Howard Zinn dies at 87

[GPDP]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/01/howard_zinn_his.html

:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

We have lost a true, long-time comrade today.

May he rest in peace...

[Pirate Utopian]

How sad.

Condolences for his friends and family.

[FreeFocus]

Wow, I just watched a lecture he gave at BU like two weeks ago and was debating about him last week on here. Sad stuff..

[Sasha]

87 is an good age, and there are a lot worse things to die from than an heart attack while traveling.

but yeah, he will be missed, his "a people history of the united states" is an classic

[Durruti's Ghost]

Rest in peace... :(

[Martin Blank]

For as many critiques as I have made in the past about Zinn's method, they are minor in comparison to what we had in common, in terms of our point of view, respect for the whole of history and acknowledgment that knowledge of our history is a weapon in our fight for the future. For these reasons, we bow our heads and dip our banners in a show of respect and expression of mourning at the loss of a comrade and friend.

[Misanthrope]

Very sad.. the left needs a new generation of people to question the status quo.

[RadioRaheem84]

Rest in peace, comrade. You work was greatly appreciated.



Very sad.. the left needs a new generation of philosophers!

Agreed. They're all so old. They don't have much time left.

[Prairie Fire]

Oh no, are you kidding?

[Uncle Hank]

Well, shit. :( My condolences to his children and those who knew him.

[9]

Damn, what a shame; he looked really great for his age, too, so I'm pretty surprised by this. My mother is presently reading A People's History of the United States, and since she started it, she always calls me and leaves me ranting voicemail messages about "how fucked up this country is". :lol:
Anyway, he had some liberal views, I didn't agree with a good deal of what he had to say, but still - I have a lot of respect for him, and its definitely a loss.

[Uppercut]

Damn, I'm sorry to hear that. :(

I don't know everything about him, but I liked his views, nonetheless.

[Weezer]

Dammit. :(

[Communist]

R.I.P (http://freepeltiernow.blogspot.com/2010/01/howard-zinn-historian-who-challenged.html).

[Liberateeducate]

RIP:closedeyes:

[gorillafuck]

Rest In Peace:(

[DecDoom]

This is terrible... rest in peace, comrade. :(

[Kwisatz Haderach]

With heads uncovered swear we all
To bear it onward till we fall;
Come dungeons dark or gallows grim,
This song shall be our parting hymn.

Then raise the scarlet standard high.
Within its shade we'll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We'll keep the red flag flying here.

87 is a good age. Rest is peace Howard Zinn.

[LeninistKing]

Hello my friends: I was crying just right now because of Howard Zinn's death. I am christian and not only I pray to God for a socialist system in USA, because I believe that God is communist-socialist, and the Devil (The dark forces of this world represent the capitalist and imperialist system in this world)

but I will also pray for Howard Zinn, his families and friends.

.



http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/01/howard_zinn_his.html

:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

We have lost a true, long-time comrade today.

May he rest in peace...

[the last donut of the night]

This really sucks. May he rest in peace.

Zinn always strived toward getting people to just know about themselves more in a very easy and fun way. He was a great guy.

However, as sad as his death is, it is the sign of new times for the left.

The old theoreticians from the 19th and early 20th centuries made very important observations and developed theories that still guide us today. They are very important.

However, we cannot be puritans and only follow their words.

The ideas from the 60s are also becoming a bit old too. Times have changed and so have we.

May Howard Zinn's death be a springboard for the left: as we remember and honour the people of our glorious past, may we also begin to look at revolution now and in the future.

We need new Zinns, new Lenins, new Luxemburgs. We need intellectuals that won't be separate from the workers.

This is the left in the 21st century. And I personally thank Zinn for helping us get here.

[Revy]

Rest in Peace Zinn.

[AmericanRed]

A great many people have been radicalized from reading A People's History. A life well spent, Cde. Zinn. Rest in peace.

[Red Rebel]

RIP Zinn. Sadly we will no be able to look forward to new works or his speeches on current events.

[~Spectre]

Rest in peace. We've lost a true People's hero.

The 50s and 60s era dissidents are starting to leave us. It will only be a matter of time before Noam goes as well. Let this not demoralize us, instead, let this give us new motivation and new energy to strive forward and fill the shoes of men like Zinn. Long live the struggle.

[Intelligitimate]

R.I.P. Zinn.

[ReVoLuTiOnArY-BrOtHeR]

R.I.P Comrade Zinn. Your ideas will forever live.

[RedScare]

:(

Another luminary of the left goes dark.....

[Tablo]

RIP
Let us not forget the wonderful contributions he has given the Left. Let's build upon what he has left behind and build a new world he and many past Revolutionaries would be proud of.

[Incendiarism]

Saw this on wikipedia. Sucks.

[MarxSchmarx]

Don't mourn, organize!

quoted by Howard Zinn in "The Wobbly Spirit", pg. 181 of "The Zinn Reader".

[CELMX]

(T_T) RIP Howard Zinn.



Don't mourn, organize!

How about this...mourn and organize!

I liked this commemoration of Zinn from Huffington Post



HOWARD ZINN HAS DIED. LONG LIVE "ZINN"!
I sit here in shock, having just read the Boston Globe headline, "Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo, dies at 87." I knew the day would come. I dreaded it. I flew to Boston last year to spend a day with him just so I wouldn't read a headline like this without having seen him at least one last time. And now I sit here. Devastated.
Much will and should be written about Howard's contributions to the world: how his People's History of the U.S. changed how many of us understand America and, like all great histories, shed the great light of Truth upon our present, explaining what cannot be understood by official propaganda; the pivotal role he played in the civil rights movement during the tough years when he, like so many others, took enormous physical risks for simply wanting justice, a period he told me was the highlight of his life; the thousands of people, well-known and not, whose lives were politically transformed by their encounters with him.
And the personal remembrances of Howard the human being will be no less moving and true. I have met many political people in my lifetime. Howard was by far the most honest, human, open, kind, generous, gracious, sweetest, humorous and charming of them all. By far. I am not the first to be reminded of Abraham Lincoln when talking with him, not only because of the physical resemblance but his profound humanity. His personal warmth and gentleness, combined with his political fire and passion, were entirely unique in my experience. He looked you in the eyes. He listened. He reacted appropriately to what you were saying. He was as interested in my ideas and experience when we talked last January as he had been 40 years ago. Looking back on his life he was as open and honest about his regrets as well as satisfactions as anyone I have ever met.
But to me there is an even more important aspect of his life, like that of his friend and colleague Noam Chomsky, that transcends the personal.
To many of us "Zinn" and "Chomsky" have not only been admirable human beings. They have been something far more, something difficult to put into words, something perhaps even risky to try and capture but something that, nonetheless, one feels driven to express at a moment like this.
Many of us were upended on the deepest possible level during the '60s. Growing up in the aftermath of the "Good War", many of us the children or grandchildren of immigrants who believed deeply in the America to which they owed their very lives, we profoundly believed in America's goodness and decency. And when we saw not only our leaders, but an entire older generation not only betray but spit upon and destroy these values in Indochina, we were undone. When we saw them mercilessly, pitilessly, amorally, criminally, deceitfully and undemocratically murder millions of innocent civilians over a period of weeks, months and years - each week a lifetime of agony - we were thrown into an emotional, intellectual and spiritual abyss, an abyss from which we have never really fully emerged. Our moral universe, the basic set of understandings needed to remain human, was shattered.
It was particularly during those morally chaotic years that "Zinn" and "Chomsky" became more than people to many of us. As elders who did not sell out, who acted as well as taught, who did not compromise, who did not abandon genuine American values and ideals, who did not lose their passion for social justice, who did not fail to side with the poor and downtrodden and victimized, and who above all spoke the truth, they became to many of us, quite simply, some of the most important nouns of our life. Even if we did not always agree this or that "position" they took, they represented something far higher.

