War Is A Crime

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

Yes, the Memphis police department did come up with a reasonable explanation for the name. It was short for the Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods unit, which just happened, read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 26, 2023

This March 19th will be 20 years since the horrific evil of Shock and Awe. For many years, we held protest demonstrations on that date in Washington D.C. and many other places. Some of these events were large, some small. Some were exciting because they combined permitted “family safe” rallies with street blocking, and brought everyone into the streets when they saw that the very last thing the police wanted was to arrest anyone. These were read more

From Friday Night Talk February 24, 2023 at archive.kmudfm.org

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 26, 2023

David Swanson is the author of the new book The Monroe Doctrine at 200 and What to Replace It With.

A major step could be taken by the U.S. government through the simple abolition of one little rhetorical practice: hypocrisy. You want to be part of a “rules-based order”? Then join one! There is one out there waiting for you, and Latin America is leading it.

Of the United Nations’ 18 major human rights treaties, the United States is party read more

There’s a bill in Congress, as there always is, called The People Over Pentagon Act, which would reduce military spending by $100 billion. Who the heck isn’t for that?! Everybody who’s got any sense has endorsed the thing, as they always do. Who wouldn’t? I don’t blame anybody in the least. Except the bill’s sponsors in Congress. I blame them. And not just because they want to cut $100 billion from whatever the military budget may be, while that budget has risen by more than $100 billion read more

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

By now, you know the routine too well for me to belabor the point. It started, I suppose, with the murders of 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 and only escalated in this century. read more

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

McCarthyism, Then and Now
And the (True) One-Party State in America
By Tom Engelhardt

Can there be any question that we’re in a mad — and loud — new age of McCarthyism? Thank you, Kevin! And don’t forget the wildly over-the-top members of the so-called Freedom Caucus and their Republican associates, including that charmer, lyin’ George Santos, Jewish-space-laser-and-white-balloon-carrying read more

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 22, 2023

It’s quite a high hurdle to appeal to a country that’s been militarily invaded — after decades of military defense (and offense) preparations and the accompanying cultural indoctrination in the supposed necessity of military defense — to appeal to said country to construct on-the-fly an unarmed civilian defense plan and act on it despite near-universal lack of training or even comprehension.

We’re finding it to be a high hurdle just read more

AUDIO:

Talk World Radio has been recorded as audio and video on Riverside.fm — but this will be the last time and we’ll be resorting to Zoom in the future.

Here is this week’s video and all the videos on Youtube.

By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, February 20, 2023

David Swanson is the author of the new book The Monroe Doctrine at 200 and What to Replace It With.

History seems to show some partial benefit to Latin America in moments when the United States was otherwise distracted, as by its Civil War and other wars. This is a moment right now in which the U.S. government is at least somewhat distracted by Ukraine and willing to purchase Venezuelan oil if it believes that contributes to hurting Russia. And read more