Author: David Swanson

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
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The Gathering to Abolish War

Have you about had enough yet? I have!

Sixteen years of endless wars, endless spending, endless killing, endless dying, endless environmental destruction, endless erosion of our rights, endless suppression of activism, endless militarization of police, endless promotion of bigotry and hatred, endless generation of hatred and terrorism, endless threats of nuclear apocalypse.

Can we make it end now?

If I were to get some people together to work on, at long last, abolishing war, I would want whistleblowers read more

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Black Agenda Radio – 09.11.17

Welcome to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. I’m Glen Ford, along with my co-host Nellie Bailey. Coming up: Community control of the police activists in New York City take the struggle into the bowels of the subway system, while, in Philadelphia, activists present their case to the City Council; and, Dr. Anthony Monteiro says the time is right for a real progressive movement – but the Left doesn’t know how to take advantage read more

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How Outlawing War Changed the World in 1928

When I wrote a book about the Kellogg-Briand Pact my goals were to draw lessons from the movement that created it, and to call attention to its existence as a still-current law being routinely violated — in hopes of encouraging compliance. After all, it is a law that bans nations from engaging in war — the primary thing my nation’s government does, with a half-dozen U.S. wars going at any time now.

Now Oona Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro have published The Internationalists: read more

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The Conference to Save the Environment

To my knowledge, and I very, very much hope I am wrong, this upcoming conference will be the very first environmental conference in the United States to take on the single gravest threat to the world’s natural environment and to the natural environment right here within the United States. May many more conferences and actions follow!

With some drugs, we have learned that we must take on the demand as well as the supply, and that we must treat that demand as an illness when harmful. Not so with read more

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Are Governments Useless?

Useless! Useless!
Heavy rain driving
Into the sea.
–Jack Kerouac

Talking with people who are fed up, and especially with people who are trying to do something about it, one increasingly runs into the statement that the (U.S.) government is useless, the government won’t help us, we must help ourselves. And not only that, but the government is rotten to the core, irredeemable, systematically and hopelessly and essentially evil.

And of course this is basically true. The question is what to do about read more

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You Can’t Have a Progressive Movement Without Peace

By David Swanson
Remarks at People’s Convergence Conference, Sept. 8, 2017

Here’s my five-minute case for why you can’t have an effective progressive movement in the United States that doesn’t include working for peace. War and militarism and bases and ships and missiles and sanctions and nuclear threats and hostility make up the filter through which much of the other 96% of humanity experiences this 4%. The U.S. Congress chooses how to spend a great deal of money each year, and chooses read more

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I hope to see yall at these upcoming awesome events

September 9: Washington, D.C.

That’s this Saturday in DC on a 1 p.m. panel on ending permanent war, with Medea Benjamin and Lee Camp.

September 13: George Mason University

That’s next Wednesday in Fairfax, Va., on ending racism and war!

September 17: (boating not speaking) Flotilla to the Pentagon

Grab your kayak! Or don’t — we’ve got plenty. Just sign up to use one!

September 21: University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Penn.

My favorite kind of event: a debate on war — but in a spirit read more

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Stop Allowing YOUR Emperor to Threaten Nuclear Apocalypse

North Korea is open to reasonable negotiations. The United States, as embodied in the buffoon whom we have allowed to hold more power than any royal monarch has ever known, would prefer armageddon to reasonable negotiations.

These are not speculations.

North Korea made a deal with the U.S. before being dumped into the Axis of Evil, after which point it proposed a deal over and over.

read more

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Conference to Bring Together Environmental and Peace Movements

http://worldbeyondwar.org/nowar2017

Media, including live or recorded video, welcome.

Speakers will include: Medea Benjamin, Nadine Bloch, Max Blumenthal, Natalia Cardona, Suzanne Cole, Alice Day, Lincoln Day, Tim DeChristopher, Dale Dewar, Pat Elder, Bruce Gagnon, Philip Giraldi, Will Griffin, Seymour Hersh, Tony Jenkins, Larry Johnson, Kathy Kelly, Jonathan King, Lindsay Koshgarian, Peter Kuznick, James Marc Leas, Annie Machon, Ray McGovern, Rev Lukata Mjumbe, Elizabeth Murray, read more