Howard Zinn: A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

this collection of essays app our governments cannot suppress this talk from Brandeis University in Waltham Massachusetts is just over an hour you know Howard came and read here about a year and a half ago for us and not long after he read I picked up a book called world beware about the the current state of American politics written by a man who coined the phrase counterculture and I found out that he couldn't find a single publisher in the United States to pick up his book there was not anyone who would touch it I think people get the impression that as long as books like if I did it by OJ Simpson can get published anything can get published and it's not the case so tonight we're here to celebrate something very very fortunate that books like this can be published a power of governments cannot suppress can be published by amazing presses like city lights and we can hear the voice directly of some of the greatest statesmen living in the United States today some of the greatest intellectuals and I'm proud to introduce one of them now please welcome Howard Zinn thank you [Applause] thank you thank you Alex thank you whoever you are who applauded if you didn't applaud thanks anyway alex is from back pages books right here on moody Street in Waltham and they're responsible for this and want to thank them they're struggling I hope you doesn't mind my saying this but they are they're struggling little bookstore and they need support like all struggling little bookstores and you know I think that we need to direct people more to bookstores and to libraries away from television away from the newspapers I say away from television even though I know there's a television camera focused on us right now question is will they turn us off as a result of this no this is this is different this is this is special so yeah of this book power that governments could not suppress a man named Greg Ruggiero decided on this book I didn't really write the book I wrote the stuff that's in it and he put it together that is if there's a bunch of essay it's a bunch of essays that I've done over the last three or four years many of them for the progressive magazine some of them here and there I did an essay on Thoreau for Princeton University Press I did a you know essay on Eugene Debs those two go together don't they yeah and a kind of socialist an anarchist I haven't done anything on any Republican that I know of but I anyway you'll find all sorts of things in this book things that even surprised me when I find it's there so but the basic idea of the book I don't read you know they always talk about these things as so he's going to do a reading I never read from my books I don't think they're worth it I mean I'll read from Tolstoy or Thoreau a Mark Twain I thought no I read from right you know then you're stuck with it whereas if you pick up the book and you you read something of mine you can immediately put it down if you like and go on to something else so I won't read from my book but I'll try to tell you something about what's in it or at least you know what is suggested by this book fundamentally the book tries to make a connection between history and what is going on today that's always been my attitude as a historian right I've never been interested in just doing history to go into the archives and look up these old letters and documents it's it's interesting of course it's fun but no I that's not the kind of history I I wanted to do I wanted to go into history and come out into the present I want to make a connection between something that happened in the past because I want a history too to help us in dealing with the situation we face today and we're always facing a situation today especially today especially now especially now with an administration that has taken us into two wars in a few years with an administration that has run amok with power that has attacked the constitutional rights of people all over this country administration is wasted the enormous wealth that this country has on war and are funneling this wealth into the upper richest 1% of the population an administration that has taken power unto itself and will not listen to anything that anybody says except maybe four or five people around the president so we're in a situation now where we I think desperately need to learn something from history because I feel that if people of the United States at that moment when George Bush got up before the microphone and and said you know we must go to war 9/11 took place terrorist act took place and therefore we must go to war against Afghanistan well if people listening knew history they would not immediately rush as most Americans did at that point eighty percent of Americans rush to say yes yes Congress of course rushed to say yes because that's the job of Congress to say yes whenever the president wants to go to war and because people do some history there would not be that rush to support a war there would not be that that acceptance of the idea oh we're going to war to fight terrorism there would not be an acceptance of the idea where we're going to what to bring democracy to Iraq bring democracy to the whole Middle East because if people knew some history they would know of all those instances in the American past when presidents have come before the public and said well as President Polk did in 1846 we've got to go into Mexico to spread civilization to the Mexicans or as McKinley did in 1898 oh we've got to go to Cuba to liberate the Cubans we're always liberating of somebody but we went into Cuban we liberated a Cuban in fact we did we liberated the Cubans from Spain but not from us and that's our record I reckon is is sometimes liberating people from other tyrants and then imposing our will on them so this Spanish were out of Cuba in 1898 and American corporations and American military or in Cuba and stay there for a very long time dictatorship after dictatorship after dictatorship supported by the United States the people knew some of that history if they know the history of the American occupation of the Philippines they would be very wary of an American occupation of Iraq they'd be very wary of the idea oh we're occupying Iraq so that we can bring democracy to Iraq we fought a bloody war in the Philippines we committed