The Problem is Still Civil Obedience

In 2012, Matt Damon helped pay tribute to the late historian and author Howard Zinn. This rendition of a speech Zinn gave in 1970 on civil disobedience is one of his most powerful performances to date. It is still true... The Problem is Still Civil Obedience.

“Back in the 60s and 70s Dr. Zinn was one of the few who understood... and he did his best to tell us... that what was happening to our black brothers and sisters would soon be happening to us, all of us, save the mega-super rich. Today we understand his message was a premonition about our times, too.”

Genora (Johnson) Dollinger, ​Women's Emergency Brigade 

Fighting for the rights of common people is unfortunately not just a recent activity. For instance, Genora (Johnson) Dollinger, ​of Flint Michigan, co-founder of the Women's Emergency Brigade, became nationally known following the famous 44 day long Sit-Down Strike at the Flint General Motors plant, 1936-1937.

The video below includes a re-enactment of her:

“Finally, I got up in the sound truck and I called the police, "Cowards, cowards, shooting into the bellies of unarmed men and firing into the mothers of children".  And everything became quiet on both sides of the line. And I appealed to the women, the spectators on both sides, "Breakthrough those police lines and come down here and stand beside your husbands and your brothers and your uncles and your sweethearts".

"In the dusk, I could barely see one woman walking down the battle zone. A cop grabbed her by the coat and she went right out of that coat and this was in freezing weather and she just kept right on coming. And as soon as that happened there were other women who followed down, then more men. And there was a big roar of victory." --Genora Johnson

More Here

Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches, 1963-2009, Howard Zinn

Civil Disobedience at the Boston Federal Building with Howard Zinn, 1971, Daniel Ellsberg's Website

Howard Zinn on the Power of People, billmoyers.com, 11 Dec 2009

Our World Is Indeed Upside Down

 

Prof. Howard Zinn

"It takes a month in Georgia to register to vote, but you can buy a gun for a mass murder in 10 minutes." Thom Hartmann

Our world is indeed Upside Down. We need to right it.

The Problem is Still Civil Obedience

In 2012, Matt Damon helped pay tribute to the late historian and author Howard Zinn. This rendition of a speech Zinn gave in 1970 on civil disobedience is one of his most powerful performances to date. It is still true... The Problem is Still Civil Obedience.

Howard Zinn, Boston Common, 5 May 1971

“Back in the 60s and 70s Dr. Zinn was one of the few who understood... and he did his best to tell us... that what was happening to our black brothers and sisters would soon be happening to us, all of us, save the mega-super rich. Today we understand his message was a premonition about our times, too.”

Please go here for more about Prof. Zinn and https://www.howardzinn.org/.

Corporatists Rule

I've been silent most of the summer months. There have been several reasons, the most paramount being despair… a deep foreboding sense of paralyzing hopelessness.

I guess I’ve been mourning the death of a childhood fantasy that my government is good and the people we’ve allowed to represent us have our best interests at heart. It’s been a post WWII, 1940s-born delusion of mine to believe that elected representatives will first do for the people of the United States before acting in self-interest.

The past “confirmation” carnival through which the Republican majority enshrined Mr. Kavanaugh as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States clearly has shown that we, the 99.9%, can no longer fool ourselves with the fantasy that our elected officials will do “the right thing” for us, for the nation. No, in fact, rather than an open and honest review of Mr. Kavanaugh the nominee, we witnessed a replication of 1800s, backroom, partisan political gamesmanship to install a self-proclaimed, crony conservative and corporatist, to a life-term on our highest court.

I will be truly, and delightedly, surprised if Mr. Kavanaugh ever decides, even once, in favor of the best interests of common people of the United States over corporate or Republican party interests.

What can we expect the Court to render in the days ahead?

If historian Dr. Howard Zinn was right, and I believe he was, we will see more American injustice than "equal justice under law". Without a doubt the corporatists rule America.  In 2005 Zinn wrote:

"It would be naive to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all kinds. Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel, and violate the law in order to uphold justice.”

"The distinction between law and justice is ignored by all those Senators--Democrats and Republicans--who solemnly invoke as their highest concern ‘the rule of law.’ The law can be just; it can be unjust. It does not deserve to inherit the ultimate authority of the divine right of the king.”

