Those eyebrows look wicked!  At least they match the hair color…..

In 1932, Albert Einstein, already world famous for his work in physics and mathematics, wrote a letter to another distinguished thinker, Sigmund Freud.  Einstein was deeply troubled by the memory of World War I, which had ended only fourteen years before.  Ten million men had died on the battlefields of Europe, for reasons that no one could logically explain.  Like many others who had lived through that war, Einstein was horrified by the thought that human life could be destroyed on such a massive scale and worried that there might be another war.  He considered that Freud, the world’s leading psychologist, might throw light on the question ‘Why do men make war?’

“Dear Professor Freud,” he wrote.  “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”  Einstein spoke of “that small but determined group, active in every nation, composed of individuals who …  regard warfare, the manufacture and sale of arms, simply as an occasion to advance their personal interests and enlarge their personal authority.”  And then he asked, “How is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions?”

Einstein volunteered an answer, “Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction.”  And then he put his final question to Freud, “Is it possible to control a man’s mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychoses of hate and destructiveness?”

Freud responded, “You surmise that man has in him an active instinct for hatred and destruction, amenable to such stimulations.  I entirely agree with you …. The most casual glance at world-history will show an unending series of conflicts between one community and another.”  Freud pointed to two fundamental instincts in human beings: the erotic, or love, instinct and its opposite, the destructive instinct.  But the only hope he could hold for the erotic triumphing over the destructive was in the cultural development of the human race, including “a strengthening of the intellect, which tends to master our instinctive life.”

But what is Freud’s evidence for the existence of such an instinct?  There is something curious in his argument.  He offers no proof from the field of his expertise, psychology.  His evidence is in “the most casual glance at world-history.”

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

For the idea that any means – mass murder, the misuse of science, the corruption of professionalism – are acceptable to achieve the end of national power, the ultimate example of our time is Hiroshima.  For us, as citizens, the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suggests that we reject Machiavelli, that we do not accept subservience, whether to princes or presidents, and that we examine for ourselves the ends of public policy to determine whose interests they really serve.  We must examine the means used to achieve those ends to decide if they are compatible with equal justice for all human beings on earth.

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

In his detailed and eloquent history of the making of the bomb, Richard Rhodes says, “The bombs were authorized not because the Japanese refused to surrender but because they refused to surrender unconditionally.”

The one condition necessary for Japan to end the war was an agreement to maintain the sanctity of the Japanese emperor, who was a holy figure to the Japanese people.  Former ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew, based on his knowledge of Japanese culture, had been trying to persuade the U.S. government of the importance of allowing the emperor to remain in place.

Herbert Feis, who had unique access to State Department files and to records on the Manhattan Project, noted that in the end the United States did give assurances the Japanese wanted on the emperor.  He writes, “The curious mind lingers over the reasons why the American government waited so long before offering the Japanese those various assurances which it did extend later.”

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

Using the atomic bombs on populated cities was justified in moral terms by American political leaders.  Henry Stimson, whose Interim Committee had the job of deciding whether or not to use the atomic bomb, said later it was done “to end the war in victory with the least possible cost in the lives of the men of the armies.”  This was based on the assumption that without atomic bombs, an invasion of Japan would be necessary, which would cost many American lives.

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

But intimidation of Schlesinger-as-adviser went beyond silencing him in the other cabinet room – it led him to produce a nine-page memorandum to President Kennedy, written shortly before the invasion of Cuba, in which he is as blunt as Machiavelli himself in urging deception of the public to conceal the U.S. role in the invasion.  This would be necessary because “a great many people simply do not at this moment see that Cuba presents so grave and compelling a threat to our national security as to justify a course of action which much of the world will interpret as calculated aggression against a small nation.”

The memorandum goes on, “The character and repute of President Kennedy constitute one of our greatest national resources.  Nothing should be done to jeopardize this invaluable asset.  When lies must be told, they should be told by subordinate officials.”  It goes on to suggest “that someone other than the President make the final decision and do so in absence – someone whose head can later be placed on the block if things go terribly wrong. “  (Cesare Borgia again, only lacking the blood-stained knife.)

Sleshinger included in his memo sample questions and lying answers in case the issue of the invasion came up in a press conference:

Q: Mr. President, is CIA involved in this affair?

A: I can assure you that the United States has no intention of using force to overthrow the Castro regime.

The scenario was followed.  Four days before the invasion, President kennedy told a press conference, “There will not be, under any conditions, any intervention in Cuba by U.S. armed forces.”

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

Machiavelli’s advice for the prince has been followed in our time by all sorts of dictators and generalissimos.  Hitler kept a copy of The Prince at his bedside, it is said.  (Who says? How do they know?)  Mussolini used Machiavelli for his doctoral dissertation.  Lenin and Stalin are also supposed to have read Machiavelli.  Certainly the Italian Communist Gramsci wrote favorably about Machiavelli, claiming that Machiavelli was not really giving advice to princes, who knew all that already, but to “those who do not know,” thus educating “those who must recognize certain necessary means, even if those of tyrants, because they want certain ends.”

The prime ministers and presidents of modern democratic states, despite there pretensions, have also admired and followed Machiavelli.  Max Lerner, a prominent liberal commentator on the post-World War II period, in his introduction to Machiavelli’s writings, says of him “The common meaning he has for democrats and dictators alike is that, whatever your ends, you must be clear-eyed and unsentimental in pursuit of them.”  Lerner finds in Machiavelli’s Discourses that one of its important ideas is “the need in the conduct even of a democratic state for the will to survive and therefore for ruthless instead of half-hearted measures.”

Thus the democratic state, behaving like the lion, uses force when persuasion does not work.  It uses it against its own citizens when they cannot be persuaded to obey the laws.  It uses it against other peoples in the act of war, not always in self defense, but often when it cannot persuade other nations to do it’s bidding.

For example, at the start of the 20^th century, although Columbia was willing to sell the rights to the Panama Canal to the United States, it wanted more money than the United States was willing to pay.  So the warships were sent on their way, a little revolution was instigated in Panama, and soon the Canal Zone was in the hands of the United States.  As one U.S. senator described the operation, “We stole it fair and square.”

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

There was another official reason given for U.S. intervention in Central America in the 1980s: to ‘restore democracy.’  This, too, was hardly believable.  Throughout the period after World War II our government had supported undemocratic governments, indeed vicious military dictatorships: in Batista’s Cuba, Somoza’s Nicaragua, Armas’s Guatemala, Pinochet’s Chile, and Duvalier’s Haiti as well as in El Salvador and other countries of Latin America.

The actual purpose of U.S. policy in Central America was expressed by Tucker in the most clear Machiavellian terms:  “The great object of American foreign policy ought to be the restoration of a more normal political world, a world in which those other states possessing the elements of great power once again play the role their power entitles them to play.”

Undoubtedly, there are Americans who respond favorably to this idea, that the United States should be a “great power” in the world, should dominate other countries, should be number one.  Perhaps the assumption s that our domination is benign and that our power is used for  kindly purposes.  The history of our relations with Latin America does not suggest this.  Besides, is it really in keeping with the American ideal of equality of all peoples to insist that we have the right to control the affairs of other countries?  Are we the only country entitled to a Declaration of Independence?

There was another official reason given for U.S. intervention in Central America in the 1980s: to ‘restore democracy.’  This, too, was hardly believable.  Throughout the period after World War II our government had supported undemocratic governments, indeed vicious military dictatorships: in Batista’s Cuba, Somoza’s Nicaragua, Armas’s Guatemala, Pinochet’s Chile, and Duvalier’s Haiti as well as in El Salvador and other countries of Latin America.

The actual purpose of U.S. policy in Central America was expressed by Tucker in the most clear Machiavellian terms:  “The great object of American foreign policy ought to be the restoration of a more normal political world, a world in which those other states possessing the elements of great power once again play the role their power entitles them to play.”

Undoubtedly, there are Americans who respond favorably to this idea, that the United States should be a “great power” in the world, should dominate other countries, should be number one.  Perhaps the assumption s that our domination is benign and that our power is used for  kindly purposes.  The history of our relations with Latin America does not suggest this.  Besides, is it really in keeping with the American ideal of equality of all peoples to insist that we have the right to control the affairs of other countries?  Are we the only country entitled to a Declaration of Independence?

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

How many times have the dreams of young people – the desire to help others; to devote their lives to the sick or the poor; or to poetry, music, or drama – been demeaned as foolish romanticism, impractical in a world where one must “make a living”?  Indeed, the economic system reinforces the same idea by rewarding those who spend their lives on “practical” pursuits – while making life difficult for the artists, poets, nurses, teachers, and social workers.

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

There is the same limited choice in public policy.  During the Vietnam War, the argument for a long time was between those who wanted a total bombing of Indochina and those who wanted a limited bombing.  The choice of withdrawing from Vietnam altogether was not offered.  Daniel Ellsberg, working for Henry Kissinger n 1969, was given the job of drawing a list of alternative policies on Vietnam.  As one possibility on his long list he suggested total withdrawal from the war.  Kissinger looked at the possibilities and crossed that one off the list before giving the list to President Richard Nixon.

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.