"In war, good guys always become bad guys." – Howard Zinn

I was reading my emails this morning when Christien, over at his computer, gasped, “Howard Zinn died.” I’ve been spending the past hour or so finding quotes of his online, reading tributes and obits, watching snippets of interviews and the preview of the documentary that was recently made of “Voices of a People’s History of the United States.” He is and shall remain one of my heroes. Howard Zinn was one of those rare and astonishing human beings whose innate morality was combined with critical intelligence and clear perception.

"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 leaders…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) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.” – Howard Zinn

I came to know about him rather late in life—I didn’t read “A People’s History of the United States” until the fall of 2001. Perhaps it was the combination of reading it alongside the events of that fall, and the months that followed, that made its emotional impact so intense for me. I remember sitting on our porch in Sacramento reading the book, looking up to see the long sunset light hit the flags that dotted every lawn in the neighborhood. I cried in frustration, sadness: the bombing campaign in Afghanistan had started and I could feel it in the air. As if each impact, each shattering of stone and air and bone reverberated in the air of northern California. There was nowhere to hide from the horror—neither the horror of 9/11, nor the vengeful horror that swiftly followed.

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." –Howard Zinn

A People’s History is a book that inverts the usual paradigm, where history is written by the victors, the ends justify the means, and the moral imperative is the property of a few with the power, wealth, and prerogative to manipulate and create a system which will act as a feedback loop to perpetuate and consolidate their own power and wealth. Zinn’s book reads American history from the point of view of the people, the ones suggested but not really represented by the phrase “We the people” – women, African Americans, Native Americans, workers—it is their voices that Zinn brought to life in his book, his achievements that he acknowledges.

"If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves." – Howard Zinn

For all his criticism of U.S. policies, Zinn was fiercely democratic and also fiercely hopeful. His death is a huge loss because he never stopped challenging the status quo, whether manifested as the endless power-greed of the wealthy ruling class or the tendency for all of us, “the people,” to want to forget, ignore, go to sleep, let someone else deal with it.

"TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." – Howard Zinn

When I read A People’s History I remember being amazed, outraged, indignant that it had not been on the reading lists of my high school classrooms, or college courses. It should be standard for every American citizen. (Of course some might say it’s not “objective”—but to that my only answer is that it is entirely laughable to think that ANY history book written by anyone (in particular the corporate-sponsored textbooks of today) is objective … its only that the bias of Zinn’s book is clearly owned and announced, and that it is not the one accepted or available in the mainstream. I know I will be buying a copy for my nieces and nephews when they are old enough to read it.

"I'm worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they're doing. I'm concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that's handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers" – Howard Zinn

Long live Howard Zinn.

"Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience." – Howard Zinn