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David Swanson is the author of "When the World Outlawed War," "War Is A Lie" and "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org
Friday, February 10, 2012 Learning From La Venezuela (3 comments)
What is it that Sheehan and Chavez think might be contagious if we found out about it?
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 The Election We Should Be Following (4 comments)
The incumbents are both Democrats, both white, both 65, and many imagine that they do similar work in Washington. In fact, they could not be more different.
Saturday, February 4, 2012 The Betrayal of the Nobel Peace Prize (1 comments)
Alfred Nobel's will, written in 1895, left funding for a prize to be awarded to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
Thursday, February 2, 2012 27 of 35 Bush Articles of Impeachment Apply to Obama (9 comments)
When Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush on June 9, 2008, the 35 had been selected from drafts of nearly twice that many articles.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 A Crazy Republican Attack That Obama Himself Agrees With
Imagine if a bunch of the craziest war-hungry Republicans in the House filmed themselves in a nutty bat-guano video packed with lies addressed to the President of the United States. And then imagine President Barack Obama almost immediately agreeing with them. I can think of two ways in which such a series of events could go unnoticed, as it just has.
Monday, January 30, 2012 The Military Industrial Complex at 50 (1 comments)
Exclusive to OpEdNews.com
Excerpt from new book "The Military Industrial Complex at 50"
Thursday, January 26, 2012 Panetta: Military Spending Is Going Up (3 comments)
On Thursday, Leon Panetta held a press conference announcing what he called "cuts" to military spending. The first question following his remarks pointed out that the "cuts" are to dream budgets, while the actual spending will be increased over Panetta's 10-year plan.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 Japanese Delegation Wants the U.S. Out of Okinawa (4 comments)
A 24-member delegation from Japan is in Washington, D.C., this week opposing the presence and new construction of U.S. military bases in Okinawa.
Monday, January 23, 2012 The State of Obama's 2008 Promises (3 comments)
Obama Version .08 was a horrible, horrible candidate, and yet he made dozens of promises that have been tossed aside, making him now even worse -- unless one chooses to accept as credible the same promises again.
Saturday, January 21, 2012 War and Being and Nothingness (3 comments)
The best book I've read in a very long time is a new one: "The End of War" by John Horgan. Its conclusions will be vigorously resisted by many and yet, in a certain light, considered perfectly obvious to some others.
Saturday, January 21, 2012 How Newt Gingrich Saved the Military Industrial Complex (2 comments)
The idea of economic conversion, of retooling and retraining pieces of the military industrial complex to build what other wealthy nations have (infrastructure, energy, education, etc.) converged with the end of the Cold War two decades back.
Thursday, January 19, 2012 Republicans Boo the Golden Rule (7 comments)
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. An important rule to live by. So is this corollary: Friends don't let friends watch presidential primary debates.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 Charlottesville, Va., City Council Passes Resolution Opposing War on Iran
The City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia, home of Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and the University of Virginia, passed on Tuesday evening, January 17, 2012, a resolution believed to be a first in the country, opposing the launching of a war on Iran, as well as calling for an end to current ground and drone wars engaged in by the United States and urging Congress and the President of the United States to ...
Monday, January 16, 2012 Corporate Personhood Cannot Withstand Organized Persons (3 comments)
There are many schemes now for undoing the doctrines under which corporations claim constitutional rights and bribery is deemed constitutionally protected "speech."
Thursday, January 12, 2012 How Much Is an Earth, and Do You Have One in Extra Large? (1 comments)
A new book suggests that "It's the economy, stupid," may be more than political strategy; it may also be the key to environmental sustainability.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 What We Owe to Bertha von Suttner (1 comments)
Just saying her name sounds like a joke: Baroness Bertha Felicitas Sophie Freifrau von Suttner, Gräfin, née Countess Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau. And when she began talking about ending war in mid-nineteenth century Austria it wasn't her name that was treated as a joke.
Sunday, January 8, 2012 Corporate Personhood Worse, Ending It Easier, Than You Think (8 comments)
Don't take it from me. Take it from the book being published today that will mainstream the movement to end corporate personhood: "Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do, And What You Can Do About It," by Jeff Clements with foreword by Bill Moyers.
