Dubuque, IA | November 13, 2007

We meet at a difficult time for organized labor. A while back, I went to a Maytag plant in Galesburg, Illinois that was moving to Mexico. And I met workers who were having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. A few months ago, I traveled to Newton, where Maytag was shutting its doors after 114 years. One worker who'd been there more than a decade said, "I just thought I would retire from here and never have another job. I'm scared."

I'm scared.

It makes us outraged to hear these stories. And we've been hearing them for a long time. It was stories like these that led me more than two decades ago to walk away from a career on Wall Street and become a community organizer in Chicago, so I could help folks who'd lost jobs and lost hope when the nearby steel plants closed down. I didn't know a soul in Chicago, but I knew I didn't like the idea of working people being laid off and not having anybody fighting for them. I knew I wanted to do my part to make sure they had a decent future.

So when I go to places like Galesburg or Newton, it reminds me why I entered public service. And it reminds me why I'm a Democrat. Because if the Democratic Party means anything, then it has to mean we value labor. If the Democratic Party stands for anything, then it has to stand up for your rights, and your future. If the Democratic Party has a vision for America - then it has to be an America that's working for working Americans.

But we all know that for a long time now, we've had a President who doesn't see it that way. We have lived through six years of the most anti-labor administration in generations. They don't believe in unions. They don't believe in organizing. They've packed the labor relations board with their corporate buddies. Well, we've got news for them - it's not the Department of Management, it's the Department of Labor, and we're going to take it back.

But despite six years of them doing everything they could to tear labor down - as I look out on this crowd and as I travel across this country, the one thing I know for certain is that the UAW is still fighting. The UAW is still mobilizing. The UAW is still organizing.

I'm tired of playing defense. I know the UAW is tired of playing defense. We're ready to play some offense. We're ready to play offense for a secure retirement. We're ready to play offense to enforce labor laws.

We're ready to play offense for universal health care. I'm tired of seeing unions go to the bargaining table and fight for the benefits they negotiated a long time ago, instead of fighting for better wages to support their families. I reformed health care in Illinois. And I did it by reaching out to Democrats and Republicans. We took on the insurance industry, and we won. And that's what I'll do as President. I've got a plan that cuts costs for the typical family by up to $2,500 a year - more than any other plan that's been offered in this race. And I make this solemn pledge to you - I'll sign my universal health care plan into law by the end of my first term.

We're ready to play offense for American workers. When I'm President, we're not going to wait twenty years or ten years to raise the minimum wage - we'll raise it to keep pace with inflation every year so that American workers aren't falling behind. And we'll take tax breaks away from companies that ship our jobs overseas and put them in the pockets of working Americans who deserve it.

We're not going to stop globalization in its tracks, but we shouldn't be standing idly by while American jobs are shipped overseas. It's time to put Main Street ahead of Wall Street when it comes to trade. The only trade agreements I believe in are ones that put workers first - because trade deals aren't good for the American people if they aren't good for working people. That's why I opposed CAFTA. That's why I oppose the South Korea Free Trade Agreement. That's why I voted to block Mexican trucks from entering this country. And that's why we need to amend NAFTA.

We're ready to take the offense for organized labor. It's time we had a President who didn't choke saying the word "union." We need to strengthen our unions by letting them do what they do best - organize our workers. If a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union. It's that simple. We need to stand up to the business lobby that's been getting their friends in Congress and in the White House to block card check. That's why I was one of the leaders fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. That's why I'm fighting for it in the Senate. And that's why we'll make it the law of the land when I'm President.

There are few more important unions in this country than the UAW. You created the auto industry. You secured good-paying jobs for generations of workers. And you built the American middle class - the backbone of our economy. So I know someone once said what's good for GM is good for America. But it's time we also recognized that what's good for the UAW is good for America.

We need to help you compete with workers around the world by helping the auto industry compete with car companies all over the world. Yes, that means raising our fuel standards so we can make the fuel-efficient cars that are the future of your industry. But it also means giving you the help you need to retool your plants so we can build these cars right here in America. And if we can do that, we'll create thousands and thousands of jobs in the process.

But if we're serious about helping you compete abroad, we need to stand up for you here at home. That's why I called Mike Sheridan with Local 95 in Wisconsin the day they decided to strike GM, and gave him my support. And I made the same call to Dan Kirk with Local 72 when Chrysler workers went on strike. And Larry Sharpe and his members in Local 6 from my home state of Illinois can't be here today because they're striking International Truck and Engine, but Larry knows he has my support. Because when you hit the picket lines - whether it's with GM or Chrysler or anybody else - you aren't just fighting for your own rights, you're fighting for the rights of every American worker.

But it's going to be hard to do all this - it's going to be hard to make the UAW's agenda America's agenda - until we end this war in Iraq. This is a war I opposed in 2002. It's a war I opposed in 2003. And in 2004, and 2005, and 2006. This is a war that should have never been authorized and never been waged. And we shouldn't compound the mistake of going in by waiting any longer to pull our troops out. That's why I've called for us to start withdrawing troops not next month, not next year - now.

This is a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. The dream that so many generations fought for feels as if it's slowly slipping away. We are working harder for less. We've never paid more for health care or for college. It's harder to save and it's harder to retire. And most of all we've lost faith that our leaders can or will do anything about it.

And it is because of this that America is listening, intently, to what my fellow candidates and I are saying - not just Democrats, but Republicans and Independents who've lost trust in their government, but want to believe again. So in this election, we have a chance to bring the country together in a new majority - to finally tackle problems that George Bush made far worse, but that had festered long before George Bush ever took office - problems that we've talked about year after year after year after year.

And that is why the same old Washington textbook campaigns just won't do in this election. That's why not answering questions because we're afraid our answers won't be popular just won't do. That's why telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won't do. Triangulating and poll-driven positions because we're worried about what Mitt or Rudy might say about us just won't do. If we're really serious about winning this election, we can't live in fear of losing it.

The Democratic Party has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people when we've led not by polls, but by principle; not by calculation, but by conviction; when we summoned the entire nation to a common purpose - a higher purpose. And I run for the Presidency of the United States of America because that's the party America needs us to be right now.

A party that offers not just a difference in policies, but a difference in leadership.

A party that doesn't just focus on how to win but why we should.

A party that doesn't just offer change as a slogan, but real, meaningful change - change that America can believe in.

That's why I'm in this race. That's why I am running for President of the United States of America.

Now, I know we've got a lot of good candidates in this race, and I know they're saying the right things when they come and talk to you. But politicians often say they're pro-labor at election time no matter what they've said or done before. And that leaves you wondering what they will say or do after the election. So when a candidate rails against NAFTA today, it's fair to ask her where she's been before. When a candidate says he opposes right-to-work laws or trade rules that hurt workers today, ask him where he's been before. Because what you need, what America needs, is a President who will fight for you when it's hard, and not just when it's politically convenient.

And that's exactly what I intend to do. Because politics didn't lead me to working folks - working folks led me into politics. I was standing with American workers on the streets of Chicago twenty years ago, and the reason I'm here today is because I don't want to wake up one day many years from now and see that we're still standing by while American jobs get shipped overseas.

So I'm not just here to give a speech. I don't like just talking about the problems we face in this country. I want to solve them. So I'm here to ask for your support, Region 4. I'm here to ask you to believe not just in me, but in your own sense of possibility, your own imagination about what America might be.

Imagine a President whose life's story was like so many of your own, who knows what it's like to go to college on scholarships, who knows what it's like to see his mother get sick and worry that maybe she can't pay the medical bills.

Imagine a President who knows what it's like to put on a comfortable pair of shoes and walk with you on that picket line. Who gives Denny Williams a call before any major piece of labor legislation crosses his desk, so even if we don't see eye to eye on everything, your voice will be heard.

Imagine an America where we don't have to keep playing defense because we can finally play some offense.

That future is within our grasp. We can build that America together if you join me.

But each of us has to do our part. So I just want to close with a story about the difference that one voice can make.

1968 Olympics Black Power salute

 

Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos (right) showing the Black Power salute in the 1968 Summer Olympics while Silver medalist Peter Norman (left) wears an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge to show his support for the two Americans.

The Black Power salute was a noted human rights protest and one of the most overtly political statements in the 110 year history of the modern Olympic Games. African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos performed their Black Power salute at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

 The protest

After completing their 200 metre race on the evening of October 16, 1968,^[1] American athlete Smith, who won the race in a then world record time of 19.83 seconds, with Australia's Peter Norman second with a time of 20.06 seconds and American Carlos in third place with a time of 20.10 seconds, went to collect their medals at the podium. The two American athletes received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty.^[2] Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to represent black pride.^[2] Carlos wore beads which he described "were for those individuals that were lynched, or killed that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage."^[3] All three athletes wore Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) badges, after Norman expressed sympathy with their ideals. Sociologist Harry Edwards, the founder of the OPHR, had urged black athletes to boycott the games; reportedly, the actions of Smith and Carlos on October 16, 1968,^[1] were inspired by Edwards' arguments.^[4]

Carlos had forgotten his black gloves, but Norman suggested that they share Smith's pair, with Smith wearing the right glove and Carlos the left. When "The Star-Spangled Banner" played, Smith and Carlos delivered the salute with heads bowed, a gesture which became front page news around the world. As they left the podium they were booed by the crowd.^[5] Smith later said "If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight."

