Search Results for: russiagate

Talking Like the CIA Is Bad for You

There’s a guide at wordsaboutwar.org to some of the standard war language used for big bucks by professional propagandists and for free by almost everyone else who has normalized it and not given it another thought. Manufacturing tools for mass murder is called “the defense industry,” those murdered are called “collateral damage,” the purpose is labeled “the national interest,” etc.

The trouble with talking like the Pentagon or CNN is not just that it helps to — in the words of read more

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The Global Monroe Doctrine

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 9, 2023

Remarks for second session of Kateri Peace Conference, September 9, 2023

Two hundred years ago this coming December, a local boy from my town gave a speech. In the years that followed pundits and politicians took an excerpt of that speech, carved it in marble, lit it with eternal white phosphorus bombs, and prayed to it before every shareholders meeting. They named it the Monroe Doctrine. It created the model, used ever more frequently up to read more

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The Monroe Doctrine Is Soaked in Blood

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 5, 2023

David Swanson is the author of the new book The Monroe Doctrine at 200 and What to Replace It With.

The Monroe Doctrine was first discussed under that name as justification for the U.S. war on Mexico that moved the western U.S. border south, swallowing up the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. By no means was that as far south as some read more

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Most Shocking From Jan. 6 Hearings: U.S. Comes Out Against Coups

The Jan. 6 hearings are clearly running over a month. Let’s call it a month. There are many countries in which the U.S. has organized, facilitated, or supported one or more coup attempts. Let’s count each country just once. And let’s go back only to the year 2000. Here’s a list of countries and the dates of attempted or successful overthrows. An asterick indicates success:

Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
Ecuador 2000 *
Afghanistan 2001 *
Venezuela 2002 * and 2018, read more

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A People’s History of the Peaceful Transfer of Power

Supposedly the election of Joe Biden to the White House was the first U.S. election marred in any serious way — marred by Republicans, members of the military, and clownish rioters at the Capitol. While I wish Democrats also cared about keeping any of the promises they were elected on, I don’t think they take what happened on and about January 6, 2021, too seriously — quite the reverse. But I don’t think there was a pristine election system to be marred.

Democrats themselves read more

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Surveillance Concerns: The Good, the Bad, and the Xenophobic

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, December 28, 2021

Thom Hartmann has written an enormous number of great books, and the latest is no exception. It’s called The Hidden History of Big Brother in America: How the Death of Privacy and the Rise of Surveillance Threaten Us and Our Democracy. Thom is not the least bit xenophobic, paranoid, or war-inclined. He dishes out criticism — most of it clearly well-merited — to numerous governments including the one in Washington, D.C. Yet I think read more

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Rusty Whistles: The Limits of Whistleblowing

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, December 17, 2021

I’ve been reading a book called Whistleblowing for Change, edited by Tatiana Bazzichelli, a beautifully put-together volume with numerous articles about whistleblowing, about art and whistleblowing, and about building a culture of whistleblowing: of supporting whistleblowers, and of making better known the outrages they’ve blown the whistle on. I want to focus here on the sections of this book written by whistleblowers (or in one read more

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What Would Have Been Better Than a Democracy Summit and Why There Should Not Be Any More Pearl Harbor Days

By David Swanson, Remarks on Free Press Webinar on December 11, 2021

The glory of Pearl Harbor Day still lingered yesterday on Human Rights Day with a Democracy Summit wrapping up and Nobel So-Called Peace Prize laureates talking about U.S. government-approved and -funded journalism. read more

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