You are hereBlogs / davidswanson's blog
davidswanson's blog
Talk Nation Radio: Is Amnesty International Promoting War in Syria?
Rick Sterling is an independent investigative journalist who just wrote the article "Amnesty International Stokes Syrian War" for ConsortiumNews.com.
Find Sterling's article here:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/11/amnesty-international-stokes-syrian-war
Find the Amnesty International report here: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/human_slaughterhouse.pdf
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
Why won’t march to unite all movements include peace?
Will you stand for peace?
Petition to the organizers of the April 29 People’s Climate March
Your website at PeoplesClimate.org proposes a march on Washington on April 29, 2017, to “unite all our movements” for “communities,” “climate,” “safety,” “health,” “the rights of people of color, workers, indigenous people, immigrants, women, LGBTQIA, young people, and more,” “jobs and livelihoods,” “civil rights and liberties,” “everything and everyone we love,” “families,” “air,” “water,” “land,” “clean energy jobs and climate justice,” to “reduce greenhouse gas and toxic pollution,” for “a transition to an equitable and sustainable New Energy and Economic Future,” “that every job pays a wage of at least $15 an hour, protects workers, and provides a good standard of living, pathways out of poverty, and a right to organize,” “massive investments in infrastructure systems from water, transportation, and solid waste to the electrical grid and safe, green building and increasing energy efficiency that will also create millions of jobs in the public and private sector,” . . . but not peace.
We wish to make you aware that approximately half of federal discretionary spending is going into wars and war preparation, and that this institution constitutes our single biggest destroyer of the environment. More on that here.
Will you please add “peace” to the list of things you are marching for?
If you will, it will become a list of things that WE are marching for, as we will join you.
Chasing a Northern Confederate Out of the South
The Washington Post proclaims: "Protesters mob provocative Va. governor candidate as he defends Confederate statue." Six seconds of video of the incident involved is likely to show up eventually here or here.
I was there on Saturday shouting down the "provocative" celebrator of racism and war, together with my kids and some friends. The only hostility I saw came from supporters of keeping the giant statue of Robert E. Lee in the park here in Charlottesville.
This was an email I had sent around the night before:
"Republican Candidate for Governor Corey Stewart is coming to Charlottesville Saturday to do a Facebook Live event at 10:00 AM in Lee Park to denounce the Charlottesville City Council for voting to remove a symbol of racism and war. Here's a report on his efforts to deport immigrants. Here's an announcement of Saturday's event. Please show up at 9:45 and bring posters. Here are some ideas:
Black Lives Matter
Celebrate Racism and War Somewhere Else
Love Beyond Flags
Love Trumps Hate
Welcome Refugees, Not Bigots
make up your own!"
These were the chants that were chanted and which I joined in on:
"Hey Hey Ho Ho White Supremacy Has Got to Go!"
"You take Lee. We'll take freedom!"
"Well what are you?" demanded a bewildered elderly white man of me when I opposed white supremacy and failed to be impressed by his showing me an American flag and shouting "This is an American flag!"
Presumably he didn't suppose you could look at someone and tell that they were a white supremacist. Presumably he just didn't make a distinction between being white and being a white supremacist. What am I? I'm a human being. You can put whatever antiquated labels you like on my appearance, but I'm not on your team if everyone isn't.
"But he wasn't a racist!" a woman explained to me about General Lee. Is that the point? To arrive at the mental state of the dead guy depicted in the sculpture? This monumental soldier on a horse was put in a whites-only park by a wealthy racist in the 1920s. And if that urban "benefactor," too, was "not a racist," that hardly impacts the fact that thousands of people are offended by the statue and its glorification of war -- and of war for the maintenance and expansion of slavery.
"You don't want war? Well, this statue makes people think before they go to war?" I was told.
"Yeah, a glorified giant on a horse does that?"
"Yes, look at how he's contemplating."
"A realistic depiction of war would show missing limbs and screams of agony."
"Why in the world would you want to do that?"
"To make people think before they go to war."
"But that's what this does."
Are these useful conversations? Perhaps.
Should we let racist, bigoted, glorifiers of war and demonizers of immigrants parade through our town denouncing democratic decisions like the one made after lengthy public debate to remove an old and obnoxious statue? Do we have to let Candidate Confederacy -- actually a racist Northerner who claims to out-Trump Trump -- have his video-op on the corporate news, and then wait our turn until we're six feet under to offer an appropriate rebuttal?
I don't think so. I don't think this is that moment.
First they came for the Muslims and the pacifists. And we said: "Not this time!"
I spoke with a friendlier individual away from the Confederate flags and shouts of "Anti-American!" This person agreed with my point that wars make the United States less safe, but within the next breath came: "But my only concern is if some of the people serving in the military defending us might not like the idea of removing the statue."
The wars are endangering us. The people fighting in them are "defending us," even if they aren't. This is what we're up against. Un-indoctrinating people with troop propaganda requires conversations that don't fit on television. Those are very worthwhile, but they take lots of time.
A political commercial for racism and war glorification is a different matter entirely. Let the would-be governor send his comments in via Skype. Our message is: Charlottesville is no place for that.
