Anti War Activists

"We can take Jesus seriously and strive earnestly to follow him, or we can prepare to wage atomic war, but it is utterly impossible to do both at the same time."

"Faith in armed might paralyzes international action."

"War is waged by governmental action and war can be prevented only by actions of governments. This means that individuals must act as citizens and influence the behavior of governments if they are to be effective in preventing war."

"If certain types and degrees of compulsion represent true expressions of brotherly affection, coercion may ennoble personality. If the killing of a brother is an act which in its very essence is alien to and destructive of the family bond, then it is ethically unjustifiable."

"Mutual aid is the way to prevent the third world war. Mutual aid is also the way to stop the internal growth of Communism by providing our people with plenty, security and freedom."

"It is impossible to use an atomic bomb here to defend the population of our own city. Likewise we cannot use our bacterial weapons here in our own country. These weapons of annihilation must be used offensively. And against their use no effective defense is possible."

"If the race of armaments continues it will lead to the third world war and to the destruction of our civilization."

"The case against defensive killing is cumulative and overwhelming."

"Professor Toynbee reminds us that sixteen civilizations have already been destroyed and that nine others are mortally sick and destined to go the way of the preceding sixteen. This just leaves one, our own civilization. And it is highly vulnerable because it is a machine civilization, it is a city civilization, and this generation has power to smash the machine and demolish the city."

"Preparedness to use the weapons of war creates the tempers, the quarrels and the crises which lead to the outbreak of war."

"To depend upon mutual aid is right. It is better to run the risks of doing right."

"In the Baruch proposal our government suggested the creation of the International Authority by the United Nations to which would be given a complete monopoly of all atomic installations, materials and stockpiles. This authority should be given power of inspection and power to call for the punishment of violators."

"We Christians should urge our government to destroy all its atomic bombs, stop making any additional ones, and stop all preparations to wage war with biological weapons. Such actions would... place our government in an advantageous position to plead with all other nations to join with us in an international treaty of disarmament by as rapid stages as possible."

"Instead of spending our money on preparedness to fight, we should pour out billions in a common effort to solve common problems around the earth... on the scale of present preparations for total war. ...This vast sum should be spent on food, clothing, shelter, medicine, seed, fertilizer, livestock, machinery, tools and other requirements of efficient production and distribution. ...Instead of spending billions on preparedness to wage war with pestilence, vast sums should be spent on health measures and the eradication of plague from the face of the earth."

"Pacific revolution in America will not be wrought by men who are afraid of losing influence, position, and income. Building a new world is the most perilous form of pioneering, and the most glorious victories of religion have ever been won in hours of fiercest danger. And so it will be in our day."

"Mussolini and Hitler and Stalin all take it for granted that the faithful will if necessary lay down life itself in the holy cause."

"These mighty weapons of explosion and fire are already obsolete, and the improved weapons of today will be dwarfed by the monstrous weapons of tomorrow."

"The race of armaments is nothing less than a race to mutual suicide."

"It is no longer possible to place a halo around war and speak of it in idealistic terms."

"The prevailing anarchy in production could quickly be replaced by scientific utilization of national equipment if the basic industries were transferred from private to public ownership and if all other industries were subjected to drastic public regulation. And this procedure offers the only possible escape from the industrial chaos of the competitive struggle, on the one hand, and from the calamitous exploitation of the people by semi-monopolistic private industry, on the other."

"The way of disarmament and of mutual aid and of international cooperation is a highly dangerous way. It is not safe. But it is safer, safer than the race of armaments and the third world war."

"Through every legitimate educational procedure the truth must be driven home to the masses of people that the race of armaments is not a means of defense but a race to mutual suicide."

"War is method. War is atrocity. War is wholesale falsehood. War is the practice of military necessity. War is the utter denial of the spirit and example of Jesus."

"The truth of the matter is that, even under individualism, only a small fraction of the population is impelled chiefly by the profit motive, and that vast multitudes of men and women are motivated by other incentives than by the desire for profit. ...nevertheless, they are strategic individuals whose activities are essential to efficiency in industry."

"War is not high ideals. War is not noble objectives. War is not gallant heroism. War is not sacrificial devotion."

"Should a patriot, in an endeavor to defend his country and to preserve high values, be willing to perpetrate atrocities upon women and children of other lands, accept the doctrine that the end justifies the means, follow the practice of military necessity, inflame passions through distortion and falsehood, bow down before a god of war, and forsake the way of Jesus?"

"The premise is debatable that the perpetration of atrocities is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the poisoning of the public mind with distortion and falsehood designed to inflame passions is sometimes a patriot's duty; that the banishment of a loving Father of all men and the bowing down before a god of war is sometimes a patriot's duty. But if these be obligations resting upon patriots, let them be claimed as such in plain unvarnished language."

