EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Best Way to Honor Howard Zinn
There are several memorial services and events being planned for Howard Zinn whom The New York Times called a "historian, shipyard worker, civil rights activist and World War II bombardier, when he passed away at age 87 late last month."
His legion of friends, students, admirers and colleagues will be out in force reminding the country about his impact as a civic leader, motivational teacher, author of the ever more popular book A People's History of the United States, and all around fine, compassionate, and level-headed human being.
Judging by similar gatherings for remembering other progressive activists and writers, the encomiums for Professor Zinn, who taught at Spelman College in the late fifties and early sixties (two of his students were Marian Wright Edelman and Alice Walker) and at Boston University until 1988, will be heartfelt, wide-ranging and inspiringly anecdotal.
Receptions will follow and those in attendance will return to their homes, hoping that what Howard Zinn spoke and wrote and how he acted will serve as an example for those who follow his public philosophy of being and doing.
Mr. Zinn's legacy, however, needs more than sweet memories that carry forward the spirit of people. His impact needs more than the adult and youth book version (now in a television miniseries via the History Channel) to continue inspiring what the Times described as "a generation of high school and college students to rethink American history."
How about drawing on the large, national constituency whose lives he has informed honestly and helped improve to support the establishment of the Howard Zinn Institute for Advancing Peace and Justice? Thought and action in a seamless flow toward returning the definition of "freedom" back to the words of Marcus Cicero as "participation in power."
When Senator Paul Wellstone and his wife, Sheila, died in a plane crash in 2002, his children started "Wellstone Action!" with contributions from all over the country, to train citizen organizers to help empower underrepresented communities to engage in civic life. As a result, Senator Wellstone's progressive work to deepen our democracy continues in action year after year.
The life of Howard Zinn did not follow the usual pathways. His experience as a manual laborer and organizer in New York City gave depth to his college and graduate years. He entered New York University at the age of twenty-seven and completed his Ph.D. at Columbia University in his thirties.
Consider the origins of his views on war summarized in his own words:
War is by definition the indiscriminate killing of huge numbers of people for ends that are uncertain. Think about means and ends, and apply it to war. The means are horrible, certainly. The ends, uncertain. That alone should make you hesitate....We are smart in so many ways. Surely we should be able to understand that between war and passivity, there are a thousand possibilities.
Back in World War II, Mr. Zinn was a bombardier in planes that dropped napalm including during a raid over a town in France called Royan. After the war, his sensitivities horrified, Zinn returned to Royan on the ground and interviewed survivors, which included French civilians.
For sixty years, this Army veteran spoke out against all wars, from Vietnam to Iraq, and others, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to Indonesian, African and Chinese assaults.
Howard Zinn did not choose his injustices. No matter where they came from, he was in opposition. In a poignant tribute of "thank yous" to his regular columnist, Matthew Rothschild, editor of the Progressive Magazine, wrote "Thank you, Howard Zinn, for being a Jew who dared to criticize Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, early on."
MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, a long-time friend of Zinn, commented on his "amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture," noting his "powerful role in helping...the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement."
His two friends from Hollywood, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, took Zinn's history of the downtrodden, the workers, farmers, women, slaves and other minorities, into popular culture, culminating in a television version of the book, The People Speak.
Perhaps, Boston Globe columnist James Carroll touched most personally on Zinn's magnetic persona to so many people. "He had a genius," Carroll wrote, "for the practical meaning of love. That is what drew legions of the young to him and what made the wide circle of his friends so constantly amazed and grateful."
Zinn explained himself in his autobiography, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train. His two greatest disappointments in the past two years were the loss of his wife Roslyn and the performance of Barack Obama. In his last article on the Obama White House, he wrote, "I've been searching hard for a highlight."
Roslyn and Howard Zinn left two children, Myla and Jeff, and five grandchildren. Together with his publisher, Dan Simon of 7 Stories Press, his editor, Matthew Rothschild, his interviewer, Amy Goodman, his associate, Anthony Arnove, and his innumerable writers and fighters for justice, for the principle that the truth is revolutionary, why not a well-funded and staffed Institute, organizing from the neighborhoods on up, as he urged so often, with horizons for all seasons, as befits his vision?
