Monday, August 18, 2008
SEPT 10 - THE JOAD DIARIES (1948)
First, pacifism. Ever since I can remember I had been a pacifist. In the 1914-18 war I was a conscientious objector, and during the twenty years that elapsed between the end of that war, and the beginning of the next, scarcely a week passed in which I did not write an article or make a speech against war, urging in season and out that war was the greatest of evils that could possibly assail a people, and that no injury real, or supposed to the State, no loss of glory, power, prestige, or privilege could weigh in the scale against the brute human suffering, against the outpouring of men's blood and women's tears, that were the price of their retention by war.
The gains of war were at best problematical; its losses were certain.
The gains were to the State, a juggernaut which, in pursuit of its fancied interests, trampled on the lives of its citizens; the losses were to individual men and women.
The gains of war were at best problematical; its losses were certain.
The gains were to the State, a juggernaut which, in pursuit of its fancied interests, trampled on the lives of its citizens; the losses were to individual men and women.
