World Beyond War: A New Podcast

As the world roils with war from Gaza to Ukraine, organizations built around idealistic foundations are doing great work in every part of the world. In this roundtable chat, Maria Santelli of the Center on Conscience and War talks about her work with conscientious objectors in the US military and in Kyiv, and Kathy Kelly talks about the important Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal which is serving the public with an honest accounting of the crimes of major global military corporations. Musical excerpt: “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore” by Phil Ochs.

Poet, teacher, mother, grandmother and pacifist Judih Weinstein Haggai has been missing since the attack on her kibbutz near Gaza on October 7, 2023. Her two friends Anemone Achtnich in Germany and Marc Eliot Stein in New York City talk about Judih’s life and her ideals, and express their hope for a safe return of all hostages, and for ceasefire, peace, diplomacy, negotiation, compromise and eventual healing between the people of Israel and Palestine and Gaza and many other tragic war zones around the world.

Mohammed Abunahel, World Beyond War's researcher and expert on military bases, tells Marc Eliot Stein the incredible story of the efforts he had to go through to gain a higher education and build a meaningful life with his family from his beginnings in Gaza City. Music: "Dammi Falestani" by Mohammed Assaf.

Randy Janzen and Rachelle Friesen join Rachel Small and Marc Eliot Stein to talk about unarmed resistance, a broad nonviolent practice that is being used in war zones all over the world today. Nonviolent resistance is the theme of #NoWar2023, World BEYOND War's upcoming annual virtual gathering of peace activists from all over the world. In this conference preview, we talk about the work of organizations like Unarmed Civilian Protection, Community Peacemaker Teams and Nonviolent Peaceforce who have been quietly discovering new paths and routes to conflict resolution in a meaningful grasp for hope as the world burns. Music: "Hummingbird" by Dinah Thorpe.

What are antiwar activists saying about artificial intelligence? A whole lot. World BEYOND War's technology director Marc Eliot Stein walks through the political, economic, moral and philosophical questions that popular new AI tools like DALL-E and ChatGPT raise. We also talk about Marshall McLuhan, "Oppenheimer" and the history of neural networks. (Music removed.)

Ricardo Antonio Soberon Garrido and Gabriel Aguirre join Marc Eliot Stein for a virtual conversation about the urgent governmental legitimacy crisis in Peru, the problematic rise to power of Dina Boluarte, and USA's plans to exploit the country's crisis, ignore the needs of a diverse population struggling with climate change, and further divide Peru for its own geopolitical advantage with military displays like Resolute Sentinel. Musical excerpt: Dame Pa' Matala.

Educator and peacebuilder Nazir Ahmad Yosufi was born in 1985 in Afghanistan, and has persisted through decades of Soviet war, civil war and US war to devote his life to helping people see a better way. Along with his academic work, he's a marathon runner and environmentalist, and runs World BEYOND War's Afghanistan chapter from Hamburg, Germany. We talk about history, the war economy, the poetry of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rum, the ideas of Carl Jung and much more in this fascinating interview. Musical excerpt: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan based on Rumi.

Joseph Essertier is a peace activist who has lived and organized in Japan for 30 years, and is World BEYOND War’s chapter coordinator in Japan. We talk about Japan’s remilitarization, G7 in Hiroshima, Japan’s military partnership with USA, military bases in Okinawa, and several writers from Natsumi Soseki to Yukio Mishima to Kazuo Ishigoru.

In an impassioned plea for greater public resistance to rotten governments, Marc Eliot Stein talks about an empowering tweet by Caitlin Johnstone, a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, the hopes for a popular move towards decentralized and human-scaled governance, and the urgent need for peaceful revolutionary change in USA and around the world today. (Music removed.)

Edward Horgan began his determined life of peacekeeping as a member of the Irish Defense Forces, serving with the United Nations in conflict zones in Cyprus, the Sinai peninsula and the Middle East. Today, he works to recognize the names of war victims at Naming the Children, and was recently arrested and tried for protesting US military aircraft at Shannon Airport near Limerick, Ireland. Meet Edward Horgan, an antiwar activist giving it all he's got. Musical excerpts: "Working on a World" by Iris Dement, "Wooden Ships" by Crosby Stills Nash and Young.

David Hartsough began his amazing life of determined activism as a teenager joining the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama alongside Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy, and kept up the struggle through more than 50 years of protest, organized resistance and nights in jail. The author of "Waging Peace" was also the co-founder of World BEYOND War in January 2014, and he joins us for a wide-ranging interview in January 2023.

Montreal-based activist and student organizer Maya Garfinkel spent 2022 working with World BEYOND War while completing her college degree at McGill University. As they prepare for the next steps in a life dedicated to the struggle against war, exploitation, extractivism and injustice, Maya spoke to Marc Eliot Stein about Canada's expanding militarism, Montreal's activist culture, protesting for climate justice alongside indigenous nations, queer identity and how the Jewish faith and heritage has informed her own awareness of social justice. Song excerpts: "The War Racket" by Buffy Sainte-Marie and "Train Comes Through" by Ezra Furman.

Antiwar activist John Reuwer joined a peace mission in Romania in 2022 with the goal of organizing nonviolent resistance to the raging war that began in February of this year. Visiting refugees outside Ukraine and working with pacifists in Kyiv and elsewhere, John found the best hope for healing in the cooperative movement to prevent nuclear meltdown in Zaporizhzhia. An extensive interview about a month in war-ravaged Europe with podcast host Marc Eliot Stein.

Did you know that Colombia has a truth commission working in rural areas to heal the proud country after 75 years of brutal civil war? This truth commission is only one of many far ranging topics we talk about with Maria Antonia Perez, a visual artist, graphic designer and peace activist in Medellin, Colombia who worked for humanitarian causes from Sri Lanka to Cambodia to Haiti before returning to her home country.

Robert Fantina’s new book “Settler-Colonialism in Palestine and Kashmir” breaks down the massive human rights violations in two regions where populations are manipulated to remove people from their longtime homes, or to make life unlivable in their homes. Marc Eliot Stein talks to Robert Fantina about Kashmir’s unique crisis, about Hindutva and Modi, and about his beginnings as a peace activist. (Music removed.)

At the age of 16, Hungarian-born Timi Barabas heard a song that inspired her to become an activist. Today, at the age of 20, she has founded organizations for climate awareness, anti-bullying, suicide prevention and poverty relief, and with her team at Rise For Lives led a large protest in New Zealand to raise awareness of the war in Yemen. We caught up with this amazing and unstoppable youth leader in New York City where she is working to find and discuss possible solutions for the war in Ukraine.

Podcast host Marc Eliot Stein talks about his path to antiwar activism, the Holocaust, his grandmother’s family and the awareness of generational collective trauma that eventually led him to work for a global grassroots peace organization. Also featuring Marc’s blog post welcoming songwriter/activist Roger Waters to a webinar in August 2022 and discussing the deep connections to social justice activism in Pink Floyd's long musical legacy.

Medea Benjamin is one of the most dynamic and dedicated antiwar activists in the world today. In this interview with World BEYOND War's Marc Eliot Stein, Medea talks about recent progressive wins in Colombia and all over Latin America, the tragedy of the brutal but profitable proxy war in Ukraine and the many ways peacebuilders and hardworking organizations are keeping the international struggle for a livable, humane planet alive. Musical excerpt: Emma's Revolution.

Alison Broinowski is an author, diplomat and global peace activist with an amazing career calling attention to the corruption and dysfunction motivating Australia's past military leadership. This month, in May 2022, Alison is bringing good news to the world as Australia mobilizes woman power to turn an election. Alison talks about this and more - including Australia's risky brinksmanship against China - in a freewheeling conversation with Marc Eliot Stein. Also featuring Greta Zarro with a preview of this year's upcoming World BEYOND War conference #NoWar2022.

Stakes are high for activists and advocates for a humane world to catch on to the shockingly rapid pace of change in the field of advanced technology. What is blockchain, and how can it help protect our freedom of speech? How do we monitor military spending in an age when bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies defy monitoring? What about artificial intelligence and cloud computing in the hands of monopolistic, US-centric tech giants? And is the world’s cooperative open source software community staying healthy through all these paradigm shifts? Tech innovator and artist Robert Douglass joins Marc Eliot Stein for an in-depth discussion of futuristic topics that are already changing the landscape of progressive activist movements.