Good Riddance to Robert E. Lee
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, the city of Charlottesville, Va., city council has voted to remove an imposing statue of Robert E. Lee (and the horse he never rode in on) from Lee Park, and to rename and redesign the park.
The statue of this non-Charlottesvillian had been put up in a whites-only park during the 1920s at the whim of an extremely wealthy and racist individual. So, for a representative government to vote, following a very public deliberative process with voluminous and diverse input from city residents is -- if nothing else -- a step toward democracy.
I think it's much more as well. There are two issues at stake here, neither of them dead issues from the past. One is race. The other is war.
Mapping the War Machine
Republished from a multipage article at http://worldbeyondwar.org/mapwar
When it comes to understanding wars, for some people, a picture of the dead or of the injured or of the traumatized or of those made refugees can be worth ten million words. And, for at least some of us, a picture of where war is in the world can be worth at least a thousand.
What follows are two dozen pictures mapping war and militarism and the struggle for peace overlaid on a global image of nations. These are drawn from — and you can create your own with — an online tool for mapping militarism published by World Beyond War at bit.ly/mappingmilitarism. This tool has just been updated with new data. On many of the maps at that link, unlike with the static images that follow, you can scroll back in time to see changes over recent years.
By laying some important facts about war on the map, we’re able to recognize some ideas that rarely make it into prose. Here are a few examples:
- The war in Afghanistan and the foreign occupation of Afghanistan have officially ended, but a map of the nations with troops still occupying Afghanistan still looks like NATO colonialism.
- The list of locations of severe wars changes from year to year but sticks to a certain region of the world — a region in which none of the major producers of the weapons of war and few of the big spenders on war can be found — but from which the bulk of refugees flee and in which the biggest concentration of that violence labeled “terrorism” germinates, these being two of war’s many tragic consequences.
- The United States dominates the war business, the sale of weapons to other nations, the sale of weapons to poor nations, the sale of weapons to the Middle East, the deployment of troops abroad, spending on its own military, and the number of wars engaged in.
- Only Russia is anywhere close to the U.S. in weapons dealing, and this pair of countries nearly splits the vast majority of the nuclear weapons possessed on earth.
- Efforts toward peace and disarmament are widespread and coming largely from the less-armed, less bellicose parts of the world, but not entirely.
- And those governments that are otherwise doing well by the world tend to be those not engaged in warfare (“humanitarian” warfare or otherwise).
The presentation that follows can also be found as a “prezi” (a variation on what’s more commonly called a powerpoint and used to be called a slide show). You can grab the prezi for your own use at the World Beyond War events resources page.
WHICH NATIONS HAVE TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN?
As noted in a petition to end the war in Afghanistan, which you are welcome to sign, the U.S. military now has approximately 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, plus 6,000 other NATO troops, 1,000 mercenaries, and another 26,000 contractors (of whom about 8,000 are from the United States). That’s 41,000 people engaged in a foreign occupation of a country, 15 years after the accomplishment of their stated mission to overthrow the Taliban government.
The sources for all the data in all the maps are noted on the map tool at bit.ly/mappingmilitarism. In this case, the source in NATO, which claims 6,941 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The slightly higher 8,000 figure comes from the U.S. commander in December expressing a hope to reduce the troop number to 8,400 by January 20.
Take a look at where the troops occupying Afghanistan all come from. It’s NATO plus the U.S.’s kangaroo sidekick down under plus 120 Mongolians. It’s the world’s self-appointed but generally resented policemen and a few hired security guards. Here’s an argument that they are doing more harm than good.
Talk Nation Radio: John Burroughs on Using Law Against Climate and Nuclear Dangers
John Burroughs is Executive Director, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (www.lcnp.org), based in New York City. He represents LCNP in Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review proceedings, the United Nations, and other international forums. He was a member of the Marshall Islands international legal team in its nuclear disarmament cases in the International Court of Justice. He's the author of numerous publications related to nuclear weapons including contributing to a report called The Climate-Nuclear Nexus, which we discuss.
Burrough's publications include: contributor, Unspeakable suffering - the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons (2013) (available here); contributor, Assuring Destruction Forever: Nuclear Weapon Modernization Around the World (2012) (available here); author, The Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice (1998). He has also published articles and op-eds in journals and newspapers including Fordham International Law Journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, the World Policy Journal, and Newsday. He has taught international law as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School, Newark.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
A Nuclear Kellogg-Briand Pact Is An Even Better Idea Than Its Author Thinks
A Georgetown Law professor named David Koplow has drafted what he calls a Nuclear Kellogg-Briand Pact. In an article proposing it, Koplow does something all too rare, he recognizes some of the merits of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. But he misses others of those merits, as I described them in my 2011 book When The World Outlawed War.
Koplow acknowledges the cultural shift that the pact was central to, that shifted common understanding of war from something that just happens like the weather to something that can be controlled, should be abolished, and would henceforth be illegal. He acknowledges the role of the pact in motivating trials (albeit one-sided trials) for the crime of war following World War II.
The Next Step in Caring
Airport resistance is the biggest step forward by the U.S. public in years.