Although the desire to remember is now intense, it is the willpower that implements the thought.
Jean Monnet, the great postwar French civic leader, put the legacy course on track when he asserted that "without people, nothing is possible, but without institutions, nothing is enduring."
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
70 Comments so far
Show AllZinn SHOULD be honored by an upsurge in the peace movement he dedicated his life and work toward. A progressive movement to chop away that war-making machine called the Pentagon. To end our three or four UNDECLARED wars. To show some common sense about our priorities.
Gary
"All those histories of this country centered on the Founding Fathers and the Presidents weigh oppressively on the capacity of the ordinary citizen to act. They suggest that in times of crisis we must look to someone to save us: in the Revolutionary crisis, the Founding Fathers; in the slavery crisis, Lincoln; in the Depression, Roosevelt; in the Vietnam-Watergate crisis, Carter. And that between occasional crises everything is all right, and it is sufficient for us to be restored to that normal state. They teach us that the supreme act of citizenship is to choose among saviors, by going into a voting booth every four years to choose between two white and well-off Anglo-Saxon males of inoffensive personality and orthodox opinions.
The idea of saviors has been built into the entire culture, beyond politics. We have learned to look to stars, leaders, experts in every field, thus surrendering our own strength, demeaning our own ability, obliterating our own selves. But from time to time, Americans reject that idea and rebel."
-- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
Agitate...Educate... and wage peace.
Thank you Ralph for those words. In my opinion the best way to honor Dr. Howard Zinn would be 1) to create a new PEOPLE'S CONSTITUTION, 2) lever the United States into the form of a Parliamentary Democracy, 3) start over with the formation of new political parties that represent the full spectrum of beliefs and options.
We also need to face a reality that, I feel, scared Dr. Zinn, that the United States has become a monster by Growing Two Heads. This is no longer one country with a single set of transcending noble values. The USA now contains two nearly distinct Peoples who loathe each other so much that they share only the attitude: Over my/our dead bodies. 40 years of debate over health care reform could not make this case more obvious, but it is very American to admire any emperor's new clothes.
To quote myself, the method by which any society distributes health care is that nation's answer to the question: Why have a society in the first place? I believe Dr. Zinn would have agreed with me. The USA is no longer a successful experiment. We want different societies and perhaps we ought break up for the sake of our descendants. You, Ralph, can keep the House.
"This is no longer one country with a single set of transcending noble values."
I don't think Zinn ever regarded the US as a country with noble values at all.
"The pretense is that there really is such a thing as “the United States,” subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a “national interest” represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media."
- These are Howard Zinn's words. I can only wonder at the courage it takes for a historian to take this position publicly - in any country. Every country tries to maintain a particular myth and most people don't want their particular myth challenged.
Well, I want to be in Ralph land with the House, then - not greedy plutocrat land.
Yes, I agree. But we must avoid the "paralysis of analysis" the Dr. Martin Luther King talked about. There is precedent for setting this type of living memorial institute not just with the Wellstone Institute. Gandi's Ashram, Dr. Martin Luther King Institute for the Study of Nonviolence, AJ Muste Institute,even the Howard Dean's Campaign begote DFA, and the progressives who backed Kerry in 2004 started PDA. It is not just electoral politics, issue organizing, it it also mass nonviolent demonstrations and civil disobedience, boycotts and establishing parallel institutions to meet human needs. It is people organizing and controlling their own businesses as shown in "Capitalism: A love story". So as the great IWW organizer and labor leader once said from his prison cell before being executed, "Don't Mourn, Organize."
Trainer12: Absolutely!
Well said, my friend.
People don't know how to organize....otherwise we would have made progress over the last 9 years. You can't just say do it and expect it to magically happen. Institutes are where people can LEARN how to be effective in various forms of non-compiance and alternative ways of living outside the system. UGH.... I am all for shutting down ineffective organizations (NAACP which had as their recent head a man who worked for Verizon wireless) that are nothing more than poverty-pimps collecting dues from people who once liked an action or actions they used to perform!