massacres in the Philippines and then we occupy the Philippine Islands for 50 years and did we bring democracy to the Philippines we brought dictatorship after dictatorship and misery to the Filipino people about a half a million of whom had died in the war that we waged against the Filipinos and of course the history then into the 20th century into the the Marines going again again into the Caribbean General Smedley Butler advise you to look general Smedley Butler up a Marine general who who won two congressional medals of Honor leading the military into various countries in Central America and at a certain point he stopped and turned around and said you know I was an errand boy for Wall Street he realized that what he had done what the American military had done in Central America was to try to make Central America there is countries in Central America in the Caribbean in Haiti and the Dominican Republic in Nicaragua and Honduras to make them profitable places for American corporations not places where democracy would flourish in fact democracy did not flourish in all of those places we we swear we sent the Marines to take over and to do the bidding of American economic interests and of course bringing the history up for two more recent time if people even studied closely the history of the Vietnam War that wasn't that long ago was it there are actually people here who remember the Vietnam War despite the attempts of the media to forget the Vietnam War despite the attempts of the our political leaders you know when we when we went into Iraq the first time in 1991 and and won this quick smashing victory a splendid little war just like the spanish-american war a very quick victorious war and and George Bush said senior that's a smarter wife the way George Bush said Georgia senior said well we have now buried the Vietnam syndrome in the sands of the Arabian Peninsula rare poetic statement out of the White House but well the fact is we have not buried the Vietnam soon the wrong Vietnam is coming back to haunt us and people are thinking about that more and more every day and people remember it Vietnam they would remember how the calls for withdrawal that came early on I must say in 1967 two years after we were escalating the war in 1967 I wrote a book I love to advertise my books I'll try to resist it later on but I can't resist this one in 1967 I wrote a book called Vietnam the logic of withdrawal and and mine was I must say the first book they've done a number of books on on the war in Vietnam and mine was the first book that called simply for the United States to get out not equivocating not setting timetables not saying we'll get out if and when we're not going to go to Paris and negotiate for five years or six years we just had to get out ah and and the arguments against that at that time were the same as the arguments today when people say as I say and as a number of people have said as congressman Murtagh a Vietnam veteran said right said no we must just leave we don't belong there it's not our country get out of there let the Iraqis determine their own destiny as difficult as it will be but we are making it more difficult by our occupation and the arguments then were the same well we can't do that they'll be chaos we can every chaos in Vietnam we there was chaos in Vietnam we were bombing Vietnam into eternity we were we were destroying Vietnamese villages we were destroying their land we were killing their people ultimately 2 million people died in Vietnam and we mustn't leave because there'll be chaos in Vietnam so we stayed we didn't leave in 1967 when a few of us were calling who withdraw we stayed and what was the result another 30,000 American dead another million Vietnamese dead and so same arguments today resident believe Iraq as if our presence in Iraq is preventing civil war question is is our presence preventing Civil War or is our presence provoking civil war and and I think they the answer is clear just looking at a history of these four years of our occupation in Iraqi rock is a mess after four years and the numbers the numbers of Iraqi dead and wounded are enormous into the hundreds of thousands so yes the history is is useful and and not the history that you get in the traditional textbooks but the history that a citizen learns for himself or herself when a citizen goes to the library mr. citizen listens to the independent media when a citizen reads alternative journals instead of simply you know watching CNN you know and Fox News so yes history is very useful it still is today and and I think that one of the things we might learn from history and this is very very important very important conclusion to get from the long history of this country is that the government's interests are not necessarily same as ours in fact I rarely the same as hours because if you think the government's interests are the same as yours then you think well if something is going wrong it must be that they made a mistake because they really care about us they don't care about us the government does not care about its own soldiers if it did it would not Excel submit soldiers into the quagmire of Vietnam in Iraq it would not send them into a situation where they're gonna come back maimed or without arms or legs or they come back with their psyche destroyed they really cared about the soldiers and cared about the families of the soldiers it would not be taking them the wealth of this country and squandering it on five hundred billion dollars this year on a military budget that's a hard thing to grasp that the government does not have the same interest as I so it's hard to grasp because we grow up in a culture where the language of the culture predisposes us to think yes we have a common interest the Constitution starts off in a preamble we the people of the United States you know establishes it wasn't we the people who establish the Constitution it was 55 rich white men who established the Constitution I know you're not supposed to say anything about the founding fathers there are fathers we're all one family not so the founding fathers were slaveholders and merchants and bondholders really and sure they set up a government that was more democratic than other governments of the world they set up a government that was independent of England but did not set up a government there was a government