Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004)

RIP, Howard Zinn..who was not only a thoughtful and intelligent man, but more importantly, a compassionate and moral human being who represents everything that is great about America. He demonstrated and taught that dissent is essential to democracy; he was a true revolutionary spirit, with an intelligence that was tempered with the morality and gentle spirit of humanism and compassion; he had lived long enough and seen enough to understand you can't be neutral on a moving train, that there isn't some false neutral, "centrist" position between right and wrong, between those with wealth and power and those without. Howard Zinn had the wisdom and knowledge of history, of political philosophy, political systems and power-structures, and the deep insight into human nature to see through the pervasive ideological doctrines and the "conventional truths" of the day and recognize the same patterns of human behavior, of elite behaviour, of power-structures and of the same repeated, tragic mistakes of history in current times. He understood this fundamental truism, which is of the vicious, predatory nature of every elite, in every epoch, in every society to always put their own interests first, to rationalize their dominance, exploitation and oppression of others, and to grind down the general population, the common man, the weak, the poor and the powerless, to dust, blood and bones in the pursuit of maximizing their own profits and wealth. In short, Zinn had the wisdom and knowledge of history and the deep insight into human nature to cut through the deception, hypocrisy, primal instincts, deep self-delusions, and rationalizations of greed and barbarism by elites and those at the top of the hierarchy that are at the core of current political and economic affairs, and of international affairs, and that have always characterized human affairs ever since we emerged from the unforgiving blood-tooth-and-nail biological mileu. Or to quote from another one of my favourite political writers, Chris Floyd:

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Then again, there's nothing uniquely "American" about these criminal policies, and the hypocrisy that attends them. It's how elites have behaved from time immemorial, from the days of the apes: baring their teeth and pounding their chests, ruling through fear and violence, beating, biting, raping, killing--whatever it takes to maintain their perch at the top of the tree. They disguise their savagery--even from themselves--with masks of pomp and piety, with earnest protestations of their "good hearts," their nobility, their enlightenment, their altruism. But what moves them is the spirit of the beast, the blind gut-lust for dominance, the ape-remnants that live on in our brains. They're too weak, too stupefied with corruption to rise above this inherent bestiality.


Howard Zinn made us understand that history is written by the conquerers, not the conquered, by the dominant racial and economic class, not the ordinary, working people and common man on whose broken backs and battered bodies a society is built. To quote Karl Marx:

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"in every epoch, the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class."


This is true regardless of the prevalent ideological doctrines or of the current social, political and economic order, i.e., monarchy and feudalism in the pre-Enlightenment era, and in today's age, capitalism and representative "democracy". The same logic and truism of power applies not only within a society, country or state, but also in the international arena, where the countries, states and empires at the top of the hierarchy of world affairs control the levers of power (military, economic, political and media), and thus able to shape narratives and shape reality, and are able to rig the economic and political systems to serve their interests and maximize their wealth.

But despite the great injustices of this world and of the tragedy of the human condition that was, is, and always will be the oppression, domination and exploitation of the weak, the poor and the powerless by the strong, the wealthy and the powerful, Howard Zinn reminded us of "ultimate power", as he referred to it as, which was of the belief in the "moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, and patience" of people to eventually achieve justice without massive violence, and in the "courage and energy of the young, once their adventurous spirit is turned towards the ending of war rather than the waging of war, creation rather than destruction, and world friendlship rather than hatred of those on the other side of the national boundaries". To those who might scoff at these words and thoughts as being "naive", simplistic and idealistic nonsense, I would recommend you read Howard Zinn's book "Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology", from which I have picked the two quotes above, and which contains Howards Zinn's very well-thought out, highly informed, sophisticated and ultimately, yes, actually fairly realistic arguments in defense of his supposedly "idealistic" beliefs and values, and which every left leaning person should read so that you are able to argue for and defend your leftist or even liberal beliefs against conservative ones using the sophisticated, insightful, precise and well-informed arguments grounded in political philosophy and history (ideology of the American state, violence and human nature, Machiavellian realism and US foreign policy, law and justice, economic justice and the American class system, limitations and flaws with representative government, etc) that Howard Zinn presents in that book with clear language and unpretentious prose. I will close, appropriately, with some choice Howard Zinn quotes from the final chapter, "The Ultimate Power", of his book "Declarations of Independence":

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To confront the fact of unpredictability leads to two important conclusions:

The first is that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned on the ground that it is hopeless, because of the apparent overwhelming power of those in the world who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to their power. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, and patience-whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa; peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Vietnam; or workers and intellectuals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. No cold calculation of the balance of power should deter people who are persuaded that their cause is just.

The second is that in the face of the obvious unpredictability of social phenomena all of history's excuses for war and preparation for war- self-defense, national security, freedom, justice, and stopping aggression-can no longer be accepted. Massive violence, whether in war or internal upheaval, cannot be justified by any end, however noble, because no outcome is sure. Any humane and reasonable person must conclude that if the ends, however desirable, are uncertain, and the means are horrible and certain, those means must not be employed.


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It is sad to see how, in so many countries, citizens have been led to war by the argument that it is necessary because there are tyrannies abroad, evil rulers, murderous juntas. But to make war is not to destroy the tyrants; it is to kill their subjects, their pawns, their conscripted soldiers, their subjugated civilians.

War is a class phenomenon. This has been an unbroken truth from ancient times to our own, when the victims of the Vietnam War turned out to be working-class Americans and Asian peasants. Preparations for war maintains swollen military bureaucracies, gives profits to corporations (and enough jobs to ordinary citizens to bring them along). And they give politicians special power, because fear of "the enemy" becomes the basis for entrusting policy to a handful of leaders, who feel bound (as we have seen so often) by no constitutional limits, no constraints of decency or commitment to truth.


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Those of us who call for the repudiation of massive violence to solve human problems must sound utopian, romantic. So did those who demanded the end of slavery. But utopian ideas do become realistic at certain points in history, when the moral power of an idea mobilizes large numbers of people in its support. This may then be joined to the realization, by at least some of those in authority, that it would be realistic for them to change their policy, even perhaps share power with those they have long controlled.

Utopiah,

I'm not sure how to react to your.. accusatory and slightly rude comment.. but I'll try to be civil.

First, his is not a dupe. This is a completely different rip and torrent than the one you left a comment on at this link:
https://onebigtorrent.org/torrents/3469/Howard-Zinn-With-Noam-Chomsky-You-Cant-Be-Neutral-On-A-Moving-Train-DvDRip-XviD-c0H

So yes, it may be the same documentary, but it's a completely different rip.

Second, I made sure to add a torrent of an existing rip on public trackers that had lots of seeds rather than creating a new torrent.. precisely because I didn't want to "spread the seeds". So this way, people who download this torrent here get the benefit on an already existing swarm, and then simply add to the existing swarm. I understand and share your concern about uploading duplicate rips and splitting seeds but in this case, no splitting of seeds is going on.

Third, as you can see, 70 people have downloaded this torrent already.. so there is some benefit in uploading a brand new torrent so that it can appear on the main page and people can see it... contrary to perhaps an older torrent that wouldn't be visible and that people might not have bothered to download.

But regardless..again I stress.. no splitting of seeds is going on. This was an existing torrent that had lots of seeds on a public tracker. I merely added that torrent here.. the trackers are still external as you can see.

Anyway. thanks for stopping by.