Skip to content

militarism

Protesters Gather Outside Brunswick, Maine Air Show

Brunswick, Maine — The Great State of Maine Air Show is marketed as a weekend-long event of planes swooping through the sky with incredible aerial performances to leave the community in awe. However, groups standing outside the show on Saturday had a different message to send about its intentions. The Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights organized a protest to encourage people not to attend the show over questions regarding the ethics of its headlining act: the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. "We object this use of our tax dollars and we object to warplanes as entertainment," Lisa Savage with Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights said.

‘Soldiers! Soldiers! Soldiers!’ The Kindergartners Of Al–Mughayyir

The children of Palestine are striking for their curiosity and fearlessness. Small groups approached whenever I was out walking, often trailing me for several blocks, as they peppered me with questions: “Where are you from?” being the most common. It was generally followed by “How old are you?” I thought the query about my age peculiar and even a bit cheeky until a teacher explained to me that it was among the standard questions they learn when studying English. Inevitably the boldest among them would ask the one question they were most interested in knowing the answer to, especially coming from an American: “Israel or Palestine?”

Thank You To The SXSW Festival For Dumping The US Army

South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It has been growing in size since 1987. The festivals just dumped weapons makers and the U.S. Army out the door: “After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model. As a result, the US Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.” This wonderful development is not just something going right (such an unusual sight, in the words of Paul Simon), and not just somebody doing something right in Texas (I’m certain that it happens all the time, in the words of Lennon/McCartney).

Protesters Block Road To Shannon Airport In Ireland

People flying from Shannon Airport on Sunday afternoon were forced to leave their vehicles and walk the remaining distance to the terminal after protesters blocked the only access route. Gardaí and Airport Police used their vehicles to take passengers and airport staff from the location of the protest on the N19 to the airport building almost 2km away. Organisers described the demonstration as a “major national mobilisation” against the U.S. military’s use of Shannon Airport. Protesters mounted the action to call for an immediate end to U.S. troops and planes passing through the airport.

Australian Conference On Massive War Maneuvers Talisman Sabre

Above photo: Greenleft.org.au. With over 30,000 U.S. and Australian military forces and representatives from 11 other countries conducting in the

Georgia State Students Demand The University Denounce Cop City

We, the Georgia State University Student Coalition Against Policing & Militarism, write this letter to express our solidarity with the Stop Cop City movement. We demand that the university end its sprawling investments in carceral projects, including, but not limited to, Cop City.  The university heavily invests in policing, surveillance, and other forms of state violence that disproportionately impact racially-oppressed students, both historically and in our contemporary time, who comprise most of the school's population. Further, while the institution increases funding for GSU Police Department (GSUPD), which enacts racialized violence against its students, departments face budget cuts that reduce the educational capacity of the university.

Culture-Jamming The War Machine

In the drizzling rain, I yank up the military recruitment sign and throw it into the tall grasses on the side of the road. If anyone asks, I didn’t “destroy” government property. I merely relocated it. Think of me like a windstorm. A peace-loving, nonviolent windstorm countering military recruitment. Who knows how many lives I saved with this simple action? Perhaps it saved the teens that were considering enlisting as they rode the school bus past these signs twice a day. Perhaps it will help some innocent civilians overseas who so often bear the brunt of our nation’s addiction to war. Maybe it will slow down the profiteering warmongering of military industrial complex to realize they can’t count on enlistment rates. The military recruitment sign was one of two shoved into the sides of the main road in my rural community.

The Death Of A Capable Revisionist

Last night some man with a self build gun killed the former prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe. Adhering to family tradition Shinzo Abe has been an Japanese imperialist. As Peter Lee wrote about him back in 2013: Myth: Shinzo Abe is a leading member of the team of world and Asian democracies standing up to China in the name of universal values like “freedom of navigation” and to help ensure the shared peace and prosperity of Asia. Reality: Shinzo Abe is a revisionist nationalist using friction with China to pursue Japanese national interests, put Japan on the right side of a zero-sum economic equation opposite the PRC, maximize Japan’s independence of action as a regional hegemon, hopefully peacefully, but if not...

