Peace and War

By David Swanson

Murray Polner and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., have edited a new collection of writings called “We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now.” Read it and weep … and cheer. Weep because we’ve been lied into wars in very similar ways for two centuries and have had to discover the deception anew each time. Cheer because some people have been there to denounce the lies on the spot every time, and their ranks have steadily grown.

In 1812, read more

By David Swanson

On Monday morning at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, Jane Mayer, New Yorker reporter and author of “The Dark Side,” lavishly praised John McCain for passing a legislative ban on torture. She did so in a town-hall Q and A full of lots of very useful insights. And much later in the discussion she did acknowledge that McCain opposes habeas corpus and supports the use of certain “interrogation techniques” by the CIA.

But, read more

By David Swanson

The Miller Center on Public Affairs at the University of Virginia has invited a war criminal to speak on October 27, 2008, on the topic of “War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism.” Georgetown University employs the very same war criminal as a “Professor and Distinguished Practitioner in National Security Policy.” Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government has made him a “Belfer Center Visiting Scholar.” read more

Ann Wright is a retired U.S. Army colonel and retired official of the U.S. State Department, who publicly resigned the day the United States invaded Iraq. She has led the peace movement since that day. She is the author, with Susan Dixon, of DISSENT: Voices of Conscience: Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq.”

Emma’s Revolution is the duo of award-winning, activist musicians, Pat Humphries & Sandy O.

Showtime: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 – 8:00 p.m. – read more

By David Swanson

Here’s an interesting self-defense with a gloss of principle and detatchment.

Indictments Are Not The Best Revenge
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ, Wall Street Journal
September 12, 2008

Dershowitz or whoever wrote the headline begins with the pretense that wanting to deter future crimes is not the motivation of those of us pushing for the prosecution of Bush and Cheney, that we simply must be as primitive and barbaric as the author and be seeking revenge — partisan revenge to read more

Click for large image.

Ann Wright will speak and Emma’s Revolution will play in an event beginning at 7 p.m., Monday, Sept. 22, 2008, at the Albemarle County Office Building, 401 McIntire Rd., Charlottesville, Va. The event is free and sponsored by the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, which operates on your generous DONATIONS.

Ann Wright is a retired U.S. read more

By David Swanson

There are still people alive in the United States who support the continued occupation of Iraq, and in many cases the same people are open to supporting an aggressive attack on Iran. While they inhabit a very different worldview from my own, they are able to recognize basic facts if made aware of them. If you should meet one of these war supporters, I would recommend making them aware of the two most jarring facts least likely to fit with their preconceptions. One of these facts read more

Join Us on Friday July 18 and Monday July 21 to Oppose an Attack on Iran

STREET THEATER AND PETITIONING
Friday, July 18th, 2008
6 p.m. on at the Freedom of Expression Wall on the Downtown Mall

This Friday evening, visitors to Charlottesville, Virginia’s Downtown Mall during the free Fridays After Five concert will see giant puppets on stilts, posters and banners, hundreds of people wearing free “Don’t Attack Iran” stickers, and dozens of people collecting signatures on a read more

By David Swanson

Six years ago Congressman Virgil Goode helped to frighten and defraud the nation into a disastrous war in Iraq that has gotten worse each year since then, with no light at the end of the tunnel. Now Goode is helping to push similar scary stories about Iran in an effort that appears aimed at dragging us into another war, and nobody has asked him about it.

Goode is a cosponsor of a resolution in Congress called H Con Res 362, the lengthy title of which expresses fear of “Iran’s read more