12.14.2004

New Zinn: Historian Howard Zinn writes a post-election essay on how progressives must "Harness That Anger." An excerpt:
Freed from the sordid confines of our undemocratic political process, we can now turn all our energies to do what is discouraged by the voting system--to speak boldly and clearly about what must be done to turn our country around.

And let's not worry about offending that 22 percent of the country (we don't know the exact number but it is certainly a minority) who are religious and political fundamentalists, who invoke God in the service of mass murder and imperial conquest, who ignore the Biblical injunctions to love one's neighbor, to beat swords into plowshares, to care for the poor and downtrodden.

Most Americans do not want war.

Most want the wealth of this country to be used for human needs-health, work, schools, children, decent housing, a clean environment--rather than for billion dollar nuclear submarines and four billion dollar aircraft carriers.

They can be deflected from their most human beliefs by a barrage of government propaganda, dutifully repeated by television and talk radio and the major newspapers. But this is a temporary phenomenon, and as people begin to sense what is happening, their natural instinct for empathy with other human beings emerges.

No comments: