Long Live the Works of Howard Zinn
Here is a Fine talk by a great man that we lost today.
"I just heard Barbara Ehrenreich question God, and I didn't hear an answer!"
Howard Zinn, Historian who Challenged Status Quo, Dies at 87
I had the privilege of sitting with Howard Zinn at a dinner when I was a young man. Probably no more than 16. It was impressive to hear him talk about his career as an activist. His stories stretched back to the 1960's as he reminisced with a fellow liberal intellectual about being back stage at some concert. The details of the conversation have faded with time, but the power of the evening didn't really set in until I read A Peoples History a few years later. I have always found his honest review of American history eye opening. Class struggle is not a myth perpetrated by labor unions. It's a real fight in which business has often used real clubs and real guns and our police forces and National Guard troops were used to systematically attack the citizenry.
It is a gift that he had such a long and productive life, but I fear we are losing him at a time when his perspective is most needed, when the middle class and the working class are under the gun much more than they have in decades.
Tweet
Comments
Today the world lost a true free thinker.
i like this guy. one of the things i like most about 1gm is that it has introduced me to characters that are kind of famous, but not famous enough to reach me thru the haze of my studies in jewish history/religion/philosophy/politics for the last 20 years or so. one of these people was chris hitchens, and one (i'm ashamed to admit) was john stewart (who is certainly famous enough now).
the weird thing is, so very many of them turn out to be (secular) jews! (zinn and his editor for instance, and hitchens and stewart, and many others).
it's just weird, that's all, and i feel the need to point it out from time to time. i'm sorry zinn had to die in order to make enough of a media splash that even i, in my isolation, would hear of him. thanks again.
oh, don't forget Chomsky.
nah, chomsky i knew about a long time ago.
Foucault?
salinger?
salingerreknownauthordiesat91-washejewish_20100128/
:)
http://www.jewishjournal.com/obituaries/article/jd_salinger_reknown_author_dies_at_91_-_was_he_jewish_20100128/
sorry.
It is sad to know that people who were so vocal about in their pacifist stance like Zinn and Vonnegut are no longer with us. Who is there to replace them?
@ 36:23: "In between war and passivity there are a thousand possibilities."
I liked the details he gave about the possible alternatives that could have ended slavery.
I wonder, does anyone know if he's provided alternative solutions that could have taken care of Hitler in a surefire way without going into war. That'd be a very interesting historical analysis.
thank you. to see this vid has been a very interesting experience for me. i have never been exposed to howard zinn before.
i recommend another jew for the list -- yeshaayahu lebowitz :)
from jerusalem.. peace..
Post a comment