Solomon’s Unspinning of War
By David Swanson

Norman Solomon’s new book, “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,” opens with a disturbing prologue. The U.S. media has refused to give serious coverage to the Downing Street Memos on the grounds that they are “old news.” In the initial pages of his book, and supplemented by the rest, Solomon makes a case that both outdoes and undoes that claim.

Solomon outdoes the “old news” read more

By David Swanson

For the length of next year, the nearly 600,000 residents of Washington, D.C., will continue to pay federal income taxes and to send their kids to die in Iraq (thus far in greater proportion than any other area of the country), but will be deprived of any representation in either house of Congress.

This qualifies as breaking news to the 82 percent of Americans who are unaware that this situation exists and is not new, read more

TV Drama on Iraq Tells Us More About Hollywood
By David Swanson

A significant percentage of the U.S. news stories about Iraq in the past couple of days have been stories about a fictional TV series set in Iraq

How Progressive Young People Can Have an Impact In These Times
By David Swanson

(Remarks for gathering of progressive caucus interns at US Capitol, July 27, 2005)

Well, what kind of times are these? They seem to me to be times not just of an increase in plutocracy, but also of a decrease in awareness of it.

A majority of Americans favor single-payer health coverage, a shift to renewable energy, the protection of natural resources, investment in education, and protection of civil rights. And very read more

The Case Against Hauling 44 Thousand Metric Tons of Nuclear Waste Through 45 States and Storing it Above Ground on Native American Land, Against the Tribe’s Sovereign Will and Next to an Air Force Bombing Ground, Without a Single Hearing or Safety Investigation

Or

How to Lobby Congress With a Hammer

By David Swanson, Board Member of Progressive Democrats of America, http://www.pdamerica.org

Over 100 people, few if any of them employed by the corporate media, filled a press conference room in read more

How the United States Marked the 3rd Anniversary of the Downing Street Memo
By David Swanson

Hundreds of people were turned away today as capacity crowds packed public forums in U.S. cities to discuss the Downing Street Memo and related evidence that President Bush lied about the reasons for war. Halls were filled to capacity and beyond in LA, Oakland, Seattle, Detroit, Northampton, New York, and elsewhere, for events led by Congress Members, including Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, read more

INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES
Defining The Issues Series
From Downing Street to Tavistock Square:
How will a Terror Attack in London Change British and World Policy toward Iraq?

Wednesday, July 20, 2005
12:30 – 1:30pm
Institute for Policy Studies
733 15th St. NW (15th and H), Ste.1020
(McPherson Square Metro)

From the earliest planning stages, Great Britain has been the Bush Administration

Congressional Town Hall Meetings, Public Forums, Dramatic Recreations, House Parties, Rallies, and Study Circles on July 23, 2005

On July 23, 2005, events around the United States will mark the three-year anniversary of the meeting at #10 Downing Street in London, England, that was recorded in the now infamous minutes known as the “Downing Street Memo.”

At least eight events will be hosted by or participated in by Members of Congress, including John Conyers in Detroit, Jim McDermott read more

By David Swanson

Remarks prepared for workshop at the 50th Anniversary Convention of the American Federation of Teachers Communications Association.

To follow viewing of a George Lakoff film and discussion of the fight to save Social Security.

I didn’t think too much of George Lakoff until I’d read enough of him myself. I was scared off by his praise for Clinton’s stealing right-wing language on welfare, and by his asking Howard Dean to write a forward to one of his books. Lakoff read more

By David Swanson

Remarks prepared for July 4, 2005, anti-war rally in Washington, D.C.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/622

An ABC News/Washington Post poll last week found 52 percent of Americans believe the Bush administration “deliberately misled the public before the war,” and 57 percent say the Bush administration “intentionally exaggerated its evidence that pre-war Iraq possessed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.”

A Zogby poll last week found 42 percent read more