One U.S. Senator and Zero Representatives Say They’ll Vote No Unless Military Spending Reduced

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 25, 2023

In recent years, and again this year, to my knowledge, only a single member of either house of the U.S. Congress has said publicly, prior to voting No on a military spending bill, that he or she planned to vote No because the spending was too high. The same individual has done this more than once, and nobody else has done it at all. That individual is Senator Bernie Sanders. He says he will vote no on read more

Facing Factsenheimer

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 22, 2023

I’m rolling down the President Biden “Expressway” in Scranton PA (speed limit 35) listening to Kai Bird’s and Martin Sherwin’s bio of Oppenheimer, and it strikes me that the subject’s decision not to poison every man, woman, and child in Germany, purely because he couldn’t figure out how to do it, probably didn’t make it into the movie. (Tell me if I’m wrong.)

I will be extremely pleasantly surprised if anyone comes out of the movie read more

From Scranton to Ukraine, All Is Not As It Seems

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 22, 2023

Remarks in Scranton, Pennsylvania, July 22, 2023

There is something that we need to tell a great many of our friends and neighbors. It is that we have been misled. All is not as it seems.

Here we are outside what appears to be a factory where U.S. government dollars create jobs, boost the economy, and fund activities that support the important needs of the U.S. public and the people of the world. Not a bit of those appearances is real.

When government read more

When in Rome, Do as the Americans Do?

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 12, 2023

There may be more U.S. tourists in Rome than Romans. It’s hard to get away from them — impossible if you are yourself one. But it’s a bit of a shame how they’ve taken over. Every square and street is wall-to-wall people. They’re not all American people. Some of them are Italian. Some of them are even Roman. But they all speak English. They all dress like Americans. Every bar and osteria caters to English-speaking tourists and their tastes. read more

The Flawed Moral Logic of the New York Times on the Flawed Moral Logic of Sending Cluster Munitions to Ukraine

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

On Monday the New York Times argued in favor of continuing the war and supplying weapons for the war in Ukraine but not cluster bombs:

“However compelling it may be to use any available weapon to protect one’s homeland, nations in the rules-based international order have increasingly sought to draw a red line against use of weapons of mass destruction or weapons that pose a severe and lingering risk to noncombatants. Cluster munitions clearly read more

A World for Eight-Spot Butterflies

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, July 7, 2023

What most excites me about Julian Aguon’s book No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies is that (1) there is very little indication in the cover, the blurbs, the preface, the table of contents, etc., that it opposes war, militarism, or empire, (2) but it does, and (3) people are reading it. I’m aware that only small numbers of people read any books, but this is a short little book, and it’s clearly aimed at people who care about art, read more