Quote

Is not nationalism - that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder - one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking - cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on - have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.

Howard Zinn

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Howard Zinn
Age: 87 †
Born: 1922
Born: August 24
Died: 2010
Died: January 27
Film Director
Historian
Historian Of The Modern Age
Human Rights Activist
Journalist
Labor Historian
Pacifist
Peace Activist
Playwright
Brooklyn
New York
Time
Mass
Fierce
Boundary
Thinking
Along
Devotion
Anthem
Ways
Boundaries
Cultivated
Religious
Racism
Deadly
Evil
Useful
Evils
Power
Murder
Nationalism
Indoctrinated
Great
Hatred
Flag
Engenders
Way
Childhood
Flags
Nurtured

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Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy it is absolutely essential to it.
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Imperialism is the factor in American policy, not just since 1898, but in fact long before it when we were expanding across this continent and taking away Indian lands in order to enlarge the territory of the United States. We have been an imperial power and an expansionist power for a very long time.
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Let's face a historical truth: we have never had a free market, we have always had government intervention in the economy, and indeed that intervention has been welcomed by the captains of finance and industry. They had no quarrel with big government when it served their needs.
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Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.
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I do take the threat of terrorism seriously. You cannot eliminate that threat or diminish that threat by bombing a country.
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If you join a fight for social justice you may win or lose, but just by being part of the struggle, you win, and your life will be better for it.
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The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured. Those special people who speak out in such a way as to shake up not only the self-assurance of their enemies, but the complacency of their friends, are precious catalysts for change.
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Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.
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I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.
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The cry of the poor is is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.
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The violence of our time is caused by obedience.
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I will try not to overlook the cruelties that victims inflict on one another as they are jammed together in the boxcars of the system. I don’t want to romanticize them. But I do remember (in rough paraphrase) a statement I once read: “The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what justice is.
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One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression.
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There has always been, and there is now, a profound conflict of interest between the people and the government of the United States.
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Yes, we're dreamers. We want it all. We want a peaceful world. We want an egalitarian world. We don't want war. We don't want capitalism. We want a decent society.
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But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility lies hope.
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They didn't give their lives for their country! their lives were taken from them by their government.
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That whole idea of threats to national security is a very interesting one. The phrase is very useful for the government to try to encompass the citizenry in the same box as the government is in. To say, We're all in this together. It threatens all of us.
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These people—the employed, the somewhat privileged—are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.
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Where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it’s been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn’t just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.
Howard Zinn