howard zinn in depth

in his book of people's history of the United States Howard Zinn told American history from the point of view of the powerless you can't be neutral on a moving train was his advice to his Boston University students his latest book terrorism and war dissects the first casualties of war truth civil liberties and human rights next on in-depth author historian activist Howard Zinn as an author a columnist and a teacher Howard Zinn what do you want people to take away from your writings oh I do want them to take something away right yes I guess what I want them to take away is the idea of being an active citizen in a in a country that will be made more democratic as more ordinary people take part in it there's this comes from you might guess a general distrust of of authority and government and a feeling that they very often don't do the right things and that I want I guess I write history in about social movements and about people who are not up there on top because I want people who read my work to get a sense of the power of powerless people once these powerless people begin to think for themselves begin to organize even to act I think I guess yes I'm what I want I want people to come away from my writing not made more passive but made more active I want to get into your 20-plus books but I want to read to you what you said to a reporter at Harvard magazine in which you said along these lines that my secret agenda is to precipitate social change my aim as you just mentioned is to kind of provoke people to get act my question is how do you do that well I'm not sure exactly how to do that but I suppose one of the ways to do that is to suggest by showing the history in which bad things happen when people don't get involved by showing how wars take place because people have not been roused to protest the war in other words to suggest by talking about what has happened in the past to suggest that terrible things could be averted if more people acted and so it's not that in my writing I exhort people say get out there and do something I'm trying to create a climate for people in which they think about the past in such a way as to say to them it's very important for people like myself to get involved otherwise we may be heading for the same disasters in this next century that we have had in the past century is that one of the messages from this book a people's history of the United States 1492 to present oh yeah I suppose that's a very critical central message of this book I mean a lot of pages in that book six hundred and seventy pages but and I hate to say that you can sum up my six hundred and seventy pages in a paragraph but I think it's true that the point of that book is to tell the stories of ordinary people of people who are overlooked in traditional histories because traditional histories generally deal with presidents and verses and Supreme Court decisions and and and when you read us traditional histories what is implied is that these are the people these important people are the ones who decide what is to be done and your job is to watch them or your job is to listen to them or your job is to vote for them which reduces your role as a citizen to going to the polling booths every four years or every two years and and what I am saying in this book is look here is what ordinary people who are not presidents and who are not in Congress here's what they were able to accomplish when the authorities were not able to in fact when the authorities were hostile to progress I mean when the both the south and the North were collaborating in the maintenance of slavery and remember the North has always been a collaborator of the South in the maintenance of slavery first and and post slavery semi slavery racism segregation when the authorities are the collaboration you see then the fugitive slaves are rescued not by any government officials blacks who run away from the South in 1840s 1850s the government is not going to protect them in fact the national government has passed a law the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which empowers the federal authorities to apprehend escaped slaves and send them back to their masters so what happens then is that ordinary people outside of power black people white people some of them former slaves others abolitionists black and white they form group to rescue slaves they break in to courthouses they break into jails they spirits these escaped slaves away from their you know from the authorities who would send them back to slavery and I mean this is this is the kind of story that I tell again and again of ordinary people doing things that the government would not do in fact very often that the government is opposed to doing I mean if the labor movement isn't example working people the government has never been on the side of the working people well there were a few short years in the days of the New Deal when the government began to pass under the stress of certain conditions then the government began to pass legislation favoring labor unions minimum wage unemployment benefits and so on but for most of American history the government has stood on the side of corporate power and against working people working people could not depend on the government to do anything about the 12-hour day or the 14-hour day and so they had to take the matter into their own hands which they did and they organized they went on strike and they faced armies and National Guardsmen and and hostile courts and hostile presidents but that's how the eight-hour day was won that's how progress was made for working people in this country if the working class in this country has a higher standard of living than working people in many other countries it's not due to the kindness of employers it's due to the long history of struggles risk taking that working people you know were engaged in who was Emma Goldman Emma Goldman it's interesting that you should ask who is Emma golden you probably know whoever golden Wow so it's a rhetorical question but it's it's a rhetorical question is good when it's a question that a lot of other people might ask because I went all through my education right graduate school undergraduate school never heard the name of Emma Goldman and I would venture to say that most Americans by far in their education up through college and graduate school did not become acquainted with the name of Emma Goldman and yet she was one of the most extraordinary people in American history as she lived at the time well at the turn of the century she was a feminist an anarchist a label organizer an amazing woman a speaker a writer she spoke out for the rights of women very early on spoke out for the well the right of women to have abortions if they wanted have abortions spoke out for the rights of working people was arrested many times well simply because in this country despite the bill of rights so often in history this country people who speak out even if they don't do anything violent if they just speak the wrong ideas the police come in and break up their meetings and will arrest them this happened to her many times so she and I became interested in her I suppose in the 1960s I'd I had as I said I never heard of her in my historical education I read about her on my own very briefly and then I ran into at some point in the 1960s at some conference in Pennsylvania I ran into a fellow historian named Richard Renan who had written a biography of Emma Goldman and called rebel and paradise and you know what happens when you meet people who write and then you leave them you want to read what they've written and so when I left Richard Rinna and I went and got hold of his book and I was astonished and inspired by this an amazing figure and so yeah I began to learn learn more about her and read her autobiography living my life which is one of the great autobiographies of American literature and began to give her writings to my students anarchism is the kind of thing that you rarely study in college and anarchism has this you know caricatured description you know which is anarchists bomb throwers anarchists believers in chaos well of course that's not anarchism anarchism is a philosophy a way of thinking a very important way of thinking and but it's not a way of thinking that is acknowledged in our formal educational system no we will take courses in political theory for instance and you'll study Plato at Machiavelli and Augustine and Dewey maybe even Karl Marx but you probably won't study Emma Goldman no Bakunin Kropotkin you probably won't study the anarchists and so I I would give her autobiography as reading material for my students and they loved it I would give them some of her you know essays on patriotism on women's suffrage on other things and then at a certain point I decided I would write a play about her well which I did we welcome you to our three-hour conversation part of book TVs in-depth series with Howard Zinn our front lines are open to 2 0 to 5 8 5 3880 for those of you in the eastern or central time zones and for those of you in the mountain Pacific time zones 2 0 2 5 8 5 38 81 will get your calls in about 10 minutes you can also email us our address book TV at c-span org these are your words in this book reflections of an optimistic historian you say before I became a hystory and i had grown up in the dankness and dirt of new york tenements had been knocked unconscious by a policeman while holding a banner in a demonstration worked for three years in a shipyard and dropped bombs for the US Air Force those experiences and more made me lose all desire for objectivity can you explain oh I think I can I'd better be able to explain well I mean the notion of objectivity you've never appealed to me there's the notion that objectivity is a historian objectivity as a historian or objectivity as a journalist or you know the notion that that you that you can describe a situation and not put yourself into it and not not have your own interests in your own point of view intrude in what you decide to talk about or write about it became clear to me from the beginning as soon as I began studying history the history is a rather arbitrary or seemingly arbitrary selection of a small body of data out of an infinite amount of data in other words every historian no matter how code objective unquote the history seamless history seems objective if you don't see the author's point of view obviously if the author doesn't say you know this is what I think oh the author doesn't get passionate about anything if everything seems cool as I said our what this looks like an objective book but in fact every history there's a selection of information out of an enormous mass of material and that selection must come from the point of view of the person who does the selecting the historian the story must have a point of view the historian must decide what is important and what is not important and the historian decides on the basis of what he thinks is important or even worse if story and they decide on the basis of what other historians have thought is important in other words the you know if if if every previous historian has given a lot more attention to a Theodore Roosevelt than to Emma Goldman or to Mark Twain oh then you will do the same as a historian you know the tendency will be to follow the historical lead so objectivity is to me is a very spirit and and when I say that my life experiences made me reject the idea of objectivity because my life experiences gave me a point of view my life experience well my experience growing up in the working-class family going to work in a shipyard and that life experience made me I would say class-conscious maybe made me aware that we weren't all one big happy family in the United States you know and we in despite you know the words of the Constitution and the preamble we the people united say no we the people of the United States we're not all of one interest there were people who are very rich in were people who were poor and a lot of nervous people in between and so I would grew up class-conscious and yes with that point of view with the point of view that that there are a huge number people in the world in this country certainly who worked very very hard and have very little show for it that went counter to the traditional notion that a lot of Americans grow up with the notion there is that is presented to them that Oh in America if you work hard you will become successful and prosperous you know it's the ratio Alger idea but from my experience that wasn't true at all because I saw how hard my father worked I saw how hard my mother worked I saw how hard so many people work and how hard you work did not determine how prosperous you became how successful you became on the other hand I looked up at people with enormous fortunes and couldn't figure out what they did I couldn't figure out what contribution they made the society or how hard they work so you know I very very quickly developed the idea that there was a kind of irrational distribution of the benefits of society that did not depend on how hard you work did not depend on and how intelligent you are this certainly did not depend on the contribution you made to society because there were all these teachers and nurses and hospital workers and sanitation people I mean people who did farmers who did essential jobs in a society the most important jobs in the society and who weren't rewarded as well as you know CEOs of advertising firms you know advertising dog leashes or whatever so III developed a critical view of our economic system so I was not going to be objective about issues of class I was going to be conscious in my writing history that I wanted to bring out this notion of class conflict in history and bring out the important role of working people and struggles that they that they went through and similarly with my other experiences and well yeah we yes I was in a war I was a bombardier in the Air Force and world war ii world war ii yeah yeah sometimes I'm shy about saying what war I was in but I had you know I have to rush to say what War I was in otherwise people will think I was in the spanish-american war but yeah I was in World War two and I enlisted I was a volunteer I was an enthusiastic Bombardier I you know and I was imbued with all of the the all of the enthusiasm that yes people in this country had about fighting against fascism and indeed fascism you know needed to be in some way defeated and yet I came out of that war experience with a very complicated view of world war two there's it wasn't simple it wasn't simply that they were the bad guys and we were the good guys that is it it quickly became apparent to me that the fact that you were fighting against bad guys doesn't therefore necessarily mean that you are the good guys they can be worse than you but you know the to put it another way more specifically fascism was no the worst phenomenon on earth and yet the nation's fighting against fascism leading fight against fascism were no models of democracy and humanity the British Empire you know well the American Empire was by then we were already an empire the Russians Dahl inist you know dictatorship these were the the organizations fighting against fascism these organizations did not have as their first node of humanitarian ones they wanted to defeat fascism but for their own reasons and reasons had to do with power and profit and and influence and so on and so in the course of the war terrible things happen atrocities were committed by our side and I wasn't aware of that while when I was dropping bombs I didn't think about that issue it didn't think about where we were bombing what we were bombing it's it became clear to me that what happens very often is you decide at the outset you decide at the beginning they're wrong and you're right and once you make that decision you don't have to think anymore when once the decision was made that we were the good guys we could do anything we wanted we don't don't question anything we could bomb Dresden and kill a hundred thousand people in one night we can kill a lot of innocent people I mean after all there are a lot of innocent people in Germany although there's some people doubt that you know but there are you know in countries that do terrible things most of the people in that country are victims of the leaders who do those terrible things even though they're drawn along and and you know they go so you know world war ii started out with our side protesting the terrible things that the fascist governments were doing bombing civilian populations no which they did you know and while studying in and was in Ethiopia with Italy dropping bombs and you know people who had Spears you know and and then the Spanish Civil War the bombing of Madrid and Guernica oh no and then of course you know the Hitler and and so we we were aghast at that and horrified you know look what they're doing this fascist brutality and then as the war progressed we began doing the same sort of thing and even an even larger scale you know you know Hamburg and Dresden I mean people should read Kurt Vonnegut's book slaughterhouse-five you know for you know an artistic view and poetic view of the Dresden bombing and and of course then Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Tokyo which it's interesting a lot of Americans do know about Hiroshima and Nagasaki but how many Americans know that in one night not with an atomic bomb but with fire bombs we killed probably a hundred thousand people in Tokyo in the spring of 1945 so and then I participated myself in an air raid near the end of World War two which at the time I just went along like people go along in in the military and we bombed a little town on the Atlantic coast of France for no reason at all that had to do with winning the war cuz the war was already won what was almost over and we dropped Nate first use of napalm in the European theater you know and how many thousands of people died don't know devastated the area because we