I heard Howard Zinn speak only twice: many years ago, when he spoke against the Vietnam War to a small beleagured group of students, and more recently, when he filled the Humboldt State University gym.
He's best known now of course as the author of A People's History of the United States. A few years ago, Deborah Mokma who edits and publishesSentient Times in Oregon, published a quote from Zinn I found intriguing. But when I checked with her, she didn't know where it was from--it was sent along to her without attribution.
So I looked through Zinn's books in the library until I found it, and the paragraphs that followed were just as profound. Now that I've heard about Zinn's death, I thought this expanded quote (from his 1994 book, You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train, Beacon Press, p.208) is a fitting epitaph, or at least a wonderful legacy. It follows after the jump.
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