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Will Griffin: From Army Veteran to Global Activist

Islands Brygge, Copenhagen (1998) — Communist Revolution

Image by Hunter Desportes via Flickr

with Will Griffin
Writer, Dandelion Salad
July 24, 2020

Regis Tremblay on Jul 21, 2020

This is Will Griffin’s account of his service in the U.S. Army with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, his subsequent questioning of why he was there and what America was really doing around the world. This led to traveling to a dozen countries, including Russia, to find out for himself what the effects of U.S. militarism were on people around the world. He created the Peace Report, a Youtube channel where he shares his views, stories, and insights.

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Crises Can Either Bring Revolution Or Strengthen Capitalism + Moving Towards The Worst-Case Covid-19 Scenario, by Rainer Shea

City Hall Park Occupation-Abolish Capitalism

Image by The All-Nite Images via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist
July 23, 2020

Consider the scenario presented by the TV series Mr. Robot, wherein a group of hackers aims to take down the giant conglomerate E Corp-known by the head hacker Elliot Alderson as Evil Corp. To put an end to Evil Corp’s hegemonic control over finance, the hackers sabotage its ability to keep count of how much debt people owe it. When the first big digital attack happens in the show’s universe in 2015, Evil Corp is struggling, hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost, the public is protesting Evil Corp over its failures to provide for society’s needs, and the capitalist world is falling into a depression.

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324 Congress Members Who Should Permanently Quarantine, by David Swanson

324 Congress Members Who Should Permanently Quarantine, by David Swanson

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Updated: Added a “Take Action” July 23, 2020

by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy, July 21, 2020
July 22, 2020

The U.S. House of Misrepresentatives on Tuesday voted 324 to 93 (with 13 not voting) to defeat a proposal to move a mere 10% of military spending to human, environmental, and health needs. The 324 people who voted the wrong way on this really should never show their faces in public again. Our society ought to shame them so deeply that they pick up and move to a country with healthcare and retirement and clean energy and a decent education system where they can discover what they’ve been depriving the United States of, as well as discover what they’ve been inflicting on the world. Certainly, nobody should ever vote to elect any of them again.

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Financialization of Copper Mining in Chile, by Yanis Iqbal

Pala rajo Chuquicamata

Image by @Chile_Satelital via Flickr

by Yanis Iqbal
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Aligarh, India
July 21, 2020

As Chile gets convulsed by the aggravating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the structural brutality of copper mining is being starkly outlined. At Codelco or the National Copper Corporation of Chile, approximately 3,000 workers have been infected with Coronavirus and El Teniente and Chuquicamata are the hardest hit regions with 1,044 and 636 cases, respectively. In June itself, unionized workers had reported the suspect deaths of 3 workers and had demanded a proper investigation. Codelco peacefully airbrushed these cases by saying that the workers contracted the virus from an outside area. Chile´s Federation of Copper Workers (FTC), in response to the sheer carelessness and profit-mindedness of Codelco, stated that “It is unacceptable that Codelco’s senior management tries to evade its legal responsibilities to protect … the health and safety of its workers.”

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The Tactics of Terror, by Kenn Orphan

The Tactics of Terror, by Kenn Orphan

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the video-tweets below

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
July 20, 2020

“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” — Vladimir Lenin

Between 1973 and 1990 scores of people were disappeared by the US supported fascist regime of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. They were incarcerated, tortured and thousands were murdered. In fact, the official total of those killed by the regime is just over 40,000. But some critics suggest it was much higher. Pinochet was able to do all of this with the blessing of the CIA who assisted him in the coup against the elected President, Salvador Allende, and in his reign of terror afterward in Chile. The painful lessons of the Pinochet years has often been obscured under neoliberal historical revisionism, but with what is currently unfolding in cities like Portland, Oregon, it is urgent to revisit them.

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Global Assange + Julian Assange’s Father, John Shipton Speaks Out

Julian Assange

Image by Anarchimedia via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

ARTE Documentary on ~ Jun 30, 2020

The ‘Operation Hotel’ revelations back in 2018 revealed that the Ecuadorian government was spying on Julian Assange, taking refuge in their London embassy at the time. But recent evidence from Spanish authorities suggests that it was in fact American intelligence that sponsored the surveillance. With the USA currently trying to extradite Assange from his London prison to be tried for the disclosure of hundreds of thousands of top-secret documents on WikiLeaks, the global Assange story, murkier than ever, is ongoing.

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Chris Hedges: Our National Conversation on Race and Crime is Based on a Fiction

Minneapolis City Council Pledges to Dismantle Police Department

Image by Tony Webster via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jul 18, 2020

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to activist and writer Philip McHarris, on the latest calls for police reform in the U.S.

