All language subtitles for Howard.Zinn.A.Peoples.History.Of.The.U.s.2016.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

Downloaded from
YTS.MX

Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

As long as
rabbits don't have historians,

history will be
written by the hunters.

Hunters tell stories
of victory and of war,

which alas need to
be fought in order

to defend the weak
and the helpless.

The hunters are only doing
their duty for the people,

for democracy, for
God and country

in the name of civilization.

Fighting against the bad
guys, be they fascists,

Communists, terrorists,
et cetera, et cetera.

But the story that hunters

prefer to tell is
no story at all.

Aside from their
credit card numbers,

rabbits really don't need
to remember anything else.

In a few moments, this American
B-17 is going to bomb Royan,

a small French city
on the Atlantic coast.

Today is April 15, 1945.

The war in Europe
is over or almost.

The bombardier on
board of this B-17

is 23-year old
Lieutenant Howard Zinn.

He enlisted to fight for his
country and against fascism.

He is about to
discover that his plane

is going to drop a
new type of bomb,

napalm.

The mission over Royan will
change the course of his life.

Looking down from
above, Howard Zinn is

certain that he is on the
side of the good guys.

But once he's landed,
he'll realize that it's not

just because you kill bad
guys that you're a good guy.

He'll land amongst those that
can't be seen from above.

This son of working class Jewish

parents will become
an historian.

Howard Zinn will become
the rabbits' historian,

the historian of those who are
on the wrong end of the gun.

Because rabbits don't
always run away.

Sometimes they even
take advantage of

the hunters' inattention
to grab their guns

and force them to back up
to the edge of the cliff

and sometimes just
a little further.

♪ As we go marching, marching

♪ We'll bring the bread to them

♪ The rising of the women

♪ Is the rising of the rest

♪ No more the drudge and idler

♪ 10 that toil where one reposes

♪ But the sharing
of life's glories

♪ Bread and roses,
bread and roses

♪ Bread and roses,
bread and roses

♪ Our lives shall not be sweated

♪ From birth until life closes

♪ Hearts starve
as well as bodies

♪ Bread and roses,
bread and roses

We grow up
in a controlled society.

So we're taught that if one
person kills another person,

that is murder but if a
government kills 100,000 persons,

that is patriotism.

Howard Zinn,

drawing on his own
personal experience,

will tell the story of
those forgotten by history.

He will take part in every
major social struggle

of his time, from the
Civil Rights movement

to the peace movement
against the Vietnam War

as well as the campaigns against

the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

In 1980, Howard Zinn
published his book

A People's History
of the United States

which revealed chapters
of history to the American

public which they knew
little or nothing about.

The book was an
enormous success.

Over two million copies have
been sold in the United States

and it has been translated
into languages worldwide.

Howard Zinn died in
2010 but to this day,

his ideas are still
controversial.

In 2012, his book
was banned from

public schools in Tucson,
Arizona and in 2013,

Indiana Governor Mitch
Daniels, President of of Purdue

University, launched a crusade
against teaching Zinn's book.

Indiana Governor.

Thank you.

Let's not overdo it.

What I'm doing here is

to tell you something
about how this came about.

It all starts with
a book, right?

It starts with A People's
History of the United

States or maybe it
starts with my wife

Roslyn Zinn who wouldn't let me

stop writing the book.

That's what we're
gonna use or try to

use today and this
is what they use in

the United Nations and certain
other governing bodies.

His textbook is so
refreshing to so many

of my students because
they are so used to

learning about US
history in a certain way.

Learning about Christopher
Columbus, he discovered America.

You know, the Founding Fathers.

But Howard Zinn
brings forth a lot of

the things that happened
in the United States

that aren't in your
traditional textbook.

It passes.

There had been
historians that had taken

pieces of American
history and dissected it

but Zinn took the
entire trajectory

from the founding of the
nation to the present and

imploded that myth

so that by the time
you finished that book,

you realized that
all of the stories

that we told ourselves about
ourselves were not true.

Howard Zinn would say
that history is the memory

of states and so what
that means is that history

is usually told from the
standpoint of people who

are in power and I think Howard
Zinn brings to the plate,

especially in American
studies that it's important

to have different
standpoints of history told.

When we organize with one
another, when we get involved,

when we stand up and
speak out together,

we can create a power no
government can suppress, thank you.

It's a really important book.

It really changed the conscience

of a generation in
the United States.

Here in
Clishishua, a Paris suburb,

Noam Chomsky talks about
his friend Howard Zinn.

On this side of
the Atlantic today,

the hegemony of the United
States is taken for granted.

- Up in the sky, look!
- It's a bird.

- It's a plane.
- It's Superman!

It's Superman.

The United States' domination

as a military, economic
and cultural superpower

is considered a completely
natural phenomena.

Disguised as a mild-mannered

newspaper reporter, Clark Kent.

There's no longer any debate

over who's pro or anti-American.

How did you
come to think the way you do?

I would like to know myself

how come I am the man that I am.

No, I think

we all try to understand

how we became what we are.

