"...and we will point the gun."

[WilliamPitt]

As noted in my other thread, Cleo Trumbo, the wife and widow of Dalton Trumbo, has passed at the age of 93.

Dalton Trumbo's book, "Johnny Got His Gun," was one of the most important and formative books I have ever read. I read several copies to tatters before age 21. This book was banned before and during every major war America has participated in since its publication, and anyone who has ever read it will immediately see why. This book is Gen. Butler's "War Is A Racket" written in blood and prose, it is shattering in every way, and a free copy should be given to every schoolchild before their 18th birthday.

The story in short: a soldier awakens in a hospital bed after being struck by a shell to find himself blind, deaf, dumb, paralyzed, and without his arms and legs. He is a breathing piece of meat...except his mind still works perfectly, he figures out his condition, and tries with all his might to beg for death by tapping "SOS...KILL ME..." into his pillow with his head.

These below are the last seven paragraphs of the book, his anthem, his manifesto, his scream. Read it out loud.

===

And then suddenly he saw. He had a vision of himself as a new kind of Christ as a man who carries within himself all the seeds of a new order of things. He was the new messiah of the battlefields saying to people as I am so shall you be. For he had seen the future he had tasted it and now he was living it. He had seen the airplanes flying in the sky he had seen the skies of the future filled with them black with them and now he saw the horror beneath. He saw a world of lovers forever parted of dreams never consummated of plans that never turned into reality. He saw a world of dead fathers and crippled brothers and crazy screaming sons. He saw a world of armless mothers clasping headless babies to their breasts trying to scream out their grief from throats that were cancerous with gas. He saw starved cities black and cold and motionless and the only things in this whole dead terrible world that made a move or a sound were the airplanes that blackened the sky and far off against the horizon the thunder of the big guns and the puffs that rose from barren tortured earth when their shells exploded.

That was it he had it he understood it now he had told them his secret and in denying him they had told him theirs.

He was the future he was a perfect picture of the future and they were afraid to let anyone see what the future was like. Already they were looking ahead they were figuring the future and somewhere in the future they saw war. To fight that war they would need men and if men saw the future they wouldn't fight. So they were masking the future they were keeping the future a soft quiet deadly secret. They knew that if all the little people all the little guys saw the future they would begin to ask questions. They would ask questions and they would find answers and they would say to the guys who wanted them to fight they would say you lying thieving sons-of-bitches we won't fight we won't be dead we will live we are the world we are the future and we will not let you butcher us no matter what you say no matter what speeches you make no matter what slogans you write. Remember it well we we we are the world we are what makes it go round we make bread and cloth and guns we are the hub of the wheel and the spokes and the wheel itself without us you would be hungry naked worms and we will not die. We are immortal we are the sources of life we are the lowly despicable ugly people we are the great wonderful beautiful people of the world and we are sick of it we are utterly weary we are done with it forever and ever because we are the living and we will not be destroyed.

If you make a war if there are guns to be aimed if there are bullets to be fired if there are men to be killed they will not be us. They will not be us the guys who grow wheat and turn it into food the guys who make clothes and paper and houses and tiles the guys who build dams and power plants and string the long moaning high tension wires the guys who crack crude oil down into a dozen different parts who make light globes and sewing machines and shovels and automobiles and airplanes and tanks and guns oh no it will not be us who die. It will be you.

It will be you-you who urge us on to battle you who incite us against ourselves you who would have one cobbler kill another cobbler you who would have one man who works kill another man who works you who would have one human being who wants only to live kill another human being who wants only to live. Remember this. Remember this well you people who plan for war. Remember this you patriots you fierce ones you spawners of hate you inventors of slogans. Remember this as you have never remembered anything else in your lives.

We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into realities. Sing the battle hymns and we will take them up where you left off. Not one not ten not ten thousand not a million not ten millions not a hundred millions but a billion two billions of us all the people of the world we will have the slogans and we will have the hymns and we will have the guns and we will use them and we will live. Make no mistake of it we will live. We will be alive and we will walk and talk and eat and sing and laugh and feel and love and bear our children in tranquillity in security in decency in peace. You plan the wars you masters of men plan the wars and point the way and we will point the gun.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/General/JohnnyGotHisGun.html

===

For Dalton and Cleo Trumbo.

[xchrom]

1. an amazing book -- two amazing lives. nt

[Echo In Light]

2. Sacrifice

Sacrifice, by Melvins

Can you hear the war cry?
It's time to enlist
The people speak as one
The cattle, the crowd
Those too afraid to live
Demand a sacrifice
Of your life

Can you smell their stinking breath?
Listen to them
Wheezing and gasping and
Chanting their slogans
It's a grave digger's song
Praising God & State
So the Nation will live
So we all can remain as cattle

Can you smell the fresh blood
Steaming into the soil?
As our patriots,
Fathers, mothers and lovers
Admire the military style
Praising God and the State
Crying tears of pride
For all the fools slaughtered
For the maimed, the dying
And the dead
So the Nation will live
So the people will remain as cattle

They demand a sacrifice
They demand a sacrifice
They demand a sacrifice
Of your life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjhEo0MWDJU

[GreenStormCloud]

3. Those who refuse to take up a sword can still die by the sword.

It takes two to make peace, only one to make war.

Imagine if, in 1939, all of Europe had shared that dream - except the Germans.

