Barry Crimmins, Political Satirist.

Howard Zinn - A Remembrance

(NOTE: The following expands on some thoughts I posted upon first hearing the news of the passing of Dr. Howard Zinn)

Howard Zinn's voice, his literal voice, is what I will always remember best about him. Measured, wise, gentle and kind, his calmly assertive tone rose to every important political occasion for the past sixty or so years. It never once became shrill.

But did he ever get his point across. With microscopic shifts of inflection, you could hear the arch of an eyebrow, a sniff of disdain or a mettlesome refusal to succumb to unjust authority. It didn't hurt that this vocal artistry had lyrics featuring Howard's always perfectly chosen words.

Professor Zinn's not-so-secret ingredient was a large measure of optimism. This positiveness during daunting times was rooted in parallel moments in history when regular folks (the great historian had unearthed and illuminated) stood for what was right despite lopsided odds. Again and again Howard dulcetly delivered inspiration by speaking of how the courage of such everyday heroes led to change that benefitted us all. Because he knew from whence we came, he had hope for where we were headed. And so he was unflappable. His voice and writing were like his conscience -- clear. He taught us that the most difficult choices were actually the easiest ones to make, provided our moral compass's true north fixed on compassion and courage.

There seemed to be extra hours in the day for Howard. He was always traveling, reading (was there any respectable political publication he didn't blurb?), writing and speaking. He still found time for a rich life with his wonderful wife and editor Roslyn (a magnificent artist whose work continues to bring beauty to us two years after her passing) and their children Jeff Zinn and Myla Kabat-Zinn and their spouses and children.

No one I know could keep up with Howard yet he never seemed rushed or stressed. I think this was because as a preeminent historian, he experienced life in a very sensible context. Howard understood that the bad guys would eventually lose. The task before us was to resist the inevitable stupidities of the moment and make sure to leave a trail that would eventually lead others to the truth about our times. He knew that no matter how badly things were trending, at least a few people of good faith could eventually buck such trends.

The professor joyfully spoke before, and met and listened to, the throngs that greeted him wherever he traveled. Howard knew the value of a crowd. He understood that not only is there strength in numbers but there is also strengthening in them, providing you present a persuasive case. It is one thing to read a rousing political tract by yourself and quite another to realize the same wisdom simultaneously with hundreds of your friends and neighbors.

Therefore Howard appreciated anyone who tried to make crucial information accessible to as many people as possible. When we met, rather than look past a young man who made his living grousing in nightclubs, he encouraged me in every possible way. He compared my work to that of my hero Samuel Clemens (even I had to question him on that one), Finley Peter Dunne, Lenny Bruce and Dick Gregory. He and Roz came to my shows many times and always enthusiastically expressed appreciation for my efforts. He  even introduced me on my album, "Kill the Messenger" back in 1991( audio file below). Whenever I published a piece in the Boston Phoenix or elsewhere, he called with praise, proclaiming that I had outdone myself. In later years he sent emails that implored, "Write, Barry! Write! We need you!" He recommended me to Seven Stories Press and his endorsement resulted in my 2004 book, Never Shake Hands With a War Criminal.

What I remember most fondly are the dozens of marches, protests, picket lines and rallies we attended together. It seemed like it was always freezing at those events. Howard would get up and dazzle the masses with his precise wisdom and reassuring persona. I would then pitch a fit like a lunatic. He could have said his piece and left long before my caterwauling but usually he and Roz would be waiting for me off to the side of the stage when I was done. There they stood bundled in winter coats, hats and scarves, smiling as smoke billowed from the compliments they heaped upon me. They'd tell me that I had delivered exactly what was needed to be said and gushed about how proud they were of me. And then they'd introduce me to friends of theirs ranging from Daniel Ellsberg to Ed, the guy who is organizing the bus mechanics. Soon we'd adjourn to somewhere for a meal where we'd warm up and the Zinns would make sure that everyone got to know just how wonderful everyone else was. It took me quite a while to believe I actually knew these people, let alone could count them as my friends.

