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Howard Zinn
60 quotes
“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 (1922–2010) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991): "American Ideology
“It is the great challenge of our time: How to achieve justice, with struggle, but without war.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Declarations of Independence: Cross-examining American Ideology (HarperCollins, 1990), Ch. 5, p. 105
“If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, nor as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991): "Obligation to the State
“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Terror Over Tripoli" (1993), from The Zinn Reader (1997)
“The First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights in the United States Constitution were being violated in Albany again and again — freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, the equal protection of the laws — I could count at least 30 such violations. Yet the president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, and all the agencies of the United States government at his disposal, were nowhere to be seen.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Describing the people who participated in the Freedom Rides to end segregation in Albany, Georgia. in You Can't Be Neutral on A Moving Train (1994) Ch. 4: "My Name is Freedom": Albany, Georgia
“The white population could not possibly be unaffected by those events — some whites more stubborn in their defense of segregation, but others beginning to think in different ways. And the black population was transformed, having risen up in mass action for the first time, feeling its power, knowing now that if the old order could be shaken it could be toppled.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: You Can't Be Neutral on A Moving Train (1994) Ch. 4: "My Name is Freedom": Albany, Georgia
“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 (1922–2010) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Howard Zinn on War (2000), Ch. 21: Just and Unjust War
“Not only did waging war against Hitler fail to save the Jews, it may be that the war itself brought on the Final Solution of genocide. This is not to remove the responsibility from Hitler and the Nazis, but there is much evidence that Germany's anti-Semitic actions, cruel as they were, would not have turned to mass murder were it not for the psychic distortions of war, acting on already distorted minds. Hitler's early aim was forced emigration, not extermination, but the frenzy of it created an atmosphere in which the policy turned to genocide.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Howard Zinn on War (2000), Ch. 21: Just and Unjust War
“Whenever I become discouraged (which is on alternate Tuesdays, between three and four) I lift my spirits by remembering: The artists are on our side! I mean those poets and painters, singers and musicians, novelists and playwrights who speak to the world in a way that is impervious to assault because they wage the battle for justice in a sphere which is unreachable by the dullness of ordinary political discourse.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Artists of Resistance", July 2001
“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Old Way of Thinking", in The Progressive (November 2001)
“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 (1922–2010) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Terrorism and War (2002)
“Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Quotations on Terrorism (2004) by Harry Kawilarang, p. 61
“David Ray Griffin has done admirable and painstaking research in reviewing the mysteries surrounding the 9/11 attacks. It is the most persuasive argument I have seen for further investigation [into] that historic and troubling event.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Comment on David Ray Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor, quoted at 911Truth.org (13 August 2004)
“I don't believe it's possible to be neutral. The world is already moving in certain directions, and to be neutral, to be passive in a situation like that, is to collaborate with whatever is going on. And I, as a teacher, do not want to be a collaborator with whatever is happening in the world. I want myself, as a teacher, and I want you, as students, to intercede with whatever is happening in the world.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Howard Zinn: You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004) documentary film
“We in the United States are still quite a long way from democracy and certainly a long way from economic democracy. Because of the control of the economy by corporations and the tax structure, which is set up by an unrepresentative Congress and approved by a president, a tax structure which has so far channeled the wealth of the country towards the richest one percent of the population.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Howard Zinn in What is the state of democracy in America? (5 July 2008)
“Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Election Madness" The Progressive (March 2008)
“Khalil Bendib, with a few ingenious strokes of his pen, gets to the heart of the issues of our time. His cartoons are in the greatest tradition of American political humor, with that combination of wit and intelligence so needed in the struggle for justice.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mission Accomplished: Wicked Cartoons by America's Most Wanted Political Cartoonist , (2007)
“In this extraordinary volume, Elizabeth Martinez reveals what has thus far been hidden from our view, the rich and inspiring history of Chicana women, from the early days of the Spanish conquest to the contemporary struggles for immigrant rights. The book is a treasure trove of exciting information and striking images. It should become an indispensable part of everyone's library, and a special gift to future generations of the young, on whom we depend to change the world.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men. The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Behind the rebel battle yells and the legendary spirit of the Confederate army, there was much reluctance to fight. A sympathetic historian of the South, E. Merton Coulter, asked "Why did the Confederacy fail? The forces leading to the defeat were many but they may be summed up in this one fact"The People did not will hard enough and long enough to win."Not money or soldiers, but willpower and morale were decisive.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To white Americans of the thirties, however, blacks North and South were invisible. Only the radicals made an attempt to break the racial barriers: Socialists, Trotskyists, Communists most of all.