have some Germans hanging out waiting for the war to end we have some pictures of your home in Auburndale Massachusetts about 20 miles west of Boston yeah is that where you do most of your writing oh yes it is yeah yeah I was trying to think where else do I write probably know that's where yeah that's where I write yeah is there a time of day that you find yourself most productive I'm not one of these writers who gets up at 5:00 you read a lot of stories like that writers I get up at 5:00 I write until 12:00 no I probably get up at 12:00 let's know I don't but I I don't it takes me a long time to get started in the morning I work is that your wife at night I can't really see very well but if it's a woman hanging around in my house it's probably my wife I actually yeah the lightness in my eyes so I I can't see but I'll take your word for it that this woman is in my house and is probably my wife has she been influential in the way you write very the most influential person my wife is a is a great reader of literature not claiming that my work is literature but you know my wife grew up as a teenager reading you know dusty ups the Tulsa story and she loves George Eliot and Henry James was in the Jane Austen and and and she's a wonderful critic and she's the only person who reads well I do I know there are writers who will you know send their stuff out to you know twelve different people to get the reactions but I don't trust the reactions of all these other people you know everybody it's a very subjective the reaction to to writing but I trust my wife's writing and and so she's the only one who reads my stuff him and she will tell me you know this is ridiculous and and you know and and you can express this better and so on she says very good sense of what good writing is and also she there's certain crucial moments when she provoked me to write things that I wouldn't have written otherwise and probably the best instance of that is a people's history of the United States which is you know I I guess my most important book not just because it's the fattest but because it's yeah I guess it's better known than any of my other books and and I probably wouldn't have written it if not for my wife who when I was starting out and I was discouraged I thought oh who wants to write off history the whole know country from going way back and down even too daunting a job you know I'm I'm not that ambitious or energetic my wife said no you've got to do this sold over a million copies it has sold over a million copies but you know over a year you know it's it came out nineteen that's for roughly since 1980 81 so but it has sold over a million copies which is rare I suppose for a history book you know except for texts you know which sell you know but it's in fact HarperCollins my publisher is planning an event to take place to celebrate the millionth copy sold I don't know if anybody will hold up a copy and say this is the millionth copy sold if they do it will be probably a fake but nobody knows who has the millionth copy but but there's gonna be event in in in New York City and then February 23rd at probably at the 92nd Street Y in New York to which the HarperCollins is organizing to celebrate the selling of a million copies of the people's history other books by our guest Howard Zinn include three strikes minor is musician in sales girls and the fighting spirit of Labour's last century also by our guests declarations of independence cross-examining American ideology and the 20th century of people's history let's get to your phone calls Pittsburgh Kansas you're on book TV yeah thank you for accepting my column this is a very good program I have read Howard Zinn's book and I'm just in deeply indebted as a scholar and an academic myself but really what I want to do is kind of kind of question your notion of objectivity as I explained that objectivity to my students I maintain that it's really reporting the facts as they really are and I think course all of us kind of select which things we think is important to teach and those people who claim that they're being objective or being value freer ain't that other stuff I claim we're really kind of lying more anything else that in fact you kind of make this choice about what you think is important I just wish to kind of hear you comment on that because I think your work is perfectly objective and I certainly presented as such caller where do you teach I teach at Pittsburg State University I'm a sociologist thank you professors in yeah well I agree with you that the call I agree with a caller that that if historian claims to objectivity no it's it's it's it's not it's not a justifiable claim because nobody you know can really be objective unless you use the term objective you know in a different sense than the way I am using it I mean that is you can probably define objective in a way that makes makes it acceptable you know if you say well objective means you know not deliberately lying or not deliberately omitting of information that goes counter to you know your point of view of being honest in other words but I think I think what the caller is pointing to is this issue of honesty that is if you are going to do as I do and suspect this professor of sociology does if you're going to do as we do and unashamedly present material from your point of view you should be honest about it and and you should tell your students and tell your readers you know I'm not claiming objectivity on this is my point of view you are going to you're going to get a picture of American history from the point of view of somebody has certain views about class about race about war I know about this sense and and I think that honesty you know is important and you know I would tell my students very first day of class I would I would say this is not going to be a neutral class this is a class and what you are going to hear my point of view it's not gonna be a situation in which and some of you and I have had this experience I'm spending a semester or a year with a teacher that's the end of the semester of the year you have no idea where this teacher stands and of the important issues and no this is not gonna be that kind of class I tell them you can oh you're gonna hear my point of view and I want to hear your point of view and then it'll be interesting to get a you know different points of view and I would say to them and of course this became that the title of one of my books you can't be neutral on a moving train you notice that use every opportunity to advertise one of my books yeah yeah you can't be neutral on a moving train and people have questions me about that occasionally a very philosophically minded person will look at me very earnestly and say well now wait a while no I think you can be neutral on the moving train but what I meant and what I explained to my students Lulla the world is already moving in certain directions things are already happening wars are taking place kids are going hungry in a world like this you know to be neutral that is to stand off and and pretend to neutrality is to allow things to go on you know as they have been going on means not to intercede in a situation which is already moving in certain directions has it ever turned politically confrontational in the classroom between you and the students oh yes oh yes because I I had my classes did not consist of you know people who came to my class because they believed in my point of view most of the students in my class probably did not know my point of view well maybe they maybe they'd heard something but I had large classes you know I taught for many many years at Boston University I taught a lecture course of four hundred people in the spring and another lecture cost of four hundred people when when you teach that many people there you know the small number of them will probably already agree with your point of view but many of these four hundred were students from business school or the school of journalism or from school of the arts and so on so on and the ROTC students and and so yeah I would get arguments which I welcomed I mean I would hate to have a class where there was no argument and there were always plenty of discussion in my class no it wasn't like you know the Secretary of Defense saying sorry no more questions or sorry no questions at all you know and no they're always questions and and arguments probably the greatest arguments were about class and about war arguments about class because a lot of my students came from successful families and they would say well well you see my my father and grandfather worked hard and look you know they made it and therefore if people work hard you will make it and so that will always led to a discussion of the you know economic justice and then the issue of war because the idea of a good war is so ingrained in the education of Americans the Revolutionary War Civil War World War two you know and and the glow of those good Wars is brought over to cover every or in some sense you know and and that they take advantage of the relative goodness of some Wars to make the most odious of wars seem good and so the militarism and war a very strong components of our culture so the issue of war and would always come up in class I'd like to spend some time on that in a moment but first San Diego you're in the program hi thank you for having me first off which is in I think you're brilliant and I just wanted to talk about the liner notes he wrote for the anti flag album on the song Panama deception one how does something like that come about and also what do you think the state of music today and its ability to reach others on that kind of level or be some sort of activist outlet hmm well I I wondered when I read those liner notes if anybody ever read them and now I found somebody who read the liner notes and how did that come about I guess it came about because these musicians wrote to me and said you know would you write liner notes for these songs which are you know quite political songs and so I was happy to do that everyone at another point ani DiFranco who is a you know a great great favorite especially among young people who's a singer and also has strong political views I need to Franco asked me to write liner notes for something that she for CD that she put out and I was happy to do that what is a liner note Oh a liner notes and is those little things you get inside a CD which you know tell you something about the songs and give you some of the background and context of the songs that you're gonna hear and that's CD so the caller asked about you know the role of music and I suppose in the social issues and social progress and so on which has always been very very important always very important important for the labor movement certainly important for the civil rights movement you know I lived in the south for seven years was involved in the civil rights movement and the music of this of the mutant movement was powerful inspiration to two people and end in the 60s you know during the Vietnam War you know Bob Dylan Joan Baez Country Joe and the fish you know the all of these you know of course Pete Seeger and before that Woody Guthrie Paul robes and the giant of a person's field of music with very strong political views and that's still true today and Bruce Springsteen as a singer who has very who cares about what is going on in the world and and you know why I mean I mentioned Ani DiFranco and there's Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam who also thinks very seriously about the world and tries in his music to express that music is very powerful support I think for humane ideas where and when were you born I was born in Brooklyn and I didn't know I brought Brooklyn always brings a laughs Louise brings a laugh for me and I said because Brooklyn has always been this very sort of a place that's for some reason brought laughter and and you have to try to analyze that carefully to figure out why people from Brooklyn laughed at it to like the Brooklyn Dodgers were always the most laughable team you know and but yeah born in Brooklyn born you know in the worst the worst parts of Brooklyn and when you ask when that's a roundabout way of asking your age 19:22 people have to do the mathematics say you're 80 years old people yeah but people can figure that out by by the right that they know I was in World War two I know I wasn't in World War two at the age of seven right so people can usually figure out my age but you know I don't make a big thing of it you know because you know who cares well some people do about about age and age is a you know kind of construct and and and sometimes it's relevant and a lot of times it's not louisville kentucky for howard zinn good afternoon good afternoon I've just recently been given mr. Zen's book badness and brightness from the Kentucky Alliance here in Louisville we have a big problem with police misconduct I find your book fascinating I'm on the chapter tyranny is tyranny I kind of wish you would have headed that terrorism is terrorism I kind of find your book sort of also being complimentary to Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel and how the American society in the very beginning actually survives and only survives through their tyranny I like to if you could possibly tie America's history into the present I haven't finished your book unfortunately you may have already done that but if you would kind of show maybe how police misconduct racial profiling many of the crimes that are being committed against African Americans and other minorities in our society my brother was just recently murdered here in the city and the media demonizes the poor in sort of glamorizes those who commit the crimes against the poor I would like you to if you could please tell society why this is going on and and what needs to be done to stop it caller before we get a response what happened in your brother's situation he was killed by the police here in the city of Louisville under what circumstances well it was somewhat of a routine stop due to some complaints he had also had a history of mental illness I can also see how they can also be tied in to the situation here in America and when did this take place hey it took place on the 22nd of August a few weeks ago and there is a rally sort of a form being held today to discuss this topic the Reavis Lewis Coleman he'll be present very other individuals will be present will fall to struggle in the city for a very very long time and it really needs to be addressed like I said it's just it's mind-boggling how I could be given your book or we could go see you on television have the opportunity to speak to you thanks to c-span but I can tell that you are a very very insightful man and I you know we need more people like you out here to speak the truth and intelligence and not be afraid to tell the truth why America suffers the way that she does well that's that's thank you very much that's a you know quite remarkable a statement and made especially poignant because of this experience you went through with your brother just just very very recently and you know I I hope that my history makes people think not just about the past but about what is going on today and you know what you describe what happened to your brother is something that happens much much too often in our society and and that is you know police brutality police killings the shooting of people maybe they're mentally ill maybe they made of the wrong gesture maybe they said the wrong thing you know what police brutality is is you know one of the probably least publicized things in our society and it's presented as an aberration or something well what happens just once in a while but actually all over the country and and I'm not condemning all policemen because you know a little sure the police do useful things in a society but there's something in the police culture which disposes policemen with guns under certain situations to use those guns and and those guns are used most often against poor people and they use the most often against people of color we've seen too many too many examples of that happening and what happens in police stations and what happens between policemen and the people they arrest very often is out of sight of the public and and terrible things go on and no one what does it come out of it comes out of a culture of violence a culture in which the government has all these weapons and tends to use them this kind of parallel between the the trigger-happy a policeman and the trigger-happy the United States government in this book the future of history you talk about Jimmy Barrett who is behind bars in Colorado and you say quote there are some extraordinary human beings behind bars who should not be there who was Jimmy berry Jimmy Barrett as as you were saying here as you reading extraordinary people behind bars yes a lot of extraordinary people behind bars and Jimmy Barrett was somebody I met Oh in the 1970s he was in Charles Street jail and in Boston at that time and as a teenager he had you'd been convicted of murder actually it was a really a case of self-defense against some local sort of thug who was brutalizing him and and I'm not defending the murder but indicating that the circumstances under which this took place and the fact that although it was a case of self-defense he had poor counsel and and so he was found guilty and he was given you know very very very long prison sentence and he'd already been in prison 12 years when I began visiting him weekly under the guise of educating him but when I say the guys I mean he was educating me he was a working-class kid who began to read this happens a lot people without education they go to prison they begin to read and read and read and he read a lot and he began to write and was a wonderful writer and we became friends we've been friends for a very long time now and when I visited him in this prison in Colorado one of these very bizarre places maximum maximum security prisons I mean prisons are the