The Memory Hole -- The Anti-war Speech That Earned Eugene Debs 10 Years in Prison

"They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. 

And here let me emphasize the fact--and it cannot be repeated too often--that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace. Yours not to reason why; Yours but to do and die. That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation. If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace... 

You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder. You need to know that you were not created to work and produce and impoverish yourself to enrich an idle exploiter. You need to know that you have a mind to improve, a soul to develop, and a manhood to sustain... 

They are continually talking about your patriotic duty. It is not their but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided difference. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches." (Emphasis Mine.)

This speech, so sadly relevant today, was given by Eugene Debs on June 16th, 1918. For it, he was prosecuted under the Sedition Act, sentenced to 10 years in prison and stripped of his U.S. of part of A. citizenship.

Lest you wonder, the Sedition Act was repealed in 1921, but under the murderous moron's regime, you can be arrested simply under suspicion of anti-war activities (considered to be "domestic terrorism") and unlike Debs in 1918, you would now have no recourse to protection in a civil court... because habeas corpus no longer applies.

Happy New Year.