Author name: davidswanson

In this 1.5 hour friendly debate, moderated by Marcy Winograd (coordinator of CODEPINK Congress and co-chair of the Peace in Ukraine Coalition), we hear 3 perspectives debated: 1) Russia had no choice but to invade Ukraine, argued by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, 2) Ukraine had no choice but to fight Russia, argued by journalist Jim Brooke who works as the Ukraine/Russia columnist for The New York Sun, and 3) Russia and Ukraine both had options better than war, argued by WBW Executive Director read more

Finally someone who’s willing to run for president who’s qualified!

There is the problem of U.S. citizenship, but if you can toss out treaties and Congressional war powers and the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment, if you can rig the Democratic Primaries, blame the people who revealed what you were doing, and then effectively eliminate those primaries altogether while still seeking to extradite a journalist for prosecution, then I say go ahead and let everyone who lives near read more

Watch this video of Rand Paul.

As with every single other elected official in Washington, D.C., Senator Rand Paul is someone with whom I passionately disagree on almost everything. Ceasing to send weapons to Ukraine is not one of those things.

Paul calls it “aid” and does not distinguish piles of deadly weapons from the possibility of sending purely humanitarian aid. He’s against sending anything at all. But he’s right that this “aid” is meant to perpetuate a read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 19, 2023

I confess to not having been aware that Sylvester Stallone had been in a movie in which all wasn’t solved by punching somebody, stabbing somebody, shooting somebody, or blowing somebody up.

Times change, apparently.

Stallone’s first serious movie was made in 1973 and set in 1969. The director, Robert Schnitzer, has now created a Director’s Cut version to show in theaters, beginning with the Lumiere read more

Think about somebody you love. Are you doing it?

Now think about them on fire, and you’re holding a bucket of water. Your course of action is easy and obvious.

Now think about 1,000 people on fire and 1,000 other people holding buckets of water. You use yours and yell for others to do the same, but for some bizarre collection of reasons many of them don’t. People fight over and spill some of the buckets, etc.

Now think about four billion people on fire and 4 billion other people with read more

By Kateri Peace Conference, September 14, 2023

Debra Sweet

Nick Mottern

Kathy Kelly

Gloria Caballero-Roca

David Swanson

For more information see https://kateripeaceconference.org

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 14, 2023

We’ve just learned that the office of the prosecutor and the “security service” of Ukraine have published press releases claiming to have put a stop to the activities of the “vicious Russian propagandist Yurii Sheliazhenko.”

This is, of course, very strange because Yurii, a Board Member of World BEYOND War, has — like World BEYOND War — denounced and opposed Russian warmaking from Day 1.

Yurii Sheliazhenko read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 13, 2023

Since the day Russia dramatically escalated the war in Ukraine there have been odd conversational confusions. Two people who both claim to oppose the war discover that they oppose opposite sides of the war. Or they discover that one of them opposes both sides of the war (true story, it actually exists, I’m one of them) while the other believes that only Russia is waging war at all, while Ukraine is waging something else entirely.

Since read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 9, 2023

Remarks for second session of Kateri Peace Conference, September 9, 2023

Two hundred years ago this coming December, a local boy from my town gave a speech. In the years that followed pundits and politicians took an excerpt of that speech, carved it in marble, lit it with eternal white phosphorus bombs, and prayed to it before every shareholders meeting. They named it the Monroe Doctrine. It created the model, used ever more frequently up to read more

By David Swanson
Remarks for first session of Kateri Peace Conference, September 8, 2023

I think I’m preaching largely to the choir here. As we know from the song by Emma’s Revolution, it can be enjoyable to do that. But I actually prefer trying to persuade the unconverted. Just look around. There are millions of people dramatically unconverted. Activism is mocked. There are real estate construction booms in places guaranteed to go under water or become uninhabitably hot. Two governments read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 6, 2023

A new guide has just been published at wordsaboutwar.org that provides clear standards for how to write about war, and how not to.

It includes many terms and phrases to avoid, superior alternatives, and explanations.

It also provides general rules for how to approach the use of language for communicating about war.

While I did my bit to help write this guide, I’m nonetheless making an edit in a speech I’m drafting as I look through this guide read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 6, 2023

As much as any other town in the U.S., my town, Charlottesville, has failed in recent years when it comes to opposing wars. We used to be a leader, passing early resolutions through our city council — inspiring others — to advocate against wars in Iraq or Iran, against armed drones, telling Congress to move funding to human and environmental needs, divesting public dollars from weapons companies, ridding local police of weapons of war, etc. read more

Biden and Trump are shattering the records — previously held by Clinton and Trump — for unpopular top presidential candidates. Professional election gurus who thought Trump had become too unpopular now think he has a shot because Biden is just as unpopular.

Pollsters have the numbers to show that most people think these guys are too old, and most media outlets offer up their elderliness as a key explanation for their unpopularity. I’m not convinced.

If Biden or Trump were championing read more

David Swanson, Co-Founder of World BEYOND War, will be a featured speaker at the 25th annual Kateri Peace Conference on Sept. 8 and 9. He talks with Mark Dunlea of Hudson Mohawk Magazine about ending war. #WorldBEYONDWar

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, August 29, 2023

World BEYOND War has just announced the four winners of its third-annual War Abolisher Awards. All are relatively unknown individuals or organizations working from different angles at the giant task of ridding the world of war.

Before explaining who they are, I’d like to offer a very brief explanation of why such awards are needed. It’s not because Alfred Nobel got something wrong in creating the Nobel Peace Prize, but precisely because he read more

The 2023 War Abolisher Awards have been announced.

See the announcements and acceptance videos, and those from past years too, at
https://worldbeyondwar.org/war-abolisher-awards

The 2023 Individual War Abolisher Award goes to Sultana Khaya.

The 2023 Organizational War Abolisher Award goes to Wage Peace Australia.

The 2023 David Hartsough Individual Lifetime War Abolisher Award goes to David Bradbury.

The 2023 Organizational Lifetime War Abolisher Award goes to Fundación Mil Milenios de Paz.