“The power of [Howard] Zinn’s scholarship—which I have watched over the past few weeks open the eyes of young, mostly African-Americans to their own history and the structures that perpetuate misery for the poor and gluttony and privilege for the elite—explains why the FBI, which released its 423-page file on Zinn on July 30, saw him as a threat. Zinn, who died in January at the age of 87, did not advocate violence or support the overthrow of the government, something he told FBI interrogators on several occasions. He was rather an example of how genuine intellectual thought is always subversive. It always challenges prevailing assumptions as well as political and economic structures. It is based on a fierce moral autonomy and personal courage and it is uniformly branded by the power elite as “political.” Zinn was a threat not because he was a violent revolutionary or a communist but because he was fearless and told the truth.”
“Have you ever wondered why the Wall Street speculators who brought down the economy are still being rewarded with vast fortunes? Or why teachers, nurses, factory workers, truck drivers, and all the people who do real work are struggling to put food on the table? The pundits talk about a jobless recovery. But how can it be a recovery when jobs remain so scarce and pay so little? And why do so many people find that the harder they work, the more they owe the bank? Welcome to the phantom wealth economy—designed and managed by Wall Street bankers and corporations. They profit from packaging and selling worthless mortgages, manipulating share prices, and charging usurious interest rates. They thrive on financial bubbles, low wages, foreign sweatshops, tax evasion, and public subsidies. They overcharge us for medicines, tell us we can’t have essential medical treatment, pollute and pillage the environment, corrupt politicians, and get us ever deeper in debt.”
Joshua Tuscan spills some thoughts here and they collect in a pool. I live in Philadelphia, btw.
I once cried because I couldn't draw a tree the way I saw it in my head... Granted, it was kindergarten, but it was a defining moment. One of my lifelong goals has been to
ride a horse through a shallow lake, seriously, it's in my grade school journal. I lived in Barbados for a while where I almost lost my toe, which has stood as a metaphor in
my life for that time. I watch a lot of movies and sometimes I fear that it is cutting into my ability to learn foreign languages. Oh yeah, I like to write beautiful, validated code. (More/Less)