Author name: davidswanson

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

On the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the documentary War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death is getting renewed attention. The film takes a blistering look at how U.S. media outlets from Fox News to MSNBC enthusiastically disseminated propaganda and helped sell wars that would directly kill thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi read more

World BEYOND War supports getting in the streets everywhere on April 2nd for peace and nonviolent action with Europe for Peace. World BEYOND War members in Europe will spread the word and take part, and we will encourage our chapters around the world to join in. I’m executive director of World BEYOND War, and I live in the United States where antiwar activism is most needed and least present. We have lots of excuses: the vast distances over which we are spread out, the intense propaganda read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 18, 2023

I want to begin with three lessons from 20 years ago.

First, on the question of launching a war on Iraq, the United Nations got it right. It said no to the war. It did so because people around the world got it right and applied pressure to governments. Whistleblowers exposed U.S. spying and threats and bribes. Representatives represented. They voted no. Global democracy, for all its flaws, succeeded. The rogue U.S. outlaw failed. But, not only did read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 17, 2023

The peace movement did a great many things right in the first decade of this millennium, some of which we’ve forgotten. It also fell short in many ways. I want to highlight the lessons I think we’ve most failed to learn and suggest how we might benefit from them today.

1. We formed uncomfortably large coalitions. We brought together war abolitionists with

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 10, 2023

Here’s how this works each year.

1) Biden proposes a massive increase in military spending — above and beyond both what he proposed the year before and what the Congress increased that to. If you look at U.S. military spending according to SIPRI in constant 2021 dollars from 1949 to now (all the years they provide, with their calculation adjusting for read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 8, 2023

I don’t want any new monuments to individuals to replace any ripped down for racism or other offenses. Individuals are deeply flawed — every single one of them, and morality changes with the times. Whistleblowers are by definition less than divinely perfect, as their service is revealing the horrors of some institution they’ve been part of. But when you look around for individuals you’d like people to be learning from, there are some that read more

Every major U.S. media outlet I’ve been on opposing war has banished me into the wilderness.

Every major Russian media outlet that I go on and denounce war — and I mean Russian warmaking as well as everybody else’s — has me back on again.

I usually do Russian media only live, to prevent them censoring me.

But here’s a radio show I did this week with Sputnik — have read more

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

Spolier Alert: if you want to watch an excellent 30-minute film without knowing what happens, scroll down and watch it before reading any of these words.

We’ve long known that U.S. mass-shooters are disproportionately trained in shooting by the U.S. military. I don’t know whether the same applies to those who kill in the U.S. with bombs. I wouldn’t be surprised if the connection were even greater.

The Oscar-nominated short film Stranger read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 2, 2023

When a cartoonist was recently denounced and canceled for racist remarks, Jon Schwarz pointed out that his resentment at black people for not being grateful for what white people do for them echoed similar resentment over the years for the ingratitude of the enslaved, of dispossessed Native Americans, and of the bombed and invaded read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 26, 2023

This March 19th will be 20 years since the horrific evil of Shock and Awe. For many years, we held protest demonstrations on that date in Washington D.C. and many other places. Some of these events were large, some small. Some were exciting because they combined permitted “family safe” rallies with street blocking, and brought everyone into the streets when they saw that the very last thing the police wanted was to arrest anyone. These were read more