NU Dissenters: Northwestern Is Complicit In US Militarism

We are Northwestern Dissenters. We are a revived campaign in which previous students laid the foundation for the fight against militarism on campus. Dissenters is a national anti-militarist, anti-imperialist and abolitionist organization leading a generation of young people to take back what has been robbed of us from the war industry, reinvest in life-giving institutions and mend our relationships with the earth. Dissenters is building chapters of young people on college campuses all across Turtle Island that stigmatize militarism and force powerful elites and elected officials to divest from death and invest in life and healing. Militarism has infiltrated the world, but we are the generation who can remedy the harm it has inflicted.

Somehow This Madness Must Cease

It was appropriate today, as we mark the national holiday for Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, to re-read ‘A Time to Break the Silence,’ his most powerful speech, given on April 4, 1967, just a year before his tragic murder in Memphis. It is a speech that stands the test of time; much of it is as relevant today as it was in 1967, when war was raging in Vietnam. I would urge people to read or listen (link above) to that profound and prophetic speech in its entirety. He said, “There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.” With climate catastrophe and nuclear madness moving at a rapid rate towards a potential apocalypse for all humanity, King’s words resonate with, as he said, “the fierce urgency of now.”

The African Lion Is Looking For New Predators

The African Lion, the largest military exercise on the African Continent planned and led by the US Army, has begun. It includes land, air, and naval maneuvers in Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, and adjacent seas – from North Africa to West Africa, from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. 8,000 soldiers are taking part in it, half of them is American with about 200 tanks, self-propelled guns, planes, and warships. African Lion 21 is expected to cost $ 24 million and has implications that make it particularly important. This political move was fundamentally decided in Washington: the African exercise is taking place for the first time in Western Sahara i.e. this year in the territory of the Sahrawi Republic, recognized by over 80 UN States, whose existence Morocco denied and fought against by any means.
AR-15-certified cops store the weapon in their patrol cars. (Sam Gehrke)

How Portland Police Came to Be Armed With Military-Grade Rifles

For two decades, the Portland Police Bureau has armed its officers with AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, the result of a tough-on-crime policy that equipped officers with firearms most people associate more with mass shootings than community policing. In response to a records request from WW, the bureau revealed last week that it owns 238 Colt AR-15 rifles. Today, 168 Portland police officers—about 20% of the force—are trained to operate the semi-automatic weapon, which allows for greater accuracy and the ability to shoot with precision from upward of 100 yards, or about a city block away. That means AR-15 rifle operators outnumber the 146 Portland officers who are certified to respond to mental health crises through the Enhanced Crisis Intervention Team—established following the city’s settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Reclaiming The Radical Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the last years of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rejected duopoly politics and challenged the roots of the crises we face, what he called the triple evils of racism, capitalism and militarism. As many people active in the Civil Rights Movement moved into the Democratic Party, Dr. King taught that the movement must be independent of political parties and be "the conscience" of them. For this, Dr. King was shunned and hated. In this interview from MLK Day in 2015, Kevin Zeese and I spoke with Kymone Freeman, co-founder of We Act Radio in Washington,DC, JasiriX, an activist and artist out of Pittsburgh, PA, and Cat Brooks, an activist in Oakland, CA about the revival of the radical Dr. King and how they are continuing his work in their communities.

Critical Lessons From Dr. Martin Luther King For These Times

This week, we celebrate the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and witness the inauguration of our next president, Joe Biden. This inauguration will be unique, first, for being held during a pandemic and, second, for its heightened security in fear of another attack by Trump supporters. Downtown Washington, DC is normally secured during an inauguration and people must pass through checkpoints to get into the Mall and parade route, but this time is different. There are 25,000 members of the National Guard on duty in the city to protect the President and Members of Congress. But even this does not guarantee security.

Martin Luther King’s Revolutionary Dream Deferred

We kill the most beautiful among us—anyone, it seems, who reveals the nastier, brutish elements of American society and has the audacity to imagine, demand even, a better path: peace, unity and tolerance. Abraham Lincoln, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and so many others. This year marks the 50th anniversary of King’s tragic assassination, and though countless publications will brim with commemorations and retrospectives of this misunderstood icon, most will miss the mark. Long ago co-opted and sanitized by mainstream political figures, the King of memory bears little resemblance to the radical, complex man himself.
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.