A Conversation With Alice Slater and David Swanson
Six Reasons Julian Assange Should Be Thanked, Not Punished
By World BEYOND War, September 18, 2020
1. The effort to extradite and prosecute Julian Assange for journalism is a threat to future journalism that challenges power and violence, but a defense of the media practice of propagandizing for war. While the New York Times benefitted from Assange’s work, its only reporting on his current hearing is an article about technical
What Does WWII Have To Do With Military Spending
By David Swanson, September 16, 2020
“I’m going to perform a magic trick by reading your mind,” I tell a class of students or an auditorium or video call full of people. I write something down. “Name a war that was justified,” I say. Someone says “World War Two.” I show them what I wrote: “WWII.” Magic![i]
If I insist on additional answers, they’re almost always wars even further in the past than WWII.
Peace Crimes
Photo by Kristian Laemmle-Ruff
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, September 16, 2020
A new book by Kieran Finnane has the title “Peace Crimes.” It refers to acts of civil disobedience against war, or civil resistance to war. My hope is that the phrase continues to sound as absurd as it does now, and that someday the phrase “war crimes” joins it in sounding outrageously ridiculous. “Peace crimes” should sound ludicrous because acting peacefully for peace is the most anti-criminal action
Tomgram: Mattea Kramer, Isolation and Opioids During the Pandemic
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
It’s hardly news that we’re heading for 200,000 American Covid-19 deaths within the next week, at least 300,000 by December or even, as the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington recently
Unvanquishable Number
On September 21, the International Day of Peace, you will be able to watch online the new film “We Are Many,” and you darn well should. The topic is the single biggest day of activism on earth: February 15, 2003 — an unprecedented statement against war, too often forgotten, and far too often misunderstood.
On every continent (yes, Antarctica included) in 72 countries and 789 cities people turned out by the tens of millions. In many cases, this was by far the largest demonstration ever seen
Tomgram: Mandy Smithberger, Ending the Pentagon’s Pandemic of Spending
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
Suckers? Give me a break. It’s perfectly clear that Donald Trump considers just about every last one of us a sucker (including the members of his base) and that’s not news at all. It’s only news when he calls the military dead of past wars “suckers” and “losers,” as reported by Jeffrey Goldberg in an Atlantic
Talk Nation Radio: Tunde Osazua on the U.S. Militarization of Africa
Tunde Osazua is a member of the Black Alliance for Peace’s Africa Team and the coordinator of the U.S. Out of Africa Network, which is the organizational arm of the Black Alliance for Peace’s campaign to shut down AFRICOM and end the U.S. invasion and occupation of Africa. See:
https://blackallianceforpeace.com
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
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Time for a little truth about the economic crisis: Screwing with the Unemployment Statistics
By Dave Lindorff
Something is screwy about unemployment numbers out of Washington.
In late July, just before the end of the supplemental $600 weekly checks for people collecting unemployment benefits, the New York Times reported that 30 million were receiving those checks.
That’s 30 million laid-off workers who qualified for unemployment benefits, which is not everyone who was laid off, since many people who get work for a wage don’t qualify for unemployment compensation.
Tomgram: Andrew Bacevich, What Have They (and We) Learned?
This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
I’ve written a fair number of pieces for TomDispatch, but this one is a bit different — some might even say strange — so Tom asked me to introduce it myself.
By almost any measure, we Americans are living through trying times. As a nation, we are long accustomed to being history’s spoiled child. Now, it seems our luck may be running out.
What’s the preeminent