There is a whole series of People's Histories, which Howard Zinn was coordinating, put out by The New Press. The latest is "A People's History of Poverty in America" by Stephen Pimpare; an excellent book which points out, among other things that "the official 'poverty line' is at best a rough estimate and was, at any rate, originally formulated in the 1960s by the Social Security Administration as a 'research tool that would inevitably understate poverty', 'not designed to be applied directly to an individual family with a specific problem' and based on the Department of Agriculture's estimate of a survival-level food budget designed for short-term emergencies."
He continues:
"Even by the standards established by the Social Security Administration, poverty in America is widespread. And it is particularly useful in this regard to asked how many Americans were ever poor. Researchers Mark Rank and Thomas Hirschl have done just that, and their findings strike at the heart of the claim that poverty is a state confined to a minority of Americans. By the time they reach the age of seventy-five 58.5 per cent of Americans will have been officially poor at least once, with an income at or below 100 per cent of the poverty line. Some 68 percent of Americans will survive on 125 per cent of the official standard, and fully three-quarters will have incomes below 150 percent of the poverty line. Worse, by age seventy- five, almost one third of Americans will be very poor, with incomes at only half the official poverty line. And, lest we conclude that these are isolated incidents of one-time hardship, some 30 percent of those who are poor at least once are poor for five years or more. For the majority poverty is an event, and for nearly a third, it's a durable condition.
Still, we misdiagnose the problem, for these are data about the entire population, and it's worse for particular groups of Americans. By the time they reach age seventy-five, for example, over 90 percent of African Americans can expect to have experienced poverty; for people with less than a high school education, it is over 75 percent. One third of our children can expect to live in poverty at some point. But if they are black, the number is 69.5 percent. If they are raised by a single mom with less than a high school diploma, 99.4 percent will be poor. And while we might make much, and rightly so, of the advances that Social Security has brought us, between age sixty and ninety over 40 percent of Americans will still be poor- by the official measures- at least once."
We honor Howard Zinn by continuing his work
Sobering indeed. I don't feel so lonely now being poor. Seems I have a LOT of company.
Gary
"n the early 1990s, a writer for the New Republic magazine, reviewing with approval in the New York Times a book about the influence of dangerously unpatriotic elements among American intellectuals, warned his readers of the existence of "a permanent adversarial culture" in the United States.
It was an accurate observation. Despite the political consensus of Democrats and Republicans in Washington which set limits on American reform, making sure that capitalism was in place, that national military strength was maintained, that wealth and power remained in the hands of a few, there were millions of Americans, probably tens of millions, who refused, either actively or silently, to go along. Their activities were largely unreported by the media. They constituted this "permanent adversarial culture."
-- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
The best way to honor Howard Zinn's memory, imho, is to be more careful about who we elect into office, meaning POTUS. Many, if not most Americans fall way too hard for charisma and are gullible and/or willfully ignorant in that respect.
I'm sorry but, respectfully, did you read the article?
One of Zinn's major points is that a big part of the problem is that we (the people) think that simply pulling a lever on the current 'savior' every four years is enough to solve all of our problems. I'm sure a lot of voters very CAREFULLY voted for Obama.
Zinn's message is actually quite the opposite of your 'humble opinion.'
Howard Zinn was not a big believer in voting as a method of social change, however, the masses of people are not INTERESTED in doing much more than voting to make change happen....it is evident in how many schools and libraries close due to lack of funding....people just shrug their shoulders and do nothing about it. I hate to say this, but so many people who voted for OBAMA did so without listening to his campaign trail stumping because if they did they would have focused on his words and actions about NAFTA (he told workers in MI that he would make big changes to the rules on the NAFTA agreement...then within hours after hearing that members of Parliment in Canada were outraged at this an underling for Obama made a call to assure them it was ALL TALK AND NO ACTION) and when he stated that he supported using the clergy to dole out social services and even remarked how great a president Ronald Reagan was...where was the outrage from the progressives or left...nowhere. The mantra I heard loud and clear was HE'S BETTER THAN MCCAIN! Lesser evil triumphs again!!!
Voters don't do anything but vote. Citizens vote AND undertake direct-action (beyond attending a rally, lecture or demonstration) to put pressure on WHOEVER is in power to make change happen and HOPEFULLY change the rules of the game. Nader and Zinn have LONG criticized our system and the lack of public involvement in ending oppressive conditions. Both men have long educated about how the minority (not the majority) of people can and DO make change happen. But it takes more than 20 people who shut down a window factory in Illinois (which is what happened a year ago) to make massive change happen....but that is what we need.......200 groups of 20 people shutting down coroprate businesses all over this dying country to show our govt. and the rich & powerful that we are tired of rolling over and we are not going to submit anymore!!!
Read the story of what happened in Belgium at the Anheiser Bush plant in early Jan this year..... we should undertake similar (not all) tactics when we hear about a factory closing or jobs being cut! We (workers) are whimps compared to most Europeans!! They don't take crap like we do!!
So beating up on Nader....that is what your beef really is about.
Well put freethinker and Old Peculier!
Yes, Old Peculiar, I did read the article, and I still stand by what I said. Many, many people were totally swept off their feet by Obama's charisma, and chose to totally ignore the warning signals that were flashing all around them; Obama's vote on the FISA Bill, and his war votes. So, lots of people weren't that careful, really. An awful lot of people believed fervently that Obama would be the knight in shining armour who'd come to theirs and the world's rescue. Boy, were they wrong!
Same here, independent Sam. Many of my friends and neighbors are like that; either they don't have a clue, or they're willfully ignorant of what Obama has done since taking office. I've run into the exact same problem with many of my neighbors and some of my friends, and the hypocrisy is just mind-boggling, imho.
I don't know about what POTUS recommended but I do know that anyone with any sense of knowledge of what work Nader has done for the AVERAGE American (working class and poor) they would have voted for Nader. There wasn't and isn't ONE piece of dirt on this man's professional or personal (not that this matters as much as his work credentials to me) background which means he is HONEST which is not what people could say about MCCAIN OR OBAMA. Sorry......the truth is people voted LESS EVIL and we will continue to do so until we smash the failed 2-party system!!! People just need to get honest with themselves about voting, citizen action and taking courageous steps (get out of your daily comfort zone) to challenge the things that are screwing us over. OH WELL....maybe the youth will do it....their future is f--ck-d!
Nader will have my vote again. Sorry I was hoodwinked.
We need 350 million Howard Zinns to become the country we can be. The American people need to grow backbones so we can carry forward what our beloved Zinn gave us.
It should also be remembered that Howard Zinn was not afraid to challenge, as David Ray Griffin points out, the way that the Bush administration had framed the events of 9/11/01 as being a sacred story. As Howard Zinn stated in a blurb for Dr. Griffin's book The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions:
[David Ray Griffin's book] "is the most persuasive argument I have seen for further investigation of the Bush administration's relationship to that historic and troubling event."
He even more strongly and accurately stated in an endorsement to another of Dr. Griffin's books [9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out]:
"Official versions of historical events should always be questioned. It will provoke argument and that's a good thing."
More Americans should look to Howard Zinn as a role model and as someone who was not hesitant in challenging the status quo and who was willing to risk be ridiculed for stating unpopular opinions [such as 9/11] that would be met with scorn and derision even, amazingly, by many of those on the left.
Change starts from the bottom-up, not from the top-bottom.
At this point I would honer him by my write-in vote for Zinn.
I think Howard Zinn would feel honored to have a place set up that would provide Americans with the tools they need to be able to engage in productive civil NON-obedience and learn the workings of forming mass movements as well as how to organize and build successful boycott and general strike actions!!! I would be the first one at the door to sign up!
Great idea Mr. Nader!! You have lots of those so keep them coming!!!!
: )
Pledge to stop voting for Democrats. That's certainly one practical way to honor Howard Zinn.
If you go to the VotersForPeace website, you can publicly make a pledge not to support anyone who isn't moving swiftly to end the wars. I did it years ago ... and I have kept my pledge.
Let's grow that into hundreds of thousands of pledges!
So where are the Greens now to challenge the Blanche Lincolns, Harry Reids and Ben Nelsons? After you helped kill Paul Wellstone (and fu@k you Nader for evoking his memory), did you declare "Mission Accomplished"?
Your post makes no rational sense, you obviously have never read Howard Zinn or you are just a bitter D apologist for the corporate mafia duopoly status quo. Try cracking open a fresh copy of "People's History..." and get back to us.