Why do I say that? Because this is unfunded, largely unpartisan activism that is largely selfless, largely focused on helping unknown strangers, driven by compassion and love, not political ideology, greed, or vengeance, and in line with activism around the globe. It's also targeted at the location of the harm, directly resisting the injustice, and achieving immediate partial successes, including very meaningful successes for certain individuals. It's gaining support from people never before engaged in any activism. And it shows no signs of any significant undesirable side-effects. This is a movement to be built on, and I have an idea what a next step should be.
Of course it is not at all uncommon for people to selflessly act for strangers. Much of the charity industry is driven by that sort of generosity year after year. But activist organizations are constantly telling themselves that this is not the case, for example that ending the bombing of distant unknown families can only be accomplished by advertising the financial cost of it or instituting a draft or making known the harm to veterans of the military doing the bombing. Yet when the peace movement in the United States has been stronger, in the 1920s in particular and also in the 1960s, acting on behalf of others has been central, as it was to the first big activist campaign, that begun against the slave trade in London, and as it has been in countless campaigns. Working to protect the natural environment is work for future generations. You can't get more selfless or enlightened than that.
But what's unique about this moment of sympathy and solidarity with refugees from nations the United States has bombed (plus Iran which it has gone after in other ways) is that it runs counter to U.S. government propaganda, it replaces fear with courage, hatred with love. This isn't just love stepping into a void. This is a transformation into love from its opposite. This is why I think another major step might be possible.
Open Letter to Donald Trump: End U.S. War in Afghanistan
The U.S. war in Afghanistan is well into its 16th year. In 2014 President Obama declared it over, but it will remain a political, financial, security, legal, and moral problem unless you actually end it.
The U.S. military now has approximately 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan , plus 6,000 other NATO troops, 1,000 mercenaries, and another 26,000 contractors (of whom about 8,000 are from the United States). That's 41,000 people engaged in a foreign occupation of a country 15 years after the accomplishment of their stated mission to overthrow the Taliban government.
During each of the past 15 years, our government in Washington has informed us that success was imminent. During each of the past 15 years, Afghanistan has continued its descent into poverty, violence, environmental degradation, and instability. The withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops would send a signal to the world, and to the people of Afghanistan, that the time has come to try a different approach, something other than more troops and weaponry.
The ambassador from the U.S.-brokered and funded Afghan Unity government has reportedly told you that maintaining U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is "as urgent as it was on Sept. 11, 2001." There's no reason to believe he won't tell you that for the next four years, even though John Kerry tells us “Afghanistan now has a well-trained armed force ...meeting the challenge posed by the Taliban and other terrorists groups.” But involvement need not take its current form.
The United States is spending $4 million an hour on planes, drones, bombs, guns, and over-priced contractors in a country that needs food and agricultural equipment, much of which could be provided by U.S. businesses. Thus far, the United States has spent an outrageous $783 billion with virtually nothing to show for it except the death of thousands of U.S. soldiers , and the death, injury and displacement of millions of Afghans. The Afghanistan War has been and will continue to be, as long as it lasts, a steady source of scandalous stories of fraud and waste. Even as an investment in the U.S. economy this war has been a bust.
But the war has had a substantial impact on our security: it has endangered us. Before Faisal Shahzad tried to blow up a car in Times Square, he had tried to join the war against the United States in Afghanistan. In numerous other incidents, terrorists targeting the United States have stated their motives as including revenge for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, along with other U.S. wars in the region. There is no reason to imagine this will change.
In addition, Afghanistan is the one nation where the United States is engaged in major warfare with a country that is a member of the International Criminal Court. That body has now announced that it is investigating possible prosecutions for U.S. crimes in Afghanistan. Over the past 15 years, we have been treated to an almost routine repetition of scandals: hunting children from helicopters, blowing up hospitals with drones, urinating on corpses -- all fueling anti-U.S. propaganda, all brutalizing and shaming the United States.
Ordering young American men and women into a kill-or-die mission that was accomplished 15 years ago is a lot to ask. Expecting them to believe in that mission is too much. That fact may help explain this one: the top killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is suicide. The second highest killer of American military is green on blue, or the Afghan youth who the U.S. is training are turning their weapons on their trainers! You yourself recognized this, saying: "Let's get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghans we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA."
The withdrawal of U.S. troops would also be good for the Afghan people, as the presence of foreign soldiers has been an obstacle to peace talks. The Afghans themselves have to determine their future, and will only be able to do so once there is an end to foreign intervention.
We urge you to turn the page on this catastrophic military intervention. Bring all U.S. troops home from Afghanistan. Cease U.S. airstrikes and instead, for a fraction of the cost, help the Afghans with food, shelter, and agricultural equipment.
