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Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn Quotes

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Famous Howard Zinn Quotes

“If we have learned anything in the past ten years, it is that these lovely things about America were never lovely. We have been expansionist and aggressive and mean to other people from the beginning. And we've been aggressive and mean to people in this country, and we've allocated the wealth of this country in a very unjust way. We've never had justice in our courts for the poor people, for black people, for radicals. Now how can we boast that America is a very special place? It's not that special. It really isn't.”

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Author:Howard Zinn
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“What happened in World War II was what happened in war generally, and that was whatever the initiating cause, and however clear the moral reason is for the war in which one side looks better than the other, by the time the war ends both sides have been engaged in evil.”

WorldLooksHas BeensWarEndsReasonEvilCausesSidesMoralClearHappenedWar Of The WorldsEngagedWorld War IiWorld War IBoth Sides
Book:Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches, 1963-2009
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“Now I have been studying very closely what happens every day in the courts in Boston, Massachusetts. You would be astounded--maybe you wouldn't, maybe you have been around, maybe you have lived, maybe you have thought, maybe you have been hit--at how the daily rounds of injustice make their way through this marvelous thing that we call "due process.”

WayHas BeensHappensWould BeProcessStudyCourtRoundsInjusticeDuesMarvelousBostonMassachusettsDue ProcessAstoundedMarvelous Things
Book:The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy
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“I think a way to behave is to think not in terms of representative government, not in terms of voting, not in terms of electoral politics, but thinking in terms of organizing social movements, organizing in the work place, organizing in the neighborhood, organizing collectives that can become strong enough to eventually take over - first to become strong enough to resist what has been done to them by authority, and second, later, to become strong enough to actually take over the institutions.”

ThinkingWayFirstsHas BeensDoneEnoughGovernmentStrongSocialTermMovementAuthorityInstitutionsBehaveVotingCollectivesNeighborhoodRepresentativesStrong EnoughSocial MovementsWork PlaceRepresentative Government
Author:Howard Zinn
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“I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world.”

WorldGivingShouldHas BeensPlayLife IsGamesWinningChancePossibilityGiving UpMetaphorCardsGet BetterChanging The WorldNot Giving UpDeliberateGamble
Book:A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
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“The United States government was proud that, although perhaps 100,000 Iraqis had died in the Gulf War of 1991, there were only 48 American battle casualties. What it has concealed from the public is that 206,000 veterans of that war filed claims with the VA for injuries and illnesses. In the years since that war, 8,300 veterans have died, and 160,000 claims for disability have been recognized by the VA.”

YearsHas BeensWarStatesGovernmentUnitedUnited StatesProudBattleClaimsDiedIllnessInjuryDisabilityVeteranConcealedCasualtiesState GovernmentGulf WarUnited States Government
Author:Howard Zinn
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“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves… (and) the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”

PeopleWorldInspirationalHas BeensWarCountryProblemRunningFacesPoliticalDeathLeaderPovertyMillionsInjusticeStupidityTyrannyCrueltyObedienceJailConformityTyrantsThievesPettyDisobedienceStarvationObedientCivil Disobedience
Author:Howard Zinn
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“Surely, if it is the right of the people to "alter or abolish," it is their right to criticize, even severely, policies they believe destructive of the ends for which government has been established. This principle, in the Declaration of Independence, suggests that true patriotism lies in supporting the values the country is supposed to cherish: equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. When our government compromises, undermines, or attacks those values, it is being unpatriotic.”

PeopleIfsBelieveHas BeensEndsCountryGovernmentLyingValuesLibertyPrinciplesPolicyIndependencePursuitCompromiseDestructiveCriticizeCherishDeclarationPursuit Of HappinessAbolishDeclaration Of IndependenceUnpatrioticTrue Patriotism
Book:A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
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“Emma Willard told the legislature that the education of women "has been too exclusively directed to fit them for displaying to advantage the charms of youth and beauty" The problem, she said, was that "the taste of men, whatever it might happen to be, has made into a standard for the formation of the female character." Reason and religion teach us, she said, that "we too are primary existences...not the satellites of men.”

MenHas BeensMadeSaidReasonCharacterProblemMightHappensExistenceTeachYouthFitTasteStandardsAdvantageFemalePrimariesCharmFormationLegislatureFemale CharactersSatellitesEmma
Book:A People's History of the United States
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“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.”

NeedsHas BeensBigsGovernmentFacesReligionEconomyAtheismIndustryHistoricalAtheistFinanceCaptainsFree MarketQuarrelsInterventionBig GovernmentAnti ReligiousGovernment InterventionHistorical Truth
Author:Howard Zinn
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“Is not nationalism - that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder - one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking - cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on - have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.”

ThinkingWayHas BeensEvilReligiousChildhoodMassRacismHatredMurderBoundariesDevotionOur TimeNationalismFlagsFierceWay Of ThinkingAnthemReligious Hatred
Book:A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
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“We cannot be secure by limiting our liberties, as some of our political leaders are demanding, but only by expanding themWe should take our example not from the military and political leaders shouting 'retaliate' and 'war' but from the doctors and nurses and firemen and policemen who have been saving lives in the midst of mayhem, whose first thoughts are not violence, but healing, and not vengeance, but compassion.”

ShouldFirstsHas BeensWarPoliticalHealingCompassionLibertyLeaderViolenceMilitaryExampleDoctorsSecureSavingMidstNurseVengeanceExpandingPolicemenShoutingPolitical LeadersSave A LifeFiremanMayhemDoctors And Nurses
Author:Howard Zinn
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“Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals the fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such as world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.”

PeopleThinkingWorldHas BeensCountrySometimesJobsNationsSexSidesInterestCommunityRaceMastersConflictVictimSlaveWorkersCapitalistFierceConquerorRepressedExplodingExecutionersConflict Of InterestMasters And Slaves
Author:Howard Zinn
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“Where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it’s been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn’t just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.”

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Book:Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches, 1963-2009
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