Before long Howard and I were meeting for semi-regular coffees in Harvard Square. These get-togethers served as de facto office hours for the professor emeritus. We'd barely settle in before there was an actual line of well-wishers, former students and/or fellow activists. The first few would likely be invited to join us at the table and then Howard patiently spoke with and listened to all comers. I never begrudged these folks their time with the great man. How could I when he and Roz had given so much love, support and guidance to me? Besides, I met dozens of  terrific people during those coffees. There was simply no downside when Howard was around.

Two people who saw me at various confabs with the good doctor were Lewis and Meg Randa of the Peace Abbey in Sherborne, Massachusetts. When I was honored with that remarkable institution's Courage of Conscience Award, it was Howard who did the presenting. As ever, he was philanthropic in his assessment of me. Last night after learning of Howard's death,  I happened to glance at that left-wing Heisman Trophy on my mantle and the tears came and stayed for quite some time. That plaster bird means more to me than any mainstream show biz award ever could.

It is fitting that such a great man of peace had such a disarming personality. Because he was so organically charming and durably gentle, he could forward ideas that many of us dare not even dream about, such as the end of war.

In the April 2006 issue of The Progressive, he made the case in his essay, After the War, excerpted here:

... should we not think beyond this war? Should we begin to think, even before this shameful war is over, about ending our addiction to massive violence and instead using the enormous wealth of our country for human needs? That is, should we begin to speak about ending war—not just this war or that war, but war itself? Perhaps the time has come to bring an end to war, and turn the human race onto a path of health and healing.

A group of internationally known figures, celebrated both for their talent and their dedication to human rights (Gino Strada, Paul Farmer, Kurt Vonnegut, Nadine Gordimer, Eduardo Galeano, and others), will soon launch a worldwide campaign to enlist tens of millions of people in a movement for the renunciation of war, hoping to reach the point where governments, facing popular resistance, will find it difficult or impossible to wage war.

There is a persistent argument against such a possibility, which I have heard from people on all parts of the political spectrum: We will never do away with war because it comes out of human nature. The most compelling counter to that claim is in history: We don't find people spontaneously rushing to make war on others. What we find, rather, is that governments must make the most strenuous efforts to mobilize populations for war. They must entice soldiers with promises of money, education, must hold out to young people whose chances in life look very poor that here is an opportunity to attain respect and status. And if those enticements don't work, governments must use coercion: They must conscript young people, force them into military service, threaten them with prison if they do not comply.

Furthermore, the government must persuade young people and their families that though the soldier may die, though he or she may lose arms or legs, or become blind, that it is all for a noble cause, for God, for country.

When you look at the endless series of wars of this century you do not find a public demanding war, but rather resisting it, until citizens are bombarded with exhortations that appeal, not to a killer instinct, but to a desire to do good, to spread democracy or liberty or overthrow a tyrant...

It [war] poisons everyone who is engaged in it, however different they are in many ways, turns them into killers and torturers, as we are seeing now. It pretends to be concerned with toppling tyrants, and may in fact do so, but the people it kills are the victims of the tyrants. It appears to cleanse the world of evil, but that does not last, because its very nature spawns more evil. War, like violence in general, I concluded, is a drug. It gives a quick high, the thrill of victory, but that wears off and then comes despair.

Now that Howard's gone, we will have to work that much harder. OK, let's take strength from the lesson he taught so many times: there is very little that can't be accomplished by people willing to confront, understand and reclaim history. Consider how much he accomplished on his own and then imagine what we all could do together!

Anyone can make history but changing it is another story. That story was told beautifully by Howard Zinn, whose kind and wizened voice will be what I hear whenever my conscience prompts me to behave like a decent and responsible person. For that and so much more, thanks, Howard.

• Our Man in Boston on Howard Zinn
• Dennis Perrin on Howard Zinn

last updated Thursday, January 28th, 2010 @ 9:37 PM

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Howard Zinn

Here's to our heroic, learned, brilliant, patient, compassionate, generous, and very funny friend, Howard Zinn, who passed away this afternoon. He leaves a legacy of truth, inspiration and optimism. His kind and wizened voice will always be what I hear when my conscience prompts me to behave like a decent and responsible person. Thanks for everything, Howard.

(NOTE: I promise to post a more complete tribute to Professor Zinn when I have had a chance to absorb this sad news for a little while longer.)

last updated Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 @ 9:57 PM

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Ain't gonna be your slave

I know you're upset about Massachusetts and you're looking to lash out. Well you've come to the wrong place because I've got some lashing of my own to do.  

