Zinn-sational Sunday morning to everyone ........

[marmar]

..... Just felt like sharing one of my favorite Howard Zinn quotes:

[font size="4"]“I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy...

But I knew it wasn't a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head...

The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you.

From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country--not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian.”[/font]

― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

[SamKnause]

1. What a fine, decent, intelligent man

Mr. Howard Zinn was !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He is sorely missed !!!

[Jefferson23]

2. Zinn-sational is right. K&R

How many American radicals do we have left..that have the intellectual capacity to communicate
effectively against the status quo?

[socialist_n_TN]

3. Zinn wasn't always Zinn the Idol......

Or Zinn the Leader. At one time he was just another guy. When we ALL attempt to step up to the plate in fighting oppression, leaders will emerge.

IOW, we ALL need to try and be the next, "Zinn the Leader".

[Jefferson23]

4. Nicely put, yet we're in deep trouble these days. Tougher for us with each election cycle with

CU pouring in more money than ever. We could use a Zinn wand.

[L0oniX]

5. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html - free

The real left ...is radical.

[scarletwoman]

7. "The real left ...is radical." Exactly.

It cracks me up when I see Democratic partisans on this board claim they are "left". Clueless...

[KG]

11. word.

[IDemo]

12. Or see ConservaDems call anyone not on board with their new republicanism "Left" n/t

[Orrex]

9. Thanks for the link!

[scarletwoman]

6. Thank you! A wonderful quote!

From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country...

This is exactly why I do not call myself a "liberal".

I've gotten old, I haven't acted in any kind of big way to change the world, and now all I feel is despair at how far the rot has advanced in the world.

...an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian.

This will not happen in my lifetime.

[truedelphi]

15. Actually, it might happen in our lifetimes.

People are fed up.

Polling hs been showing since 2008 and that MOST people are no longer identifying themselves as "D"'s or "R"'s.

A whooping 40% of all Americans now see themselves apart from both sides of the One Big Money Party.

Pew Research poll in Spring 2008 and the breakdown:

Democratic voters - 36%

Republican voters - 23%

That leaves some 41% free of party affiliation.

The results were repeated again last fall when the Republicans shut down the government. Only difference was that over the Obama years there had been an additional point or two taken away from the Democrats and handed to the Republicans, so it looked like this:

Democratic voters - 35%

Republican voters - 24%

Again, those free of party affiliation are counted at around 39% to 41%.

And so where is this anger and frustration heading? How are voters using their time once freed from phone banking for another miserable 1% candidate who speaks like he or she loves the middle class, but would probably barf in our faces if they had to spend two minutes of real time with anyone other than the country club set?

Well, what I am finding is this: the way to really get excited about future possibilities is to
become aware of the Community Rights movement.

It doesn't divide the voters who are "R"'s from the voters who' re "D"'s, or from the indies.

It has swept into over 150 communities. And it has accomplished some enviable things.

A group of mostly Republican farmers in one county in PA was able to hand craft an ordinance, get it on the ballot, and that ordinance kept a 14,000 pig pig farm from coming in and destroying the soil, water and air.

New Hampshire citizens kept a Quebec utility from coming in, and instead promoted an ordinance that will see to it they have sustainable utilities to power their homes and businesses.

And Democratic voters in Eugene used it to put in an ordinance requiring labelling of GM foods sold in stores.

read more here:


>
> http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024912270

[Enthusiast]

8. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

"something rotten at the root"

[xchrom]

10. du rec.

[cilla4progress]

13. Please watch the documentary "I Am"

We did, on Friday night. It features Zinn, David Suzuki, Thom Hartmann, Noam Chomsky, Desmond Tutu, and others, talking about the physical basis on the deepest of levels - of the metaphysical / spiritual truth that we are all connected.

Life changing.

[truedelphi]

14. Thanks for clueing us in.

I'll be on the lookout for it.

[truedelphi]

16. Part of Zinn's legacy is to be found in the philosophy of

Matt Damon.

As a kid, Damon lived a few doors down from ZInn in Boston. And the older man took Damon under his wing, teaching him how to think critically, but with an open heart.

The result of this exposure to Zinn's stories about the real America has been one of the more able-minded, politically astute people to grace the red carpet of Hollywood, with such insightful movies as "Promised Land" to his credit.

Notice this diatribe, by Damon's character "Will" in "Good Will Hunting"

Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.?
That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A.

Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well.

But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had no problem with, get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, send in the Marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks.

Meanwhile, he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And, of course, the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic.

So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin', 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat, the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State.

So what do I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

[indepat]

17. The primary root of rottenness in America is the insidious right-wing core belief system of those

who wield power behind the scene and their hypocrisy-laden Republican puppets.

[marmar]

18. I wish it were only Republicans who are their puppets.

[indepat]

19. Should have included DINOs and other fellow-travelers