"Howard Zinn’s July 4 Wisdom Stands the Test of Time."

This was topical in 2015. 

“The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media--none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.”
-- Howard Zinn 1922-2010

Empathy is an appreciation of another's point of view, often defined as "standing in someone else's shoes."

The late Howard Zinn used empathy with considerable eloquence, as a starting point for harnessing the experiences of the oppressed to deconstruct mythology. In times of diversionary vitriol, it's important to remember that shoes come in different shapes and sizes.

People's History of the United States

... A People’s History is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of—and in the words of—America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles—the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.

July 4 offers an excellent annual opportunity to reconsider assumptions.

Howard Zinn’s July 4 Wisdom: Put Away Your Flags

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

But why restrict these reconsiderations to just one day a year?

Patriotism and the Fourth of July

... Mark Twain, having been called a "traitor" for criticizing the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, derided what he called "monarchical patriotism." He said: "The gospel of the monarchical patriotism is: 'The King can do no wrong.' We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: 'Our country, right or wrong!' We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had - the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it, all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism."

Howard Zinn on the 4th of July.

“The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media--none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty.”
-- Howard Zinn 1922-2010

Empathy is an appreciation of another's point of view, often defined as "standing in someone else's shoes."

The late Howard Zinn used empathy with considerable eloquence, as a starting point for harnessing the experiences of the oppressed to deconstruct mythology. In times of diversionary vitriol, it's important to remember that shoes come in different shapes and sizes.

People's History of the United States

... A People’s History is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of—and in the words of—America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles—the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.

July 4 offers an excellent annual opportunity to reconsider assumptions.

Howard Zinn’s July 4 Wisdom: Put Away Your Flags

On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

But why restrict these reconsiderations to just one day a year?

Patriotism and the Fourth of July

... Mark Twain, having been called a "traitor" for criticizing the U.S. invasion of the Philippines, derided what he called "monarchical patriotism." He said: "The gospel of the monarchical patriotism is: 'The King can do no wrong.' We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: 'Our country, right or wrong!' We have thrown away the most valuable asset we had - the individual's right to oppose both flag and country when he believed them to be in the wrong. We have thrown it away; and with it, all that was really respectable about that grotesque and laughable word, Patriotism."

A bit of Zinn to exacerbate the hangover.

With the birthday parties mostly concluded and the nationalism temporarily abated, permit me to note that I never really understood how one or the other God could be on “our side.” Maybe my irreligious upbringing caused me to miss something, although I doubt it.

It always seemed to me that if the concept of God were to have any meaning, it would be with the alleged “supreme being” as a neutral overseer, and not an active handicapper in grisly conflicts that fell outside the ordained rulebook to begin with.

With that as preface, permit me also to observe that I deeply appreciate Howard Zinn’s role as American gadfly even if I’m not in lockstep agreement with him at all times. His seminal work, “A People’s History of the United States”, occupies a prominent place on my bookshelf. As topical evidence of Zinn’s intent: Put away the flags, by Howard Zinn (2006).

Any explication of hypocrisy is worthwhile, but at the same time surely it’s redundant of Zinn to spotlight atrocities committed by American soldiers. All troops in all wars commit atrocities, because war itself is an atrocity, and should be undertaken not as whim, but as a last resort. It isn’t that the Bush neo-con cabal never understood this point. It’s that they did, and proceeded to purposely ignore it, and that’ why history’s judgment is going to be unrelentingly harsh.

I don’t regard Zinn’s perspective as gospel any more than I do the obscure musings of ancient desert dwellers, but he asks uncomfortable questions … and someone should be making such queries in any society that truly values freedom of speech.

And he signs his name, too. Does that make him ineligible for residence in New Albany?