World Beyond War: A New Podcast

Roger Waters and Ralph Nader speak at World Beyond War's 2025 War Abolisher Awards joined by Bob Fantina, David Swanson, Ed Horgan and Hanieh Jodat speaking about Francesca Albanese

It’s more clear than ever that outdated concepts of governance are failing the people, with horrifying results. Let’s embrace a new concept of anationality (which rejects nationalism as atheism rejects religion) and search for a more humane ethics of attention, empathy and unselfing, such as can be found in the philosophy of Iris Murdoch.

We talk to CODEPINK's National Co-Director Danaka Katovich about recent events including a drone attack on the Freedom Flotilla for Gaza in the Mediterranean Sea and slanderous attacks on peace activists by corrupt US Senators opposed to CODEPINK's "China Is Not Our Enemy" campaign. Musical excerpt: "Sirens of Titan" by Al Stewart.

How do we even speak about genocide and apartheid in Gaza and Palestine? Words are not enough, and are too often a substitute for action. Three members of World BEYOND War's global community, Mohammed Abunahel, Maria Santelli and Marc Eliot Stein converge to share our frustration and agony and hear an update from Mohammed about his family which has been living under violent seige in Gaza for the past year and a half.

We live in revolutionary times, whether we're ready or not. Marc Eliot Stein urges peace activists around the world to find common ground and act decisively against the rising toxicity of the international war machine. We talk about South Africa, Ireland, Mikhail Gorbachev and the shocking arrest of student protestors all over the USA in March 2025. Musical excerpt: "Broken English" by Marianne Faithfull.

Brian Terrell speaks about the Global Day of Action to Close Bases, his life of protest and his upcoming imprisonment in Germany.

Nigerian peace studies professor and writer Oseremen Irene talks to Marc Eliot Stein about antiwar movements, structural violence, wealth inequality and leadership challenges facing the world in 2025.

Let's take a fresh look at how peace movements are changing to keep up with fast-evolving cultural trends. Online communities provide one useful model of peaceful coexistence that people intuitively and immediately understand. World BEYOND War's technology director Marc Eliot Stein proposes a new approach to the pursuit of world peace inspired by the decentralized, peer-to-peer methods of emerging communities.

Marc Eliot Stein urges the antiwar movement to avoid complacency, dare to imagine positive sudden societal change, and answer three difficult questions about border policies, wealth inequality and the concept of national identity.

"Out demons out!" On October 21, 1967, poet, activist, singer and DIY publisher Ed Sanders led an exorcism of the Pentagon in USA's capital city to protest the disaster in Vietnam. Coincidentally on the same day 57 years later, Ed Sanders talks to Marc Eliot Stein from his home in Woodstock about nuclear madness, the deep state, the disasters in Ukraine and Gaza, the absurdities of USA's looming Harris vs. Trump election, and the antiwar inspiration of Allen Ginsberg, Dorothy Day, Phil Ochs, Abbie Hoffman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso. Music: "Dover Beach" by the Fugs.

Moral injury is a trauma that occurs when we are forced to act against our moral values, World BEYOND War’s organizing intern Vanessa Fox tells us. With wars raging from Gaza to Ukraine to Sudan to the US/Mexico border, we are all suffering from moral injury right now. This is one of many topics Vanessa Fox and Marc Eliot Stein wander through in a conversation about religion, flowerness, empowerment and community.

World Beyond War’s annual conference #NoWar2024 takes place in Sydney, Wanfried, Bogata, Washington DC and online next month. Introducing some of our upcoming guests, Marc Eliot Stein talks to Kazuyuki Nakazato and Katsuya Tamaki from the Okinawa Prefectural Government and Lilli Barto, an activist from Wage Peace 2 Disrupt Wars in Australia.

Robert F. Keeler's new book "Sacred Soldier: The Dangers of Worshipping Warriors" is a tough indictment of USA's inane militarism, emphasizing recruitment horrors, rampant sexual abuse and corrupt leadership in today's armed forces. Marc Eliot Stein interviews Keeler about his Catholicism, his pacifism, his award-winning career as a journalist for Newsday, and his own life as a military veteran who refuses to pretend USA's war system deserves respect.

Before becoming technology director at World BEYOND War, podcast host Marc Eliot Stein endured three mind-blowingly bad contract positions with three departments of the federal government in a row during the years of the Obama administration. Here's a personal tale of a strange journey into deep mediocrity at the Department of Labor, Postal Regulatory Commission and the Center for Disease Control, and a harsh look at a capital city still haunted by a legacy of racism.

Podcast host Marc Eliot Stein explores his own past to uncover why he once believed in American exceptionalism and thought it would be a good idea to work for weapons manufacturers, Wall Street banks and media brands like Foreign Policy magazine - all steps on the path to the realization that he doesn't need to support the USA war machine to make a living. A surprising personal tale and a plea for wisdom by our regular podcast host - Part one of two. Musical excerpt: "Dead and Gone" by T.I. and Justin Timberlake

Guy Feugap joined World BEYOND War as a volunteer, founded WBW's Cameroon chapter, and is now our organizer for the entire continent of Africa. Marc Eliot Stein interviews Guy about his beginnings as a peace activist in Cameroon, about working with fellow organizers in Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Burundi, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Togo, Zimbabwe and more, and the outlook for the movement all over Africa and the world. Music: "No To War" by Blaze Weka.

What does the antiwar movement recognize when a bridge collapses in Baltimore? Why have container ships replaced the Titanic as the world’s biggest metaphor, and what does the new "BDS the US" movement think we should do about it? We dive into all of these questions, plus a poem from Rainer Maria Rilke, as World BEYOND War’s technology director Marc Eliot Stein ponders various big questions.

Crystal Zevon travelled from Vermont to Washington DC to join protestors from Code Pink and elsewhere in confronting cowering politicians and diplomats in Washington DC about Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza. We talked to Crystal about her unique life story, including her marriage to late singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, her past struggle with alcoholism, the meaning of forgiveness, the reflections of a politically engaged life, and the condition of the antiwar movement in 2024.

This special episode honors World BEYOND War's 10 years of global antiwar organizing and action. Guest host Maria Santelli takes us inside WBW's day-to-day operations as we talk to founder and executive director David Swanson, education director Phil Gittins, technology director Marc Eliot Stein, Latin America organizer Gabriel Aguirre, Canada organizer Rachel Small, and Africa organizer Guy Feugap. End music: "Cyclone/Candles in the Rain" by Melanie.

Two and a half months of brutal and senseless slaughter in Gaza have shattered souls all over the world. This month’s episode of the World BEYOND War podcast is a free-flowing, no-agenda conversation between Jamelah Vincent, a Yemeni-American in Michigan, and Marc Eliot Stein, our Jewish-American host in New York. We talk about social media, cognitive dissonance, rampant ethnic prejudices in our own troubled country, Martin Luther King, how islamophobia and antisemitism are exploited by war profiteers, and finally about our mutual lost friend Judih Weinstein Haggai, who stands today as a symbol of peace-loving humanity destroyed by inhumane war. Music excerpt: "Blackbird" by Sarah McLachlan.