Another forward received, that I want to keep channelling into the conversation: Howard Zinn's recent speech, “War and Social Justice”, featured last week on Democracy Now. (http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/2/placeholder_howard_zinn)
Zinn reminds us, in his easily accessible way, of a few of the basics of What It Is right now. Of why the American scene has the concerns that it does at hand. These are familiar statistics, but he gives them their place in the context of inequalities. A step back in perspective that we need a lot more often. For example:
- 40 million citizens of this country, who are doing their best to keep themselves economically stable, still don't have health insurance. Although 1 million members of the military have government-provided healthcare now, and it seems to work pretty well for them. (What blows me away about this statistic, every time I hear it, is that it's only 40 million.)
- 200 of the richest corporations pay no taxes. (I can barely stomach this one, even after hearing it so many times)
I like how he keeps it simple, with purpose. Not so much time wasted on inflammatories or abstracts. A few remarks from the speech that resonated, for me:
“Private enterprise is not going to create jobs.” (Yeah. That wouldn't be in its interest, would it? Hadn't thought of it that way...)
“The thing about war is the outcome is unpredictable. The immediate thing you do is predictable. The immediate thing you do is horrible...truth is, you never know what this is leading to...You know that the present is evil, and you’re asked to commit this evil for some possible future good.”
“We don't have to be a military superpower...We can be a humanitarian superpower.”
“We have an educational job to do about our relationship to government, you know...”
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