|
WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the
oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only
one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are
reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the
people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the
benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few
people make huge fortunes.
|
Every nation has its war
party.
It is not the party of
democracy.
It is the party of
autocracy.
It seeks to dominate
absolutely.
|
|
|
|
All wars come to an end, at least temporarily.
But the authority acquired by the state hangs
on; political power never abdicates.
|
|
|
Of course the people don't want war. Why should some
poor slob on a farm
want to risk his life in a war when the best he can
get out of it is to come back
to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people
don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in
Germany. That is understood.
But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine
the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along,
whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a
communist dictatorship... Voice or
no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked,
and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country
to danger .
FASCISM
(As defined by its Father)
...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but
leaves a sufficient margin of
liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly
harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding
power in
this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone....
...For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the
expansion of the
nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its
opposite a sign of decadence.
…But
empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt
sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the
practical working of the regime, the character of many forces in the State,
and the necessarily severe measures which must be taken against those who
would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement of Italy in the
twentieth century, and would oppose it by recalling the outworn ideology of
the nineteenth century - repudiated wheresoever there has been the courage
to undertake great experiments of social and political transformation; for
never before has the nation stood more in need of authority, of direction
and order.
… If every
age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which
point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time. For if a
doctrine must be a living thing, this is proved by the fact that Fascism
has created a living faith; and that this faith is very powerful in the
minds of men is demonstrated by those who have suffered and died for it.
EDUCATION
Education is a weapon whose effects depend on
who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
|