OK... I've had it with people who think political activism equals permanent servitude to a Democratic Party that demands we never say or do anything that's:

1- critical of Democrats

2- so much as a millimeter removed from their cowardly and lackluster script.

If you support such Democratic edicts, this is for you.

Let me start by repeating a basic point about leadership that many of you have heard from me again and again:
I do not need political direction from "leaders." Idiots need to be led. I need an elected government of public servants and not an unapproachable collection of regal entities who require me to base my life around their job security --especially at a time when no one's job is secure!

Glad-handing is out. Please don't attempt to defuse me with a phony smile and pap about about 'hanging in there' or 'half-full glasses' because this is about political latrines that have been overflowing for decades now and I am tired of hanging in there near them, especially because I know who lives on top of the hill and who lives at the bottom and in which direction shit rolls.

This next one is very important: please refrain from even hinting that by not blindly serving D's, I am mindlessly playing into the hands of Republicans. Such assertions are utter horseshit. Republicans must be dealt with harshly, like the enemies of the people they are. This is done by hitting them very hard from the left. It is impossible to do this when you cohabit the payrolls of every slimy influence peddler in Washington with them. Want to fight Repubs? Unleash your party from the shackles of scumbag corporate interests that the R's naturally represent.And stop pretending that I am somehow closer to them because I point out this truth.

Let's talk about the president. Whenever I criticize Barack Obama, I'm immediately admonished by the self-proclaimed and self-celebrated 'politically active' for not giving a guy a chance who has been handed an impossible task.

Nonsense. He has been in the most powerful office in the world for a year now. That's a pretty good chance and he has used it to do lots of stuff. Much of it has nothing to do with anything in which I believe. For instance, Obama didn't have to insanely escalate the hopeless war in Afghanistan. And he could have put us a lot better position in the world had he moved much more decisively to get us out of Iraq -- where there was NEVER a reason to be in the first place. The resources wasted on limp-dicked military machismo could have gone a long way toward improving things at home and abroad and saved a lot of lives in the process. As a result, he would have had a better year and we would have had a better one, too.

The president didn't have to allow the pigs who sunk this nation's economic ship to be the first and nearly only ones pulled onto taxpayer-supplied lifeboats. But he did and that money is gone but our debt for it remains as we cling to the flotsam and jetsam of our way of life.

Obama sure didn't have to fashion an idiotic health care plan that would create an enormous windfall profit for the very racket that has X'ed out human life as any sort of consideration on an obscenely crooked bottom line. But he did and the issue on which he chose to stake his political future has fizzled. This isn't my fault.

Our only hope to find our way out of our dilemmas is to summon courage and stand for what's right. I promise you this plan won't be endorsed by the party of donkeys. It is a collection of braying Barney Fifes. Everything scares them.

Dems are cowardly about military issues because they fear what McCarthyistic pukes will say about them. Thus the war escalation and the continued ultra-wasteful engorgement of the Pentagon.

Because they are terrified of Red-baiting, Democrats duck and cover at any mention of the socialism that works so well in so many other nations. Because of this they dogmatically proclaim their devotion to the mythology of an allegedly free market that nonetheless requires lives of crushing poverty from paupers from Detroit to Delhi.

If we'd summon the courage necessary to realize that America's truncation of the left is the reason we find ourselves stuck either heading nowhere or further to the right, hope might become more than a campaign promise. But repeatedly, rather than do what's right and ethical, Democrats cave in and hide behind the flag, conscience-free enterprise and any camo that happens to be handy. Then, if you criticize them in a rational fashion, they label you as the "loony left." In other words, they come at you in true Tailgunner Joe fashion. Pitiful.

I do not wake each day and think about how I can further Barack Obama's political agenda. It only matters to me when it harms people I care for, like the hundreds (thousands?) of innocents massacred by remote control by dorks with joysticks who eliminate life as if it' were an obstacle between them and getting their names on the high-scorer list of a video game. I despise the politicians who run this satanic arcade. This means Barack Obama, who operates the ultimate agony-inflicting joystick.

