In passing, let me say that in a just, fair minded educational system, Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States” would be available for study in every High School History Curriculum.

Let’s hope that someone, of equal genius, will step up to replace him.

Fred, the ‘Zinn’ you speak of is timeless and
attainable by all.  It’s not a quality you inherit
passively from your parents.  So long as there are
any kind of sentient beings in the universe, truth
and integrity - unaltered by history - will await
their discovery and service. 

Zinn set sail for a true north in the universe, and
would want you to do the same, rather than feel that
a light has gone out.  He received his light from
something that cannot be extinguished; it was not
‘his’ so did not ‘go out’. 

Still, though I say all that in earnest - I do know
how you feel.

By drbhelthi, January 31 at 10:53 am

Why did you just start the nazi connection with poopy sr. when
great grandpoopy prescott was the original american nazi
connection?

And grandpoopy surely had to be protected to some extent by
ol butterball j.edgar since he never spent time for his crimes of
collaborating with the enemy.

I would not be surprised of a linage based in germany for the
whole sorry lot of the bushwackers.

In my experience, the choice for the US “presidency” in 2008 simply decided which “political party” would proceed with the Illuminazi-Neocon plan implemented by GHWBSr, while he directed the CIA in the 1960s. How a man with the background of Mr. Zinn could overlook the machine that has installed alleged “US presidents” since 1980, especially 2000 & 2004, and actually support a foreigner who does not provide a genuine birth certificate, evades my comprehension.

We should apply the wisdom of the derivative Mongolians who crossed the Aleutian chain 30,000 years ago, genuine owners of the alleged “american” continents: “what you do speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say”.  We discern that not only Mr. Hussein Obama is a shill for the highest bidder, but also several “US presidents” who preceded him.

It was a sad day in the history of the USofA when Allen Dulles hired NAZI SS General Gehlin to transform the OSS into the CIA, placing NAZI SS officers into key positions.  The list of CIA atrocities recently published by Congressman Dr. Ron Paul delineates the world-wide destruction accelerated by GHWBushSr, during his furtive reign in the CIA. The trillion dollars in “black hole” monies, in essence stolen from the US Treasury by the CIA without congressional approval, with assistance of Federal Reserve moguls, began the “snow-balling” deficit that now plagues the western world. Examplia gratia, 400 million passed out by CIA operatives in Summer 2009 to iranian locals while organizing the CIA uprising against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran.

I raise the question, was J. Edgar assassinated as a “payback” for revealing the letter written to him by GHWBushSr, which broke the cover of GHWBushSr?  Which letter attempted to sidetrack the murder investigation? Or did the NAZI leadership of the CIA simply want to replace J. Edgar with one of their own pimps, since they could not manipulate the strings of J. Edgar?

In my own fog, I forgot to say my condolences to Fred Branfman.

To antispin: It’s perfect for NPR to have David Horowitz speak about Howard Zinn.  It shows NPR as NPR is.  I loathe NPR. 

To PSmith: I read your comment.Thoughtful. All I want to say now is that there are good articles/essays popping up.  One is Paul Street’s on Znet, dated Jan.29, “The People’s Historian”. http://www.Zcommunications.org/znet

NPR brought in David Horowitz to condemn Zinn less than 24 hours after his passing.  Go to FAIR and register your outrage. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4009

I appreciate the author’s views and feelings, but poor Howard Zinn: even in death memorial article he’s paired with Noam Chomsky.  Zinn would appreciate the joke.  Zinn was wonderful.  See the article by his editor on The Progressive, Matthew Rothschild,too, which is linked on Zinn’s webpage
http://www.howardzinn.org.

I have a very hard time believing in men like Chomsky, who not only denied
the possibility that Sept 11th was rigged and false, but expressed scorn and
derision toward those who were sober and perceptive enough to consider the
fact, obvious to a child, that the buildings could not have fallen in the manner
they did without being detonated.  By quelling this kind of discussion, the basis of questioning the ensuing events of a decade and perhaps a century was suppressed wholesale.

Howard Zinn was a more humble and patient intellectual whose mind moved
along much more willingly than Chomsky, but still was an old-fashioned man
from an era of special privilege for everyone of his gender and race.  How many
women and Blacks were denied the opportunity to be the ‘conscience of the
people’ so that Zinn could receive that honor?  How many women and Blacks had the kind of insights and courage by the age of 20 that Zinn spent a lifetime piecing together?  Were either Zinn or Chomsky ever in any kind of
fair competition for accomplishment?  How many White men receive this kind of
accolade every year while the world somehow continues to lose bits of its
humanity and dignity in an ever increasing downward spiral.  Both men found
ways to become accepted and loved for whatever truth they brought to the
public.  Could a courageous outspoken Black man
live to even half their age without being murdered?  Could a woman say half
the things they did without losing her reputation to a series of outrageously
trivial and demeaning attacks? 

I say these men were and are ‘safe’ placeholders taking up room for far more
meaningful heros who will make their way to us out of the whole of the human race and not just a fraction of it, and might someday actually spearhead real change and not
just provide the comfortable idea of it.

When we saw them mercilessly, pitilessly, amorally, criminally, deceitfully and undemocratically murder millions of innocent civilians”
Gee, just like today, but instead of one war and one country we now have 4 or 5 countries that we are the killing machine, all justified by our leaders.
Alas, no Zinn to help lead the marches, no King to point out the immorality of Amerika. Just the Buffoons we elect to be our fearless leaders.

It’s is just a shame that someone like zinn has died, but won’t
we all, and that bill moyers will give up his pbs journal here
soon; but for long lasting evidence of a sort, and I am sure
neither of these two people, moyers or zinn, would they disapprove of any of Thomas Paine’s writings which very accurately and precisely defines what our and France’s revolutions created and the role of a republic of the people, for the people, by the people representation means versus the aristocracy representation of the oligarchy that controls our facade of a republic.

And damn it, the people still don’t care how subverted and
deconstructed our republic is as they sill live on BS msm crap.