Edward Bellamy: We have no wars now, and our governments no war powers
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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
American writers on peace and against war
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Edward Bellamy
From Looking Backwards (1888)
Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring to form some general conception of the changes in the arrangements of society implied in the tremendous revolution which he had described.
Finally I said, “The idea of such an extension of the functions of government is, to say the least, rather overwhelming.”
“Extension!” he repeated, “where is the extension?”
“In my day,” I replied, “it was considered that the proper functions of government, strictly speaking, were limited to keeping the peace and defending the people against the public enemy, that is, to the military and police powers.”
“And, in heaven’s name, who are the public enemies?” exclaimed Dr. Leete. “Are they France, England, Germany, or hunger, cold, and nakedness? In your day governments were accustomed, on the slightest international misunderstanding, to seize upon the bodies of citizens and deliver them over by hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation, wasting their treasures the while like water; and all this oftenest for no imaginable profit to the victims. We have no wars now, and our governments no war powers, but in order to protect every citizen against hunger, cold, and nakedness, and provide for all his physical and mental needs, the function is assumed of directing his industry for a term of years. No, Mr. West, I am sure on reflection you will perceive that it was in your age, not in ours, that the extension of the functions of governments was extraordinary. Not even for the best ends would men now allow their governments such powers as were then used for the most maleficent.”
For peace, against war: literary selections 
Obama has a gun to the heads of the American Patriots
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Edward Bellamy loved the military. He wanted to impose the military system on all of society. He called his dogma “military socialism.” His cousin, Francis Bellamy, shared his love of military socialism and wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in order to promote the dogma to children. The early pledge began with a military salute that was then extended outward to point at the flag (thus the stiff-arm gesture came from the pledge and from the military salute). The Pledge of Allegiance because it was the origin of the Nazi salute and Nazi behavior (that is one of the amazing discoveries of the historian Dr. Rex Curry, as described by author Ian Tinny in the book “Pledge of Allegiance + Swastika Secrets”). The pledge was written in 1892 to promote the government takeover of education, and for kindergartners to be forced to recite under the flag at government schools (socialist schools). The pledge was written by an American socialist who influenced other socialists worldwide, including German socialists, who used the gesture under their flag’s notorious symbol (their symbol was used to represent crossed “S” letters for their “socialist” dogma -another of Dr. Curry’s discoveries). The pledge continues to be the origin of similar behavior even though the gesture was changed to hide the pledge’s putrid past. The pledge is central to the US’s police state and its continued growth. No one should stand for nor chant the Pledge of Allegiance.
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