Howard Zinn Quotes
It’s only at certain points in history that people realize just how much power that they have.
Howard Zinn, 1922-2010, Historian, The Harlem Book Fair, Book TV, C-SPAN, July 21, 2007
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
What is fascinating about his perception of governance is that if this quotation were viewed in isolation, one might conclude that Khamenei was a populist whose political views do not differ much from those of Thomas Jefferson. But then Islam enters the picture. His belief is that the Koran and the word of the Prophet trumps everything else including the people. So he has little trouble passing laws or enacting regulations that are opposed by the vast majority of Iranians. In a Presidential and parliamentary election, the candidates most popular were disqualified by Khamenei on the grounds that they were not sufficiently consonant with his interpretation of Islam. So in reality his personal view of Islam comes first and secondary to that is the will of the people.
Babeuf led a faction of French revolutionists who thought that the revolution had become to hierarchical and had substituted a dictatorship of certain citizens for the dictatorship of the King. He was arrested and executed by the hierarchy he was trying to replace in what has become known as the “conspiracy of the equals.”
Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote over 20 books, including his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States in 1980. In 2007, he published a version of it for younger readers, A Young People's History of the United States.
