Author: David Swanson

There are two brand new ways to avoid any military draft that should come along.

(I know you’re not worried about a draft, but the numbers of failed coup attempts in Venezuela and of failed attempts to start a war on Iran are both approaching the number of years of war in Afghanistan, so frustration may be building. Two candidates for U.S. President are competing in hostility toward China. Plus, military recruitment is faltering, and even corporate mainstream politicians are being brought around read more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XgQU3rof7k

I’m not quite as big a fan of the new film “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” as Jon Schwarz is but think he makes some great points about it, as he usually does. The film doesn’t tell a story with characters and drama. It’s a documentary that tries to recount the economic history of the past few centuries from a European/American read more

By Mickey Huff, May 4, 2020

For the 50th anniversary, Professor Mickey Huff of Project Censored, interviewed academics, socio-political historians, protesters, and massacre survivors on the many issues related to the May 4, 1970 Kent and Jackson State massacres.  Tune into the discussions never before explored about May 4, 1970, and what it means to all of us now.

History Matters. We hope these perspectives enrich your understanding of this important historical event and provide context for where we are as read more

This week on Talk Nation Radio, our guest is Grant Smith whose latest and ninth book about the Israel Lobby is called The Israel Lobby Enters State Government: Rise Of The Virginia Israel Advisory Board. You can find it at https://virginia.israellobby.org. Smith is director of the nonprofit Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy.

In 2014, Smith sued the Department of Defense in federal court and won release of a detailed report, contracted in 1987, about the advanced state of Israel’s read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, May 1, 2020

A new collection of maps found here displays what militarism looks like in the world. Here’s a brief guide to using and understanding them.

Across the top are 10 drop-down menus on these topics: Wars, Weapons, U.S. Weapons, Money, Nukes, Chemical and Biological, U.S. Military, Air Strikes, Law, and Promotes Peace and Security.

Some of the topics only include one map, others multiple maps. The one with the most has eight maps. When you click on read more

This week on Talk Nation Radio we talk with Richard Tucker, who is one of the editors of the new book, Nature at War: American Environments and World War II. Richard Tucker is an environmental historian at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. He is the founder and manager of a research network on the environmental consequences of military operations through history. See environmentandmilitary.com.

Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, April 26, 2020

David Swanson was to speak at a conference in Florence, Italy, on April 25, 2020. The conference became a video instead. Below is the video and text of Swanson’s portion. As soon as we receive the video or text of the whole, in Italian or English, we will post it at worldbeyondwar.org. The video aired on April 25 on PandoraTV and on ByoBlu. Details on the full conference are here.

Sadly, Giulietto Chiesa, director of Pandora TV, died read more

Did you know that the U.S. government has done something odd with your tax dollars? The ones you get so furious and indignant about when they’re used to feed anybody who’s hungry? It has given over 280 billion of those dollars to the government of Israel (not counting classified hush-hush super-secret amounts).

Source.

Israel is not a poor country. It is certainly not the poorest in the world. Why is it the top recipient of “aid.”

It isn’t. Its military is. Most of those billions of dollars read more

Dear Mr. Katstra,

First of all, thanks for your terrific work on the greatest team ever which I think we are all safe in assuming would have repeated last year’s championship this year if the season hadn’t been shut down. Maybe I’m biased. The point is I’m a fan and an alumnus who found very disturbing an article titled “Virginia’s Austin Katstra lays the foundation for a career in counterterrorism.”

That article reported: “Austin Katstra’s interest in counterterrorism began read more