FUTURE

  
That was 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 the 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, and 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 won’t 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 and without us you would be hungry naked worms and we will not die. 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. 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. 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 tranquility, in security, in decency, in peace. 

-- Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun