War Is A Crime

If Democrats threw out the filibuster today and rapidly passed legislation over the next 8 months as if they gave a damn — as if they were, oh, I don’t know, the Supreme Court — and if they put just what they’re increasing the military budget by into their Build Back Better bill, if they put through with majority votes just those items they were elected on that are favored by significant majorities in the country, they’d have done enough by 6 months from now to not lose those elections. read more

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

Once upon a time, if you had told me about it, I would have thought you were joking — and I would have considered it among the worst jokes ever told. On my mind is the ad recently posted on Facebook and Twitter by the Republican Senate campaign of former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens (who read more

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

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

Consider this a rarity. In my introductions to TomDispatch pieces, I’ve seldom quoted myself, but in April 2021 I wrote a piece I called “Slaughter Central” and, as a lead-in to retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, historian, and read more

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

Consider two odd realities of the Ukraine war in this country. The first is that a Congress otherwise seemingly incapable of agreeing to spend money on issues that would truly matter to so many Americans — like read more

Go here.

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

Yes, we’re at war. And no, I don’t mean Ukraine. The world is increasingly enveloped in what seems like a losing battle with extreme weather — from a devastating drought across much of the Horn read more

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

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

As Alfred McCoy suggests today, we’re now in the latest version of a “cold war” when it comes to Russia and China. Let’s take a minute, though, to think about that grim term, which, until relatively recently, seemed to be a relic of history. During the original Cold War, it had a meaning that’s seldom grasped now. Keep in mind that, in those years, there were all-too-many 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