Elvis Mitchell Quotes

During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism—how passionately I hate them!

I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were 'German dogs.' They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds.

At the bottom of all patriotism there is war: that is why I am no patriot.

The most important thing in our war preparations is to teach all our people to hate U.S. imperialism. Otherwise, we will not be able to defeat the U.S. imperialists who boast of their technological superiority.

Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly.

It has too often been too easy for rulers and governments to incite man to war.

I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The 'dazzling royals' have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press.

I don't like war. I particularly don't like the celebration of war, which I think the administration is a little bit guilty of.

Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.

When one nation is at war with another nation, the political machine does everything it can to vilify the people of the other nation, so it makes it easier to kill them. Which is understandable and it's happened this way throughout history.

In the Middle East, a nation whose youngsters are not willing to kill and get killed for it is a nation on borrowed time. It will not last long.

I can hardly repress our press and our people too. They are thirsting for war against England.

You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. That's their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead.

It is absurd to believe in the possibility of perpetual peace...Fascist education must be education for battle. Fascism believes in sanctity and heroism.

… once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.

All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.

To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the ass.

I think Afghanistan has turned into the Vietnam of my generation, only with a better homecoming.

To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, "Our Country, right or wrong," and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?

The pamphlet was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.

Nationalism and patriotism are the two most evil forces that I know of in this century or in any century and cause more wars and more death and more destruction to the soul and to human life than anything else.

Patriotism is nationalism, and always leads to war.

I think in America, especially today, our relationship to war is incredible distant. Yet narratives of war have such a primal power in this culture. They mainline directly into a whole series of emotional reactions and understandings of American patriotism, masculinity, and all of these other things.

Thomas Jefferson once said: 'Of course the people don't want war. But the people can be brought to the bidding of their leader. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for somehow a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.' I think that was Jefferson. Oh wait. That was Hermann Goering. Shoot." [Hosting the Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence at the New York Waldorf-Astoria, June 6, 2006]