Power To The People! ... Howard Zinn's "Election Madness"

There's timing ... And then there's TIMING!

And Howard Zinn comes in today with a much-needed dash of cold water.

With the media in a tizzy today, over L' Affaire McCain, and whether the melting maverick boinked a lobbyist, or just sold his soul to her (perhaps both!), and waiting in the wings to flare back up is the sinking ship of Hillary Clinton, Zinn offers, in the March 2008 edition of 'The Progressive', "Election Madness".

A brief snippet;

"Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two leading Presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system of free health care for all.

They offer no radical change from the status quo.

They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.

They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live.

None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism."

Not likely to catch this kind of observation on your six-o'clock evening news.

Zinn has been there, done that ... He's talked the talk and walked the walk ... He's a historian, playwright, social activist and author of “A People’s History of the United States” (among about 20 others).


Read Howard Zinn's "Election Madness"

Visit Howard Zinn's website

(h/t to Barry Crimmins)