 International Olympic Committee response

IOC president Avery Brundage deemed a domestic political statement unfit for the apolitical, international forum the Olympic Games was supposed to be. In an immediate response to their actions, he ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the U.S. team and banned from the Olympic Village. When the US Olympic Committee refused, Avery threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the two athletes being expelled from the Games.

A spokesperson for the organization said it was "a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit."^[2]

Aftermath

Smith and Carlos were largely ostracised by the U.S. sporting establishment in the following years and in addition were subject to criticism of their actions. A writer in the Los Angeles Times accused Smith and Carlos of a "Nazi-like salute."^{[attribution needed]} Time magazine showed the five-ring Olympic logo with the words, "Angrier, Nastier, Uglier", instead of "Faster, Higher, Stronger". Back home they were subject to abuse and they and their families received death threats.^[6]

Smith continued in athletics and in the promotion of equal rights. He went on to play American football with the Cincinnati Bengals, before becoming an assistant professor of Physical Education at Oberlin College. In 1995 he went on to help coach the U.S. team at the World Indoor Championships at Barcelona. In 1999 he was awarded a Sportsman of the Millennium award. He is now a public speaker.

Carlos' career followed a similar path to Smith. He initially continued in athletics, equaling the 100m world record the following year. Later he played American football with the Philadelphia Eagles before a knee injury prematurely ended his career. He fell upon hard times in the late 1970s and in 1977 his wife committed suicide. In 1985 he became a track and field coach at a school in Palm Springs, a post which he still holds.

Norman, who was sympathetic to his competitors' protest, was reprimanded by his Country's Olympic authorities and ostracized by the Australian media.^[7] He was not picked for the 1972 Summer Olympics, despite finishing third in his trials. He kept running, but contracted gangrene in 1985 after tearing his Achilles tendon, which nearly led to his leg being amputated. Depression and heavy drinking followed. He died on October 3, 2006. Smith and Carlos were pallbearers at his funeral.^[8]

San Jose State University honored former students Smith and Carlos with a twenty foot high statue of their protest in 2005. In January 2007, History San José opened a new exhibit called Speed City: From Civil Rights to Black Power, covering the San Jose State University athletic program "from which many student athletes became globally recognized figures as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements reshaped American society."^[9]

Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright, best known as author of the bestseller[5] , A People's History of the United States.

Zinn's philosophy incorporates ideas from Marxism, anarchism, socialism, and social democracy. Since the 1960s, he has been active in the Civil Rights and anti-war movements in the United States.

The author of some 20 books, Zinn is currently Professor Emeritus in the Political Science Department at Boston University. He lives in the Auburndale neighborhood of Newton, Massachusetts with his wife, the artist Roslyn Zinn.[6] [7] The couple have two children, Myla and Jeff, and five grandchildren. Both artist and editor, Roslyn has had a role in editing all of Zinn's books and many of his articles. They are both avid Red Sox fans.[8]

Education and career

Education

• B.A., New York University, 1951.
• M.A. and Ph.D., Columbia University, 1952, 1958.
• Post-doctoral Fellow in East Asian Studies at Harvard University, 1960-61.

Career

• Professor of History, Spelman College, Atlanta, Ga. 1956-1963.
• Professor of Political Science, Boston University, 1964-1988.
• Visiting Professor and Rhodes Scholar at both the University of Paris and University of Bologna

Military Service

• Second Lieutenant and bombardier, U.S. Army Air Corps; Flew combat missions in Europe 1943-45 which he discusses in this film clip.

Listings

• Who's Who in America
• Dictionary of International Biography

 Civil Rights movement

In 1956, Zinn was appointed chairman of the department of history and social sciences at Spelman College, where he participated in the Civil Rights movement. For example, Zinn lobbied with historian August Meier [9] "to end the practice of the Southern Historical Association of holding meetings at segregated hotels.^[1]

At Spelman, Zinn served as an adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and, in 1964, later wrote the book SNCC: The New Abolitionisists.

At Spelman, Zinn collaborated with historian Staughton Lynd and mentored young student activists, among them writer Alice Walker and Marian Wright Edelman now president of the Children's Defense Fund. In a journal article, Edelman discusses Zinn as major influence in her life and she tells of his accompanying students to a sit-in at the segregated white section of the Georgia state legislature.^[2]

Although Zinn was a tenured professor, he was dismissed, in June 1963, after siding with students in their desire to challenge Spelman's traditional emphasis of turning out "young ladies" when, as Zinn described in an article in The Nation, Spelman students were likely to be found on the picket line, or in jail for participating in the greater effort to break down segregation in public places in Atlanta. Zinn's years at Spelman are recounted in his autobiography You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times. His seven years at Spelman College, Zinn said, "are probably the most interesting, exciting, most educational years for me. I learned more from my students than my students learned from me." [10]

While at Spelman, Zinn wrote that he observed 30 violations of the First and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution in Albany, Georgia, including the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and equal protection of the laws. In an article on the civil rights movement in Albany, Zinn describes the people who participated in the Freedom Rides to end segregation, and of the reluctance of President John F. Kennedy to enforce the law.[11] Zinn has also pointed out that the Justice Department under Robert F. Kennedy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation headed by J. Edgar Hoover, did little to nothing to stop the segregationists from brutalizing civil rights workers.[12]

Zinn wrote frequently about the struggle for civil rights, both as a participant and historian [13] and in 1960-61, he took a year off from teaching to write SNCC: The New Abolitionists and The Southern Mystique. [14] In his book on SNCC, Zinn describes how the sit-ins against segregation were initiated by students and, in that sense, independent of the older, more established civil rights organizations.

He returned to Spelman in 2005 to give the commencement address.[15] His talk, titled "Against Discouragement" is online.

 Anti-war efforts

Fresh from writing two books about his research, observations about and participation in the Civil Rights movement in the South, Zinn accepted a position in the political science department at Boston University in 1964. His classes in civil liberties were among the most popular classes offered at BU with as many as 400 students subscribing each semester to the non-required class. He taught at BU for 24 years and retired in 1988. Zinn wrote one of the earliest books calling for the U.S. withdrawal from its war in Viet Nam. VietNam: The Logic of Withdrawal was published by Beacon Press in 1967 after articles that would later form the basis for the book had appeared first in Commonweal, The Nation, The Register-Leader, and Ramparts.

Zinn eagerly joined the Army Air Force during World War II to fight fascism, and he bombed targets in Berlin, Czechoslovakia and Hungary as he describes in this film clip. Zinn's anti-war stance was, in part, informed by his own experiences in the military. In April, 1945, he participated in one of the first military uses of napalm, which took place in Royan, France.^[3]

2nd Lieut. Howard Zinn, bombardier, Army Air Force in England, 1945.

The bombings were aimed at German soldiers who were, in Zinn's words, hiding and waiting out the closing days of the war. The attacks killed not only the German soldiers but also French civilians. Nine years later, Zinn visited Royan to examine documents and interview residents. In his books, The Politics of History and The Zinn Reader, he described how the bombing was ordered at the war's end by decision-makers most probably motivated by the desire for career advancement rather than for legitimate military objectives.

Zinn said his experience as a bombardier, combined with his research into the reasons for and effects of the bombing of Royan, sensitized him to the ethical dilemmas faced by G.I.s during wartime.[16] Zinn questioned the justifications for military operations inflicting civilian casualties in the Allied bombing of cities such as Dresden, Royan, Tokyo, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, Hanoi during the U.S. war in Vietnam, and Baghdad during the U.S. war in Iraq. In his pamphlet "Hiroshima: Breaking the Silence", Zinn laid out the case against targeting civilians.[17]

 Vietnam

Zinn's diplomatic visit to Hanoi with Rev. Daniel Berrigan, during the Tet Offensive in January 1968, resulted in the return of three American airmen, the first American POWs released by the North Vietnamese since the U.S. bombing of that nation had begun. The event was widely reported in the news media and discussed in a variety of books including Who Spoke Up? American Protest Against the War in Vietnam 1963-1975 by Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan [(Horizon Book Promotions: 1989) ISBN 0-385-17547-7]. Zinn remained friends and allies with the brothers Dan and Philip over the years.

Daniel Ellsberg, a former RAND consultant who had secretly copied The Pentagon Papers, which described internal planning and policy decisions of the United States in the Vietnam War, gave a copy of them to Howard and Roslyn Zinn. [Ellsberg autobiography, Zinn autobiography] Along with Noam Chomsky, Zinn edited and annotated the copy of The Pentagon Papers that Ellsberg entrusted to him. Zinn's longtime publisher, Beacon Press, published what has come to be known as the Senator Mike Gravel edition of The Pentagon Papers, four volumes plus a fifth volume with analysis by Chomsky and Zinn.