SIGNED BY:
Elliott Adams, Veterans For Peace
Deborah K. Andresen, Tackling Torture at the Top
Rita Archibald, Nonviolence Trainer
Judy Bello, Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones and End the Wars
Medea Benjamin, Code Pink
Fred Bially
Barry Binks, Veterans for Peace Ch. 87, Occupy Beale
Toby Blome', Code Pink
Alison Bodine, Mobilization Against War and Occupation
Leah Bolger, World Beyond War
John Calder, Veterans for Peace Ch. 69
Kathleen Christison, Author, Veterans for Peace
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
Helena Cobban, Just World Books
David Cobb, 2004 Green Party Presidential Nominee
Jeff Cohen, RootsAction.org
Gerry Condon,Veterans for Peace National Board of Directors
Mary Crosby, Roman Catholic Women Priests
James Eilers, Code Pink Auxiliary
Michael Eisenscher, U.S. Labor Against the War
Melissa Crosby, Black Lives Matter
Nicolas J S Davies, author
Mary Dean, World Beyond War
Thomas Dickinson, Tackling Torture at the Top, Women Against Military Madness
Jennifer DiZio, UC Berkeley
Maria Eitz, Roman Catholic Women Priests
Daniel Ellsberg, whistleblower
Jodie Evans, Code Pink
Joseph J. Fahey, Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace
Robert Fantina, World Beyond War
Bill Fletcher Jr., BlackCommentator.com
Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance
Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report
Bruce K. Gagnon, Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
Johan Galtung, Founder Trancend Interntional
Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition UK
The Rev. Dr. Diana C. Gibson, Multifaith Voices for Peace & Justice
Michael Goldstein, The 99 Percent
Kevin Gosztola, Shadowproof.com
Will Griffin, The Peace Report
Patty Guerrero, Tackling Torture at the Top, Women Against Military Madness, Pax-Salon
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit
Amith Gupta, student, NYU School of Law
Bill Habedank, Veterans For Peace Ch. 115
Steve Harms, Peace Lutheran Church, Past-President Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County
David Hartsough, Peaceworkers
Jan Hartsough, San Francisco Friends Meeting
Hayley Hathaway, Quaker Earthcare Witness
Dud Hendrick, Veterans for Peace
Adam Hochschild, author
Matthew Hoh, former director of Afghanistan Study Group
Martha Hubert, Code Pink San Francisco
Aaron Hughes, Iraq Veterans Against the War
Tony Jenkins, World Beyond War
Sonja Johnson, Women Against Military Madness
Kathy Kelly, Voices For Creative Nonviolence
Gary W. King, Tackling Torture at the Top, Women Against Military Madness
John Kiriakou, former Central Intelligence agency officer
Dennis Kucinich, former Member of United States Congress
Peter Kuznick, Professor of History, American University
Barry Ladendorf, Veterans For Peace President Board of Directors
Paul Leuenberger, Veterans for Peace
Dave Lindorff, This Can't Be Happening
Dave Logsdon, Veterans For Peace Ch. 27
Richard Lord, Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice
Douglas Mackey, Global Days of Listening
Jody Mackey, New Traditions Fair Trade
Mike Madden, Veterans For Peace Ch. 27
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate
Ben Manski, Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution
Stephen Matchett, AVP Trainer, San Francisco Friends Meeting
Sherri Maurin, Campaign Nonviolence, Associate Veterans for Peace Ch. 69
Ken Mayers, Veterans for Peace
Ray McGovern, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Cynthia McKinney, former member of United States Congress
Stephen McNeil, American Friends Service Committee
Michael T. McPhearson, Veterans For Peace Executive Director
Tom Morman, Nonviolence Coalition San Jose
Nick Mottern, Knowdrones.com
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, NIC
Michael Nagler, Metta Center for Nonviolence Founder and President
Carroll Nast, Veterans for Peace Ch. 122
Agneta Norberg, Swedish Peace Council
Cathe Norman, Veterans for Peace Associate
Tom Norman, Veterans for Peace Ch. 60
Todd E. Pierce, JA, MAJ, USA (Ret.)
Gareth Porter, journalist, author
Pancho Francisco Ramos-Stierle, Casa de Paz, Canticle Farm
John C. Reiger, Veterans For Peace
Denny Riley, Veterans For Peace Chapter 69
Coleen Rowley, retired FBI agent and legal counsel
Mike Rufo, Musician
Judith Sandoval, Veterans for Peace Ch. 69
Bill Schwab, Americans for Justice
Julie Searle, Educator
Michael Shaughnessy, educator
Cindy Sheehan, peace activist
Eva Sivill, Casa de Paz, Canticle Farm
Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Gar Smith, Environmentalists Against War
David Solnit, Global Organizer, Writer, Puppeteer
Norman Solomon, RootsAction.org
Melvin Starks, Unitarian Universalist Church
Jill Stein, 2016 Green Party presidential candidate
David Swanson, World Beyond War
Shelley Tannenbaum, Quaker Earthcare Witness
Brian Terrell, Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Tiffany Tool, Nonviolent Peaceforce
Chip Tucker, Charlottesville Friends Meeting
Louie J. Vitale, OFM, Pace e Bene, Nevada Desert Experience
Zohreh Whitaker, Veterans for Peace, Peace Action
Phil Wilayto, the Virginia Defender
Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army colonel
Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance
(organizations above for identification)
ALSO SIGNED BY:
Creating a Culture of Peace
Mobilization Against War and Occupation, Vancouver Canada
Popular Resistance
Veterans For Peace
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
World Beyond War
War and Peace in Trump Time: A World Beyond Arlington
Remarks in Arlington, Va., January 29, 2017
Happy Year of the Rooster!
