Thursday, May 12, 2011

Russell

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/05/12/18679533.php
Bertrand Russell, Britain’s leading philosopher
by Ted Rudow III, MA ( Tedr77 [at] aol.com ) Thursday May 12th, 2011
Bertrand Russell, Britain’s leading philosopher, and many years later won the Nobel Prize for Literature, was leading scholar, Cambridge intellectual. When the war broke out, he felt he had to oppose it.
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And one of the things that makes me respect him so much is that he was so honest about talking about the conflict in his own feelings. Describing himself at that period, he said, "I desired the defeat of Germany as much as any retired colonel, and love of England is very nearly the strongest emotion I possess." One of my Great-Uncle, Lt. Warren O. "Wedge" Grimm (March 9, 1888 - November 11, 1919), was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. An All-American at the University of Washington and an officer in the United States Army, he served with distinction as part of the American Expeditionary Force Siberia stationed in Russia in 1918-1919. He was assassinated on November 11, 1919, by members of the IWW (Wobblies) during the Centralia Massacre in Washington State. Yet, when I think about the wars we’re engaged in today, in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is nowhere that an American or anybody can go and sort of visually see the toll of the war in this sense, especially since the great bulk of the casualties are, you know, Afghani and Iraqi civilians, as well as the American and allied troops who have died. All those poor boys and girls at the front. Give them strength and give them wisdom. War is total waste, the most destructive total waste there is--In materials, in time, in lands, in people.
Ted Rudow III, MA

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