Antiwar Movement Quotes

Many of the points made by the antiwar movement have been consciously assimilated by the Pentagon and its lawyers and advisers. Precision weaponry is good in itself, but its ability to discriminate is improving and will continue to improve. Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I absolutely refuse to associate myself with anyone who cannot discern the essential night-and-day difference between theocratic fascism and liberal secular democracy, even less do I want to engage with those who are incapable of recognizing the basic moral distinction between premeditated mass murder and unintentional killing. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I can't say I'm surprised: the grassroots antiwar movement keeps turning out to be MoveOn/A.N.S.W.E.R. astroturf. ~ Glenn Reynolds

Police, I learned over the years, are like soldiers, normally good-natured people, but part of a culture of obedience to orders and capable of brutal acts against anyone designated as "the enemy" - in this case, the antiwar movement. ~ Howard Zinn

What I saw in Washington that October were a lot of Americans who were genuinely dismayed by what their country was doing in Vietnam; I also saw a lot of other Americans who were self-righteously attracted to a most childish notion of heroism - namely, their own. They thought that to force a confrontation with soldiers and policemen would not only elevate themselves to the status of heroes; this confrontation, they deluded themselves, would expose the corruption of the political and social system they loftily thought they opposed. These would be the same people who, in later years, would credit the antiwar 'movement' with eventually getting the U.S. armed forces out of Vietnam. That was not what I saw. I saw that the righteousness of many of these demonstrators simply helped to harden the attitudes of those poor fools who supported the war. That is what makes what Ronald Reagan would say - two years later, in 1969 - so ludicrous: that the Vietnam protests were 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy.' What I saw was that the protests did worse than that; they gave aid and comfort to the idiots who endorsed the war - they made that war last longer. That's what I saw. ~ John Irving

The antiwar movement is a wild orgasm of anarchists sweeping across the country like a prairie fire. ~ Richard M. Nixon

My quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented the "Serbian Socialist Party" (actually the national-socialist and expansionist dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic) as the victim. Many of us are proud of having helped organize to prevent the slaughter and deportation of Europe's oldest and largest and most tolerant Muslim minority, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo. But at that time, when they were real, Chomsky wasn't apparently interested in Muslim grievances. He only became a voice for that when the Taliban and Al Qaeda needed to be represented in their turn as the victims of a "silent genocide" in Afghanistan. Let me put it like this, if a supposed scholar takes the Christian-Orthodox side when it is the aggressor, and then switches to taking the "Muslim" side when Muslims commit mass murder, I think that there is something very nasty going on. And yes, I don't think it is exaggerated to describe that nastiness as "anti-American" when the power that stops and punishes both aggressions is the United States. ~ Christopher Hitchens

There was a time in my life when I did a fair bit of work for the tempestuous Lucretia Stewart, then editor of the American Express travel magazine, Departures. Together, we evolved a harmless satire of the slightly driveling style employed by the journalists of tourism. 'Land of Contrasts' was our shorthand for it. ('Jerusalem: an enthralling blend of old and new.' 'South Africa: a harmony in black and white.' 'Belfast, where ancient meets modern.') It was as you can see, no difficult task. I began to notice a few weeks ago that my enemies in the 'peace' movement had decided to borrow from this tattered style book. The mantra, especially in the letters to this newspaper, was: 'Afghanistan, where the world's richest country rains bombs on the world's poorest country.'

Poor fools. They should never have tried to beat me at this game. What about, 'Afghanistan, where the world's most open society confronts the world's most closed one'? 'Where American women pilots kill the men who enslave women.' 'Where the world's most indiscriminate bombers are bombed by the world's most accurate ones.' 'Where the largest number of poor people applaud the bombing of their own regime.' I could go on. (I think number four may need a little work.) But there are some suggested contrasts for the 'doves' to paste into their scrapbook. Incidentally, when they look at their scrapbooks they will be able to re-read themselves saying things like, 'The bombing of Kosovo is driving the Serbs int ~ Christopher Hitchens

The responsibility for the risks we posed to others in some of our most extreme actions in those underground years never leaves my thoughts for long. The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret. ~ Bill Ayers

There is a noticeable element of the pathological in some current leftist critiques, which I tend to attribute to feelings of guilt allied to feelings of impotence. Not an attractive combination, because it results in self-hatred. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Cindy Sheehan is a clown. There is no real antiwar movement. No serious politician, with anything to do with anything, would show his face at an antiwar rally. ~ Karl Rove

In college, I got interested in news because the world was coming apart. The civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the women's right movement. That focused my radio ambitions toward news. ~ Bob Edwards

Nothing in Chomsky's account acknowledges the difference between intending to kill a child, because of the effect you hope to produce on its parents (we call this "terrorism"), and inadvertently killing a child in an attempt to capture or kill an avowed child murderer (we call this "collateral damage"). In both cases a child has died, and in both cases it is a tragedy. But the ethical status of the perpetrators, be they individuals or states, could not be more distinct ... For Chomsky, intentions do not seem to matter. Body count is all. ~ Sam Harris

In America, the government is accountable to the people, not the other way around," says a constitutional law scholar sympathetic to the antiwar movement on the subject of the anonymous police. ~ Nathan Hill

In the '60s, when I was growing up, one of the great elements of American culture was the protest song. There were songs about the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the antiwar movement. It wasn't just Bob Dylan, it was everybody at the time. ~ George Clooney

There is no difference between a rabid dog and a warmonger! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I have been unsure, from the start, what the Occupy movement was all about, although I did suspect that it was just fatuous, anti-enterprise, left-wingery. ~ Nigel Farage

There is every likelihood that the Jihadi movement, much of it highly critical of bin Laden, could have been split and undermined after 9/11. ~ Noam Chomsky

The prospect of sharing the rest of their lives held no dread for them ... every word and movement between them carried their history and their future like background movement, shaping each moment even when they weren't aware of it. ~ Orson Scott Card

The moment you enter the room, the earl becomes far more animated. It is obvious that he is fascinated by you. One can hardly have a conversation with him, as he is constantly straining to hear what you are saying, and watching your every movement. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Nobody could have possibly known that the FBI had sent a phony letter to Eldridge Cleaver in Algiers, 'signed' by the Panther 21, criticizing Huey Newton's leadership... no one could have known that the FBI's cointelpro was attempting to destroy the Black Panther Party in particular, and the Black Liberation movement in general, using divide-and-conquer tactics. ~ Assata Shakur

I do not reject responsibility - our movement made mistakes, like every other movement in the world. But there was another aspect that was outside our control - the enemy's activities against us. ~ Pol Pot

In the centre of Bond was a hurricane-room, the kind of citadel found in old-fashioned houses in the tropics. These rooms are small, strongly built cells in the heart of the house, in the middle of the ground floor and sometimes dug down into its foundations. To this cell the owner and his family retire if the storm threatens to destroy the house, and they stay there until the danger is past. Bond went to his hurricane room only when the situation was beyond his control and no other possible action could be taken. Now he retired to this citadel, closed his mind to the hell of noise and violent movement, and focused on a single stitch in the back of the seat in front of him, waiting with slackened nerves for whatever fate had decided for B. E. A. Flight No. 130. ~ Ian Fleming

For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people. Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions. ~ Coretta Scott King

Men love their ideas more than their lives. And the more preposterous the idea, the more eager they are to die for it. And to kill for it. ~ Edward Abbey

