Magazine or Newspaper Archives - Page 13 of 15

Operation Enduring War

Article by Howard Zinn. The Progressive. March 2002.
"We are 'winning the war on terror.' I learn this from George Bush's State of the Union Address. 'Our progress," he said, 'is a tribute to the might of the United States military.' My hometown newspaper, The Boston Globe, is congratulatory: 'On the war front, the Administration has much to take pride in.' But the president also tells us that 'tens of thousands of trained terrorists are still at large.' That hardly suggests we are 'winning the war.'"

The Old Way of Thinking

Article by Howard Zinn. The Progressive. September 2001. Also published as "Violence Doesn't Work" At IndyMedia and Common Dreams.
"The images on television have been heartbreaking. ...We knew that there must be thousands of human beings buried alive, but soon dead under a mountain of debris. We can only imagine the terror among the passengers of the hijacked planes as they contemplated the crash, the fire, the end. Those scenes horrified and sickened me. Then our political leaders came on television, and I was horrified and sickened again. They spoke of retaliation, of vengeance, of punishment."

The Greatest Generation?

Article by Howard Zinn. The Progressive. August 2001.
"They tell me I am a member of the greatest generation. That's because I saw combat duty as a bombardier in World War II, and we (I almost said 'I') won the war against fascism. ...That idea is perpetuated by an artillery barrage of books and films about World War II.. ...I wrote from my air base in England to my friend Joe Perry, who was flying B-24s out of Italy, kidding him about his big clunk of a plane, but the humor was extinguished when my last letter to him came back with the notation 'Deceased.'"

Robert Birnbaum Talks with the Author of A People’s History of the United States

Howard Zinn interviewed by Robert Birnbau. IdentityTheory.com . January 10, 2001.
"I talk to audiences in Oklahoma and Texas and here and there and mostly to audiences of people who don't really know my work. I certainly don't expect them to be sympathetic to my ideas. When I express my ideas — and they are radical ideas — except that I don't start off by saying, 'I'm now going to tell you radical ideas.' Or, 'I'm now going to expound ideas of socialism or attack capitalism. Or, 'This is going to be a hate imperialism talk.' None of that. People respond to common sense ideas about foreign policy and domestic policy. It encourages me about the potential in this country, despite who is running it."

Tennis on the Titanic

Article by Howard Zinn. ZCommunications. December 16, 2000. The Progressive as "Disputed Elections, Concealed Facts," February 2001.
"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."

A Campaign Without Class

Article by Howard Zinn. ZCommunications, September 29, 2000 and The Progressive, November 2000.
"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'.… I noticed that neither of the accused responded with a defiant 'Yes, we have classes in this country.' Only Ralph Nader has dared to suggest that this country is divided among the rich, the poor, and the nervous in between. This kind of talk is unpardonably rude, and would be enough to bar him from the televised debates."

Howard Zinn’s Review of Karl Marx: A Life

By Howard Zinn. Article - Review. In These Times. September 2000.
It takes some courage to write still another biography of Karl Marx, especially if the writer has dared to go through the 40 volumes of his writings and his correspondence. Francis Wheen seems to have done that research scrupulously, open to both colorful stories and thunderous ideas.

Downfall

By Howard Zinn. Article. ZCommunications. August 18, 2000.
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.

Collage of excerpt text, Douglass photo, and 3 video clips

A Fourth of July Commentary

By Howard Zinn. Article. ZCommunications. July 4, 2000.
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 [on July 5]. 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."

Unsung Heroes

Article by Howard Zinn. The Progressive. June 2000.
"Another question often put to me by students is: Don't we need our national idols? You are taking down all our national heroes — the Founding Fathers, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy. Granted, it is good to have historical figures we can admire and emulate. But why hold up as models the fifty-five rich white men who drafted the Constitution as a way of establishing a government that would protect the interests of their class-slaveholders, merchants, bondholders, land speculators?"

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Format: Magazine or Newspaper

Operation Enduring War

The Old Way of Thinking

The Greatest Generation?

Robert Birnbaum Talks with the Author of A People’s History of the United States

Tennis on the Titanic

A Campaign Without Class

Howard Zinn’s Review of Karl Marx: A Life

Downfall

A Fourth of July Commentary

Unsung Heroes

Read, Learn, & Make History

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