On the day it was published, David Swanson guest blogged here about his new book, War is a Lie. A few days later, while I was guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show he and I had a spirited debate about one aspect of the general premise of the book.
And last Sunday, the good Mr. Swanson came to Los Angeles for a book event at the home of actress and PDA advisory board chair Mimi Kennedy where I joined him, along with KPFK’s Lila Garrett and Truthout’s Jason Leopold, on a panel to discuss it.
The over-flow event — impressive for any day in laid back L.A., much less in the middle of record rainfall — was video-taped and is now posted below in seven parts, if you’re interested.
(If you’re looking for me in the videos below, my opening statement is near the beginning of Part 3, and my closing statement is in Part 7, beginning just before the 4 minute mark. As mentioned in my remarks, please support independent media and, along with it, the truth. You can help do so, among other ways, by buying David’s book here.) Enjoy…
David Swanson’s War Is A Lie Book Tour
Los Angeles, December 18, 2010.
Sponsored by KPFK
As originally posted at WarIsALie.org
Video by Lionel Heredia | Editing by Joe Keating
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4
PART 5
PART 6
PART 7
Thanks all – I am so sick how obama and some “progressive” blogs celebrated a bogus repeal of DADT last week – some type of social justice victory. I think the lies of wars are joined at the hip to the lies of last weekend and DADT.
First, let’s be clear – this theater was a lost administration showboating, throwing out meaningless bills, nothing but bones to Americans that obama and dem leadership has insulted for 2 years.
Second, this current military-industrial-media complex and the endless unfunded wars that are being fought are not at all analogous to WW II. Integration then, when most Americans were required to serve, is not at all comparable to a repeal of DADT. Even a path to open homosexuality in the military would not be be analogous – the military is now a narrow group of Americans that are largely used as economic inputs to massive, unjustified profits.
Third, the way the military is currently being used directly violates International laws – more than one million innocent Iraq civilians have been slaughtered in our name – mostly woman and children. No justice will come from this – there is no social good in killing people-of-color around the world while the likes of dick cheney and haliburton make gazillions of dollars.
The whole thing is so sick, sick, sick.
Now brad may take offense at some of what I have written, perhaps objecting that I have taken this dialog in a direction he did not want it to go.
I don’t know.
But, the truth about war and the war crimes and crimes against humanity that are currently being perpetrated by obama, dems, repugs, and whomever the next repug leader emerges to be needs to be screamed to the world.
War is unjust – it is not a path to social justice.
Those that accepted and celebrated the bone obama and dem leadership threw out last weekend need to think of the blood and bones of the innocent dead and wounded, literally hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq alone.
So sick, so sad – how can we get “progressives” to support meaningful efforts to end these wars.
Even if we can generate support, will we be allowed to stand together and demand real social justice – ending the current wars.
I weep for my country, but last weekend, when I saw some self-proclaimed “liberals” and “progressives” gloating about a DADT victory, I literally threw up too.
Weep said:
Not sure what you think I would “take offense” to. That said, your conflation of an appropriate objection to war with the victory for civil rights in the long overdue repeal of DADT is just bizarre, frankly. No matter your objection to war, or even the military, I fail to see how any of it has anything to do with the basic principles of equality which were abhorrently disregarded in the U.S. Military.
brad: did you catch rove’s book tour replete with dubya’s and cheney’s “shadow government?”
—
Remarks of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
100th Anniversary Celebration
Of the Norfolk and Portsmouth Bar Assoication
May 3
—
Most of us remember where we were and what we were doing at 8:36 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday September 11, 2001, when the first of four airliners hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists crashed into New York City’s World Trade Center.
The country watched in horror as the second plane hit, at 9:03 a.m., as the third plane flew into the Pentagon and the fourth flight crashed near Shanksville, Penn.
Former U.S. Attorney General and then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales was in Norfolk Va., speaking to government employees about ethics.
nothing bizzare about pointing out that the current military is not a vehicle for social justice.
DADT has not actually been repealed.
And even if it happens, we are talking about a killing machine.
You have just lost all credibility for your post.
So you fail to see how we cannot create social justice here by killing people of color over there.
Have always questioned what you stood for brad, now I know – self promotion.
But then that’s why its “brad blog, brad show,” etc…
Its really all about you.
Please think of the blood and bones of dead children when you celebrated the bone obama threw you.
Happy Holidays – but please remember the hundreds of thousands of children, women, and civilians that will never celebrate another holiday – even if they wouldn’t have celebrated Christmas.
Wow, “weep”, when your intellectual dishonesty gets exposed and handed back to you, you resort to personal attacks?
How pathetic.
You will not find a shred of evidence on this site to show that anyone here disagrees with your statements:
“War is unjust – it is not a path to social justice”
“think of the blood and bones of the innocent dead and wounded, literally hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq alone”
“we cannot create social justice here by killing people of color over there”
“So sick, so sad – how can we get “progressives” to support meaningful efforts to end these wars.”
Clearly you haven’t been paying attention here — you are not the only person in the world who has figured out war is a really, really bad thing, and most certainly are not the only person who has fought/is fighting to end it. So we should dispense discussion of anything, anything at all, unless you approve of it first? Did you even notice the event above was about the book “WAR IS A LIE” and was sponsored by the Progressive Democrats of America? What are you doing to bring about an end to these wars, aside from personally attacking others who are actually doing so, because they don’t do so in exactly the way you would like it to be done?
You can take your self-aggrandizing, self-righteous moralizing and shove it right up your ‘happy holidays’.
Um, Des, I have a feeling “Weep for my Country’s” agenda may be something other than he/she first hoped to indicate. Of course, if he/she is able to demonstrate otherwise, it’s always welcome. Example, it would be nice to see where he/she demonstrates that standing for the progressive (and Constitutional) right of equal justice for all, even in the military, is someone counter to the social justice he/she claims to be concerned about.
But rather than seeing any such evidence here, I suspect we’ll just get more of his/her’s absurd conflation of two entirely different ideas, and shit flung at me out of the blue rather than any kind of serious, coherent argument. I suspect it’s a(rather transparent and, frankly, pretty pathetic) hope of trying to discredit progressives somehow that’s actually at work in the pseudonymous “Weep for my Country’s” silly narrative here, in truth.