By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, December 2, 2021

The exclusion of certain countries from the U.S. “democracy summit” is not a side issue. It is the very purpose of the summit. And excluded countries have not been excluded for failing to meet the standards of behavior of those that were invited or the one doing the inviting. Invitees didn’t even have to be countries, as even a U.S. backed failed coup leader from Venezuela has been invited. So have representatives of Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, December 2, 2021

If you live near Pearl Harbor, there’s delicious U.S. Navy jet fuel in your drinking water. Yum! Yum!

And some of the same people who have been warning about that for a long time have also been warning about the deadly threat posed by the stories people tell each other on Pearl Harbor Day.

If you live near a television or a computer, you’re at risk.

One of the holiest days of the year is fast approaching. Are you ready? Remember the read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, December 1, 2021

Five members of the World BEYOND War Youth Network (WBWYN) from five continents have contributed, together with WBW’s Education Director, to a chapter in a new book (available free in full as PDF) called Problems, Threats and Challenges for Peace and Conflict Resolution, edited by Joanna Marszałek-Kawa Maria Ochwat.

The book provides a highly informative survey of how people in numerous parts of the world view working for peace, primarily meaning read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 30, 2021

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow is, I think, a terrific contribution to human knowledge and guide to pursuing more of the same — as well as a notable accomplishment for the Davids of the world, who have perhaps been falling a bit short lately. A few of the points it documents and persuades of are:

Neither Hobbes nor Rousseau was right, nor ever claimed to be, not in the sense of describing read more

The most well-known problem with lesser-evil, two-party, winner-take-all elections, at least in a system of legalized bribery and corporate-state media, is the absence of virtually any really good candidates. Naturally this results in (or is at least one major cause of) the tendency of many to not vote at all — with the United States claiming a lower voter turnout than many other countries it loves to look down on.

But the most serious problem is the tendency of those voters who do vote to read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 16, 2021

I want to recommend a new film and a new book. The film is called The Boys Who Said NO! There’s more courage and moral integrity in this documentary than in any fictional blockbuster. With the wars now underway and threatened being as unjust as those 50 years ago (and with women now being added to U.S. draft registration) we need more saying No! We also need to recognize, as read more