Today, as we
mark Randolph Bournes
130th birthday, it seems an especially appropriate time to step
back from the noisy distractions of the ongoing public debate over
American foreign policy and reflect quietly for a few moments on
the larger picture. For what larger picture do we see when we contemplate
war, peace, and the institution of coercive government the
State and what we have learned over the past century about
their myriad interconnections and interrelations?
I think we see
the same thing one of Americas most remarkable public intellectuals,
Randolph Bourne, saw when he looked at the involvement of the American
State in World War I nearly a hundred years ago. We see that, as
Bourne famously put it in his
last and greatest essay, "war is the health of the State."
It is this insight, that the condition of war, in addition to the
death, injury, and destruction it brings with it by its very nature,
also builds up the warmakers the States that fight the wars
leaving the victorious ones, at least (and not infrequently
even the losers), larger and more powerful in their dealings with
their home populations, so that they are better positioned not only
to fight yet another war but also to hire more effective warmongers
to sell it for them. It is this insight of Bournes that inspires
our work here at AntiWar.com, as it is after Bourne that our parent
organization, the Randolph Bourne Institute, is named. On this day,
Randolph Bournes 130th birthday, please join me in honoring
his timeless insight by supporting
AntiWar.com as generously as you can (matching funds are still in
effect).
Please
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for the Greater Middle East: A Military History by Andrew J.
Bacevich, Chaos and Caliphate: Jihadis and the West in the Struggle
for the Middle East by Patrick Cockburn, or Big Israel: How
Israel's Lobby Moves America by Grant Smith. Indicate your choice
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