April 2006

By David Swanson

John Aravosis suggests some talking points on Iran, but I’d like to suggest some changes in bold.

George Bush has decided to use Iran as a foil to help his sagging poll numbers and to help Republicans in the fall congressional elections. I’m going to discuss why this is true, and what the Dems should do about it.

Iran is ten years away from developing nukes.

I’ll say it again, TEN YEARS away. And that’s not according to some peacenik liberal, it’s according read more

By David Swanson

Now might be the time to read, if you haven’t already, “Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism,” an amazing book edited by CODE PINK cofounders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, which includes a forward by Alice Walker and an introduction by Arundhati Roy.

While this book was published last year, its title and theme take on a new urgency with each new revelation that our read more

By David Swanson

Bush authorized the leaking of selected portions of classified documents, selected in such a way as to constitute a lie. He painted a picture of a nuclear threat that he knew did not exist, and used it to scare people into supporting an illegal war, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

Of course, the leaking itself was illegal. Of course, Bush’s past promises to fire leakers were lies, and his eagerness to investigate other leaks that he didn’t read more

By David Swanson

What would happen if politically active progressive Americans suddenly stopped devoting their energies to drafting better sound bites, and instead directed all that time and passion into a serious and strategic campaign of civil disobedience?

I know, I know, we’re constantly told that we’re being out-framed and out-messaged. Horse shit. We’re smarter than they are, wittier, pithier, more attuned to the perspectives of those we’re speaking to. But we don’t read more

By David Swanson

The Stop the War Coalition in the UK has set a standard for anti-war activism that we in the United States struggle to match. They’ve held larger protests, convened more significant conferences, and moved their agenda further in public opinion, in Parliament, and in the courts than we have done. On Tuesday they organized protests nationwide outside the studios of the BBC, which of course already provides a level of openness and honesty in its reporting that those of us read more