Eugene Debs was arrested in 1918 for giving a speech where he declared, “The working class have never yet had a voice in declaring war. If war is right, let it be declared by the people – you, who have your lives to lose.” These are some of the most famous words in the history of anti-violence protest. You can hear and watch Mark Ruffalo do a dramatic reading of some of the rest of the speech here. Speaking in Canton, Ohio at an anti-WWI rally Debs, the then leader of the Socialist Party of America, was one of the louder anti-war voices in the United States at the time. Arrested under the terms of the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act, two of the most anti-civil rights laws in American history, Debs served several years in jail for the crime of giving an anti-war speech. He ran for president in the 1920 election, garnering an impressive three percent of the popular vote. A good amount of votes for a third-party Socialist candidate running from jail. His prison term was eventually commuted by President Warren G. Harding in 1921. Debs died five years later, in part due to health problems he contracted from his time in jail. Debs died with his anti-war goals unfulfilled. The US, in the years after his death would enter countless years of war, spend trillions of dollars on the military, and oversee the deaths of millions.
While Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana in 1855, I think his words still carry weight today. This is doubly true considering the tragedy that is currently unfurling in Ukraine, after Russian troops invaded over the last few days. People, most of them Ukrainian, have lost their lives. Lives that they should not have lost. This is always a tragedy. I am not an expert on either Russia or Ukraine so I cannot speak to the specifics of the ongoing conflict, or even on the recent or long-term history of the conflict in those countries. Doing so would be the height of folly. Those qualifications aside, this is an out-an-out tragedy, one that should have never happened. Because I’m not an expert though, what I want to write about is of a more general nature. Hence the quote from a socialist politician that’s over 100 years old.
In countries the world over, the foreign policies of various governments have been placed more and more out of reach of the people, or to be more precise, have been removed as far away from any democratic processes as possible. As a citizen of the United States, I have no more right to vote on arms deals, or war or ambassadorships, or any of the varying pieces of foreign policy than anyone else affected by them. Even Congress, the political body that is set up to be the people’s representative in matters of foreign policy, has largely abdicated that role. Ever since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President Lyndon B. Johnson unprecedented military power without a formal declaration of war, Congress has largely given over the role of war to the President, the Executive Branch and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In this way, even the people’s limited ability to prevent war and warmongering was stripped away.
I’ve written on here before about my views on war. You can see them here. Mostly they come from my parents. I was raised in a household that preached nonviolence and pacifism in all its forms. I was raised in the Mennonite Church as well, one of the historic peace churches whose members are traditionally conscientious objectors. While I certainly have complicated thoughts on the matters of the pacificism and nonviolent resistance, my objections to the military-industrial complex have never wavered. The continual increase of military budgets, and the idea of the United States as “the world police,” are two of this nation’s greatest sins.
Now that my political biases are out in the open, let me talk about Jeanette Rankin. Jeanette Rankin is the only congressperson to vote against the US entering both World War One and World War Two. A lifelong activist, suffragist, and civil rights leader, Rankin is also the only female Congressperson ever elected to office in the state of Montana. Rankin was elected to her first term in the House of Representatives before women could vote on a national level.
Rankin’s votes, particularly her sole vote for the US to not enter World War Two, remain controversial. She was one of fifty votes against the US entering World War One. However, her vote against declaring war on Japan – she abstained on the vote to declare war on Germany and Italy – effectively ended her political career. When someone asked her if she was sad about that vote years later one biographer quoted her as saying, “Never. If you're against war, you're against war regardless of what happens. It's a wrong method of trying to settle a dispute."
Rankin and Debs are but two anti-war activists. People Kwame Turé, Mahatma Gandhi, and countless others have stood against war, organized against war, and most of all, died because of their fights against war.
Why bring up all these people? Mostly I think it’s because I admire how fast they stood when their political and moral views faced such opprobrium. In today’s United States similar things still happen. The Dixie Chicks, simply for speaking out against the U.S.’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 became pariahs even in the years after the wars became unpopular across the political spectrum. They are but one of the most high-profile examples. Palestinian activists, anti-war organizers, even Congresspeople who speak out against increasing the military budget every year get labeled as un-American, and traitors to their countries. There is a long strain of anti-war thought coming from American thinkers, writers, and organizers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get taught, or gets labeled as radical, or in some cases, as with that Eugene Debs quote up top, is made illegal.
The one thing that gives me hope in all of this is the anti-war protests you see from Russians and Ukrainians alike. People risking their lives, and their freedom to make it known that they oppose this war. It is these people who give me hope.