Author: David Swanson

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 29, 2022

It’s impossible for either side to see, but Russia and NATO depend on each other.

Whichever side you’re on, you

• agree with weapons-maker propaganda that the available actions in the world are (1) war, and (2) doing nothing;
• you ignore the historical record of nonviolent action succeeding more often than war;
• and you imagine militarism to be required completely independently from considering what the results will be.

It’s possible for some people to glimpse the stupidity and counterproductive nature of war as long as they look at old wars, and don’t apply any lessons learned to current wars. An author in Germany of a book about the stupidity of World War I is right now busy telling read more

Go here.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 22, 2022

Let’s say that we are participants in a popular democratic socialist human-rights-loving movement and successful and fairly-elected national government, and we’re invaded and overthrown by a rightwing military, foreign or domestic, with horrific violence. What should we do?

I’m not asking what can we do that might have better results than doing nothing. Almost anything meets that standard.

I’m not asking what can we do that we’ll be able read more

AUDIO:

Talk World Radio is recorded as audio and video on Riverside.fm — except when it can’t be and then it’s Zoom. Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.

VIDEO:

This week on Talk World Radio, we’re talking about ending violent crime. Our guest Irvin Waller is emeritus professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa, and author of, among other works, the incredibly useful book, Science and the Secrets of Ending Violent Crime. His website read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 20, 2022
With thanks to World BEYOND War, WILPF, and RootsAction for useful resources.

Why shouldn’t Canada buy F-35s?

The F-35 is not a tool of peace or even of military defense. It is a stealth, offensive, nuclear-weapons-capable airplane designed for surprise attacks with the potential to intentionally or accidentally launch or escalate wars, including nuclear war. It is for attacking cities, not just other airplanes.

The F-35 is one of the weapons with read more

(a current image of the house that the McNamara’s lived in in Washington DC)

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, June 15, 2022

Pretty much anything that complicates the story of a person is a good corrective to the tendency to simplify and caricature. So, one has to welcome Craig McNamara’s book, Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today. Craig’s father, Robert McNamara was Secretary of War (“Defense”) for much of the war on Vietnam. He’d read more

I wrote a book years ago called War Is A Lie, arguing that everything we’re told that supports war-making is untrue.

The parallels between the police-prosecution-prison system and the war system are extensive. I don’t mean the direct connections, the flow of weapons, the flow of veterans. I mean the similarities: the intentional failure to use superior alternatives, the ideology of violence used to justify horrible ideas, and the expense and corruption.

It’s not a mystery that diplomacy and read more

AUDIO:

Talk World Radio is recorded as audio and video on Riverside.fm — except when it can’t be and then it’s Zoom. Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.

VIDEO:

Aisha Jumaan is the Founder and President of the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation. Jumaan has over 30 years of experience in public health, including in viral vaccine preventable diseases, cancer research, maternal & child health and nutrition, and women in development. She worked read more

​The U.S. government took a family away from its house, jobs, schools, and friends, locked up all of its members, and then began ordering the male family members of the proper age to join the U.S. military and head straight off to war.

This wasn’t last month. This was in 1941. And it wasn’t at random. The family was of Japanese ancestry, and the incarceration was accompanied by the accusation of being subhuman creatures but also of being disloyal traitors. None of that makes it acceptable read more

1. Nukes are the “tough on crime” of foreign policy

Investing in children’s welfare and education costs less and reduces more crime than “tough on crime” policies which are often counterproductive, but voters in San Francisco just obeyed a bunch of corporate advertising and recalled a District Attorney because he had reduced crime rather than being “tough on crime.” Nuclear weapons cost tens of billions of dollars a year, plus the costs of the airplanes, submarines, bases, and troops. read more