War Is a Lie, a book by Humanist contributor David Swanson, attempts to comprehensively refute all of the rationales offered for war.
“War is not a mysterious part of a divine plan nor is it an unavoidable manifestation of human nature,” writes Swanson.
“It’s the reason you have financial worries. It is very likely going to destroy our economy if it doesn’t destroy our environment first, although it may more quickly destroy our representative government -- but possibly not before it kills us all through blowback or weapons proliferation.”
“It’s the reason you have financial worries. It is very likely going to destroy our economy if it doesn’t destroy our environment first, although it may more quickly destroy our representative government -- but possibly not before it kills us all through blowback or weapons proliferation.”
The book challenges readers to accept our own culpability in perpetuating the catastrophic human creation that is war. While we would never imagine touting “good slavery” or “just rape,” Americans seem willing to accept the idea of “necessary wars,” thereby supporting a war machine that Swanson says eats over 50 cents of every dollar of income tax.
This must end: “It’s war or humanity. The world isn’t big enough for both.” The following excerpt from Chapter 4, titled “Wars Are Not Unavoidable,” was published in the Humanist.
Chapter 4: Wars Are Not Unavoidable
Wars are given so many glorious and righteous justifications, including the spreading of civilization and democracy around the world, that you wouldn’t think it would be necessary to also claim that each war was unavoidable.
Who would demand that such good deeds be avoided? And yet there has probably never been a war that hasn’t been explained as an absolutely necessary, inevitable, and unavoidable last resort. That this argument always has to be used is a measure of how horrible wars actually are. Like so much else related to war, its unavoidability is a lie, each and every time. War is never the only choice and always the worst one.
But It’s in Our Genes[?]
If war is avoidable, then we can and must eliminate war. And if we can eliminate war, why have no societies done so? The short answer is that they have. But let’s be clear. Even if every human and pre-human society had always had war, that would be no reason why we have to have it too.
Your ancestors may have always eaten meat, but if vegetarianism becomes necessary for survival on this little planet won’t you choose to survive rather than insist that you must do what your ancestors did? Of course you can do what your ancestors did, and in many cases it may be the best thing to do, but you don’t have to. Did they all have religion? Some people no longer do. Was animal sacrifice once central to religion? It isn’t anymore. More
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| We didn't know war was a lie. We thought it was a sport. We're in prison. |
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| Even we know war is a lie. We thought it was obvious (ImagineBooks Publ) |
