Historian Howard Zinn's wise words
I recently came across the following words from Howard Zinn. He is considered by many to be the greatest American historian of the 20th century. He wrote "The People's History of the U.S." and died a few years ago. As we head into an unpredictable future for our country and the world, near the end of 2016, I find the following words of his instructive. In my opinion, a good definition of the word "radical," which he uses, is "return to the root." The liberal attempts to reform things in America have not worked. We continue to wage war abroad, have the most imprisoned population in the world, and twice as many guns as the next country per capita, which is Yemen.
As the old sayings go, the chickens come home to roost, what goes around comes around, you reap what you sow, karma. Add it up. The signs are abundant. As Zinn says, "something fundamental (is) wrong in this country." That does not mean that he and those of us who agree with him do not love the truly democratic values of this country, such as freedom, liberty, and democracy. But it does mean that we need more radical understandings and actions as things evolve.
Shepherd
"Living in fear of living free, is not living"
*"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."
*
Howard Zinn, from his 1994 memoir, "You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train"
Re: Historian Howard Zinn's wise words
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Shepherd:
........As the old sayings go, the chickens come home to roost, what goes around comes around, you reap what you sow, karma. ......
I had never liked what I saw or heard of Trump in the past and so never really paid much attention to his noise
but I did hear something about his program The Apprentice and for a minute thought there might be something there to work with until I found out that the Trump line was "Your Fired" and said with great satisfaction.
So should there be Karma, what goes around comes around. It seems a great thing and appropriate to imagine a ground swell awaiting the right opportunity to deliver with great glee these fateful words
Trump, Your fired!
Re: Historian Howard Zinn's wise words
Thank you soooo much for making me laugh out loud!
Dusty Wroten, aka gaiasophia
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Thad:
I had never liked what I saw or heard of Trump in the past and so never really paid much attention to his noise
but I did hear something about his program The Apprentice and for a minute thought there might be something there to work with until I found out that the Trump line was "Your Fired" and said with great satisfaction.
So should there be Karma, what goes around comes around. It seems a great thing and appropriate to imagine a ground swell awaiting the right opportunity to deliver with great glee these fateful words
Trump, Your fired!
Re: Historian Howard Zinn's wise words
From today's Word of the Day post:
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
—Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)
