Now Telling Bigger Lies Than Iraq WMDs and More Effectively, by David Swanson

 by David Swanson

Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy
April 12, 2023

The New York Times routinely tells bigger lies than the clumsy nonsense it published about weapons in Iraq. Here’s an example. This package of lies is called “Liberals Have a Blind Spot on Defense” but mentions nothing related to defense. It simply pretends that militarism is defensive by applying that word and by lying that “we face simultaneous and growing military threats from Russia and China.” Seriously? Where?

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/12/new-york-times-is-now-telling-bigger-lies-than-iraq-wmds-and-more-effectively-by-david-swanson/

Sanctions as Siege Warfare, by Derek Royden

 by Derek Royden

Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 11, 2023

In the distant past, the one place that people could escape a marauding army was behind the walls of a castle. Though this usually protected them from any immediate danger, it created problems of its own. While under siege and waiting for outside help or for the attackers to leave in frustration, those behind the walls could ultimately run out of food and even potable water, which would lead either to surrender or a slow, terrible death.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/11/sanctions-as-siege-warfare-by-derek-royden/

Rescind AUMF Now, by Rev. Robert Moore

 by Rev. Robert Moore

Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 10, 2023

Recently, the US Senate voted on a bipartisan basis to rescind the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) in Iraq. President Biden, who voted for that AUMF in 2003, has said he will sign it if it gets to his desk.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/rescind-aumf-now-by-rev-robert-moore/

John Michael Talbot: He Is Risen + Pope Francis: Let Us Pray for a More Widespread Culture of Nonviolence

 Dandelion Salad

First video originally published Mar. 27, 2016
April 9, 2023

Happy Easter!

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. — Mark 16:6

April: For a Nonviolent Culture

“Living, speaking, and acting without violence is not surrendering, losing or giving up anything, but aspiring to everything. As Saint John XXIII said 60 years ago in his Encyclical Pacem in Terris, war is madness. It’s beyond reason. Any war, any armed confrontation, always ends in defeat for all. Let us develop a culture of peace."

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/09/john-michael-talbot-he-is-risen-pope-francis-let-us-pray-for-a-more-widespread-culture-of-nonviolence/

Lee Camp and David Cobb: Imagining A World Beyond Capitalism

Dandelion Salad

April 8, 2023

“We have to come to terms with the fact that these transnational corporations globally and the empire for which the U.S is the capital of corporate Empire—they’re literally going to destroy the planet if we do not stop, interrupt, and transition. And to be clear, the window to do that is literally closing before our very eyes.” — David Cobb

MintPress News on Apr 7, 2023

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/08/lee-camp-and-david-cobb-imagining-a-world-beyond-capitalism/

Chris Hedges and Margaret Flowers: COVID-19 Isn’t ‘Over’—But Your Medicaid Might Be

Dandelion Salad
April 7, 2023

with Chris Hedges and Margaret Flowers

TheRealNews on Apr 7, 2023

Dr. Margaret Flowers joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the toll that COVID denialism will have on our society, and the generally outrageous state of US healthcare.

The national emergency and public health emergency declarations related to the COVID-19 pandemic will terminate on May 11, 2023. These emergency declarations, in place since 2020, waived or modified requirements in a range of areas, including in the Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP programs, as well as in private health insurance.

The end of these special measures will see between 5 and 14 million Americans lose their Medicaid coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. More than 30 million Americans already don’t have health insurance and millions more are underinsured.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/07/chris-hedges-and-margaret-flowers-covid-19-isnt-over-but-your-medicaid-might-be/

Peter Carter: There’s No Incentive To Use Warfare If You Have A Renewable Energized Planet

Dandelion Salad

theAnalysis-news on Mar 13, 2023

Why net zero commitments are empty and dangerously misleading if we continue to burn fossil fuels. Talia Baroncelli speaks to retired physician and IPCC climate expert Peter Carter about how ongoing wars, illegal mineral wealth extraction in active conflict zones, and the plunder of resources by transnational corporations are literally killing the planet.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/06/peter-carter-theres-no-incentive-to-use-warfare-if-you-have-a-renewable-energized-planet/

I Can’t Imagine Maine Without Moose, by Rivera Sun

by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 5, 2023

At the post office, my neighbor rolled down the window of his pick-up truck to chat. As is typical in Northern Maine this time of year, we praised the sunlight, warmth, bare patches of ground, and eyed the shrinking snowbanks with delight.

“Winter wasn’t so bad, this year,” he weighed in, “not like it used to be.”

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/05/i-cant-imagine-maine-without-moose-by-rivera-sun/

Following Murder of Dr. King: Lessons of the April 1968 Black Rebellions, by Sam Marcy

Dandelion Salad

by Sam Marcy
Workers World, Apr. 4, 2023
April 4, 2023

Following are excerpts from an article published on April 11, 1968, in WW newspaper, by Workers World Party founding Chairperson Sam Marcy, a week after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee.

