Thursday, January 28, 2010

Howard Zinn dies at 87, Zinn: From Empire to Democracy

Zinn's essay follows the obit. Like Linda Sutton, I feel a genuine
sadness, like a favorite uncle has passed. Admiration, inspiration
and a sense of deep loss. May his spirit be with us.

Democracy Now's program today has Noam Chomsky and Naomi
Klein briefly analyzing last night's speech, and are then joined by Alice
Walker to talk about their friend and teacher Howard, and hear some
selected Zinn's thoughts, vintage and recorded on Democracy Now.
-Ed

From: Linda Sutton
To: pdla@svpal.org
Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 5:14 PM

Very sad news...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/01/howard_zinn_his.html

Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo, dies at 87

"Dr. Zinn was an instructor at Upsala College and lecturer at Brooklyn
College before joining the faculty of Spelman College in Atlanta, in
1956. He served at the historically black women's institution as
chairman of the history department. Among his students were the
novelist Alice Walker, who called him "the best teacher I ever had,"
and Marian Wright Edelman, future head of the Children's Defense Fund.

During this time, Dr. Zinn became active in the civil rights movement.
He served on the executive committee of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, the most aggressive civil rights organization
of the time, and participated in numerous demonstrations."

By Mark Feeney,
Globe Staff: January 27, 2010 05:40 PM


Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist
who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and a leading
faculty critic of BU president John Silber, died of a heart attack
today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling, his family said.
He was 87.

"His writings have changed the consciousness of a generation, and
helped open new paths to understanding and its crucial meaning for our
lives," Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, once
wrote of Dr. Zinn. "When action has been called for, one could always
be confident that he would be on the front lines, an example and
trustworthy guide."

For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist
brand of history he taught. Dr. Zinn's best-known book, "A People's
History of the United States" (1980), had for its heroes not the
Founding Fathers — many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to
the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out — but rather the
farmers of Shays' Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s.

As he wrote in his autobiography, "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving
Train" (1994), "From the start, my teaching was infused with my own
history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted
more than 'objectivity'; I wanted students to leave my classes not
just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of
silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever
they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble."

Certainly, it was a recipe for rancor between Dr. Zinn and Silber. Dr.
Zinn twice helped lead faculty votes to oust the BU president, who in
turn once accused Dr. Zinn of arson (a charge he quickly retracted)
and cited him as a prime example of teachers "who poison the well of
academe."

Dr. Zinn was a cochairman of the strike committee when BU professors
walked out in 1979. After the strike was settled, he and four
colleagues were charged with violating their contract when they
refused to cross a picket line of striking secretaries. The charges
against "the BU Five" were soon dropped, however.

Dr. Zinn was born in New York City on Aug. 24, 1922, the son of Jewish
immigrants, Edward Zinn, a waiter, and Jennie (Rabinowitz) Zinn, a
housewife. He attended New York public schools and worked in the
Brooklyn Navy Yard before joining the Army Air Force during World War
II. Serving as a bombardier in the Eighth Air Force, he won the Air
Medal and attained the rank of second lieutenant.

After the war, Dr. Zinn worked at a series of menial jobs until
entering New York University as a 27-year-old freshman on the GI Bill.
Professor Zinn, who had married Roslyn Shechter in 1944, worked nights
in a warehouse loading trucks to support his studies. He received his
bachelor's degree from NYU, followed by master's and doctoral degrees
in history from Columbia University.

Dr. Zinn was an instructor at Upsala College and lecturer at Brooklyn
College before joining the faculty of Spelman College in Atlanta, in
1956. He served at the historically black women's institution as
chairman of the history department. Among his students were the
novelist Alice Walker, who called him "the best teacher I ever had,"
and Marian Wright Edelman, future head of the Children's Defense Fund.

During this time, Dr. Zinn became active in the civil rights movement.
He served on the executive committee of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, the most aggressive civil rights organization
of the time, and participated in numerous demonstrations.

Dr. Zinn became an associate professor of political science at BU in
1964 and was named full professor in 1966.

The focus of his activism now became the Vietnam War. Dr. Zinn spoke
at countless rallies and teach-ins and drew national attention when he
and another leading antiwar activist, Rev. Daniel Berrigan, went to
Hanoi in 1968 to receive three prisoners released by the North
Vietnamese.

Dr. Zinn's involvement in the antiwar movement led to his publishing
two books: "Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal" (1967) and "Disobedience
and Democracy" (1968). He had previously published "LaGuardia in
Congress" (1959), which had won the American Historical Association's
Albert J. Beveridge Prize; "SNCC: The New Abolitionists" (1964); "The
Southern Mystique" (1964); and "New Deal Thought" (1966).
Dr. Zinn was also the author of "The Politics of History" (1970);
"Postwar America" (1973); "Justice in Everyday Life" (1974); and
"Declarations of Independence" (1990).

In 1988, Dr. Zinn took early retirement so as to concentrate on
speaking and writing. The latter activity included writing for the
stage. Dr. Zinn had two plays produced: "Emma," about the anarchist
leader Emma Goldman, and "Daughter of Venus."

Dr. Zinn, or his writing, made a cameo appearance in the 1997 film
''Good Will Hunting.'' The title characters, played by Matt Damon,
lauds ''A People's History'' and urges Robin Williams's character to
read it. Damon, who co-wrote the script, was a neighbor of the Zinns
growing up.

Damon was later involved in a television version of the book, ''The
People Speak,'' which ran on the History Channel in 2009. Damon was
the narrator of a 2004 biographical documentary, ''Howard Zinn: You
Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.''

On his last day at BU, Dr. Zinn ended class 30 minutes early so he
could join a picket line and urged the 500 students attending his
lecture to come along. A hundred did so.

Dr. Zinn's wife died in 2008. He leaves a daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn of
Lexington; a son, Jeff of Wellfleet; three granddaugthers; and two
grandsons.

Funeral plans were not available.

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***

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/02-2

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 society that is fair and peaceable

by Howard Zinn
The Guardian UK: October 2, 2008

This current financial crisis is a major way-station on the way to the
collapse of the American empire. The first important sign was 9/11, with the
most heavily-armed nation in the world shown to be vulnerable to a handful
of hijackers.

And now, another sign: both major parties rushing to get an agreement to
spend $700bn of taxpayers' money to pour down the drain of huge financial
institutions which are notable for two characteristics: incompetence and
greed.

There is a much better solution to the current financial crisis. But it
requires discarding what has been conventional "wisdom" for too long: that
government intervention in the economy ("big government") must be avoided
like the plague, because the "free market" will guide the economy towards
growth and justice.

Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a "free market", we have
always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that
intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They
had no quarrel with "big government" when it served their needs.

It started way back, when the founding fathers met in Philadelphia in 1787
to draft the constitution. The first big bail-out was the decision of the
new government to redeem for full value the almost worthless bonds held by
speculators. And this role of big government, supporting the interests of
the business classes, continued all through the nation's history.

The rationale for taking $700bn from the taxpayers to subsidise huge
financial institutions is that somehow that wealth will trickle down to the
people who need it. This has never worked.

The alternative is simple and powerful. Take that huge sum of money and give
it directly to the people who need it. Let the government declare a
moratorium on foreclosures and give aid to homeowners to help them pay off
their mortgages. Create a federal jobs programme to guarantee work to people
who want and need jobs and for whom "the free market" has not come through.

We have a historic and successful precedent. Roosevelt's New Deal put
millions of people to work, rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, and,
defying the cries of "socialism", established social security. That can be
carried further, with "health security" - free health care - for all.

All that will take more than $700bn. But the money is there. In the $600bn
for the military budget, once we decide we will no longer be a war-making
nation. And in the swollen bank accounts of the super-rich, by taxing
vigorously both their income and their wealth.

When the cry goes up, whether from Republicans or Democrats, that this must
not be done because it is "big government", the citizenry should just laugh.
And then agitate and organise on behalf of what the Declaration of
Independence promised: that it is the responsibility of government to ensure
the equal right of all to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

Only such a bold approach can save the nation - not as an empire, but as a
democracy.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
Howard Zinn is a historian, playwright, and social activist

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