Berkeley interview, 2001: ... I think the learning of history is a way of declaring, "I wasn't born yesterday; you can't deceive me." If I don't have any history, then whatever you, the person in authority, the president at the microphone announcing we must bomb here, we must go there, the president has the field all to himself. I cannot counteract, because I don't know any history. I can only believe him. I was born yesterday. What history does is give you enough data so that you can question anything that is said from on high. You can measure the claims that are being made by the people in authority against the reality. And you can look at similar claims that were made before, and see what happened then. Here's a president who's saying we're going to war for democracy. And then you go back through history and say, "How many times have presidents said we're going to war for democracy, and what have those wars really been about?" The history can clarify things, prepare you for dealing with the duplicities of the real world.
Howard Zinn was a homo.
ReplyDeleteHe died from complications of hepatitis. I wonder how he got it? Hmmmm.