Time Period: 2000-2009

Three Holy Wars: The Progressive’s 100th Anniversary Conference

Speech give by Howard Zinn. The Progressive 100th Celebration. May 2, 2009.
"Three holy wars. What does that mean? I’m not talking about religious wars. I’m talking about the three wars in American history that are sacrosanct – the three wars that you cannot say anything bad about: The Revolutionary War, the Civil War and World War II."
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Sacco and Vanzetti

By Howard Zinn. Article. The Progressive and ZCommunications. April 14, 2007 and March 11, 2009.
On that 50th year after the execution, the New York Times reported that: "Plans by Mayor Beame to proclaim next Tuesday "Sacco and Vanzetti Day’ have been canceled in an effort to avoid controversy, a City Hall spokesman said yesterday." There must be good reason why a case 50-years-old, now over 75-years-old, arouses such emotion. I suggest that it is because to talk about Sacco and Vanzetti inevitably brings up matters that trouble us today: our system of justice, the relationship between war fever and civil liberties, and most troubling of all, the ideas of anarchism: the obliteration of national boundaries and therefore of war, the elimination of poverty, and the creation of a full democracy.
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Remembering Murray Levin

By Howard Zinn. Article. The Monthly Review. February 2009.
I suspect that many on the U.S. left do not know the name of Murray Levin—political scientist, writer, teacher—who died at the age of seventy-two in late 1999. It would be hard to characterize his politics in simple terms; “socialist,” “radical,” “progressive?” In the thirty-five years I knew him, including twenty-four years as his close friend and colleague at Boston University, there was never any occasion to describe him in any of those ways. One thing, however, can be stated with confidence: Murray Levin made an important contribution to the radical movement in this country—by what he wrote, how he taught, and how he behaved as a dissident intellectual in the world of academe.
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Howard Zinn Describes Work in the Navy Yards

Howard Zinn interviewed by Daniella Romano. Brooklyn Navy Yard Archive. December 8, 2008.
In this interview, Zinn shares detailed memories about growing up in Brooklyn, working as an apprentice shipfitter in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, helping to organize an apprentice shipfitter association, organizing a winning basketball team, and his first date with Roslyn Shechter, his future wife.
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Zinn at the 2008 NCSS | Photo by Steve Puppe/NCSS.

Howard Zinn at the 2008 NCSS Conference

Talk by Howard Zinn. National Council for the Social Studies Conference. 2008.
In 2008, Howard Zinn have a keynote address at the National Conference for the Social Studies (NCSS) conference. He offers clear examples of how history teachers can help students think outside of the box.
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‘Election Day Will Not Be Enough’: An Interview with Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn interviewed by Jessica Lee and John Tarleton. Indypendent. Nov. 14, 2008.
"Significant changes occur when social movements reach a critical point of power capable of moving cautious politicians beyond their tendency to keep things as they are — or when these movements, by direct action, bypass the political system and bring about change by acting directly on the obstacles to change."
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Studs Terkel • Photographer unknown • WikiCommons

Howard Zinn Defends Studs Terkel from Red-Baiting in the Times

By Howard Zinn. Article. The Progressive. November 2008.
"Reading Edward Rothstein’s sour commentary on Studs Terkel in the New York Times on November 2, I was surprised that Rothstein, presumably a sophisticated thinker, seems to believe one can separate one’s political views from a historical narrative, even from oral history. 'It is, in fact, impossible to separate Mr. Terkel’s political vision from the contours of his oral history,' he wrote."
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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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