of the people they set up a slave holding government that was going to do the interests of the bondholders and the merchants the interests of the government and the interests of the people right from the beginning were not the same and that same difference of interest has continued down to the present day all through look at the history of legislation in this country its class legislation its legislation that always benefited the upper classes there's always been subsidies for the corporations and subsidies for the railroads they didn't call a welfare when they when the government began helping poor people they called it welfare when the government gave hundreds of millions of acres of land to the railroads they didn't call that welfare but the legislative history of this country is a history of legislation favoring the rich to put it bluntly and there was some breakthroughs there was some oddities there was some moments in history when this was not true in the 1930s something happened in the 1960s something happened what happened is that people rose up all over the country and demanded change and the demands grew so loud and so threatening that then in the 1930s we got Social Security and we got unemployment insurance and we got subsidized housing and in the 60s we got Medicare and Medicaid so there have been moments in our history when the people and their desires and their anguish over their situation has broken through and then then we got legislation that moved away from the traditional class upper class legislation of the government but it is extremely important to understand this conflict of interest between government and us otherwise you will think and the young guy going off the wall will think well bushes interest is the same as mine it's not North Exxon's interests the same as mine nor Halliburton's interests the same as mine no that's a very important thing to learn I think from from history and and when you learn when you study the history of the United States you do not see the kind of country that we all learn about when we go to school which is a kind of exaltation of America we're not different by the way than other countries countries everywhere teach their history in a nationalist way you know they're all ride full of their flag in their anthem and you know their history and the United States is no different except away bigger and better and stronger but but but we are we we grow up in this country singing the star-spangled banner and you know liberty and justice for pledging allegiance and all that we grow up the idea that we are special we are different we we are the Boy Scouts of the world you know we help countries across the street you know we we we yeah we just we've good we have our little problems like slavery maybe maybe we weren't nice to the Native Americans you know yeah we have our little problems but basically we're okay well when you look at the history of this country we were not we were not we we destroyed Indian civilizations we expanded into the Caribbean we expanded at the Pacific we sent our young people to worry again and again we did not take care of poor people when poor people organized and when workers were organized into unions and went out on strike the government called out the police and the National Guard in the army to suppress their strikes that's the history of labor struggles in this country so it's not that it's not the kind of glorifying history that too many of us you know grew up with and when I say that and when anybody says something like that - there's a kind of fear of saying it you're putting down our country you have your unpatriotic no I'm not putting down our country when I am honest about what our government has done I'm putting down our government yes but there's a distinction between the government and the country it's a very fundamental principle of democracy that the government and the country are not the same the government and the people are not the same that's the basic idea the Declaration independence which says governments are set up by the people there artificial creations they're set up to achieve certain ends the right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness equality and when governments become destructive of those ends according to the words of the Declaration of Independence it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government that's serious those are revolutionary words but after all it was a revolution and was something about a revolution that brings out some honesty and also brings out their the idealistic language and hopes and dreams which may not be realized because no the dream of the Declaration of indepen swil not realize but it's there it's telling us that governments are not to be obeyed simply because their governments to be patriotic is not to simply do what the government says to be patriotic is to subscribe to the principles of the Declaration of Independence to check up on the government to see if it really is fulfilling its obligation to take care of our right to equality to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness and patriotism in the best sense of the term means following those principles and when the government doesn't follow those principles the government is being unpatriotic so we must be honest about ourselves about our history about the history of our government and I think we need maybe we need some confession on the part of our government leaders an acknowledgement you know like an Alcoholics Anonymous where they get up get up before you know and and confess yeah and maybe maybe you know Cheney and Bush and the other should get up you know you know form a group called imperialists Anonymous and tell the truth and that is what did what they are aiming for the Middle East is not democracy and not liberty and they don't really care about the overthrow of tyrants like Saddam Hussein our government has supported tyrants all over the world know what they really care about it's hard to say this isn't it oil it seems so mean so cheap although the oil won't be cheap but but it seems you know really it's just oil yes it's oil history comes in handy their history of American policy towards the Middle East has been based on the desire to control the oil resources of the Middle East that's been true ever since the end of World War two ever