"Zinn" and "Chomsky" represented a tradition and state of being that meant we were not entirely on our own, beacons of:
-- The deepest possible compassion. At any given moment the world is divided into those who hear the screams of the innocent victims and those who do not. Most of us, certainly myself, go in and out of hearing the screams. We fight this injustice but ignore that one. "Zinn" and "Chomsky" is a state of being that consistently hears the screams, from Vietnam to inner city ghettoes, from East Timor to Haiti. It is a state that is unable to close itself off from the pain of the world.
-- Intellectual clarity, as they have told their truths in their writings and speeches to millions, never compromising for the sake of political expediency like so many of their contemporaries. Many of us were terminally confused by the conflict between America's image and reality. "Zinn" and "Chomsky" provide explanations and understandings that helped keep us sane.
-- Moral courage, as they went beyond mere speech-making and writing, and joined with those opposing the war, risking imprisonment or physical injury - as in our "affinity group" during Mayday when either could have been arrested, beaten up or maced in the eyes like Dan Ellsberg who was standing next to them, or when Chomsky was a leader of the draft resistance movement. "Zinn" and "Chomsky" mean "committed intellectuals" who do not compromise, intellectuals who align their bodies and actions with their minds and thoughts.
-- Passion for social justice, an antiquated concept these days, in which a new generation of Americans has come to believe that "collateral damage" is inevitable in war, the very idea of war crimes irrelevant, and that the poor are responsible for their poverty. "Zinn" and "Chomsky" has meant never losing the passion for justice, a passion that began for Howard when he realized, as a bombardier in WWII, that he was often bombing the innocent not out of military necessity but mere inertia and indifference.
-- Above all integrity, authenticity, wholeness. "Zinn" and "Chomsky" are embodiments of that word so often praised but so rarely practiced. They have practiced what they have preached. I have never seen either act out of character. I remember well when I first met Howard in Laos in 1968 as he and Dan Berrigan were on their way to Hanoi to escort U.S. POWs home. What political system did he believe in?, I asked. He smiled in his wry way, grinned his wide grin, and answered in that soft, Brooklyn-tinged but clear way of his: "I guess the closest is the kind of anarcho-syndicalism they had in the Spanish Civil War", he responded. As we talked I understood that he knew too much to put faith in any government, right or left, that "anarcho-syndicalism" was a way of saying he remained idealistic that humans could theoretically live sanely. But he never fell into the trap that many of us have of projecting our ideals onto the fallible humans who hold power in any system, left or right, and are inevitably corrupted by it.
The integrity conveyed by the words "Zinn" and "Chomsky" is, in the end, impossible to pin down. They have been cut from an older, different cloth. Their roots lie in an earlier time when those fighting for peace and social justice did so because of who they were, not because they sought personal power or to realize fantasies of "revolution". I asked Howard last January what kept him continuing to fight, write and speak for peace and social justice when it all seemed so hopeless. His answer was as simple as it was profound. "I couldn't live with myself if I didn't." The meaning of the words were far less important than the wave of feeling that moved through me as he said them, a wave of feeling that cut through the rationalizing and intellectualizing and connected with the deepest part of me that feels the same way.
The most important role that "Zinn" and "Chomsky" (whom I also met in Laos, in 1970) have played in my life has been to serve as nouns reminding me of my highest self. I cannot describe how often, consciously or unbidden, I have found myself thinking "how would Howard see this?," "what would Howard say?", "what would Noam do in this case?".
And the deepest role they have played in my life only became apparent to me in recent years, as I began to explore my unconscious. I realized that they represented a kind of moral center in my life, a compass, a guiding star. This or that politician in whom I had believed might turn out to have feet of clay. I might betray my own ideals. I might drop out for a while, become despairing. But knowing that "Zinn" and "Chomsky" did not, that they fought consistently for their ideas, did not get corrupted by the temptations of power, meant that somewhere, some place, there remained a still point of integrity in this world.
Somewhere, some place, it was possible to remain a human being with compassion, intellectual clarity, moral courage, a passion for social justice and, above all, integrity. Somewhere, someplace, the world was not entirely sick, corrupted, confused or compromised.
These "Zinn" and "Chomsky" states of being, which meant so much to me, also made me feel conflicted about the persons Zinn and Chomsky at various points in my life, particularly when I went into electoral politics in the 1980s. I projected onto them that they, who had kept their integrity, would look down on me for getting involved in electoral politics. I assumed they would find my rationale for doing so morally or intellectually compromised. I tended to avoid them during this period.
I also sometimes saw them as naive. When I talked to Howard shortly after John Kerry was nominated for President he said forcefully that Kerry had better run against the Iraq war if he wanted to win. My internal reaction was something along the lines of "oh, there he is, good old Howard, naive romantic to the end. Noone can hope to win the Presidency without supporting the Iraq war."
I did not foresee that Kerry's key losing moment of the campaign would be saying he voted for the Iraq war before he voted against it, or that Barack Obama would win the Presidency largely for opposing the Iraq war at a time when the conventional wisdom, embodied by Hillary Clinton, still held that supporting it was necessary to win. I did not foresee that a few years hence I would see myself as naive on this question, and Howard more realistic. Nor did I foresee that when I met with them again neither would judge me negatively for my forays into electoral politics. It had all been a projection on my part.
I also did not foresee that as the horrors of the Bush Years wore on, and the disappointment of Obama Year One would kick in, that I would find myself increasingly embracing what they have taught and what they have embodied; that they would be serving even more as a lodestone to me in these years than they did in my youth.
Howard's death is thus a shock transcending the normal death of a friend or even loved one. Yes, the personal memories come tumbling out: watching a theatrical presentation in a cave north of Hanoi as Nixon got elected in November 1972, marveling at the morale of the Vietnamese compared to the despair we felt at the prospect of four more years of killing; spending the night in adjoining jail cells during the Redress demonstration, being so buoyed in the morning by his cheerfulness, smiles, wry but never cynical humor; marching together in a small march in Lexington, Massachusetts, and then hearing him speak, out of the deepest possible knowledge and feeling, about how the ideals of the American Revolution, as contrasted with its reality, required opposing the Vietnam today; our emails, phone conversations and visits over these 40 years - with Howard always gracious, always committed, always kind, always interested, and always interesting.
But this feeling of devastation at his loss far transcends even these personal memories.
There is, you see, no "Zinn" or "Chomsky" among we baby-boomers, let alone the generations that follows us.
One of our beacons of integrity has now flickered out. Our world has suddenly become a little darker, a little colder, little more bitter, a litte more insane.
It is bad enough when a loved and admirable person dies and one realizes they can never be replaced, that there will never be another one remotely like them. It is worse when that person's death leaves a hole in the entire moral universe, that a spiritual vacuum has been created that can never be filled. The pain is more intense, the feeling of irreplaceable loss even stronger.
My only consolation at this moment is knowing that though Howard Zinn the man has died, "Zinn" has not. I know that many of us will continue to be sustained in the difficult years to come by the answers we will receive when we find ourselves asking:
-- What would Howard think, how would he see it?
-- What would Howard say?
-- How would Howard feel?
And, most importantly:

-- What would Howard do?
Zinn has died. Long live "Zinn".

[Across The Street]

My mom has had a copy of A People's History of the United States sitting around for a good while and I think it's about time I read it.

[Lenin II]

Howard Zinn and JD Salinger died in one day - two of my favorite writers.

All the while George Bush prances around, alive and fat.

[AntiFASH]

Goodbye Howard,

Thank you for your work. Thank you for the sacrifices you made in the name of economic and social justice. Thank you for radicalizing the opposition to Vietnam and imperialism.

Thank you for standing up for all of us. We'll miss you.

"War itself is the enemy of the human race."

[un_person]

Howard Zinn was a true hero, and he will be sorely missed. He is one of those voices that we need in today's world. If anyone wants to see and hear more of Howard Zinn's work I would recommend onebigtorrent.org.

Rest In Peace Dr. Zinn. You will be sorely missed.


:crying:

[Honggweilo]

lets keep on making peoples history in his and many others memories

RIP Howard

[GPDP]

Does anyone know if Zinn's death was reported on the mainstream media, specifically on TV?

[#FF0000]

It was on the CNN website. That's all I know though.

[#FF0000]

It was on the CNN website. That's all I know though.

[punisa]

RIP Howard. He was an amazing and inspiring man. Truly unique.
I remember almost crying while watching his talks about WW2 and horrors of war in general.
This is really sad news :(

[Communist]

Howard Zinn: A Public Intellectual Who Mattered (http://www.truthout.org/howard-zinn-a-public-intellectual-who-mattered56463)

Thursday 28 January 2010
by: Henry A. Giroux


In 1977 I took my first job in higher education at
Boston University. One reason I went there was because
Howard Zinn was teaching there at the time. As a high
school teacher, Howard's book, "Vietnam: the Logic of
Withdrawal," published in 1968, had a profound effect
on me. Not only was it infused with a passion and sense
of commitment that I admired as a high school teacher
and tried to internalize as part of my own pedagogy,
but it captured something about the passion, sense of
commitment and respect for solidarity that came out of
Howard's working-class background. It offered me a
language, history and politics that allowed me to
engage critically and articulate my opposition to the
war that was raging at the time.

I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and rarely met
or read any working-class intellectuals. After reading
James Baldwin, hearing William Kunstler and Stanley
Aronowitz give talks, I caught a glimpse of what it
meant to occupy such a fragile, contradictory and often
scorned location. But reading Howard gave me the
theoretical tools to understand more clearly how the
mix of biography, cultural capital and class location
could be finely honed into a viable and laudable
politics.

Later, as I got to know Howard personally, I was able
to fill in the details about his working-class
background and his intellectual development. We had
grown up in similar neighborhoods, shared a similar
cultural capital and we both probably learned more from
the streets than we had ever learned in formal
schooling. There was something about Howard's
fearlessness, his courage, his willingness to risk not
just his academic position, but also his life, that
marked him as special - untainted by the often
corrupting privileges of class entitlement.

Before I arrived in Boston to begin teaching at Boston
University, Howard was a mythic figure for me and I was
anxious to meet him in real life. How I first
encountered him was perfectly suited to the myth. While
walking to my first class, as I was nearing the
university, filled with the trepidation of teaching a
classroom of students, I caught my fist glimpse of
Howard. He was standing on a box with a bullhorn in
front of the Martin Luther King memorial giving a talk
calling for opposition to Silber's attempt to undermine
any democratic or progressive function of the
university. The image so perfectly matched my own
understanding of Howard that I remember thinking to
myself, this has to be the perfect introduction to such
a heroic figure.

Soon afterwards, I wrote him a note and rather
sheepishly asked if we could meet. He got back to me in
a day; we went out to lunch soon afterwards, and a
friendship developed that lasted over 30 years. While
teaching at Boston University, I often accompanied
Howard when he went to high schools to talk about his
published work or his plays. I sat in on many of his
lectures and even taught one of his graduate courses.
He loved talking to students and they were equally
attracted to him. His pedagogy was dynamic, directive,
focused, laced with humor and always open to dialog and
interpretation. He was a magnificent teacher, who
shredded all notions of the classroom as a place that
was as uninteresting as it was often irrelevant to
larger social concerns. He urged his students not just
to learn from history, but to use it as a resource to
sharpen their intellectual prowess and hone their civic
responsibilities.

Howard refused to separate what he taught in the
university classroom, or any forum for that matter,
from the most important problems and issues facing the
larger society. But he never demanded that students
follow his own actions; he simply provided a model of
what a combination of knowledge, teaching and social
commitment meant. Central to Howard's pedagogy was the
belief that teaching students how to critically
understand a text or any other form of knowledge was
not enough. They also had to engage such knowledge as
part of a broader engagement with matters of civic
agency and social responsibility. How they did that was
up to them, but, most importantly, they had to link
what they learned to a self-reflective understanding of
their own responsibility as engaged individuals and
social actors.

He offered students a range of options. He wasn't
interested in molding students in the manner of
Pygmalion, but in giving them the widest possible set
of choices and knowledge necessary for them to view
what they learned as an act of freedom and empowerment.
There is a certain poetry in his pedagogical style and
scholarship and it is captured in his belief that one
can take a position without standing still. He captured
this sentiment well in a comment he made in his
autobiography, "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving
Train." He wrote:

"From the start, my teaching was infused with my own
history. I would try to be fair to other points of
view, but I wanted more than 'objectivity'; I wanted
students to leave my classes not just better informed,
but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence,
more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice
wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for
trouble."

In fact, Howard was under constant attack by John
Silber, then president of Boston University, because of
his scholarship and teaching. One expression of that
attack took the form of freezing Howard's salary for
years.

Howard loved watching independent and Hollywood films
and he and I and Roz [Howard's wife] saw many films
together while I was in Boston. I remember how we
quarreled over "Last Tango in Paris." I loved the film,
but he disagreed. But Howard disagreed in a way that
was persuasive and instructive. He listened, stood his
ground, and, if he was wrong, often said something
like, "O.K., you got a point," always accompanied by
that broad and wonderful smile.

What was so moving and unmistakable about Howard was
his humility, his willingness to listen, his refusal of
all orthodoxies and his sense of respect for others. I
remember once when he was leading a faculty strike at
BU in the late 1970s and I mentioned to him that too
few people had shown up. He looked at me and made it
very clear that what should be acknowledged is that
some people did show up and that was a beginning. He
rightly put me in my place that day - a lesson I never
forgot.

Howard was no soppy optimist, but someone who believed
that human beings, in the face of injustice and with
the necessary knowledge, were willing to resist,
organize and collectively struggle. Howard led the
committee organized to fight my firing by Silber. We
lost that battle, but Howard was a source of deep
comfort and friendship for me during a time when I had
given up hope. I later learned that Silber, the
notorious right-wing enemy of Howard and anyone else on
the left, had included me on a top-ten list of
blacklisted academics at BU. Hearing that I shared that
list with Howard was a proud moment for me. But Howard
occupied a special place in Silber's list of enemies,
and he once falsely accused Howard of arson, a charge
he was later forced to retract once the charge was
leaked to the press.

Howard was one of the few intellectuals I have met who
took education seriously. He embraced it as both
necessary for creating an informed citizenry and
because he rightly felt it was crucial to the very
nature of politics and human dignity. He was a deeply
committed scholar and intellectual for whom the line
between politics and life, teaching and civic
commitment collapsed into each other.

Howard never allowed himself to be seduced either by
threats, the seductions of fame or the need to tone
down his position for the standard bearers of the new
illiteracy that now populates the mainstream media. As
an intellectual for the public, he was a model of
dignity, engagement and civic commitment. He believed
that addressing human suffering and social issues
mattered, and he never flinched from that belief. His
commitment to justice and the voices of those expunged
from the official narratives of power are evident in
such works as his monumental and best-known book, "A
People's History of the United States," but it was also
evident in many of his other works, talks, interviews
and the wide scope of public interventions that marked
his long and productive life. Howard provided a model
of what it meant to be an engaged scholar, who was
deeply committed to sustaining public values and a
civic life in ways that linked theory, history and
politics to the everyday needs and language that
informed everyday life. He never hid behind a firewall
of jargon, refused to substitute irony for civic
courage and disdained the assumption that working-class
and oppressed people were incapable of governing
themselves.

Unlike so many public relations intellectuals today, I
never heard him interview himself while talking to
others. Everything he talked about often pointed to
larger social issues, and all the while, he completely
rejected any vestige of political and moral purity. His
lack of rigidity coupled with his warmness and humor
often threw people off, especially those on the left
and right who seem to pride themselves on their often
zombie-like stoicism. But, then again, Howard was not a
child of privilege. He had a working-class sensibility,
though hardly romanticized, and sympathy for the less
privileged in society along with those whose voices had
been kept out of the official narratives as well as a
deeply felt commitment to solidarity, justice, dialogue
and hope. And it was precisely this great sense of
dignity and generosity in his politics and life that
often moved people who shared his company privately or
publicly. A few days before his death, he sent me an
email commenting on something I had written for
Truthout about zombie politics. (It astonishes me that
this will have been the last correspondence. Even at my
age, the encouragement and support of this man, this
towering figure in my life, meant such a great deal.)
His response captures something so enduring and moving
about his spirit. He wrote:

"Henry, we are in a situation where mild rebuke, even
critiques we consider 'radical' are not sufficient.
(Frederick Douglass' speech on the Fourth of July in
1852, thunderously angry, comes close to what is
needed). Raising the temperature of our language, our
indignation, is what you are doing and what is needed.
I recall that Sartre, close to death, was asked: 'What
do you regret?' He answered: 'I wasn't radical
enough.'"

I suspect that Howard would have said the same thing
about himself. And maybe no one can ever be radical
enough, but Howard came close to that ideal in his
work, life and politics. Howard's death is especially
poignant for me because I think the formative culture
that produced intellectuals like him is gone. He leaves
an enormous gap in the lives of many thousands of
people who knew him and were touched by the reality of
the embodied and deeply felt politics he offered to all
of us. I will miss him, his emails, his work, his smile
and his endearing presence. Of course, he would frown
on such a sentiment, and with a smile would more than
likely say, "do more than mourn, organize." Of course,
he would be right, but maybe we can do both.

Editor's Note: Howard Zinn and Henry A. Giroux not only
shared a long personal friendship but also many
professional and political connections. Henry A. Giroux
recently joined the Truthout Board of Directors. Howard
Zinn was a member of Truthout's Board of Advisors and
his comments and suggestions about our work will be
greatly missed by all of us.

Creative Commons License

_____________________________________________


Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.

[Communist]

Honoring Howard Zinn:

===
1.
Excerpt from "Interview with Howard Zinn "Socialism without Jails."

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/zinn280110.html

Q. What do you want to be remembered for?

If I want to be remembered for anything, it's for
introducing a different way of thinking about the
world, about war, about human rights, about equality,
for getting more and more people to think that way, and
also for getting more people to realize that power,
which rests so far in the hands of people with wealth
and guns, ultimately rests on people themselves, and
they can use it, and at certain points in history they
have used it: Black people in the South used it; people
in the women's movement used it; people in the anti-war
movement used it; people in other countries who have
overthrown tyrannies have used it. What I want to be
remembered as is somebody who gave people a feeling of
hope and power that they didn't have before. Howard
Zinn, 1922-2010.

===
2.
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010
From: William Wharton
Subject: On the Death of Howard Zinn
The death of Howard Zinn is a great loss to socialists
across the world. Zinn's life work as a people's
historian offered a shining example of scholarship with
relevance for everyday life. Equally important, was
the joyous life energy he exuded while supporting a
wide variety of progressive causes. When called to
speak at marches, teach-ins and rallies Howard Zinn
would appear - armed only with the powerful message
that when regular people struggle for justice,
something good might happen. Zinn's death is a call
for new people to push forward his project to create a
world based on solidarity, compassion and justice. We
will miss you Howard Zinn and we will advance the
struggle in your name.

