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Howard Zinn: How I Want to Be Remembered...
The legendary author and activist Howard Zinn passed away this evening at the age of 87. In one of his final interviews, Professor Zinn discussed how he would like to be remembered: for "introducing a different way of thinking about the world," and as "somebody who gave people a feeling of hope and power that they didn’t have before."
The entire interview can be viewed here, and his remarks are quoted in full below:
What do you want to be remembered for?:
What is your personal philosophy?:
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.
Question: What is your philosophy?
Howard Zinn: I believe, I suppose, in what could be called democratic socialism. I believe that we need a society where the motive for the economic system is not corporate profit, but the motive is the welfare of people, health care, jobs, child care, and so on. But that is dominant. Where there is a greater equalization of wealth and a society which is peaceful, which devotes its resources to helping people in the country and elsewhere.
I believe in a world where war is no longer the recourse for the settling of grievances and problems. I believe in the wiping out of national boundaries.
I don’t believe in visas and passports and immigration quotas. I think we need to move toward a global society. They use the word “globalization,” but they use it in a very narrow sense to mean the freedom of corporations to move across boundaries. But what we need is a freedom of people and things to move across boundaries.
When I talk about socialism without jails, I mean greater societal intervention into the economy, but without deprivation of civil liberties. Dalton Trumbo, the Hollywood writer, put it very simply. He said, “Socialism without jails.”
© 2010 Big Think
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Show AllHoward Zinn was a true Elder. He will be missed.
When I heard the new that Howrd Zinn had died, I shed a tear and I noted that I am thankful for his work and that his writing has been invaluable to me in the support of my own ethos in the world. I will miss Howard Zinn and, like every evening, I will continue to read from cover to cover, again and again, his “People's History of the United States” and the “More” book on my Kindle. This will always be, for me, my own testament to his power as a truthseeker in a society that usually tries to silence them. Out of the silence came Howard Zinn and we are all, all of us, the richer for it.
Rest in peace, Howard. I, too, am an atheist and you will have the answer now that I still have to await. Take care if there is anything beyond this and, well, if there is not, then I have been thankful for him and his work while he was alive.
"I would never have become an historian if I thought that it would would become my professional duty to go into the past and never emerge, to study long-gone events and remember them only for their uniqueness, not connecting them to events going on in my time."-Howard Zinn
In honor of The Life and Spirit of Zinn, I am compelled to repeat myself: The 64th Anniversary of USA Terrorism Enlightened by the Wisdom of Nonviolence:
Last August 6th and 9th marked the 64th anniversary of the most brutal acts of terrorism upon innocent people; America's atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On Armistice Day, 1948 General Omar Nelson Bradley warned, "We live in a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on The Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about dying than we know about living."
In 1995, from Ashkelon Prison, Mordechai Vanunu noted: "A radioactive cloud consumed rubbed out Hiroshima...A live nuclear test sentenced you. A nuclear laboratory…children women trees animals in and under a nuclear mushroom…burning… burned…flattened to ground radioactive ash-Hiroshima...Nuclear weapons gamblers win against you…Hollywood doesn't know you - you are not a Jewish Holocaust." [1]
A little history:
At 2:45 AM, on August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber flew north from Tinian Island toward Japan. Three and a half hours later, the Enola Gay dropped "Little Boy" an 8,900-pound atomic weapon upon civilians in Hiroshima and leveled almost 90% of the city. On August 9, "Fat Man" was dropped on Nagasaki, and one third of that city was destroyed.
"Little Boy" was fuelled by highly enriched uranium-235 and generated a destructive force of about 15 kilotons—the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT. "Fat Man" consisted of a plutonium core surrounded by high explosives wired to explode simultaneously and yielded a 22 kiloton explosion.
As a child, I could not comprehend how my country could cold bloodedly target and murder Japanese citizens in order to 'save' American lives, which was the lame response I always received from every adult I questioned as to why after what we did to Hiroshima did we do it again to Nagasaki?
If THAT DAY, we call 9/11 taught us anything, it should be that America's nuclear arsenal cannot defeat 'terrorism' or provide security from the actions of a few violent mad men who target and murder innocent ones.
