By David Swanson

Sometimes it’s relief for victims of Hurricane Katrina, sometimes it’s hate crimes legislation, sometimes it’s education funding for veterans. One day soon it will be free kittens for children with cancer. It’s always something. It’s always something that could pass just fine on its own. But it’s included as lipstick on the recurring and ever-fattening pigs of U.S. politics: war funding bills.

Next week, the warfunding bill that was passed read more

By David Swanson

That was not a peace prize acceptance speech. That was an infomercial for war. President Obama took the peace prize home with him, but left behind in Oslo his praise for war, his claims for war, and his view of an alternative and more peaceful approach to the world consisting of murderous economic sanctions.

Some highlights:

“There are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations read more

By David Swanson

In every village of the kingdom the heralds would cry out the news. And always it would be the same news from every herald who wore the purple sash. But other heralds would cry out different news, crazy news, news that wasn’t news at all.

The royal heralds got their news from the king’s palace, which is why they all cried out the same news at the same time. The other heralds told about the inner workings of the palace as well, but it was clear they did not know what read more

I got a letter from B.H.O.
It said you’d better pack and go.
It’s time to let the Army make your plans.
Though it may seem very queer,
We’ve got no jobs to give you here,
So we’re gonna send you to Afghanistan.

Barack Obama told the nation,
“Have no fear of escalation.
I am trying everyone to please.
Though it isn’t really war,
We’re sending thirty thousand more,
To save Afghanistan from the Afghanis.”

I jumped off the old troop read more

The U.S. Constitution leaves the decision to wage war to Congress, and Congress can enforce its decision not to wage war by refusing to fund it.  Blocking a funding bill for wars requires the House of Representatives alone, and both Democrats and Republicans in the House are rapidly joining us in saying No to war funding.

It’s time to finally get serious, to lobby, to protest, to sit in, to nonviolently disrupt and resist in local district offices until enough Representatives commit read more

By David Swanson

Two years ago, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey, screamed at a friend of mine, Tina Richards, denouncing “idiot liberals” who are foolish enough to suggest that opposing a war should involve ceasing to fund it.

In October of this year, Obey began speaking as if he’d joined the idiot liberals. No longer was he going to end wars by funding them, as he’d proposed in 2007 (and as he’d followed through on with a staggering read more

By David Swanson

During a televised football game on Sunday, an announcer welcomed the members of the U.S. military viewing the game in 177 nations around the world. When the news came on, the topic was the same one it’s been for weeks, speculation as to whether and how much a single individual will escalate war by sending tens of thousands of additional troops to nation number 177, Afghanistan.

Somehow it remains eternally controversial to mention the imperial presidency. Yet the positions read more

Listen here!

Q&A video that follows this one is at:

http://youtube.com/afterdowningstreet

By David Swanson

I had to read a lot of books about the current war and occupation in Iraq before I found one that’s laugh out-loud hilarious. It’s a book about a U.S. military hospital in Iraq, a journal kept for a 10-month tour of duty by an operating room medic. The story never leaves the hospital, and it focuses in large part on the relationships among the characters working there, including pranks and hijinks aplenty. One almost inevitably thinks of MASH and its fictional Army read more

By David Swanson

I’ve been reading a brand new book called “The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle,” which is in large part an analysis of what worked in the protesting of the World Trade Organization 10 years ago. Why is it, I wonder, that activists were able to shut down the center of this major city in Washington state, but for years we have been unable to shut down the center of Washington, D.C., in opposition to wars.

Certainly, we’ve turned out more people read more

By David Swanson

The last time I was on Laura Flanders’s GRIT tv I argued that the American public opposed the occupation of Afghanistan, but another guest — some Washington, D.C., “progressive” — argued that this had no relevance, since the American public didn’t know anything about Afghanistan.

When the RAND Corporation held a forum on Afghanistan recently on Capitol Hill, Zbigniew Brzezinski claimed that it was uncontroversial that US troops had to stay in read more

By David Swanson

If you have an interest in grassroots organizing, international alliance building, the peace movement, the labor movement, the conversion of the U.S. economy from weapons to human needs, the preservation of life on earth (come on, admit it), the weaponization of space, or the autobiographical insights of smart and determined people, then I cannot more strongly recommend that you get a copy of “Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a read more

By David Swanson

Mark Manning, who created the amazing film “Road to Fallujah,” sent me information on a new project that should be of interest to peace activists and college students, which sadly are two groups of people without enough overlap. It involves setting up events on college campuses that will include live video-conferencing with Iraqi college students, as well as screenings of Manning’s film. Find out more here:
http://www.globalaccessmedia.org

“The goal of read more