I am an unapologetic admirer of Paul Wellstone. Exactly how does that make me an apologist for the corporate mafia status quo? Fact is that we could have something close to a single-payer health plan if it only required a simple majority. My point is: Where are the Greens now? Are they putting heat on Sens. Lincoln or Reid? Or Nelson? Like they did in 2002 (with GOP backing) against Sen. Wellstone?
You obviously don't know the difference between smart and smartass, Socialist. It might make you feel smart to lump Wellstone in with these other jackals, but you'd be wrong. In fact, you'd be downright ignorant.
I still don't know what you are on about, we don't have real democratic choice.
The corporate media, the winner takes all election system, the legal framework that equates money as free speech/corporations as persons, the billion dollar media extravaganza of the "election", create structural barriers to democratic choice and accountability. Do you really believe ANYONE that does not have huge amounts of money can get elected? Democracy Inc. is a joke.
For a complete explanation and analysis, please do read Howard Zinn (Peoples History), Sheldon Wolin (inverted totalitarainism); Steven Hill (10 steps to repair american democracy).
A concise version is included in a Crhis Hedges article that appared here on CD last week "Democracy in America Is a Useful Fiction" here is the link:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/25
When you read these, and others, it becomes very clear how the two-party Duopoly is merely a facade, a charade of "good cop, bad cop".
"Where are the Greens now?" you ask. All you have to do is use the computer you are on to find them. Green Party candidates will be running in local, state and federal elections in greater numbers than ever before.
Before calling another "ignorant" you should address your own such condition.
The best way to honor Howard Zinn:
1-Stop paying taxes, 2-Withdraw all your savings from American banks, 3-Consume only the bare minimum to survive.
All non-violent ways to stop feeding the beast. Nothing else works. Elections don't work, street protests don't work, bitching online *certainly* doesn't work.
A fine encomium to a genuine American hero, but Ralph Nader's proposal--"the establishment of the Howard Zinn Institute for Advancing Peace and Justice"--misses the mark. The last thing that would honor Zinn is a make-work project for underemployed intellectuals. (There is a reason that they are underemployed . . . .) Let Zinn speak for himself: Fund mass free distribution of his magnum opus, "A People's History of the United States." I'll bet there would be many schools and libraries worldwide that would gladly accept such a gift.
I suppose gratitude is due for Nader's not saying, again, "Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us" (the title of Nader's latest book).
I believe the title of Nader's book contains just a bit of irony and sarcasm.
Evidently you have not read the book. It lays out a fantasy that is exactly expressed by its title. Its premise is the impotence of grassroots US progressives. (I would contend that the latter observation is correct. If you want to find irony, it is here, in Nader's ironic delivery of his verdict on Left potential in the USA--the fruit of a lifetime of his admirable struggle.)
I have not read the whole book, just skimmed over it briefly. I have however read reviews and inerviews with Nader about his intentions and angle in writing the book.
I interpreted Nader's position as indeed a bit ironic. Since the corporate mafia state has triumphed over the decades, and those on the left have been fragmented, co-opted, bought off, placated, pieced-off, distracted etc. - that we need to fight fire with fire, so to speak - to mobilize and organize wealth on the side of progressive causes, to fight regressive wealth. In this way, I took some of the entire approach to be ironic.
I don't agree entirely with this approach however he does make some valid points that are hard to argue. At this point, perhaps we should try alternative approaches, we have little to lose.
That is not to say we should abandon good ol fashioned civil disobedience, however both approaches can be combined.
socialist: Your second paragraph--"and those on the left have been fragmented, co-opted, bought off, placated, pieced-off, distracted etc."--confirms my point concerning Nader's "ironic" take on the abysmal Left potential in contemporary America; which provides the premise of his fantasy book. Thank you.
Approximately one century ago Ambrose Bierce wrote: "Socialism is the true principle of republican government. Unfortunately, no people in the world is fit for it." (He was referring to small-"r" republican government. As you know, we now live in a homeland, not a republic. And I think that Bierce's dictum stands today, more than ever.)