American money is imprinted with "IN GOD WE TRUST" but reality is we have become a nation of hypocrites, for by our foreign policy we expose that we live by the sword.
America has a nuclear arsenal of over 10,000 weapons and nearly 2,000 remain on hair-trigger alert ever since the end of the Cold War.
An estimated 150 – 240 tactical nuclear weapons remain based in 5 NATO countries and the United States is the only country with nuclear weapons deployed on foreign soil.
American taxpayers provide over $54 billion annually to maintain WMD's, which is but a drop in the bucket of the overall U.S. military spending. The U.S. is also a co-conspirator in international nuclear apartheid and major collaborator in Israel's INEFFECTIVE policy of nuclear ambiguity.
The Wisdom of Nonviolence
"The God of peace is never glorified by human violence… The radical truth of reality is that we are all one." –Thomas Merton
Gandhi's non-violence was a political tactic that evolved from the inner realization of spiritual unity within himself. Gandhi studied all the world's religions and after attending many churches, he remarked that Christianity was a great religion and all Christians should "TRY IT!"
The problem is not with Christianity, but that too few who claim to be have taken The Sermon on The Mount as their manifesto and live lives that express that God is Love and God Loves All.
"Love is not the starving of whole populations. Love is not the bombardment of open cities. Love is not killing......Our manifesto is the Sermon on the Mount, which means that we will try to be peacemakers." -Dorothy Day
"The wisdom of non-violence teaches that war is not the way to follow Jesus. War is not the will of God. War is never justified. War is never blessed by God. War is not endorsed by any religion. War is the very definition of mortal sin. War is demonic, evil, anti-human, anti-life, anti-God, and anti-Christ." [7]
"In all of earth’s sixty-five-million-year history, we are living in the most dangerous of times. The fact that a bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and two hundred thousand lives were vaporized within twenty minutes has not prevented man from dreaming up more ways to fill space with weapons of mass destruction. We were not created for militarism, but to turn our swords into plowshares. We have arrived here today by no accident. We have been summoned by the universe to claim the highest common ground. As the Dali Lama said, the radicalism of our age is to be compassionate human beings. We have been called to bring love and compassion back into the equation and assist others to connect with the deepest parts of themselves. Now is the time to realize, as never before, that when any of us suffer, we all suffer. All life is interconnected, interdependent, and greatly loved by the creator, the sustainer of the universe. We are called by love, for love, and to love.”- Franciscan Fr. Louis Vitale, July 20, 2005, Berkeley, California at TIKKUN’s first annual conference for spiritual progressives.
The rest @
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1354&Itemid=222
Jeevee
Verty well stated! And to live this wisdom will save the planet.
Howard Zinn is only dead. Like a friend I never met he will be carried with me and others for the rest of our lives.
His princple work for most of us, The Peoples History of the United States, and its extentions have removed forever the putty with which schools spin the past. Counterpoint confirmed Mr. John D. Rockerfellow, one of the founders of the General Education Board,said "I don't want a nation of thinkers I want workers" Zinn has removed that play from the board.
I have been grieving for him since hearing he died. But I have also been resolving to carry on my own work in his spirit. His spirit: don't be bitter, or vindictive, or cynical. Organize. Don't lose hope, no matter how dark the times may seem. Organize. No matter who you are, whether unknown or known, you can contribute. It is very difficult to carry out this philosophy. Howard Zinn had the great gifts of optimism and humor, of a certain tranquility mixed with outrage, and what a scholar - the true model of the activist and scholar of the people. He was indeed a true Elder, and a model for us all.
So simple and profound and right.
"...for giving people a sense of hope and power that they didn't have before."
What more needs to be said?
The opposite of Zinn's wishes for his legacy run rampant in our society, where we see so much through the lens of cynicism. Zinn was living proof that the courage to have hope and to take power into one's own hands is the cornerstone of realizing a better world.
Thank you, Howard Zinn, for showing us all how we should live.
Courage.
