Howard Zinn pens a speech for the presidential candidate willing
to take Bush head-on. Zinn’s hypothetical candidate gets out of
Iraq, promises universal free healthcare, guarantees jobs for all,
renews a true commitment to the environment, and calls for a
complete change in foreign policy.
Drawing on the historical context of his 1967 book, The
Logic of Withdrawal — the first book calling for LBJ to
withdraw from Vietnam — Zinn writes this column as a mirror of the
last chapter of that book: a speech for Lyndon Johnson. Looking
back at 1967, we can only hope that Howard Zinn is not as prescient
as he was then and that there will not be another Tet, another
Christmas bombing, and six more years of war that could have been
avoided by taking his advice. Today, Zinn is sticking to his guns
once again, this time in ‘an all-out challenge to the Bush
Administration, for its war policy and its assault on the
well-being of the American people.’
Zinn as president, or the candidate willing to take a stand,
would mean providing health care, education, environmental
protection, veterans’ benefits, and even school lunches for
children. ‘If I became President,’ he writes, ‘I would immediately
begin to use the great wealth of our nation to provide those
things, which represent true security.’
— Joel Stonington
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