Let's Try Democracy

By David Swanson

If Democrats threw out the filibuster today and rapidly passed legislation over the next 8 months as if they gave a damn — as if they were, oh, I don’t know, the Supreme Court — and if they put just what they’re increasing the military budget by into their Build Back Better bill, if they put through with majority votes just those items they were elected on that are favored by significant majorities in the country, they’d have done enough by 6 months read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 29, 2022

I took part in this annual event in Yorkshire, England, eight years ago and recommend it to every community on Earth with a U.S. military base in it.

Use the date when the United States is celebrating “independence” to demand a little of it.

Did you see this headline? “Three in four Australians believe US ties increase chance of war involvement in Asia, poll shows.”

read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 29, 2022

It’s impossible for either side to see, but Russia and NATO depend on each other.

Whichever side you’re on, you

• agree with weapons-maker propaganda that the available actions in the world are (1) war, and (2) doing nothing;
• you ignore the historical record of nonviolent action succeeding more often than war;
• and you imagine militarism to be required completely independently from considering what the results will be.

It’s possible for some people to glimpse the stupidity and counterproductive nature of war as long as they look at old wars, and don’t apply any lessons learned to current wars. An author in Germany of a book about the stupidity of World War I is right now busy telling read more

Check out around 1:20.

Go here.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 22, 2022

Let’s say that we are participants in a popular democratic socialist human-rights-loving movement and successful and fairly-elected national government, and we’re invaded and overthrown by a rightwing military, foreign or domestic, with horrific violence. What should we do?

I’m not asking what can we do that might have better results than doing nothing. Almost anything meets that standard.

I’m not asking what can we do that we’ll be able read more

Voices for Peace will be available here from July 5-18 at the cost of $10.

Voices for Peace from Michael Kennedy on Vimeo.

Voices for Peace is a documentary/theatrical film about anti-war activism, produced by Creative Action Unlimited and directed by Michael Kennedy and John Stevenson.

This film features actors sharing the words of internationally known peace activists including Kristin Crouch as Medea Benjamin, Tess McHugh as Kathy Kelly, Russell Roberts as David Swanson, David Quinones as Chris read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 20, 2022
With thanks to World BEYOND War, WILPF, and RootsAction for useful resources.

Why shouldn’t Canada buy F-35s?

The F-35 is not a tool of peace or even of military defense. It is a stealth, offensive, nuclear-weapons-capable airplane designed for surprise attacks with the potential to intentionally or accidentally launch or escalate wars, including nuclear war. It is for attacking cities, not just other airplanes.

The F-35 is one of the weapons with read more