Ken Loach and Paul Laverty: The Idea Capitalism Can Be Regulated is RIDICULOUS!

Capitalism isn't working

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Dandelion Salad

goingundergroundRT on Oct 30, 2019

On this episode of Going Underground, ahead of a UK General Election in December, we speak to BAFTA-award winning director Ken Loach and BAFTA-award winning writer Paul Laverty on their new film “Sorry We Missed You”, highlighting the struggles of a family living facing an uphill struggle since the 2008 financial crash in the neoliberal gig economy. They discuss the film, the illusion of choice in the free market and how it damages workers’ rights, the hardship of workers in gig economy jobs, the rise of Amazon and how companies like Amazon show capitalism can’t be regulated, the culture of shaming the poor and lauding entrepreneurs, the ignoring of corporate fraud and the continuous focus on welfare fraud, why the ideology of socialism still faces difficulty after the collapse of the Soviet Union and more!

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A Crisis of Capitalism is Being Faced by Millennials in South Korea by Ellen Brown

Death to Capitalism

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by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog
October 25, 2019

This 10-page paper was written for the Economics of Happiness Conference co-sponsored by Local Futures, held in Jeonju, Korea, on October 16-17, where I was the keynote speaker — a wonderful city and great experience!

Satisfaction in the workplace is a major component of the “happiness” index; but it is a satisfaction that young people joining the workforce today are not feeling. In a 2017 book titled Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials, Malcolm Harris asks why the millennial generation – those born between 1981 and 1996 – are so burned out. His answer is, “the economy.” Millennials are bearing the brunt of the economic damage wrought by late 20thcentury capitalism, with economic insecurities throwing them into a state of perpetual panic. Harris argues that if they want to meaningfully improve their lives and the lives of future generations, they will have to overthrow the system and rewrite the social contract.

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Corporate Power Prevails When There is Media and Political Exclusion of the Informed and Experienced Civic Community by Ralph Nader

Medicare for All Rally

Image by Molly Adams via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
October 24, 2019

The lawmakers are doing it. The candidates are doing it. The mass media are doing it. All are excluding from their arenas the leading citizen groups as never before, since the early nineteen sixties. The nonprofit national advocacy/research organizations that led the way for social reforms are being shut out of the political process. These groups were pioneers in consumer rights, environmental protections, labor rights, and whistle-blower protections. These groups fought for freedom of information laws and practices and access to justice in ways that have made our country better in so many ways.

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Will Griffin: A Soldier’s Journey to Revolution

Will Griffin: A Soldier’s Journey to Revolution

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by Will Griffin
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Peace Report, Oct. 21, 2019
October 23, 2019

I recently interviewed an Afghanistan veteran about his transition from US Army soldier to Revolutionary Communist. Mason Bliss deployed twice to Afghanistan, in 2011 and in 2013. Since separating from the US Army in 2015, he has been organizing as a communist, raising the consciousness of the masses and fighting back against the system he once defended, US imperialism.

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Is America Ready for Socialism? by Finian Cunningham

Capitalism isn't working

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by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation, Oct. 13, 2019
October 21, 2019

Strategic Culture Foundation conducted the following interview with American professor of politics Colin S. Cavell on the seeming emergence of a more leftwing agenda among some Democratic politicians and a more radical consciousness among ordinary American citizens for social and economic equality.

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Chris Hedges: Food Companies Distort the Science and Research Into What We Eat

Tomatoes and Cucumbers and Banana Peppers Harvest

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with Chris Hedges

RT America on Oct 19, 2019

Host Chris Hedges talks to Marion Nestle, New York University professor of nutrition, on how food companies distort the science and research into what we eat.

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Counting Down to Civilization’s Collapse + Inequality, Climate Change, and America’s Destabilization by Rainer Shea

Make Capitalism Extinct

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by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, Oct. 4, 2019
October 16, 2019

As I’ve watched young people around the world take part in the climate actions of the last few weeks, I’ve gotten the sense that I’m watching a spectacle which has been orchestrated to create the illusion that we’re still in an earlier, more stable time for the planet’s climate. Legitimate as the passion and commitment of this generation of teen climate activists is, their efforts are being packaged by the political and media establishment in a way that encourages denial about our situation. These ruling institutions neither want us to recognize the real solutions to the crisis, nor to see the irrecoverable and massive damage that’s already been done to the climate.

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How Do We Rent Our Lives? by The Anti-Social Socialist

How Do We Rent Our Lives? by The Anti-Social Socialist

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“The radical capitalist social revolution in which sovereignty in economic affairs passed from the community as a whole into the hands of special class of masters often remote from production, a group alien to the producers.” — Norman Ware

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Veritable Uprising or The (Faux) Real Thing™: Greta and Climate Activism in a Wilderness of Projections by Phil Rockstroh and Kenn Orphan

Climate Emergency - Melbourne climate march for our future - #stopAdani - IMG_3798

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by Phil Rockstroh and Kenn Orphan
Writers, Dandelion Salad
October 13, 2019

PR: Kenn, recently, this observation of mine provoked a measure of ire: Street demonstrations, even large ones, are apropos of nothing as long as they are manifested as de facto state sanctioned protests. A march proceeds, chants are cast into indifferent air, speechifying comes to pass by the usual gasbags then the assembled head home and carry on as usual. Conversely, a strike means job walk-offs — until the strikers demands are met — not walking out and walking back in the next day.

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Iran, Hong Kong, and the Desperation of a Declining U.S. Empire by Rainer Shea

No War On Iran NYC March

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by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, Sept. 19, 2019
September 22, 2019

The U.S. empire’s global influence projects, especially the ones in Iran and Hong Kong, have a different nature from the ones that were carried out when American power was still in a stable state. There’s now an aspect of desperation to what America is doing abroad, an unacknowledged but ever-present reality that the purveyors of Western imperialism are fighting a losing battle against the inevitable process of imperial collapse.

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Chris Hedges: The Destruction of the Amazon Rainforest

Chris Hedges: The Destruction of the Amazon Rainforest

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with Chris Hedges

RT America on Sep 21, 2019

Host Chris Hedges talks to Sonia Bone Guajajara, leader of 300 indigenous ethnic groups in Brazil, about the future of the Amazon rain forest, its people, climate change, and the competing goals of agro business, multinational corporations, and the policies of conservative Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

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Desperate Central Bankers Grab for More Power by Ellen Brown

Rich Uncle Pennybags

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by Ellen Brown
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Web of Debt Blog
September 19, 2019

Conceding that their grip on the economy is slipping, central bankers are proposing a radical economic reset that would shift yet more power from government to themselves.

Central bankers are acknowledging that they are out of ammunition. Mark Carney, the soon-to-be-retiring head of the Bank of England, said in a speech at the annual meeting of central bankers in August in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, “In the longer-term, we need to change the game.” The same point was made by Philipp Hildebrand, former head of the Swiss National Bank, in an August 2019 interview with Bloomberg. “Really there is little if any ammunition left,” he said. “More of the same in terms of monetary policy is unlikely to be an appropriate response if we get into a recession or sharp downturn.”

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The Imperialist Motives Behind Sanders’ Attacks On Chavismo by Rainer Shea

The Imperialist Motives Behind Sanders’ Attacks On Chavismo by Rainer Shea

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by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist
September 18, 2019

It’s no wonder why Bernie Sanders’ supporters are so loyal to him in spite of his pro-imperialist tendencies. He’s offering them universal healthcare and adequate social benefits at a time when neoliberalism has made half of the country effectively poor. Many Americans have gravitated towards Sanders simply out of the desire to attain adequate living standards, which his policies would indeed create for them. What anti-imperialists must do is shatter the illusion that Sanders’ agenda of bettering life for Americans equates to an agenda of bettering life for the world’s colonized people, which Sanders has shown he doesn’t want to do.

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GM Auto Workers Strike for Power and to Protect Workers + Betrayed Autoworkers Strike Across US

GM Auto Workers Strike for Power and to Protect Workers + Betrayed Autoworkers Strike Across US

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TheRealNews on Sep 16, 2019

Retired UAW Leader Frank Hammer talks about why the workers struck, what it means for the union movement, and what this battle means.

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Starve Out the DNC– Boycott The Democratic Party! by Michael Hudson

Starve Out the DNC-- Boycott The Democratic Party! by Michael Hudson

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by Michael Hudson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
September 15, 2019

Why we need to abolish the Democratic National Committee, even if that means breaking up the Democratic Party

Thursday’s debate on Walt Disney’s ABC channel is shaping up as yet another shameless charade. The pretense is that we are to select who the Democratic presidential candidate will be. But the limited airing of their personalities reflects the fact that most Americans, as the Irish say, vote with their backsides, belonging to the informal but dominant party of non-voters who choose not to be sucked into legitimizing the bad choices put before them.

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