How U.S. Military Spending Works

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 10, 2023

Here’s how this works each year.

1) Biden proposes a massive increase in military spending — above and beyond both what he proposed the year before and what the Congress increased that to. If you look at U.S. military spending according to SIPRI in constant 2021 dollars from 1949 to now (all the years they provide, with their calculation adjusting for read more

Things to Learn from Daniel Ellsberg

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 8, 2023

I don’t want any new monuments to individuals to replace any ripped down for racism or other offenses. Individuals are deeply flawed — every single one of them, and morality changes with the times. Whistleblowers are by definition less than divinely perfect, as their service is revealing the horrors of some institution they’ve been part of. But when you look around for individuals you’d like people to be learning from, there are some that read more

Russian Media Has Something to Teach About Free Speech

Every major U.S. media outlet I’ve been on opposing war has banished me into the wilderness.

Every major Russian media outlet that I go on and denounce war — and I mean Russian warmaking as well as everybody else’s — has me back on again.

I usually do Russian media only live, to prevent them censoring me.

But here’s a radio show I did this week with Sputnik — have read more

How Many Strangers Are At the Gate?

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 6, 2023

Spolier Alert: if you want to watch an excellent 30-minute film without knowing what happens, scroll down and watch it before reading any of these words.

We’ve long known that U.S. mass-shooters are disproportionately trained in shooting by the U.S. military. I don’t know whether the same applies to those who kill in the U.S. with bombs. I wouldn’t be surprised if the connection were even greater.

The Oscar-nominated short film Stranger read more

U.S. Imperialism as Philanthropy

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, March 2, 2023

When a cartoonist was recently denounced and canceled for racist remarks, Jon Schwarz pointed out that his resentment at black people for not being grateful for what white people do for them echoed similar resentment over the years for the ingratitude of the enslaved, of dispossessed Native Americans, and of the bombed and invaded read more

What Did the Peace Movement Do During the Destruction of Iraq?

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 26, 2023

This March 19th will be 20 years since the horrific evil of Shock and Awe. For many years, we held protest demonstrations on that date in Washington D.C. and many other places. Some of these events were large, some small. Some were exciting because they combined permitted “family safe” rallies with street blocking, and brought everyone into the streets when they saw that the very last thing the police wanted was to arrest anyone. These were read more