The current of the world has its boundaries, otherwise it could have no existence, but its purpose is not shown in the boundaries which restrain it, but in its movement, which is towards perfection. The wonder is not that there should be obstacles and sufferings in this world, but that there should be law and order, beauty and joy, goodness and love. The idea of God that man has in his being is the wonder of all wonders. He has felt in the depths of his life that what appears as imperfect is the manifestation of the perfect; just as a man who has an ear for music realises the perfection of a song, while in fact he is only listening to a succession of notes. Man has found out the great paradox that what is limited is not imprisoned within its limits; it is ever moving, and therewith shedding its finitude every moment. In fact, imperfection is not a negation of perfectness; finitude is not contradictory to infinity: they are but completeness manifested in parts, infinity revealed within bounds. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Music is for movements. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

It takes more than a great church to reach a city, it takes a great movement of churches. ~ Timothy Keller

The soul, light as a feather, fluid as water, innocent as a child, responds to every movement of grace like a floating balloon. ~ Jean-Pierre De Caussade

Without being peace, we cannot do anything for peace. If we cannot smile, we cannot help other people to smile. If we are not peaceful, then we cannot contribute to the peace movement. ~ Nhat Hanh

The polls show that concern over inequality among the general public rose pretty sharply after the Occupy movement started, very probably as a consequence. And there are other policy issues that came to the fore, which are significant. ~ Noam Chomsky

[The White Rose] is relevant because it gives us an example that we can use ... They are a sign of how we should strive to be. ~ Ruth Hanna Sachs

He sucked in a breath, his head snapping back from hers. Groaning as he filled her, she arched her back against him, her nipples stroking his chest with the movement. They weren't going to make it to the living room. "Wall or floor?" he managed. ~ Katie Reus

It is a movement and a rest, you and I. ~ Tor Udall

The thing that seems most natural to me-most human-is movement. ~ Marty Rubin

A student of Syrian affairs soon becomes used to paradox. A comparatively small country, narrowly chauvinistic and jealous of its national sovereignty, Syria is nevertheless the repository, and has often been the origin, of oecumenical and transcendental ideas about Arab unity. Its society is one of the most heterogeneous in the Middle East and yet its leaders have been the proponents of a radical integrative political movement: Arab Nationalism. It has kindly and hospitable inhabitants, but it is also a police state where a man can be locked up indefinitely without a trial. Your Syrian friends are your friends for life, but a curious current of xenophobia runs through the country. Syrians love culture and natural beauty, but the ugliness of many Syrians towns and their architecture has to be seen to be believed. ~ David Roberts

There has always been a longing in the human heart for a more just, free, loving and creative society. But it was never before possible to fulfill these aspirations, because we had neither the evolutionary drivers and global crises to force us to change, nor did we have the scientific and technological powers that can free us from the limitations of scarcity, poverty, disease, and ignorance. This is the time of awakening for the social potential movement. ~ Barbara Marx Hubbard

When you have a peace movement that has an actual war, it's different from one that has wars that our country is not totally involved in. During the war in Vietnam, and to a lesser degree the wars in Central America where our country was directly involved, it was easier to organize. ~ Grace Paley

Whoever wishes to blame or attack me is entitled to do so. I regret I didn't have enough experience to totally control the movement. On the other hand, with our constant struggle, this had to be done together with others in the communist world to stop Kampuchea becoming Vietnamese. ~ Pol Pot

Here's another example that some overworked mothers might find inspiring. We saw in Chapter 2 that being the one who produces
the sperm doesn't dictate, by universal principle, that parenting is out of the portfolio. However, in the case of the rat (as with most
mammals), the balance of trade-offs make it more adaptive for males to leave parenting to the mothers. This might tempt us to take it for
granted that males, by virtue of their sex, therefore lack the capacity to care for pups. We might well assume that, through sexual selection, they lost or never acquired the biological capacity to parent: that it isn't "in" their genes, hormones, or neural circuits. That it isn't in their male nature. But bear in mind that one reliable feature of a male rat's developmental system is a female rat that does the child care. So what happens when a scientist, under controlled laboratory conditions, simulates a first-wave feminist rodent movement by placing males in cages with pups but no females? Before too long you will see the male "mothering" the infant, in much the same way that females do. Feminism: 1. Sexual selection: nil. ~ Cordelia Fine

