Monday, February 01, 2010

The World Lost A Great Humanitarin

Portrait At This SiteAMERICANS WHO TELL THE TRUTH

Howard Zinn has died. Mournfulness blankets our collective conscience with gloom over this sorrowful event. He will be greatly missed by all who live life with open-mindedness, compassion, tolerance and understanding. This world of ours is dominated by propaganda from the few who try to convince us that WHATEVER THEY TELL US IS GOOD FOR US (even without facts to back it up) AND IT DOESN’T MATTER WHO GETS HURT (because all of mankind will benefit). This would be such an easy task for them if it were not for the Howard Zinns who are not afraid to speak out against the evangelism of those who always profit greatly and are rewarded with absolute power if they can get the backing of the masses.

Yes Howard Zinn will be missed but he has left us a legacy of truth that will be carried forth, generating young activists for world
peace, generations to come. Thank you Howard Zinn and Rest In The Peace You Had Hoped Would Be A Part Of All Humanity World Over.
thinkingblue

PS: I have put together, videos, quotes and different passages about Howard Zinn that I had found on the Internet, my humble tribute to a great Human Being.





Howard Zinn In His Own Words:

I grew up in a family of working-class immigrants,
living in tenements in Brooklyn. Our living quarters were rather miserable and we kids spent most of our time out in the streets. It seemed natural that I should develop a certain class consciousness, an understanding that we lived in a society of rich and poor, and whether you were rich or poor had nothing to do with how hard you worked.

There were young radicals in my neighborhood, a few years older than me, and I was impressed with how much they knew about what was going on in the world. I was beginning to read books about Fascism and socialism. One day, my friends asked if I would join them in going to a demonstration in Times Square. I had never been to a demonstration, and it seemed like an exciting thing to do.

When we got to Times Square, there was no sign of a demonstration, but when the big clock on the Times Building struck ten, banners unfurled in the crowd, and people began marching and chanting. I wasn't sure what they were concerned with but it seemed they were opposed to war, and that appealed to me. One of my friends took one end of a banner and I the other. I heard sirens and shouts and I wondered what was happening.

Then I saw policemen on horses charging into the crowd, beating people with clubs. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Here were people peacefully demonstrating and they were attacked by the police. Before I knew it, I was spun around and hit on the side of the head, with what I didn't know. I was knocked unconscious, and when I woke up in a doorway, it was an eerie scene, everything quiet as if nothing had happened. But something had happened to me. I was stripped of my illusion that we lived in a democracy where people could protest peacefully. At that moment I moved from being a liberal to being a radical, understanding that there was something fundamentally wrong with the system that I had always thought cherished freedom and democracy.

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Howard Zinn: "On Civil Disobedience."






Howard Zinn: "On Human Nature and Aggression."





Howard Zinn In His Own Words.



Question: What do you want to be remembered for?

Howard Zinn: I guess 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. Black people in the South used it. People in the women’s movement used it. People in the anti-war movement used it. People in other countries who have overthrown tyrannies have used it.

I want to be remembered as somebody who gave people a feeling of hope and power that they didn’t have before. http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/01/29-2

Howard Zinn's "Three Holy Wars"





Reading Howard Zinn's autobiography (You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train) demonstrates that once the train departs on the journey of life in which events take fatal routes you can't be neutral because that means you're accepting your fate. This is more than an autobiography; it is a book not only about a man's life but about life in general. His book You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train published in 1994 teaches us about the overlooked parts of history, the hardships of the blacks and their movements in the South, war and its true nature, and his own personal vicissitudes. This is a history book; however it is not your typical history book either. Zinn as a teacher, historian and a radical gives the reader a one of a kind history lesson, not one based on research, but the only one he knows which is the one he lived. http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2005/9/7/162055/8035

Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train



Zinn's experience as an U.S. Air Force bombardier during World War II led him to be highly critical of armed combat. He was active in the Vietnam anti-war and American Civil Rights movements, and also worked as a labor union organizer.

Zinn's philosophies lean toward socialism and his writings often detail the experiences of cultural groups that have traditionally been marginalized.

Quotes

"I am hopeful. But hope rests on doing something. If you're not doing anything to change things, you have no right to be hopeful."

Howard Zinn: On The Stupidity Of War





Howard Zinn Biography

Historian, Political Theorist, Educator, 1922

“The rule of law does not do away with the unequal distribution of wealth and power, but reinforces that inequality with the authority of law. It allocates wealth and poverty in such calculated and indirect ways as to leave the victim bewildered.”

Howard Zinn was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a working-class family and, though he had few formal educational opportunities, he developed a strong social consciousness while working as a shipfitter and avidly reading the novels of Charles Dickens. Flying bombing missions in World War II shaped his opposition to war. After military service he earned a doctorate in history at Columbia University and taught at Spelman College in Georgia where he was active in the Civil Rights movement. In 1963 he moved to Boston University and became a prominent, outspoken critic of the Vietnam War.

Best known for his A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present (1980, revised 1995), a history of America through the perspective of “those outside of the political and economic establishment,” Zinn remains an active advocate for the underclass, a proponent of world peace and an articulate critic of corporate power and greed supported by governmental collusion.

“We need new ways of thinking,” says Zinn. “We need to rethink our position in the world. We need to stop sending weapons to countries that oppress other people. We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.”

“We can not be secure by limiting our liberties, as some of our political leaders are demanding, but only by expanding them…We should take our example not from the military and political leaders shouting ‘retaliate’ and ‘war’ but from the doctors and nurses and … firemen and policemen who have been saving lives in the midst of mayhem, whose first thoughts are not violence, but healing, and not vengeance, but compassion.”

From
AMERICANS WHO TELL THE TRUTH

http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Howard_Zinn.php

You can buy a print here:
https://jbonte.ebanyan.com/newsearch.asp?action=searchII&grp=z94&featured=true

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Zinn: Bailout is trickle-down theory magnified





Howard Zinn Humanist - Gone But Never Forgotten. thinkingblue

Howard Zinn's soundness of mind will forever keep us from becoming unreasoning and will protect fragile minds from the likes of people who wish to
revise HISTORY with FANTASY!

click here


MOVE TO AMEND


Let's keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE

THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
thinkingblue