HOWARD ZINN 1922-2010

I have had a bumper sticker on the trunk of my car for the last couple of years that read 'Zinn/Chomsky: Your 2008 White House'.  I came up with it because I wanted to make the point that it is visionary intellectuals that need to move us ahead in this world--how great would things be if these guys were put in the legitimate roles of authority in the White House.

The lawyers and related prick-like characters that fill the halls of Washington right now are evil in that they are selling away the country for their silly and inconsequential self-interests and small things like that are wasting our time and money while a lot of things remain as bad as ever. 

That was the greatest truth Zinn brought to me--the realization that there are very few actual bad guys out there.  The major evil comes to pass when the people in power allow a particular group to get things done to help them make money, without really looking at or caring about the consequences for the people involved.  Being a Senator is so commonly a 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' situation these days, where the thing in question is 'the consequences of the pork they pass, or the bills they kill, etc)  That type of ambivalence or indifference is the ugliest evil.

Howard Zinn passed away from a heart attack in Santa Monica, CA on January 27th.  He was 87.
I cannot do justice to those 87 years, but I wanted to do my small part to propogate the rememberance and spread his word.