Year: 2008

Spend the Bailout Money on the Middle Class

By Howard Zinn. Article. The Nation. October 28, 2008.
It is sad to see both major parties agree to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money to bail out huge financial institutions that are notable for two characteristics: incompetence and greed. There is a much better solution to the financial crisis. But it would require discarding what has been conventional wisdom for too long: that government intervention in the economy ("big government") must be avoided like the plague, because the "free market" can be depended on to guide the economy toward growth and justice. Surely the sight of Wall Street begging for government aid is almost comic in light of its long devotion to a "free market" unregulated by government.
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President Barack Obama and Senator John McCain • By Pete Souza • WikiCommons

The Obama Difference

Article by Howard Zinn. The Progressive. October 2008.
"It seems that Barack Obama and John McCain are arguing over which war to fight. McCain says: Keep the troops in Iraq until we 'win.' Obama says: Withdraw some (not all) troops from Iraq and send them to fight and 'win' in Afghanistan. As someone who has fought in a war (World War II) and since then has protested against war, I must ask: Have our political leaders gone mad? Have they learned nothing from recent history? Have they not learned that no one 'wins' in a war, but that hundreds of thousands of human beings die, most of them civilians, many of them children?"
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From Empire to Democracy

By Howard Zinn. Article. The Guardian. Oct. 3, 2008.
This current financial crisis is a major way-station on the way to the collapse of the American empire. The first important sign was 9/11, with the most heavily-armed nation in the world shown to be vulnerable to a handful of hijackers. And now, another sign: both major parties rushing to get an agreement to spend $700bn of taxpayers’ money to pour down the drain of huge financial institutions which are notable for two characteristics: incompetence and greed.
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Our Interview with the People’s Historian, Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn interviewed by The Boulder Weekly. Oct. 2, 2008.
"We resemble other times in history before the movements were effective — when they were just growing, when they were just developing. The anti-slavery movement had to develop over 30 years. The anti-war movement against Vietnam had to develop over four or five years. The Civil Rights movement had to develop over decades and decades. So, we are in a stage of development. You can’t just look at where we are right now and say, 'Well, we’re not doing it, we’re incapable, we’re hopeless.'"
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U.S. ‘In Need of Rebellion’

Howard Zinn interviewed by Al Jazeera. September 13, 2008.
Q: Is there any hope the US will change its approach to the rest of the world?
"If there is any hope, the hope lies in the American people. [It] lies in American people becoming resentful enough and indignant enough over what has happened to their country, over the loss of dignity in the world, over the starving of human resources in the United States, the starving of education and health, the takeover of the political mechanism by corporate power and the result this has on the everyday lives of the American people."
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The Citizens Among Us

Howard Zinn interviewed by Gabriel Matthew Schivon. ZCommunications. August 29, 2008.
GMS: Let's start with the second resolution of the March 4 Manifesto: "To devise means for turning research applications away from their present emphasis on military technology toward the solution of pressing social and environmental problems." Would you explain the importance of this idea of scientific reconversion?
It's been a long-standing problem of science being used for destruction or for construction. It goes back to Hiroshima and Nagasaki—it goes back to the atomic bomb. In fact, that probably was the first really dramatic instance of the use of the latest scientific knowledge to kill human beings.
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Howard Zinn’s Advice to Obama

Howard Zinn interviewed by Rob Kall. OpEd News. August 28, 2008.
Do you have any advice for Obama?
"Yes. Speak boldly to the American people, the American people want to get out of Iraq. Speak boldly and say, 'I'm going to withdraw from Iraq as fast as ships and planes can carry them,' and I think that Obama will have a much better chance of winning the election because he will be speaking to the hearts of the American people, who really are sick of the war."
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Howard Zinn on Democracy in America

Howard Zinn interviewed BigThink. May 5, 2008.
What is the state of democracy in America?
HOWARD ZINN: We don’t have a lot of democracy in America today. We have these formal institutions. We have representative government and we have a Bill of Rights… Sure, we are more democratic than an absolutist and totalitarian state, but we in the United States are still quite a long way from democracy and certainly a long way from economic democracy.
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The Legacy of Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn interviewed by BigThink. July 5, 2008.
What do you want to be remembered for?
HOWARD ZINN: If I want to be remembered for anything, it’s for introducing a different way of thinking about the world, about war, about human rights, about equality, for getting more and more people to think that way. Also, for getting more people to realize that the power which rests so far in the hands of people with wealth and guns, that the power ultimately rests in people themselves and that they can use it. At certain points in history, they have used it.
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Rebels Against Tyranny: An Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Howard Zinn interviewed by Žiga Vodovnik. CounterPunch. May 12, 2008.
"There is one central characteristic of anarchism on the matter of means, and that central principle is a principle of direct action. ... In the South, they did not wait for the government to give them a signal, or to go through the courts, to file lawsuits, wait for Congress to pass the legislation. They took direct action; they went into restaurants, were sitting down there and wouldn’t move. They got on those busses and acted out the situation that they wanted to exist."
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Read, Learn, & Make History
Check out the Howard Zinn Digital Collection to search Zinn’s bibliography by books, articles, audio, video, and more.
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