By Howard Zinn 23/02/08

"The Progressive" -- March 2008 Issue --

There's a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) though I've never met him. He tells me the kinds of jobs he has held-security guard, repairman, etc. He has worked all kinds of shifts, night and day, to barely keep his family going. His letters to me have always been angry, railing against our capitalist system for its failure to assure "life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness" for working people.

Just today, a letter came. To my relief it was not handwritten because he is now using e-mail: "Well, I'm writing to you today because there is a wretched situation in this country that I cannot abide and must say something about. I am so enraged about this mortgage crisis. That the majority of Americans must live their lives in perpetual debt, and so many are sinking beneath the load, has me so steamed. Damn, that makes me so mad, I can't tell you. . . . I did a security guard job today that involved watching over a house that had been foreclosed on and was up for auction. They held an open house, and I was there to watch over the place during this event. There were three of the guards doing the same thing in three other homes in this same community. I was sitting there during the quiet moments and wondering about who those people were who had been evicted and where they were now. (more...)

On his Quest for wisdom our hero passes the abode of a yogi. The Master is lost in meditation and when he opens his eyes to the world again, Nasrudin inquires about the goal of the Master's efforts.

"I study every animal on the planet and hope to be able to communicate with them - one day..."

„Patriotism“ is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by „patriotism“ I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one‘s own nation, which is the concern with the nation‘s spiritual as much as with its material welfare-never with its power over other nations.

One day a fisherman was lying on a beautiful beach, with his fishing pole propped up in the sand and his solitary line cast out into the sparkling blue surf.

I believe that to meet the challenges of our times, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility.

The following is a partial list of religious memes that might plausibly have survival value in the meme pool, either because o

„We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame.

Religion . . . has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. What it means is, ‘Here is an idea or a notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not?

A guy falls off a cliff and and grabs onto a thin branch half way down.

TM:  The argument from scripture…?