Howard Zinn Quote
Unemployment, hard times, were growing in 1914. Could guns divert attention and create some national consensus against an external enemy? It surely was a coincidence—the bombardment of Vera Cruz, the attack on the Ludlow colony. Or perhaps it was, as someone once described human history, the natural selection of accidents. Perhaps the affair in Mexico was an instinctual response of the system for its own survival, to create a unity of fighting purpose among a people torn by internal conflict. The bombardment of Vera Cruz was a small incident. But in four months the First World War would begin in Europe.
Howard Zinn
Unemployment, hard times, were growing in 1914. Could guns divert attention and create some national consensus against an external enemy? It surely was a coincidence—the bombardment of Vera Cruz, the attack on the Ludlow colony. Or perhaps it was, as someone once described human history, the natural selection of accidents. Perhaps the affair in Mexico was an instinctual response of the system for its own survival, to create a unity of fighting purpose among a people torn by internal conflict. The bombardment of Vera Cruz was a small incident. But in four months the First World War would begin in Europe.
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About Howard Zinn
Zinn described himself as "something of an anarchist, something of a socialist. Maybe a democratic socialist." He wrote extensively about the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement and labor history of the United States. His memoir, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (Beacon Press, 1994), was also the title of a 2004 documentary about Zinn's life and work. Zinn died of a heart attack in 2010, at the age of 87.