you know the invisible fascism in our country prisons are places where terrible things go on which the public does not know about and you know I've I've never served time in person I mean I've been arrested in demonstrations and and spent you know I've been arrested probably ten times and spent a night and all you have to do is spend a day in a jail in prison and you get at least a sense of the fact that once you're in prison and you may have committed a crime you may not have committed a crime or you may have committed a crime and given some grotesque sentence by a judge and but for you know whatever reason once you're in prison you are helpless anything can be done to you and the outside world will not know about it to this day you know I carried on this long correspondence with Jimmy Barrett while he was in prison now he's out finally after all these years wonderful person what's he doing he's working a various jobs of construction jobs painting jobs Social Work jobs working with kids you know you know people who commit crimes very often a few years later they're totally different people they would not commit such a crime again and it's a crime Len on the part of society to keep them in prison for another 20 or 30 you know years but our justice system is a very cruel system it keeps I mean and we have you know we have so many examples I mean not just the people whose innocence has been proved but even people who have been guilty of a crime but who you know they did something at the age of 18 and and you know as I say a few years later they would never do such a thing again they're no huh no threat to society but they're gonna be there for the rest of their life I mean I'm in correspondence with several prisoners one toi kala saleh al in prison in pennsylvania serving a life sentence hue as he says he will die in prison a wonderful person a musician a person of compassion and he committed a crime a very long time ago he would never do such a thing again but he's there he is another book by our guest Howard Zinn the Zen reader writings on disobedience and democracy our next call is from Ketchum Idaho hello hello good afternoon caller yes thank you for taking my call I'm willing to change the topics from force and violence at the form of control to the economic control and I know we've always had charities in this country but under Bush number one when his thousand points of light I've seen a proliferation of youth of 501c3 and now even the use of a charitable holding trust which has allowed in many cases an elitist exclusive element to use the tax laws to legally get matching funds and from using of tax write-offs and I think this is vastly expanded the role of charities in this country and I see that a lot of these groups operate in perpetuity with big budgets and little oversight their bylaws frequently eleve a few to control and many times it's wealthy donors who give to each other's groups and I wonder what you think of this trend because I feel that in many cases it over the for instance when you see a twenty million dollar painting has been donated I think to myself well ten million of that is tax money that's being probably given back to the person as a write-off at least ten million and I wonder if Congress would have approved ten million for whatever function that that ten million would be put - for instance buying a painting so could you please comment in depth I hope about that and I just think you're wonderful I wish you'd been my professor thank you well I wish you'd been my student I'm trying to remember if I ever had a student from Ketchum Idaho you're my first but to answer anything in depth is tough but I'll try my best but you're pointing to something you know that you you know this is very very important and that is how our tax structure funnels the money the wealth of the country towards the top and in other words huge amounts of money are made legally when money is made illegally fraud is detected then for instance you know the Enron situation are they you know these other situations where they find you know actual laws have been violated well everybody gets excited but people should get excited not just when laws are broken but when laws have followed that is when the tax laws give legitimately and legally huge amounts of money to the richest 1% of the country I mean for instance as a result of the the lowering of the taxes on the very rich that has taken place since the 1960's and 1970's the richest 1% of the country has probably gained over trillion dollars in wealth that's all legal it's all legitimate it's not cold crime or robbery it's called legislation but you know our economic that's how our economic system functions the MAL distribution of wealth takes place through legal means by simply by the fact that the laws are passed by Congress and Congress is most influenced by corporate wealth and and it is the corporation's who benefit from the tax laws so it's going to take a Citizens movement of some great strength and persistence to suggest that our tax laws should be very fundamentally reworked so that we don't have this accumulation of wealth where today you know 1% the richest 1% owns 40% of the wealth of the country while you know there are 40 million people without health insurance and while you know there are mothers taking care of kids and who can't pay the rent and we can't buy food and people can't you know don't have a place to live something really absurd about this and it's not done by stealing it's done by law as we take our next call from Syracuse New York we'll show our audience more from the home of Howard Zinn including some photographs of his two children and five grandchildren Syracuse good afternoon hi doctors at first I just want to thank you for everything that you've done and all you're about you're one of the reasons why I decided to further study history and right now I'm working on my master's thesis and it's on the Black Panther Party and reexamining their thug image how historians and scholars throughout history have referred to them as criminals and thugs and focused on the negative I just like to know what you feel about the impact of the Panthers their positive impact how they're portrayed even now and throughout history and also when you have people like Mumia abu-jamal and others who have been imprisoned partly because of their affiliation with the Panthers and political beliefs just what you feel about that as well thank you you know that's a very good question I mean you're right that the Black Panthers were portrayed by the government and in the press you know as a violent group that had to be suppressed and and the Black Panthers yes they were a militant group they were had very very strong views the Black Panthers carried out a lot of programs for the poor and the ghettos of the country Black Panthers did not believe in non-violence and yet they did not really initiate violence but they believed in self-defense and so you saw a Black Panthers carrying guns and and and and the image that came across to the nation was of are the Black Panthers or a violent group they carry guns and they use them but the guns of the police were used against Black Panthers rather than the guns of the Black Panthers used against anybody else it was you know leading Black Panthers who were killed by the police in Chicago in 1969 you know killed while they were asleep in an apartment and the police broke in fired fired away hundreds of shots into the apartment and killed two Black Panther leaders and black panthers became the object of the FBI which in its this very gestapo-like program of the FBI called COINTELPRO counterintelligence program had very little to do with intelligence but had a lot to do with very illegal activities of the of the FBI breaking into people's homes breaking into offices sending out anonymous letters and and violent activities know as well you know by the FBI in which they tried to destroy the Black Panther Party because they saw that the Black Panther Party was a was a group that was opposed to the policies of the government and groups that were opposed to the policies of the government something which presumably should be guaranteed by the Bill of Rights but groups which were opposed to the government became the objects of FBI attention and FBI attack for people who want to get a better picture of the Black Panther Party I suggest that you know they read the memoir of Elaine Brown who was the first woman head of the of the Black Panther Party Elaine Brown wonderful writer and and know it it's something that happens generally to dissident groups in society and that is their caricatured and so sure some of the things that dissident groups in society do are not right but what has happened is that these the few things that they do which may be properly criticized are made the whole of the attention and the other parts of the work are ignored and this is true you know the anarchist an anarchist committed an act of violence my god an act of violence in our peaceful society who else commits acts of violence only anarchists but in fact another most most people who believed in an accursed have not committed acts of violence they've been organizers and and agitators and speakers in Reiter's so yes you know dissident groups tend to be caricature and worse than Garrick should become the objects of government attack last year on this program we talked with Studs Terkel and you have a poster in your office promoting I guess a lecture series the two of you had done in the past well as Studs Terkel when one of my heroes I have very few heroes in the White House but have a lot of heroes who outside of the White House that's Terkel is one of them and Studs Terkel and a nine that we've known another four years he was I I first met him when I had written two books on the South my book on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and I book the southern mystique and Studs Terkel was a you know a radio commentator had a very popular radio show in Chicago and he interviewed me about these books and that's when I first got to know him and do you mind my talking a little about Studs Terkel be my guest and he wouldn't mind I don't think and he was talking about you oh oh okay goodness it's only fair that they but when Studs Terkel interviewed me about the leaves books had written about the south I was astounded because I've been interviewed by a number of you know radio commentators and you know the common thing is for the people who interview you on radio programs not to have read your book you know maybe they have some assistant give them a paragraph or summary you know that circle had read my books very carefully it never run at anybody who you know who interviewed me with such intelligence and have to tell you one more thing about him which is a characteristic of him I guess after the interview I went I was staying in a hotel in Chicago before going back home and as I was in my hotel room in Chicago after the interview early in the evening I got a call was from Studs Terkel he said what are you doing tonight I said nothing he said well Ida and I my wife and I are going to a Pete Seeger concert we have extra tickets for you would you come along so I did anyway Studs Terkel and I I saved known one another over the years and a few years ago he and I did a conversation on stage in Berkeley California the two of us just sitting in armchairs like you and me right now it's always good to have comfortable chairs when you're being interviewed I was sat on armchairs and armchairs on stage and the two of us just had a conversation in front of this very large group of people and in this auditorium and Berkeley an email from Al de Graaff of Fort Collins Colorado he says the people's history of the United States was mentioned quite favorably by Matt Damon in the movie Good Will Hunting was Matt Damon one of your students and how did he develop an interest in you and your book well I'd like to say that Matt Damon was a my students Matt Damon went to Harvard but maybe he was one of my students so lonely in the sense that he and his mother Nancy Carlson Page and his brother Kyle were our next-door neighbors and friends for four years and starting from when Matt was five years old so we've known that Damon since he was five and probably when he was 10 his mother gave him a copy of the people's history of the United States and then when he went through high school in Cambridge his teacher used a people's history as the textbook for their course and so I suppose in that sense you might say he was my student and and and and I guess he thought enough of the book maybe being given a book by by your mother at the age of 10 is a strong influence they thought it not enough of my book so that when he and Ben Affleck wrote the script for Good Will Hunting for some reason and they didn't have to do this I mean I have to say in all fairness it wasn't particularly important to the story but but they he in his conversation was that his psychiatrist his counselor Robin Williams he he looked around it Robin Williams books and he said all you want to read a real history of the United States read Howard Zinn's a people's history of the United States did you know that before the movie no premiered no we went to the Boston premiere of the movie with we we were invited to the Boston premiere the movie and that was their Ben Affleck was there and that's mother was there no I had no idea but just before the movie came on the screen his mother Matt's mother Nancy came over to me and said Howard there's a surprise in this movie for you and and it was Ashfield Massachusetts for Howard Zinn good afternoon hello can I thank Brian lamb for book TV I am a teacher and I've gotten a lot of good ideas and I'm calling dr. Zin for the same I taught in Corrections for many years and I used your book of people's history and it was wonderful I feel very strongly that students need to understand the social forces around them before they can begin to affect a change I am beginning a new job teaching inner-city kids as a sped teacher I'm working with kids who didn't pass the Massachusetts minimal standard and have to do this it's called an MCAT test I'm really looking for some curricular ideas to help these kids think about the world around them I really believe that I can't teach them until I engage them and I'm not going to engage them unless I teach them something that matters so I'm calling to ask you for any ideas and by the way I've heard you speak before and I gave your book to my son - he's a teacher thank you but let me first say that that you know I'm so encouraged by the existence of teachers like this teachers who are socially conscious teachers who are not simply going by the book and and using the old material over and over again and teachers who are thinking you know how are we gonna bring up a new generation of young people who are going to create a different kind of society and I'm very encouraged and I've seen this as I go around the country and I do that I now go around the country and do a lot of speaking here and there and wherever I go I run into teachers like this caller the teachers who are teaching in a different kind of way that is very encouraging to me I mean it you know this whole business of being discouraged and encouraged is interesting it depends on what you look at and what you pay attention to if you only look at television and you only and you see again and again the faces the president and the Secretary of Defense and all congressmen and Senators you know and you you know even on you know so-called public television you you see that well it's very easy to get discouraged because what these people have to say is very discouraging but on the other hand if you get away from television and you get out in the world and you see the this whole new generation of teachers who are thinking and teaching in different ways well then you are encouraged and you think maybe there's hope for the next generation because I haven't gotten to answer this person's question about curriculum dodging that question of course but I have one suggestion which is which is basic about curriculum and and that is I would urge you to get in touch with maybe you already know this outfit enough that called rethinking schools which is in Milwaukee Wisconsin 1001 East Keith Street Milwaukee Wisconsin rethinking schools they are a national network of teachers who like you like this caller want to teach in different ways and and let me teach prisoners they may teach inner-city kids they may teach middle class kids but whatever it is they are looking for new materials and rethinking schools puts out all sorts of interesting curricular material and suggestions so yes I would I would write to them get in touch with them and we have their website up as you speak oh really I'm not much on websites but I'm glad that they they have a website that people can look at it and and tune into where their their great outfit speaking of websites by the way if our audience wants to get a complete listing of the 21 books that we've come across that have been written or co-written by Howard Zinn logon to book TV org you can also get schedule information about programming on this network and book TV org one of nine websites that c-span is responsible for and updates on a regular basis including our main website at c-span org Long Island New York is next good afternoon hi mr. Zinn just wanted to let you know I love your book people's history of the United States I discovered your book in SUNY Stony Brook by professor named Jane Eli I graduated a sociology degree there what do you remember from his book dangerous question it's actually it's actually a really easy question for me to answer and I could sum it up really in three words and that's just the American ideological ego because that's really how I feel that the United States has the feeling that we have this American ontological you know of being a it's so great and the history teachers try to teach us