[bertman]

16. That was a war of aggression started by the Axis powers. That was a war worth fighting.

The war in Vietnam, the invasion of Panama, the invasion of Grenada, the "incursions" that occur all over the world that are lead by our "Special Forces" troops, the war in Iraq, even the war in Afghanistan were wars that we CHOSE to execute for reasons that were specious if not downright treasonous.

Self defense is a legitimate use of force in my opinion.

[GreenStormCloud]

18. I agrre. But Pitt's OP leaves no room for national self-defense. N/T

[nomorenomore08]

21. Are you kidding? What about those last couple paragraphs?

It says (to those who start wars), we won't fight on your behalf, but if you come for us, we'll point the guns at you. That's plain and simple self-defense.

[GreenStormCloud]

36. Thanks. I misread it. My apologies to Pitt. N/T

[WilliamPitt]

37. No worries

:toast:

[redqueen]

4. Thanks.

I need to read that again.

[angrycarpenter]

5. Watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzgGTTtR0kc

[proteus_lives]

41. Totally.

Whenever someone mentions the book or movie or I read it again, I hear that Metallica song.

[Soylent Brice]

6. thank you very much for sharing.

i've never read this.

K&R

[WilliamPitt]

7. Do so

ASAMFP.

:toast:

[Soylent Brice]

8. ab-so-lutely!!

:)

[byronius]

9. Wow. Forgot. On the re-read list. Thanks.

[SpiralHawk]

10. "Move along. Nothing to see here. Smirk." - Rush 'Chickenhawk' Limbaugh (R)

"Pay no attention to this stuff. It is your duty, Mein Dittoheads, to keep signing up and killing and dying. It's real noble and stuff like that. Smirk."

- Rush 'DraftDodger' Limbaugh (R - Chickenhawk)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FfDmuxyLjMw/SrfFa06gTGI/AAAAAAAAASk/DWRULE7QXjE/s400/rush+limbaugh+cigar.jpg

[SpiralHawk]

11. "Megadittoes. What Rush said." - Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly (R - Chickenhawks)

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. Shattering.

I thank you!


K&R


Welcome back!


:hug:

[WilliamPitt]

13. Thanks!

:hug:

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. Yet...the beat goes on....sadly.

Thank you for the excerpt...I too have never read the book, tho I knew of it, and of Trumbo.

:yourock:

[WilliamPitt]

15. There's a ton more of the book at that link I gave

Check it out.

[bertman]

17. Excellent read and so true. No wonder it is banned during times of war. Recommend.

[Nederland]

19. It was never banned

The book was never actually banned to the public. There is some dispute over whether or not it was banned within the Army during WWII. After Pearl Harbor, Trumbo and his publisher jointly agreed to stop printing. The book has been in and out of print since it was written. A good explanation of it's history written by Trumbo himself is available in the Google book version:

http://books.google.com/books?id=LnnMLLk2uU4C&pg=PA1&lpg=PP1&output=html

[deaniac21]

20. I love the smell of melodrama in the morning!

[nomorenomore08]

22. ???

You consider *that* melodrama? I have nothing to say... :wow:

[deaniac21]

23. but you did??? I'm confused.

[nomorenomore08]

24. Just seemed like a callous response, is all.

Maybe I misunderstood you.

[WilliamPitt]

32. You didn't.

Welcome to the douchebaggery.

[superduperfarleft]

25. I love the smell of someone who clearly hasn't read the book in question. n/t

[deaniac21]

27. poopy

[WilliamPitt]

33. That's a post to be proud of.

Or something.

You shame yourself. And the Dean name. Again.

:eyes:

[deaniac21]

38. May 12 still lives in infamy.

[WilliamPitt]

39. Thanks for kicking my thread.

:)

[deaniac21]

43. I'll contunue to do so for 24 business hours.

[WilliamPitt]

45. Thanks for kicking my thread.

:)

[WilliamPitt]

31. You would know

I'm sure you smell your own shit all the time.

:toast:

[zeemike]

26. I never read the book but recently re watched the movie.

Which was really a time capsule of the anti war movement of the 60s...and thanks for bringing this up.

[Libertas1776]

28. I always

found it fascinating that the guy who played Joe in the film version was a young Timothy Bottoms.


Timothy Bottoms, of course, known for his comedic impersonations of President Dumbya.

[Generic Other]

29. Dalton Trumbo's book came out in the 60s after years of BLACKLISTING

I remember being so angry about this deliberate silencing of such an important writer. I also was profoundly influenced by my reading of this book.

[nomorenomore08]

30. Makes me wanna break some College Republican chickenhawk's jaw...

:grr: :grr: :grr:

And I'm not a violent guy either.

[Time for change]

34. I just ordered it -- Thank you

[WilliamPitt]

35. Evening kick

[derby378]

40. Never read it before, but oh my God...

I'm definitely picking it up. This paragraph really got to me:

We are men of peace we are men who work and we want no quarrel. But if you destroy our peace if you take away our work if you try to range us one against the other we will know what to do. If you tell us to make the world safe for democracy we will take you seriously and by god and by Christ we will make it so. We will use the guns you force upon us we will use them to defend our very lives and the menace to our lives does not lie on the other side of a nomansland that was set apart without our consent it lies within our own boundaries here and now we have seen it and we know it.

Thank you for sharing.

[WilliamPitt]

42. Read everything at the link provided

That site has half the book; I just gave out the last seven paragraphs.

:hug:

[martymar64]

44. Thanks Will!

I saw the film as a teenager and it haunted me for a long time.
I'll go get the book this weekend and move it to the top of my reading queue.

It calls forth horror that supernatural fiction can never match.

Thank you once again for this reminder.