The rebellions which opened spontaneously upon the heels of the announcement of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were so widespread that they had an almost universal character throughout the length and breadth of this land. The magnitude and depth of the uprisings were so great that President Johnson had to cancel his Vietnam conference in Honolulu to attend to the crisis here — a sure sign that, for the moment at least, the war of liberation at home took precedence over the war of liberation waged by the Vietnamese people abroad.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/04/following-murder-of-dr-king-lessons-of-the-april-1968-black-rebellions-by-sam-marcy/

The Real Paul Makinen? by David R. Yale, Reviewed by Diane Donovan

Dandelion Salad

Sent to DS by the author, David R. Yale

by Diane Donovan
Midwest Book Review Bookwatch, Aug. 10, 2022
April 3, 2023

The Real Paul Makinen?
By David R. Yale
A Healthy Relationship Press, LLC
978-0-9791766-0-9,  978-0-9791766-1-6,  978-0-9791766-3-0
www.DavidRYale.Com

The Real Paul Makinen? is a novel not for those seeking quick reads, but is highly recommended for readers not daunted by complex, in-depth probes of emotional relationships, from family and work to potential loved ones.

Set in three parts, it introduces the milieu of Minneapolis in the early 1970s, where the 19-year-old Paul receives his draft notice, refuses to go, and is summarily thrown out of his parents’ house.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/03/the-real-paul-makinen-by-david-r-yale-reviewed-by-diane-donovan/

Ralph Nader and Nomi Prins: Permanent Distortion: How Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever

Dandelion Salad
April 2, 2023

with Ralph Nader

We are joined for the full hour by geopolitical financial expert and financial historian, Nomi Prins, to discuss her new book, Permanent Distortion: How Financial Markets Abandoned the Real Economy Forever, which highlights the huge gap between the high-flying stock market, versus back down here on earth, where average people struggle to make ends meet.

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https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/02/ralph-nader-and-nomi-prins-permanent-distortion-how-financial-markets-abandoned-the-real-economy-forever/

Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai: Did Big Banks Take Over the Treasury?

by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 1, 2023

Economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson discuss the US banking crisis in this episode of their program Geopolitical Economy Hour.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/04/01/michael-hudson-and-radhika-desai-did-big-banks-take-over-the-treasury/

Chris Hedges and Lori Grinker: Afterwar: Veterans from a World in Conflict and Mike Tyson

Dandelion Salad
March 31, 2023

with Chris Hedges

I first encountered Lori Grinker’s remarkable work as a photographer in her book Afterwar: Veterans from a World in Conflict, where a century of war is represented by and through portraits of individuals and their haunting stories of war.

Her other books include Dear Grinkers, a photographic series on diaspora, Six Days From Forty, an installation revolving around her brother’s life and his death from AIDS, and A Portrait of Audrey and All the Little Things, which considers her mother’s struggles with cancer and dementia in documentary and still life images.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/03/31/chris-hedges-and-lori-grinker-afterwar-veterans-from-a-world-in-conflict-and-mike-tyson/ 

The Latest Offensive From U.S. Imperialism: The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, by Pete Dolack

by Pete Dolack
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Systemic Disorder, Mar. 29, 2023
March 30, 2023

As production is moved to ever more distant locales, with ever lower labor and environmental standards, the corporations behind these moves want all barriers to the movement of raw materials and finished products removed. Thus the era of so-called “free trade” agreements. These agreements, which are written to elevate corporations to the level of national governments (and in practice, actually above governments), have become so unpopular thanks to the efforts of grassroots activists to expose them to public scrutiny that governments have become cautious about embracing new ones.

[...]

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/03/30/the-latest-offensive-from-u-s-imperialism-the-indo-pacific-economic-framework-by-pete-dolack/

Hope is the Thing with Feathers: A Meditation about Empathy on a Dying World, by Kenn Orphan

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
March 29, 2023

Recently, I’ve been listening to The Lost Birds: An Extinction Elegy, by American composer Christopher Tin. [Video below] It is an arrangement based on the poems of Emily Dickinson, Sara Teasdale, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Christina Rossetti. It is sung beautifully by Voces8 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Tin composed this marvelous arrangement as a memorial to various bird species that have been driven to extinction by habit loss, pollution and encroachment. The pieces soar and dive in a powerful rollercoaster of emotion, especially when one has been a student of extinction for as long as I have.

continued at https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/03/29/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers-a-meditation-about-empathy-on-a-dying-world-by-kenn-orphan/

Striking Education Workers Help Teach a City about Inequality, by Andrew Moss

by Andrew Moss
Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
March 28, 2023

For three days, 30,000 education workers struck the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest in the nation. Bus drivers, special education assistants, custodians, food service workers, and gardeners stayed off the job, joined in solidarity by the 35,000 members of the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA). By Friday, March 24, the workers’ union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99, had attained a tentative agreement with the district, securing 30 percent wage or more increases for the lowest paid workers.

continued at https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2023/03/28/striking-education-workers-help-teach-a-city-about-inequality-by-andrew-moss/