Socialism preceded Marxism, and socialism has survived Marxism, in part because Marxism was subjected to a real-world test for nearly a century and failed on an epic scale. Soviet revolutionaries did not engage in Fabian incrementalism; they got their country and their empire and their worldwide movement, and they worked their will without opposition. ~ Jonah Goldberg

Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. ~ Ronald Reagan

The status quo will be insurrected by hope and transformation, as slowly and steadily the "God Movement" invades this world with certain salvation. This is not high-minded idealism or a feigned quest for utopia. It is a hopeful, defiant trust that God's will indeed will be done and God's kingdom will come, on earth as it is in heaven. ~ Ronnie McBrayer

Personal development and spiritual growth happens when you begin to laugh at yourself, accept your mistakes and embrace your flaws. ~ Germany Kent

When the angel spoke, God awoke in the heart of this girl of Nazareth and moved within her like a giant. He stirred and opened His eyes and her soul and saw that in containing Him she contained the world besides. The Annunciation was not so much a vision as an earthquake in which God moved the universe and unsettled the spheres, and the beginning and end of all things came before her in her deepest heart. And far beneath the movement of this silent cataclysm she slept in the infinite tranquility of God, and God was a child curled up who slept in her and her veins were flooded with His wisdom which is night, which is starlight, which is silence. And her whole being was embraced in Him whom she embraced and they became tremendous silence." -Thomas Merton ~ Thomas Merton

What is morality? It is not the following of enjoined rules of conduct. It is not a question of standing above temptations, or of conquering hate, anger, greed, lust and violence.
Questioning your actions before and after creates the moral problem. What is responsible for this situation is the faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong and influencing your actions accordingly.Life is action. Unquestioned action is morality. Questioning your actions is destroying the expression of life. A person who lets life act in its own way without the protective movement of thought has no self to defend. What need will he have to lie or cheat or pretend or to commit any other act which his society considers immoral? ~ U.G. Krishnamurti

Come here," he growled, his body so heavy with need that he was afraid he would explode into fragments if he took one step.
She shook her head slowly, her tongue deliberately moistening her full lower lip. "I only want my true lifemate. I hunger tonight. My body is hungry." Her hand drifted slowly, enticingly, over her satin skin, and his eyes followed the graceful movement while his body raged at him.
Gregori covered the distance between them in a sudden surge, catching her up, the momentum taking them to the wall. He held her prisoner there, his mouth fastened on hers, commanding her response, feeding, devouring, his hands claiming her body for his own. "No one else will ever touch you and live," he snarled, his mouth burning a trail of fire down her throat to her breast. He fed hungrily, his teeth grazing the creamy fullness. "No other, Savannah."
"Why, Gregori? Why can no other touch my body like this?" she whispered, her mouth on his skin, her tongue lapping at his pulse. "Tell me why my body is only yours and your body is only mine."
His hands cupped her bottom, brought her hard against him. "You know why, Savannah."
"Say it, Gregori. Say it if you believe it. I won't have lies between us. You have to feel it in your heart as I do. You have to feel it in your mind. Your body has to burn for mine. But most of all, in your deepest soul, you have to know I'm your other half."
He lifted her, set her up high on the rim of the sleeping cham ~ Christine Feehan

He whisked off her shoes and panties in one movement, wild like an enraged shark. His bulky totem beating a seductive rhythm. Mary's body felt like it was burning, even though the room was properly air-conditioned. They tried all the positions - on top, doggy, and normal.
Exhausted they collapsed onto the recently extended sofa-bed. Then a hell beast ate them. ~ Garth Marenghi

The slogan of the American Civil Rights Movement was "We shall overcome!" Donald Trump's new campaign slogan is "We shall overcomb!" ~ Michael R. Burch

One becomes vulnerable when one stops to think about winning, losing, taking advantage, impressing or disregarding the opponent. When the mind stops, even for a single instant, the body freezes, and free, fluid movement is lost. ~ Kisshomaru Ueshiba

