Howard Zinn Quotes - Page 9

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• The only hope lies in the fact that the American people - like people everywhere - are basically decent people with common sense.

  Howard Zinn

  Lying, People, Common Sense

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Each situation has to be evaluated separately, for all are different. In general, I believe in non-violent direct action, which involve organizing large numbers of people, whereas too often violent uprisings are the product of a small group. If enough people are organized, violence can be minimized in bringing about social change.

  Howard Zinn

  Believe, Direct Action, Uprising

  ZNet forum reply, May 26, 1999.

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• I have no regrets about my political activity, only that I sometimes got carried away with it and didn't find the right balance between obligations to my family and my need to be involved in social movements.

  Howard Zinn

  Regret, Political, Balance

  "Zinn Speaks". Interview with Wajahat Ali, www.counterpunch.org. April 19, 2008.

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• I think a way to behave is to think not in terms of representative government, not in terms of voting, not in terms of electoral politics, but thinking in terms of organizing social movements, organizing in the work place, organizing in the neighborhood, organizing collectives that can become strong enough to eventually take over - first to become strong enough to resist what has been done to them by authority, and second, later, to become strong enough to actually take over the institutions.

  Howard Zinn

  Strong, Thinking, Government

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• Strike is always a form of direct action. With the strike, too, you are not asking government to make things easier for you by passing legislation, you are taking a direct action against the employer.

  Howard Zinn

  Direct Action, Government, Asking

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• I don't think we can depend on Congress. In the American political system - we have been brought up to believe that the American political system works beautifully; it is democratic; Congress represents us; the President is elected, he represents us - it doesn't work that way.

  Howard Zinn

  Believe, Thinking, Political

  Source: openvault.wgbh.org

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• The problem of giving health care to everybody cannot be solved so long as we're spending huge sums of money for war. Already we have a very wasteful healthcare system, the most wasteful healthcare system in the world. I mean, we spend the most money and still have 40 million people without insurance. Compare us to Cuba. Cuba is our enemy, run by a dictator, Fidel Castro. But people in Cuba get health care at least equal to that of the United States - with very scarce resources. So I think this issue is the most important domestic issue.

  Howard Zinn

  Running, War, Mean

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The stories coming out of Iraq everyday - the violence, the chaos, the deaths of Americans, the deaths of Iraqis... Of course the deaths of Iraqis are not played up as much. But when they count the corpses they see women and children. We are constantly killing the people who are suspected of something. Now, in the United States or under any decent system of justice, you don't kill people on suspicion. That's what you do when you bomb a house because there are suspected leaders there. But we've been doing that again and again and the result has been a toll of thousands of civilians.

  Howard Zinn

  Children, People, Justice

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world.

  Howard Zinn

  Giving Up, Winning, Games

  Howard Zinn (2013). “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress”, p.267, City Lights Books

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• I believe the American people have the capacity to create a new movement, which would change the direction of our nation from being a military power to being a peaceful nation, using our enormous wealth for human needs, here and abroad.

  Howard Zinn

  Military, Believe, People

  "Zinn Speaks". Interview with Wajahat Ali, www.counterpunch.org. April 19, 2008.

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• The United States government was proud that, although perhaps 100,000 Iraqis had died in the Gulf War of 1991, there were only 48 American battle casualties. What it has concealed from the public is that 206,000 veterans of that war filed claims with the VA for injuries and illnesses. In the years since that war, 8,300 veterans have died, and 160,000 claims for disability have been recognized by the VA.

  Howard Zinn

  War, Government, Years

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• I did not feel very patriotic. I did not feel proud of our country, seeing that we were bombing peasant villages, that we were not just hitting military targets, that children were being killed. We were terrorizing the North Vietnamese with our enormous Air Force. They had no Air Force at all. They were a little pitiful country and we were terrorizing them with our bombs. And no, I did not feel proud at all.

  Howard Zinn

  Country, Children, Military

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• That's generally true of people who drop bombs from high altitudes. You don't know what's going on below. You don't see the human consequences of what you're doing.

  Howard Zinn

  People, Bombs, Humans

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Diverse audiences can be just as misled as homogenous audiences.

  Howard Zinn

  Misled, Diverse, Audience

  Source: facpub.stjohns.edu

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• The idea of direct action against the evil that you want to overcome is a kind of common denominator for anarchist ideas and anarchist movements. I think one of the most important principles of anarchism is that you cannot separate means and ends. Anarchism requires means and ends to be in line with one another. I think this is in fact one of the distinguishing characteristics of anarchism.

  Howard Zinn

  Mean, Thinking, Direct Action

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• I did not feel proud of our country, seeing that we were bombing peasant villages, that we were not just hitting military targets, that children were being killed. We were terrorizing the North Vietnamese with our enormous Air Force. They had no Air Force at all. They were a little pitiful country and we were terrorizing them with our bombs. And no, I did not feel proud at all.

  Howard Zinn

  Country, Children, Military

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• One of the problems with dealing with anarchism is that there are many people whose ideas are anarchist, but who do not necessarily call themselves anarchists.

  Howard Zinn

  Ideas, People, Problem

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• I believe that it is preferable sometimes to have one candidate rather another candidate, while you understand that that is not the solution. Sometimes the lesser evil is not so lesser, so you want to ignore that, and you either do not vote or vote for third party as a protest against the party system.

  Howard Zinn

  Party, Believe, Evil

  "Rebels Against Tyranny". Interview with Ziga Vodovnik, www.counterpunch.org. May 12, 2008.

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• I always emphasize the historic role of people of color in organizing and protesting to achieve justice.

  Howard Zinn

  Color, People, Justice

  Source: facpub.stjohns.edu

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• The UN should arrange, as US forces leave, for an international group of peacekeepers and negotiators from the Arab countries to bring together Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, and work out a solution for self-governance that would give all three groups a share in political power. Simultaneously, the UN should arrange for shipments of food and medicine, from the United States and other countries, as well as engineers to help rebuild the country.

  Howard Zinn

  Country, Self, Medicine

  "How can America get out of Iraq?" by Noam Chomsky, Jonathan Schell, Howard Zinn, William Polk, www.theguardian.com. May 12, 2004.

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• 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

  Men, Small Numbers, Humanity

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• Memorial Day should be a day for putting flowers on graves and planting trees. Also, for destroying the weapons of death that endanger us more than they protect us, that waste our resources and threaten our children and grandchildren.

  Howard Zinn

  Memorial Day, Children, Flower

  Howard Zinn (2001). “Howard Zinn on War”, p.97, Seven Stories Press

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• The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured.

  Howard Zinn

  Catalyst For Change, Ideas, Opinion

  Howard Zinn (2010). “You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times”, p.33, Beacon Press

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• The mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction-so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people's movements-that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission.

  Howard Zinn

  Book, People, Mountain

  Howard Zinn (2014). “A People's History of the United States”, p.560, Pan Macmillan

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• It is no longer simply the merchant prince, or the aristocratic monopoly, or even the employing class, that is exploiting the world: it is the nation, a new democratic nation composed of united capital and labor.

  Howard Zinn

  Class, World, Monopoly

  Howard Zinn (2014). “A People's History of the United States”, p.323, Pan Macmillan

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