Howard ZinnThinkers

Activism is effective. What history suggests to people is that even if they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper. Anything they do, however small, becomes part of a much, much larger sort of flow of energy. And when enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place.

America is of the belief that it is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.

Anarchism is a term wrongly associated with bomb-throwing and terrorism on the one hand, and disorder and chaos on the other.

Anarchism is grounded in the belief that nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization.

Anarchy is grounded in the principle that you cannot separate means and ends. It requires means and ends to be in line with one another.

Anarchy is guided by principles of direct action, by the refusal to go through the forms that the society offers you, of representative government, of voting, of legislation, but directly taking power.

Capitalism is a system that has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.

Censorship is dangerous. Banning is sometimes a short step to burning.

Control is, in modern times, such that it requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, (whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion) be taught in the schools, the churches, the popular literature that to be rich was a sign of superiority, to be poor a sign of personal failure, and that the only way upward for a poor person was to climb into the ranks of the rich by extraordinary effort and extraordinary luck.

Prison is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture.

Punishment is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions-- poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed-- which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished.