I did not know much history when I became a bombardier in the U.S. Air Force in World War II. Only after the War did I see that we, like the Nazis, had committed atrocities... Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, my own bombing missions. And when I studied history after the War, I learned from reading on my own, not from my university classes, about the history of U.S. expansion and imperialism.
Howard ZinnI believe the American people have the capacity to create a new movement, which would change the direction of our nation from being a military power to being a peaceful nation, using our enormous wealth for human needs, here and abroad.
Howard ZinnWhat most of us must be involved in--whether we teach or write, make films, write films, direct films, play music, act, whatever we do--has to not only make people feel good and inspired and at one with other people around them, but also has to educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world.
Howard ZinnThe meaning ... of a writer will be found not just in what he intends to say, or what he does literally say, but in the effect of his writing on living beings.
Howard ZinnWhere progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, itโs been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didnโt just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And thatโs what we have to do today.
Howard ZinnThe courtroom is one instance of the fact that while our society may be liberal and democratic in some large and vague sense, its moving parts, its smaller chambers--its classrooms, its workplaces, its corporate boardrooms, its jails, its military barracks--are flagrantly undemocratic, dominated by one commanding person or a tiny elite of power.
Howard Zinn