"A deep fog of obscurity is thrown about war by the use of misleading and confusing terms."

"An infant crying in the crib can better appreciate the character of its mother than we can fathom the full nature of God."

"If a considerable proportion of the present generation is to achieve individuality it must travel the road of collectivism."

"Atrocity supplants compassion and mercy. Mutual forbearance and mutual forgiveness are suppressed as treason. The overcoming of evil by doing good is looked upon as impracticable and dangerous to national welfare. The war method has no place in it for the spirit and practices of Jesus."

"Imperialist war arises not merely because of bitter economic competition among industrialists and financiers of various nations, but because of the dominance of government by powerful vested interests who use the armed forces of the nation to increase their private gains in other lands. To the degree that the power of these groups is broken by socialization and equalization of economic privilege, the likelihood of war is thereby reduced."

"The United States not only helped to encircle Germany with a strangle-hold but continued to maintain that starvation blockade for more than seven months after the Armistice, on the ground that if the blockade were lifted Germany might refuse to accept the peace treaty. No sane American desired to prolong the process of starving German women and children; this atrocity was continued because it was considered necessary. No idea is more inextricably interwoven into war than the doctrine of military necessity."

"Continued adherence to the doctrine of military necessity will lead to mutual suicide."

"The totalitarian nature of modern war renders invalid the distinction between combatants and non-combatants."

"If rugged individualists would throw away the right to fight for special privilege and would cooperate in a collective endeavor to secure plenty for everybody, they would have time, energy, and desire to explore higher pathways of living."

"The war method substitutes the doctrine of necessity for ethical ideals. ...That is right which contributes to victory; that is wrong which magnifies the threat of defeat."

"Verily, civilized patriots strain gnats and swallow camels!"

"The war method includes falsehood as an integral part. Truth is indeed a casualty of war."

"My own conviction is that if the transfer cannot be made without civil war, it cannot be made at all, and that there is a reasonable probability that, if the government is supported by a considerable majority of citizens and if it is re-enforced by a powerful labor movement and cooperative movement, the change may be brought about without armed resistance from the owning class. The program that I have outlined is, of course, that of the Socialist Party of America, although not all Socialists will agree with everything that I have written."

"Self-centeredness is death. Centeredness in God and in his people brings life."

"The truth must be driven home that it is sinful to prepare to annihilate millions of God's children in other lands."

"The day I joined this Israeli and Arabs youth movement, my life began to get complicated. Suddenly it was no longer black and white."

"The people in Israel are preoccupied, seeing how in other countries people live normal and peaceful lives. This reinforces the desire to end the conflict."

"You may say that I am too optimistic... You might be right. I have said that the peaceful activities are indeed a minority, but what should I tell you? The negative side you know already."

"It is most peculiar. The very Tories who most dislike what has happened to Britain in the last half-century or so — permissiveness, etc — are the very ones who most want to preserve the independence of the nation state responsible for doing all the damage. At any rate that is the impression one gets from a new book entitled The Abolition of Britain (Quartet Books) by that redoubtable Tory nationalist, Peter Hitchens. For, after eloquently telling the tale of how successive British parliamentary governments, Tory as much as Labour. have 'abolished' old Britain, he reaches the wholly illogical conclusion that that same British democracy alone is quite capable of putting the clock back. If only it were."

"The funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965 turned out to be the burial of the British Empire. The funeral of Queen Elizabeth next week will probably be the obsequies of the United Kingdom."

"I'll be accused...of defending "Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor", as we must now call him, in French-Revolutionary style, as I think Marie Antoinette ended up being called "The Widow Capet" in the same fashion."

"To him [Hitchens] "over-use of private cars" is "crazed", rehousing of slum dwellers "deportation", defence spending cuts "pitiless" employment of women "conscription", anti-gun laws "demented", the Plowden report on education simultaneously "tragic", "nauseating" and "drivel". This is Paul Johnson without the sense of humour. ... Again, I am ready to offer a small prize (say, a copy — indeed my copy — of this book) to anyone who can explain what Hitchens means in asserting that "Abolishing the Greater London Council created the precedent for abolishing the House of Lords"; or how "our monarchy" was "robbed of much of its role by the Tory decision to elect party leaders". ... When I finished reading this book, I thought I had better have a bracing cold shower. However, it then occurred to me that the whole thing might be a sustained spoof. If so, I have to admit that, although it goes on a bit, it is very effective."

"It is a fantasy to believe that you punish politicians by throwing them out of office. It is when they leave office that they start making the real money."