since President Roosevelt got together with even Saud of Saudi Arabia and they made a deal the United States will replace the the old oil powers the Dutch and the British and French in the Middle East and in return the United States will support the even Saud government talk about democracy live in South government the Saudi government government of Saudi Arabia all these years has been as far from democracies you can find but we did not invade Saudi Arabia to give democracy to Saudi Arabia the Saudi Arabia gives us oil and is our ally and our quest for oil and in the Middle East so yes history is is very useful you know in in all of these ways and I guess a problem is once we accept what the reality is once we look honestly at what we have done and what we're doing and the question is you know what do we do about it and now we helpless to do anything about it because that's I think that's a great problem that people even when they oppose the government feel helpless to do anything about it and and and so we don't see we don't see today although most Americans today are opposed to the war and most Americans today are opposed to the bush policies we don't see a connection in between that opposition and any kind of change in policy we don't say the wishes of the people represented and what the government does we are not seeing the kind of actions that took place during the Vietnam War with a passive opposition to the war that became more than passive when it became civil disobedience we're seeing the beginnings of that with soldiers who are refusing to go back to Iraq we are we're seeing the beginnings of that with the families of soldiers saying that we are opposed to this war but the fact is we do not have democracy in foreign policy ah that's that's a very important thing to acknowledge because we're always talking about bringing democracy everywhere everywhere else we do not have democracy in this country when it comes to foreign policy uh we learn in school we have three branches of government and we have checks and balances and the Legislature will check the you know executive and the Supreme Court will see if things that Kant's constitutional or not that doesn't work in foreign policy the president decides on war and Congress goes along like a bunch of sheep really that's what they did in the Mexican War that's what they did a special errand or that's we didn't World War one that's what he did in the Vietnam War you know the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution did members of Congress know where the Gulf of Tonkin was when they voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution did they know what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin turned out to be a mess of Lies but immediately voted to give a lyndon johnson the authority to launch what then became a very long war in vietnam there's no no democracy in matters of foreign policy and no checks and balances no hope that Congress will will stop and say hey let's look into this let's see if this is true and then no and no hope for the supreme court deciding that a war is unconstitutional and we have not fought a constitutional war since the end of World War two Constitution requires that Congress to Congress has not declared war in any war that we have thought of the many since World War two well you learn in school if something is unconstitutional is a job of the Supreme Court's to say so and do something about it no after all those who are the supreme court just because they wear black robes doesn't give them any special moral standing they are political appointees and they do the bidding of the people who appointed them so if they don't have democracy in the upper reaches of government that we can't depend on checks and balances on representative government that well obviously I think leads us to the thought that if we're gonna have democracy it depends on us it depends on the people and historically that's been the situation historically when when working people found out that the government is not going to do anything about the 12-hour day they organized they were not on strike and they won they won the eight-hour a day when black people in South saw it at the government not just the state governments but the national government was not going to do anything about racial segregation or brutality in the south then black people organized they demonstrated they went to prison they were beaten some of them were killed but he created a national commotion which finally brought democracy alive and that's a situation we're in today we need to bring democracy alive today and it requires the actions of ordinary people and we mustn't despair about the fact that the government has all the power the government has the FBI they have all their secret apparatus that they are watching us I don't think I'm paranoid they really are watching us and they they love that so so our job is to watch them and and we have to understand that despite all the trappings of government which indicate that they are all powerful they have the military they have the money they have the the the security apparatus and so on fact is historically and here's where history comes in handy the most powerful governments have had to change policy when the people demanded it when an outcry grew so great when the pressure from below grows so great that it became threatening to the government and the government had to change policy we have seen government's toppled we have seen tyrannies toppled all over the world that seemed to be impregnable you know in the Philippines suddenly a dictatorship Marcos is totally in charge he wakes up one morning and there were a million people in the streets he leaves really this has happened in place after place in Haiti Duvalier jumps on a plane quick get out of here the people are rising up the fact is government's like all powerful entities are vulnerable the government needs people to obey it in order to keep power when people stop obeying the government Lucy loses power corporations need people to work for it when people stop working for corporations then the corporation is helpless we saw this in the 1930s General Motors and Ford huge corporations we're not gonna have a union here but when the workers left the factories or even when they sat in and the factories and Woodill that wouldn't