Howard Zinn, Historian and Optimist, 1922-2010
"No, it's not true!"
Those were my words of denial last night when I first heard Howard Zinn had died.
There's so much to say, I'm at a loss for words. He was a hero and a mentor and someone who helped bolster my belief that humanity is basically good.
"I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?)," Howard wrote a few days after the 2004 presidential election, "but I keep encouraging people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests."
He wore many hats and accomplished many things - historian, author, teacher, playwright, orator, television producer - but it was his unflappability that I hope people remember most.
In March 2008, colleague Chuck Rosina and I recorded Howard and Professor Irene Gendzier at a symposium on empire and war at Harvard Law School. During the question and answer period, a student criticized Irene and Howard as "naive and impractical" for proposing an immediate US troop withdrawal from Iraq and asking them why, after so many decades of activism, "have groups of your persuasion accomplished so very little?"
Howard seemed a little angry at this student's ignorance but kept his emotions in check. "So here's what you're saying, I think, 'we haven't changed policy, therefore we've failed, therefore there's something wrong with what we're saying.'"
"Well, you have to examine what you're saying," Howard continued, "and see if it's right or wrong. I examine what we're saying about withdrawal from Iraq and I conclude we're saying the right thing. And you say, 'but our policy hasn't changed.' And I point to the fact that any time you look at any movement that is going on, before it succeeds, it has failed.
And you can look at the Black people in the South after they've been doing this and that and the other thing, and nothing has changed and you say 'see, you must do something different; must be something wrong with your tactics, you failed.'
No, the tactics of protest and resistance and spreading knowledge and agitation and civil disobedience, those are the tactics that have been used historically, and are still being used. There are no glamorous new tactics, that are required in order to bring about change. What is required is persistance and patience. Not the patience of passivity but the patience of action, continued action."
Author, social critic, and comedian Barry Crimmins agreed to come on the radio show this Sunday to help Marc Stern and I remember and reminisce about Howard. Barry's taking this very hard, noting that Howard was a father figure to him. Barry also is writing about his friend and mentor, saying that one of Howard's most endearing features was his voice: he could scold governments and sooth his audience at the same time, his words always articulate and never shrill.
After a long hiatus away from the grind of the road, Barry told me he's considering touring again, to speak-out about the issues important to Howard and to fill some of the void that inevitably will be left by Howard's absence.
"I have never felt so despondent over the death of an 87 year old man," says Barry.
Sums it up for me too.
Those were my words of denial last night when I first heard Howard Zinn had died.
There's so much to say, I'm at a loss for words. He was a hero and a mentor and someone who helped bolster my belief that humanity is basically good.
"I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?)," Howard wrote a few days after the 2004 presidential election, "but I keep encouraging people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests."
He wore many hats and accomplished many things - historian, author, teacher, playwright, orator, television producer - but it was his unflappability that I hope people remember most.
In March 2008, colleague Chuck Rosina and I recorded Howard and Professor Irene Gendzier at a symposium on empire and war at Harvard Law School. During the question and answer period, a student criticized Irene and Howard as "naive and impractical" for proposing an immediate US troop withdrawal from Iraq and asking them why, after so many decades of activism, "have groups of your persuasion accomplished so very little?"
Howard seemed a little angry at this student's ignorance but kept his emotions in check. "So here's what you're saying, I think, 'we haven't changed policy, therefore we've failed, therefore there's something wrong with what we're saying.'"
"Well, you have to examine what you're saying," Howard continued, "and see if it's right or wrong. I examine what we're saying about withdrawal from Iraq and I conclude we're saying the right thing. And you say, 'but our policy hasn't changed.' And I point to the fact that any time you look at any movement that is going on, before it succeeds, it has failed.
And you can look at the Black people in the South after they've been doing this and that and the other thing, and nothing has changed and you say 'see, you must do something different; must be something wrong with your tactics, you failed.'
No, the tactics of protest and resistance and spreading knowledge and agitation and civil disobedience, those are the tactics that have been used historically, and are still being used. There are no glamorous new tactics, that are required in order to bring about change. What is required is persistance and patience. Not the patience of passivity but the patience of action, continued action."
Author, social critic, and comedian Barry Crimmins agreed to come on the radio show this Sunday to help Marc Stern and I remember and reminisce about Howard. Barry's taking this very hard, noting that Howard was a father figure to him. Barry also is writing about his friend and mentor, saying that one of Howard's most endearing features was his voice: he could scold governments and sooth his audience at the same time, his words always articulate and never shrill.
After a long hiatus away from the grind of the road, Barry told me he's considering touring again, to speak-out about the issues important to Howard and to fill some of the void that inevitably will be left by Howard's absence.
"I have never felt so despondent over the death of an 87 year old man," says Barry.
Sums it up for me too.
posted by I.B.I.S. Radio at
9:48 AM
2 Comments:
Roast in hell, Stalinist toadies. I can't believe any of you really appreciate such a traitor. Regardless of any civil rights work he may have done, his apologies for Communist mass murderers were reprehensible. Of course Noam Chumpsky, Khmer Rouge champion, liked him. He deserved a Nuremburg Trial and hanging.
Oh dude ... so weak ...
Are you saying Zinn was a Stalinist? And an apologist for mass murder?
Really?
You got nothing. You know nothing about the man and his works.
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