War and Power

Peter Rukavina

From Proposed Roads To Freedom, by Bertrand Russell, published 1919:

Not only does the concentration of power tend to cause wars, but, equally, wars and the fear of them bring about the necessity for the concentration of power. So long as the community is exposed to sudden dangers, the possibility of quick decision is absolutely necessary to self-preservation. The cumbrous machinery of deliberative decisions by the people is impossible in a crisis, and therefore so long as crises are likely to occur, it is impossible to abolish the almost autocratic power of governments. In this case, as in most others, each of two correlative evils tends to perpetuate the other. The existence of men with the habit of power increases the risk of war, and the risk of war makes it impossible to establish a system where no man possesses great power.

Comments

Submitted by Wayne on

Permalink

After almost 13 years of deception and deceit by Iraq, the United Nations Security Council certainly qualifies as having been quite “deliberative” in my opinion.

Submitted by Joey Brieno on

Permalink

This is why God created genius; that someone like Russell could spend a few minutes creating such a piece of text so the rest of humanity could spend an eternity marveling at its truth and discovering the virtually unlimited range of lessons contained therein.

Submitted by Ken on

Permalink

Not only does the Bush Administration tend to cause wars, but, equally, wars and the fear of them bring about the necessity for the Bush Administration.
So long as America is exposed to sudden dangers, the
possibility of quick decision is absolutely necessary to
self-preservation. The cumbrous machinery of democracy
is impossible in a crisis, and therefore so long as crises are likely to occur, it is impossible to abolish the almost autocratic power of the Bush Administration.
In this case, as in most others, each of two correlative evils tends to perpetuate the other. The existence of the Bush Family increases the risk of war,and the risk of war makes it impossible to establish a government without Bush.

Submitted by Rob on

Permalink

Not only do madmen like Saddam Hussein tend to cause wars, but, equally, wars and the fear of them bring about the necessity for a brutal, sadistic dictatorship. So long as the community is exposed to sudden dangers, state controlled media is absolutely necessary to self-agrandization. The cumbrous machinery of sanity is impossible in a crisis, and therefore so long as crises are likely to occur, it is impossible to abolish the total and absolute tyranny of Saddam’s rule. In this case, as in most others, each of two correlative evils tends to perpetuate the other. The existence of psychopathic dictators increases the risk of war, and the risk of war makes it impossible to establish a system where Iraqis can enjoy basic human rights.

Submitted by Joey Brieno on

Permalink

If I spend l0 hours trying to get a winding pin reinserted into a valuable time-piece, I am justified in giving up the “effort” and smashing the F’n thing with a hammer!

- or to say that another way -

After almost 13 years of deception and deceit by Iraq, the United Nations Security Council certainly qualifies as having been quite “deliberative” in my opinion.

Submitted by Dan Q. on

Permalink

Saddam, sir, is no valuable time-piece! Anybody who thinks so, I would suggest, needs to check their own winding pin!

Add new comment

Plain text

  • Allowed HTML tags: <b> <i> <em> <strong> <blockquote> <code> <ul> <ol> <li>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

About This Blog

Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

To learn more about me, read my /nowlook at my bio, read presentations and speeches I’ve written, or get in touch (peter@rukavina.net is the quickest way). You can subscribe to an RSS feed of posts, an RSS feed of comments, or receive a daily digests of posts by email.

Search