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What Would Have Worked Better Than Building Back Anything

The most well-known problem with lesser-evil, two-party, winner-take-all elections, at least in a system of legalized bribery and corporate-state media, is the absence of virtually any really good candidates. Naturally this results in (or is at least one major cause of) the tendency of many to not vote at all — with the United States claiming a lower voter turnout than many other countries it loves to look down on.

But the most serious problem is the tendency of those voters who do vote to nonetheless read more

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Most Americans Look Favorably on Global Governance

Amid all the flag-waving, chants of “USA, USA,” and other nationalist hoopla that characterize mainstream politics in the United States, it’s easy to miss the fact that most Americans favor global governance.  Although a great many Americans do feel a sense of identification with the U.S. government, a majority also supports the exercise of transnational authority.

This approval of global governance is especially striking in the case of the United Nations.  A February read more

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Digging for Peace- Resisting Nuclear Weapons

On Wednesday, October 20, I joined “Vrede Scheppen,” “Create Peace,” about 25 peace activists from the Netherlands, Germany and Austria at the airbase at Volkel, Netherlands, making a plea for an end to nuclear weapons. This base is home to two Dutch F16 fighter wings and the United States Air Force 703rd Munitions Support Squadron. In violation of international and Dutch law and part of a “sharing agreement,” the U.S. Air Force maintains 15-20 B61 nuclear bombs there and in violation read more

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Conscientious Objection: A Right and a Duty

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 16, 2021

I want to recommend a new film and a new book. The film is called The Boys Who Said NO! There’s more courage and moral integrity in this documentary than in any fictional blockbuster. With the wars now underway and threatened being as unjust as those 50 years ago (and with women now being added to U.S. draft registration) we need more saying No! We also need to recognize, as read more

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The Persistence of Pinkerism

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, November 12, 2021

I’m old enough to remember when you couldn’t do a speaking event related to war and peace without being asked numerous reasonable and not so reasonable questions about 9/11 (each accompanied by a stack of DVDs and flyers presented to you as a revelation from on high). There was a long period when you could count on the inevitable question about “peak oil.” I’ve been around enough to know that you can’t talk to peace-oriented people read more

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A warlike nation, the US has an appalling disinterest in peace: Let’s Just be Honest and Call November 11 Forgetting Day

By Dave Lindorff

Back on November 11, 1918, with the end of World War I, once the most bloody war in history, and with a two-year deadly flu pandemic raging, caused in large part by the war and the rapid spread of the disease by infected troops returning to their homes,  nobody was in the mood to celebrate anything.

The four-year war, fought not to “defend democracy” as our national mythology tells us, but as a cat-fight read more