Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Howard Zinn

Quote by Howard Zinn

“I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy... But I knew it wasn't a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head... The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you. From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country--not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian.”

Quote by Howard Zinn

Book:You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
Create image

Work

You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

Written by Howard Zinn, this work is a blend of personal anecdotes and critical analysis, examining the impact of historical events on the author's life and the broader society. The book delves into the author's involvement in various social movements and his reflections on the role of activism in shaping the modern world. more

Author

Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn

American historian known for his critical analysis of historical events and advocacy for social justice. His work emphasizes the connection between history and contemporary social issues, particularly focusing on the role of ordinary people in the historical process. more

You May Also Like

“Labelling is no longer a liberating political act but a necessity in order to gain entrance into the academic industrial complex and other discussions and spaces. For example, if so called “radical” or “progressive” people don’t hear enough “buzz” words (like feminist, anti-oppression, anti-racist, social justice, etc.) in your introduction, then you are deemed unworthy and not knowledgeable enough to speak with authority on issues that you have lived experience with. The criteria for identifying as a feminist by academic institutions, peer reviewed journals, national bodies, conferences, and other knowledge gatekeepers is very exclusive. It is based on academic theory instead of based on lived experiences or values. Name-dropping is so elitist! You're not a "real" feminist unless you can quote, or have read the following white women: (insert Women's Studies 101 readings).”

RaceFeminismRacismFeministRadicalAcademyAcademiaFeminist TheoryPeople Of ColorWomen Of ColorRadical PoliticsAcademic Industrial Complex
Book:Feminism FOR REAL: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism
Create image

“I have to determine for myself, and not for other men. I don’t blame them, or think I am better than they; their circumstances are different. I would never choose to withdraw myself from the labour and common burden of the world; but I do choose to withdraw myself from the push and the scramble for money and position. Any man is at liberty to call me a fool, and say that mankind are benefited by the push and the scramble in the long-run. But I care for the people who live now and will not be living when the long-run comes. As it is, I prefer going shares with the unlucky.”

Social JusticeIndividualismAltruismRadical Politics
Book:Felix Holt: The Radical
Create image

“The right to choose to abort a fetus is critical, as is the ability to effect that choice in real life, so it's great that Hillary Clinton wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment. But without welfare, single-payer health care, a minimum wage of at least $15--all policies she staunchly opposes--many people have to forgo babies they'd really love to have. That's not really a choice. It seems ill-conceived to have tethered feminism to such a narrow issue as abortion. Yet it makes sense from an insular Beltway fundraising perspective to focus on an issue that makes no demands--the opposite, really--of the oligarch class; this is probably a big reason why EMILY'S List has never dabbled in backing universal pre-K or paid maternity leave; a major reason 'reproductive choice' has such a narrow and negative definition in the American political discourse. The thing is, an abortion is by definition a story you want to forget, not repeat and relive. And for the same reason abortion pills will never be the blockbuster moneymakers heartburn medications are, abortion is a consummately foolish thing to attempt to build a political movement around. It happens once or twice in a woman's lifetime. Kids, on the other hand, are with you forever. A more promising movement--one that goes against everything Hillary Clinton stands for--might take that to heart.”

PhilosophyFeminismCriticismRadical Politics
Book:False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton
Create image

“A Hillary Clinton presidency would symbolically break the glass ceiling for women in the United States, but it would be unlikely to break through the military-industrial complex that has been keeping our nation in a perpetual state of war--killing people around the world, many of them women and children.”

FeminismCriticismRadical Politics
Book:False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton
Create image

“Guerrillas of Desire' offers a contentious hypothesis: the fundamental assumptions underlying Left and radical organizing, including many strains of anarchism, is wrong. I do not mean organizationally dishonest, ideologically inappropriate, or immoral. I mean empirically incorrect. ... Strategies ... are predicated on the assumption that working class and poor people are unorganized and not resisting. Illustrating that everyday resistance is a factor in revolution and a form of politics, maintaining that its effects on overt rebellion and crises are measureable, requires the reversal of this assumption. Working class and poor people ... are already organized and resisting.”

ResistanceSocial ChangeAnarchismLeftismResistRadical Politics
Book:Guerrillas of Desire: Notes on Everyday Resistance and Organizing to Make a Revolution Possible
Create image

“Christian charitable activity must be independent of parties and ideologies. It is not a means of changing the world ideologically, and it is not at the service of worldly stratagems, but it is a way of making present here and now the love which man always needs. The modern age, particularly from the nineteenth century on, has been dominated by various versions of a philosophy of progress whose most radical form is Marxism. Part of Marxist strategy is the theory of impoverishment: in a situation of unjust power, it is claimed, anyone who engages in charitable initiatives is actually serving that unjust system, making it appear at least to some extent tolerable. This in turn slows down a potential revolution and thus blocks the struggle for a better world. Seen in this way, charity is rejected and attacked as a means of preserving the status quo. What we have here, though, is really an inhuman philosophy. People of the present are sacrificed to the moloch of the future-a future whose effective realization is at best doubtful. One does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now. We contribute to a better world only by personally doing good now, with full commitment and wherever we have the opportunity, independently of partisan strategies and programmes. The Christian's programme-the programme of the Good Samaritan, the programme of Jesus- is "a heart which sees." This heart sees where love is needed and acts accordingly.”

LoveCharityCatholicismMarxismCharitableRadical PoliticsChristian Charity
Book:Deus caritas est: Of Christian Love
Create image

“Thus did African American men at Ionia [Hospital] develop schizophrenia, not because of changes in their clinical presentations, but because of changes in the connections between their clinical presentations and larger, national conversations about race, violence, and insanity. And thus did the men develop schizophrenia not because of symptoms, but because of civil rights.”

Mental HealthMental IllnessCivil RightsPsychiatrySchizophreniaRadicalsRadical PoliticsBlack PanthersCivil Rights History
Book:The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease
Create image