a lot of wrong things in school but I don't think they're teaching us all the right things but when you read Howard Zinn's book he teaches you the truth and a lot of people need to read that and I thank you for telling the truth and what I really wanted to know from you is how you feel about what is going on in the u.s. today the war on terror you're gonna write a book on it how do you feel about the American Empire basically being in the modern Roman Empire of today well I do have this little book you asked about am i writing anything about the war on terrorism I do have this little book a little compared to nine people's history called terrorism and war published by seven stories press and which actually is done in collaboration with Anthony Arnold who's whose interview with me you know you might say led to this book and and I've and I've also written a number of things for the progressive magazine about this war on terrorism so-called war on terrorism and I've also written a written article for the Nation magazine not long ago about the war on Afghanistan and and the human suffering loop causing in Afghanistan so so yes I I have written about it but you you you're asking well I see two parts to your your your question or I see rather statement you make about you know the American ego and then you ask the question about my views on the war on terrorism and I'd like to say something about both actually because the first point is an important one and you talk about the the that people have brought up in this country to believe you know America is unique well well we are unique in many ways you know we are we're we're big we're strong with powerful we we and and we have the certain democratic rights not enough democratic rights and democratic rights which are very quickly suppressed in times of war but you know it's it's a remarkable country but yeah there is this egoistic idea that not only are we different but we are superior to other places Eric I'll quote Emma Goldman or paraphrase Emma Goldman about whom he spoke a little while ago and she would give this talk about patriotism and she would say yes I'm patriotic I love this country I love the people I love the mountains I love you know I love so much about this country but I don't love what this country does I don't love its policies I don't know what the government does I don't love its Wars and and so you know the America the word America stands for many things and you know sometimes people reading my book have said oh you don't like America because I've been criticizing their government I say no that's not true at all the America that I love is is the America of the of the people who have stood for justice and you know the the black people have struggled for their rights working people women and these that's America that's the that's the America I care about and but the America that is represented by the government that makes wars that uses you know force and deception no that's not an America I care about so I I guess I think we ought to be careful about using abstractions like America or our country or our nation and distinguish make clear what we mean by that from the book you write the continued expenditure of more than three hundred billion dollars for the military every year has absolutely no effect on the danger of terrorism and then you go on to say that if we want real security we will have to stop being an intervening power and stop dominating the economies of other countries well that's a I guess a fair representation of what I am saying about this this war on terrorism and the reason I call it a so-called war on terrorism is that you can't really make war on terrorism terrorism it's not a finite identifiable country like Japan in world war ii or germany you know you can you can vomit and destroy it and win a victory their terrorism is an ideology it's come in it springs up everywhere and it comes out of grievances that people have grievances that millions of people in the world have against American policy out of those millions of few people will become terrorists but if we want to do something about terrorism we have to do something about the grievances out of which those terrorists spring Eureka California you're next a good morning professors in this is a pro poet Dean Stanton could you please comment on the viability of the Green Party and of the incorruptible or Ralph Nader as an alternative to the Republicans and Democrats the Republicans and also could you comment on the professor Abrams recent observation that 100% of these recent child abductors and rapists and murderers and 100% of these corrupt corporate corrosive crooks convicts and 100% of the priests creepiness of pedophiles and 99% of the school killing with the Columbine etc a white men stupid white men or white fascist boys two points first the Green Party first a green question and then a white question okay well the Green Party is a known Ralph Nader as you said incorruptible I mean how could we say that about any other candidates of Democrats and Republicans who have such ties corporations and as soon as you get tied to a corporation corruption immediately is inherent in that relationship no Ralph Nader yes has been an incorruptible of spokesman for the rights of people against corporate Oliver way back from the time you know he took on General Motors and one and was responsible for important laws safety laws that haven't actually saved the lives of large numbers of people are what's what presidential candidate want national political leader can claim that he was responsible legislation has saved large numbers of human life so the Green Party which espouses the ideas of Ralph Nader and which is basically you know with a third party that that represents environmental sensibilities and and that wants to give the American people an alternative to the Democratic and Republican Party the Green Party I believe should be supported I believe there's all political movements that are independent of the two major party should be supported because they're they're our only hope for changing the policies of this country I mean we don't really have two parties in this country we have a and a prime we have to you know countries that are so close together and their policy is that that in effect we cannot say that we have free elections in this country it's sort of interesting that we talk about other countries do they have free elections do they not have free elections well I don't believe we really have free elections in this country when we're we're confined forced to choose between two parties both of which are so close together and policies the detrimental to the well-being of people all over the world and to our own people this email it's been said that democracy is not in the voting but in the vote counting what doctors input this last presidential election into his widened historical perspective as they can with regard to the less-than-honorable vote counting that from Antonio Samara well well certainly the you know the vote counting and in this last election was scandalous and and the Supreme Court didn't even want to move ahead and count all the votes you know they wanted you know let's let's decide you know bushes president even though we knew that we knew that Bush you know had not won a majority of certainly not a majority of the popular vote and there's a lot of doubt as to whether even one majority of the popular vote in Florida and but I so sure there's a little a lot of corruption in vote County and so on but I think that is probably the lesser political corruption you know it's you know what I was saying before about corporate crime you know the greatest corporate crimes are not outside the law you know when you know but that the the crimes that are outside the law the ones that capture attention the greatest crimes are done legally the greatest I think corruption in our political system doesn't come from what happened in Florida built counting but the greatest corruption comes from simply the fact that our political system is dominated by money all the way down the line that the corporations were their powerful treasure chests which they can dole out as senators and congressmen and give to presidential candidates that is the great corruption that ensures that the destiny of the country will be in the hands of the wealthy classes dr. Lee about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon more from your photo collection at your home in western Massachusetts one of the photos on the wall at Howard Zinn's home as we get another call this from Fresno California good afternoon yeah hi doctors in I was referred to you a couple years ago actually buy a new black panther member so it's kind of funny that you mentioned that earlier in the current state that we're in as far as the social situation where we have this nationalism representing almost a religion where these people are dogmatically doing the events of the world without in taking information themselves where they're getting all this stuff off network TV and they're not actually grasping things like through people like you or Noam Chomsky or Cornel West and your books that respond to the current situations of the world I mean how do you figure people like you and other people that I mentioned play into the overall view of the young people in the world who can actually go out there in this world and make a change thanks color when did you first meet Noam Chomsky by the way when did I first meet Noam Chomsky okay that certain point I'll try to get to this person's question but I first met no I'm Chomsky when we were on an airplane together I just moved to Boston out from the south out from being involved in movement in the south and I while I was in Boston things were still going on down there and Mississippi mass arrests of black people of civil rights workers in Mississippi one of them being John Lewis now in Congress and and a small small delegation of people from Boston were going down to Jackson Mississippi to try to investigate the conditions under which these people are being held and I said I was part of this delegation and no chumps key and whom I didn't know but we found ourselves sitting next to one another and began to talk and from that moment on that was you know around 1965 or 66th when I point on we've been friends when we were during as the movement against the war in Vietnam developed know I'm Chomsky became one of the nation's outstanding critics of the war and I became involved in in the anti-war movement and so the two of us found ourselves on public platforms again and again and we and so yes we we've been friends for a long time into the collars point and the caller's point about remind me what the clothes what he was talking about the divergent views we're talking about main role of the resignation the caller was talking about the control of information by the way you know only it's not by the way that's maybe it's a centrally important thing while it's true that our information is controlled you know the major networks you know I mean c-span is an exception I mean the this NBC CBS ABC all in fact you know Public Television will not put me on for three hours well not footnote Chomsky on will not put Barbara Ehrenreich on you know or Cornel West or Manning Marable or Angela Davis no no will not to do that so yes information is controlled in and and yet and this has always been true in the in American history people who sought the truth had to go outside the official sources of information and outside the major media and had to set up community newspapers and listen to community radio stations and and there's something you know I think encouraging and the fact that an effect is felt after a while right now Noam Chomsky's book on also on the war on terrorism it's called 9/11 also published by seven stories press known Chomsky's book has sold oh I don't know maybe two hundred thousand copies yet has not been reviewed by the New York Times yet does not appear on the New York Times bestseller list now Michael Moore's book does and that's but that's a good sign Michael Moore's book you know and they can't ignore it you see a lot of people are buying it it's it's an anti-establishment book Barbara Ehrenreich book which is a very class conscious book about what you know how people at the down there in the lower-income groups what their lives are like you know in the so-called prosperous country her book nickeled and dimed has been up there on the bestseller list those are all good signs what their signs are is their despite the attempts of the government and of the big media to control our information we have just enough democracy in this country and we're not a totalitarian state we have just enough democracy in this jet risk in this country just enough a pictures of information so that you know it's possible for millions of people to become dissidents and in this country I mean that's that's encouraging and that's something that should be you know recognized less less people become despondent over our failure to to get information out if you've just joined us we are midway through a three-hour conversation with Howard Zinn part of book TVs once a month in-depth series among the works by our guests the politics of history also marks in Soho and a book we showed earlier the future of history our next call is from Baltimore good afternoon hello Baltimore yes I like to question I was know as a progressive historian what do you think about reparations for the Holocaust of Ackman enslavement and what do you think about the future prospects for the resurgence of socialist democracy thank you well okay two questions you know what about reparations for victims of slavery and you know as there were reputation for you know people who were victims of the Nazi yeah Holocaust and and the other question the second question unsocial is on social democracy and the future of possible democratic socialism but on that on the issue of reparations I like the approach of sort of a black radical intellectual named Adolf read on the issue of reparations reparations the idea behind reparations is a very important one and that is it's a matter of recognizing that the wealth created by the labor of slaves contributed to the economic progress of this country that these slaves created enormous wealth and yet they had nothing from it and and therefore the idea of reparations for people who historically have contributed enormously and but been victimized by the system the idea is a good one but as I recall a dog breeds argument and it makes sense to me I think it should be extended its most true certainly for black slaves and they were the most exploited and that that was the most egregious situation every once in a while I use a word like egregious to just show that you know I was a professor right and but but there are others in history who also have been exploited the working classes of this country white and black people who may not have been slaves but who you know were victims of the industrial system the blacks and whites who worked in the mines and the mills and who know you know in one year 1913 35,000 people died as a result of industrial accidents that and all if you add up the number of people in this country who been died as a result of of industrial accidents due to the really due in large part to the profit motive well you know the profit motive works in such a way has worked in such a way that you know that the the machinery must grind on and the conditions of workers are not as important as making a profit and as a result safety is second to the profitability of an enterprise and the result of that being the death and injury to working people to go back to that number because I read it in one of the books here thirty five thousand killed in 1914 1913 or seven hundred thousand injured you know some seriously yes where was the uprising where was the anger well as a matter of fact in those years there was anger as we're talking now about 1913 1914 and in those years there was years before you know world war want they were there was a lot of anger in this country which is represented by two important social movements one was the Industrial Workers of the world which was a radical labor movement a kind of know some ways a processor of the CIO in the sense that they unlike the AF of L which only organized skilled workers mostly white skilled workers that the IWW organized everybody one big union they said everybody black white men women skilled unskilled foreign-born native-born everybody who worked in one enterprise would belong you know to the Union and the IWW have carried on fierce of struggles to benefit workers rights early their aim was not just to get better rights for workers but to create a new society but they carried on very important struggles I mean probably the most dramatic of them was in Lawrence Massachusetts in 1912 Lawrence textile strike of 1912 mostly women mostly immigrant women striking against the great textile manufacturers of New England with led by IWW people and winning their strike amazingly against against these powerful corporations so that was ferment there was protest against these labor conditions the other the other important organization beside the iw IWW at this time was the Socialist Party Socialist Party which at that time had perhaps a million or two million readers of socialist newspapers who has socialist locals all over the country whether 35 Socialist locals in Oklahoma I mean they were socialist elected as mayors of cities socialist elected to state legislators socialists elected to Congress Eugene Debs the great socialist the Labour leader socialist candidate a very powerful figure Mother Jones a member of both the IWW and the Socialist Party so there was ferment there was protest against these terrible conditions I mean it's an it's important to note that because today we still have people dying in terrible accidents and we you know we had an incident in North Carolina some no not too long ago