• The Optimism of Uncertainty (September 30): "In this awful world where the efforts of caring people often pale in comparison to what is done by those who have power, how do I manage to stay involved and seemingly happy?" [read more...]

2003

• An Occupied Country (September 29): "It has become clear, very quickly, that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country." [read more...]
  
  
• Victory? (July 24): "The 'victory' over an already devastated and disarmed Iraq led Bush, Rumsfeld and their teammates into a locker-room frenzy of exultation and self-congratulation. I half-expected to see Bush joyfully pouring beer on Rumsfeld’s head and Ashcroft snapping a towel at Ari Fleischer’s derriere." [read more...]

2002

• Veterans Day (November 13): "Veterans Day used to be called Armistice Day, because it was November 11, 1918, at 11 AM - the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, that the first World War came to an end." [read more...]

2000

• Tennis on the Titanic (Dec 16): "As the prize of the presidency lurched wildly back and forth in the last days of the year, with the entire nation hypnotized by the spectacle, I had a vision. I saw the Titanic churning through the waters of the North Atlantic toward an iceberg looming in the distance, while passengers and crew were totally concentrated on a tennis game taking place on deck." [read more...]
  
  
• A Campaign Without Class (September 29): "There came a rare amusing moment in this election campaign when George Bush (who has $220 million dollars for his campaign) accused Al Gore (who has only $170 million dollars) of appealing to 'class warfare'. It recalled the 1988 election campaign when Bush's father (is this a genetic disorder?) accused candidate Michael Dukakis of instigating class antagonism." [read more...]
  
  
• Downfall (Augus 18): "I am surprised that my friend Hans Koning, a stalwart protester against the war in Vietnam, seems to have been taken in by the argument of Richard Frank, in his review of Frank's DOWNFALL. Yes, we must all be willing to reconsider our most hardened judgements in the light of new evidence. But there is nothing in Frank's argument -- however assiduous his research -- to make those of us who see the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an unspeakable atrocity change our minds." [read more...]
  
  
• A Fourth of July Commentary (July 4): "In this year 2000, I cannot comment more meaningfully on the Fourth of July than Frederick Douglass did when he was invited in 1852 to give an Independence Day address. He could not help thinking about the irony of the promise of the Declaration of Independence, of equality, life, liberty made by slaveowners, and how slavery was made legitimate in the writing of the Constitution after a victory for "freedom" over England. And his invitation to speak came just two years after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, committing the national government to return fugitives to slavery with all the force of the law." [read more...]
  
  
• The Heroes Around Us (May 7): "Recently, meeting with a group of high school students, I was asked by one of them: 'I read in your book, A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, about the massacres of Indians, the long history of racism, the persistence of poverty in the richest country in the world, the senseless wars. How can I keep from being thoroughly alienated and depressed?'" [read more...]
  
  
• Sender Garlin (March 9): "As the twentieth century came to an end last December, an extraordinary man, whose life spanned the century, died at the age of ninety-seven. His name was Sender Garlin." [read more...]
  
  
• Notes for a Gathering (January 2): "I have been asked to imagine this situation: 'The progressive third party movement has captured the White House, 60% of Congress and 30 Governorships. What do we do now?'" [read more...]

1999

• Seattle (December 22): "In the year 1919, when the city of Seattle was brought to a halt by a general strike - beginning with 35,000 shipyard workers demanding a wage increase - the mayor reflected on its significance: 'True there were no flashing guns, no bombs, no killings. Revolution...doesn't need violence. The general strike, as practiced in Seattle, is of itself the weapon of revolution, all the more dangerous because quiet. To succeed it must suspend everything; stop the entire life stream of a community....That is to say, it puts the government out of operation. And that is all there is to revolt - no matter how achieved.'" [read more...]
  
  
• On Rewarding People for Talents and Hard Work (November 25): "There are two issues here: First, why should we accept our culture's definition of those two factors? 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. [read more...]
  
  
• A Larger Consciousness (October 10): "Some years ago, when I was teaching at Boston University, I was asked by a Jewish group to give a talk on the Holocaust. I spoke that evening, but not about the Holocaust of World War II, not about the genocide of six million Jews. It was the mid-Eighties, and the United States government was supporting death squad governments in Central America, so I spoke of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of peasants in Guatemala and El Salvador, victims of American policy. My point was that the memory of the Jewish Holocaust should not be encircled by barbed wire, morally ghettoized, kept isolated from other genocides in history. It seemed to me that to remember what happened to Jews served no important purpose unless it aroused indignation, anger, action against all atrocities, anywhere in the world. [read more...]
  
  
• "Beyond the Soviet Union" (September 2): "In the spirit of killing two obligations with one effort, I offer as my Commentary a response I just made to a letter by a retired professor in California, who wrote: 'As a great admirer of Howard Zinn (should he have said 'as a former great admirer...'?) I was profoundly disappointed by some of his comments made during his interview with David Barsamian (I blame Barsamian for losing me an admirer) in the March issue of Z Magazine.' Without reproducing my correspondent's letter I think the gist of his comments are clear from my responses. Fundamentally, he did not like my saying I was 'very glad' the rule of the Soviet government ended. He took issue with my skepticism about violent revolutions. He made interesting, provocative, thoughtful arguments. [read more...]
  
  
• Inspire Please... (July 16): "The order came from above (I will not reveal the name, unless tortured): 'Write something inspirational.' The exact words were: 'Inspire, please.' The courteous approach concealed a certain desperation. For those not in the know, let me explain that we who write for the progressive-radical movement have our specialties. Some specialize in writing depressing stuff. Others write humorous pieces. Some concentrate on trashing other Left writers. It seems that there was an opening this month for someone to inspire, and I was chosen. [read more...]
  
  
• Whose Atrocity is Bigger? (May 25): "I get e-mail messages from Yugoslav opponents of Milosovic, who demonstrated against him in the streets of Belgrade (before the air strikes began), who tell me their children cannot sleep at night, terrified by the incessant bombing. They tell of the loss of light, of water, of the destruction of the basic sources of life for ordinary people." [read more...]
  
  
• On Getting Along (March 7): "You ask how I manage to stay involved and remain seemingly happy and adjusted to this awful world where the efforts of caring people pale in comparison to those who have power?" [read more...]