Howard Zinn

The Tower is a tarot card which represents a change of the way things are, the way one perceives things and ones understanding how things work. Those who get this card in a reading maybe in for a sudden, cataclysmic change, a drastic upheaval to wake us up from ones zombie-like state. With Mars as its ruling planet, the Tower is a card about war, a war between the structures of lies and the lightning flash of truth. The Tower, and its destruction of it by the “truth” of the lightening, represents the "false concepts and institutions that we take for real." When we are so entrenched in one single way of life, or one inflexible way of thinking we sometimes need to get a little rattled to get out of our daze.

Howard Zinn died on January 28th and so many aspects of his persona exist in the Tower tarot card. He is like the lighting in the card, perceiving a different truth and during his life he has exposed the United States, its institutions and our preconceived notions in a different and unsettling light. As a radical thinker, he had many distractors but his contributions as a historian and his insights into 20th century history are highly revered and they will be vindicated as time goes on. His thoughts and ideas will stand up against his critics who uncritical and homogeneous view of historical events will not stand up to the ultimate litmus test of history, time and the historical perceptive that comes with it.

His life was defined by war, as a bombardier in WW II; he fought for our country, educated himself on the GI bill. His education created an opportunity to pursue a career in academia. He was a man who sought out the truth and he fought the injustice of Jim Crow laws, racism and segregation in the south where he was teaching, his protesting which lead to him losing his job as a University professor at Howard University in Atlanta, Georgia. Upon moving up to New England, he was part of the anti war movement. All these events defined him as a person and he wrote about these historical events as an academic and a participant.

Published in 1980 with little promotion and a first printing of 5,000, “A People’s History” was, fittingly, a people’s best-seller, attracting a wide audience through word of mouth and reaching 1 million sales in 2003. Although Professor Zinn was writing for a general readership, his book was taught in high schools and colleges throughout the country, and numerous companion editions were published, including “Voices of a People’s History,” a volume for young people and a graphic novel.

Zinn books and lectures had a recurring theme to them, his perception of “history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, and occasionally win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past’s fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare."

Though Zinn's radical, bottom-up approach cast aside the America-first tone of mainstream texts, it was still guided by a deep sense of commitment to what he saw as often-neglected American ideals. An example of this is his prose in A People’s History of the United States. This is a summary of the Seventies and it differs considerable from that of a main stream history book.

Chapter 20, "The Seventies: Under Control?", covers American disillusion with the government during the 1970s and political corruption that was exposed during the decade. Zinn argues that the resignation of Richard Nixon and the exposure of crimes committed by the CIA and FBI during the decade were done by the government in order to regain support for the government from the American people without making fundamental changes to the system.

While researching a history paper on the CIA involvement in the overthrow of Allende in Chile in 1973, Chapter 20 goes into International Telephone and Telegraph's involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état. Academia has gotten to embrace the truth in defining some not so pleasant aspects of its past straight on and this is because of mavericks like Howard Zinn. Eric Foner, praised Zinn's book in the New York Times as "a coherent new version of American history." From the 1960s onward, scholars, most of whom lean leftward, have patiently and empathetically illuminated such topics-and explained how progressive movements succeeded as well as why they fell short of their goals. Not only has Howard Zinn written about these times, he took part in the progressive movements of the sixties. "He's made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture," Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, said tonight. "He's changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can't think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect."

This note of thanks is what many kindred spirits probably thought when here of his death. He was a mentor to Matt Damon, who lives a life of activism and uses his celebrity status to endorse a number of causes that he is apparently very passionate about. I know I watched him speak at a college near where I live a couple of years ago and as a public speaker he is very inspirational. I have read A People’s History of the United States. I concur with Michael Moore endorsement of his works…

Thank you, Howard Zinn. Thank you for telling us what none of our leaders are willing to: The truth. And you tell it with such brilliance, such humanity. It is a personal honor to be able to say I am a better citizen because of you."
Michael Moore