I Must be Feeling Absolutely Zinnful This Week: Excerpt From an Anarchist Manifesto
Socialism Soldier L2 (Photo credit: Chris Devers)
As an amateur historian, I worship at the altar of Howard Zinn. Check out this little gem from “A People’s History of The United States,” concerning the rise of the Socialist movement of the late 19th century. This excerpt is part of an anarchist manifesto printed in Pittsburgh in 1883:
“… All laws are directed against the working people…. Even the school serves only the purpose of furnishing the offspring of the wealthy with those qualities necessary to uphold their class domination. The children of the poor get scarcely a formal elementary training, and this, too, is mainly directed to such branches as tend to producing prejudices, arrogance, and servility; in short, want of sense. The Church finally seeks to make complete idiots out of the mass and to make them forego the paradise on earth by promising a fictitious heaven. The capitalist press, on the other hand, takes care of the confusion of spirits in public life…. The workers can therefore expect no help from any capitalist party in their struggle against the existing system. They must achieve their liberation by their own efforts. As in former times, a privileged class never surrenders its tyranny, neither can it be expected that the capitalists of this age will give up their rulership without being forced to do it…”
117 years later, and nothing has changed. It never will until the 99% percent of us without wealth and privilege make it change.
Just sayin’
Posted from my CrapBerry
Related articles
- Zinn Education Project (tryagainfailbetter.wordpress.com)
- Alfre Woodard channels Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a woman?” (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
- Marxism and anarchism – Part One | In Defence of Marxism (chomskywatch.wordpress.com)
- Remembering Howard Zinn – Opinion – Al Jazeera English (chomskywatch.wordpress.com)
“Power concedes nothing without struggle” Frederick Douglass
The dynamic will always be like this. The only way for the working class to gain more freedom is to constantly struggle and combat the rules and rhetoric of the upper class.
Luckily, there’s always been, and always will be an element in our society that will always fight against these tyrants. Otherwise, things could be much worse. However, the wealthy and their political lap dogs have done an extremely good job of keeping the poor and middle class fractioned, therefore minimizing the threat to them. If everyone should happen to agree to fight for the common cause, then, hoo boy! I wouldn’t want to be in their overpriced shoes!
Keeping the lower classes fractioned out is the entire game of the GOP. They got nothing but the gays-god-guns-conception issues to motivate the masses with.
Finally, the left has found a wedge issue that works in reverse: contraception. It doesn’t take a whole lot of brains to think having 7 or 8 children is too much. It’s not as easy convincing the same person that billionaires do not need a tax break.
Zinn, and ‘The People Speak’ are the greatest!
Sad how very little has changed.
Ain’t that the truth