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.
Posted on

The Secure, the Dispossessed, and the Mentally Deranged Dotards

In The Secure and the Dispossessed, Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes have collected an unflinching survey of a species gone mad. The book’s subtitle is “How the Military and Corporations Are Shaping a Climate-Changed World.” In short, the Authoritarian Exceptionalist Military Corporate Complex is flamboyantly recognizing the hole it is in, and exponentially increasing the rate of digging, while hiring PR firms to redefine “digging” as “robust engagement in advanced resilient green read more

Posted on

What About Weinstein’s Public Offenses?

Harvey Weinstein, I’ve just read, is “the disgraced Pulp Fiction producer.” But isn’t someone who encourages millions of people to think of murder and torture as super cool and fun already pre-disgraced? Doesn’t he arrive in the locked office with the actress cowering in the corner already publicly disgraced and intent on disgracing himself in private?

This is a man whom we have to thank for Reservoir Dogs, Gangs of New York, Kill Bill, Rambo, Inglorious Basterds, Django read more

Posted on

PBS’s Vietnam Acknowledges Nixon’s Treason

After reading and hearing wildly contradictory accounts of Ken Burns & Lynn Novick’s Vietnam War documentary on PBS, I decided I had to watch the thing. I agree with some of the criticism and some of the praise.

The documentary begins with the ludicrous idea that the U.S. government had good intentions. It ends with praise for the memorial in DC and its tragic list of names, without mention of the greater number of U.S. veterans of that war who have since died from suicide, much less the read more

Posted on

Talk Nation Radio: US Provides Military Assistance to 73 Percent of World’s Dictatorships

This week on Talk Nation Radio we discuss the United States provision of weapons to dictatorships. We’re joined by Rich Whitney, who is an attorney from Carbondale, Illinois, now working as an appellate public defender. He is one of the founding members of the Illinois Green Party, currently serves on its Executive Committee, and in 2006 served as that party’s first-ever candidate for governor, winning over 360,000 votes, about 10.5 percent of the total. He is currently serving as read more

Posted on

As U.S. Pounds Seven Nations, Congressional Committee Warns of Running Out of Bombs

Here’s an email you don’t see every day:

From: LOSING TIME <HASC.Drumbeat@mail.house.gov>
Date: Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 7:32 AM
Subject: LOSING TIME: We Are Running Out of Bombs

Home  |  About  |  News  |  Contact
For Immediate Release:
October 10, 2017		 Contact:
HASC Communications (202)-225-2539
LOSING TIME
“Every day we live under a continuing resolution is a day we do damage to our military.”  – Mac Thornberry, Chairman, House Armed Services Committee

WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF BOMBS

THE PROBLEM:

General Dunford said it best this spring, “Key precision guided munitions shortfalls are exacerbated by ongoing operations and may impact potential contingency response. Additionally, our current global inventories are insufficient for theater missile defense (TMD), standoff, read more

Posted on

Slim Pickings for Charlottesville City Council

Thus far I’m underwhelmed by the candidates seeking to join Charlottesville’s City Council this year, as well as, of course, by the current members. In the wake of the fascist rallies, the electoral system does not seem to be responding particularly well.

I don’t go in for the usual moronic popularity contest wherein we’re supposed to figure out which candidate we’d most like to be friends with. Instead, I try to approximate direct democracy by figuring out which candidate will do the read more

Posted on

Vietghanistan’s New Year, War Lies’ New Millennium

 The Afghanistan War documentary by Ken Burns III may someday be set for release in Spring 2074.

Or maybe not. The peace movement in the U.S. made Vietnam, rather than Korea, a topic for Burns. The peace movement is struggling to make people in the United States aware that the war on Afghanistan even exists, much less that it is entering its 17th year — making it something that people who still don’t recognize Native Americans as full humans call “the longest U.S. war.”

If there ever is such a PBS account of Vietghanistan, it will no doubt steer clear of the illegality, the lasting read more

Posted on

Is the Nobel Committee Finally Abiding by Nobel’s Will?

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) — listen to my radio show with one of ICAN’s leaders two years ago here.

It’s conceivable that some Americans will now learn, because of this award, about the new treaty that bans the possession of nuclear weapons.

This treaty has been years in the works. This past summer 122 nations agreed on the language of it, including these words:

Each State Party undertakes never under read more

Posted on

People Don’t Kill People, Americans Kill People

Yes, of course, every day that Congress goes on refusing to ban guns is more blood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. It’s immoral, disgraceful, embarrassing, and in large part a function of financial corruption. But it’s also in part a government operating within a culture of violence — albeit one that the same government plays a huge role in creating.

U.S. movies, tv shows, video games, music, news, and schools are uniquely and increasingly violent. Primates’ chief form of behavior is read more

Posted on

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.