HOWARD ZINN QUOTES II
American historian & social activist (1922-2010)
History can come in handy. If you were born yesterday, with no knowledge of the past, you might easily accept whatever the government tells you. But knowing a bit of history--while it would not absolutely prove the government was lying in a given instance--might make you skeptical, lead you to ask questions, make it more likely that you would find out the truth.
HOWARD ZINN
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
I start from the supposition that the world is topsyturvy, that things are all wrong, that the wrong people are in jail and the wrong people are out of jail, that the wrong people are in power and the wrong people are out of power, that the wealth is distributed in this country and the world in such a way as not simply to require small reform but to require a drastic reallocation of wealth. I start from the supposition that we don't have to say too much about this because all we have to do is think about the state of the world today and realize that things are all upside down.
HOWARD ZINN
Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian
If those in charge of our society -- politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television -- can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.
HOWARD ZINN
Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology
One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression. Patriotism becomes the order of the day, and those who question the war are seen as traitors, to be silenced and imprisoned.
HOWARD ZINN
Howard Zinn on War
Next time you hear somebody say, "We mustn't have big government," this country was founded on the idea of big government. The slaveowners needed big government. The manufacturers needed big government. The bondholders needed big government. The expanders needed big government. They all wanted desperately to have big government. The rich and elite in this country have always wanted big government. Only relatively recently in this century have they worried about what big government may do. Because big government, for most of our history, has been big government on behalf of the wealthy interests. We've had a welfare state in this country for a very long time, but most of the welfare was given to powerful and rich corporations. It wasn't called "welfare."
HOWARD ZINN
Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches, 1963-2009
I believe there are huge numbers of people in this country who would be willing to have radical changes in our economic and social system in order to make it a more egalitarian society and do away with homelessness and hunger and clean up the environment. But these people have no voice. They have no way of expressing themselves. Elections give them no way of expressing themselves.
HOWARD ZINN
interview, Identity Theory, Jan. 10, 2001
It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity.
HOWARD ZINN
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
Terrorism has replaced Communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country [America], for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home. It serves the same purpose, serving to create hysteria.
HOWARD ZINN
Terrorism and War
The term "just war" contains an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny, and oppression without killing huge numbers of people.
HOWARD ZINN
Terrorism and War
Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. It is a corrective to the sluggishness of "the proper channels," a way of breaking through passages blocked by tradition and prejudice. It is disruptive and troublesome, but it is a necessary disruption, a healthy troublesome.
HOWARD ZINN
The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy
There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
HOWARD ZINN
"Terror over Tripoli", The Zinn Reader
Again and again, Americans have voted for a president to keep them out of a war, only to see the "peace" candidate elected who then brings the nation into war.
HOWARD ZINN
The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy
The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured. Those special people who speak out in such a way as to shake up not only the self-assurance of their enemies, but the complacency of their friends, are precious catalysts for change.
HOWARD ZINN
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
When a nation issues ultimatums, it leaves no room for compromise and ensures that war will continue.
HOWARD ZINN
Howard Zinn on War
How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?
HOWARD ZINN
Howard Zinn on War
Einstein was horrified by World War I. He devoted a lot of time to thinking and worrying about it. He went to this conference in Geneva. He thought they were discussing disarmament, to do away with the weapons of war and therefore to prevent war. Instead, he found these representatives of various countries discussing what kinds of weapons would be suitable and what kind of weapons needed to be prohibited. What were good weapons and bad weapons, just weapons and unjust weapons? Einstein did something which nobody ever expected. He was a very private man. He did something really uncharacteristic: he called a press conference. The whole international press came, because Einstein was, well, he was Einstein. They came, and he told this press conference how horrified he was by what he had heard at the international conference. He said, "One does not make wars less likely by formulating rules of warfare. War cannot be humanized. It can only be abolished.
HOWARD ZINN
Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian
I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States
Sometimes it's a short step from banning to burning.
HOWARD ZINN
interview, Identity Theory, Jan. 10, 2001
Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States
What is called "apathy" is, I believe, a feeling of helplessness on the part of the ordinary citizen, a feeling of impotence in the face of enormous power. It's not that people are apathetic; they do care about what is going on, but don't know what to do about it, so they do nothing, and appear to be indifferent.
HOWARD ZINN
Huffington Post, Jan. 28, 2010