Howard and Roslyn Zinn in 1965. Later, when their grandaughter worked to improve conditions for janitors at Wesleyan, the couple supported the effort.

At Ellsberg's criminal trial for theft, conspiracy, and espionage in connection with the publication of the Pentagon Papers by The New York Times, defense attorneys called Zinn as an expert witness to explain to the jury the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam from World War II to 1963. Zinn discussed that history for several hours, later reflecting on his time before the jury. "I explained there was nothing in the papers of military significance that could be used to harm the defense of the United States, that the information in them was simply embarrassing to our government because what was revealed, in the government's own interoffice memos, was how it had lied to the American public. The secrets disclosed in the Pentagon Papers might embarrass politicians, might hurt the profits of corporations wanting tin, rubber, oil, in far-off places. But this was not the same as hurting the nation, the people," Zinn wrote in his autobiography. Most of the jurors later said they voted for acquittal. [p. 161] However, the federal judge dismissed the case on grounds it had been tainted by the burglary by President Richard M. Nixon's administration of the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist.

Roslyn and Howard Zinn at Boston University 1967. When secretaries struck at BU, Zinn and Dr. Murray Levin and Frances Fox Piven refused [4] to cross the picket line, and instead, taught classes off campus.

Zinn's testimony as to the motivation for government secrecy was confirmed in 1989 by Erwin Griswold, who as U.S. solicitor general during the Nixon administration, prosecuted The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971.["The lie behind the secrets" by Tom Blanton, May 21, 2006, Los Angeles Times] Griswold persuaded three Supreme Court justices to vote to stop The New York Times from continuing to publish the Pentagon Papers, an order known as "prior restraint" that has been held to be illegal under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The papers were simultaneously published in The Washington Post, effectively nulling the effect of the prior restraint order. In 1989, Griswold admitted there was no national security damage from publication of the papers.[18] [19] In a column in the Washington Post, Griswold wrote: "It quickly becomes apparent to any person who has considerable experience with classified material that there is massive over classification and that the principal concern of the classifiers is not with national security, but with governmental embarrassment of one sort or another." Zinn supported the G.I. antiwar movement during the U.S. war in Vietnam. In the 2001 film Unfinished Symphony, Zinn provides historical context for the 1971 antiwar march by Vietnam Veterans against the War. The marchers traveled from Lexington, Massachusetts, to Bunker Hill, "which retraced Paul Revere's ride of 1775 and ended in the massive arrest of 410 veterans and civilians by the Lexington police." The film depicts "scenes from the 1971 'Winter Soldier' investigations, during which former G.I.s testified about atrocities" they either participated in or witnessed in Vietnam. [20]

Zinn opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and has written several books about it. He asserts that the U.S. will end its war with, and occupation of, Iraq when resistance within the military increases, in the same way resistance within the military contributed to ending the U.S. war in Vietnam. He compares the demand by a growing number of contemporary U.S. military families to end the war in Iraq to the parallel "in the Confederacy in the Civil War, when the wives of soldiers rioted because their husbands were dying and the plantation owners were profiting from the sale of cotton, refusing to grow grains for civilians to eat." [21]

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable." "Terrorism Over Tripoli" from Zinn Reader, Seven Stories Press (1993) excerpted online

Jean-Christophe Agnew, Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University,[22] told the Yale Daily News in May 2007 that Zinn's historical work is "highly influential and widely used".^[4] He observed that it is not unusual for prominent professors such as Zinn to weigh in on current events, citing a resolution opposing the war in Iraq that was recently ratified by the American Historical Association.[23] Agnew added, "In these moments of crisis, when the country is split — so historians are split."^[5]

 A People's History

Main article: A People's History of the United States

As a historian, Zinn found that the point of view expressed in traditional history books was often limited. He created a historical text, A People's History of the United States with the goal to provide other perspectives of American history. The text depicts the struggles of Native Americans against European and U.S. conquest and expansion, slaves against slavery, unionists and other workers against capitalists, women against patriarchy, and African-Americans for civil rights.

In the years since the first edition of A People's History was published in 1980, it has been used as an alternative to standard textbooks in many high school and college history courses, and is one of the most widely known examples of critical pedagogy. According to the New York Times Book Review it "routinely sells more than 100,000 copies a year".^[6]

In the spring of 2003, to commemorate the sale of the millionth copy of A People's History, a dramatic reading was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The reading featured Danny Glover, Andre Gregory, James Earl Jones, actress Myla Pitt, Marisa Tomei, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Alfre Woodard, Harris Yulin, Jeff Zinn, producing artistic director of the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater [24], and Howard Zinn as narrator. The event aired on Democracy Now!, and was hosted by Amy Goodman, and is online at Democracy Now The program was also released as a book and CD under the title, The People Speak: American Voices, Some Famous, Some Little Known.

Interwoven with commentary by Zinn, both the book and the dramatic reading upon which the newer book is based, includes passages from Zinn's research in A People's History of the United States on Christopher Columbus on the Arawaks; Plough Jogger, a farmer and participant in Shays' Rebellion; Harriet Hanson, a Lowell mill worker; Frederick Douglass; Mark Twain; Mother Jones; Emma Goldman; Helen Keller; Eugene V. Debs; Langston Hughes; Genova Johnson Dollinger on a sit-down strike at General Motors in Flint, Michigan; an interrogation from a 1953 HUAC hearing; Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper and member of the Freedom Democratic Party; Malcolm X; and James Lawrence Harrington, a Gulf War resister, among others.

Kurt Vonnegut read the words of Mark Twain at the event celebrating the work of Zinn, a fellow World War II veteran. Vonnegut read from Twain, who spoke out after President Theodore Roosevelt congratulated a general involved in the 1906 Moro Crater massacre in the Philippines.

"It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make these people free and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way; and so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land," Vonnegut quoted Twain during the reading. ^[7]

In 2004, Zinn published Voices of A People's History of the United States with Anthony Arnove. Voices expands on the concept and provides a large collection of dissident voices in long form. The book is intended as a companion to A People's History and parallels its structure.

Zinn was a consultant to the six-part documentary A People's History of the United States [25], a television series produced by Alvin H. Perlmutter. According to the documentary's website, the series is expected to be broadcast in 2007.

After years of requests from parents and teachers for a younger readers' version of A People's History, in July 2007 Seven Stories Press has published A Young People's History of the United States, a two-volume, illustrated adaptation of the original text for young adult readers (ages 10-14), updated through the end of 2006.

 Critical reception

When A People's History of the United States was first published in 1980, the New York Times reviewer, Columbia University historian Eric Foner, described the book as filled with telling quotations and vivid descriptions of usually ignored events, and said that "Zinn writes with an enthusiasm rarely encountered in the leaden prose of academic history." However, referring to Zinn's focus on "the distinctive experience of blacks, women, Indians, workers and other neglected groups," Foner said, "The portrayal of these anonymous Americans is strangely circumscribed. Blacks, Indians, women and laborers appear either as rebels or as victims. Less dramatic but more typical lives — people struggling to survive with dignity in difficult circumstances — receive little attention", adding, "A People's History reflects a deeply pessimistic vision of the American experience." Summing up, Foner found the approach to be limited, and said further that the book needed "an integrated account incorporating Thomas Jefferson and his slaves, Andrew Jackson and the Indians, Woodrow Wilson and the Wobblies."^[8]

Writing in the Washington Post Book World, reviewer Michael Kammen, a professor of American History at Cornell, wrote: "I wish that I could pronounce Zinn's book a great success, but it is not. It is a synthesis of the radical and revisionist historiography of the past decade. . . Not only does the book read like a scissors and paste-pot job, but even less attractive, so much attention to historians, historiography and historical polemic leaves precious little space for the substance of history. . . . We do deserve a people's history; but not a singleminded, simpleminded history, too often of fools, knaves and Robin Hoods. We need a judicious people's history because the people are entitled to have their history whole; not just those parts that will anger or embarrass them. . . . If that is asking for the moon, then we will cheerfully settle for balanced history."^[9]

In a 2004 article in Dissent critiquing the 5th edition of A People's History of the United States, Georgetown University history professor Michael Kazin argued that Zinn's book is too focused on class conflict, and wrongly attributes sinister motives to the American political elite. He also characterized the book as an overly simplistic narrative of elite villains and oppressed people, with no attempt to understand historical actors in the context of the time in which they lived. Kazin writes, "The ironic effect of such portraits of rulers is to rob 'the people' of cultural richness and variety, characteristics that might gain the respect and not just the sympathy of contemporary readers. For Zinn, ordinary Americans seem to live only to fight the rich and haughty and, inevitably, to be fooled by them."^[10] Kazin argues further that A People's History fails to explain why the American political-economic model continues to attract millions of minorities, women, workers, and immigrants, or why the socialist and radical political movements Zinn favors have failed to gain widespread support among the American public.

Responding to Kazin's criticism, Dale McCartney, editor of the Canadian online magazine, Seven Oaks, writes:

Zinn is not neglecting a more objective perspective on American history; he's rejecting it in favor of an openly political stance that reclaims the history of oppressed peoples, regardless of race or gender. His popularity is testament to both the appeal of such a reading of American history, and the desperate thirst of working class people, people of colour, women and the many other victims of modern society's ravages for a history in which they are at the centre. I would go so far as to argue that not only has Kazin underestimated the importance of this role for Zinn's book, but that the academic tradition of objectivity (read: liberalism that favors white men) has played a key role in marginalizing oppressed peoples and derailing social movements. Zinn's work is an important corrective to this destructive tradition in historical writing.^[11]

 Awards, references in pop culture and other accomplishments

Zinn's first book, La Guardia in Congress, won the American Historical Association's Beveridge Prize as the best English-language book on American history.

Zinn has received the Thomas Merton Award and the Eugene V. Debs Award. In 1998, he won the Lannan Literary Award[26] for nonfiction and the following year won the Upton Sinclair Award, which honors social activism. In 2003, Zinn was awarded the Prix des Amis du Monde Diplomatique[27] for the French version of his seminal work, Une histoire populaire des Etats-Unis.

On October 5, 2006, Howard Zinn received the Haven's Center Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship in Madison, Wisconsin.[28]

Zinn is a ^[12] of the advisory board of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and of the Disarm Education Fund ^[13]

Zinn's autobiography is You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train. A biographical documentary film called Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004) was shown in select theaters. The film, on DVD, by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller[29] contains music composed by Richard Martinez[30] and features music by Billy Bragg, Woodie Guthrie, and Pearl Jam. The film includes footage of Howard and Roslyn Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Marian Wright Edelman, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Hayden and Alice Walker. The 78-minute film on DVD includes these special features: On Human Nature and Aggression; Zinn's speech at Veterans for Peace Conference, 2004; and audio of his 1971 speech at the Boston Common on Civil Disobedience. In the film, Noam Chomsky says Zinn "changed the consciousness of a generation."

The film was narrated by actor Matt Damon who lived next door to the Zinns as a child in West Newton, Massachusetts. Damon included a reference to A People's History in his film Good Will Hunting. In a confrontation with his psychologist, played by Robin Williams, Damon's character tells him: "If you want to read a real history book, read Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." That book will knock you on your ass." Damon also read the latter half of People's History for an audiobook released February 1, 2003 (ISBN 0-06-053006-5). People's History was referenced in a Columbus Day episode of the TV show The Sopranos.

In October 2005, Chicago's indie punk label Thick Records released a CD called You Can't Blow Up A Social Relationship by Springfield-based indie rock band, Resident Genius, featuring excerpts from several Zinn talks. The six Zinn excerpts are "a greatest hits of his speeches recorded over the last 15 years by Roger Leisner of Radio Free Maine. They touch on his 'usual' topics of engaged activism, history from below, war, the media and much more."[31]

Zinn's "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" is mentioned in System of a Down's song, "Deer Dance". The line "You can't be neutral on a moving train" is the basis for the Pearl Jam B-Side "Down".

The NoFX song Franco Un-American from the album The War on Errorism mentions Zinn.

He has expressed support for Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich as well as his efforts to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney.

Theatrical works

Zinn has written three plays, including Daughter of Venus (1985), Emma and Marx in Soho.

Emma is based on the life of the early 20th century anarchist Emma Goldman. Goldman, an anarchist, feminist, and free-spirited thinker was exiled from the United States because of her viewpoints, including her staunch opposition to World War I. As Zinn writes in his Introduction, Emma Goldman 'seemed to be tireless as she traveled the country, lecturing to large audiences everywhere, on birth control ('A woman should decide for herself'), on the falsity of marriage as an institution ('Marriage has nothing to do with love'), on patriotism ('the last refuge of a scoundrel') on free love ('What is love if not free?'), and also on drama, including Shaw, Ibsen, and Strindberg'.

Zinn's most recent play is Marx in Soho: A Play on History,[32] a drama that has been continuously performed [33] to encouraging reviews^{[14] [15]} in small theaters throughout the United States, with Brian Jones in the title role starting in 1999 through 2005. In February 2005, Bob Weick took on the title role in a traveling tour. Tour details are at the Iron Age Theatre.^[16]

 Books written or edited by Howard Zinn

Books

• Artists in Times of War (2003) ISBN 1-58322-602-8
• The Cold War & the University: Toward an Intellectual History of the Postwar Years (Noam Chomsky (Editor) Authors: Ira Katznelson[34], R. C. Lewontin, David Montgomery, Laura Nader, Richard Ohmann[35], Ray Siever, Immanuel Wallerstein, Howard Zinn (1997) ISBN 1-56584-005-4
• Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991) ISBN 0-06-092108-0 [36]
• Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order (1968, re-issued 2002) ISBN 0-89608-675-5
• Emma: A Play in Two Acts About Emma Goldman, American Anarchist (2002) ISBN 0-89608-664-X
• Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian (1993) ISBN 0-89608-676-3
• The Future of History: Interviews With David Barsamian (1999) ISBN 1-56751-157-0
• Hiroshima: Breaking the Silence (pamphlet, 1995) ISBN 1-884519-14-8
• Howard Zinn On Democratic Education Donaldo Macedo, Editor (2004) ISBN 1-59451-054-7
• Howard Zinn on History (2000) ISBN 1-58322-048-8
• Howard Zinn on War (2000) ISBN 1-58322-049-6
• Justice in Everyday Life: The Way It Really Works (Editor) (1974) ISBN 0-89608-677-1
• Justice? Eyewitness Accounts (1977) ISBN 0-8070-4479-2
• La Otra Historia De Los Estados Unidos (2000) ISBN 1-58322-054-2
• LaGuardia in Congress (1959) ISBN 0-8371-6434-6, ISBN 0-393-00488-0
• Marx in Soho: A Play on History (1999) ISBN 0-89608-593-7
• New Deal Thought (editor) (1965) ISBN 0-87220-685-8
• Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice (2003) ISBN 0-06-055767-2
• The Pentagon Papers Senator Gravel Edition. Vol. Five. Critical Essays. Boston. Beacon Press, 1972. 341p. plus 72p. of Index to Vol. I-IV of the Papers, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, editors
• A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom by David Williams, Howard Zinn (Series Editor) (2005) ISBN 1-59558-018-2
• A People's History of the United States: 1492 – Present (1980), revised (1995)(1998)(1999)(2003) ISBN 0-06-052837-0
• A People's History of the United States: Teaching Edition Abridged (2003 updated) ISBN 1-56584-826-8
• A People's History of the United States: The Civil War to the Present Kathy Emery Ellen Reeves Howard Zinn (2003 teaching edition) ISBN 1-56584-725-3
• A People's History of the United States: The Wall Charts by Howard Zinn and George Kirschner (1995) ISBN 1-56584-171-9
• The People Speak: American Voices, Some Famous, Some Little Known (2004) ISBN 0-06-057826-2
• Playbook by Maxine Klein, Lydia Sargent and Howard Zinn (1986) ISBN 0-89608-309-8
• The Politics of History (1970) (2nd edition 1990) ISBN 0-252-06122-5
• Postwar America: 1945 – 1971 (1973) ISBN 0-89608-678-X
• A Power Governments Cannot Suppress (2006) ISBN 978-0872864757
• The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace Editor (2002) ISBN 0-8070-1407-9
• SNCC: The New Abolitionists (1964) ISBN 0-89608-679-8
• The Southern Mystique (1962) ISBN 0-89608-680-1
• Terrorism and War (2002) ISBN 1-58322-493-9 (interviews, Anthony Arnove (Ed.))
• The Twentieth Century: A People's History (2003) ISBN 0-06-053034-0
• Three Strikes: Miners, Musicians, Salesgirls, and the Fighting Spirit of Labor's Last Century (Dana Frank, Robin Kelley, and Howard Zinn) (2002) ISBN 0-8070-5013-X
• Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal (1967) ISBN 0-89608-681-X
• Voices of a People's History of the United States (with Anthony Arnove, 2004) ISBN 1-58322-647-8
• You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times (1994) ISBN 0-8070-7127-7
• A Young People's History of the United States, adapted from the original text by Rebecca Stefoff; illustrated and updated through 2006, with new introduction and afterward by Howard Zinn; two volumes, Seven Stories Press, New York, 2007.
  • Vol. 1: Columbus to the Spanish-American War. ISBN 978-1-58322-759-6
  • Vol. 2: Class Struggle to the War on Terror. ISBN 978-1-58322-760-2
• The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy (1997) ISBN 1-8883

Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche (August 7, 1903 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Palestine. He was the first person of color to be so honored in the history of the Prize.[1] In 1963, he received the Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon Johnson.[2]

Early life

Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan to an African-American family; his father was a barber, his mother an amateur musician. They moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, when he was a child to improve his parents' health. His parents died soon after, and he was raised in Los Angeles by his grandmother who looked "white" but was an active member of the black community.

Bunche was a brilliant student, a top debater, and the valedictorian of his graduating class at Jefferson High School. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles and graduated summa cum laude in 1927 -- again as the valedictorian of his class. Using the money his community raised for his studies, and a scholarship from the University, he studied at Harvard. There he earned a master's degree in political science in 1928 and a doctorate in 1934, though he was already by that time teaching in Howard University's Department of Political Science, which he chaired from 1928 until 1950. He lived in the Brookland neighborhood of Washington, D.C., and was a member of the American Federation of Teachers affiliate at Harvard.

In 1936 Bunche authored a pamphlet entitled A World View of Race. In it Bunche wrote: "And so class will some day supplant race in world affairs. Race war will then be merely a side-show to the gigantic class war which will be waged in the big tent we call the world." In 1936-40 Bunche served as contributing editor of the journal Science and Society: A Marxian Quarterly.^[1]

World War II years

Bunche spent time during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the CIA) as senior social analyst on Colonial Affairs before joining the State Department. In 1943 Bunche went to the State Department where he became associate chief of the division of dependent area affairs under Alger Hiss. He became, with Hiss, one of the leaders of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR).

He participated in the preliminary planning for the United Nations at the San Francisco Conference of 1945.

Work with the United Nations

At the close of the second World War, Bunche was active in preliminary planning for the United Nations (Dumbarton Oaks Conversations held in Washington D.C. in 1944). He was also an advisor to the U.S. delegation for the "Charter Conference" of the United Nations held in 1945. Additionally, he was closely involved in drafting the charter of the United Nations. Ralph Bunche along with Eleanor Roosevelt were considered instrumental in the creation and adoption of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.

According to the United Nations document "Ralph Bunche: Visionary for Peace," during his 25 years of service to the United Nations he:

...championed the principle of equal rights for everyone, regardless of race or creed. He believed in "the essential goodness of all people, and that no problem in human relations is insoluble". Through the UN Trusteeship Council, Bunche readied the international stage for an unprecedented period of transformation, dismantling the old colonial systems in Africa and Asia, and guiding scores of emerging nations through the transition to independence in the post-war era.

Palestine and Nobel Peace Prize

Beginning in 1947, Bunche was involved with the Arab-Israeli conflict. He served as assistant to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and thereafter as the principal secretary of the U.N. Palestine Commission. In 1948 he traveled to the Middle East as the chief aide to Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been appointed by the U.N. to mediate the conflict. In September, Bernadotte was assassinated by members of the underground Jewish group Lehi. Bunche became the U.N.'s chief mediator and concluded the task with the signing of the 1949 Armistice Agreements, the work for which he received the Peace Prize and many other honors.

He continued to work for the United Nations, mediating in other strife-torn regions including The Congo, Yemen, Kashmir, and Cyprus, eventually rising to the position of undersecretary-general in 1968.

Prominent African-American

As a prominent African-American, Bunche was an active and vocal supporter of the civil rights movement, though he never actually held a titled position in one of the movement's the major organizations.[3]

Bunche was a residents of the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, New York.^[2]

Bunche died in 1971 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

Gareth Peirce (born c. 1940) is a British solicitor. She discarded her birth name of "Jean" when she was quite young, taking "Gareth" as her legal name. She is noted for taking on controversial cases, including high profile human rights issues. Her clients include the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, former MI5 operative David Shayler, Abu Qatada (who has been called 'Europe's Al-Qaeda Ambassador'), Judith Ward, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, Mozzam Begg and Bisher Amin Khalil al-Rawi, a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp.

In the mid 1970's Gareth Peirce supported specific campaigns for reform of laws and police procedures that permitted the wrongful prosecution and conviction of persons solely on identification evidence. Individual cases that were then very much in the news - such as the George Davis Is Innocent Campaign alongside numerous others countrywide soon led to the establishment of Justice Against the Identification Laws (J.A.I.L.), an organisation which Gareth Peirce supported. (See: "IDENTIFICATION EVIDENCE - Practices and Malpractices: A report by JAIL" by Martin Walker and Bernadette Brittain. (1978)).

Peirce was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College, the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics. In the 1960s, she worked as a journalist in the United States, following the campaign of Martin Luther King; when she returned to Britain in the 1970s, after having married Bill Peirce, the son of the American painter Waldo Peirce, she took a postgraduate law degree at the London School of Economics. She joined the firm of the radical solicitor Benedict Birnberg as a trainee, and was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors on December 15, 1978.

She was awarded the CBE in 1999, but later returned it. She is currently a senior partner at Birnberg Peirce and Partners, and lives in Kentish Town, north London, with her husband. They have two adult sons. In the film In the Name of the Father, Peirce was portrayed by Emma Thompson (though Thompson's character was actually a composite of several lawyers who worked on the case, including Peirce).

Peirce was one of the initial eight people inducted in March 2007 into Justice Denied magazines Hall of Honor, for her lifetime achievement in aiding the wrongly convicted.

The Cult of Che Don't applaud The Motorcycle Diaries.

By Paul Berman (from Slate)

The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian. He achieved nothing but disaster. Many of the early leaders of the Cuban Revolution favored a democratic or democratic-socialist direction for the new Cuba. But Che was a mainstay of the hardline pro-Soviet faction, and his faction won. Che presided over the Cuban Revolution's first firing squads. He founded Cuba's "labor camp" system—the system that was eventually employed to incarcerate gays, dissidents, and AIDS victims. To get himself killed, and to get a lot of other people killed, was central to Che's imagination. In the famous essay in which he issued his ringing call for "two, three, many Vietnams," he also spoke about martyrdom and managed to compose a number of chilling phrases: "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become …"— and so on. He was killed in Bolivia in 1967, leading a guerrilla movement that had failed to enlist a single Bolivian peasant. And yet he succeeded in inspiring tens of thousands of middle class Latin-Americans to exit the universities and organize guerrilla insurgencies of their own. And these insurgencies likewise accomplished nothing, except to bring about the death of hundreds of thousands, and to set back the cause of Latin-American democracy—a tragedy on the hugest scale.

The present-day cult of Che—the T-shirts, the bars, the posters—has succeeded in obscuring this dreadful reality. And Walter Salles' movie The Motorcycle Diaries will now take its place at the heart of this cult. It has already received a standing ovation at Robert Redford's Sundance film festival (Redford is the executive producer of The Motorcycle Diaries) and glowing admiration in the press. Che was an enemy of freedom, and yet he has been erected into a symbol of freedom. He helped establish an unjust social system in Cuba and has been erected into a symbol of social justice. He stood for the ancient rigidities of Latin-American thought, in a Marxist-Leninist version, and he has been celebrated as a free-thinker and a rebel. And thus it is in Salles' Motorcycle Diaries.

A vagabond tour of South America

The film follows the young Che and his friend Alberto Granado on a vagabond tour of South America in 1951-52—which Che described in a book published under the title Motorcycle Diaries, and Granado in a book of his own. Che was a medical student in those days, and Granado a biochemist, and in real life, as in the movie, the two men spent a few weeks toiling as volunteers in a Peruvian leper colony. These weeks at the leper colony constitute the dramatic core of the movie. The colony is tyrannized by nuns, who maintain a cruel social hierarchy between the staff and the patients. The nuns refuse to feed people who fail to attend mass. Young Che, in his insistent honesty, rebels against these strictures, and his rebellion is bracing to witness. You think you are observing a noble protest against the oppressive customs and authoritarian habits of an obscurantist Catholic Church at its most reactionary.

Yet the entire movie, in its concept and tone, exudes a Christological cult of martyrdom, a cult of adoration for the spiritually superior person who is veering toward death—precisely the kind of adoration that Latin America's Catholic Church promoted for several centuries, with miserable consequences. The rebellion against reactionary Catholicism in this movie is itself an expression of reactionary Catholicism. The traditional churches of Latin America are full of statues of gruesome bleeding saints. And the masochistic allure of those statues is precisely what you see in the movie's many depictions of young Che coughing out his lungs from asthma and testing himself by swimming in cold water—all of which is rendered beautiful and alluring by a sensual backdrop of grays and browns and greens, and the lovely gaunt cheeks of one actor after another, and the violent Andean landscapes.

The movie in its story line sticks fairly close to Che's diaries, with a few additions from other sources. The diaries tend to be haphazard and nonideological except for a very few passages. Che had not yet become an ideologue when he went on this trip. He reflected on the layered history of Latin America, and he expressed attitudes that managed to be pro-Indian and, at the same time, pro-conquistador. But the film is considerably more ideological, keen on expressing an "indigenist" attitude (to use the Latin-American Marxist term) of sympathy for the Indians and hostility to the conquistadors. Some Peruvian Marxist texts duly appear on the screen. I can imagine that Salles and his screenwriter, José Rivera, have been influenced more by Subcomandante Marcos and his "indigenist" rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico, than by Che.

