Writings, video, audio by David Swanson
This week on Talk Nation Radio: Where’s our money? Why so many wars? A bill to put the Pentagon on the flag? Is everything we’ve been told a lie? Are there some things that are not Putin’s fault? And how do you talk to people who won’t wear masks?
Total run time: 29:00
Host:
By unanimous vote, the City Council of Charlottesville, Va., on Monday evening voted to ban militarized policing. Specifically, the City Council resolved that “the Charlottesville Police Department shall not acquire weaponry from the United States armed forces,” and “shall not receive military-style or ‘warrior’ training by the United States armed forces, a foreign military or police, or any private company.”
The wording of the resolution came directly from
The City Council of Charlottesville, Va., is very much to be applauded for bringing to a vote this evening, and encouraged to vote yes and pass, a resolution banning military training and weaponry for the Charlottesville Police Department.
It’s not too late to sign the petition to encourage this, or to contact the City Council.
Here’s the packet for tonight’s meeting. You can
Remarks at Peacestock 2020
Imagine you’re stranded on a barren rock in the middle of the ocean, nothing in sight but the endless sea. And you’ve got a basket of apples, nothing else. It’s a huge basket, a thousand apples. There are various things you could do.
You could allow yourself a few apples a day and try to make them last. You could work on creating a patch of soil where apple seeds could be planted. You could work on starting a fire in order to have some cooked apples for a change.
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 16, 2020
Nicholson Baker’s new book, Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act, is staggeringly good. If I point out any minor complaints with it, while ignoring, for example, the entirety of Trump’s latest press conference, this is because flaws stand out in a masterpiece while making up the uniform entirety of a Trumpandemic Talk.
Baker begins as if he has an unanswered and possibly unanswerable question: Did the
“Good Morning! Would you mind staying a safe distance away?”
“Hi! Nice mask! Could you please wear it on your face instead of your chin?”
Helping people reduce the risk of spreading a deadly disease requires being willing to offend them.
And as they long for a return to normalcy, you should be preparing to be a lot more offensive.
“That sounds delicious. Does it have any dead animals in it?”
“How’s it going? Could you please not carry a gun around here?”
These are comments of the same
This week on Talk Nation Radio: massive, shameless, and endlessly expanding war profiteering by weapons dealers. Our guest is Heidi Peltier, author of a new report called “The
By David Swanson
A bill in Congress with bipartisan support would require post offices and various government buildings to fly from September 11th to September 30th every year a flag that looks like this:
While war monuments are being toppled, a war flag is being raised.
Of course, efforts will be made to give this gore-soaked death flag a non-idiotic, non-dishonest, non-warmongering meaning.
Unfortunately for that cause, the flag comes from a foundation
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 10, 2020
The new film, The Vow From Hiroshima, tells the story of Setsuko Thurlow who was a school girl in Hiroshima when the United States dropped the first nuclear bomb. She was pulled out of a building in which 27 of her classmates burned to death. She witnessed the gruesome injuries and agonizing suffering and indecent mass burial of many loved ones, acquaintances, and strangers.
Setsuko was from a well-off family and says she had to work at overcoming