I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy.. But I knew it wasn't a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head.. The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you. From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country--not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian. Howard Zinn
Some Similar Quotes
  1. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. - Unknown
  2. It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see.."" You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"" No, " said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him,... - Douglas Adams
  3. Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know–and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me–has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great... - H.l. Mencken
  4. The first duty of a man is to think for himself - Unknown
  5. You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker - Malcolm X
More Quotes By Howard Zinn
  1. TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine...
  2. But human beings are not machines, and however powerful the pressure to conform, they sometimes are so moved by what they see as injustice that they dare to declare their independence. In that historical possibility lies hope.
  3. The willingness to undertake such action cannot be based on certainties, but on those possibilities glimpsed in a reading of history different from the customary painful recounting of human cruelties. In such a reading we can find not only war but resistance to war, not...
  4. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
  5. Before God and high heaven, is there a law for one man which is not a law for every other man?
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