The State -------------------------------------------------------------------- Sections (TOC) : ---------------------------------- * 1 26 Words; 170 Characters * 2 29 Words; 176 Characters * 3 73 Words; 410 Characters * 4 9 Words; 61 Characters * 5 46 Words; 288 Characters * 6 22 Words; 124 Characters * 7 24 Words; 158 Characters * 8 27 Words; 143 Characters * 9 45 Words; 254 Characters * 10 18 Words; 124 Characters * 11 28 Words; 185 Characters * 12 11 Words; 113 Characters * 13 133 Words; 763 Characters * 14 9 Words; 60 Characters * 15 47 Words; 244 Characters * 16 47 Words; 273 Characters * 17 31 Words; 186 Characters * 18 73 Words; 428 Characters * 19 75 Words; 480 Characters * 20 34 Words; 237 Characters * 21 105 Words; 595 Characters Sections (Content) : ---------------------------------- * 1 [Anonymous Anti-War Poster Floating from a balloon before being shot down] Crazy people, shall we always throttle each other for the pleasure and pride of kings? * 2 [Anonymous American: ] ...our country has no enemies save the Superior Class, that pretends to look out for our interests if we will only obey and consent to be taxed. * 3 Every State, whether it is of a federative or a non-federative character, must seek, under the penalty of utter ruin, to become the most powerful of States. It has to devour others in order not to be devoured in turn, to conquer in order not to be conquered, to enthralled in order not to be enslaved -- for two similar and at the same time alien powers, cannot co-exist without destroying each other. * 4 Perpetual War Is the Price of the State's Existence. * 5 Every state, federated or not, would therefore seek to become the most powerful. It must devour lest it be devoured, conquer lest it be conquered, enthralled lest it be enslaved, since two powers, similar and yet alien to each other, could not coexist without mutual destruction. * 6 Point me to a place where men openly slaughter one another and I will show you a government behind all the carnage. * 7 ...that is what States infallibly and calamitously are, huge aggregations of human and industrial force that may be hurled against each other in war. * 8 It is States that make wars and not nations, and the very thought and almost necessity of war is bound up with the ideal of the State. * 9 We cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State. And we cannot expect, or take measures to ensure, that this war is a war to end war, unless at the same time we take measures to end the State in its traditional form. * 10 ...the warlike and turbulent spirit of its inhabitants seems to require the bridle of despotism and military force. * 11 'The Empire is Peace,' he [Louis-Napoleon] promised as he came to power, but within two years Frenchmen were dying on the Alma. [Chapter 2: Empire in Decline, Page 30.] * 12 ...wars themselves are euphemized as police actions, counterinsurgencies, and nation-building exercises. * 13 I am absolutely opposed to the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam. Not only is it an unjustifiable interference hypocritically carried on in the name of "freedom" while in fact its purpose is to further the strategic ends of a government whose enormous power has destroyed the morality of its members; but it is being waged by means of atrocities.... Violence always breeds more violence and is never a solution even when it temporarily seems so. Violence of this magnitude, even if the ultimate holocaust it is swiftly leading to is averted -- i.e., if we at least stop in time to avoid a still larger war -- promises a dreadful future for America, full of people tortured and distorted with the knowledge (conscious or unconscious) of what we have done. * 14 War is by its very nature and essence totalitarian. * 15 I had thought earlier in the night that you can't run when you are sodden from head to foot and weighted down with a rifle and cartridges; I learned now you can always run when you think you have fifty or a hundred armed men after you. * 16 If, today, it depended on us to choose between revolution at the cost of a war and the perpetuation of Fascism with the blessings of peace, we would not hesitate. But this alternative does not exist. Fascism, not anti-Fascism, is the cause of the failure of peace. * 17 War then is a relation, not between man and man, but between State and State, and individuals are enemies only accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens, but as soldiers... * 18 The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. * 19 Governments, to have a reason for existing, must defend their people from other people's attack. But not one people wishes to attack, or does attack, another. And therefore Governments, far from wishing for peace, carefully excite the anger of other nations against themselves. And having excited other people's anger against themselves, and stirred up the patriotism of their own people, each Government then assures its people that it is in danger and must be defended. * 20 If, in former times, Governments were necessary to defend their people from other people's attacks, now, on the contrary, Governments artificially disturb the peace that exists between the nations, and provoke enmity among them. * 21 That nations should not be oppressed, and that there should be none of these useless wars, and that men may not be indignant with those who seem to cause these evils, and may not kill them -- it seems that only a very small thing is necessary. It is necessary that men should understand things as they are, should call them by their right names, and should know that an army is an instrument for killing, and that the enrollment and management of an army -- the very things which Kings, Emperors, and Presidents occupy themselves with so self-confidently -- is a preparation for murder. Events : ---------------------------------- The State -- Added : April 09, 2020 About This Textfile : ---------------------------------- Text file generated from : http://RevoltSource.com/