Howard Zinn: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

I was saddened when I learned Howard Zinn had died.  I learned of his sudden heart attack when a friend’s less than 140 characters came across my TweetDeck.  I was not surprised that a network “breaking news” text or a “this just in” email of any kind failed to alert my attention.  Though he was famous, Howard Zinn was not the father of a former Ice Capades star with a bad knee or a pandering ally to our corporate media.  Instead, Howard Zinn was an activist, a loyalist to humanity, and one unafraid to ask the hard questions.

Zinn wrote about the injustice in the lack of civil liberties and the perils of an unjust war not only through the eyes of a professor of history, but most importantly through the experiences of a participant of history.  Zinn spoke of our government’s failures during the Civil Rights Movement with authority and passion because he knew first hand the perilous journey of the freedom riders.  When Zinn questioned our government’s decision to invade Iraq, he did not do so from the sterile, arrogant high ground of five deferments, he did so from the reference point of a war veteran morally affected by the horrors of engagement.  And when Howard Zinn wrote A People’s History of the United States, he wanted to show that the point of view in traditional history text books is often times limited, and in the recent examples in the State of Texas, revisionist.  As a companion, the text supplies students the tools necessary to achieve critical consciousness, to go beneath the meaning on the veneer.

Not everyone is going to agree with the writings of Howard Zinn.  He was a purist of Progressive agenda. What we can admire, though, is his challenge to us for independent cognitive thought.  There is no shame or lack of public spirit in asking our government the difficult questions in an effort to hold it accountable to our own human ideals.  “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”  Or to put it in the oh so electronic vernacular of today, “Hey, Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches, WTF?”