To be hopeful in bad times By Howard Zinn

[inthebrain]

This just seems so appropriate today; To find laughter in bad times!!!! Laughter brings hope.







Looking at this catalogue of huge surprises, it's clear that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it.

That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience--whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union itself. No cold calculation of the balance of power need deter people who are persuaded that their cause is just.

I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests.

Wherever I go, I find such people. And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to know of one another's existence, and so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that boulder up the mountain.

I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement.

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. 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 transform the world.

Even when we don't "win," there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope.

An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. 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.

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2004-09/30zinn.cfm

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. Master Zinn!

never heard him speak an un-truth yet.

[niyad]

2. THANK YOU so very much for posting this--a powerful reminder that

even in the darkest hours, we must retain hope. I, for one, refuse to give up or give in. And, metaphysically, I understand the laws of attraction--that which we focus on, give our energy to, is what thrives. sooooooo, do we focus on despair, anger, hatred, exhaustion, uncertainty, fear? or do we focus on love, compassion, and a strong sense of justice and right?

feel free to hurl things, but remember these words, "BE the change you wish to see", and "live and act as if the world you are working for already exists".

[LiberalAndProud]

3. Good words.

That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience

[Bozita]

4. Zinn may just be one of America's "living treasures"

Howard Zinn is the conscience of middle America.

[inthebrain]

5. The battle cry from here on in........

"We the American people stand together. We don't need no stinkin party!!!!!!"

It was that mantality that made MLK and Eugene V Debs so bold. I think it's what made them such bold and empowering figures. They told the establishment, "I don't come beggin to you. You come beggin to me!!!!!"

[inthebrain]

6. bump