I'm sorry your friend has died. I honor his service in WW II, but don't understand how his anti war philosophy would have saved the world from Nazism and Imperialism. War is a horrible thing, but not the ugliest of things. The lack of conviction that thinks nothing is worth a war is worse. Those two bombs in Aug of 1945 saved half a million US lives and by common estimate 1-2 million Japanese. Some of you would not be here had our fathers and grandfathers died in an invasion. I fought in the rice paddies of RVN for less clear objectives, but the "domino theory" ended there as the Soviet version of violent conquest of the world stop expansion and I commanded a unit with nuclear weapons in Germany (all five countries asked for and agree to our presence)that helped us win the Cold War.
The Sermon on the Mount is the ultimate challenge in how to live. Mr Zinn did not believe in the Teacher, but he followed many of his teachings. I believe and will fight for our right to believe as a country and so live. Maybe God will receive his soul. I'm sorry for his friends and family.
Reality: "Those two bombs in Aug of 1945 saved half a million US lives and by common estimate 1-2 million Japanese"
I disagree with many of your conclusions but I'll ignore the rest of your comment and just concentrate on the above statement.
You may be right or you may be wrong; we can never know. There is considerable evidence that Japan was ready to surrender and that it lacked only a face saving resolution. The request that the Emperor of Japan remain untouched was the sticking point from what I recall and that request was completely ignored by the US.
The first Uranium "Litle Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima was such a simple device that only the trigger mechanism was tested beforehand. Although simple it was highly unsafe in any kind of short-circuit or crash situation, unlike the far "safer" Plutonium bomb.
Was it necessary to drop this second far more sophisticated Plutonium "Fat Man" 3 days later? Many think not.
But the hawks wanted to test it for real and see what the death, burn and radiation effects on real people would be. For this reason it was dropped on a city that had not been previously bombed so that the best scientific data could be achieved.
There was a second objective with the sophisticated Nagasaki Plutonium implosion bomb and that was to send a message to the Soviet Union that the USA had the advanced WMD technology and was prepared to use it.
I found the following to back up my argument:
"During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude..."
- Dwight Eisenhower, Mandate For Change, pg. 380
First of all many with similar philosophies to Zinn did fight fascism. Zinn, as you note, fought in the war himself. Yet he did not moralize about his experience. Instead, the atrocities of war sent him on another moral trajectory. There is an old Taoist or Confucian saying that the sage goes to war only with great sadness. Democratic socialists hate fascism even more than capitalism. Unfortunately, this also meant fighting with the imperialists. Gandhi once said that the difference between Hitlerism and Churchillism is really only one of degree. Zinn's philosophy reminds us that it is movement's of people not world powers that have the possibility of making real and meaningful change. If we are forced to side with the force of imperialism or communism we must never confuse this with the force of the people.
This type of ugly warmongering masquerading as "reality" is the age-old gibberish hoisted on the sheep as they're led to slaughter - old men figuring out new ways for young men to die. And in the wake of their terrorism, the entrails of the guilty and innocent alike flow in gutters, rice paddies, and anywhere their murderous adventures lead.
This simpleton's view of America's vicious assault on the Japanese with WMD's is another cute myth perpetrated on the sheep. Zinn saw through these fairy tales with a historical point of view from the victims, the dead, the maimed, the poor, the slaves, and the castaways - not the continued lies of the evil monsters possessing all the money and all the guns.
This dolt writes: "Maybe God will receive his soul." FU
Like a previous poster I disagree with your assertions, but I will just focus on the rise to power of the Nazis and how that might have been avoided...
The Nazis did not come to power in a vacuum. In fact, I would imagine, future historians will cease calling WWI and WWII separate events, because WWII is just a continuation of WWI. After their defeat in WWI, the Germans (who were no more at fault than any of the other European powers) were saddled with reparations payments to the Allies that were a massive burden to their economy. Those burdens, combined with the events of the worldwide aftershocks of the Great Depression gave Hitler and the Nazi party a population of people who were suffering and who suddenly were finding answers to 'WHY are things so bad in Germany?' Were they good answers? No! But, they were answers. If you look at Nazi results in elections, it is very telling. They never got much support from the population until the economy tanked. But, once that happened the Nazis took advantage of the situation and seized power.
Had WWI (which once again... was just about the most pointless slaughter of human beings in the history of the world) ended with the great powers pointing the fingers at themselves, instead of blaming the Germans, the German population wouldn't have been saddled with reparation payments, the Nazis would have never come to power, and WWII would have never occurred.
And THAT is the lesson of war. No matter how noble your intentions when the battle begins (there were no noble intentions in WWI), the consequences of war are so unfathomably unpredictable (I could gave examples from every armed conflict this century), that it is best not to participate in war unless all other means of solving the problem have been exhausted. All you can predict is that people will suffer...
I would also challenge you to revisit the domino theory... The domino theory existed, but it has little to do with whether countries were communist/facist/anarcho-syndicalist/"democratic"/other... It had to do with which countries were under our sphere of influence (they could be facist-communists and it wouldn't matter as long as we were in control!) and we couldn't allow nations to be independent of our imperial hand. That is no reason for slaughtering 3 million Vietnamese, or any of the other countless atrocities we committed around the globe during the Cold War.
I remember hearing him on the radio, giving a lecture, when I visited my granny in North Hampton. I found an old bookstore and a worn copy of People's History there. I know if I see that book on someone's shelf or desk I am likely in good company. Thank you Howard Zinn. Peace.
I miss Howard Zinn as both a historian and as a friend. I first met him in Washington DC in 1997 at a birthday party for Ron "Born on the Fourth of July" Kovic. I'm a columnist for the Athens Banner-Herald daily newspaper here in Athens, GA and I interviewed Zinn when he came to Athens in 2004. The "Zinnterview" appeared in the April 4, 2004 edition of the Athens paper (www.onlineathens.com) and in the June 2004 issue of Z magazine out of Massachusetts. Zinn and I corresponded for years via letters and emails and a few years ago he helped me get my www.edtant.com Website off the ground when I invited him to be the first visitor to the site. The homepage of the Website has a photo of Zinn and me taken by my wife and the "Demonstrations 1976-1999" page has my photo of Zinn and the late, great activist Dave Dellinger together at Kovic's birthday party. Zinn was a really nice man who left a legacy if insight and incitement.
ED TANT
www.edtant.com
Several years ago we travelled to Amherst to hear Zinn talk with a small group of people many arriving after a day at work. More than in typical media interviews, he candidly spoke of his vision of our possible future beyond Capitalism, and the absolute essential need for democracy based on cooperative ownership and decision-making of our economic and civic life. And, unlike so many other 'professional critics' he was committed to the need to replace Capitalism.
He was no ordinary 'philosopher'. His special role for history was that he lived in the real world, understood and agreed with us(www.PeopleForANewSociety.org) in the potential political power of organizing new parties to achieve FUNDAMENTAL changes in this present disfunctional, dystopic system we needlessly suffer. Just as we have already historically done with other forms of injustice, theft and slavery, we can vote to make profit, wages and private ownership of the economy and its State, likewise illegal. And make legal, new cooperative social relationships based on the common good. The time for the change Zinn envisioned is here and within our grasp. New parties,new platforms,new goals are in sight.Check out www.PeopleForAnEwSociety.org & carry on his, OUR, struggle. Its time!
When my now-husband and I set up home together, the only book of which we each brought a copy was A People's History. Thank you for your life's work, Howard Zinn. I will indeed remember you as you wished to be remembered.
