“It is the rule that when one has one’s money invested in a machine, one does not wish to see the machine stand idle; the idleness of the machine means economic ruin.”
Wendell Berry spoke in 1968 about the invention of the atomic bomb and its use in warfare. Why make it if you are not going to use it?
On Aug. 31, Berry, a Kentucky writer, poet, environmentalist, and farmer, passed away at the age of 92. He was a staunch advocate for peace, speaking and writing on the ills of the military complex, especially in the post-atomic bomb era.
Berry delivered a speech at the Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft at the University of Kentucky on Feb. 10, 1968. Titled “A Statement Against the War in Vietnam,” he later published it as an essay in his book “The Long-Legged House.”
“The ultimate madness, of course, is that in order to destroy our enemies we are willing to build at great expense … weapons whose use would inevitably destroy not only our enemies but ourselves and the world,” Berry stated in his speech.
Berry had his own experience with military education. In an interview published in “The New Yorker,” Berry noted his formative years and why war and peace mattered to him so ...