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The only hope lies in the fact that the American people - like people everywhere - are basically decent people with common sense.

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
Hope
Decent
Sense
Basically
Facts
Everywhere
Like
Lies
People
Lying
American
Common
Fact

More quotes by Howard Zinn

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Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
Howard Zinn
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The mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction-so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people's movements-that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission.
Howard Zinn
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If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?
Howard Zinn
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Memorial Day should be a day for putting flowers on graves and planting trees. Also, for destroying the weapons of death that endanger us more than they protect us, that waste our resources and threaten our children and grandchildren.
Howard Zinn
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I wanted to be a part of history and not just a recorder and teacher of history. So that kind of attitude towards history, history itself as a political act, has always informed my writing and my teaching.
Howard Zinn
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If racism can't be shown to be natural then it is the result of certain conditions, and we are impelled to eliminate those conditions.
Howard Zinn
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There was an idea in the air, becoming clearer and stronger, an idea not just in the theories of Karl Marx but in the dreams of writers and artists through the ages: that people might cooperatively use the treasures of the earth to make life better for everyone, not just a few.
Howard Zinn
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I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization.
Howard Zinn
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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.
Howard Zinn
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In a two-party system, if both parties ignore public opinion, there is no place voters can turn.
Howard Zinn
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People of the United States have to really consider whether they want to be an empire. Sweden is not worried about terrorism. New Zealand is not worried about terrorism. Holland is not worried about terrorism. Why not be a modest little country without all of these enormous ambitions?
Howard Zinn
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People who have no respect for human life or for freedom or justice have taken over this beautiful country of ours. It will be up to the American people to take it back.
Howard Zinn
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The future is an infinite succession of presents.
Howard Zinn
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Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.
Howard Zinn
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When people don't understand that the government doesn't have their interests in mind, they're more susceptible to go to war.
Howard Zinn
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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.
Howard Zinn
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Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.
Howard Zinn
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Use the Day of Atonement not to pray for the dead but to act for the living, to rescue those about to die.
Howard Zinn
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It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help. Then you might say, Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism. But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?
Howard Zinn
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The democratic principle, enunciated in the words of the Declaration of Independence, declared that government was secondary, that the people who established it were primary. Thus, the future of democracy depended on the people, and their growing consciousness of what was the decent way to relate to their fellow human beings all over the world.
Howard Zinn