I told my wife that the friends of Zinn would not be kind to my questioning the efficacy of some of his views. In no way do I glorify war. I have been in a couple, at the front with the infantry. We have seen to horrors of war like few others, but I have also seen evil and know it must be confronted. The military plans for and conducts military operations and the war plans for the invasion of Japan contain my figures. Maybe we would not have had to invade, but it was the politicians who both set the conditions for and decided to drop the bombs. The Allies in the Potsdam Proclamation to Japan demand[ed] that Japan "surrender unconditionally or face prompt and utter destruction." Ike did not agree nor did MacArthur (not consulted) who knew they would not give up their emperor. The evil of the USSR hung over a world praying for peace and Truman was already preparing for the next conflict. My friends, evil still exist and redistributing wealth or playing nice with radical Islam won't protect us. I have lived 3 years in Asia and 2 years in the Middle East. I like both peoples, but there are radical elements exploiting youth for political not sacrilegious reasons, and I would fight again so we can have this dialog. BTW, WWI was sinless and did set the conditions for WW II. I have walked many of the battlefields of both and every male relative was overseas fighting when I was born. I know something of WW II and how the American way of war. Fire bombs and nucs are terrible, but when the nation entrust its precious youth to the military, it is obligated to be exceptional stewards of that trust. While strategy dictates the totality of war, the American soldier is both valorous and compassionate. I can recount many more acts of kindness and humanity than hate and wanton violence. Zinn did not have to see the slaughter of his bombs, not did he have the chance to see the humanity of our soldiers on the ground. I'm not a shrink and would not attempt to explain why he did not deal well with the realities of WWII, but the ground guys who saw much worse, also saw humanity and compassion and seemed to handle it better. I might be simple in one of your views in spite of a couple advanced degrees and travel to 60 countries and almost 10 years abroad, but I have way more than books upon which to base my views...and I have earned to right to express them, so be mature enough to consider and disagree, but...well you know the rest.
Why should anyone argue? It seems you've made up your mind. Reading between the lines, though, you may be starting to recognize that your position is untenable.
It's really not about the quantity of the books that you've read. It's more about the ideas you are exposed to and understand. A few good books can change the mind. Clearly, Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" is one of those books. If you've read it, it doesn't seem to have made much of an impression on you.
Many people live in bubbles of ignorance and denial. I'm glad you spoke out, but you are really wrong about the good vs. evil dualism world view. You could be an extremist of the political Islam bent had you been born into a different milieu, based on your philosophy. Things are much more filled with shades of gray than you know. The missions of the U.S. military are much more compromised than you know. Read General Smedley Butler's "War Is a Racket." It'll help you.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/War-is-a-Racket/
Smedley-D-Butler/e/9780922915866/?itm=1&usri=War+is+a+racket
-TIA
"I have lived 3 years in Asia and 2 years in the Middle East. I like both peoples, but there are radical elements exploiting youth for political not sacrilegious reasons, and I would fight again so we can have this dialog."
There are radical elements in every country, this one included...perhaps, especially.
And please, next time there is a war, don't do me any favors. Actually, if you do want to do me a favor, help me figure out at way to get the real evildoers - the corporate henchmen who create the wars - out of power. Better yet, let's declare war on them!
"Follow those seeking the truth (reality) - run from those who claim to have found it."
Your grandpa act is pathetic... and like many others, I'm sick and tired of attempting to find common ground with the masters of war. Your "service" in the US Military doesn't impress me nor do I pay tribute to your "service."
'Fire bombs and nucs (sp) are terrible..." Jesus, really? Are they bad, too?
And I'm so impressed that you have "way more books upon which to base my views." You haven't earned the right to support the wanton slaughter of human beings anywhere - no one does.
"Kill one person, call it murder. Kill thousands or millions, call it foreign policy."
If your gibberish is right, what is there left to call wrong?
The A-bombs were used against Japan, not to save US lives, but to satisfy the demand of the generals and admirals for unconditional surrender. The fact the general staff was preparing an invasion which would have resulted in many more deaths has no bearing on the argument about the morality of dropping the bombs, since it had nothing to do with winning the war. And, as much as Truman said he despised generals, he was putty in their hands and never understood the complicity of the top staff in the Pearl Harbor attacks. (Truman held Ike in contempt for his cold treatment of GC Marshall. I believe that Ike knew, or at least strongly suspected, of Marshall's treason.)
Aggressive acts by the US military against Russia/CCCP resulted in the greatest threat to life in the US, and the world, that ever existed, and this threat is only reduced, but not ended.
As far as the US is concerned, its military has threatened and killed the people of its own country, and never truly defended it. I agree a military strong enough for defense is necessary, but any stronger is actually weaker when it comes to defense.
