I just won a TED Talks Open Mic — here’s my 4-minute talk

On Oct 2, 2017, 20 of us gave 4-minute TED talks in Charlottesville and I won, allowing me to give a TED talk at the upcoming November 3, 2017, event at Charlottesville’s Paramount Theater. This was my 4-minute talk on “Why End War.” #TedXCville

Video by Wes Swanson.

Thank you to everyone who voted for me.

I wish all the great speakers could have won.

What’s North Korea Afraid of?

“Peace” clubs in U.S. schools are likely to teach that a local bully is afraid and in need of help. They are much less likely to teach that about entities involved in the actual subject of peace (meaning the absence of war), such as — to take the example momentarily most prominent in U.S. propaganda — North Korea.

“Ignorance about the Korean war,” writes Blaine Harden, “has . . . led to the cartoonish ahistorical understanding many Americans still have of contemporary North Korea. read more

The World Is Banning Nuclear Weapons — Can Trumpland Join the World?

Scientists tell us that a single nuclear weapon could cause devastating climate change.

Donald Trump tells us . . . well, a bunch of incoherent gibberish that seems to include the illegal threat to use nuclear weapons if he should be in the mood to commit genocide in North Korea.

Meanwhile 122 countries have creates a treaty to ban the possession of nuclear weapons, and 53 have already signed it, these 53:

Compare that map with the map of countries that own nuclear weapons:

Israel may be too small read more

Armistice Day 99 Years On and the Need for a Peace to End All Wars

November 11 is Armistice Day / Remembrance Day. Ninety-nine years ago, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, fighting ceased in the “war to end all wars.” People went on killing and dying right up until the pre-designated moment, impacting nothing other than our understanding of the stupidity of war.

Thirty million soldiers had been killed or wounded and another seven million had been taken captive during World War I. Even more would die from a flu epidemic created by read more

Take a Knee for Freedom of Religion

What is freedom of religion? It is not actually or directly freedom to think or not think religious stuff, not to the extent that one can, or chooses to, keep one’s thoughts secret. Rather, it is the right to display or to refuse to display religiosity.

If you have freedom of religion, as I think everyone should, and if we all have the right to our own lives and well-being, as I think we should, then as long as you’re not hurting anyone else, you have the right to hold various things sacred: read more

Daniel Kovalik on Morgan Freeman and the Plot to Scapegoat Russia

Daniel Kovalik is author of the recently-released book The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Russia. He teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He has worked on Alien Tort Claims Act cases against The Coca-Cola Company and Occidental Petroleum – cases arising out of egregious human rights abuses in Colombia. The Christian Science Monitor, referring to his work defending read more

Video of No War 2017: War and the Environment

If you didn’t attend #NoWar2017 this past weekend, you can watch videos of the whole conference below.

Sept 22

VIDEO OF WHOLE FIRST DAY

7:00-7:55 p.m. Conference Opening Plenary: David Swanson, Jill Stein, Tim DeChristopher. VIDEO 1, VIDEO 2.

7:55 p.m. music by Bryan Cahall. VIDEO 2, VIDEO 3.

8:10-10 p.m. Begining with Edward Snowden (by video) introduced by Elizabeth Murray, our friends from the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence presented read more