where where people died where workers died because the doors were locked and they couldn't get out in the case of Farah hit the chicken with the poultry plant that's right there's a poultry poultry plant and and and we still have situations like this where where the conditions of workers lead to death and injury and behind that you can see the profit motive operating a head of a head of human rights so today when these things are still going on unfortunately we do not have as powerful a movement which leads to the actually to the second question about democratic socialism the word socialism took on a bad meaning when Soviet Union came into existence because the Soviet Union announced itself as a socialist country but quickly developed very quickly developed into a tyranny a tyranny that is foreign to the idea of socialism before the Soviet Union existed we had the socialism of Eugene debb's of Mother Jones of Emma Goldman we have Helen Keller a lot of people don't know that Helen Keller was a socialist you know of Upton Sinclair of Jack London of Carl Sandburg the great poet and buyer for Lincoln we as socialism will represent it a wonderful ideal the ideal of taking the wealth of this country and distributing it in a more fair way in a way that would benefit everybody then the Soviet Union distorted the notion of socialism and so would be to use the word socialism I'll say your socialist became a very difficult thing oddly enough now that the Soviet Union has collapsed I believe the chances for talking about socialism a democratic socialism not a totalitarian a bureaucratic socialism but a democratic socialism I think the opportunities for that a much greater now and I think people should talk about that beautiful it seems clear to me capitalism has failed this email from Mort Paulson a Silver Spring Maryland do you think that workers today are in general getting a fair share of what they produce well certainly not no I mean people can always point to workers who are getting you know fairly decent wages workers that are in very good unions I mean that's that's when workers get good wages when they are in strong unions but most workers are not unionized in fact we have you know at this point of a very low percentage maybe 10 or 12 percent of the American workforce in unions and and all of those people who are outside of you against and all those people who who work at all sorts of jobs which are not unionized they are getting minimum wages not enough to support their families you mentioned Ben Affleck and Matt Damon and and a few years ago there was a rally at Harvard where Harvard students organized in support of the janitors at Harvard who were not being given a living wage by this very rich university Harvard University's sitting on billions of dollars and would not give workers $10 an hour which are barely enough to barely enough to support a family Matt Damon Ben Affleck came to a rally and I was there two of the three of us and and workers from other unions spoke and students spoken janitors spoke and so on but they're people like that cleaning women in Los Angeles who went on strike a few years ago if you see the film Bread and Roses you will get a wonderful picture of that strike I just read today in the Boston Globe this morning's paper janitors are going out or voted to go out on strike in Boston because they don't have health benefits so no working people in this country are at the mercy of the market you know I just it's interesting how the the government and the press and you know have tried to talk about the market economy as if it's a wonderful thing and of try to get other nations to follow the market economy you know you know oh yes let's let the market decide well if you let the market decide that means you are letting profit decide what happens Fairfield California you're next good afternoon I wanted to thank you Brian I appreciate what you do mr. Zinn I'm not Brian but it will take the compliment anyhow that's what I mean you don't put yourself out front really accomplish a compliment on how you handle yourself mr. Zinn I really appreciate your perspective I don't want to monopolize your time but I have a few statements one is when I heard enduring freedom I broke it down into syllables and they are going to end our freedom and your freedom another thing I wanted to comment on was that I'm a African American spent some time in five years in England and probably 17 states here and I am mixed with French Native American and an African were you in the military or what were you doing overseas it was my father that was in the military I was a military brat and how old are you now 37 and the the thing that bothers me about racism is that I could be more closely related to a police officer that's beating me then the officer that he's with because of the mixture that just shows how ridiculous racism is another thing that I wanted to ask you about was that you know with the what the corporate crime that's going on now it seems as though maybe more of the middle-class white America just start to get a larger perspective on how our government views them and how corporate America views them and that might help to bring about a positive push to you know maybe get our government back and a non-violent and productive way and I was hoping that you could comment on that well that's a that's an interesting point about the what's happening to the middle class you know because it's sort of generally recognized you know that you know people at the lower rungs of society you know people barely subsisting know that they they would not be great supporters of the government remember 50% of Americans don't even vote and and most of those are people you know with the low income levels of society you know who don't see any benefit for them from either democrat or republican party but they're you know generally the middle-class votes and generally you know the middle class can has always been able to say well we you know we have some of the benefits of this very rich society but in truth the middle class has been given you know just a bare amounts of the benefits of this society just enough to keep them you know in in line with the people at the very top who were amassing huge fortunes and who control our political and lives but the fact is that people in the middle class have always been insecure they've they've always had to have to struggle and had to worry and and and now and and this is what the the point that the caller I think is making now the middle class which is always felt secure oh we hold stocks and so on so we have a stake in a system middle-class is beginning to see that it's too is a victim of the system people in the middle class may begin to realize that they have more in common with people below them than other people above them when that begins to happen on a large scale then we will see a great movement uniting people in the middle class and people of low income of uniting against the people who run the society if you could just look at the monitor behind me some family photos who's who you know the light is in my eyes and I I can't oh that looks like my wife I hope that woman sitting close to me yeah yeah it's my wife yeah it is Rosalyn and yeah that that's a very nice picture of us we've married a very long time and as you say have all these kids and grandkids which I said some says something about our relationship and and I did catch a glimpse of a photo of her while watching while somebody is being arrested taken that was somewhere in the 1970s and at Boston University when my wife was Kim or was a spectator I guess that maybe even a participant at this anti-war rally and the police were dragging this person and you might look at that and say oh it's me because you can only see the back of the person you might see that my wife is anguished because her husband is being taken away but no maybe she wouldn't be so anguished if her husband was being taken away but she's anguished because a student is being taken away I mean that's the way she is I mean she feels what is going on in the world a very deep way and so she doesn't know this person was being taken away by the police but you can see but I look on her face that this means a lot to her that this student is being arrested for speaking out against the war New Haven Connecticut good afternoon you're on book TV thank you for c-span you guys do a great job and I'd like to also thank Howard Zinn for all the work he's done I've read your book people's history of the United States and it was very enlightening I especially enjoyed the part about the socialist movement when she touched on a few minutes ago and I also like to comment about seeking out alternative sources for information we're fortunate here where we have a totally listener-supported radio station with no corporate underwriting at all which is what introduced me to you about 15 years ago and I was introduced by a conversation with assembly from the Labour Party and they when I contacted them they told me to read your book and get some information I was wondering if you had any comments on the Labour Party and where it's at and where I might be going in the future and I'll take your answer up the air thank you thank you the Labour Party like like a Green Party is an alternative political movement it's not a party in the sense that it puts up candidates but it's a party in a sense that it offers an alternative from a from the point of view of working people and working people doesn't mean just people who you know who work in mines and mills I mean you know teachers and social workers and and people in the medical profession now working people professional people who are not owners of industries are working people and the the Labour Party is is a just a few years old it's the it's founder Tony mazaki is one of the heroes of I think contemporary American history you know label organizer organizer working people all his life he's quite ill naland but and here in fact in Washington DC there was a very nice story about him and the times last week but he's he epitomizes the spirit of the Labour Party which offers people a way of dealing with the problems of wealth and poverty and the control the Democratic control of the economy which certainly the major parties have nothing to say about I'm gonna ask you to think about this next question who you think is the most overrated person in American history I got a call from San Diego go ahead please I picked up your book people sister United States like 20 years ago and of course was very enlightening and myself have had some pretty radical political views and my question is basically having these news about the country and politics and being in the country worth change just does not happen very quickly how do you keep your perspective and really believing we can accomplish some kind of change well you know of course an important question it's an important question because so many people sort of have I think you saw the same cap feeling that that I get from your question and that is can we in fact believe in the possibility of change when it seems so difficult to achieve change especially in our top that's in this decade and in this you know this time of Clinton and Bush and Reagan and another Bush and very hard it's discouraging but I think that's where historical perspective comes in and I think we always have to think you know beyond the you know the time that we're living in which may be very discouraging and think that in the that have been other times in American history when people also were felt out changes in taking place and became very despondent and just as they were saying it a movement was growing I mean I'm thinking now for instance of the civil rights movement I'm thinking of the fact that and you know I was living in the south and teaching it a black women's college in Atlanta at Spelman College from 1956 to 1963 and and in the in the late 50s in the United States despite the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 which at the moment seemed perhaps like an aberration just flash but there was a feeling of you know racial segregation is here and you know in fact the people you know in this white segregation some South were wearing these buttons saying the South says never and as a feeling well what could black people do to change their condition the white people are in charge and the federal government is collaborating federal government refuses to interfere even the liberal governments of Kennedy and Johnson I'm not not really interfering with it with southern brutality against black people and civil rights workers and so there's a general feeling of discouragement and then came 1960 in the first sit-ins in Greensboro North Carolina and then more sit-ins and more students and more demonstrations in Freedom Rides and soon you had a movement throughout the south and the movement throughout the nation and the movement that caught the attention of the world and I guess and you can see the same process operating in other cases the beginning of the Vietnam War who thought that that the anti-war movement would grow to the point where the government of the United States had to take cognizance of it and consider and reconsider its policy of continuing the war because the period when people started out protesting against the Vietnam War or 6465 it looked hopeless you know handful of people protesting against the most powerful government on earth but the movement grew and grew and grew and the truth is powerful now this is an important thing to keep in mind truth is powerful and if even if a small number of people using the view access view points of access that they have to the public use these points of access the truth will will lead to the growth of a movement Columbus Mississippi good afternoon good afternoon thank you for taking my calls dr. Zin I'm probably someone who probably the only personal caller say that has an opposing view to you today and I want to go back to socialism and III absolutely oppose socialism altogether for the simple fact that to make everything absolutely fair one must oppress the individual could you answer my question how that is different than feudalism in the past you say one must oppress the individual I'm not sure what you mean by that unless you mean that for instance in order to distribute the wealth of the country more equitably and more humanely for instance we would have to have universal health care we with people not having to pay bills to doctors or insurance companies and so on but with people's health care being taken care of for everybody money not entering the picture the only way you can do that is if that money comes from the National Treasury and the only way you can have a National Treasury large enough to give everybody health care is if you levy huge taxes on the very rich now do you consider that taking away the freedom of the individual that if I'm not sure if that's what you mean Isis I suppose perhaps it is but I don't think that's a serious problem there's I don't I don't think that that making the super-rich less rich is a serious attack on human rights and freedom it's always a matter of measuring one against the other what is the greater what is a greater problem in taking away people's freedom people's lack of freedom to have health care or somebody's freedom to amass a billion dollars or a hundred million dollars it's always a matter of a choice it's let me take another example you know people when the it was finally insisted finally insisted after you know Supreme Court decisions which said no you can't interfere with this finally insisted that public places must allow blacks to enter the folk restaurants hotels you know and certainly government institutions must not be segregated well you're taking away the freedom of a store owner to say only whites may enter here yes you're taken but you have to consider what is it what is it more serious what's the most serious sin in a world of human compassion what is more serious sin to take away the the freedom of the store owner to say that only whites may enter or the freedom of black people to go where whites go you have to make that choice let's take this next call from Prescott Arizona hello yes yes professors in I I really appreciate your optimism I am in a reference to you're speaking about middle class it's been my contention that the middle class is shrinking at the with the growth of upper class and even though very much larger growth of the lower class which I think more and more people are slipping into without even realizing it I'm 67 and the reason I mentioned that is that I remember when the middle class was the largest of them all and I wonder whether these upper-class people who seemed to be gathering strength over what happens in our society understand that without a strong middle class there's nobody to fight the wars yes well I sure hope that there'll be nobody to fight the wars and of course generally it's been the the lower classes the working classes and generally people of color disproportionately who have fought the wars and in the middle class is you know of course is always seeking to move into the upper class but you know as you suggested more more of them are in danger of losing their middle-class status and and losing their their jobs and losing their homes and and sinking into more desperate circumstances and I yeah I do believe that that we need to build a kind of unity between the other middle classes and and those people you know who work at the lower levels of society if we we are going to have a Citizens movement to bring about change I asked you earlier about the the most overrated person you thought in American history then we came across this email from a student at the University of Missouri Tiffany who says giving your refreshing focus on lesser recognized Americans are there any politicians who you feel deserve their recognition and fame and we're there any politicians you find find or found refreshing humble