Suggestions to pick up where our dear Howard Zinn left off:
The Internet is anarchist. We don't need leaders, just good examples to follow. Technology allows the People to decide things direct democratically.
A social democracy is a society where necessities are socialized and luxuries are privatized.
In an Ecotopia (Nicholas Callenbach), sports, not war is the outlet for testosteronic savagery.
A sustainable society is one that does not exceed the carrying capacity of the land. It can do so through wars and infanticide (Jared Diamond), or it can do so through humane birth control.
Equalization of wealth can only be achieved direct democratically. http://www.vote.org/fossedal
Jeevee
"Humane birth control"! Why are humans destroying the world because of the lack of this one relatively simple solution, rather than the horrors and the shortages of basic needs that an ever expanding population will bring?
"In an Ecotopia (Nicholas Callenbach), sports, not war is the outlet for testosteronic savagery."
Not to nitpick, but it was Ernest Callenbach who wrote Ecotopia. I highly recommend it to anyone who believes out current way of living is the only way.
Of course, Ecotopia was fiction. For a real view of what can be done on this planet, I also recommend Gaviotas, by Alan Weisman. http://www.friendsofgaviotas.org/Friends_of_Gaviotas/Home.html
The responsibility of any decent Historian is not to merely report facts, but to join the dots, linking lived experience and meaning as a revelation of truth, a deconstruction of propaganda, a call to action.
Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, Mike Davis, Noreena Hertz and many others of similar ilk brought honour, courage and empathy to their work, and as a result we are better informed, less likely to be manipulated and thus more useful to our grand childrens futures.
We can all aspire to be a threat to adverse power wherever it rears it's ugly head, be it in the personal or public domain. And meet that aspiration, and go beyond it.
Kindest regards
Corneilius
do what you love, it's your gift to universe
Jeevee
Dear Readers, "it's" is the grammatical abbreviation for "it is". Its is the grammatical abbreviation for the possessive case.
Jeevee: Thank you! It's amazing, amusing and appalling to me that people who are cyber-savvy and allegedly educated will hit a brick wall concerning what should be simple grammatical rules. A few quick lessons, folks: "Its" is the possessive form of "it." "It's" is a contraction for "it is." While we're at it, "your" is possessive, "you're" is a contraction for "you are." "Loose" means "not tight or at large" while "lose" means "mislaid or defeated." "Whose" is the possessive form of "who" while "who's" is a contraction for "who is." Such elementary rules should apply even in the fast and loose environment of cyberspace. Proper spelling and grammar are not elitist or unimportant. They add credibility to one's arguments. By the way, here in the South, "y'all" (NOT "ya'll") is a contraction for "you all" and "y'all's" is a funny word indeed: a possessive contraction. Don't get me started about readers "pouring over" documents instead of the correct form, "poring over," or the correct "bated breath" being written as "baited breath"--which sounds like a malady suffered by those who eat too much sushi.
ED TANT
Athens, GA
www.edtant.com
Reality, you write: ".... the American soldier is both valorous and compassionate. I can recount many more acts of kindness and humanity than hate and wanton violence. " Tell that to the people in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram, in the uncounted unknown US jails across the globe. Tell that to the tortured, rendered, droned. bereaved of Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the survivors of bombed wedding parties, funeral gatherings, in Afghanistan and Iraq. Tell it to the family of little Abeer Jenabi, gang raped then killed and set alight by these kind humanitarians.
Tell it to the 25 million Iraqis illegally invaded by the same humanitarians, who pillage, kick down doors, steeal money, hold children and women at gun point. And obeying orders wasn't good enough at Nuremberg.
Howard Zinn displayed the grace and wisdom of a lifetime lived in moral and intellectual integrity and compassion.
As for the defenders of war on this page, and other who see complete opposition to war as an unrealistic fantasy, I'll leave you with this:
"What has proved unrealistic time and again – whether we are talking about the U.S. policy in Vietnam and Iraq or Israeli and Arab policies in the Middle East – is the fantasy that one more war will put an end to wars." - Father David McBriar, O.F.M., Ecumenical Officer, Diocese of Raleigh