EPA vs. military: Rep. Hurt should look closely at costs

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By David Swanson | Charlottesville
Published: January 26, 2011, DailyProgress

Congressman Robert Hurt is outraged because the cost of the Environmental Protection Agency “has gone wild” (“New job, fresh focus,” The Daily Progress, Jan. 22).

We spend $10 billion per year protecting an environment in serious danger of collapse. In contrast, we spend $700 billion per year on a military that could be cut by 85 percent and still be the largest in the world.

I’m confused: Is the congressman representing read more

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Code Pink Wins the Future

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By David Swanson

The future will be here in April and Code Pink: Women for Peace has already won it (thus answering President Obama’s State of the Union call to “win the future”). The color coded threat warnings our government has been bombarding us with since shortly after September 11, 2001, will be gone. The fear-mongering tactic that Code Pink was named in mockery of will have been mocked right out of existence.

To listen to the corporate media, Code Pink cannot be taken read more

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150 Leading Activists Oppose Obama for Democratic Nomination

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Over 150 prominent activists, authors, and academics have launched a petition with a statement that begins:

“We the undersigned share with nearly two-thirds of our fellow Americans the conviction that our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq should be ended and that overall military spending should be dramatically reduced.  This has been our position for years and will continue to be, and we take it seriously.  We vow not to support President Barack Obama for read more

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He Didn't Leave Government Service, It Left Him

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Whistleblowing takes many forms but almost always involves the disillusionment of an insider with the nature of what he or she is inside. Leaking secret documents exposing dramatic crimes and abuses is one way to blow a whistle. Another, equally valuable approach, is to publish a lengthy analysis of your experiences in government service. This is what Chas Freeman has done with his new book “America’s Misadventures in the Middle East,” which he will discuss read more

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Punishing Bradley Manning for the Crimes of Others

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Bradley Manning, alleged U.S. Army whistleblower, is in two ways — one likely, the other certain — being punished for the crimes of others.

On Monday a crowd that I was part of staged a protest at Quantico, where Manning has been imprisoned for several months with no trial. At the last minute, the military denied us permission to hold a rally on the base, so we held it in the street blocking the entrance to the base. This visibly read more

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Wars Are Not Fought on Battlefields

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Wednesday 19 January 2011
by: David Swanson, t r u t h o u t | Book Excerpt

We talk of sending soldiers off to fight on battlefields. The word ‘battlefield’ appears in millions, possibly billions, of news stories about our wars. And the term conveys to many of us a location in which soldiers fight other soldiers. We don’t think of certain things being found in a battlefield. We don’t imagine whole families, or picnics, or wedding parties, for example, as being found on a read more

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People Who Have Pull

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On Monday, two U.S. marines grabbed me and began pulling me away from a crowd of protesters. For a split second I was certain I would be locked up and charged with some made-up offense, such as failure to obey an unlawful order, or disrupting the war. But that was only for a split second, because without any hesitation the people I was with grabbed me and pulled me back.

These were people who have pull.

Here’s a video. http://warisacrime.org/node/56282

This happened at Quantico, Virginia, read more

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Florida Next Stop for "War Is A Lie" Book Tour

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UPDATE: Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the World War II Nuremberg War Crimes Trials and founding father of the International Criminal Court, will make an important statement on U.S. foreign policy at an event with David Swanson and Sandy Davies in Boca Raton on Feb. 26, 2011.

David Swanson and Nicolas “Sandy” Davies in South Florida on Feb. 26, 2011

Click for flyer (PDF):

David Swanson will discuss and sign copies of “War Is A Lie”.
Sandy Davies will read more

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