Billy Wharton
co-chair, Socialist Party USA
http://socialistparty-usa.org/

===
3.

Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2010
From: Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Subject: Howard Zinn's last advice to America - and to me

Howard Zinn's last advice to America - and to me:

A Broad Coalition for Independence From the
Corporations & the Military

Dear shalom-pursuer,
Tuesday morning -- just two days ago -- I wrote half a
dozen leaders of progressive thought and action in
America, each separately, the letter that follows. One
of the people I wrote was the historian /activist
Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United
States, whom I have known for 45 years or so. He
responded just 90 minutes later, and his response is
also below.

All day yesterday I was meeting with doctors who
cleared away the last of my medical barriers to travel
and to risking arrest in nonviolent civil-disobedience
actions. I intended this morning, Thursday morning, to
write Howard back to ask how to follow up on his
comments.

But I can't. Howard died yesterday, at 87. He was one
of the wisest, gentlest, drily good-humored of
progressive thinkers and activists. The best of the
America he celebrated in his bottom-up history, in
which the energies and currents of Blacks, of workers,
of women, of religious minorities, of war resisters,
were the center -- not Presidents and Senators.

After I share with you this last exchange I'll be able
to have with him --perhaps the last commentary he made
on the American political scene -- I'll share two
stories - one long ago that has stayed lit up for me
all these years, and one very recent.

This is what I wrote him Tuesday morning:

Dear Howard, 28; 28; It seems to me that the
confluence of massive disemployment, plus knee-jerk
militarism, plus stalemate on the climate crisis and on
health care, plus the Supreme Court decision on
corporate financing of elections, plus the use of the
filibuster in the Senate -- all in what many assumed
or hoped would be a year of major progressive change
-- has shocked enough people that it should, and might,
make possible a progressive coalition.

I'm imagining a coalition aimed at "independence from
the military-corporate alliance," with a platform that
includes strong planks on climate, jobs, health, ending
the present wars, major reductions in the military,
transforming campaign finance, and ending the
filibuster.

28; 28;Perhaps with rallies, vigils, sit-downs, etc in
state capitals and other centers all around the country
on July 4, and support for specific progressive
candidates in the 2010 Congressional elections . 28; Do
you think this would make sense? 28; 28;How would it be
possible to begin shaping such a coalition? 28;
28;Shalom, salaam, shantih --- peace, Arthur ^^^^^^^^
And this letter back from Howard:

Arthur, you are absolutely right, this is the time for
the resurgence of a national movement that begins with
a co-ordinated country-wide action.

The theme you describe, "independence from the
military-corporation" is one that all sorts of people
and groups can unite around. I believe millions,
probably tens of millions of people are ready for this
because there is little left of the early euphoria
that greeted Obama's election.

A huge job to organize it, but it was done for
Mobilization Day Oct.15,1969, and without the advantage
of the Internet.

Someone or some group that is respected throughout the
progressive movement would need to take the initiative
and summon supporters. With blacks, Latinos, women
prominent, and not disdaining celebrities. I think of
Julian Bond, Danny Glover, Rosie Perez, Cindy Sheehan,
Harry Belafonte, Matt Damon, Oprah, Alice Walker,
Marian Wright Edelman -- some well-known clergy, you
and others, some labor leaders. Maybe not that exact
group, but just to suggest a direction. And a few
super-organizers.


I'm not up for organizing these days, maybe for
consultation, and whatever help I can give.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I was going to write
Howard today to ask whether he'd invite some of those
people and a few others to meet to talk about the
possibilities.

Now -- is it possible to see those few words as a kind
of legacy that we can turn into a new chapter of the
"people's history"?

Two stories: In the mid-'60s, Howard spoke at some
gathering in Washington about the Vietnam War. He said
that most of the time, the American people - any people
- walks around in the dark, bumping blindly into
extremely dangerous and hurtful objects -- wars,
depressions, racism, drug epidemics, police violence .
Literally blind-sided, again and again.

But occasionally, some event would become a lightning
flash, illuminating the structures of power behind
these disasters. He said Vietnam had become a
lightning flash. We were for the first time seeing the
connections between the universities and the military,
we were seeing the way children were channeled from
their earliest years (without regard to their
intelligence or creativity) into becoming factory
workers, or unemployed, or lawyers, or ...

And our job, he said, was to try to turn these
lightning flashes into steady light, to help a whole
society keep seeing the truth about itself.

And just last month, late December: I had sent out an
essay in a satirical vein, pointing up the absurdity of
the way Washington is carrying on the Afghanistan war
in order to defeat "terrorism."
Several folks wrote or called to tell me they didn't
think humor, even or especially bitter humor, was
appropriate in talking about a war. I felt dismayed,
unsettled, dispirited.