And yet, for all the ostensible indigenism in this movie, the pathos here has very little to do with the Indian past, or even with the New World. The pathos is Spanish, in the most archaic fashion—a pathos that combines the Catholic martyrdom of the Christlike scenes with the on-the-road spirit not of Jack Kerouac (as some people may imagine) but of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, a tried-and-true formula in Spanish culture. (See Benito Pérez Galdós' classic 19^th-century novel Nazarín.) If you were to compare Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries, with its pious tone, to the irrevent, humorous, ironic, libertarian films of Pedro Almodóvar, you could easily imagine that Salles' film comes from the long-ago past, perhaps from the dark reactionary times of Franco—and Almodóvar's movies come from the modern age that has rebelled against Franco.

The modern-day cult of Che blinds us not just to the past but also to the present. Right now a tremendous social struggle is taking place in Cuba. Dissident liberals have demanded fundamental human rights, and the dictatorship has rounded up all but one or two of the dissident leaders and sentenced them to many years in prison. Among those imprisoned leaders is an important Cuban poet and journalist, Raúl Rivero, who is serving a 20-year sentence. In the last couple of years the dissident movement has sprung up in yet another form in Cuba, as a campaign to establish independent libraries, free of state control; and state repression has fallen on this campaign, too.

These Cuban events have attracted the attention of a number of intellectuals and liberals around the world. Václav Havel has organized a campaign of solidarity with the Cuban dissidents and, together with Elena Bonner and other heroic liberals from the old Soviet bloc, has rushed to support the Cuban librarians. A group of American librarians has extended its solidarity to its Cuban colleagues, but, in order to do so, the American librarians have had to put up a fight within their own librarians' organization, where the Castro dictatorship still has a number of sympathizers. And yet none of this has aroused much attention in the United States, apart from a newspaper column or two by Nat Hentoff and perhaps a few other journalists, and an occasional letter to the editor. The statements and manifestos that Havel has signed have been published in Le Monde in Paris, and in Letras Libres magazine in Mexico, but have remained practically invisible in the United States. The days when American intellectuals rallied in any significant way to the cause of liberal dissidents in other countries, the days when Havel's statements were regarded by Americans as important calls for intellectual responsibility—those days appear to be over.

I wonder if people who stand up to cheer a hagiography of Che Guevara, as the Sundance audience did, will ever give a damn about the oppressed people of Cuba—will ever lift a finger on behalf of the Cuban liberals and dissidents. It's easy in the world of film to make a movie about Che, but who among that cheering audience is going to make a movie about Raúl Rivero?

As a protest against the ovation at Sundance, I would like to append one of Rivero's poems to my comment here. The police confiscated Rivero's books and papers at the time of his arrest, but the poet's wife, Blanca Reyes, was able to rescue the manuscript of a poem describing an earlier police raid on his home. Letras Libres published the poem in Mexico. I hope that Rivero will forgive me for my translation. I like this poem because it shows that the modern, Almodóvar-like qualities of impudence, wit, irreverence, irony, playfulness, and freedom, so badly missing from Salles' pious work of cinematic genuflection, are fully alive in Latin America, and can be found right now in a Cuban prison.

Search Order
by Raúl Rivero

What are these gentlemen looking for
in my house?

What is this officer doing
reading the sheet of paper
on which I've written
the words "ambition," "lightness," and "brittle"?

What hint of conspiracy
speaks to him from the photo without a dedication
of my father in a guayabera (black tie)
in the fields of the National Capitol?

How does he interpret my certificates of divorce?

Where will his techniques of harassment lead him
when he reads the ten-line poems
and discovers the war wounds
of my great-grandfather?

Eight policemen
are examining the texts and drawings of my daughters,
and are infiltrating themselves into my emotional networks
and want to know where little Andrea sleeps
and what does her asthma have to do
with my carpets.

They want the code of a message from Zucu
in the upper part
of a cryptic text (here a light triumphal smile
of the comrade):
"Castles with music box. I won't let the boy
hang out with the boogeyman. Jennie."

A specialist in aporia came,
a literary critic with the rank of interim corporal
who examined at the point of a gun
the hills of poetry books.

Eight policemen
in my house
with a search order,
a clean operation,
a full victory
for the vanguard of the proletariat
who confiscated my Consul typewriter,
one hundred forty-two blank pages
and a sad and personal heap of papers
—the most perishable of the perishable
from this summer.

"To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary...These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the The Wall! (El Paredón)" --Ernesto 'Che' Guevara

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On October 8, Venezuelan vice president Jorge Rodríguez. the Cuban ambassador to Venezuela and other officials of the Cuban and Venezuelan governments, traveled to Pico El Aguila, one of Venezuela's highest mountains, to unveil  a monument to Argentine mass murderer che Guevara.

The act was carried live by government television in Venezuela and Cuba and reported in all the official press.

But the monument lasted only nine days. Late last night a group who calls itself "Comando Patriótico del Páramo" hit the monument with machine gun fire.

The monument, that was made of heavy armored glass, was completely destroyed.

Just two days ago while he was visiting Cuba, Hugo Chávez made reference to the monument during a speech that he made at Havana's Palace of Conventions, after signing several economic agreements with acting "president" Raul Castro.

According to Chávez, the monument to che Guevara was proof of the love that the Venezuelan people had for the assassin of hundreds of innocent Cubans.

The Venezuelan government has launched an investigation into the shooting but has not said whether it would be replaced.

Video of the execution of Col. Cornelio Rojas in 1959. che Guevara ordered Col. Rojas to be shot without a trial.

Click here to read what che Guevara's grandson thinks of Castro and the Cuban Revolution

Ernesto "Che" Guevara dreamed of creating the "New Man" at any cost. During the Cuban missile crisis, he was in favor of a nuclear war because he believed that a better world could be built from the ashes, regardless of the cost in millions of lives. By adhering to his anti-American feelings and pro-Soviet stance, he achieved a role in history that stands for one failure after another, both in Cuba, as well as in all the other countries where he went to promote and disseminate Castro's Revolution.

Ernesto "Che" Guevara had all the characteristics of a ruthless dictator and opponent of freedom. He believed that the end justifies the means, and he fanatically adhered to this gospel. This "idealized icon" is the one who, as a modern day Grand Inquisitor, eliminated many of his foes with a single pistol shot to the back of their heads. And he is also the same one who authored these enhancing words printed in the identity booklets of young Cuban soldiers sent to fight in Angola: "Blind hate against the enemy creates a forceful impulse that cracks the boundaries of natural human limitations, transforming the soldier in an effective, selective and cold killing machine. A people without hate cannot triumph against the adversary." More

THE REAL CHE GUEVARA

"Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate

 while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for

 the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!" 

"Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his

natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is

what our soldiers must become … " Che Guevara

He was very 'brave' when he was at la        But he seemed really scared after he was

Cabaña Fortress murdering innocent            captured by Bolivian soldiers

civilians, including a 14 year old child

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..> ..> .. language=JavaScript1.1> document_write(" "); ..> Bust of the Argentinean mercenary  beheaded by unhappy Venezuelans Some Venezuelans, unhappy with the betrayal of their president Hugo Chavez who has become a puppet of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, beheaded a bust of Argentinean mercenary che Guevara in Caracas.   Cuban ambassador to Venezuela, German Sanchez Otero, and a bunch of pro-Chavez sympathizers, including a moron yelling "viva che, viva che," applaud during the official presentation of a bust of Guevara. But some Venezuelans who are unhappy at seeing that Chavez is spending billions of dollars of their own money to keep the Cuban dictator in power, beheaded the bust of the Argentinean mercenary as can be seen in this photo taken in Caracas on Saturday January 7. (Thanks to 'Nilochiqui' for these photos) 180 DOCUMENTED VICTIMS OF CHÉ GUEVARA IN CUBA: 1957 TO 1959 From: Armando M. Lago, Ph.D., Cuba. The Human Cost of Social Revolutions, unedited Manuscript pending publication. Information provided by the TRUTH RECOVERY ARCHIVE ON CUBA an undertaking of the FREE SOCIETY PROJECT, INC. The exact number of Che's Cuban victims has not been verified, but include people he personally executed and those put to death under his orders. Che's biographers consistently report that he sent thousands to the firing squad. Over 4,000 deaths  are documented to have taken place in Cuba, mostly firing squad execution, in the first three years after Fidel Castro's takeover (1959-1962). Che Guevara was one of the regime's chief executioners during this period and is said to have acknowledged ordering "several thousand" executions. All took place without affording the victims fair trials and due process of law. The following list is not exhaustive and only includes cases for which historic reference is known. Names are   cited as reported; dates and additional details for most are available. Combat deaths caused by Che in Cuba and killings in countries where he led guerrilla operations have not been tallied. 14 executed by Che in the Sierra Maestra during the anti-Batista guerrilla struggle (1957-1958): 1. ARISTIDIO  2. MANUEL CAPITÁN  3. JUAN CHANG  4. "BISCO" ECHEVARRÍA  5. ECHEVARRÍA BROTHER 1 6. ECHEVARRÍA BROTHER 2  7. EUTIMIO GUERRA  8. DIONISIO LEBRIGIO  9. JUAN LEBRIGIO  10. "EL NEGRO" NÁPOLES 11. "CHICHO" OSORIO  12. ONE UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER ("EL MAESTRO)  13.-14. 2 UNIDENTIFIED PEASANTS 10 executed in Santa Clara at Che's orders in only two days (January 1959): 1. RAMÓN ALBA  2. JOSÉ BARROSO  3. JOAQUÍN CASILLAS  4. FÉLIX CRUZ  5. ALEJANDRO GARCÍA OLAYÓN 6. HÉCTOR MIRABAL  7. J. MIRABAL  8. FÉLIX MONTANO  9. CORNELIO ROJAS  10. VILALLA 156 executed at La Cabaña Fortress prison at Che Guevara's orders: 1. VILAU ABREU  2. HUMBERTO AGUIAR  3. GERMÁN AGUIRRE  4. PELAYO ALAYÓN  5. JOSÉ LUIS ALFARO 6. PEDRO ALFARO  7. MARIANO ALONSO  8. JOSÉ ALVARO  9. ANIELLA  10. MARIO ARES POLO 11. JOSÉ RAMÓN BACALLAO 12. CEVERINO BARRIOS  13. EUGENIO BÉCQUER  14. FRANCISCO BÉCQUER  15. RAMÓN BISCET  16. ROBERTO CALZADILLA 17. EUFEMIO CANO  18. JUAN CAPOTE FIALLO  19. ANTONIO CARRALERO  20. GERTRUDIS CASTELLANOS  21. JOSÉ CASTAÑO QUEVEDO  22. RAÚL CASTAÑO  23. EUFEMIO CHALA  24. JOSÉ CHAMACE  25. JOSÉ CHAMIZO 26. RAÚL CLAUSELL  27. ÁNGEL CLAUSELL  28. DEMETRIO CLAUSELL  29. JOSÉ CLAUSELL  30. ELOY CONTRERAS 31. ALBERTO CORBO  32. EMILIO CRUZ  33. JUAN FELIPE CRUZ  34. ORESTES CRUZ  35. HUMBERTO CUEVAS 36. CUNY  37. ANTONIO DE BECHE  38. MATEO DELGADO  39. ARMANDO DELGADO  40. RAMÓN DESPAIGNE 41. JOSÉ DÍAZ CABEZAS  42. ANTONIO DUARTE  43. RAMÓN FERNÁNDEZ OJEDA  44. RUDY FERNÁNDEZ 45. FERRÁN ALFONSO  46. SALVADOR FERRERO  47. VICTOR FIGUEREDO  48. EDUARDO FORTE 49. UGARDE GALÁN  50. RAFAEL GARCÍA MUÑIZ  51. ADALBERTO GARCÍA  52. ALBERTO GARCÍA 53. JACINTO GARCÍA  54. EVELIO GASPAR  55. ARMADA GIL Y DIEZ CABEZAS  56. JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ MALAGÓN 57. EVARISTO GONZÁLEZ  58. EZEQUIEL GONZÁLEZ  59. SECUNDINO GONZÁLEZ  60. RICARDO GRAO 61. BONIFACIO GRASSO  62. RICARDO JOSÉ GRAU  63. OSCAR GUERRA  64. JULIÁN HERNÁNDEZ 65. FRANCISCO HERNÁNDEZ LEYVA  66. ANTONIO HERNÁNDEZ  67. GERARDO HERNÁNDEZ  68. OLEGARIO HERNÁNDEZ 69. SECUNDINO HERNÁNDEZ  70. JESÚS INSUA  71. ENRIQUE IZQUIERDO  72. OSMÍN JORRÍN  73. SILVINO JUNCO 74. ENRIQUE LA ROSA  75. IGNACIO LASAPARLA  76. JESÚS LAZO  77. ARIEL LIMA LAGO  78. RAÚL LÓPEZ VIDAL 79. ARMANDO MAS  80. ENERLIO MATA  81. ELPIDIO MEDEROS  82. JOSÉ MEDINAS  83. JOSÉ MESA 84. FIDEL MESQUÍA  85. JUAN MILIÁN  86. FRANCISCO MIRABAL  87. LUIS MIRABAL  88. ERNESTO MORALES 89. PEDRO MOREJÓN  90. DR. CARLOS MUIÑO, MD.  91. CÉSAR NECOLARDES ROJAS  92. VICTOR NECOLARDES ROJAS 93. JOSÉ NUÑEZ  94. VITERBO O'RREILLY  95. FÉLIX OVIEDO  96. MANUEL PANEQUE  97. PEDRO PEDROSO 98. RAFAEL PEDROSO  99. DIEGO PÉREZ CUESTA  100. JUAN PÉREZ  101. DIEGO PÉREZ CRELA  102. JOSÉ POZO 103. EMILIO PUEBLA  104. ALFREDO PUPO  105. SECUNDINO RAMÍREZ  106. RAMÓN RAMOS  107. PABLO RAVELO 108. RUBÉN REY  109. MARIO RISQUELME  110. FERNANDO RIVERA  111. PABLO RIVERA  112. MANUEL RODRÍGUEZ 113. MARCOS RODRÍGUEZ  114. NEMESIO RODRÍGUEZ  115. PABLO RODRÍGUEZ  116. RICARDO RODRÍGUEZ 117. JOSÉ SALDARA  118. PEDRO SANTANA  119. SERGIO SIERRA  120. JUAN SILVA  121. FAUSTO SILVA  122. ELPIDIO SOLER 123. JESÚS SOSA BLANCO  124. RENATO SOSA  125. SERGIO SOSA  126. PEDRO SOTO  127. OSCAR SUÁREZ  128. RAFAEL TARRAGO  129. TEODORO TELLEZ CISNEROS  130. FRANCISCO TELLEZ  131. JOSÉ TIN  132. FRANCISCO TRAVIESO 133. LEONARDO TRUJILLO  134. TRUJILLO  135. LUPE VALDÉS BARBOSA  136. MARCELINO VALDÉS  137. ANTONIO VALENTÍN 138. MANUEL VÁZQUEZ  139. SERGIO VÁZQUEZ  140. VERDECIA  141. DÁMASO ZAYAS *15 additional executions were reported by The New York Times (on 2/6/59, 2/8/59, 3/16/59, and 4/2/59), but names are unknown.

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Oh yeah! We COULD have been ....

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Yalie, 26, dies in freak accident

By Jim Shelton

NEW HAVEN — A Yale University graduate student was struck in the head and died Sunday morning while unloading a truck filled with heavy stage scenery and equipment for the Yale Repertory Theatre. Pierre-Andre Salim, 26, was from Indonesia and lived in New Haven. An unspecified number of long, thick pieces of compressed particle board fell on Salim's head, according to officials at the scene. Although the student was wearing a hard hat, the weight and force of the material was enough to kill him, sources said. Salim was taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Members of the drama school family are mourning a tragic loss." Salim graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2002 with a degree in computer science, according to his Facebook page. Grief-stricken colleagues from the theater and the Yale Drama School stood outside the Chapel Street building Sunday morning, embracing each other and fighting back tears. None wanted to comment on the incident. Likewise, Bundy would not comment when he arrived at the theater Sunday morning. A white truck sat on York Street next to the theater's side entrance, with yellow police tape cordoning off the truck's open back end. Inside, personnel from the police department's bureau of identification examined the stage scenery items that remained there. Meanwhile, workers in hard hats carried items from a second truck into the theater. The Yale Rep's most recent production, "Trouble in Mind," had its final performance Saturday evening. The theater's next production, "Tartuffe," is scheduled to begin Nov. 26. Jim Shelton can be reached at 789-5664 or jshelton@nhregister.com

Emiliano Zapata Salazar (August 8, 1879–April 10, 1919) was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary force, the Liberation Army of the South.

 Early life and local politics

Emiliano Zapata (right) and his brother Eufemio Zapata

Zapata was born to Gabriel Zapata and Cleofas Salazar in the small central state of Morelos, in the village of Anenecuilco (modern-day Ayala municipality). He was the ninth out of ten children. He had to care for his family because his father died when Zapata was 17. He was of mestizo ancestry. At that time, Mexico was ruled by a dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz, who had seized power in 1876.

The social system of the time was a sort of proto-capitalist feudal system, with large landed estates (haciendas) controlling more and more of the land and squeezing out the independent communities of Native Americans and mestizos, who were then subsequently forced into debt slavery (peonaje) on the haciendas. Díaz ran local elections to pacify the people and run a government that they could argue was self-imposed. Under Díaz, close confidantes and associates were given offices in districts throughout Mexico. These offices became the enforcers of "land reforms" that actually concentrated the haciendas into fewer hands.

