Author: David Swanson

Late last century I figured out that I needed to work on a job dedicated to making the world a better place. I know not everyone can find such a job if they try. I appreciate all the other useful jobs that millions of people do — if not the useless and destructive ones that millions of other people do. But I do want people to use some of their spare time to help out with the cratering world. In every moment of the past quarter century there have been people diligently creating catastrophes — read more

Approaching 50 years since the end of the American War, as the Vietnamese call it, and something over 70 years since the start of it, depending when you start the clock, truth and reconciliation remain incomplete. I don’t mean for the people of Vietnam, who seem, from what little I know, in general to have a better grasp of both truth and reconciliation than the U.S. government or corporate media. I also don’t mean truth and reconciliation between governments, which really don’t traffic read more

Thomas A. Bass’s new book, Return to Fukushima, makes an overwhelming case for the absolute idiocy of pursuing nuclear energy, reveals the disaster at Fukushima to be worse than you’ve probably heard, and disturbingly establishes the likelihood that many of us will eventually be living in Fukushimas if humanity doesn’t get rid of the nukes.

The case against nuclear energy that is made here can be roughly divided into six points.

One, “What today are called civilian reactors began — like read more

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By Medea Benjamin and David Swanson, April 4, 2025

We are passionate supporters of all but one of the items on the Hands Off agenda for the April 5 rallies. We couldn’t agree more that the corrupt U.S. government should stop destroying, privatizing, firing, and read more

Some cities and towns have a venue where activists organizing for peace and justice can, on short notice, and at little or no expense, hold an event with one or more speakers or performers. Some have nothing of the sort, but many have a church basement or an old warehouse. Some of these spaces have microphones and sound systems. Very few have food.

Washington D.C. is, for obvious reasons, one of the most important places in the United States and world in which to build activist movements, and yet read more

Remarks at Center on Conscience and War event on March 29, 2025.

I’ve admired and collaborated with the Center on Conscience and War for many years and worked with many of its board members and Counseling Director Bill Galvin and former Executive Director Maria Santelli. Maria was for about 10 years on the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War, where I’m the executive director. We’ve benefitted greatly from her advising. So I’m happy to be asked to speak about the Center on Conscience and read more

By Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, March 29, 2025

Despite all main political parties advocating for doubling Canadian military spending, militarists are in crisis over Donald Trump’s threats and opposition to the Canadian forces subservience to the U.S. military. Executive Director of World BEYOND War, David Swanson, joined Talking Foreign Policy to discuss Canada’s ties to the US war machine, how NATO won’t defend Canada and alternatives to militarism.

Ralph welcomes journalist Chris Hedges to talk about his new book “A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine.” Then, Ralph speaks to David Swanson of World BEYOND War about what his organization is doing to resist this country’s casual acceptance of being constantly at war. Finally, Ralph checks in with our resident constitutional scholar Bruce Fein.

According to pretty much every media outlet and peace group, and the United Nations, and Wikipedia, the war on Yemen just turned 10. Happy Birthday!

Not so fast! Ten years ago was 2015. It was in 2009 that the U.S. military began regularly sending missiles into human beings in Yemen, with the peak in that practice coming in 2012. We learned about this from people in Yemen, not from our “representative” and “democratic” government in the United States. But that doesn’t make it less real.

This read more