Let's Try Democracy

Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) today announced that April Fool’s Day is not in compliance with Basic Community Standards, and that a zero tolerance policy is in place. In a statement, the company said “Of all the evils in the world, none is graver or more damaging than satire. This malevolent practice offends, embarrasses, and blatantly discriminates against millions of people who don’t know what it is. A holiday that labels a large percentage of a country ‘Fools’ should read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 31, 2023

We should all applaud the Vatican, after almost six centuries, repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery.

Exactly two centuries ago, the Doctrine of Discovery was put into U.S. law in the same year in which the Monroe Doctrine was created.

The Doctrine of Discovery is, in short, the idea that a European nation can claim any land not yet claimed by other European nations, regardless of what people already live there. It was put into U.S. law in 1823, read more

Over at the New York Times, David Brooks is paid more per line than you’ll probably see all year to proclaim the dire need for a restoration of patriotism:

“Because you’re online so much you probably saw the Wall Street Journal/NORC poll that came out this week. It found that the share of Americans who say patriotism is very important to them has dropped to 38 percent from 70 percent since 1998. The share who say religion is very important has dropped to 39 percent from 62 percent. read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 30, 2023

The flyer described the author like this: “Ex-Marine Charles Douglas Lummis has written extensively on the topic of US foreign relations, and is a vocal critic of US foreign policy. His works include Radical Democracy, and A New Look at the Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Susan Sontag has called Lummis ‘one of the most thoughtful, honorable, and relevant intellectuals writing about democratic practice anywhere in the world.’ Karel van Wolferen read more

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said this week, when asked about UK shipments of Depleted Uranium weapons to Ukraine: “If Russia is deeply concerned about the welfare of their tanks and tank soldiers, the safest thing for them to do is move them across the border, get them out of Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesperson Garron Garn said Depleted Uranium read more

In this episode of By Any Means Necessary, hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by David Swanson, activist, journalist, radio host, Executive Director of World Beyond War and author of the book “Leaving World War II Behind” to discuss the ballooning war budgets passed by Congress and why they continue to grow even after the supposed end of wars the US is directly involved in, what it would take from Democrats to actually make good on promises to challenge read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 25, 2023

The question of a Ukraine agreement is not a question, for two reasons. One, the warmaking parties want the war to continue. Two, if they were willing to make an agreement, everybody on all sides knows exactly (or darn near exactly) what it would have to be, and always has. Sooner or later, it will have to be agreed to, or the world end. (Yes, I’m aware that post-nuclear-apocalypse a rock will still be here with possibly some cockroaches on it; read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 24, 2023

I can’t recommend highly enough a new book by A.B. Abrams called Atrocity Fabrication and Its Consequences: How Fake News Shapes World Order. Despite using the term “fake news” there is not the slightest speck of a hint of Trumpism. Despite reporting on atrocity fabrication, there is not the slightest glimmer of a reference to nonsense claims that school shootings are staged, or any mention of anything at all that is not read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 22, 2023

It ought to be easy. Open bank vault, remove weapons dealers, close bank vault. In reality, we need a ton of tools, work, and luck.

In constant dollar terms, after Korea, Vietnam, Reagan’s second term, and Obama’s first term U.S. military spending went down, just never as much as it had gone up. So, ending wars, including Cold Wars, may help.

We now have a war underway in which the U.S. participation is understood as primarily spending read more