Speech: Howard Zinn
March 13, 2009
Howard Zinn is a veteran of more than half a century of struggles for peace, justice and democracy. He's the renowned author of numerous books such as A People's History of the United States and You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, as well as the play Marx in Soho, about Karl Marx.
In early February--a few weeks after Barack Obama was inaugurated as president--Howard spoke at the independent bookstore and gathering place Busboys and Poets. Here, with his permission, we publish his thoughts on the future of the struggle in the Obama era.
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IT'S IMPOSSIBLE now to come to Washington, D.C., without being cognizant of how different the atmosphere is today--an amazing difference. When Obama's victory was announced, the overwhelming feeling was a sense of relief: Wow, they're gone. The only thing that remains is to put them in jail.
We're making this documentary based on Voices of a People's History of the United States, which Anthony Arnove and I put together, and we have these actors who are reading historical documents--a wonderful array of stars with social consciences, who are happy to do this, because they believe in it and are so glad not to be doing the usual Hollywood stuff.
We've had a number of these events around the country, and of course, the point is that it's the people who are important. Not the people up there; it's the people down here. The point is resistance not acceptance, and disobedience not obedience.
One of our readers is Viggo Mortensen. We were in the green room, and Viggo Mortensen says, "I'll be back in a minute." And when he comes back, he's taken a magic marker and written three words in big letters on the t-shirt that he's going to wear onstage to read. The three words are "IMPEACH, REMOVE, JAIL." We're not at that point yet, but who knows?
And who could not feel some sense of wonderment that this has happened? How moving it was, watching on television and seeing the faces of people in the crowd when Obama's victory was announced. To see Jesse Jackson weeping, to see the face of John Lewis, to see the faces of people who have been involved in the struggle for a long time.
For me, there was an especially poignant moment when they showed students at Spelman College. That's where I taught for seven years during the era of the civil rights movement. They showed those students at Spelman College, and the looks on their faces and their shouts of joy were overwhelming.
I felt all of that, and I have to say all of that before I discuss Obama soberly. Coming off that high and that amazing intoxication, you get to a point where you say it's a wonderful thing that happened, but now let's see what needs to be done.
And so I'm going to talk about Obama and his administration--what's going on, and what there is for us to do.
Because we are citizens, and Obama is a president. Obama is a politician. You might not like that word. But the fact is he's a politician. He's other things, too--he's a very sensitive and intelligent and articulate and thoughtful and promising person. But he's a politician. We have to remember that. Lincoln was a politician, and Roosevelt was a politician.
If you're a citizen, you have to know the difference between them and you--the difference between what they have to do and what you have to do.... MORE: http://socialistworker.org/2009/03/13/standing-for-justice
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Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people,can transform the world.
~ Howard Zinn
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