let production to go on General Motors was helpless and so it's important to keep in mind that the power of the establishment rests on our obedience when we start disobeying and that's where Thoreau comes in and that's where that's where the great people in our history come and that's where Helen Keller comes in and Emma Goldman comes in and Mark Twain comes in and Eugene Debs and fannie lou hamer and martin luther king that's where they come in and when that happens then something something will change and our job is to participate did not process it at this point to to light a fire under these wishy-washy Democrats who have just won an election and who are sort of falling back timidly and they want to pass non-binding resolutions how about a binding resolution how about yes you know how about how about holding hearings on impeachment the decent who teach me I'm talking about a double impeach bush in Cheney because you know they go together and know if Pietschmann is not a radical solution some people acted Oh impeachment they tremble at the thought of impeachment some people up you know that and the high reaches of the Democratic Party we mustn't talk about in future impeachment is a constitutional measure it's right there in the Constitution the President may be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors what Bush has done does not matter does that not match the requirement of high crimes and misdemeanors sending us into war lying to us taking away our liberties taking away the lives of thousands of Americans and and and subjecting so many of them to mutilation and and a terrible future doesn't that does that not meet the requirement of high crimes we have to talk to our congressmen or Congress women we have to talk to them but let them know how we feel we have to beef them up and stiffen their spine and tell them they get going because this is a situation that cannot be tolerated for too long and I have to stop soon because I have to give you a chance and although the you know the Orthodox definition of free speech is that the speaker speaks for 50 minutes and gives the audience five minutes a freedom of speech freedom speech means you know the president can speak to fourteen thirty million people I can speak to a few hundred it's a free country and keep this in mind about power and keep us in mind about when the government says one says oh we will not retreat we will not give in we will state of course no matter why oh they asked him what about the people what about the the fact that most people are opposed to this well that doesn't bother me well we've seen that in history we've seen people say oh I will never yield I will never give him and they gave in when enough people got together when enough people organized they they gave and we've seen that again and again haha I remember George Wallace getting up before proud of his southern supporters and saying segregation now segregation tomorrow segregation forever and wild applause two years later the segregation signs were down in the south and Wallace was campaigning in the black neighborhoods for support in this presidential race things change things change it's up to us to move that change along it's up to us to bring democracy alive thank you thank you take questions for about a half an hour there are two microphones up here if you can line up in the side aisles if you have a question and we'll just go back and forth between the microphones starting with this one and then to that one and go for a half an hour and then we'll do book signings so if you have questions okay as you know I came from Mansell Ohio just ask you this question so I'm trying to make it good and I took off the Yankees hat so being a community organizer and a student citizen I just was asking for some advice as far as how do we stem the tide of cynicism and apathy you know to keep that from breaching the levees of the optimism that you exude and other politicians or people like myself or other people who really care about things that's going on you know how do we stem the tide of cynicism and pessimism and hopelessness and all the things that all of us feel on Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday and I I think that I think the key to that is well there two keys to that I think one is history one is one was going back and pointing to those times in the past when people have helped felt hopeless and people have felt that they couldn't do anything but they acted anyway and they acted and acted and acted and then something happened I mean that's what happened I lived in the south for seven years during the years of the civil rights movement I remember when I came into the South in the late 1950s there was no sign really no really important sign of of a great movement and it looked kind of hopeless but people began to do things people began sitting in and then their sit-in spread and people with on the Freedom Rides and the idea spread and the demonstrations took place in this city in that city of another city and soon the demonstrations were all over the south and thousands of people were being put in jail and the pictures were now going out all over the world and the administration was becoming embarrassed this is very important to embarrass the people in power even though you know we have leaders who are not easily embarrassed you know but that that that I think it is one answer to the question and that is to show the history of those times when people have felt helpless ever at the beginning of the Vietnam War and I remember this very distinctly 1960 spring 65 beginning of the escalation of the war we had a demonstration on the Boston Common against the war one hundred people showed up in a few years later well October 69 actually another anti-war meeting on the Boston Common a hundred thousand people were there the movement grew it grew and grew cos people didn't give up people persisted and people understood that all movement starts small and all movements start with a kind of hopelessness and the feeling you know what are we doing but if people persist and persist and persist there's a chance that something may happen the other the other thing I said there were two right so shouldn't we get the second very often this happens in class you say I will now tell you the five causes of the American Revolution after number three