Susan Clark and Woden Teachout’s new book, “Slow Democracy,” offers the civil equivalent to slow food. The goal of both is not slowness for its own sake, but quality, health, sustainability, and the pursuit of happiness.
We all know that the federal government ignores us most of the time, state governments nod in our direction once in a blue moon, and local governments listen to us quite often. So, there is an argument to be made for moving decision-making powers to the local
Rain has been one of our most determined, dedicated, and reliable peace and justice activists in Virginia. Now she needs our help. Helping her will help us all. Please chip in! –David Swanson
Gloria Steinem says:
Help an Actvist in Need Read More »
Dennis Trainor, Jr., has produced a full-length movie of the Occupy movement, and he’s done a hell of a great job.
The Occupy movement was created, as are all movements in the United States, in large part by the corporate media. They didn’t understand it. They didn’t want it. They didn’t originate it or take part in it or develop its brilliants insights, effective techniques, or inspiring courage. They transmitted what to them was an indecipherable
American Autumn: An Occudoc Read More »
Which came first, the oil business or the war machine that protects it? Who started this madness, the military that consumes so much of the oil or the corporations that distribute and profit from the filthy stuff?
An answer of sorts can be found in Timothy Mitchell’s book, “Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil.”
Western oil corporations were never strong enough, Mitchell finds, to monopolize the flow or stoppage of Middle Eastern oil without major military and financial
Klepetromilitatorship Read More »
Until now, I’ve always opposed the idea of posting the 10 Commandments on government buildings.
I don’t want a theocracy. I don’t want religion at all, even separated from government. I’m embarrassed for my species that so many people imagine we haven’t advanced at all in millennia. Must we really turn to an ancient book that sanctions slavery and rape, stonings and genocide, to find not only guidance but unquestionable dictates? I’m disgusted by the notion that
Second Thoughts on Publicly Displaying 10 Commandments Read More »
Chris Hedge’s and Joe Sacco’s new book, “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt,” is a treasure. Hedges wrote the plain text. Sacco produced the text-heavy cartoon sections and other illustrations, which even I — not a big fan of cartoon books — found to enrich this book enormously.
Hedges and Sacco visit Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to examine the misery of the Native Americans who remain there. It’s nice to think that we’ve corrected our crimes through
The Spread of Sacrifice Zones Read More »
B of Wisdom Voices
For activist, author, and blogger David Swanson, it really is about the never-ending struggle for social and economic justice; the same battle that has been fought since time began. And for him, “success” or “defeat” cannot be defined by one election or one Supreme Court ruling. For Swanson, “victory” may be generations away, but that does not deter him from keeping the activism fires burning via every avenue he can find.
David
David Swanson: A Voice For Never-Ending Activism Read More »
I enjoy reading histories of past activism, including memoirs by long-time activists, such as Lawrence Wittner’s new book, Working for Peace and Justice.
Almost every such account includes belated discoveries of the extent to which a government has been spying on and infiltrating activist groups.
And almost every such account includes belated discoveries of the extent to which government officials were influenced by activist groups even while pretending to ignore popular pressure.
These revelations
Why Even Failed Activism Succeeds Read More »
Now here’s a book that’s meant to be used: “Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution” edited by Andrew Boyd and Dave Oswald Mitchell. The subtitle should be “Try this at home — but innovate!” Instead it’s “From the people who brought you the Yes Men, Billionaires Against Bush, etc.”
Beautiful Trouble is a terrific addition to Gene Sharp’s catalog of nonviolent tactics, less
Bring on the Beautiful Trouble Read More »
Cindy Sheehan discusses the new Venezuelan Constitution as a model for reforming the U.S. Constitution in the direction of greater democratic and economic rights, as well as the politics of Hugo Chavez, and her new book, Revolution: A Love Story. Cindy Sheehan is a leading U.S. peace actvist, a gold star mother, an author, blogger, and radio host.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Engineer: Christiane Brown.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download or get embed code
We protest the G-8 and NATO, but not Bilderberg. Why?