"The Constitution gave no rights to working people: no right to work less than twelve hours a day, no right to a living wage, no right to safe working conditions. Workers had to organize, go on strike, defy the law, the courts, the police, create a great movement which won the eight-hour day, and caused such commotion that Congress was forced to pass a minimum wage law, and Social Security, and unemployment insurance.”

"The courts have never been on the side of justice, only moving a few degrees one way or the other, unless pushed by the people. Those words engraved in the marble of the Supreme Court, 'Equal Justice Before the Law,' have always been a sham."

"No Supreme Court, liberal or conservative, will stop the war in Iraq, or redistribute the wealth of this country, or establish free medical care for every human being. Such fundamental change will depend, the experience of the past suggests, on the actions of an aroused citizenry, demanding that the promise of the Declaration of Independence--an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--be fulfilled."

Howard Zinn: Don’t Despair about the Supreme Court, Progressive.org, 21 Oct 2005.

The Politicians Song, Nigel Bradford, 2013

Your Legacy is Their Future

The Problem is Still Civil Obedience

In 2012, Matt Damon helped pay tribute to the late historian and author Howard Zinn. This rendition of a speech Zinn gave in 1970 on civil disobedience is one of his most powerful performances to date. It is still true... The Problem is Still Civil Obedience.

“Back in the 60s and 70s Dr. Zinn was one of the few who understood... and he did his best to tell us... that what was happening to our black brothers and sisters would soon be happening to us, all of us, save the mega-super rich. Today we understand his message was a premonition about our times, too.” Howard Zinn, Boston Common, 5 May 1971

No one wants to think about this stuff. We all want to go about life and enjoy.

But, tomorrow life will be different.

The winds of war are gathering. Soon the old people will be sending the young people… your grandkids… to war “to save Democracy” once again.

What will be your legacy to them?

Will you ask why is this war necessary?
Who will benefit from it?
Who wants to see his approval poll numbers go up?
Who will make money on the sacrifices of our young people… your grandkids?

Let’s do things differently this time. Let’s follow another path.

I mean, it is 2017 not 1967.

We have choices. We have eyes to see and ears to hear and voices to be heard,,, but only if we pull our collective heads out of the sand.

Please go here for more information: Legacy Grandkids

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.

You Can Do This

In 2012, Matt Damon helped pay tribute to the late historian and author Howard Zinn. This rendition of a speech Zinn gave in 1970 on civil disobedience is one of his most powerful performances to date. It is still true... The Problem is Still Civil Obedience. - See more at: http://www.worldmovement.info.

Global Localism
Work to make your city / metro region united and strong. Then work with other regions to resolve common challenges.

National Goals - USA
Make the wheels of government turn for US, the 99.9%, by:

1. Reversing Citizen's United vs. Federal Election Commission.
2. Repealing three, Bill of Rights busting laws: (a) the USA PATRIOT Act (Yes, Congress “repealed” the Patriot Act. But it was in name only. Now we must work to revise the Freedom Act.) (b) the Military Commission Act and (c) section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.
3. Establish a “Constitution Protection Zone” in your city or town.
4. Re-establishing the Glass-Steagall Act. 
5. Abolishing the CIA. 
6. Establishing a national public works program to maintain our infrastructure.
7. Adopting a Robin Hood tax. 
8. Creating local, sustainable, distributed energy systems throughout the nation.
9. Retrieving the trillions of dollars now being expended through the "Deep Black Ops Budget" and put it to use serving the needs of the people by creating decent paying, infrastructure-building employment and returning the billions of dollars stolen from the 99.9% during Depression.2. 
10. Creating a state bank in every state, e.g. North Dakota State Bank, and using “crowdfunding” resources rather than international banks.
11. Adopting local Anti-Corruption Act Laws. 
12. Making mainstream media do its job as "Guardian of our Democratic Republic" by reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine and repealing Title 3 of the Telecommunications Act (1996.)

Yes, beginning today, we can accomplish these things. Talk with your friends and family. Start your local The Movement today. We are the local, world non-movement of all living things... Really.