11 quotes
Fascism is a leftist product—a corrupt and diseased offshoot of leftist agitation.
As We Go Marching (1944)
Imperialism is an institution under which one nation asserts the right to seize the land or at least to control the government or resources of another people. It is an assertion of stark, bold aggression.
As We Go Marching (1944)
Military men, when confronted with the mutterings of disaffected taxpayers, always pointed out how good these government military expenditures were for business.
As We Go Marching (1944)
Political leaders, embarrassed by their subsidies to the poor, soon learned that one of the easiest ways to spend money is on military establishments and armaments, because it commands the support of the groups most opposed to spending.
As We Go Marching (1944)
The so-called Christian virtues of humility, love, charity, personal freedom, the strong prohibitions against violence, murder, stealing, lying, cruelty—all these are washed away by war. The greatest hero is the one who kills the most people. Glamorous exploits in successful lying and mass stealing and heroic vengeance are rewarded with decorations and public acclaim.
As We Go Marching (1944)
But when the socialist and, even more, the syndicalist, began to propose his nostrums as medicine for the capitalist system, there appeared a diseased and corrupted form of socialism which found its neophytes in the oddest quarters.
As We Go Marching (1944)
The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine, and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilize savage and senile and paranoidal peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines.
As We Go Marching (1944)
It is born in crisis, lives on crisis, and cannot survive the era of crisis. By the very law of its nature it must create for itself, if it is to continue, fresh crisis from year to year. Mussolini came to power in the postwar crisis and became himself a crisis in Italian life. . . . Hitler's story is the same. And our future is all charted out upon the same turbulent road of permanent crisis.
As We Go Marching (1944)
Probably one of the most completely misunderstood of all modern institutions is militarism. While military organizations take their origin in man's lust for war, militarism is something more than a mere war machine. By militarism I mean that institution in which the nation maintains large national armies and navies in time of peace, usually raised on the principle of conscription.
As We Go Marching (1944)
The old socialists had argued for the taking over of the instruments of production by the state which would manage them for the benefit of the people. Sorel saw in this an evil worse than capitalism. It was, in fact, state capitalism or statism. The tools of industry should be owned, not by the state, but by the workers.
As We Go Marching (1944)
When the fountains of government abundance began to dry up, when through lack of funds and the impossibility of negotiating fresh loans the state was forced to check the extension of bureaucracy and to put a stop to [Public works |public works]], then and then only did the Italians realize what it meant to have allowed themselves to be made one of the most heavily taxed nations in the world.
As We Go Marching (1944)