Thank you for inviting me. Thank you to Archer Heinzen for setting this up. Of course I wouldn't have come had I known UVA's basketball team would be playing Villanova at 1 o'clock. I'm kidding, but I'll catch it on the radio or watch the replay without the commercials. And when I do I can guarantee only this: the announcer will thank U.S. troops for watching from 175 countries, and nobody will wonder whether 174 wouldn't be just about enough.
I wish I could also guarantee that UVA will win, but this is where sports monkeys around with rational thinking. I don't actually have any say over whether UVA wins. So I can turn my wish into a prediction "We will win" and then declare that "we" won as if I'd been involved. Or let's say that UVA blows it. Then I can remark that "we" decided to keep London Perrantes in the game even though he had a sprained wrist and the flu and had just lost one leg in a car accident, even though the obvious fact is that were I really the coach I would never have done that, just as -- if I fully controlled the U.S. government -- I wouldn't actually spend a trillion dollars a year on war preparations.
Does Rachel Maddow Want Russia Bombed?
Here's why I ask. Maddow devotes many minutes on MSNBC stirring up hatred of Russia in order to establish that there is a vague possibility that President Donald Trump might be corrupted by a foreign government.
But that's already established beyond any doubt. China's state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is the largest tenant in Trump Tower. It is also a major lender to Trump. Its rent payments and its loans put Trump in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Every building approval, extension of credit, tax break, subsidy, or waiver of normal rules that Trump's businesses get from numerous foreign governments, state governments, and the U.S. government define him as quintessentially impeachable.
So, if the point is just to document corruption by Trump, why reach and stretch for a speculative possibility, when you've got a solid case sitting in your lap?
Be Glad the White House Comment Line Is Closed
The White House comment phone line directs people to kindly go away and think about what losers they are. Oops, sorry, I mean it directs people not to leave any comments. Instead it says to use a White House web form or to send a message through a White House Facebook account (which has no messaging capability). I'm not inclined to use the web form, because I doubt anyone reads it and I'd rather not be added to a White House email list.
If I'm going to publish a comment to the White House elsewhere, maybe I'll submit it through their website form too. But what I need is a place to post my comments publicly and then tweet them @POTUS.
So I've created http://commentstotrump.org Anybody can post any comment to Trump there that they like. It's public and uncensored. Using it does not put you on any email list or provide your information to anyone. It's just an automated website that displays comments as they come in. All I expect to do is perhaps create more categories for the comments as new topics arise.
Here's a taste of what people have posted there, for Trump, thus far:
Please do not repeal the affordable health care act before replacing it with something even better. It should be something that is similar to what other advanced countries have, namely Universal Healthcare system.
Stop Obama's policy of drone murder.
Do not continue it, please.
Drones make us judge, jury and executioner.
No one, NO ONE is advocating for abortion. No one celebrates them. The issue is just this: whose body do YOU have the right to control? Your own. Well, my body is mine and I have the right to control it. Even if some monstrous male rapes and impregnates me. When I am eleven years old. What I do in such a case is not in your power to decide.
If the right to decide when/if pregnancy is to occur belongs to both parents (man and woman in most cases), then the right to terminate a forced pregnancy or one that endangers the life of the mother belongs to the person doing the carrying. Not to the beast who impregnated her.
To think otherwise is to put the welfare of the molester before that of the victim. And if you can concede in this one case, then a total ban on abortion is illogical.
I wish you ONE pregnancy to enlarge your understanding of this most sacred responsibility. I love my children with all my being but were your sperm in my uterus making one more child I assure you I would jump down a flight of stairs rather than bring your offspring to term. You are an offense to your gender and your lack of understanding or compassion for the act of motherhood is revolting. May you be ever childless for you have no compassion.
Purge toxic leadership from the military.
Donald Trump is absolutely correct: The Election Was Rigged. However, he absolutely lied when he said that between 3 and 5 million "illegals" cast votes in the election. The election was "rigged" because of the many states which have passed laws designed to restrict voter access -- primarily aimed at the poor and people of color. The election was "rigged" by the use of "cross-check" which inappropriately removed properly registered voters from the roles [see Greg Palast's most recent book]. The election was possibly "rigged" by the use of voting machines whose software is proprietary and not available for review.
Overt lying by the President for the sole purpose of self-agrandizement, lying which places into question a major hallmark of a democratic society, should be sufficient to label this narcisistic psychopathic con artist as unfit for office.
Nominate an Educator for Secretary of Education
Not a billionaire contributor who has not attended, and whose children have not attended, public schools.
Shut down firing ranges and marksmanship programs affiliated with JROTC programs in the nation's high schools.
Not too sure this is a good idea to go ahead with this project at this time, considering the controversy over it, at the present time, in North Dakota. We have plenty of oil. In fact, we are awash in the stuff at the present time. In order to keep a modicum of peace, put it on the shelf, for now, and maybe consider it some time down the road, if oil is needed.
OMG! The Keystone and DAPL pipelines are the last things we need if the earth is to survive climate change. The fossils need to stay in the ground. Reverse this terrible act immediately!
GMO foods are developed to withstand high doses of toxic pesticides, some of which have been linked to cancer. In order to safeguard the health of Federal workers and to avoid exorbitant health care costs, the President should sign an executive order mandating that all food purchased by the US Government be GMO free.