Do you have to be xenophobic, paranoid, isolationist, or libertarian to protest a secretive gathering of over 100 billionaires, industrialists, media barons, and politicians working to shape our public sphere, or has the left dropped the ball? Is it time for Occupy to step in?
From May 31 to June 3, 2012, at the Westfields Marriott Washington
You’d never know it from watching television, but there are many thousands of people in the United States who take peace, justice, environmental protection, and government of the people so seriously that they don’t censor themselves whenever the president is a Democrat.
While many others are still debating whether it would be appropriate to criticize or protest President Obama after a mere three and a half years of disaster, the people I have in mind have been openly and honestly resisting
Hopelessly Devoted Read More »
Bank of America has hired G4S for its shareholder meeting. According to Wikipedia:
“G4S plc (formerly Group 4 Securicor) (LSE: GFS, OMX: G4S) is a global security services company headquartered in Crawley, United Kingdom. It is the world’s largest security company measured by revenues and has operations in more than 125 countries.[2][3] With over 630,000 employees, it is the world’s second-largest private sector employer (after Wal-Mart Stores).[2][4]”
G4S
Bank of America Prepares for Shareholders Meeting as if Under Assault Read More »
“Self-purification through suffering is easier, I tell you: easier — than that destiny which you are paving for many of them by wholesale acquittals in court. You are merely planting cynicism in their souls.” –Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The United States Congress is outraged. Russia, it seems, may have wrongly imprisoned, tortured, and murdered a whistleblower. In the land of the free, our good representatives are outraged, I tell you. And not just I.
by: David Swanson
Published in the May / June 2012 Humanist
Cases come in by the thousands from all over the world. A man was beaten and whipped. A woman was beaten and raped. A boy was hooded with three empty sand bags in 100-degree heat all day, starved, beaten, and kept in stress positions. Alleged suicide victims had their hands tied behind their backs, had boot prints on their heads, or turned out to have been electrocuted. There
The shout of the Occupy movement, at least in D.C., has been “End the Wars, Tax the Rich!” in that order and in combination. Over half of federal discretionary spending goes to the war machine. We ought to fix that problem first, and then fix the problem that our overlords aren’t actually paying their fair share of the taxes. My friend Leah Bolger is about to face a possible sentence of months in prison for having
Liberals Cry Out: Tax the Rich! Fund More Wars! Read More »
The Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda has nothing on its website about using nonviolence, supporting nonviolence, or opposing violence.
The G8 and NATO Protest also has nothing like that, but does have this:
“As we plan our actions and tactics, we will take care to maintain appropriate separations of time and space between divergent tactics.”
A month ago I blogged that I would not endorse Occupy the RNC or DNC because
Why We Should Outgrow "Diversity of Tactics" Before Protesting NATO Read More »
There are lies of omission as well as commission, and the statues in Charlottesville, Va. — typical of other towns — do both. We have statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, a generic Confederate soldier, George Rogers Clark, Lewis and Clark (with Sacagawea kneeling like their dog), and on City Hall a triptych with Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. We have a monument to the War on Vietnam. And that’s it.
Here are some things not memorialized in any major statue
The Statues in Our Public Spaces Lie Read More »
PREAMBLE
Whereas the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not self-enforcing,
Whereas statement of the inherent dignity and of the equal and supposedly inalienable rights of all members of the human family achieves little without a struggle against greed, injustice, tyranny, and war,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights could not have resulted in the barbarous acts that have outraged the conscience of humankind without the cowardice, laziness, apathy, and blind obedience of well-meaning
Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities Read More »
Don’t get me wrong. I want the Republican and Democratic National Conventions in Tampa and Charlotte protested, denounced, shamed, nonviolently occupied, and ideally prevented from occurring, at least until they credibly support peace, justice, and democracy — or pigs fly, whichever comes first. I’ve said so and encouraged such organizing for months. I hope to be a part of it.
But when asked to endorse http://protestdnc.org
Why I've Refused to Endorse the Protests of Either the RNC or the DNC Read More »
