Why are Republicans Afraid of a Dead Man?

Matt Damon reading from Howard Zinn's speech: The Problem is Civil Obedience

To understand an itty-bitty bit why the R people would fear Dr. Howard Zinn*, please listen to Matt Damon read a portion of one of his speeches (above).

Here’s what one R person wants to see happen in Arkansas:

“Republican state Rep. Kim Hendren brought forth HB1834, a one-page bill that would halt the use of any book or other material authored by Zinn between the years of 1959 and 2010 in public schools and open-enrollment public charter schools. With these parameters, Zinn’s bestselling 1980 book, A People’s History of the United States, would be banned. The collection is a groundbreaking and controversial work that analyzed American history from the perspective of the poor and marginalized, or as Zinn put it, ‘the people who have been overlooked in the traditional history books.’”**

“’Democracy is in dissent,’ Zinn said in 2009. ‘Democracy is in resistance. Democracy doesn’t come from the top, it comes from the bottom.’”

“The bill targeting Zinn’s work is not unprecedented. In 2013, the Associated Press obtained a series of emails sent by former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), in which he attempted to remove the historian’s work from classrooms across the state. Daniels, who was in office from 2005 to 2013, is now the president of Purdue University.”

I fear the people who fear life-affirming words like those written by WWII Vet, Dr. Howard Zinn. Don’t you?

Howard Zinn on History: American Culture, Wealth, Democracy, Hate Crimes and Education (1999)

* Howard Zinn an American historian, playwright, and social activist, was a political science professor at Boston University. He wrote more than twenty books, including his best-selling: A People's History of the United States. Go here for more info.

** Arkansas Lawmaker Introduces Bill Banning Howard Zinn Books, Rebecca Shapiro, Huffington Post, 6 Mar 2017.