Friday, January 6, 2012 Why Not Attack Iran? (13 comments)
The push to attack Iran has been on for so long that entire categories of arguments for it (such as that the Iranians are fueling the Iraqi resistance) have come and gone.
Saturday, December 31, 2011 Obama Crowned Himself on New Year's Eve (7 comments)
President Barack Obama waited until New Year's Eve to take an action that I suspect he wanted his willfully deluded followers to have a good excuse not to notice.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 My New Year's Resolutions
Work with not just this year but many future years and generations and centuries in mind.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 24 Items Not to Hoard (10 comments)
Toilet Paper. Instead of hoarding toilet paper for the coming disaster and anarchy that should never be out of your mind if you want to remain easily manipulable by cynical demagogues, invest in providing clean and accessible bathrooms for the homeless.
Monday, December 26, 2011 Stop Picking on the Poor Plutocrats
I stopped by a corporate chain bookstore this week and checked out the "Current Affairs" section. I was a little surprised to discover that according to a dozen or more books dominating the display we are all under a vicious life-and-death assault from a raving, drooling mob of communist devils led by that well-known pinko guerrilla Barack Obama.
Friday, December 16, 2011 Set Your Doomsday Clock to 11:51 (8 comments)
The National Defense Authorization Act is not a leap from democracy to tyranny, but it is another major step on a steady and accelerating decade-long march toward a police state. The doomsday clock of our republic just got noticeably closer to midnight, and the fact that almost nobody knows it, simply moves that fatal minute-hand a bit further still.
Thursday, December 8, 2011 Try Not to Think of a Newt (3 comments)
The current President and Congress are destroying our Constitutional rights, our planet's climate, and the vestiges of a social safety net, and you are obsessing over a freak show of self-hating homosexuals and anti-intellectual intellectuals jumping through hoops in a corporate media circus with Ringmaster Donald Trump. Is this a good use of your time?
Sunday, December 4, 2011 70 Years of Lying About Pearl Harbor (8 comments)
The legend of Pearl Harbor, re-used on 9-11, is responsible not for the destructive pro-war policies of the 1920s and the 1930s that brought World War II into being, but responsible for the permanent war mentality of the past 70 years, as well as for how World War II was escalated, prolonged, and completed.
Saturday, December 3, 2011 What to Replace the Imprison-Americans Bill With (4 comments)
The funny thing about the bill that the Senate just passed that lets presidents and the military lock you up without a charge or a trial -- well, not funny ha ha but funny unusual -- is that the basic bill to which that little monstrosity was attached is even worse.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 Occupation Evicted? Occupy the Place Responsible: DC (1 comments)
Has the First Amendment expired in your public square? Has your local park prioritized empty vistas over the right to petition your government for a redress of grievances, thereby adding one more grievance to the list?
Sunday, November 20, 2011 The 99% Deficit Proposal Published (7 comments)
With this report Occupy Washington, DC shows that Congress is out of touch with evidence-based solutions, supported by the majority of Americans that can revive the economy, reduce the deficit and wealth divide while create millions of jobs.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011 One Veteran's Rough Path from Killing and Torturing to Peace
Not yet 30, Evan Knappenberger has already lived several lives. His story destroys the U.S. government's case against whistleblower Bradley Manning, exposes the toxic mix of fraud and incompetence that creates U.S. war policies, and highlights the damage so often done to soldiers who come home without visible injuries.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011 Fahrenheit 11-11-11 (5 comments)
Believe it or not, November 11th was not made a holiday in order to celebrate war, support troops, or cheer the 11th year of occupying Afghanistan. This day was made a holiday in order to celebrate an armistice that ended what was up until that point, in 1918, one of the worst things our species had thus far done to itself, namely World War I.
Sunday, November 6, 2011 Imagine If War Were Illegal -- It Is!
In January 1929 the U.S. Senate ratified by a vote of 85 to 1 a treaty that is still on the books, still upheld by most of the world, still listed on the U.S. State Department's website -- a treaty that under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution is the "supreme law of the land."
