January 2018

World Beyond War joins with Just World Educational in promoting Earth Day events for on or about April 22, 2018, that will challenge the greatest destroyer of the earth: the war industry.

World Beyond War’s Coordinating Committee member Gar Smith has edited the anthology, The War and Environment Reader, which makes an excellent guide to this issue.

Here are some preliminary ideas from Just World Educational:

• Work with you or others you might suggest to organize one or more dedicated “War Hurts Earth” events in your community.
• Plan good outreach to local media so that the fact and content of these events get well covered—and also, contribute Opinion pieces or Letters to the Editor around these issues to local or national media.
• Create and make freely available a basic fact-sheet providing data on issues like the contribution the Pentagon makes to carbon emissions, the number of acres deforested during the US-Vietnam War, etc.
• Create and make freely available a series of graphic images (such as the above one), that people can use in their publicity.
• Work with Just World Books to make discounted copies of The War and Environment Reader or other print resources available for sale at your events.
• Help out with networking in communities nationwide, to maximize engagement with your local initiatives.

Hashtag: #WarHurtsEarth.

Here are some resources from World Beyond War:

Work with or form read more

The new poor people’s campaign should get every ounce of support we can find and generate. I say that without the qualifications and caveats I would usually include, because the Poor People’s Campaign is doing something that may not be strictly unprecedented in U.S. history but is certainly extremely rare in recent decades. It’s pursuing a worthy noble goal, that of ending poverty, while making ending war a central part of its vision, and doing so voluntarily.

Of course this makes read more

A No Foreign Bases conference was held in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., on January 12-14, 2018. Here is a tiny fraction of the highlights:

Full videos here.

David Swanson on Monroe Doctrine:

David Swanson in Baltimore:

LEARN MORE AND GET INVOLVED.

UKRAINE:

CHARLOTTESVILLE:

Letter from Charlottesville to Ukraine

By David Swanson

Nazi rallies in the news in recent years have most prominently been held here in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, and in Ukraine. I want to send thoughts of solidarity to those in Ukraine resisting fascism. And I want to let you know that some of us are urging our government in Washington, D.C., to stop supporting fascism both in the United States and in Ukraine. In addition, we are pointing to the examples being set read more

It was convenient for the teaching moment that James Risen just recounted the New York Times’ refusal back in 2004 to report on George W. Bush’s (secret and criminal) warrantless spying prior to Bush’s “re-election” for fear of costing Bush votes, at the same time that a harmoniously bipartisan Congress was just now voting to empower Donald Trump to (openly and legally) spy on everybody without any warrants.

How did a crime become a policy? Nobody, not even the “Constitutional read more

Remarks at No Foreign Bases Conference, Baltimore, MD, January 13, 2018

I get to introduce three terrific speakers to you on the topic of Latin America and the Caribbean, but first I’m allowed to say what I’m thinking for five minutes, so I’ll do that. I’m thinking that the first European bases on this coast were foreign bases, that they moved west, and that the practice has never paused. I live almost next door to the former home of James Monroe whose Monroe Doctrine, as read more

The nonprofit organization World Beyond War has put up a billboard in Baltimore stating that “3% of U.S. military spending could end starvation on earth.” Of course, a much smaller percentage could heat Baltimore schools, where students are attending classes in unheated rooms.

World Beyond War and several other organizations are planning a rally on January 12 and a conference January 12 to 14 in Baltimore on the subject of closing U.S. foreign military bases, a move that would save read more