How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism? - Howard Zinn

Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.

The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured. Those special people who speak out in such a way as to shake up not only the self-assurance of their enemies, but the complacency of their friends, are precious catalysts for change.

What struck me as I began to study history was how nationalist fervor — inculcated from childhood on by pledges of allegiance, national anthems, flags waving and rhetoric blowing — permeated the educational systems of all countries, including our own. I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.