Then I got this note from Howard:

" Dear Art, A friend of mine just sent me this piece
you wrote -- satiric, powerful -- about Detroit, Islam,
Kabul, terrorism. It is a brilliant commentary and I
have passed it on to a number of people. Thank you for
it . I wish you a peaceful and joyful New Year.
Howard"

So -- dear Howard, I'm not so sure about "brilliant,"
but I'm glad you felt the humor had some bite where our
rulers need to be bitten. You revived my spirits.

And -- dear dear Howard, I wish you a joyful New Year
making trouble for the Authorities in Heaven. If ever
the memories, the teachings, of a tzaddik - a
practitioner of tzedek, justice - could bring blessing
to those who are still scrabbling for justice on this
stricken earth, it's the memories and teachings you
left us.

- peace! Arthur

_____________________________________________

------------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------



Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.

[Kibbutznik]

If Howard Zinn's epitaph is be anything, let it be "I am not the champion of lost causes, but the champion of causes yet won"

We will miss your wisdom, dear friend, but we'll cherish your legacy as we move forward.

[punisa]

Since this is the appropriate topic, I'd like to share with you a song I wrote just now as a tribute to Howard Zinn called "So long Mr. Zinn", if you want you can listen/watch it over here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIqnm5rnNoI

[Pawn Power]

I am pretty confident that Howard Zinn would echo my comment of; "Don't mourn. Organize!"


Get off the interweb and start agitating. And if you already are, do it some more.

Howard Zinn would provide no excuses for not organizing in your communities.

[Martin Blank]

At One with History
Dr. Howard Zinn (1922-2010)

Working People's Advocate
Monday, February 1, 2010

It is with great sadness that we learned last Wednesday of the passing of Dr. Howard Zinn at age 87.

Zinn died of a heart attack during a trip to California to visit friends. He was in Santa Monica at the time of his passing.

Zinn was from the third wave of radical intellectuals that emerged in the American political landscape in the 20th century. More than that, though, he was one of the few who remained overtly radical throughout his entire life.

Born in New York City into a working-class Jewish immigrant family. His father, Edward, was a waiter and his mother, Jennie, was a housewife. Before entering New York University at 27, he had worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and in many of the warehouses that lined the shores of New York at the time.

During the Second World War, Zinn served in the Army Air Force as a bombardier on B-17 and B-24 planes.

He received his bachelor’s degree in history from NYU, and his master’s and doctorate from Columbia University.

Zinn first became known after becoming chair of the history department at Spelman College, an historically African American women’s college in Atlanta. It was there that Zinn became politically active, participating in the non-violent civil rights movement.

In 1964, Zinn became a professor at Boston University, where he taught until his retirement from teaching in 1988.

During that time, Zinn was active in the movement against the Vietnam War, as well as in local labor and social struggles. It was also during this time that he began writing a number of books.

From 1959 to 1990, Zinn wrote a number of books about politics and history. By far, though, his most well-known and enduring book is A People’s History of the United States. Published first in 1980, and in numerous editions since, People’s History represents a microcosm of Zinn as an historian and political thinker.

Zinn sought to provide readers with what fellow historian John Henrik Clarke called the “other half of history” — the part you don’t get from the “official” textbooks and monographs.

While People’s History at times does this by bending the stick too far in the opposite direction of his “official” colleagues, Zinn’s book remains required reading for anyone who wants to know more about that “other half of history.”

But Zinn, as someone of working-class origins cast into the world of “middle class” academia, also knew his audience. More to the point, he knew the class character of those who would most likely be reading his books and attending his lectures, and he did not shy away from calling them what they were: the “guards” of the capitalist system.

His own class instincts told him where the “middle class” was in American capitalist society. And whether it was naiveté or wishful thinking, Zinn pleaded with them to consider carefully and consciously their future directions — to ask themselves which side they are on.

But now the man who sought to bring his love of history to future generations of his class and society as a whole is at one with his medium. He belongs to the history he was so passionate about, cared for so deeply and, most of all, understood is not something to passively watch, but rather is something we as human beings make through our actions.

We lower our banners in honor of someone many of us were privileged to call comrade and friend, colleague and teacher. And the one thing we can do most to honor his memory is to make good on the historic promise of a better future made by working-class people.


Central Committee of the Workers Party in America
January 30, 2010

[Red Subverter]

FUCK!

This is going to make me cry. Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States radicalized me.
We have lost a true comrade
RIP
:crying::closedeyes: