Speech against the Vietnam War on Boston Common

Speech against the Vietnam War on Boston Common

Howard Zinn delivers this address on Boston Common on May 5, 1971, opening by recalling that six young people who had been jailed with him the day before in Washington, DC were arrested simply for walking down a street singing "America the Beautiful." He argues that if Thomas Jefferson had been in Washington that day, he too would have been arrested for being young and having long hair, and that had Jefferson carried the Declaration of Independence he would have been indicted for conspiracy to overthrow the government alongside George Washington, John Adams, and Tom Paine. From this Zinn concludes that the wrong people are running the machinery of justice, the wrong people are behind bars, and the wrong people are calling the shots in Washington. He turns to the subject of civil disobedience, insisting that its very purpose is to trouble and disturb people, because the president's lies are manufacturing a false sense of calm while Southeast Asia burns. He urges listeners to keep a sense of proportion: those who commit civil disobedience break only petty laws, trespass and traffic laws, to protest the government's violation of the commandment against killing, and they harm no one, unlike the violence of the government itself. He acknowledges that civil disobedience unsettles even friends and allies, but argues history shows onlookers eventually come to agree with the protesters. Zinn criticizes members of Congress who complain about being "upset" by the arrest of seven thousand people in Washington while they themselves have spent six years silently voting funds for an unconstitutional war that has sent American bodies home in plastic bags and destroyed the villages and countryside of Vietnam. He calls on Congress to stop funding the war, filibuster, or impeach the president, the vice president, and other high officials, rather than criticize those protesting with their bodies and spirits. He declares it time to impeach the president and vice president, citing Article 2, Section 4 of the Constitution on impeachment for "high crimes and misdemeanors," and asks whether making war on the peasants of Southeast Asia is not itself such a crime. He then addresses how language is corrupted by those in power: a person who kills another commits murder, but a government that kills a hundred thousand people is called patriotic; a person who invades another's home commits breaking and entering, but a government that invades a country and destroys its villages is said to be fulfilling its world responsibility. He notes that nuns and priests who disrupt actions connected to the war are charged with conspiracy to kidnap, while the government itself, which seizes young men from a million homes, arms them, and sends them to die, calls this selective service rather than kidnapping. He calls for restoring the true meaning of words and declaring that the government has committed high crimes, urging that veterans throw away their medals, GIs refuse to fight, young men refuse the draft, women defy the state, and citizens refuse to pay taxes and disobey generally, insisting that what authorities call disturbing the peace is really disturbing the war, since there is no peace to disturb. Zinn notes that for two weeks the war has not been allowed to be forgotten, through the actions of veterans, mass meetings, and disrupters, and he calls for this to continue until soldiers and war planes are out of Southeast Asia. He calls on everyone to go to Government Center the next morning, urging nonviolence even while breaking petty laws and interfering with business as usual, since these are minor offenses compared to the great crime of the age, which is war itself. He tells the crowd that being arrested for a good cause is no shame, and that the true shame lies in doing the work of those who carry on the war. He then addresses the policemen present directly, reminding them that their own sons are also subject to being sent to die, for the profit of corporations like General Motors and Lockheed and for the political benefit of figures like the Mayor Daleys and Spiro Agnew, and urges them to put away their clubs, guns, and tear gas, to become nonviolent, and to disobey orders to commit violence. He likewise addresses FBI agents circulating among the crowd, accusing them of violating the spirit of democracy and behaving like the secret police of a totalitarian state in obeying J. Edgar Hoover, comparing their situation to that of the German secret police and urging them to learn to disobey in time. He closes by telling the police and FBI that if they wish to arrest genuine violators of the law, they should go instead to Washington and arrest the president and his advisers on the charge of disturbing the peace of the world.

By Howard Zinn · Genre: Political Speech, Anti-war Literature, Protest Literature · 1,714 words

First lines

Boston, Massachusetts, May 5, 1971.

Zinn was an early and outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War. This speech-one of many he gave in his lifetime on the Boston Common, often accompanied by his wife, Roslyn-can be heard in part in the documentary You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, which shares a title with Zinn's autobiography.

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antiwar · protest · activism · Vietnam War · civil disobedience · social justice · political speech · American history · peace movement · oration · rhetoric · dissent

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