the teacher falters but I can make I can remember to that's as high as I go and the and my second point is to overcome cynicism and a feeling of helplessness surround yourself with active people people who are doing things when people don't do anything it's very easy to get hopeless when people are acting even if the action doesn't seem to bring anything immediate but after all there's something about resisting the authorities there's something about speaking your mind about being honest about what you're doing even if you don't see any immediate results there's something about that which is very satisfying and invigorating and it invigorates other people too my question has to do with your tonight you brought up a civil disobedience and a lack I guess of it now and what makes me curious is why is that and I just want to there's people like Aaron Russo who's a filmmaker who's got a movie out America freedom to fascism and they're calling people big people like that are calling for civil disobedience but I think there's a lack of civil disobedience because of things like the Patriot Act people are scared to you know do that stuff as they weren't back in the 60s but is there a connection between you know that and the lack of people doing that kind of stuff today and also the the truth movement for 9/11 is there the project for a new American Century I'm sure you're familiar with that and I'm wondering if they had a plan and do you think there was this plan before 9/11 happened and a connection do you have any feelings on the 9/11 truth movement you all know about a 9/11 truth movement no it's it's I thought there people tell me if I'm misrepresenting which I do but people very often repeat the questions that they want to hear not the questions that were actually asked so but the truth 9/11 truth movement I think is a movement which is very suspicious of what happened on 9/11 suspicious of the official story and they think that maybe there's another story and I think there may be the administration is hiding something serious well I don't thankfully I don't know I'm not I don't know those secrets I swear I don't and I'll just say this about 9/11 the the administration has used 9/11 has used it to scare people and to do what it wanted what I wanted was to move troops into the Middle East where the oil is he wanted to set up military bases in the Middle East and it used the 9/11 as a wonderful opportunity it wasn't it wasn't going to do anything about terrorism it's a very obvious now to simply follow the events of 9/11 by bombing Afghanistan did not reduce terrorism in fact it increased the possibility of terrorism we have by our actions in the Middle East since 9/11 largely increase the number of terrorists in the Middle East and in the world because we haven't agonized so many people when you bomb people you antagonize them when you invade people you antagonize them you make enemies you get people angry and out of the anger of millions of people a small number of them may become terrorists so they've used 9/11 to me that's the important truth about 9/11 the last speaker I've mentioned the Patriot Act I in the past couple of weeks the Bush administration has fired 10 or more top attorneys in the Justice Department and under a secret provision of the Patriot Act has been replacing them without congressional approval and with basically no oversight so my question about that is you mentioned that we should bring people who are bringing people to justice food basic impeachments and such things what happens though if the leak when the legal system is no longer responsive or refuses to take action or is filled with figureheads that will not act what can we do then if the actual institution does no long no longer can deliver that justice that is necessary needed that's that's a really important question because it represents reality as the reality is that the the system of justice is no longer if it ever was really something you could turn to to be sure that the that the justice system would protect you and protect your rights this has only rarely been true in American history the justice system has been like other parts of the government and generally beholdin to two powerful interests and now worse than ever and now the bush administration has taken total hold of the system of justice and it's using all the federal court appointees on the district court level than the appeals court level it has the Supreme Court in its hands partly with the collaboration of the Democratic Party which caves in instead of fighting the Republican nominees and so yes what do you do when you can't depend on a system of justice to redress your grievances that's where civil disobedience comes and that's where popular action comes in and that's where you go over the heads of the courts that you appeal to your elected representatives since the people in the Justice Department are not elected they've not beholdin to anybody they often have lifetime jobs your representatives at least have some commitment to represent their constituencies and that's why the the putting pressure on your representatives to be in holding impeachment hearings and to demand cutting off funds for the war and bringing the troops back as fast as possible I think that's a way bypassing a recalcitrant and reactionary justice system seem to abuse the fear of terrorism really well and yet the hypocrisy of the of the current government around defending the terrorists who have been attacking Cuba by putting the Cuban five in jail for having exposed what they were doing seems like a lesson that people really need to hear about in this country and yet there's been such silence and I'm I'm wondering if you could say a little bit I know wrote a wonderful chapter in a book super power principles kind of on the background of us-cuba relations but I'm realizing a lot of people don't know about these five guys locked up yeah oh yeah that's one of those things that happened that nobody ever hears about and people are locked away and these they've been locked away for years and they're five Cubans right you correct me if I'm wrong about any of these facts because you obviously know and you say usually a questioner knows more than the reply err and so you but my recollection these are five Cubans who who infiltrated the sort of the anti-castro Network in Miami