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Quote by Howard Zinn

“If you join a fight for social justice you may win or lose, but just by being part of the struggle, you win, and your life will be better for it.”

Quote by Howard Zinn

Author

American historian known for his critical analysis of historical events and advocacy for social justice. His work emphasizes the connection between history and contemporary social issues, particularly focusing on the role of ordinary people in the historical process. more

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“Bourgeois patriotism, as I view it, is only a very shabby, very narrow, very mercenary, and deeply antihuman passion, having for its object the preservation and maintenance of the power of the national state-that is, the mainstay of all the priveleges of the exploiters throughout the nation.”

War States Passion Nations Views Objects Anti War Preservation Bourgeois Maintenance Shabby Mercenary

Author:Mikhail Bakunin

“The man who can face vilification and disgrace, who can stand up against the popular current, even against his friends and his country when he know he is right, who can defy those in authority over him, who can take punishment and prison and remain steadfast-that is a man of courage. The fellow whom you taunt as a 'slacker' because he refuses to turn murderer-he needs courage. But do you need much courage just to obey orders, to do as you are told and to fall in line with thousands of others to the tune of general approval and the Star Spangled Banner?”

Source: Now and After: the ABC of Anarchist Communism

“War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood. It degrades and stupefies with the sense that you are not responsible, that 'tis not yours to think and reason why, but to do and die,' like the hundred thousand others doomed like yourself. War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder.”

Source: Now and After: the ABC of Anarchist Communism

“Every patriot believes his country better than any other country . . . In its active manifestation-it is fond of killing-patriotism would be well enough if it were simply defensive, but it is also aggressive . . . Patriotism deliberately and with folly aforethought subordinates the interests of a whole to the interests of a part . . . Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave and blind as a stone.”

Ifs Believe Wells War Country Enough Whole Would Be Interest Stones Blind Killing Active Graves Manifestation Folly Aggressive Anti War Fierce Other Countries Patriot Fever Subordinates

Author:Ambrose Bierce

“In your reaction to an imagined attack on your country or an insult to its government, you draw closer to the herd for protection, you conform in word and deed, and you insist vehemently that everybody else shall think, speak, and act together. And you fix your adoring gaze upon the State, with a truly filial look, as upon the Father of the flock.”

Thinking Looks War Country States Government Together Father Speak Draws Deeds Protection Reactions Insult Anti War Conform Herds Flocks Filial

Author:Randolph Bourne

“These stupid peasants, who, throughout the world, hold potentates on their thrones, make statesmen illustrious, provide generals with lasting victories, all with ignorance, indifference, or half-witted hatred, moving the world with the strength of their arms, and getting their heads knocked together in the name of God, the king, or the stock exchange-immortal, dreaming, hopeless asses, who surrender their reason to the care of a shining puppet, and persuade some toy to carry their lives in his purse.”

Source: The Works of Stephen Crane Vol. 5: Tales of Adventure

“The lowest standards of ethics of which a right-thinking man can possibly conceive is taught to the common soldier whose trade is to shoot his fellow men. In youth he may have learned the command, 'Thou shalt not kill,' but the ruler takes the boy just as he enters manhood and teaches him that his highest duty is to shoot a bullet through his neighbor's heart - and this, unmoved by passion or feeling or hatred, and without the least regard to right or wrong, but simply because his ruler gives the word.”

“No matter what the cause, even though it be to conquer with tanks and planes and modern artillery some defenseless black population, there will be no lack of poets and preachers and essayists and philosophers to invent the necessary reasons and gild the infamy with righteousness. To this righteousness there is, of course, never an adequate reply. Thus a war to end poverty becomes an unanswerable enterprise. For who can decently be for poverty? To even debate whether the war will end poverty becomes an exhibition of ugly pragmatism and the sign of an ignoble mind.”

Source: As We Go Marching

“You will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or not merit of their own to depend on . . .”

Littles War Depends Merit Anti War Boast

Book:The Works of Oliver Goldsmith: The bee. Essays. Unacknowledged essays. Prefaces, introductions, etc

Source: The Works of Oliver Goldsmith: The bee. Essays. Unacknowledged essays. Prefaces, introductions, etc

“The working masses of men and women, they and they alone, are responsible for everything that takes place, the good things and the bad things. True enough, they suffer most from a war, but it is their apathy, craving for authority, etc., that is most responsible for making wars possible. It follows of necessity from this responsibility that the working masses of men and women, they and they alone, are capable of establishing lasting peace.”

Men War Enough Suffering Responsibility Authority Mass Capable Men And Women Responsible Good Things Etc Lasting Bad Things Anti War Apathy Craving

Author:Wilhelm Reich