Howard Zinn // Current

Howard Zinn: Keep the Expectations High for Obama

Video from http://www.youtube.com/user/AlJazeeraEnglish 6 Nov 08 "Riz speaks with eminent US historian and writer... more

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Zinn Will Vote for Nader!

photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorri37/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorri37/86670127/ By Manila Ryce The Largest... more

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Howard Zinn: The financial and war crisis have created an opportunity for real change. Part 5

In the final segment of our interview with Howard Zinn we explore the idea of the United States as a source of freedom and democracy in the world. Prof. Zinn outlines the long history in the US of linking military pursuits with the cause of freedom and democracy, a marriage which Prof. Zinn believes is still used due to inappropriate historical education. Prof. Zinn believes that it is time to drop war altogether as a practice and begin the hard but fruitful transition to an economy based on domestic improvement rather than military dominance. He finishes by adding that education is most effective when coinciding with a changing reality and that the combination of the financial crisis and the military crisis are creating such a scenario.

Howard Zinn is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright. He is best known as author of the best-seller 'A People's History of the United States'. Zinn has been active in the Civil Rights and the anti-war movements in the United States. Zinn was raised in a working-class family in Brooklyn, and flew bombing missions for the United States in World War II, an experience he now points to in shaping his opposition to war. In 1956, he became a professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, a school for black women, where he soon became involved in the Civil rights movement, which he participated in as an adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC and chronicled, in his book SNCC The New Abolitionists. Zinn collaborated with historian Staughton Lynd and mentored a young student named Alice Walker. When he was fired in 1963 for insubordination related to his protest work, he moved to Boston University, where he became a leading critic of the Vietnam War.

See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89436711_zinn_vote_for_obama_but_direct_action_needed

See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89443553_zinn_bailout_is_trickle_down_theory_magnified

See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89443567_howard_zinn_on_taxes_and_class_war

See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89447830_guns_or_butter

Howard Zinn: The financial and war crisis have created an opportunity for real change. Part 5 In the final segment of our... more

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8 responses

1 month ago

Howard Zinn on taxes and class war

Howard Zinn: The US has always had class war over who gets taxed. Part 3

In part three of our discussion with author and historian Howard Zinn, Prof. Zinn lays out his analysis of taxes as a class phenomenon. He points to the current discussion of politicians as either pro-tax or anti-tax instead of discussing who will be taxed as an example of the misunderstanding of taxation being promoted. Prof. Zinn submits that the United States has always had a class war, and as such it is ridiculous to accuse people of inciting class war through talk of taxation. He then outlines his proposal that higher taxes for the rich and cutting taxes for the poor will be necessary for addressing the roots of the economic crisis.

Howard Zinn is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright. He is best known as author of the best-seller 'A People's History of the United States'. Zinn has been active in the Civil Rights and the anti-war movements in the United States. Zinn was raised in a working-class family in Brooklyn, and flew bombing missions for the United States in World War II, an experience he now points to in shaping his opposition to war. In 1956, he became a professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, a school for black women, where he soon became involved in the Civil rights movement, which he participated in as an adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC and chronicled, in his book SNCC The New Abolitionists. Zinn collaborated with historian Staughton Lynd and mentored a young student named Alice Walker. When he was fired in 1963 for insubordination related to his protest work, he moved to Boston University, where he became a leading critic of the Vietnam War.

See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89436711_zinn_vote_for_obama_but_direct_action_needed

See Part 2 at: http://current.com/items/89443553_zinn_bailout_is_trickle_down_theory_magnified

See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89447830_guns_or_butter

See Part 5 at: http://current.com/items/89453046_democracy_and_militarism

Howard Zinn: The US has always had class war over who gets taxed. Part 3 In part three of our discussion with author and... more

Vierotchka
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9 responses

1 month ago

Zinn: Bailout is trickle-down theory magnified

Howard Zinn says there has always been big government, but mostly for the wealthy. Part 2

In part two of our interview with Howard Zinn, Prof. Zinn responds to the $700 Billion bailout bill, the economic crisis, and provides his vision for an appropriate response. He describes his disappointment that both Obama and McCain joined to support the bailout, a move which Zinn believes fits into a long history of big government at the service of wealthy elites. Zinn argues that the roots of the crisis are the same as in 1930, a growing gap between the wealth at the top and the insecurity at the bottom. Zinn argues that in place of a bailout of the financial sector, what is needed is a 21st century New Deal, with government investment providing jobs and health care. He also argues that Big Government has always been a feature of the American system, and that the question is therefore not one of size, but of how the government and its power is to be used.

Howard Zinn is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright. He is best known as author of the best-seller 'A People's History of the United States'. Zinn has been active in the Civil Rights and the anti-war movements in the United States. Zinn was raised in a working-class family in Brooklyn, and flew bombing missions for the United States in World War II, an experience he now points to in shaping his opposition to war. In 1956, he became a professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, a school for black women, where he soon became involved in the Civil rights movement, which he participated in as an adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC and chronicled, in his book SNCC The New Abolitionists. Zinn collaborated with historian Staughton Lynd and mentored a young student named Alice Walker. When he was fired in 1963 for insubordination related to his protest work, he moved to Boston University, where he became a leading critic of the Vietnam War.

See Part 1 at: http://current.com/items/89436711_zinn_vote_for_obama_but_direct_action_needed

See Part 3 at: http://current.com/items/89443567_howard_zinn_on_taxes_and_class_war

See Part 4 at: http://current.com/items/89447830_guns_or_butter

See Part 5 at: http://current.com/items/89453046_democracy_and_militarism

Howard Zinn says there has always been big government, but mostly for the wealthy. Part 2 In part two of our interview with... more

Vierotchka
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8 responses

1 month ago

Zinn: Vote for Obama but direct action needed

Howard Zinn says real change will come when people take direct action to stop house foreclosures. Part 1 Howard Zinn says vote... more

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15 responses

1 month ago

Howard Zinn: From Empire to Democracy

"Let's not waste $700bn on a bail-out, but use 'big government' for what it's best at – shaping a... more

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2 months ago

Zinn: US 'in need of rebellion'

Howard Zinn was interviewed by Al Jazeera English in September. Here is an excerpt of the interview. The entire interview is... more

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51 responses

2 months ago

A GREAT SPEECH

This is a very inspirational speech by Howard Zinn

ikeula75
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9 responses

4 months ago

A People's History of American Empire by Howard Zinn

Empire or Humanity? What the Classroom Didn't Teach Me about the American Empire by Howard Zinn Narrated by Viggo... more

Vierotchka
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2 responses

6 months ago

An Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism: Rebels Against Tyranny

Howard Zinn, 85, is a Professor Emeritus of political science at Boston University. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1922 to a poor immigrant family. He realized early in his youth that the promise of the "American Dream“, that will come true to all hard-working and diligent people, is just that – a promise and a dream. During World War II he joined US Air Force and served as a bombardier in the "European Theatre“. This proved to be a formative experience that only strengthened his convictions that there is no such thing as a just war. It also revealed, once again, the real face of the socio-economic order, where the suffering and sacrifice of the ordinary people is always used only to higher the profits of the privileged few.

Although Zinn spent his youthful years helping his parents support the family by working in the shipyards, he started with studies at Columbia University after WWII, where he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in 1958. Later he was appointed as a chairman of the department of history and social sciences at Spelman College, an all-black women’s college in Atlanta, GA, where he actively participated in the Civil Rights Movement.

From the onset of the Vietnam War he was active within the emerging anti-war movement, and in the following years only stepped up his involvement in movements aspiring towards another, better world. Zinn is the author of more than 20 books, including A People’s History of the United States that is “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those who have been exploited politically and economically and whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories...” (Library Journal)

Zinn's most recent book is entitled A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, and is a fascinating collection of essays that Zinn wrote in the last couple of years. Beloved radical historian is still lecturing across the US and around the world, and is, with active participation and support of various progressive social movements continuing his struggle for free and just society.

Ziga Vodovnik: From the 1980s onwards we are witnessing the process of economic globalization getting stronger day after day. Many on the Left are now caught between a “dilemma” – either to work to reinforce the sovereignty of nation-states as a defensive barrier against the control of foreign and global capital; or to strive towards a non-national alternative to the present form of globalization and that is equally global. What's your opinion about this?

Howard Zinn: I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization. In a certain sense the movement towards globalization where capitalists are trying to leap over nation state barriers, creates a kind of opportunity for movement to ignore national barriers, and to bring people together globally, across national lines in opposition to globalization of capital, to create globalization of people, opposed to traditional notion of globalization. In other words to use globalization – it is nothing wrong with idea of globalization – in a way that bypasses national boundaries and of course that there is not involved corporate control of the economic decisions that are made about people all over the world.
Howard Zinn, 85, is a Professor Emeritus of political science at Boston University. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1922 to a poor... more