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"Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916..." Michael Moore

Solemnly, world remembers its war dead on WWI anniversary
PARIS (AFP) - In sombre ceremonies, world leaders and war veterans paid tribute to their war dead on the anniversary of the end of World War I, a conflict remembered only by a rapidly dwindling band of survivors. World leaders, vets mark WWI anniversary

The war to end all wars. Almost forgotten. My grandfather fought in it. On the “wrong” side. The blood had been so deep in WWI that many believed it must surely be all that humanity could stomach and that there could be no more like it:

We set to work to bury people. We pushed them into the sides of the trenches but bits of them kept getting uncovered and sticking out, like people in a badly made bed. Hands were the worst; they would escape from the sand, pointing, begging - even waving! There was one which we all shook when we passed, saying, "Good morning," in a posh voice. Everybody did it. The bottom of the trench was springy like a mattress because of all the bodies underneath... Leonard Thompson - quoted in Ronald Blythe, Akenfield

Gentlemen, I have mentioned several times that I am opposed to war, to capitalist war, and that I believe in universal peace and the constructive tendencies of man. I believe that through education, through organization, through enlightenment we will bring people to the point of sanity where war will become impossible, where the destructive tendencies will disappear, and misery, desperation and poverty, the sources of crime, will be things of the past. I believe that with the whole power of my heart and mind. May be I shall not see that day in my own lifetime. But that makes no difference. I believe these things are absolutely true….Why, yes, the war, you say, is for the very purpose of carrying democracy and liberty to Europe. Will you proclaim to the world that you who carry liberty and democracy to Europe have no liberty here, that you who are fighting for democracy in Germany, suppress democracy right here in New York, in the United States? Are you going to suppress free speech and liberty in this country, and still pretend that you love liberty so much that you will fight for it five thousand miles away? Charity begins at home, gentlemen of the jury. Liberty begins at home. That is where you begin right now, to-day, to show that you stand for liberty. We have spoken for liberty all our lives. Now you are put to the test as men who believe in liberty; you are put to the test. It is for you to show whether you believe in liberty. And let me tell you, whether you think that we are right or whether we are wrong, one thing you know: the spirit that animates this woman, the spirit that animates these defendants, is the spirit that has in the past emancipated the bondman. It is the spirit that will in the future emancipate the slave from his slavery, the tyrant from his tyranny; the spirit that will abolish war, make us all brothers of one family, without the evils and crimes that darken the world to-day, without oppression and monopoly, and make the world a fit place to live in, with a real motto, actually applied: Liberty for all, well-being for every one, and happiness for humanity.

Alexander Berkman spoke these words on July 3rd, 1917, as he and Emma Goldman were on trial for holding rallies and printing papers in opposition to WWI and the draft.

Guido Bruno described them this way:

And there, opposite me, sat Alexander Berkman. A strong, fighting face; decision and action written all over him. Around his mouth plays the tired smile of the fighter who knows what it means to meet stupidity face to face. His hands are clenched, he is armed against attacks and lies, against rudeness and against injustice. He has come to fight. He does not know how to compromise. He does not know how to bow politely to the court, how to invoke in flowery language the attention of the District Attorney or how to arouse the sympathetic interest of his peers--the jurymen. The principles for which he is fighting, which brought about his indictment, are now his only weapons and his only shield. He is a non-conformist who believes in liberty and in freedom uncurtailed in any way…There is Emma Goldman, sitting behind him. I don't see hatred in her eyes but determination; to do to the last minute what she thinks so important for the happiness of future generations. She is reading some report introduced as evidence by the District Attorney. There is a grave seriousness on her features and that wonderful, final resolve that has ever--since time began--caused men to be crucified, to be burned alive, hung, drawn and quartered; the resolve and purpose which have brought to humanity all the good things it possesses.

They were, of course, found guilty and sentenced to the maximum. And over 100,000 Americans went on to die in The War to End All Wars.

The shadows inhabit the earth today. May the resistance continue!