You want to have two guys making out in front of your 4-year-old? It's OK with them. A guy smoking a joint, blowing the smoke into your little kid's face? OK with them. And I'm not exaggerating here. This is exactly what the secular movement stands for. ~ Bill O'Reilly

We are all familiar with the argument: Make war dreadful enough, and there will be no war. And we none of us believe it. ~ John Galsworthy

It is important not only to have the awareness and to feel impelled to become involved, it's important that there be a forum out there to which one can relate, an organization- a movement. ~ Angela Davis

Until the emergence of the New Left in the 1960s, in order to extend its political influence the Communist party had to establish front organizations or infiltrate and take over established political groups. Today such tactics are much less necessary, for Communists are welcome in the radical movement and can freely participate in its activities. More important, the goals of Old and New Left groups are largely identical. Both work for an end to American "interventionism" in the Third World and for dismantling of what they call the "national security state. ~ Guenter Lewy

Under conditions of peace the warlike man attacks himself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

You wanted Death? This is it. Dirt and decay, nothing more. Death translates us all into earth." He frowned at me, his cheeks puffing slightly. "Are you disappointed? Did you want a man in black robes? I'm sure I've a set somewhere. A dour, thin face with bony hands? I've more bones in this house than you could ever count. You've been moping over half the world looking for Death as though that word meant anything but cold bodies and mushrooms growing out of young girls' eye-sockets. What an exceptionally stupid child!" Suddenly he moved very fast, like a turtle after a spider - such unexpected movement from a thing so languid and round. He clapped my throat in his hand, squeezing until I could not breathe…I whistled and wheezed, beating at his chest, and my vision blurred, thick as blood. "You want Death?" he hissed. "I am Death. I will break your neck and cover you with my jar of dirt. When you kill, you become Death, and so Death wears a thousand faces, a thousand robes, a thousand gazes." He loosened his grip. "But you can be Death, too. You can wear that face and that gaze. Would you like to be Death? Would you like to live in this house and learn his trade? ~ Catherynne M. Valente

I may venture to affirm the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. ~ David Hume

The religious right is one of the most politically militant voting blocs in the country and the agenda is clear (a gun in every uterus). Time we stopped subsidizing the anti-abortion movement in the form of tax-exemptions. ~ Quentin R. Bufogle

Our church had an awkward beginning. We grew out of a movement that was dead wrong about the dates and times of Jesus' return. But out of that great disappointment and gross error grew a people devoted to voraciously studying the Bible and banking on being with Jesus as soon as He would allow. ~ Nathan Brown

First off, as has been well stated by many Indigenous Feminists before us, the idea of gender equality did not come from the suffragettes or other so-called "foremothers" of feminist theory. It should also be recognized that although we are still struggling for this thing called "gender equality," it is not actually a framed issue within the feminist realm, but a continuation of the larger tackling of colonialism. So this idea that women of colour all of a sudden realized "we are women," and magically joined the feminist fight actually re-colonizes people for who gender equality and other "feminist" notions is a remembered history and current reality since before Columbus. The mainstream feminist movement is supposed to have started in the early 1900s with women fighting for the right to vote. However, these white women deliberately excluded the struggles of working class women of color and participated in the policy of forced sterilization for Aboriginal women and women with disabilities. Furthermore, the idea that we all need to subscribe to the same theoretical understandings of history is marginalizing. We all have our own truths and histories to live. ~ Erin Konsmo

I think Dario Ringach is a poster boy for the concept that the use of force or the threat of force is an effective means to stop people who abuse animals," "No strictly peaceful movement has succeeded in liberation," "I think the animal rights movement has been restrained in its use of force, mostly because people in the struggle are often people of privilege who aren't willing to risk losing that privilege. ~ Jerry Vlasak

Climate change is the single biggest thing that humans have ever done on this planet. The one thing that needs to be bigger is our movement to stop it. ~ Bill McKibben