Thursday, November 3, 2011 Public Pressure Is Slowly Ending Afghanistan War
Feints and baby steps in the direction of eventually ending a massive crime are not enough. Hoping to meet a distant deadline for ending a war that cannot be justified for a single day is not enough. A new misunderstanding should not be piled on top of other fictional accomplishments (the closing of Guantanamo, the complete withdrawal from Iraq, universal health coverage, etc.). But if we don't understand that we are beginning
Friday, October 28, 2011 Occupy The Winter Of Our Discontent (11 comments)
Can occupations survive a winter of global weirding, escalated police brutality, and the corporate media's venom? Should they?
Thursday, October 27, 2011 A 51St State For Armed Robotic Drones (3 comments)
Weaponized UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), also known as drones, have their own caucus in Congress, and the Pentagon's plan is to give them their own state as well.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 Us Army Assaults Its Biggest Fan (8 comments)
One of the most valuable benefits of putting political action into the form of nonviolent encampments is that we learn each other's stories as we occupy our public parks and squares. Here's a story from the October2011 occupation in Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C.
Saturday, October 22, 2011 Unable To Get Simeone Fired, Npr Drops "world Of Opera" (11 comments)
Now, unable to get Simeone fired, a decision which NPR would have carefully blamed entirely on WDAV, our public radio thugs have taken the only approach left to them if people who condescend to supporting the political efforts of the poor are to be kept out of public sight: NPR has dropped the program.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 NPR Gets Producer Fired for Occupying (2 comments)
National Public Radio on Wednesday discovered that a woman named Lisa Simeone who produced a show about opera called "World of Opera" had been participating in a nonviolent occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., organized by October2011.org. That same day, NPR persuaded a company for which Simeone worked to fire her.
Sunday, October 16, 2011 Obama vs. Jobs; Hope vs. Reality (6 comments)
Last week, President Obama racked up several more broken campaign promises as he pushed through Congress three new job-killing corporate trade agreements.
Thursday, October 13, 2011 Occupied -- What Now? (21 comments)
Thanks in large part to the New York and national corporate media a massive campaign to shift power away from giant corporations and into the hands of the people is now afoot all across this continent. It was inspired by peoples' nonviolent uprisings in other countries and sparked by courageous nonviolence on Wall Street.
Saturday, October 8, 2011 Pepper-Sprayed for Peace (1 comments)
I've been coughing and vomiting, and my head aches from pepper spray. I'll post videos and photos of why at the link above.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 Rebuild the Dream in the Streets (5 comments)
Back around May or June a bunch of us announced plans for this coming Thursday, October 6th, to occupy Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., not for a march or a rally, and not for a day or a weekend, but to create a central space for an ongoing occupation from which we would engage in nonviolent resistance.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 What's Missing: Non-Electoral Politics (4 comments)
Nobody favors eliminating elections, and nobody favors eliminating activism. But there are those who cannot see how prioritizing money-marinated, gerrymandered, cable-news-controlled, unverifiable elections will reverse the train wreck in progress. And there are those who cannot see what it would mean to engage in activism that wasn't aimed at promoting electoral victories.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 The Danger of Simplicity (6 comments)
I'm not proposing that we mumble doctoral theses into television cameras. But we need to bear in mind that the medium is the moron. The people on the receiving end of television chatter are not as stupid as television itself.
Monday, September 26, 2011 When the World Outlawed War
In 1927 and 1928 a hot-tempered Republican from Minnesota named Frank, who privately cursed pacifists, managed to persuade nearly every country on earth to ban war.
Monday, September 26, 2011 The Occupied Turn Occupiers (1 comments)
What could make change possible is the process of reversal now underway through which the occupied are becoming the occupiers.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 There Must Be 50 Ways to Leave the Military Industrial Complex (3 comments)
And we heard all of them from two dozen brilliant speakers during a three-day conference this past weekend. If you missed it, the video is all online. So is the text of many of the papers presented. Here are a few excerpts to whet your appetite:
Thursday, September 1, 2011 Can Coffee Prevent Military Suicides? (2 comments)
Ashley Joppa-Hagemann recounts her husband's struggles before he killed himself to avoid an eighth or ninth tour in the Iraq-Afghanistan Wars.
Thursday, September 1, 2011 Cheney's Kettle Logic (4 comments)
On "Morning Joe" on MSNBC on Thursday, the former Vice President claimed that the intelligence used to invade Iraq had been sound and accurate; the faulty intelligence was all Bill Clinton's fault; the invasion didn't do any damage but rather it was the Iraqis who damaged Iraq; and any invasion causes horrific things to happen, that just comes with the territory.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 US or the War Machine (3 comments)
YOU MAY have heard something about a budget crisis in Washington this summer. Were you aware that in the midst of it the House of Representatives passed a military spending bill larger than ever before?
