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Recent Z Nightly Commentaries
Zinn: Memo to Obama
Jul 19, 2008
For someone like myself, who fought in World War II, and since then has protested against war, I must ask: Have our political leaders gone mad? Have they learned nothing from recent history? Have they not learned that no one "wins" in a war, but that hundreds of thousands of humans die, most of them civilians, many of them children?
Zinn: The New Deal
Apr 02, 2008
We might wonder why no Democratic Party contender for the presidency has invoked the memory of the New Deal and its unprecedented series of laws aimed at helping people in need. The New Deal was tentative, cautious, bold enough to shake the pillars of the system but not to replace them. It created many jobs but left 9 million unemployed. It built public housing but not nearly enough. It helped large commercial farmers but not tenant farmers. Excluded from its programs were the poorest of the poor, especially blacks. As farm laborers, migrants or domestic workers, they didn't qualify for unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, Social Security or farm subsidies.
Zinn: Antiwar talk at the Boston Commons
Mar 27, 2007
Howard Zinn, addressing the crowd gathered for the March 24th 2007 antiwar rally at the Boston Commons.
Z: Godzilla vs. The Condoleezzard (Celebrating Halloween in the United States of Anxiety)
Oct 29, 2006
Halloween is an odd holiday. The ostensible concept, as it has evolved to become, is to shock, startle, frighten, petrify, horrify, and/or terrify...all while consuming enough high fructose corn syrup to keep the American Dental Association content for an
Zinn: War Is Not A Solution For Terrorism
Sep 07, 2006
THERE IS SOMETHING important to be learned from the recent experience of the United States and Israel in the Middle East: that massive military attacks, inevitably indiscriminate, are not only morally reprehensible, but useless in achieving the stated aim
Z: America: The Land of Denial
Jun 11, 2006
"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
Zinn: Lessons of Iraq War Start With US History
Mar 19, 2006
On the third anniversary of President Bush's Iraq debacle, it's important to consider why the administration so easily fooled so many people into supporting the war.
Zinn: After This War
Jan 03, 2006
The war against Iraq, the assault on its people, the occupation of its cities, will come to an end, sooner or later. The process has already begun. The first signs of mutiny are appearing in Congress The first editorials calling from withdrawal from Iraq
Z: An Interview With Jordy Cummings
Oct 18, 2005
Jordy Cummings says: "I'm writing a book that focuses on what I believe, with input from a lot of people, are the most important anti-war or anti-imperialist films." Cummings is a Canadian-based writer who seamlessly blends pop culture with political theo
Zinn: Victory?
Oct 05, 2005
How quickly would you like to see society change in fundamental ways? How quickly do you believe it will, or ought, to occur? Do you believe that serious social change is literally possible within a matter of a few years?
Z: Debs
Sep 29, 2005
Eugene V. Debs and the legacy of dissent
Zinn: The Optimism of Uncertainty
Sep 30, 2004
In this awful world where the efforts of caring people often pale in comparison to what is done by those who have power, how do I manage to stay involved and seemingly happy?
Z: Somalia and Iraq
Apr 15, 2004
"Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat." -Jean-Paul Sartre
Zinn: An Occupied Country
Sep 30, 2003
It has become clear, very quickly, that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country.
Zinn: Victory?
Jul 25, 2003
The ÒvictoryÓ over an already devastated and disarmed Iraq led Bush, Rumsfeld and their teammates into a locker-room frenzy of exultation and self-congratulation. I half-expected to see Bush joyfully pouring beer on RumsfeldÕs head and Ashcroft snapping a
Zinn: War
Feb 28, 2003
Forthcoming from The Progressive
Zinn: Veterans Day
Nov 15, 2002
Veterans Day used to be called Armistice Day, because it was November 11, 1918, at 11 AM - the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, that the first World War came to an end. It would be good to remember a few things about that war as this country is about to embark on still another war. First, that you don’t "win" wars. We "won" World War I, but sowed the seeds of another world war. War is a quick fix, like crack. An exultant high - we won! - and soon you’re down again, and you need another fix, another war. In World War I. the German Kaiser was presented as the epitome of evil - a threat to the world,, who must be eliminated for our safety. In truth, he was bad, but his danger to us was enormously exaggerated, as with Saddam Hussein. So the Allies defeated Germany, got rid of the Kaiser, and ten million men died on the battlefields. We can get rid of Saddam Hussein. Iraq is a fifth-rate military power, with no Air Force to speak of, its army a remnant of what it was ten years ago, the country still in ruins, its infrastructure devastated by two wars, its people weakened by ten years of sanctions depriving people of food and hospitals of medicine, and causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. And the U.S. with its invincible Air Force, will win. In the course of that, tens of thousands of Iraqis will die, , many of them innocent civilians, others poor, miserable conscripts in the Iraqi army. We will be killing the victims of Saddam Hussein. . Because of its high tech weaponry and overwhelming military superiority, America will lose few soldiers. But it will lose its soul. World War I, presented to the public as a war for democracy, for freedom, was in fact a war fought by imperial powers (France, England, Russia) against an imperial rival, Germany. It led, not to the freedom of colonial peoples, but to a change in who dominated the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe. Now, the war in Iraq is presented as a moral crusade to end the menace of "weapons of mass destruction", the evidence for which is far from clear. The assumption that Saddam would use them and invite annihilation (since most weapons of mass destruction in the world are held by the United States) makes no sense. As in the first World War, there are imperial motives at work, and the defeat of Saddam will lead to a change in who controls the precious oil reserves of Iraq. Deals will be cut with Russia, France and England to divide the booty. The talks are going on right now. The first World war was sold to the American public as "the war to end ll wars". But twenty-one years later came World War II, in which fifty million people were killed. The United Nations was formed, as its Charter says, "to end the scourge of war which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind". But no, it’s been war after war for the United States: Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia. All accompanied by claims that we were at war for some good cause, all resulting in the loss of human life, all demanding acceptance of the government’s reasons for war, most of which turned out to be lies. We should have learned from Vietnam that true patriotism does not mean marching off to war just because the government tells you to. Those 58,000 names on the Washington memorial should make that clear. As a veteran of World War II, as a student of the history of our wars, and contemplating still another war, I suggest we keep certain things in mind. First, that we must be extremely skeptical of whatever government officials tell us about the reasons for going to war. Second, that what is certain about war is that large numbers of innocent people will die, including many children, and what is uncertain about war is that any good will come of it. Finally, that when you go to war, you assume that the lives of people in another country are not as valuable as the lives of your own countrymen. If we really believe, as our most fundamental moral principles demand we believe, that the children in other countries have as much right to live as our children, then we must refuse the call to war. It is time, by public demand, by general outcry, to end "the scourge of war" . The best thing we can do for Veterans Day is to pledge: "No more war veterans".
Zinn: TENNIS ON THE TITANIC
Dec 16, 2000
As the prize of the presidency lurched wildly back and forth in the last days of the year, with the entire nation hypnotized by the spectacle, I had a vision. I saw the Titanic churning through the waters of the North Atlantic toward an iceberg looming in
Zinn: A CAMPAIGN WITHOUT CLASS
Sep 30, 2000
There came a rare amusing moment in this election campaign when George Bush (who has raised $150 million or thereabouts, anyhow, for his campaign) accused Al Gore (who has only raised $140 million or thereabouts, anyway, for his campaign) of appealing to
Oct 03, 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.