because terrorist acts were being committed against Cuba they have been in fact ever since Castro took power it's not a secret that the United States tried to invade Cuba the United States tried to assassinate Castro that the United States yeah was he engaged in secret terrorist activities against Cuba and so these five Cubans tried to find out about that and they were arrested charged with terrorism held I think for a long time without right to counsel without the right to see their families and they're still in prison right after years and so there are these things that go on that so many of them that you never hear about in the press of course you cannot really depend on a major media to report on these things so we depend on people like you to get it before the microphone and to tell people about it in the back table if people want to send just notices to their Congress people there's information on them and then they can sign them and send them off to Congress because it is it's just so egregious but thank you greetings um my question it's more like looking for your input looking at George Bush in the way he got into office I see that a large part of that came from the backing of fundamentalist religious groups and that their strong desire was to impose their religious beliefs on the legislative process so that they could change the laws of the country so that whatever their religious beliefs are that would be what the laws of the country were and I'm just curious as to what your thoughts are on you know the whole role that fundamentalist religion had to do with putting Bush in power well you know we've never really had a separation of church and state at this country no matter you know they talk about it as a principle of American democracy it's never been real I mean the presidents I've always taken notes on the Bible the God has always been invoked all the time any president who wanted to invade any country has said God told him to do that you know because God studies the map and decides where we will invade and then Bush goes it's just a bush has gone farther than anybody else in tying this administration to in this case fundamentalist radical fanatic Christianity there's a different Christianity there's a Christianity which is not fundamentalist there's a Christianity which is not extremists and fanatic there's a Christianity which is humanist and I mean look at the the Catholic anti-war people you know look at the the church men who have supported social movements so you know Christianity can be used for good or for ill and Bush has used it and fundamentalist churches have been so closely tied to him as to give him great great support and and I think that fortunately they do not command the support of the majority of Christians in this country you know now maybe they have 20% or maybe 25% but there's always been well I shouldn't say always that's an extreme statement but I'm not an extremist there had been for a long time a fundamental core of immovable right-wing sentiment in this country which probably accounts for 25 or 30 percent of the population and there's probably little you can do to move them the problem is to move everybody else and when you move enough other people who are not who are not transfixed by by this pseudo religious idea that God is on the side of imperial power and say then you know it's possible for religion to play a positive role I'm a combat veteran who was abused by his own people while serving the military and a lot of us who face some of those things tried to go to our congressmen and Senators and they've refused to meet with us we've also gone to the press and they refused to air what we have to say which brings me to the question do you have any advice on other ways to get things public we've tried rallies in that so far hasn't worked a lot either to get things published public you know what happening during the Vietnam War when when congressmen refused to meet with people of the people who tried to meet with these congressmen sat it in their offices they went to see them and they wouldn't leave that's an act of civil disobedience and that brought attention and that sometimes embarrassed the congressmen into finally meeting with them but yet when the Orthodox channels don't respond then you have to go outside the Orthodox channel's the Orthodox channels do not fulfill the requirements of democracy so yeah there are things that can be done they're hard they required they take risks you know maybe very well maybe arrested and so on but in times of crisis that's what people do people did that in the South during the movement their people did that during the Vietnam War during the 80s when Reagan was carrying on covert warfare in Nicaragua and Honduras and El Salvador people committed civil disobedience at one point five hundred of us sat in an the JFK building here in Boston and wouldn't move when the building closed down they arrested 500 of us the charge was based on an old statute you know and was abbreviated as the old statute was like failure to quit the premises you see and it was abbreviated as failure to quit and that's what we have to do we have to fail to quit yeah a quick question and then I'm in longer question or two this is driving me nuts I've been an admirer of you for over thirty years so you want to drive me nuts [Laughter] thirty years ago when I was in school we read a book by you I can't remember the name of it about Vietnam I don't believe it's Vietnam I'm logic it's another book it had like a red was a paperback it was Ed read in it and I was trying to look for it today it's driving me nuts I can't remember the name of it I know it's written by you sure my second question question is if I understood you correctly you were mentioning that government is sort of for the wealthy in the upper on the other hand I've heard nothing I'm disputing you people like Ted Kennedy and maybe Michael Dukakis and others being ones that have been sort of there to help the underdog the immigrants somebody they don't have money giving out free you know pre food stamps a free freeway to those people do you agree with that or disagree with that okay with the fact that Kennedy and some of those other people are sort of on the other end of what you were saying where the government serves rich rather than tasty and thirdly who do you see is a good