Author: David Swanson

The City of Charlottesville is dragging up the rear in the current winds of change, is stalling on moving its war monuments, is failing to move on divesting its retirement fund from weapons and fossil fuels, and is tip-toeing around prevaricating Chief of Police Dr. RaShall M. Brackney.

The Chief of Police has told the City Council that state police did not use city vehicles recently, but reversed that claim upon photographs being produced. She has claimed not to have a mine resistant vehicle or read more

Sonali Kolhatkar is the host and executive producer of Rising Up With Sonali, a daily, primetime television and radio program syndicated on Free Speech TV and Pacifica Radio stations and affiliates. She is also a weekly columnist with Independent Media Institute and lead author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. Sonali Kolhatkar recently wrote an article titled “ read more

The U.S. government was created with the mandate to not establish any state religion or to forbid any religion. There were a couple of ways this could have gone.

Here’s one path that was not taken. The freedom of religion and the separation of religion from the state could have encouraged a widespread understanding of what a crock of malarkey religion all is. If no religion can actually persuade everyone of its claims, if people choose their various and sundry religions based on factors wholly read more

If you can do activism, do it around policies in a principled manner, and steer clear of elections.

If you can do funding, fund principled activist organizations, not political candidates.

If you must divert your energies and money into elections, I have a recommendation for how best to do it (not that you’ll necessarily listen to me, having already ignored my first two paragraphs, but what the heck):

Part of getting better governance out of Washington, D.C., will have to come from shifting power read more

Jake Johnston is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. His research has focused predominantly on economic policy in Latin America, the International Monetary Fund, and U.S. foreign policy. Jake Johnston co-authored a report in March on the role of the Organization of American States in the coup in Bolivia in November of last year. The New York Times has recently admitted that OAS claims of fraud in last year’s Bolivian election read more

Here’s the text of a new bill in Congress: PDF.

Here’s a petition from Code Pink promoting it.

Needless to say, this is the best bill introduced into Congress in decades.

Here’s the ending:

“Congress supports moves to reduce the priority given to war in our foreign policy and our current war-based national economy by using significant cuts, up to $350,000,000,000 as detailed above, from current budget plans, while using the funds to increase our diplomatic capacity and for domestic programs read more

Almost 500 people, most of them from Charlottesville have signed this petition:

We urge you to ban from Charlottesville:

(1) military-style or “warrior” training of police by the U.S. military, any foreign military or police, or any private company,

(2) acquisition by police of any weaponry from the U.S. military;

and to require enhanced training and stronger policies for conflict de-escalation, and limited use of force for law enforcement.

 The CBS 19 coverage is here.

The NBC 29 coverage is read more

Senator Bernie Sanders has finally done something that some of us thought would give his presidential campaign a big boost four years ago, and again this past year. He’s proposed to introduce legislation to move a significant amount of money from militarism to human and environmental needs (or at least human needs; the details aren’t clear, but moving money out of militarism is an environmental need).

Better late than never! Let’s make it happen with an overwhelming show of public support! read more

Over 200 people have quickly signed a new petition in Charlottesville, Va. at http://bit.ly/cvillepeace

Almost all of the signers are from Charlottesville.

The petition is addressed to the Charlottesville City Council and reads:

We urge you to ban from Charlottesville:
(1) military-style or “warrior” training of police by the U.S. military, any foreign military or police, or any private company,
(2) acquisition by police of any weaponry from the U.S. military;
and read more