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not. A study of the origins of 303 textile, railroad and steel executives of the 1870s showed that 90 percent came from middle- or upper-class families. The Horatio Alger stories of "rags to riches" were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the most influential books to appear in the early seventies was a book assembled by eleven women in the Boston Women's Health Book Collective called Our Bodies, Ourselves...They quoted the English suffragette Christabel Pankhurst: “Remember the dignity/of your womanhood./Do not appeal,/do not beg,/do not grovel./Take courage/join hands,/stand beside us./Fight with us…”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was not until I joined the faculty of Spelman College, a college for black women in Atlanta, Georgia, that I began to read the African-American historians who never appeared on my reading lists in graduate school (W. E. B. Du Bois, Rayford Logan, Lawrence Reddick, Horace Mann Bond, John Hope Franklin). Nowhere in my history education had I learned about the massacres of black people that took place again and again, amid the silence of a national government pledged, by the Constitution, to protect equal rights for all.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and the unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country (w:Divide & rule).”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is very important for the Establishment - that uneasy club of business executives, generals, and politicos - to maintain the historic pretension of national unity, in which the government represents all the people, and the common enemy is overseas, not at home... It is important for them also to make sure this artificial unity of highly privileged and slightly privileged is the only unity - that the 99 percent remain split in countless ways, and turn against one another to vent their angers.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But with all the controls of power and punishment, enticements and concessions, diversions and decoys, operating throughout the history of the country, the Establishment has been unable to keep itself secure from revolt. Every time it looked as if it had succeeded, the very people it thought seduced or subdued, stirred and rose.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Blacks, cajoled by Supreme Court decisions and congressional statutes, rebelled. Women, wooed and ignored, romanticized and mistreated, rebelled. Indians, thought dead, reappeared, defiant. Young people, despite lures of career and comfort, defected. Working people, thought soothed by reforms, regulated by law, kept within bounds by their own unions, went on strike. Government intellectuals, pledged to secrecy, began giving away secrets...”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But most histories understate revolt, overemphasize statesmanship, and thus encourage impotency among citizens. When we look closely at resistance movements, or even at isolated forms of rebellion, we discover that class consciousness, or any other awareness of injustice, has multiple levels. It has many ways of expression, many ways of revealing itself-open, subtle, direct, distorted. In a system of intimidation and control, people do not show how much they know, how deeply they feel, until their practical sense informs them they can do so without being destroyed.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“History which keeps alive the memory of people's resistance suggests new definitions of power. By traditional definitions, whoever possesses military strength, wealth, command of official ideology, cultural control, has power. Measured by these standards, popular rebellion never looks strong enough to survive. However, the unexpected victories -even temporary ones - of insurgents show the vulnerability of the supposedly powerful.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a highly developed society, the Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who are given small rewards to keep the system going: the soldiers and police, teachers and ministers, administrators and social workers, technicians and production workers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, transport and communications workers, garbage men and firemen. These people-the employed, the somewhat privileged-are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That will happen... when all of us who are slightly privileged and slightly uneasy begin to see that we are like the guards in the prison uprising at Attica - expendable; that the Establishment, whatever rewards it gives us, will also, if necessary to maintain its control, kill us.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is evidence of growing dissatisfaction among the guards. We have known for some time that the poor and ignored were the nonvoters, alienated from a political system they felt didn't care about them, and about which they could do little. Now alienation has spread upward into families above the poverty line.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These are white workers, neither rich nor poor, but angry over economic insecurity, unhappy with their work, worried about their neighborhoods, hostile to government-combining elements of racism with elements of class consciousness, contempt for the lower classes along with distrust for the elite, and thus open to solutions from any direction, right or left.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We grow up in a society where our choice of ideas is limited and where certain ideas dominate: We hear them from our parents, in the schools, in the churches, in the newspapers, and on radio and television. They have been in the air ever since we learned to walk and talk. They constitute an American ideology-that is, a dominant pattern of ideas. Most people accept them, and if we do, too, we are less likely to get into trouble.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dominance of these ideas is not the product of a conspiratorial group that has devilishly plotted to implant on society a particular point of view. Nor is it an accident, an innocent result of people thinking freely. There is a process of natural (or, rather unnatural) selection, in which certain orthodox ideas are encouraged, financed, and pushed forward by the most powerful mechanisms of our culture. These ideas are preferred because they are safe; they don't threaten established wealth or power.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For instance: "Be realistic; this is the way things are; there's no point thinking about how things should be."; "People who teach or write or report the news should be objective; they should not try to advance their own opinions."; "There are unjust wars, but also just wars."; "Freedom of speech is desirable, but not when it threatens national security."; "Racial equality is desirable, but we've gone far enough in that direction."...”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These ideas are not accepted by all Americans. But they are believed widely enough and strongly enough to dominate our thinking. And as long as they do, those who hold wealth and power in our society will remain secure in their control.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dissident ideas can still exist in such a situation, but they will be drowned in criticism and made disreputable, because they are outside the acceptable choices. Or they may be allowed to survive in the corners of the culture emaciated, but alive-and presented as evidence of our democracy, our tolerance, and our pluralism.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A sophisticated system of control that is confident of its power can permit a measure of dissidence. However, it watches its critics carefully, ready to overwhelm them, intimidate them, and even suppress them should they ever seriously threaten the system, or should the establishment, in a state of paranoia, think they do. If readers think I am exaggerating...they should read the volumes of reports on the FBI and the CIA published in 1975 by the Senate Select Committee on Government Operations.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the great challenge of our time: How to achieve justice, with struggle, but without war. Ch. 5, p. 105”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) said by 2010 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the great Washington March of 1963, the chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis, speaking to the same enormous crowd that heard Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream," was prepared to ask the right question: "Which side is the federal government on?" That sentence was eliminated from his speech by organizers of the March to avoid offending the Kennedy Administration. But Lewis and his fellow SNCC workers had experienced, again and again, the strange passivity of the national government in the face of Southern violence, strange, considering how often this same government had been willing to intervene outside the country, often with overwhelming force. John Lewis and SNCC had reason to be angry. John had been beaten bloody by a white mob in Montgomery as a Freedom Rider in the spring of 1961. The federal government had trusted the notoriously racist Alabama police to protect the Riders, but done nothing itself except to have FBI agents take notes. Instead of insisting that blacks and whites had a right to ride the buses together, the Kennedy Administration called for a "cooling-off period," a moratorium on Freedom Rides.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: You Can't Be Neutral on A Moving Train (1994) Ch. 4: "My Name is Freedom": Albany, Georgia
“I am not an absolute pacifist, because I can't rule out the possibility that under some, carefully defined circumstances, some degree of violence may be justified, if it is focused directly at a great evil. Slave revolts are justified, and if John Brown had really succeeded in arousing such revolts throughout the South, it would have been much preferable to losing 600,000 lives in the Civil War, where the makers of the war — unlike slave rebels — would not have as their first priority the plight of the black slaves, as shown by the betrayal of black interests after the war. Again, the Zapatista uprising seems justified to me, but some armed struggles that start for a good cause get out of hand and the ensuing violence becomes indiscriminate. 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 (1922–2010) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ZNet forum reply (26 May 1999)
“To put it briefly: the evidence is quite overwhelming on this matter. The Japanese had sent an envoy (Ambassador Sato) to Moscow (still officially a neutral) to work out a negotiated surrender. An instruction from Foreign Minister Togo came in a telegram (intercepted by American intelligence, which had broken the Japanese code early in the war), saying: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace... It is His Majesty's heart's desire to see the swift termination of the war." The Japanese had one condition for surrender which the U.S. refused to meet — recognizing the sanctity of the Emperor. It seemed the U.S. was determined to drop the bomb before the Japanese could surrender — for a variety of reasons, none of them humanitarian. After the war, the official report of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, based on hundreds of interviews with Japanese decision-makers right after the war, concluded that the war would have ended in a few months by a Japanese surrender "even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Regarding the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in a ZNet forum reply (13 July 1999)
“Why should we accept that the "talent" of someone who writes jingles for an advertising agency advertising dog food and gets $100,000 a year is superior to the talent of an auto mechanic who makes $40,000 a year? Who is to say that Bill Gates works harder than the dishwasher in the restaurant he frequents, or that the CEO of a hospital who makes $400,000 a year works harder than the nurse or the orderly in that hospital who makes $30,000 a year? The president of Boston University makes $300,000 a year. Does he work harder than the man who cleans the offices of the university? Talent and hard work are qualitative factors which cannot be measured quantitatively.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: ZNet commentary (25 November 1999)
“Scholars, who pride themselves on speaking their minds, often engage in a form of self-censorship which is called "realism." To be "realistic" in dealing with a problem is to work only among the alternatives which the most powerful in society put forth. It is as if we are all confined to a, b, c, or d in the multiple choice test, when we know there is another possible answer. American society, although it has more freedom of expression than most societies in the world, thus sets limits beyond which respectable people are not supposed to think or speak. So far, too much of the debate on Vietnam has observed these limits.”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Howard Zinn on War (2000), Ch. 14: Vietnam: A Matter of Perspective
“In all the solemn statements by self-important politicians and newspaper columnists about a coming war against Iraq, and even in the troubled comments by some who are opposed to the war, there is something missing. The talk is about strategy and tactics and geopolitics, and personalities. It is about air war and ground war, about alliances and weapons of mass destruction, and arms inspections, about oil and natural gas, about nation-building and “regime change.” What is missing is what an American war on Iraq will do to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of ordinary human beings who are not concerned with geopolitics and military strategy, and who just want their children to live, to grow up. They are not concerned with “national security” but with personal security, with food and shelter and medical care and peace. I am speaking of those Iraqis and those Americans who will, with absolute certainty, die in such a war, or lose arms or legs, or be blinded. Or they will be stricken with some strange and agonizing sickness, which will lead to their bringing deformed children into the world (as happened to families in Vietnam, in Iraq, and also in the United States).”
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You, p. 21 by Norman Solomon, (2003)