Good interview. No, I’m not actually in Toronto.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, April 11, 2023

The New York Times routinely tells bigger lies than the clumsy nonsense it published about weapons in Iraq. Here’s an example. This package of lies is called “Liberals Have a Blind Spot on Defense” but mentions nothing related to defense. It simply pretends that militarism is defensive by applying that word and by lying that “we face simultaneous and growing military threats from Russia and China.” Seriously? Where?

The U.S. military budget read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, April 5, 2023

The Collapse of the War System: Developments in the Philosophy of Peace in the Twentieth Century by John Jacob English, published in 2007, describes the collapse, or the beginning of the collapse, in Western culture, of the inevitability of war. In other words: the popularization of the idea that war might be ended. Unfortunately, we cannot yet recount the collapse of the practice of war, with war spending, weapons dealing, conflict between read more

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