president for the nursery I only heard one yeah you're skipping one okay the book was the other one oh the book oh I see who do you like to see be our next president who would I like to see next and the comment about the Academy I just soon have a lottery and choose somebody from this audience [Applause] I would I would gamble did anybody in this audience would probably do a better job than whoever is going to be selected by the Democratic Party so I'm half serious but but to you know your question about know what about Kennedy and Dukakis and so on doing good things for the poor well yeah there are congressmen who are better than other congressmen their congressmen or more liberal and their congressmen who have a better idea of what our tax structure should be and so on and it's nice to have those congressmen we should encourage them and support them and and but they always need to be encouraged they always need to be pushed and they are our distinct minority in our system of representation so as for who I would like to see president unfortunately it's very hard to find somebody who in the high reaches of the Democratic Party when I look at the possible candidates well process of elimination right Hillary Clinton no Biden nope Obama hmm possibly John Edwards hmm possibly but you're putting me in that position you see the position that we're always in at election time where we don't find anybody who really represents our views we try to find somebody who a little bit represents of use you see Ralph Nader would represent my views on Ralph Nader you see but the political system won't give him a chance you know it's a sad thing we we talk about bringing democracy to other country say oh they're having an election this means democracy we have elections all the time doesn't mean democracy no you have two parties in the choose you know a or a prime I mean what can I say I think the government should do more in the area of mental health yes I mean you know I think the government should do much more in the way of health leaving health and leaving mental health to private enterprise is not conducive to giving people the best medical care whether it's in physical health or mental health so yeah I think would be important for a universal health care system where people who have problems in mental health can take care of those problems without spending a lot of money and where you know that kind of help is available today I mean the government can be a kind of intermediary for that process I don't know what else to say I don't know that much the government seems to overtake funding and grants for mental health seems so every year it change to do what every year or so I I've noticed through candidates being elected governor or through the fights just like gay and lesbian rights they seem to battle back and forth and whether they give or take the the rights it seems like we're always economically fighting for them so it's a give or take war economics wise as well as politically standing wise for our numbers of candidates who are again against are positive and it seems like the deciding vote always comes up to the one standing in power I think that when they if my own political view is that if they were to take away the rights where they'd already been initiated that they were the benefit of mankind why take them back right to do so over shorten our notice was all I can say is you I think you should find people who agree with you about the mental health situation and organize and campaign for what you believe in we near the end of our rope I mean at the end of my rope and who are my handlers here Alex what is our situation with time one more question then we'll do a book signing okay good evening hi I'm a second semester senior here at Brandeis means I'll be graduating this may for the past four years I've been taking courses on justice and liberty and doing case studies on developing nations being taken advantage of by multinational corporations and writing papers about the dominant you know the power money interest in this and that but now it's time to graduate and get a job and those things are all well and good from behind my desk in my room but when I look at my job options for next year realistically a lot of the things I'm looking at our consulting firms or jobs in the financial world and I know a lot of friends also who are more politically liberal you know we're taking jobs in Investment Banking and feels like this not necessarily firms that have you know thirty records Human Rights Watch thing like this but certainly part of you know part of uh what you're talking about so someone like me who's more on the fence you know I think I'm stuck in an ethical dilemma I'm not exactly sure you know where one goes in the situation so I don't know if you have two minutes to talk me out of working for corporate America go what you say two minutes to solve your problem actually we all face that problem we have to we have to make a living and we want to do something good in the world and we have to find ways of doing it sometimes you can make a living and in the way you make your living you could do something good in the world if you're only a small number of people are lucky enough to be able to do that no you work for a nonprofit corporation you know work for Amnesty International work or at work for a progressive magazine etc etc right good stuff and get published and that sort of thing some of us are lucky and we can do that most people cannot and so what what most people do they hat you make a living in whatever way you can so long as you don't kill people and exploit people fiendishly and but you make a living and whatever way you can but carve out part of your life and part of your time to be a citizen of the nation and of the world it's it's harder you have to do two things you know it's like a a woman who has to take care of kids and and do a job at the same time all of us have to do two things at once and that's the reality of it thank you Howard Zinn is author of a people's history of the United States his latest is a power governments cannot suppress learn more at Howards End org [Music]

Channel: TheEthanwashere

Views: 17,774

Keywords: howard, zinn, 07, a, power, government, cannot, supress

Id: 8pJ8gRLNd1k

Length: 66min 19sec (3979 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2012