HOWARD ZINN QUOTES
American historian & social activist (1922-2010)
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
Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology
It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help. Then you might say, "Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism." But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?
HOWARD ZINN
Terrorism and War
The supposedly contending groups who run American society, Democrats and Republicans and Whigs and Democrats and Federalists and anti-Federalists, they really are part of the same elite group.
HOWARD ZINN
Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches, 1963-2009
When the Democrats are attacked for [inciting class warfare] they shrink back. They don't say what obviously should be said, "Yes, there is class warfare. There has always been class warfare in this country." The reason the Democrats shrink back is because the Democrats and the Republicans are on the same side of the class war. They have slightly different takes. The Democrats are part of the upper class that is more willing to make concessions to the lower class in order to maintain their power.
HOWARD ZINN
interview, Identity Theory, Jan. 10, 2001
Human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility lies hope.
HOWARD ZINN
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States
The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States
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
A People's History of the United States
History is instructive. And what it suggests to people is that even if they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper. Anything they do, however small, becomes part of a much, much larger sort of flow of energy. And when enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place.
HOWARD ZINN
interview, Raw Story, Sep. 9, 2005
Behind the deceptive words designed to entice people into supporting violence -- words like democracy, freedom, self-defense, national security -- there is the reality of enormous wealth in the hands of a few, while billions of people in the world are hungry, sick, homeless.
HOWARD ZINN
preface, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
War is a form of terrorism. I know there are people who don't like to equate-- what was done-- you know on September 11th, 2001, they don't like to equate that with a war that the United States engaged in. Sure, they're different. But they're not different in the-- in the fundamental principal that drives the terrorists and that is, they're saying, we're going to kill a lot of people but it will be worth it. We're trying to do something. We're trying to accomplish something. They-- the terrorists are not killing people just for the sake of killing people, they have some end in mind. To show that the American empire is vulnerable or to make some point about American policy in the Middle East. But they have an end in mind. We are doing the same thing. I mean, as I say, the details are different, but we are willing to kill a lot of people for some political end that we have declared.
HOWARD ZINN
Bill Moyers interview, Jan. 10, 2003
We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can quietly become a power no government can suppress, a power than can transform the world.
HOWARD ZINN
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience.... Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem.
HOWARD ZINN
Voices of a People's History of the United States
I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is ... to tell the truth.
HOWARD ZINN
Marx in Soho
Indeed, it is impossible to be neutral. In a world already moving in certain directions, where wealth and power are already distributed in certain ways, neutrality means accepting the way things are now. It is a world of clashing interests -- war against peace, nationalism against internationalism, equality against greed, and democracy against elitism -- and it seems to me both impossible and undesirable to be neutral in those conflicts.
HOWARD ZINN
Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology
Pessimism becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act.
HOWARD ZINN
You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
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
ZNet commentary, Nov. 1999
Democracy depends on citizens being informed, and since our media, especially television (which is the most important source of news for most Americans) reports mostly what the people in power do, and repeats what the people in power say, the public is badly informed, and it means we cannot really say we have a functioning democracy.
HOWARD ZINN
Huffington Post, Jan. 28, 2010
The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States
It had long been true, and prisoners knew this better than anyone, that the poorer you were the more likely you were to end up in jail. This was not just because the poor committed more crimes. In fact, they did. The rich did not have to commit crimes to get what they wanted; the laws were on their side. But when the rich did commit crimes, they often were not prosecuted, and if they were they could get out on bail, hire clever lawyers, get better treatment from judges. Somehow, the jails ended up full of poor black people.
HOWARD ZINN
A People's History of the United States