Let's Try Democracy

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, December 1, 2021

Five members of the World BEYOND War Youth Network (WBWYN) from five continents have contributed, together with WBW’s Education Director, to a chapter in a new book (available free in full as PDF) called Problems, Threats and Challenges for Peace and Conflict Resolution, edited by Joanna Marszałek-Kawa Maria Ochwat.

The book provides a highly informative survey of how people in numerous parts of the world view working for peace, primarily meaning read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 30, 2021

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow is, I think, a terrific contribution to human knowledge and guide to pursuing more of the same — as well as a notable accomplishment for the Davids of the world, who have perhaps been falling a bit short lately. A few of the points it documents and persuades of are:

Neither Hobbes nor Rousseau was right, nor ever claimed to be, not in the sense of describing read more

The most well-known problem with lesser-evil, two-party, winner-take-all elections, at least in a system of legalized bribery and corporate-state media, is the absence of virtually any really good candidates. Naturally this results in (or is at least one major cause of) the tendency of many to not vote at all — with the United States claiming a lower voter turnout than many other countries it loves to look down on.

But the most serious problem is the tendency of those voters who do vote to read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 16, 2021

I want to recommend a new film and a new book. The film is called The Boys Who Said NO! There’s more courage and moral integrity in this documentary than in any fictional blockbuster. With the wars now underway and threatened being as unjust as those 50 years ago (and with women now being added to U.S. draft registration) we need more saying No! We also need to recognize, as read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 12, 2021

I’m old enough to remember when you couldn’t do a speaking event related to war and peace without being asked numerous reasonable and not so reasonable questions about 9/11 (each accompanied by a stack of DVDs and flyers presented to you as a revelation from on high). There was a long period when you could count on the inevitable question about “peak oil.” I’ve been around enough to know that you can’t talk to peace-oriented people read more

NPR posted a story called “Feel like you don’t fit in either political party? Here’s why.” Of course I knew why. Neither party supports anything remotely close to my views on government budgets, climate, environment, taxation, militarism, healthcare, retirement, housing, education, transportation, or any other significant policy area.

But NPR’s story was about a Pew poll that asked 16 questions read more