questions I'll start with your question which is easier and that is over overrated overrated people most overrated probably the most overrated as Theodore Roosevelt in in the early 20th century and probably in recent times probably the most overrated is John F Kennedy about who more romantic glow is cast me you know partly because he was assassinated because he was so personable and and witty and so on but his policies were really quite Orthodox for the most part but Theodore Roosevelt III fastened on Theodore Roosevelt is the most overrated I suppose because he's up there on Mount Rushmore and and hard to move as a great icon of American history overrated because what they're - you know as I pointed out before it depends on you know what part of a person's history what part of a movements history you select in order to make a judgement and and you can look at Theodore Roosevelt as a believer in environmental regulation or you can you know nature lover mmm antitrust sort of you can look look at him that way but Theodore Roosevelt to me is most overrated because what's what's overlooked and Theodore Roosevelt is what has too often overlooked in our leadership and that is their their belief in war as a solution for problems and the case of Theodore Roosevelt it wasn't even a belief in war as a solution of international problems but he very elegantly believed in war simply as a wonderful way of expanding the American Empire and so he believed in the in our war in in Cuba I walk to get the Spanish out and really to get ourselves and and he believed in the war in the Philippines very brutal war against the Filipinos in the early part of the century and Theodore Roosevelt you know congratulated at one point a a general American general in the Philippines would committed sticker of 600 Morrow's 600 Filipino Muslims in on a southern island in the Philippines a massacre of these 600 people men women and children and and Theodore's who congratulated the general for the brilliant military operation and Mark Twain protested against this I mean to me there's the contrast here is you know there is Roosevelt and there's Mark Twain and Roosevelt and of course Mark Twain is hailed but not as a political dissident not as an anti-war person he's hailed as a writer of great novels but no Theodore Roosevelt it is I his over rating is is to me a great mis-education because it it educates Americans to believe that military heroism is the wonderful thing to admire now as far as this person's question about are there any politicians that that I'm happy with very hard to find them I mean they're they're sure there are I mean I mean take today in Congress very few congressmen have had the courage or the wisdom or both to speak out against the so-called war on terrorism and to point out you know that it's it's a war against people the war we've waged in Afghanistan has resulted in the deaths of many hundreds maybe thousands of Afghans without having any effect on terrorism despite what the administration was well you might say not despite what the administration says but a matter of fact in light of what the administration says because Bush in the State of the Union address said and this is after eight months of bombing Afghanistan there are tens of thousands of trained terrorists all around the world a dozen countries or more so obviously the killing of those that wore on Afghanistan you know you know know you know did not solve you know the problem just so the few people in Congress was spoken out against I think a barbara Lee of California who is the sole dissenting vote in the Reza Ellucian that gave Bush's Ken a congresswoman from Georgia who is virtually alone and here I fault the black Congressional Caucus you know I I had hoped that the black Congressional Caucus which after all has this legacy of of struggle for equality and struggle for the nonviolent movement in the south had the legacy of Martin Luther King who spoke out against the war in Vietnam I was hoping at the Congressional Black Caucus would speak out in a strong voice against the so-called war on terrorism which is a war on people and by the war war by the way a war on people of color although we generally are you know are willing to wage war against people of any color but Cynthia McKinney barbara Lee very very few people in political life but they least few people speak out ought to be admire just as in the 1920s Fiorello LaGuardia was a sole member of Congress to speak out against the for instance the sending of Marines to Nicaragua in 1926 1927 when did this book come out that was my first book LaGuardia and Congress it came out in 1959 it actually was a based on my doctoral dissertation at Columbia University and he served in Congress from when till when he served in Congress well roughly through the 1920s and until 1930 well until 1933 when ironically when he was a Republican and and when the Democrat the Democratic sweep that brought Roosevelt into the White House and Republicans out knocked LaGuardia out of Congress even though he was the most radical member of Congress hardly a Republican million in his spirit although he ran on the Republican Party he was also a socialist at one one time he ran on both Republican and socialist tickets we talked Annette it is next good afternoon thank you so much this is a real pleasure I have a couple of questions one I was it it occurred to me as you were talking about objectivity I was wondering whether or not you could make a recommendation for for reading about the beginning of the Cold War and I'm especially talking about the the Kenan document so that really interesting as my daughter was looking up information about that period of history we grabbed several of your books because she was interested in your perspective but she was unable to find anything and so we're hoping that you might be able to supply some recommendations this afternoon I'd also like to see if you could give a little information or give your perspective perhaps a comparison between the coup in Guatemala which was driven by interest in the holdings down in Guatemala as and the what is going on in the Middle East right now which may also have a lot to do with some of the interest in financial interests whether it's Enron today or the United Fruit Company backfin well thank you for those two very important you know questions you know first he talked about I guess sources of information on the origins of the Cold War the writings have known Chomsky are very useful on that and he's you know he's he's written of course a bunch of things and and I would certainly you know read his book looked at he and had her Manufacturing consent I would also read his book necessary allusions and I've also read his book a year 501 he has a lot to say about the Cold War I I would also I suppose I would turn to me Marilyn young who teaches history at New York University and who in fact is in charge of a project involving a number of historians who are doing research and doing writing about the origins of the Cold War and about the the Cold War itself that's you know you might get in touch with her and Marilyn young Department of History at New York University and I think she could give you a lot of information a lot of sources how can people get in touch with you well I have an email address h ZN @ b u dot e-d-u this i know i didn't get to this person's question about guatemala and interest so i'll say something briefly about that but you know and and you know very often if you if you point to economic interest but behind american foreign policy there the sort of expressions of shock what you know our foreign policy motivated by economic interest but of course it's been true for a very long time and that's what imperialism is about imperialism has always been about economic interest and expansion and you know and when we when we went into queue in 1898 it was there you know there was economic interest there the corporations and the railroads and banks moving it to cuba to replace the spaniards and and when we went to the Philippines and took the Philippines economic interest was involved that the Philippines was seen as a gateway to the great markets of Asia the Vietnam was although was presented as a war for liberty and democracy behind Vietnam you know cutting to the memos passed among the you know secret memos passed and by the National Security Council Department of State they didn't talk about freedom and democracy they talked about ten rubber into oil so and today in Afghanistan below Afghanistan itself is not a source of raw materials Afghanistan is at the heart of the of the oil-producing region in in the Middle East and the oil from the Caspian Sea of natural gas from that area and I have no doubt that the war that we waged against Iraq in 1991 was a war basically about oil and certainly we didn't go to war in 1991 because President Bush that is the elder Bush was was just heartbroken over the invasion of Kuwait as you know as if Bush was ever heartbroken about the invasion of any other place after Bush himself invaded Panama and so wasn't invasion itself that did it there was oil oil has always been at the center of our policy in the Middle East our guest most recent book terrorism than war which is about a hundred and fifty five pages we'll get a call from Phoenix Arizona and show you some of the other works of our guests including his latest a play on Emma Goldman go ahead caller hi professors in yes I have noticed that you haven't been criticizing anybody but Republicans I am a Republican that's not the point of my call i I can to be a champion of the downtrodden and oppressed and the little guy and I noticed that you are too I'm wondering what did you add the cake back in the 60s and 70s in reference to the policies of they were instituted by the US government on welfare and HUD Oh will you suggesting that I was only criticizing Republicans well we've heard that but oh no only I noticed that in the 60s and 70s the policies referencing welfare and Housing and Urban Development which were instituted by Kennedys and he and Johnson and Nixon those are all failed policies I'm wondering what did you advocate back then yeah well let me let me put it this way I vote I've always been a very very strong critic of the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party and I think I made the point earlier in this program that there's not a significant difference between the Democratic and Republican parties and in the 60s when I was protesting against the war in Vietnam I was protesting against the policies of Kennedy and Johnson as well as later against the policies of Nixon when I was in the South and involved with snick the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was it was writing and participating in the movement in Alabama and Mississippi and and Georgia and so on I was criticizing the policies of the Kennedy administration and the Johnston administration Democrats who were looking the other way when the the southern governments and southern police were arresting and beating and killing people in the South who were involved in a struggle for equal rights oh no I in the in the 60s I was as I say a strong critic of the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party next to call from Studs Terkel 's hometown of Chicago go ahead please okay sir do you believe that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to keep and bear arms both to defend themselves from violent criminals and from the government if necessary well you know the Second Amendment which talks about the right to bear arms I'm not sure that the Second Amendment was intended to carry over into a time like the present when these very high velocity very dangerous weapons not just used for hunting and not just used for self-defense are circulating in this country to huge numbers of people and I mean from my point of view the question is not how you interpret the Second Amendment because I've never believed that that you decide what is right by what is written and the laws of the Constitution the most important thing is what you think morally is right and and I really don't like the idea of guns in the hands of so many people in this country after all this country has one of the worst records in the world in terms of violent crimes and you compare the murders and violent crimes of violence committed in this country against crimes of violence committed in other countries and and it's shocking and in these other countries that have less violent crimes that countries do not have so many guns dispersed among their population so I don't like the idea of policemen having guns either frankly I think you know I think policemen who are armed with all of these weaponry have a tendency then to use them more readily in fact it's generally true of weaponry whether in the hands of individuals or police or governments it's like our government it has all this weaponry and wants to use it and no I think we ought to move towards disarmament disarmament of the population assignment of the police disarmament of governance not just the Iraqi government which certainly should be disarmed that our government which should be disarmed and other governments is that realistic though no it's not realistic not in the short run but I think it's something to keep in mind there are a lot of things that are not realistic in that they're not going to be attained very quickly but they're good ideals to work for because they throw light on current policies Cheyenne Wyoming is next with Howard Zinn yes sir well what do you think of for buying Jaguar and they were buying Chrysler and I think Ford also what Volvo do you think that's good a bass of a country well you know I what you're talking about is all these mergers and and the creation of larger and larger and larger corporate entities now it's not good it's certainly not good for the country the more concentration of wealth the more concentration of power there is the more powerless is the consumer who has to deal with with corporations of overwhelming power I mean an example of this is is the media where we used to have a lot more independent media than we have now with a lot more independent newspapers more possibilities in television now you have a few giant companies controlling our major television stations our major newspapers this is not good for democracy another email how successful was the civil rights movement no this is a question that is debated every time civil rights workers from the 60s get together and have a reunion and talk about the movement that we were all involved in and I've been at a number of these reunions that issue always comes up and the reason it comes up is that there's no clear-cut answer to it the reason there's no clear-cut answer to it is that it's obvious that racism still exists but segregation still exists that the you know that the poor of the country and the homeless of the country and the people in the jails in this country a disproportionately black and and also Hispanic and and so if you take that as a measure of success of the civil rights no make you would conclude no civil rights but didn't accomplish anything because look what we still have but you can also look at the fact that the has been changed in this country as a result of a civil rights movement legal segregation did end in a South there are more black people in offices of power and South there are more black people who have some opportunity to do something in the south there are more black people and professions there are more you know or more black kids going to college and so on they're more than that even though those things you know have to be measured against what I was just talking about the persistence of racism in this country I think what is more important is that the civil rights movement craves the spirit of resistance the spirit of the civil rights movement was an example to any present or future movement it suggested that you could get together and overcome enormous odds and even if you didn't completely solve a problem obviously the problems racism has not been solved even if you didn't completely solve a problem you could change the consciousness of a nation excuse me which I think happened in the 60s as a result of the movement the first Sunday of every month we spent three hours with leading American authors today our guest is Howard Zinn and you can get further scheduled information by logging on to c-span org or book TV org either for our websites Washington DC good afternoon good day gentlemen Thank You mr. Zinn for your work and I hope more people read your books he's done a great job there's lots of things I think to comment on like a better definition of socialism would be pooling resources to get a lowest cost for services by using the largest leverage with a public court system for redress of grievances water supplies libraries fire departments these are all socialist systems socialism communism capitalism parts of all economic systems and Einstein said the individual has the most freedom under socialism just as Europe does now Canada and Australia are all socialist systems and capitalism exists in these in these places here we have a medical system that you pay ten times more than a socialist system like Canada has with would cost and why because the insurance companies insure the hospitals that have to give out free medicine and there's ten times the cost these people are eventually sick then I'd like CEOs the corporation's getting the testing yearly like an annual checkup that keeps cost ten times less they end up in emergency where those words you know tremendous costs your insurance companies get the tax dollars and it's very profitable for them this is why they fight against a better system well they call it makes a very interesting point an important point that here in the so-called capitalist society we have little pockets of socialism we don't want to call socialism because we call them socialism people say hey that's good you know that