Quotes from Howard Zinn

It was the potential combination of poor whites and blacks that caused the most fear among the wealthy white planters.

An unfinished bottle of champagne found in an old cupboard with all the sparkle gone.

at the same time he was remarkably prescient in writing about what he calls the "99 percent" versus the "1 percent" years before the Occupy movement popularized these terms. (Interestingly, others claimed credit for this slogan—or were given credit for it—ignoring Howard's much earlier use of the terms in this book.)

In modern times, exploitation is disguised—it is accomplished by law, which has the look of neutrality and fairness.

Morgan had escaped military service in the Civil War by paying $300 to a substitute. So did John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Philip Armour, Jay Gould, and James Mellon. Mellon's father had written to him that "a man may be a patriot without risking his own life or sacrificing his health. There are plenty of lives less valuable.

blood tribute paid by labor to capitalism

distract the attention of the workers from their real interests.

The United States government had signed more than four hundred treaties with Indians and violated every single one.

From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed two classes—paupers and millionaires….

You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism which enslaves you both. You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both.

Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee….

He was full of religious talk: "Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities.

the Anti-Imperialist League...carried on a long campaign to educate the American public about the horrors of the Philippine war and the evils of imperialism. It was...united in a common moral outrage at what was being done to the Filipinos in the name of freedom. Whatever their differences on other matters, they would all agree with William James's angry statement: 'God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles'.

Thus, Beard found that most of the makers of the Constitution had some direct economic interest in establishing a strong federal government: the manufacturers needed protective tariffs; the moneylenders wanted to stop the use of paper money to pay off debts; the land speculators wanted protection as they invaded Indian lands; slaveowners needed federal security against slave revolts and runaways; bondholders wanted a government able to raise money by nationwide taxation, to pay off those bonds.

For all the gold and silver stolen and shipped to Spain did not make the Spanish people richer. It gave their kings an edge in the balance of power for a time, a chance to hire more mercenary soldiers for their wars. They ended up losing those wars anyway, and all that was left was a deadly inflation, a starving population, the rich richer, the poor poorer, and a ruined peasant class.

El grito de los pobres no siempre es justo, pero si no lo escuchas, nunca sabrás lo que es la justicia".

Catholic Church, expelled all the Jews

In January 1943, there appeared in a Negro newspaper this Draftee's Prayer: Dear Lord, today I go to war: To fight, to die, Tell me what for? Dear Lord, I'll fight, I do not fear, Germans or Japs; My fears are here. America!

before the Bessemer process, iron was hardened into steel at the rate of 3 to 5 tons a day; now the same amount could be processed in 15 minutes). Machines

If you are going to break the law, do it with two thousand people … and Mozart.

Nations are not communities and never have been.

the prayers of those who hold religion in one hand, and

No harm shall come to any business interest as the result of administrative policy so long as I am President

The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)—the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress—is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders.