Let's Try Democracy

Take a gander, if you can stomach it, at buildbackbetter.gov.

Now, be honest, if this were the work of a Republican would you be ready to protest?

Not only did you not vote for anything new, as the vast majority of the nominees and the policy proposals are long-established moss-gathering Washingtonians, but the new additions here and there are the worst of the bunch.

Biden, who had no foreign policy platform on his campaign website, and no foreign policy task force, has suddenly, post-election, prioritized read more

The November 28 Daily Progress report on the Charlottesville Retirement Commission finally taking baby steps toward divestment from fossil fuels begins by quoting a resolution passed at my urging a year-and-a-half ago by the Charlottesville City Council on divestment from fossil fuels and weapons. It then reports that the City divested its operating budget from fossil fuels, but simply omits that it did the same with weapons.

In fact, the whole article makes no mention of weapons beyond the resolution read more

One of the holiest days of the year is fast approaching. Are you ready? Remember the true meaning of Pearl Harbor Day!

The U.S. government planned, prepared for, and provoked a war with Japan for years, and was in many ways at war already, waiting for Japan to fire the first shot, when Japan attacked the Philippines and Pearl Harbor. What gets lost in the questions of exactly who knew what when in the days before those attacks, and what combination of incompetence and cynicism allowed them to happen, read more

A report by David Swanson for RootsAction.org

November 24, 2020

In 2020 Congressional elections, 78 percent of Democratic candidates’ campaign websites informed the visitor of some sort of policy platform. These varied in length and depth, but many contained substantive proposals on dozens of issues. However, only 29 percent included foreign policy as one of the topics discussed. While militarism alone takes up over read more

Antony Blinken is not the Secretary of State the United States or the world needs, and the U.S. Senate should reject his nomination. Here are 10 reasons:

1. A president elect who has been part of every disastrous war for decades should not be nominating for Secretary of State a key advisor who helped him get numerous critical decisions wrong. Biden was the committee chair who guided the Iraq war authorization through the Senate with Blinken’s help. Blinken helped Biden into catastrophe after read more

Trump changed many things.

U.S. media outlets will now point out when a president is lying. If that policy holds consistently, we’ll never have a war again.

Congress will now vote to end a war (Yemen) and a president will veto it. If Congress can repeat that on a monthly basis, and the president not veto, we’ll end a lot of wars.

Top military officials will openly laugh about tricking a president into believing he’d withdrawn more troops than he really had from a war (Syria). If read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 20, 2020

Thus far, people in 187 countries have signed this pledge:

“I understand that wars and militarism make us less safe rather than protect us, that they kill, injure and traumatize adults, children and infants, severely damage the natural environment, erode civil liberties, and drain our economies, siphoning resources from life-affirming activities. I commit to engage in and support nonviolent efforts to end all war and preparations for war and to create a sustainable and just peace.”

You can sign it too, at https://worldbeyondwar.org/sign

People who sign it have the option of checking various boxes to indicate how they’d most like to get involved in working for peace.

The result is not, as critics will be quick to point out, immediate peace. The result is a huge number of people, organized by location and interest area, working to end war. The result is chapters read more