is you know they're the educational system where you know the money for the education system comes out of the general taxes their public institutions the fire the fire departments the police departments the sanitation departments the things that are done by the government and and that paid for out of the public treasury we could do the same thing with health care we could do the same thing with housing by the way congressmen and Senators are the beneficiaries of socialists of socialism socialized medicine they they have free medical care they have what they will not give to the rest of the country they taken care of no problems with insurance companies with forms and so on and by the way the Army has socialized medicine and when I was when I got sick with pneumonia when I was in the Air Force and in training and Santa Ana California yeah when I got the money i I you know I was treated didn't got the best possible treatment there was I didn't have to think about paying for it people in the in the military don't have to think about paying for it they they're taken care of that is socialized medicine so you know we are the in a very thought-provoking point where does the names income from where your forefathers problem will oh let's see well my the names in my father came from the austro-hungarian Empire probably the polish part of it then seems to be a German name that is most of the sins that I've run into come from their ancestors come from Germany I mean some people when they see my name they think it was it's been shortened from something but no it was Zim bins in as long as we can trace back and so my parents were Jewish immigrants my father from as I say from the austro-hungarian Empire and my mother came from Asiatic Russia from Siberia York whisk but I I remember getting a letter from somebody who offered to take me on a tour of castles in Germany that belonged to the Zin clan in Germany thinking that you know my my forefathers must have been very wealthy what was your first teaching job my first teaching job was at Uppsala College in East Orange New Jersey was a sort of part-time teaching job while I was still a graduate student at Columbia but my first real teaching job was at Spelman College in Atlanta where I thought for seven years and which was a wonderful educational experience for me I think my I learned more from those seven years teaching black women that Spelman and living with my wife and kids in a black community and becoming involved in a movement I learned certainly more during those seven years than my students learned from me I had some wonderful students this email from a viewer in Jersey City New Jersey wants to know our today's youth less informed and less interested in these issues than their predecessors today's young people well I I'm afraid that might be true for a very large number of young people simply because the main source of information for young people seems to be television and television is terribly miss educational and then and terrorism gives young people a huge dose of trivia violence and the words of our national leaders and they're there excuses for whatever they're doing in the world so there's a huge amount of infant misinformation that gets down to our young people on the other hand there is also there are also exists in society and so that makes the answer the question more complex so also exists today more sources of information more books you know more MORE when I first wrote people's history but there weren't a lot of books that I would call people's history books there were enough for me to use for instance as sources but today there are many many more books on women's history and black history Native American history and gay and lesbian has to be much more literature like that available so you have these two things going side by side more control in general and yet you know more dissident voices when and under what circumstances did you leave Spelman College well I let Spelman College in 1963 I'm smiling because it's always fun to be fired I didn't think so at the time but yeah I when you're sent under what circumstances I have to tell you the truth I was fired in my in my memoir you can't be neutral on a moving train I have a chapter which is entitled I think it's not terrible to be fired and I was fired from the spellman because will the president of Spelman College began to see me as a troublemaker maybe I was but he probably exaggerated the degree to which I was a troublemaker his students were rebelling first they were rebelling against segregation in the city and then after they you might say they came out of jail for protesting racial segregation they protested against the conditions of Spelman College in which they were treated very very ignominiously they were treated a very patronizing lay there their lives were controlled and movements were controlled and and so they were bailed against the kind of feudal system that existed in this southern black woman's college and I supported them in that and when I supported them that the president I suppose began to think that no I was instigating them but of course you know it's very rare that faculty instigate student revolts it's the students who revolt and then if their faculty who support them the faculty goes along really that's a situation that I was in Seattle Washington for Howard Zinn I mister then my question is this I'm going to be going to law school next year now I guess I just want to know what someone the legal profession can do to further a more socially just society a more socialist society simply a more fair society Thanks where're you going to school color yeah we're gonna go to law school well well good question because a there are a lot of a lot of young people who are interested in social change of strong views on the world and and yet and who want to go to law school and wonder if one can be useful for the other I guess the first point I would make is something you probably know and that is law schools are dangerous places for people with social conscience 'as you know the law school does its best to to draw you into the world of contracts and torts and corporation law in the real estate law and insurance law and does its best to get you a job with a big law firm you know that will that will work on making money so law schools you know can be dangerous that way so it means that anybody with social conscience doesn't mean you shouldn't go to law school that means you you should be wary and and it and you should enter law school with a very strong sense of self and a very strong sense of your own political convictions so you can withstand the pressures of law school but once once you understand that what lawyers can do do I think a lot when I was contemplating as I was going to college under the GI Bill when I was contemplating what I would do with this education I didn't know it I would be a teacher or a lawyer then one of my heroes was Clarence Darrow who you know defended all although these labor leaders and and radicals and dissenters and and I thought of law all right I didn't realize how isolated Clarence Darrow was how fued Clarence Darrow is their work but there are lawyers who do marvelous things on behalf of civil rights on behalf of equality lawyers who defend prisoners who defend the people who are who are falsely or sometimes even truly accused of crimes lawyers who defend radicals who are going to be made victims of the system and we have wonderful wonderful examples of that our next call comes to us from Dearborn Michigan hello professor hello you become one of my heroes this afternoon could you tell me professor how you feel we can get a just and comprehensive peace in Palestine I'd like to hear your comments and and I'll go right back to my television to listen well adjust peace in Palestine well one thing is one thing is clear then probably you know it's so obvious I shouldn't have to say it and that is you know terrorism exists on both sides you know sure and they're they're the suicide bombers on the one hand and that is the terrorism of the Israeli government on the other hand a terrorism which existed even before the suicide bombers because the terrorism comes in part from overt violence and and part from simply a ruthless control of several million Palestinians living in countries that were taken by Israel in the war of 1967 and the solution of the fundamental solution has to be Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and and it has to be total it can't be you know hinged around and compromise with oh we'll we'll give them this percentage of their own land or that but no Israel has to get out of the land that that Israel does not belong in because that is Palestinian land sure Jewish settlers moved in the other Israeli government moved settlers in there to try to try to give them as strong and strong a hold but those settlers are still a minority enough settlers will just have to leave as as was done before when when Israel came to a settlement with Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula Jewish settlers there and Israel is a piece that has been at peace with Egypt of all these years but one of the conditions for return of the Sinai Peninsula the Jewish settlers had to leave so the the grounds for a settlement are very clear Israel just has to get out and how is this going to be achieved well it's not going to be cheated by the violence on either side although I believe in nonviolent resistance on the part of the Palestinians and and the United States certainly isn't helping you know and when Bush sees Sharon of course Sharon is a kind of you know it might say a carbon copy on a smaller scale of Bush himself believing that violence solves problems you know the Bush administration and generally American administrations have given their support to Israel in its occupation of Palestinian land this the so the the solution is not going to come from the United States it's going to have to come from the international community it has to come from the United Nations and and it will have to come by imposing on Israel the necessity the absolute necessity of getting out of these occupied territories I mean we went to war against Iraq so the Iraq could get out of Kuwait now and if you know and here's a similar principle involved and I'm not suggesting we've got a war over this but I'm suggesting you know that this is that kind of a wrong Howard Zinn and his wife live in the Boston suburb of Ashburn Ville about 20 minutes all burned down Auburn yeah 20 minutes west of Boston will show you the study where Howard Zinn does most of his work as we get a call from Las Vegas good afternoon hello I listen sir I have to say that I think the majority of the stuff you're saying is totally ridiculous I mean number one you said that most of the wars are fought by blacks which is totally asinine World War one in World War two were fought by whites the majority in the Iraqi war I didn't see one black fighter product that was that was shot down and another let me say this too in this country what made this country great was its technological advances okay now I've always heard this story about you know one of the blacks and Hispanics going to get their pure fair share of the American Dream well they'll get it when they do their fair share of the scientific invention the scientific discoveries they don't do anything why does it always take a white guy to make something then he has to invest his own money in the corporation to make the corporation strong then when it finally does get strong you know you people like you come and say hey give them their fare Cerebus come to you they're not doing anything in this country there's no great inventors and let me ask you this how come you college professors and you Dean's you always get up there and you're like white male cycle fences are willing to patronize everybody in order to be popular why don't you guys stand up and say you know what I'm gonna resign from my job and give it to a black man how come he didn't resign from your job and give it to a black pen after so much for diversity well that's a that's a nice barrage and a personal on this question of black people fighting in wars I mean it's sure it's it's it's true that you know in you know in world war one world war two you know you didn't see black soldiers playing a major role well because black soldiers were kept in the background black soldiers were segregated and they lacked soldiers were not you know allowed to hold important posts and black soldiers were still segregated when we made war in the Philippines but black soldiers were an important part of the Occupational force in the Philippines when I was talking about black soldiers bearing the brunt of our laws I was I was thinking about recent Wars and I was thinking about the fact that in Vietnam a disproportionate number of the people who served in Vietnam and disproportionate number of the casualties in Vietnam were black people people of color now it's not a matter of black versus white because white people died - and and and when I talk about black people being oppressed in this country white people are oppressed - but there's no question that the oppression of black people has been greater and you talk about you know what a black people contribute you know sort of I get in your question that is there some notion that black people are in naturally inferior to white people I mean this is kind of the kind of statement you know that we thought we would put to rest when we when Hitler disappeared for the scene but obviously the notion has not been put to rest you know it's still it's still there I mean black people have not been given the opportunities to develop the you know the kind of skills and scientific training that whites people white people have been given they came out of slavery and then they were segregated for a hundred years they have been kept in the poorest part of the population they've always been discriminated against in jobs and still are today and then you ask you know why can't they do it whites do and but in fact you know most most whites do not fit the image you give of people who you know they're the loose technological and scientific leaders of society the most White's like blacks have been working people they've been well not enslaved they you know they you know have been the slaves of industry and so you know I believe that blacks and whites together must must work to make this a more just world Vienna Virginia yeah good afternoon first of all I wanted to thank professors in for being such a wonderful person and clear-sighted thinker he Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader are in my pantheon of leaders voices of reason who unfortunately don't get much publicity now I am an activist I'm active in the anti corporate globalization movement and I appreciate professors in professors ins urging of people to become more socially active that is indeed the only way that we will have a better world I also educated myself by being an activist I actually originally worked for the Clinton campaign back in 1992 and have become more and more radicalized the more things that I've seen my question for professors in regards is comment about the way the United States controls economic policies of of foreign countries we have a protest coming up on September 28 here in Washington against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and there is a controversy within the movement which I characterize as the Guardians versus the gave Ahrens that is people who favor tactics of Gandhi versus people who favor the tactics of Che Guevara who I suppose you could say was in favor of armed insurrection so I which end of the spectrum do you come down on caller my experience has been that I continue to support the Gandhi and point of view but I I will admit that in several debates with people that I have been persuaded for one moment or another that the gave are and would be the way to go I'll stop you there thank you for the call Howard Zinn well Gandhi versus Che Guevara that's an interesting juxtaposition but on struggle in the United States and and thinking about economic justice thinking about the environmental knew been thinking about the IMF and the World Bank and and what you know American control of of those institutions that have done to to hurt people in other countries thinking of the struggles in Seattle the great demonstrations in Seattle Philadelphia Washington these were not armed struggles but they were militant in a sense that people took to the streets and and and you know and and people blockaded people did what was done in the civil rights movement of course the newspapers as politicians as usual focused on the few people who broke windows and did stuff like that but you know I I'm not gonna choose between Gandhi and and Che Guevara except that I don't believe in armed struggle I don't believe in passivity if if it's suggested that Gandhi believed in passivity and he didn't really of course because Gandhi Gandhi led struggles in India which involved mass demonstrations confronting the police struggles which often led to violence although Gandhi did not believe in the violence I prefer to sort of characterize in my position on how to rebel how to achieve social change as a belief in nonviolent direct action which was the expression used by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee expression used in the South by the movement expression used by Martin Luther King and nonviolent direct action is not passivity nonviolent direct action means that you don't initiate violence but it's not a good idea it's not pragmatic and it's probably hurtful and it's probably morally wrong people get hurt wrongly and and probably you just brings down the enormous power of the state against you and maybe lead to crushing of movement so it's neither pragmatic nor moral but certainly the answer is not passivity the answer is action demonstrative action protest boycotts strikes even sabotage there's