And I've had it with the president and his party's inability to recognize that real wages for real working people in this country have been shriveling for GENERATIONS and that's what's wrong with the economy! But you'll never hear this from our supposedly liberal heroes because a country that has no political left has no one who will speak for and and help organize the poor folks-- except of course, as unquestioning, unpaid servants to the great cause of worshiping millionaire politicians.

From now on I'm working for the reestablishment of the kind of very reasonable and viable leftism that held FDR's feet to the fire all those years ago. Contrary to popular opinion, the patrician prez's wheelchair didn't list to the left, it had to be pushed that way. Because it was, he ended up being remembered as a 'leader' who established crucial protections for the little folks. That same kind of credit is available to the next president who is responsive to an informed and active electorate that demands service instead of providing it.

last updated Thursday, January 28th, 2010 @ 6:46 PM

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Mass Defection?

Genuine respect for the sincerity and wisdom of some of my friends who have all but restarted the doomsday clock notwithstanding, I don't feel that much is hinging on today's Massachusetts senatorial election.

The lofty agenda that was rhetorically promised by our new president, arrived stillborn. Therefore the idea that his presidency is at stake is rather overstated. There was a real opportunity for change last year but that moment has pretty much passed. Barack Obama had a chance to take billions to rebuild the infrastructure, protect and repair the environment, revitalize our cities and towns, and create jobs that would have meant paychecks for workers and not dividends for fat cats. Instead, Wall Street and the banks were the first to be bailed out because they were "too big to fail." Apparently the people were too small to be considered.

A tidal wave of money for the military industrial complex has only swelled. In the process, a genuine chance to repair this country's well-earned horrible image abroad has been pissed away. A chance to re-purpose our resources is gone, too. Wars rage on and on -- and it's so much for those Obama stickers with the peace signs.

Finally, the mandate to reward the uber villain health insurance companies, in drag as reform (and reform that won't even begin to kick in for four years, long after tens of thousands of preventable deaths), is perhaps the largest insult looming on a murky political horizon. So I don't really feel much is at stake today except that it would embolden fascist media demagogues were the male model to win in the suddenly-at-Bay State. Those awful squawkers would be quick to claim parenthood of a victory by the lint-headed pretty boy. Should that happen, just remember that assholes have a perfect right to celebrate being assholes. And you have a perfect right to remain out of earshot of their hatefully inane squealing.

Look at all Bush 'accomplished' without a super majority and then ask: why are we supposed to be so scared? Worst case scenario the Dems will still have 59 votes in the Senate (or a few less if Lieberman and a few other pieces of shit formally defect to the R's.) No matter what, how about standing and fighting? How about taking a case to the people that truly benefits the people? A case for peace, environmental sanity, economic justice and health care as a human right? In fact, how about advocating single payer health care like they have in the rest of the goddamned world?

Enough of us are hurting badly enough to listen to some pretty moderate, but radical-by-American-standards, ideas. Empty pockets open ears. So how about our smooth talking president using his considerable powers of persuasion for something other than trying to reconcile with a bunch of right-wing zealots who hate him for being black and having a funny name? How about reconciling with the rest of us instead?

Until that happens, here's the closest I can come to an endorsement in the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat (and certainly not his shoes). Vote for Coakley or the Dems will have yet another excuse for failing us.

And by the way, don't let the media tell you who won this election before it's even held. You want Coakley to win, get every voter  who will never vote for the Gluttonous Old Pigs to the polls. Get out and work hard all day and don't allow one voter you trust to fail to vote and by late tonight, we'll be right where we started this morning. I guess that's what serves as progress these days.

And while I'm warning you what not to do-- if Coakley loses, it will because she was a dogshit candidate cynically chosen by Dems because she had the biggest campaign vault. It will also be because she ran as a member of a party that really let us down over the past year. It will not be because the "far left" (or whatever other left-baiting pejorative someone chooses to scapegoat) still maintains the right to say "shit" when it has a life-ful. Blame us for this five-star clusterfuck and we will hunt you down like the McCarthyistic vermin that you are. So lean rightward, strike preemptively and just get out the damned vote so we can avoid such ugliness.

last updated Thursday, January 28th, 2010 @ 6:18 PM

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