Zapata's family, although not wealthy, still retained its independence. Like most of the families in Anenecuilco, they were always in danger of poverty, although avoiding peonage and maintaining their own land (rancho). In fact, the family had in previous generations been porfirista, that is, supporters of Díaz. Zapata himself always had a reputation for being a fancy dresser, appearing at bullfights and rodeos in his elaborate charro (cowboy) costume. Though his flashiness would usually have associated him with the rich hacendados who controlled the lands, he seems to have retained the admiration and even adoration of the people of his village, Anenecuilco, so that by the time he was 30, he was the head of the defense committee of the village, a post which made him the spokesman for the village's interests. He was directly elected to this position during the autumn of 1909, just a year before the start of the revolution.

Zapata became a leading figure in the village of Anenecuilco, where his family had lived for many generations, and he became involved in struggles for the rights of the campesinos of Morelos. He was able to oversee the redistribution of the land from some haciendas peacefully, but had problems with others. He observed numerous conflicts between villagers and hacendados over the constant theft of village land, and in one instance, saw the hacendados torch an entire village.

Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.

For many years, he campaigned steadfastly for the rights of the villagers, first establishing via ancient title deeds their claims to disputed land, and then pressing the recalcitrant governor of Morelos into action. Finally, disgusted with the slow response from the government and the overt bias towards the wealthy plantation owners, Zapata began making use of armed force, simply taking over the land in dispute.

The 1910 Revolution

At this time, Porfirio Díaz was being threatened by the candidacy of Francisco I. Madero. Zapata made quiet alliances with Madero, whom he perceived to be the best chance for genuine change in the country of Mexico.

In 1910, unrest finally broke out in the formation of guerrilla bands. Zapata quickly took an important role, becoming the general of an army that formed in Morelos – the Ejército Libertador del Sur (Liberation Army of the South).

Zapata joined Madero's campaign against President Diaz. With the support of Pancho Villa, Pascual Orozco, Emiliano Zapata, and rebellious peasants, Madero overthrew Díaz in May of 1911 in the battle at Ciudad Juarez. A provisional government was formed under Francisco Leon de la Barra. Under Madero, some new land reforms were carried out and elections were to be ensured. However, Zapata was dissatisfied with Madero's stance on land reform, and was unable, despite repeated efforts, to make him understand the importance of the issue or to get him to act on it. Madero and Zapata's relations worsened during the summer of 1911 as Madero appointed a governor who supported plantation owners and refused to meet Zapata's agrarian goals. Compromises between the two failed in November 1911, days after Madero appointed himself President, and Zapata and Montaño fled to the mountains of southwest Puebla. There they formed the most radical reform plan in Mexico; the Plan de Ayala.

Zapata was partly influenced by an anarchist from Oaxaca named Ricardo Flores Magón. The influence of Flores Magón on Zapata can be seen in the Zapatistas' Plan de Ayala, but even more noticeably in their slogan "Tierra y libertad" or "land and liberty", the title and maxim of Flores Magón's most famous work. Zapata's introduction to anarchism came via a local schoolteacher, Otilio Montaño Sánchez – later a general in Zapata's army, executed on 17 May 1917 – who exposed Zapata to the works of Peter Kropotkin and Flores Magón at the same time as Zapata was observing and beginning to participate in the struggles of the peasants for the land.

The plan proclaimed the Zapatista demands for "land, liberty, and justice". Zapata also declared the Zapatistas as a counter-revolution and denounced Madero. Zapata mobilized his Liberation Army and allied with former Maderistas Pascual Orozco and Emiliano Vazquez Gomez. Orozco was from Chihuahua, near the U.S. border, and thus was able to aid the Zapatistas with a supply of arms.

Madero, alarmed, asked Zapata to disarm and demobilize. Zapata responded that, if the people could not win their rights now, when they were armed, they would have no chance once they were unarmed and helpless. Madero sent several generals in an attempt to deal with Zapata, but these efforts had little success.

Revolution against Huerta and Carranza

Madero was soon overthrown by Victoriano Huerta, a former porfirista general, who granted amnesty to Díaz and suppressed resistance to land reforms. General Huerta murdered Madero in February of 1913. In May, Huerta closed the House of the World Worker, which was largely made up of intellectual radicals including Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama. The peasant reaction to this increased the size of Zapata's forces considerably, and also gave rise to a new group in the north: the Villistas under Pancho Villa. The Villistas were mainly composed of Madero supporters. Zapata at first was hesitant to meet with Villa, after Villa vehemently rejected the Plan de Ayala when a Zapatista introduced him to the concept in prison.

Opposition to Huerta coalesced under Venustiano Carranza, who led a Constitutionalist faction with which both Villa and Zapata eventually allied. These forces proved too much for Huerta and he was quickly deposed. Following his defeat, the Constitutionalists set up a convention to decide the form of the new government. Zapata refused to attend the convention, pointing out that none of the attendees had been elected. Instead, the chiefs in Morelos sent a delegation to present the Plan de Ayala for consideration and observe the convention.

Soon thereafter Carranza had himself made head of the government, which sparked further outrage. Initially, Carranza commanded the loyalty of Álvaro Obregón, who suppressed the Villista guerrillas. The Zapatistas, however, remained mobilised, but grew increasingly fractured after many long years of campaigning, in which Gen. Pablo Gonzalez, appointed by Carranza in 1916 to recover the State of Morelos from Zapata's control, hanged many peasants and destroyed property all over the state, with no effect since Zapata's forces continued to fight, even recovering the city of Cuernavaca by mid-1917.

The Carranza regime ultimately put a bounty on Zapata's head, expecting disenfranchised Zapatistas to betray him. It also attempted to entice away the other chiefs in the Zapatista army; neither action proved successful.

Death

Emiliano Zapata's corpse

Although government forces could never completely defeat Zapata in battle, he fell victim to a carefully staged ambush by Gen. Pablo Gonzalez and his lieutenant, Col. Jesús Guajardo.

Guajardo proposed Gonzalez feign a defection to Zapata's forces. Gonzalez agreed, and to make the defection appear sincere, he arranged for Guajardo to attack a Federal column, killing 57 soldiers. Zapata subsequently agreed to receive a messenger from Guajardo, to arrange a meeting to speak about Guajardo's defection.

On April 10, 1919, Guajardo invited Zapata to a meeting, intimating that he intended to defect to the revolutionaries. However, when Zapata arrived at the Hacienda de San Juan, in Chinameca, Ayala municipality, Guajardo's men riddled him with bullets. They then took his body to Cuautla to claim the bounty, where they are reputed to have been given only half of what was promised.

Following Zapata's death, the Liberation Army of the South slowly fell apart, although Zapata's heir apparent Gildardo Magaña and many other Zapata adherents went on to political careers as representatives of Zapatista causes and positions in the Mexican army and government. Some of his former generals like Genovevo de la O allied with Obregón while others eventually disappeared after Carranza was deposed.

Legacy

Zapata's influence, however, lasts to this day, particularly in revolutionary tendencies in south Mexico. Most notably, a revolutionary movement of indigenous peoples that emerged in the state of Chiapas in 1994 gave themselves the name Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional or EZLN in Spanish) in honor of Zapata and are colloquially known as "the Zapatistas".

In the folklore of the people of Morelos, there is a widespread belief that Zapata did not die, that the corpse was that of a friend posing as Zapata, and that Zapata fled to some foreign land where he later died of old age.

Modern activists in Mexico frequently make reference to Zapata in their campaigns, his image is commonly seen on banners and many chants invoke his name- Si Zapata viviera con nosotros andaría, "If Zapata lived, he would walk with us." Zapata vive, la lucha sigue, "Zapata lives; the struggle continues."

Zapata is considered to be one of the outstanding national heroes of Mexico; many Mexican popular organizations, including the Zapatistas, a current revolutionary movement based in the state of Chiapas, take their name from him. Towns, streets, and housing developments called "Emiliano Zapata" are common across the country and he has, at times, been depicted on Mexican banknotes. There are controversies on the portrayal of Emiliano Zapata and his followers, on whether they were bandits or revolutionaries. But in modern times Zapata is one of the most revered national heroes of Mexico. To many Mexicans, specifically the peasant and indigenous citizens, Zapata was a practical revolutionary who sought the implementation of liberties and agrarian rights outlined in the Plan of Ayala. He was a realist with the goal of achieving political and economic emancipation of the peasants in southern Mexico, and leading them out of severe poverty.

Zapata has in the last few decades been recast as a quasi-religious icon as well, mostly within indigenous or Zapatista communities, where he is called "Votán Zapata." Votán (Wotán in modern Mayan spelling) is a Mayan god, who with his twin brother Ik'al was said to have descended from the mountains to teach the people to defend themselves. A part of Our Word is Our Weapon by Subcomandante Marcos of the EZLN is dedicated to Votán Zapata.