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Marx in the House: Episode 1: Intro: Gentrification and Housing + Episode 2: Exchange Value

Marxism

Image by rdesign812 via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Space Babies on Jul 9, 2020

Marx in the House is a series that explores gentrification and housing from a Marxist perspective. In this episode we take a look at the movement of capital, the ridiculousness of landlords, how it’s necessary to organize and the fundamentals of capitalism and the role of the state.

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Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley: Free Speech Against Black Lives

BLM at Monroe Park, 20-06-11

Image by David Geitgey Sierralupe via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Black Agenda Report Presents: The Left Lens on Jul 14, 2020

In the second episode of The Left Lens, Danny Haiphong and Margaret Kimberley discuss emerging developments relating to the debate about “free speech” that has surfaced amid the mass uprising against racist policing in the United States.

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The Ravages of Lithium Extraction in Chile, by Yanis Iqbal

Llamas, towards Parque Nacional Volcán Isluga, Chile

Image by Davide Zanchettin via Flickr

by Yanis Iqbal
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Aligarh, India
July 15, 2020

In Chile, the Covid-19 pandemic is raging with an unprecedented speed. There are more than 300,000 confirmed cases with one of the highest per capita infection rates of 13,000 cases for every 1 million people. The economy is severely experiencing the repercussions of Coronavirus-caused restrictions and the historically high national unemployment rate of 11.2% is an indicator of such damage. Chileans have took to the street to protest against the malfunctioning right-wing government of the billionaire president Sebastian Pinera and the police force has responded aggressively by shooting dead a young agitator.

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Shelter In Places Apart And Unequal: Topple All The Monuments You Want, But The Real Racism’s Going Unaddressed, by Paul Street

COVID Racism

Image by Becker1999 via Flickr

by Paul Street
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Official Website of Paul Street
July 14, 2020

America pulls down monuments to racist oppressors, renames streets and paints Black Lives Matter all over them. But the real inequalities of cities like Chicago – rooted in class as well as race – are left to fester.

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The Coffee Crisis in Colombia, by Yanis Iqbal

Colombia Coffee

Image by Belinda Grasnick via Flickr

by Yanis Iqbal
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Aligarh, India
July 13, 2020

With the unabated march of the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic situation of Colombian coffee farmers is rapidly deteriorating. The price of Arabica coffee has reduced to an exceptionally low $0.9 per pound in June. Earlier, coffee production had fallen by 28% in April, 12% in March, 9% in February and 19% in January. Specialty coffee farmers too are experiencing difficulties in the form of shortage of experienced coffee pickers. In specialty coffee, coffee cherries are picked at the peak of ripeness. But with the absence of expert pickers, “Coffee cherries left on the tree will over-ripen or fall to the ground, effectively nullifying all the additional work put into the coffee to achieve the higher quality.” This labor shortage has been partly caused by the pandemic-necessitated closure of Colombia-Venezuela border which has significantly blocked the flow of Venezuelan migrants. 1.8 million Venezuelan migrants reside in Colombia and their contribution to Colombian coffee sector is indispensably important with nine out of ten coffee pickers in Colombia being Venezuelans.

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The Horrors of U.S. Imperialism are Coming to Afflict Americans, by Rainer Shea

George Floyd Protest in Washington, DC - May 30

Image by Geoff Livingston via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist
July 12, 2020

Throughout its era as the “world police” that overthrows governments for the benefit of corporate interests, the U.S. has perfected a strategy for destroying societies and remaking them according to its own preferences. To varying degrees, this playbook for regime change has consisted of a basic formula: destabilize a society, then use propaganda and violence to impose Americanism onto its culture and governmental system. We’ve seen this carried out in Iran with the 1953 CIA coup that overthrew the country’s democracy and replaced it with the Shah, in Chile with the 1973 CIA coup that overthrew the country’s socialist president Allende and installed the Pinochet dictatorship in his place, and so on.

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Chris Hedges: Collateral Murder Video and the US Military Cover Up

Birgitta Jonsdottir visits US to raise awareness about Manning

Image by Private Manning Support Network via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jul 11, 2020

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to journalist, Dean Yates, who thirteen years ago was the head of Reuters’ Baghdad bureau. On July 12, 2007, Yates learned two of his employees – Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen had been fired upon and killed by the U.S. Army. A war crime the U.S. military tried to cover up. Their deaths, and those of others, were the focus of the now-infamous video, Collateral Murder, leaked by Chelsea Manning and released by Wikileaks.

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JCPOA: The Deal That Wasn’t, by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

No War On Iran NYC March

Image by Debra Sweet via Flickr

by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
July 10, 2020

July 14th, 2020, marks the fifth anniversary of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Agreement, often referred to as the Iran Nuclear Deal (or simply the Deal) – the Deal that wasn’t. It was yet another attempt at regime change.

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