How high is the atmosphere? I will give it to you, 60 miles, beyond that is considered outer space. You can't breath above 15,000 feet. That's only about 3 miles . There are how many people breathing and making use of available energy sources?
I'm sure you can do even better. Have at it: http://commentstotrump.org
Talk Nation Radio: Sarah Van Gelder on The Revolution Where You Live
As co-founder and executive director of Yes! Magazine, Sarah van Gelder leads the framing and development of each issue of Yes! and writes a column introducing each issue. Sarah blogs at Yes! and Huffington Post, writes articles and does interviews for Yes! Magazine, and speaks on leading-edge innovations that show that another world is not only possible, it is being created. Her new book is called The Revolution Where You Live: Stories From a 12,000-Mile Journey Through a New America.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
The War Horror Has Begun
Here we are on Day 5 of the Donald Trump presidency, and he's got "special" forces of the U.S. military in two-thirds of the world's nations. He's engaged in serious occupation and/or bombing campaigns in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. He just sent malicious robot airplanes armed with missiles to blow to pieces a bunch of vaguely-identified but never indicted "criminals" in Yemen. Their body parts were widely scattered and their loved ones devastated. The injured writhed in agony.
We made it through a presidential campaign in which a debate moderator asked if a candidate would be willing to kill thousands of innocent children, and in which Donald Trump promised to "kill their families" and "steal their oil." And here we are on Trump's very first Terror Tuesday, and he's already in possession of the most expensive and extensive military machine ever seen on earth. His speed is remarkable. Already he has troops in 175 nations (and announcers are thanking them for watching sporting events as if it were all just normal).
A "Terror Tuesday," for those who haven't yet heard, is a day on which a president goes through a list of men, women, and children and picks which ones to have murdered. Don't ask me where this tradition came from. The point is that it now belongs to President Trump, should he choose to make use of it. President Trump, need I remind you, is a Republican.
But various subordinates of the president have been authorized, or perhaps authorized themselves, to order drone murders. Those that occurred yesterday in Yemen were quite likely carried out without any involvement from Donald Trump, other than his responsibility under the Constitution for what his subordinates do.
Trump, in fact, was engaged in bombing the hell out of Mosul, Iraq, and parts of Libya as well, on the very day he was inaugurated, and even before he was inaugurated. He's got 8,000 troops plus mercenaries, contractors, and allied troops adding up to over 40,000 people occupying Afghanistan -- a war that his predecessor had ended. And he had this force in place even before inauguration. He's got a major war underway in Iraq, another war famously ended by the guy who came before him. And this war, too, he started even before showing up in Washington.
Trump even went in person to the CIA on Day 1 and announced that the United States should have somehow stolen all of Iraq's oil and might still do so. This created massive confusion among the journalists and approximately 8 members of the public who heard about it, because of course the U.S. military is in Iraq on the side of the Iraqi people (just don't ask them) and so it would be nonsensical for the U.S. to attack Iraq.
Trump and those around him have also threatened war with China over the South China Sea, although when a journalist tried to get Trump's press secretary to commit to it on Day 4, he declined.
Oddly, much of this new war horror show has passed without notice, as though it were somehow just a continuation of acceptable norms. What has horrified the press corps, however, is the danger that peace might break out in Syria, and further hostilities risking World War III with Russia might be delayed. Liberals are also quite upset that Trump might question claims coming out of the CIA.
So it's not as though the public is completely failing to react to the new horrors of war. One might even go so far as to say that wide swaths of the U.S. public are behaving on the model of a Nobel Peace laureate.
The So-Called Intelligence So-Called Community's Dumb Isolated View of the Future
Thank you to Tom Engelhardt for pointing out that the people who couldn't predict the end of the Soviet Union, the crimes of 9-11, the decency of numerous whistleblowers, the election of Donald Trump, the likelihood that utilities in Vermont would point out that they had not been hacked by Russians, or -- I'm willing to bet -- the timing of rush hour in Northern Virginia, have just predicted the shape of the future of everything. Of course they've gotten it all ridiculously wrong, but they have revealed things about themselves rather than about the world in the process.
Many of us would list climate chaos and nuclear war as the big dangers to avoid. The "community" of U.S. spies lists: "the Arab Spring, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and the global rise of populist, anti-establishment politics" as examples of dangers the future holds. These people may be paid billions of dollars by us primarily to keep secrets, but they don't keep their contempt for democracy secret very well.
They do admit to the obvious: "For better and worse, the emerging global landscape is drawing to a close an era of American dominance following the Cold War." But they don't actually mean that this might be for the better. They interpret it as a catastrophic victory for barbarians. Here's their very next sentence: "So, too, perhaps is the rules-based international order that emerged after World War II." Dethroning the United States does not, of course, guarantee anarchy. It could mean more respect for rules than before. But belief in the inevitability of anarchy might help make it more likely as it motivates U.S. behaviors. That's why these "intelligence" people are not just useless but dangerous.
Why Impeach Donald Trump
By David Swanson, FireDonaldTrump.org
What are the grounds for impeachment?
