I did not feel proud of our country, seeing that we were bombing peasant villages, that we were not just hitting military targets, that children were being killed. We were terrorizing the North Vietnamese with our enormous Air Force. They had no Air Force at all. They were a little pitiful country and we were terrorizing them with our bombs. And no, I did not feel proud at all.
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 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 ZinnIn the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.
Howard ZinnWe've never had our injustices rectified from the top, from the president or Congress, or the Supreme Court, no matter what we learned in junior high school about how we have three branches of government, and we have checks and balances, and what a lovely system. No. The changes, important changes that we've had in history, have not come from those three branches of government. They have reacted to social movements.
Howard Zinn