Monday, August 15, 2011 Virginia Militarized (1 comments)
The U.S. military is a permanent and pervasive presence in Virginia. Were the state of Virginia to ban participation in wars of aggression, weapons sales to brutal dictatorships, and the manufacture of aggressive and illegal weapons, the Military Industrial Complex would be obliged to help itself to many billions of public dollars just to cover the cost of moving operations to the other 49 states or abroad.
Saturday, August 13, 2011 CA Dem Party May Dump Progressive Caucus for Proposing Primary Challenge to Obama (5 comments)
On July 30th the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party passed a resolution proposing that a primary challenge be offered to Obama next year. The Progressive Caucus's certification expired at the same time, and while other caucuses were routinely recertified that day by the state party, the Progressive Caucus (I'm told by its chair, Karen Bernal) would not have been, had a vote been held.
Thursday, August 11, 2011 The Military: Closer to You Than Your Family (5 comments)
Two blocks from my house in a nondescript little building on the edge of our residential neighborhood is an office with a small sign reading "DVBIC of Charlottesville" which turns out to mean "Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center."
Wednesday, August 10, 2011 The Divided Left (13 comments)
The Satan Sandwich budget deal seems to have been left lying on the table in some television green rooms.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 Uranium Safe to Eat With a Spoon! (3 comments)
Carefully ignoring Fukushima, Los Alamos, Vermont, and Nebraska, a comforting new announcement informs us that "nuclear energy is safe."
Friday, August 5, 2011 Truman Lied, Hundreds of Thousands Died (16 comments)
When Truman lied to America that Hiroshima was a military base rather than a city full of civilians, people no doubt wanted to believe him.
Monday, August 1, 2011 To Whom Do We Now Turn? (18 comments)
I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 Stop Hoping! Start Changing!
"Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 How Would You Spend the Federal Budget? (1 comments)
Directions: Enter a percentage of the budget that you would spend on each of these six broad categories.
Monday, July 25, 2011 Even Birds Have Withdrawn From Afghanistan (1 comments)
Comparing the brain sizes of migratory birds and U.S. presidents may not help explain this one.
Saturday, July 23, 2011 Draft Bernie Sanders for President (3 comments)
I Want Bernie Sanders to Run for President of the United States in 2012
Friday, July 22, 2011 Afghan Judges Accuse U.S. of War Crimes (1 comments)
What the United States and NATO are doing, seizing people, locking them up, disappearing them, and torturing them is clearly illegal and against international law, she said.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011 Balance the Budget on the Backs of Billionaires (13 comments)
These are the hardcore plutocrats. These are the people who personally take the time to destroy our political system for their own short-term gain -- and that of their families if their aristocracy of wealth is allowed to continue.
Monday, July 18, 2011 Prisoners Have Nothing to Gain By Eating (5 comments)
Prisoners risking death by refusing food in the Pelican Bay supermax, and those hunger striking in solidarity in prisons around California are a judgment of our sickness. "The degree of civilization in a society," said Dostoyevsky, "can be judged by entering its prisons."
Thursday, July 14, 2011 Murdoch Has Blood on His Hands (3 comments)
Nailing Rupert Murdoch for his employees' phone tapping or bribery would be a little like bringing down Al Capone for tax fraud, or George W. Bush for torture. I'd be glad to see it happen but there'd still be something perverse about it.
Monday, July 11, 2011 Going Neutral on Obama? Not on a Moving Train! (6 comments)
This week has seen an inordinate number of realizations that the Democrats are as bad as or worse than the Republicans. And what has the response been?
Friday, July 8, 2011 Congresspeak: The Language of Impotence
The House of Representatives would be better off speaking Arabic. See if you can make heads or tails of this.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 Killing Old People Is Fiscally Responsible (8 comments)
"The fiscal good has to outweigh the pain," a nameless Democrat told the Washington Post regarding President Obama's latest proposal to massively cut Social Security.
Friday, July 1, 2011 John Dean Does Not Know How to Get Rid of Clarence Thomas (5 comments)
But Dean left out of consideration one strategy, the same one that five years ago he argued against pursuing with Bush and Cheney, whom many of us at that time wanted removed from office.
Thursday, June 30, 2011 King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July! (4 comments)
When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power. And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain's rule.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011 Memoirs of Torturers (2 comments)
Just as the torture techniques drifted down the chain of command from these dealers in death to the rank and file, so too the book contracts. The cogs in the machine are now documenting their bit parts in the past decade's torture epidemic with pride and publishing deals.
Monday, June 27, 2011 When the Public Rises, We'll Want an Ally in Congress (1 comments)
Yet a possibility is opening up of replacing Woolsey with someone who clearly has the potential to be even better than Kucinich has been thus far.
Friday, June 24, 2011 Freedom Riding to Gaza
Fifty years ago, freedom riders traveled by bus into the U.S. South. Now American freedom riders are joining their allies from around the world on a flotilla bound for Gaza. The U.S. ship is called The Audacity of Hope.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011 Afghanistan Withdrawal: Obama Lied (8 comments)
The United States has about 200,000 military personnel in Afghanistan, half of them troops, half of them contractors.
Monday, June 20, 2011 How the Mayors Debated and Passed an Antiwar Resolution
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has just done something it hasn't done since Vietnam, passing a resolution that supports efforts to speed up the ending of our current wars and calls on the President and Congress to "bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs."
Friday, June 17, 2011 Bloombergvilles of the Future
We're years behind Tunisia and Egypt in public understanding of how government of, by, and for the people works, but some in the United States have been inspired and begun forming a path that has real potential. In New York City, students, academics, activists, and workers have joined together to resist the global-national-local agenda of plutocracy being pushed by Mayor Bloomberg.
Thursday, June 16, 2011 UVA/Reagan War Hawk Defends Obama's War
When a national television program this week needed to find a spokesperson for the right of presidents to launch wars without congressional authorization, it turned -- to the great shame of us University of Virginia alumni -- to Robert Turner.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 Congress Members Sue Obama to End War (4 comments)
On Wednesday in federal court, 10 members of the U.S. Congress sued President Obama in an attempt to end U.S. involvement in a war in Libya.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 Rescind Obama's "Transparency Award" Now! (1 comments)
Tell Project on Government Oversight (POGO), OMB Watch, the National Security Archive, Open the Government.Org, and the Reporters Committee to publicly take back their Transparency Award to President Obama.
Sunday, June 12, 2011 What If UK Drops Out of All US Wars?
Before long public pressure might just lead Britain to drop out of participation in US wars, a move that would seriously damage future pretenses of acting as an international coalition.
Monday, June 6, 2011 Our Tahrir Square: DC's Freedom Plaza on October 6th
On October 6th, a Thursday, the Afghanistan War will complete its first decade as the United States goes into its 2012 austerity budget. Tahrir Square in Cairo Egypt translates as Liberation Square. We have in Washington, D.C., a square with the similar name: Freedom Plaza.
Thursday, June 2, 2011 Is That Even Legal? (8 comments)
We could end up with a war illegal under the Constitution, legal and illegal under laws and treaties depending which we choose to consult, and illegal or legal under a signing statement depending how we try to make sense of it, but legal under the Justice Department's memos. What's legal?
Saturday, May 28, 2011 Our New Iraq-Afghanistan War National Holiday (9 comments)
Memorial Day is nice, I suppose. Veterans Day is all right. Patriots Day can be fun. Yellow Ribbon Day's not bad. But you will be pleased to hear that on Thursday the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously voted, in pure bipartisan harmony, to add the following gem to the big war-funding, war-expanding, bill that now goes to the Senate:
Saturday, May 21, 2011 The Media Is A Curable Disease (10 comments)
Rupert Murdoch, who got his start in business marketing rats and manure, has chosen to deny Italy access to a television network that has presented critical coverage of both Murdoch and of leading Italian media baron and prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. The network, Current TV, is the project of a man identified in Italy primarily as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore.
Thursday, May 19, 2011 Louder Than Words (3 comments)
The President will present more words in a speech today, as his wars rage on. Will you join us in preparing to insist on something louder than words?