They will likely be piling up rapidly. President Trump did use Day 1 to advise the CIA that the United States should have stolen all of Iraq's oil. But here is a place to start. We already have a president who is violating two clauses in the U.S. Constitution, one forbidding any gifts or benefits from foreign governments, the other forbidding the same from the U.S. government or any U.S. state. This is the result of Donald Trump refusing to separate himself from major business interests as past presidents have done. Those interests will also inevitably involve Trump in violating the STOCK Act which forbids the use of non-public government information to make a private profit.
Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution states: "The President ... shall not receive ... any other emolument from the United States, or any of them." This means that the President cannot receive personal financial gains from the United States government or from the governments of any of the 50 states while he is president. This restriction is absolute and cannot be waived by Congress. Trump is already in violation of it and will be more so with every law, rule, regulation, enforcement, or lack thereof that his subordinates, Congress, or any agency of the federal government enacts to the benefit of Trump's businesses and possessions.
For example, Trump's lease of the Old Post Office Building violates an explicit clause in the General Services Administration lease contract which states: "No ... elected official of the Government of the United States ... shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom." The GSA's failure to enforce that contract is an unconstitutional benefit to Trump.
Talk Nation Radio: Antonia Juhasz on Tillerson, Trump, and Oil
https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-antonia-juhasz-on-tillerson-trump-and-oil
Antonia Juhasz is an energy analyst, author, and investigative reporter. She recently wrote a profile of Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for In These Times magazine. We discuss Tillerson and the oil spill he floated in on. See also:
http://www.antoniajuhasz.net
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
Imagine the Confirmation Hearing for Secretary of Peace
The idea has been floated and endlessly reintroduced in legislation since the founding of the United States of creating a Department of Peace. These efforts even resulted in 1986 in the creation of the USI”P” — the U.S. Institute of “Peace” which this week held events with Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, Madeleine Albright, Chuck Hagel, William Perry, Stephen Hadley, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Susan Rice, John Kerry, and Michael Flynn, and which in 2015 rejected proposals from the peace movement to have anything to do with advocating for peace. So the push to create a Department of Peace rolls on, generally ignoring the existence of the USI”P.”
I try to imagine what a senate confirmation hearing would look like for a nominee for Secretary of Peace. I picture the nominee being rolled in by his attendants and the questioning beginning something like this:
Talk Nation Radio: Millions Lose Their Minds Over Russia
https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-millions-lose-their-minds-over-russia
This week on Talk Nation Radio: millions of Americans lose their everloving minds over unproven accusations against Russia, the ACLU and CAIR publish claim that war on Iraq has been to protect the U.S. Bill of Rights, and a torture report gets buried.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
Allegations Against Russia Less Credible Every Day
The U.S. government has now generated numerous news stories and released multiple "reports" aimed at persuading us that Vladimir Putin is to blame for Donald Trump becoming president. U.S. media has dutifully informed us that the case has been made. What has been made is the case for writing your own news coverage. The "reports" from the "intelligence community" are no lengthier than the New York Times and Washington Post articles about them. Why not just read the reports and cut out the middle-person?
The New York Times calls the latest report "damning and surprisingly detailed" before later admitting in the same "news" article that the report "contained no information about how the agencies had collected their data or had come to their conclusions." A quick glance at the report itself would have made clear to you that it did not pretend to present a shred of evidence that Russia hacked emails or served as a source for WikiLeaks. Yet Congresswoman Barbara Lee declared the evidence in this evidence-free report "overwhelming." What should progressives believe, the best Congresswoman we've got or our own lying eyes?
Why Release the Torture Report Now
A young man was tortured in Chicago this week. It wasn’t an act of the Chicago police. It was live streamed on Facebook. And the President of the United States declared it an horrific hate crime.
The President did not advise “looking forward” rather than enforcing the law. Nor did he hold open the possibility that the crime might have served some higher purpose. In fact, he didn’t excuse the crime in any way that might help recommend it for imitation by others.
Yet this same president has forbidden the prosecution of U.S. government torturers for the past 8 years and has now seen fit to keep a four-year-old Senate report on their torture secret for at least 12 years more.
Yes, Positivity, Pangloss, Partisanship, Propaganda, and Populism
Eight years ago Yes! Magazine published a political platform of progressive policies, along with polling showing strong majority support for each proposal. Now, eight years later, we can show almost total failure to advance any of the proposals, most of which were focused on the U.S. federal government.
Where there have been any small successes, they have mostly come at the state or local level or outside the United States. New York State just took a step toward free college and Washington State toward shutting down fossil fuels while everyone was watching Donald Trump's twitter feed. Most of the world's nations are working on a new treaty to ban nuclear weapons from the earth, while Obama's government has invested heavily in new nukes and (far more offensively, I'm told) Trump has tweeted about them.
The general federal-level failure in the United States is very clearly because the U.S. government in Washington D.C. is a financially corrupted and anti-democratic structure, and because the U.S. public is generally disinclined to hold it accountable. The United States enjoys remarkably less activism than many other countries, and suffers as a result.
A huge reason for the activism shortage is partisan loyalty. Of that minority of people who will do anything at all, many will only make demands of or protest members of one political party. For the other party all is forgiven. And most policy positions are utterly expendable at the slightest shift in the party line. Witness the current Democratic fever for believing the CIA on faith and desiring hostility toward Russia.
