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“We Will Coup Whoever We Want”: U.S. Empire’s Mask Slips Off, by Rainer Shea

“We Will Coup Whoever We Want”: U.S. Empire's Mask Slips Off, by Rainer Shea

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, July 27, 2020
July 28, 2020

Last week, when the billionaire neo-colonialist Elon Musk was confronted on Twitter about how his company is benefiting from the Washington-perpetrated coup in Bolivia, he replied with a statement that encapsulates the ugly nakedness of current U.S. imperialism: “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” I have a feeling that when the world looks back on 2020, the time when the U.S. lashed out with such great violence when faced with its imperial decline, Musk’s declaration will be seen as the moment when the mask of the empire came off.

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US Arrogance is a Gas, by Finian Cunningham

Nord Stream 2 Rügen 181007 369.jpg

Image by Jürgen Mangelsdorf via Flickr

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Sputnik
July 27, 2020

Washington’s arrogance is so out of control it has become impossibly absurd. It is astounding just how “exceptional” American politicians are at spouting double-think and contradictions without even the slightest shame or self-awareness.

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Freedom From Capitalism, Part 1, by W.R. Zammichiéli

Anarchism

Image by Rae Allen via Flickr

by W.R. Zammichiéli
Writer, Dandelion Salad
July 26, 2020

The ideology of capitalism is indistinguishable from the ideology of the cancer cell — unlimited growth for the purposes of infinite expansion within a finite reality.

(Part One of an Ongoing Series: The Four Fundamental Freedoms of Libertarian Socialism)

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Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco: The Plight of the Dene People

Post-Chevron 2011 AGM Press Conference

Image by TonyaHennessey via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jul 25, 2020

On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to comics journalist Joe Sacco about his new book, Paying the Land. In the book, Sacco travels to the frozen Canadian Northwest Territories to reveal the Dene people in conflict over the costs and benefits of the resource extraction industry and development.

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Environmental Disaster and Health Crisis in Cerrejon, Colombia, by Yanis Iqbal

El Cerrejon (Contreras)

Image by Lee Bosher via Flickr

by Yanis Iqbal
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Aligarh, India
July 25, 2020

At Cerrejon (Colombia), the largest open-pit coal mine in Latin America owned equally by BHP (Australia), Anglo American PLC (United Kingdom) and Glencore (Switzerland), the situation of the indigenous people is progressively worsening. Cerrejon Limited has informed the workers that “all the existing shifts will be unified into a single 7-day work, for three days off.” With the enforcement of the new shifts, “workers would go from working 15 to 21 days and the mine would go from 4 to 3 shifts, leaving at least 25% of the current workforce unemployed.” The new shift pattern is likely to aggravate the health of workers as long working hours increase the number of work-related pathologies. Current work shift arrangements have already led to more than “700 pathologies associated with musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular and ear diseases, among others.” As the level of work becomes more stressful, these occupational diseases will start multiplying.

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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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