you know you have nothing actually I don't have anything against what sometimes is characterized as violence which is against things that is against property against you know offense or a door or a railroad track or whatever you know a war machine a nuclear plant that makes nuclear weapons I mean we have many you know people in recent years the plowshares eight and the other people who have gone into just plants manufacturing parts of nuclear weapons and and sort of done symbolic like smashing of little things here in there so are you advocating that as a form of symbolism or as some massive destruction of property mmm same massive dismiss if you go in and destroy train tracks or destroy ability or break a window well I think there are times that well you know simply for people who demonstrate and go down the street breaking windows I'm not in favor of that of course it's that's always presented is a much more serious thing than the violence that you know that authorities do but I'm not in favor of that but you know if you you know ask sure there times you know for instance during the Vietnam War when you know people might would go into draft boards and destroy draft records they may break into a building you know and destroy draft records which is even might say an act of violence not a violence against human beings but in an act of protest against the war and and in recent years you know they're like the plowshares eight and those people like that who have gone into places that manufacture weaponry and done little acts of you know of damage to express their protest against the military machine I think that's justified and good I don't believe in violence against human beings tucson arizona hello professor Zhen yes I am ashamed to say I haven't read of any of your books but this will change very soon I have a story from my high school days back in Egypt where I grew up about my history teacher that I thought might be advice to to contribute I used to hate history my strength was in math and in foreign languages but one day we had this new history teacher who came and he was supposed to teach his modern Egyptian history he started talking about the royal family and great contributions they have done and then suddenly stopped and said you really want me to repeat it was in the book what you want to hear the real history we said we'd like to hear the real history he said close the door and come up front so I don't have to speak too loudly and then here Eddie told us about the how they were training the country's economy how they got the country in debt what it was ended up being colonial eyes oh yeah by England sorry my voice is revering over and I cannot forget that that man put himself in great danger just to give us an honest assessment of what it was really like I'll stop Thank You caller yeah well that's that that's a very interesting story and it's instructive because you know yeah that's what a real teacher is a real teacher or somebody who puts aside two traditional texts and tells it like it is and talks about what's going on and what really is going on and gives students you know an alternative and exciting and vibrant history which might motivate them to act Valdosta Georgia good afternoon hi professors in it's a real thrill to be able to talk to you I've been teaching here at Valdosta State for the last 14 years we needs have been using been teaching history and in my survey texts I've used the people's history ever ever since I've been teaching I had a two-part question for you well actually two different questions one had to do with the influence of your parents were they politically aware or class-conscious at all and the second had to do kind of a self-serving question since I'm one of the authors in the people's history series but just wanted to know what the what the status of the series was right now how many books do we have forthcoming and and what are we looking for in that what that sounds suspiciously like a professor David Williams and of Valdosta Georgia yeah Valdosta State University and answer to your first question is no my parents who are not political people at all they've just you know workers the factory workers a father moved up from being a factory worker to being a waiter and a pushcart peddlers this and that a window cleaner and no they they had they were not very well educated you know my father had a fourth-grade education my mother had a seventh grade education they they and so no there were no books in the house in fact really although when they saw me starting to read books they and they encouraged me and even bought books for me books which they had no idea what the books were about but they thought a book is a book and and so no I guess the extent of their political interest was the fact that they they thought that Roosevelt was a good man because he was helping the poor that was it but no I didn't get any of my radical ideas from them as the status of this series we are doing the the new press which is an independent publishing out in New York is doing a series of people's histories of well and is well we've just started really so we we have already a people's history of the American Revolution by Ray Raphael a quite wonderful book a book about the American Revolution different from any book on the American Revolution you have ever read and we are planning an you know number of other books which look at parts of American history and even world history from a people's point of view and Professor David Williams the caller is in fact we've contracted with him to do a people's history of the Civil War which is an exciting prospect because of the Civil War so often presented to us you know from the top down you know the battles they were fought and grant and Lee and and Lincoln than the Confederacy and and and it's time we had a view of the Civil War and David Williams I believe is going to give us that a view of the Civil War from the bottom up from the ordinary people of the south and the north and I mean that's as far as we've gotten in a series we're waiting for more more possible people's histories of this and that and you begin this book with a different perspective of Christopher Columbus than many may have learned in grade school or high school why so different well I must confess that when I first started to write this book people's history you know I guess I wrote it in the late seventies and came out 1980-81 I knew very little about Christopher Columbus I knew what all of us learned in grammar school and you know the Christopher Lum has discovered America and the Nina and the Pinta the Santa Maria and etc etc and you know great adventure a great navigator it says and so on but then when I knew that I was writing a different kind of history I knew that I was going to write history from not from the point of view of the important people the conquerors but from the point of view of the victims and and the resistors and so I began to look who are the victims of Columbus who are the resistors and then I came across the writings of Bartolome de las casas the Spanish priests - who wrote multi-volume history of what the Spaniards Columbus and the others did in the Indies and it was shocking what they did to the these very peaceful Indians the Indians who greeted Columbus when he came to the Bahamas they know they greeted him peacefully and he but he came with the sword he came with these dogs this ferocious attack dogs he came with firearms and and he he was in search of gold it wasn't simply a scientific navigator adventure you know he was he was a greedy man and greedy for his finance ears back in Spain and and in search of gold he kidnapped indiana's he enslaved them he mutilated them he killed them and so I I decided no that's the story I must tell Houston Texas you're on the air with Howard Zinn thank you hello and I would just like to hear your on how our presidential campaign should be financed in this country and also I was wondering if you see any connection between the way our political leaders are financed and what happened on September 11th because I see a direct connection oh well I'd like to know from you what is the connection you see well let me ask you about how look is it the color hung up how campaigns should be financed oh well I suppose the basic principle of financing is that it should be public financing and that private financing it shouldn't be candidates get financed according to you know how much money they can raise from corporations candidates should have equal access to television should have equal access to newspapers in other words the citizens of the country should be given the Democratic opportunity to view the the issues and the ideas of not just the two major candidates but of all the candidates so ya funding should be public it should be democratic and it should be removed from from corporate control can you draw any connection between September 11th and campaigns in this country how they're financed or the candidates themselves well I can draw a connection between certainly between Bush as president and and and corporate financing since you know but that wouldn't tell you a lot because Gore his opponent was also financed to a great extent by corporations you know and what's the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats the Republicans hold dinners in which you know you have to pay four hundred thousand dollars to get the attention of the President and Democrats well you only have to pay three hundred thousand dollars but the Bush bushes is the president of the corporations and gore also and Lieberman also the president of corporations so I mean what that connection is with September 11th you know I don't know unless you want to say and I suppose it's possible to say that you know terrorism has its roots in American foreign policy and American foreign policy has American foreign policy has its roots in the extension of American corporate power around the world you touched on this earlier but Matt Damon's name continues to come up on this program I've heard rumors for years that you have been working on a Fox miniseries based on a people's history with Matt Damon any truth some truth that is we started out Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and I and Chris Moore a fourth person us we started out contracted with Fox television to do a series of television movies based on episodes from our peoples history Fox dropped out of the project after a couple of years and now HBO has taken it on and right now we Matt Damon Ben Affleck Chris Moore I are working with HBO and the first scripts are being written first script in fact is on Columbus and las casas by the Scottish writer Paul Laverty that that script is being written and then another script on the American Revolution different take on the American Revolution by Paul Lussier that script is being there so we have two scripts being written if these scripts well if HBO likes these scripts then they will make movies of them and then turn two more episodes from the book but it's a very long what I've discovered in my short history with Hollywood is that it's it's a long drawn-out process you have to be very patient and you can't have too many illusions so if somebody asked me what are the chances of this happening I don't know Rupert Idaho you're next good afternoon hello hello my main question is if you're familiar with Hawaiian sovereignty and what your perspective is and then I'm curious when you're talking about the media what you think about c-span and what you feel like it does really well and what you might like to see done more oh oh thank you Hawaii well you know I can't say I'm an expert on Hawaii but I know there's been a movement by the indigenous people of Hawaii who've been overwhelmed by by you know by other people coming in and certainly overwhelmed by you know American politics and and and American economic influence and the American military taking over large parts of Hawaii I mean so much of you know the land and beautiful land of Hawaii you know been taken over by real estate developers and hotels and so on so I know there's a movement by the indigenous people of Hawaii you know to get recognition and to try to stop this this corporate and military control of this this beautiful group of islands so you know that's that's how much I know about what's going on in in Hawaii you probably obviously know a lot more about it you should be on this program answering that question but then you us to another question what was she asked about c-span oh you asked about c-span oh yes ma'am but this program is too modest to raise the question of c-span well c-span and I'm not always - gets it I'll be always able to get c-span fact for a long time I wasn't able to get c-span but for a long time my wife and I didn't get cable at all and then we realized that no there are things on cable that you can't get on the regular networks and c-span is certainly one of them the good things about c-span that I've seen on c-span will cover events that aren't covered by the major media and cover them totally you know they'll just plant a camera there while while people are having a a conference or a meeting and they'll just stick with it and you know they won't give you sound bites and three minutes and and then cut away to something else you know no commercials no none of that so a c-span and and I know I don't know what proportion of time because I haven't seen enough I don't know what proportion of times to spend the votes to what I would call people's history there's the things that people do as opposed to the things that let's say the politicians do whether Business Corporations do but I know I've seen some very good things that c-span is covered and of course books c-span well how can somebody who writes books say anything but favorable things about books c-span I mean Here I am talking about books even my books for this length of time and no only c-span would do it so how many are still in print by the way how many are still in print of these books I swear I don't know maybe four or five six seven eight I didn't I don't know but I can say this that the ones that are out of print and what's the out of print are the oldest ones like snick and the book disobedience and democracy and my book on LaGuardia and at the southern mystique the other print books are now being reprinted by South End press in Boston which is one of the you know these small independent publishers so those out of print books are available now as of now from South End press I me again just remind our audience a complete list of the books by Howard Zinn available at book TV org our next call is Miami Florida good afternoon yes hello I remember when you visited Florida State University when I was a student there and I just really like to thank you for your contribution as far as the perspective that you write history from a whole lot of people they have a fit from that are you teaching today no I'm not teaching I actually stopped teaching at Boston University you know 14 years ago so I'm not teaching except in a sense that I'm doing a lot of speaking public speaking going around the country speaking to community groups high schools colleges and so in a sense I'm I consider myself a freelance teacher our last call from Laguna Beach California yes mrs. I'd like to ask you a pretty direct simple question what precisely is your political ideology I assume it's leftist is it socialist anarchist Marxist combination where are you good they could all hang up a little well that's a tough one I hate to categorize myself you know it's too simply because it's so subject you know these things are so subject to interpretation you know if you say oh I'm he's a Marxist what does that mean so many people claimed a Marxist or socialists but I consider my the ideas of anarchism that is in the I read Emma Goldman read Kropotkin anarchism libertarianism tie Authority and which is for equality I like I like those ideas I like the ideas of socialism which go along the same lines but I certainly don't want any of these beliefs and Annika's of socialism to be read as a belief in in centralized control in fact that's anarchism does not believe in centralized control I believe in what I would call democratic socialism this viewer from the Queens is asking specifically about iron Rand's philosophy and how do you reconcile it with yours well I announced philosophy cannot easily be reconciled with in mind because she seems to believe in the kind of unbridled capitalism you know let's let the market decide let you know you know take the government out of regulating the economy and everything will be alright well we actually had that in the 19th century and things were not all right Howard Zinn what's next for you what's next for me ah I don't know I'm still you know involved still speaking trying to deal with I'm still writing for the progressive and other places and writing about what's going on now war in Iraq possibly and foreign policy domestic policy but personally no I'm interested in writing the screenplays and it was working on his television series I'm interested in writing a screenplay based on the the Ludlow massacre which I've been doing together with a to friends and writers from Britain Naomi Wallace and Brewster McCloud I've I'm interested in writing a screenplay based on the life of Emma Goldman so you know yeah I'm looking for sort of different ways to write about history more dramatic ways in ways that perhaps that are more fun for me to write about professor author lecturer columnist Howard Zinn we thank you for your time both thanks so much for having me here you've been watching in-depth with Howard Zinn if you missed any portion of the three-hour interview you can see this program again at 5 p.m. Eastern

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Keywords: howard, zinn, in, depth

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Length: 181min 21sec (10881 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 18 2012