Let's Try Democracy

Workshop first half:

Workshop second half:

Speech the night before:

Speech and Q&A second half:

One should not sell bombs to a government that abuses human rights, which means murders a man without using one of the bombs.

If Saudi Arabia had murdered a man using a bomb, it would be fine to sell Saudi Arabia more bombs.

But Saudi Arabia murdered with a non-bomb weapon, and so shouldn’t have bombs anymore.

One should, in fact, bomb people whose government abuses human rights, which means murders children without using bombs.

Syria allegedly killed children using chemical weapons, and so read more

By David Swanson

Remarks at Fellowship Hall at Berkeley, Calif., October 13, 2018.

Video here.

Slogans and headlines and haikus and other short combinations of words are tricky things. I wrote a book looking at many of the themes in how people commonly talk about war, and I found them all without exception — and the marketing campaigns before, during, and after every past war without exception — to be dishonest. So I called the book War Is A Lie. And then people who misunderstood read more

Remarks at the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, Calif., on October 12, 2018.

Exactly at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, in 1918, 100 years ago this coming November 11th, people across Europe suddenly stopped shooting guns at each other. Up until that moment, they were killing and taking bullets, falling and screaming, moaning and dying, from bullets and from poison gas.

Wilfred Owen put it this way:

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon read more

1. What would you like the U.S. discretionary budget to look like? With 60% now going to militarism, what percentage would you like that to be? 2. What program of economic conversion to peaceful enterprises would you support? 3. Would you end, continue, or escalate U.S. war making in: Afghanistan? Iraq? Syria? Yemen? Pakistan? Libya? Somalia? 4. Would you end the exemption for militarism in Kyoto, Paris, and other climate agreements? 5. Would you sign / ratify any of these treaties: Paris Climate Agreement? Convention on the Rights of the Child? International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights? International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights optional protocols? Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women? Convention Against Torure optional protocol? International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families? International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance? The Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities? International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries? Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court? Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity? Principles of International Cooperation in the Detection, Arrest, Extradition, and Punishment of Persons Guilty of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity? Convention on Cluster Munitions? Land Mines Convention? Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons? Proposed treaties banning the weaponization of space and banning cyber crimes? 6. Would you halt or continue expenditures on the production and so-called modernization of nuclear weapons? 7. Would you end weapons sales and the provision of military training to any governments? Which? 8. Would you close any foreign bases? Which? 9. Would you halt or continue the practice of murder by missiles from drones? 10. Do you recognize the ban on war, with exceptions, contained in the United Nations Charter? And the ban on threatening war? 11. Do you recognize the ban on war, without exceptions, contained in the Kellogg-Briand Pact? 12. Will you end discriminatory bans on immigrants? 13. Should actual, non-military, no-strings-attached foreign aid be eliminated, reduced, maintained, or increased? How much? 14. 84% of South Koreans want the war ended immediately. Should the United States block that? 15. Should NATO be maintained or abolished? 16. Should the CIA be maintained or abolished? 17. Should the ROTC be maintained or abolished? 18. Should domestic police forces be trained by, collaborate with, and be armed by militaries? 19. Should the U.S. military pay sports leagues, secretly or openly, to celebrate militarism? 20. How large should the U.S. military’s advertising budget be, and how much should the U.S. government spend promoting the concepts of nonviolent dispute resolution and the abolition of war?

Nancy Pelosi has consistently and adamantly opposed impeaching Bush, Cheney, Trump, or Kavanaugh.

This has been her position every day of the year, in the minority, in the majority, before elections, after elections.

Let’s find out if there is anything she would impeach anyone for, and if so, what it is.

Ask Nancy Pelosi: http://bit.ly/asknancy

Irresponsibility: A One-Act Drama:

Stage set: a dining room at left, an office at right

A woman enters read more

I’m very, very strange. I think democracy would actually be a good thing, not just grounds for bombing other countries. As long as we’re stuck with electing supposed representatives, I want to make that system approximate as closely as possible actual democracy. This attitude results in some bizarre positions. For example, I want candidates to lay out a detailed policy platform with hard commitments to particular actions. Even weirder, I don’t really care what a candidate looks read more