Louis Francis Budenz Quotes

The unvarnished truth is that we have spent the last decade funding the machinery of war, and our children have been sacrificed.

Mere opposition to foreign war rarely injured public men, except while the war-fever lasted …. But opposition became unpardonable when it took a form which could have no apparent objective except national ruin.

It’s very easy to advocate going to war if you’re not one of the people who is going.

You think you are dying for your country; you die for the industrialists.

In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords ... to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles…. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose.

American boys should not be seen dying on the nightly news

I don't think I'm against all wars, but you'd have to have a damn good reason to send your son or daughter to fight, or to go yourself. So often, we are lied to and manipulated by our governments for their own very cynical reasons.

I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.

I was 20 years old when, despite mass protests against military action, Iraq was invaded in 2003 - it didn't make for motivated political participation, I can tell you.

And it says something about our level of disassociation, that we can provoke these wars abroad but we're not allowed to see people get killed as a result.

I want to tell you that I think this war is a great mistake.

To be deeply committed to negotiations, to be opposed to a particular war or military action, is not only considered unpatriotic, it also casts serious doubt on one's manhood.

No one should let the draft registration figures cause him to believe that the war is becoming popular ... They registered because the law makes it a crime not to register. ... Why should we permit our boys to be killed and maimed by the hundreds of thousands to protect the British commercial interest or because English profiteers make money out of this war?

With the coming of peace, the workers are no longer needed as soldiers; they are no longer comrades, defenders of the fatherland, heroes. Once more they become beasts of burden, objects of exploitation.

I am fed up with war and the clamor for war.

The century that just ended was the bloodiest ever recorded. Enormous sacrifices were required of our youth to preserve our free way of life. But because they were willing to make those sacrifices, our survival as a nation and as a free people is no longer threatened. Democracy and private enterprise, though not without their faults, have prevailed over the collectivist ideologies that threatened us with destruction.

There is now all this patriotic indignation about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Japanese expansionism in Asia. Yet not a word about American and European expansionism in the same area.... We must make a start. We must renounce war as an instrument of policy.... Even as I speak to you I may be guilty of what some men call treason.... You young men should refuse to take up arms. Young women tear down the patriotic posters. And all of you — young and old — put away your flags.

We refuse to fight another balance-of-power war.

Nations want the United States to fight their wars, until they go bad.

I think that my darkest moment was the Iraq war and the fact that we could not stop it.

War is just a racket... I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.

I want young people to be hesitant to glorify war and to demand of their leaders justification for the sacrifices they ask of our citizens.

When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die.

Governments go to war directly or by proxy without declaring war. Force, or threat of force, are constantly used to dominate other countries.

In July of 2004, I came out strongly against the war with Iraq because it was going to destabilize the Middle East.