I disagree with your suggestion that we should try Nader's "alternative," namely, organizing the rich, on the strength of your observation that " . . . we have little to lose." Nope: We can lose whatever dignity and intellectual honesty we cherish if we indulge in the fantasy that the likes of Warren Buffett can "save" the progressive movement.
soloduff,
I don't disagree with the basis of any of what you write, however I never suggested that we believe that the likes of Buffett can "save" anybody, but perhaps his money can help. It does not seem that Nader believes that is the ONLY route either.
With that said, I still believe that massive civil disobedience, and class struggle is the only way to acheive social change, and history backs that up.
Nader's recent approach to the issue, to me, at least represents some creative and alternative approaches. My interpretation of irony is of course subjective and others may well not see it that way. Nader's approach may well be just a novelty, however I still believe why not have a go? The left in general in the USA is practically non-existent, given the structural barriers to genuine democratic process.
I don't believe that mobilizing the wealth of rich folk that are at least somewhat progressive must lead to an abdication of dignity, however the pitfalls of that do exist, to be sure. This novelty approach need not be seen as a zero-sum game vis a vis class struggle.
The Super Rich get rich using other peoples money.
The Super Rich would love to help out struggling people... if only the people had the money.
The Super Rich love to raise their image with charity, when it helps profits and public relations but as big business, why would they turn against the political system that made them rich?
It would be nice but how does the public use the big corporations money?
We could ask them like Ralph.... and it takes guts to ask.... any more volunteers?
I am not sure what you are trying to say, did you read the posts above? We are talking about one of Nader's books. What is your solution to the collective action dilemma?
Sorry, socialist, I find that trying to reflect on anything but the article itself, instead of someone else's comments, has been sort of lost and futile. I have just chosen to go with my gut. I didn't see that you all were in a discussion about Nader's book except in a few threads. I am working on figuring this out still, the commenting that is. Feel free to help me out. And to answer your question, no, I haven't read the latest of Nader's.
One of the best Zinn articles I have read. The concluding quote by Jean Monnet caught me by surprise though. He was a complex and controversial figure, and is credited with laying the foundations for the European Coal and Steel Community which evolved into the EEC, EC and now EU.
A while back when he had an engagement in the Albany area, I had a conversation with Zinn. I asked him what he thought of my "Zinn Project". It would have 'encouraged' more to read his history. The plan was to offer a monetary prize to the first person to find a significant error of fact in Zinn's history. When Howard heard about this his eyes twinkled with approval and he said of course there is an error to be found. No history book is perfect, he added.
My plan never materialized. I became too busy with legal issues after I was arrested for protesting the war. I still think it is a good idea. Needed is someone to come up with the prize money - and someone (or few) to act as judges.
Part of the plan is to hand out Zinn's history at recruiting stations so that every one signing up for war will have the opportunity to read the truth about the US.
I'n not so into the living legacy shit.
Best way to remember Howard Zinn--for me, is to get arrested in an act of civil disobedience for a worthy cause.
I think Zinn even singled out such a worthy cause and praised those who have been getting arrested for singlepayer.
Run Ralph Run!!!
Senator of CT against Dodd is a good start.
Maybe the super-rich will donate money toward it and coopt him.
This is a good idea. How about the Zinn Institute for Training in Organizing?
At this time, we need to train more citizens in how to organize their communities and regions. You can't ask people to "get organized" if they don't know how to lead.
Getting organized isn't too hard to learn and I enjoy getting into community organizing as a chance to apply progressive values to daily things. It sure beats having to learn something too complicated that few would understand.
"We are smart in so many ways. Surely we should be able to understand that between war and passivity, there are a thousand possibilities."
Sure sure, we are smart. We are compassionate, and we are altruistic and we are also greedy. None of that matters so much. To eliminate war requires that we use our smarts to build a dream of a world without war. This dream is a vision of an ideal and a conviction to achieve it, becoming an ASSET TO DEFEND, and it doesn't build itself. We have to build it and maintain it in the minds of the people. Because if we don't do this, the elitevil's Bernays psych-ops squad will continue to build and maintain in the minds of the people the ideal of "war is peace". It's your choice, to contribute to the solution, or contribute to the problem, and hopefully you'll contribute 100% to the solution and 0% to the problem, as opposed to say a Demok, who contributes 50% or more to the problem.