Talk Nation Radio: Dave Webb on Keeping Weapons and Nuclear Power Out of Space
Dave Webb is a member of the World Beyond War Coordinating Committee and chair of the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and well as Vice President of the International Peace Bureau (IPB) and the Convenor of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space: http://space4peace.org
Webb is an Emeritus Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Leeds Beckett University (previously Leeds Metropolitan University). Webb has been involved in the campaign to scrap the UK Trident nuclear weapons system and has also focused on campaigning to close two U.S. bases in Yorkshire (where he lives) – Fylingdales (a missile defence radar base) and Menwith Hill (the huge NSA spy base).
We discuss the upcoming 25th Annual Global Network Conference & Protest: "Pivot Toward War: US Missile Defense & the Weaponization of Space" to be held on April 7-9, 2017, in Huntsville, Alabama: http://space4peace.org
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
Download from LetsTryDemocracy or Archive.
Pacifica stations can also download from Audioport.
Syndicated by Pacifica Network.
Please encourage your local radio stations to carry this program every week!
Please embed the SoundCloud audio on your own website!
Past Talk Nation Radio shows are all available free and complete at
http://TalkNationRadio.org
Fantasies About Russia Could Doom Opposition to Trump
To many Democrats for whom killing a million people in Iraq just didn't rise to the level of an impeachable offense, and who considered Obama's bombing of eight nations and the creation of the drone murder program to be praiseworthy, Trump will be impeachable on Day 1.
Indeed Trump should be impeached on Day 1, but the same Democrats who found the one nominee who could lose to Trump will find the one argument for impeachment that can explode in their own faces. Here's a "progressive" Democrat:
"In his dalliance with Vladimir Putin, Trump’s actions are skirting treason. ... By undermining further investigation or sanctions against the Russian manipulation of the 2016 election, Trump as president would be giving aid and comfort to Russian interference with American democracy."
There's a bit of a nod there -- in the word "investigations" -- to the lack of any evidence that Russia manipulated any U.S. election, yet that manipulation is stated as fact, and a failure to support further sanctions as punishment for it becomes "aid and comfort." What level of punishment exactly constitutes the absence of aid and comfort? And how does that level of punishment compare with the level likely to produce war or nuclear holocaust? Who knows.
Failure to sufficiently punish a foreign government, even for an actual proven offense, has never been a high crime and misdemeanor. The United States is in fact bound by the Hague Convention of 1899, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the United Nations Charter to take any such dispute to arbitration and to settle it by pacific means. But that would require producing some evidence rather than mere allegations. Lawless "punishment" is much easier.
But further evidence can emerge to counter the claim. The lack of evidence for the claim can weigh ever more heavily on public opinion. And the dangers of creating further hostility with Russia can enter the consciousness of additional people.
Meanwhile, we have a man planning to be president later this month whose business dealings clearly violate the U.S. Constitution in terms of not only foreign but also domestic corruption. That's a perfectly overwhelming case for impeachment and removal from office that doesn't require opposing a single incident of mass murder or offending a single Pentagon contractor.
Beyond that, Trump is becoming president after election day intimidation, the partisan-based removal of voters from the rolls, and opposition to attempting to count paper ballots where they existed. He's arriving with the stated policies of unconstitutionally discriminating against Muslims, murdering families, stealing oil, torturing, and proliferating nuclear weapons.
In other words, Donald Trump will be from Day 1 an impeachable president, and Democrats will have already spent months building their campaign around the one thing that won't work. Imagine what will happen after all their hearings and press conferences, when their supporters find out that they aren't even accusing Vladimir Putin of hacking into election machines, that in fact they are accusing unknown individuals of hacking into Democrats' emails, and that they are then vaguely speculating that those individuals could have been sources for WikiLeaks, thereby informing the U.S. public of what was quite obvious and ought to have been widely reported for the good of the U.S. government, namely that the DNC rigged its primary.
By the time the Democrats beat themselves to the floor with this charade, more facts will likely have come out regarding WikiLeaks' actual source(s), and more hostility will likely have been stirred up with Russia. The war hawks have already got Trump talking up nuclear escalation.
Luckily there is an ace in the hole. There is something else that Democrats will be eager to hold Trump accountable for. And give Trump a month and he'll produce it. I'm referring, of course, to that greatest fear of Our Beloved Founding Fathers, the ultimate high crime and misdemeanor: the presidential sex scandal.
ACLU & CAIR Use Gold Star Father to Claim War on Iraq Was for Bill of Rights
Are you old enough to remember when liberal groups openly admitted that the war on Iraq was illegal and fraudulent, based on oil and profit and sadism?
Well, can you recall when the proponents of the war claimed it was a defense against nonexistent ties to terrorists and nonexistent weapons?
Even if you've wiped those memories, let me assure you, NOBODY ever claimed that attacking and destroying Iraq was necessary to protect civil liberties in the United States (which have been seriously eroded during the course of the war).
Yet, in recent months the generic defense of murdering large numbers of people far away has taken over as the explanation for the war on Iraq.
The ACLU on Friday used the voice of my fellow Charlottesvillian Khizr Khan to claim that attacking Iraq was done "in defense of our country's ideals."