We all

try to

figure out why we
are thinking this way

because sometimes we
find that there are

people who went through
some of the same

experiences and yet
they think differently.

But I'm sure that my growing up

in a working class family

of Jewish immigrants

and seeing my mother and
father work very hard,

struggling

and people around me also

in my neighborhood working
very hard, struggling.

I'm sure that gave me a
certain class consciousness.

My father

was from the
Austro-Hungarian Empire.

My mother came from Siberia

and they came here

and they met as factory
workers in New York.

Welcome to the land of liberty.

Between 1900 and 1920,
more than 14 million

immigrants arrived
in the United States.

They came from all over
Europe, from Russia,

Ireland, Germany or like
Howard Zinn's parents,

from the
Austro-Hungarian Empire.

They came fleeing poverty or war

or racism or
religious persecution.

They dreamed of a Promised Land

of wealth or simply
of a better life.

The New World opens
its arms wide to

the poor and huddled
masses of the Old.

It's unwanted, it's fugitives,
even a few Utopians.

But above all, the
rapidly expanding

industries of the time
require cheap labor.

Men, women and children
easy to exploit,

easy to divide and easy to
use against those damned

worker's unions that demand
to work less that 12 hours

a day and their strikes that
were ruining the country

and prevented those who
wanted to work from doing so.

There were strikes and labor
struggles all over the country.

Even children protested.

At the beginning of
the 20th century,

300,000 children between
the ages of 10 and 15

worked in mines, textile
or other industries.

In Philadelphia in
1903, children working

60 hour work weeks
went on strike shouting

"We want to go to school,
55 hours or nothing."

I grew up experiencing the
Depression in the early 1930s.

My father was a waiter and
there was less work for him

when the economic crisis came,

so he had to take
different jobs.

He worked as a window cleaner.

He worked

on the streets, selling
neckties on the street.

I would come home
sometimes from school

and I would find the
house dark because

we could not pay
the electric bill.

We lived in

different places all the time

because we could
not pay the rents.

The condition of my family

was the way I experienced
the economic crisis.

I had no larger view of what was

happening in the
country or the world.

I just saw what was
happening right around me

and right around me, I
saw people struggling,

people evicted from their
homes, people without work.

The Zinn family lived in

rundown tenements in
the slums of Brooklyn.

The poor don't know
how lucky they are.

They don't have to
spend years studying

sociology to
understand the world.

A boy like Howard Zinn only
needed to look at himself,

the people around him and the
people in his neighborhood

and as his apartment
was too dark and small,

he often went outside to
play ball, to take boxing

lessons with the local champion
and to see his friends.

The advantage that the
poor have over sociologists

is that they know what
they're talking about.

As I was growing up and
17 years old and so on,

I encountered these young
radicals in my neighborhood.

Probably young Communists
in my neighborhood

and they took me to this
demonstration in Times Square

and I didn't even know, I had
never been to a demonstration.

I wasn't even sure what
the demonstration was about

but there were all these
people carrying signs, you see?

And marching
through Times Square

and I saw the word
"Peace, No War."

That was okay and then
when I heard the sirens,

I thought oh there must
be a fire somewhere around

but it was the police and
they were coming and they

were going into the crowd
and they were hitting people.

They were on horses,
some of them were

on horses and they were
knocking people down

and then I was
knocked unconscious.

I woke up in a hallway
who knows how much later

and when I woke up,
Times Square was totally

as it was before
the demonstration.

It was as if nothing
had happened.

But the experience had a
profound effect on my thinking

because I suddenly realized
that what these radical

friends had been saying
to me seemed to be true.

The police were on the
side of the Establishment

and that there's no
freedom of speech.

I grew up with this naive
idea that in America

you can march through the
streets, you can hold up signs.

You can demonstrate
peacefully because it was

a peaceful demonstration
and that is okay because

this is a democracy and
what I saw that night in

Times Square said no, there's
something wrong with that.

At the age of 17 after getting

hit over the head,
Howard Zinn discovered

the violence of social
struggles hidden under

the magic glitter of the
American Dream, the dream

that attracted millions of
people from around the world.

In the United States,
there's never been

a recognition of class
conflict, class struggle.

The culture and the dominant

elites in the United
States and the media,

they've always
succeeded in creating

a kind of ideology

of we are one happy family.

We are, you know,

the US Constitution starts
off, "We the People."

Of course it wasn't we
the people who established

the Constitution, it
was 55 rich white men

who established the Constitution
and what all Americans

learn,

we were in a war against
England for independence,

that was the Revolutionary
War, everybody was united.

One, two, three.

One, two,

three.

The United States which would

become an empire sprung
out of an empire.

But as Howard Zinn says,

the American Revolution
wasn't unanimously supported.

There were the Amerindians,
the African-American

slaves and freedmen, the
poor, women and even amongst

the revolutionaries, not
everyone had the same idea.

One, two,
three, into the harbor!

This small
museum in Boston portrays

one of the better known
historic and heroic stories in

the American Revolution,
the Boston Tea Party of 1773

when the people rose to
defy the English oppressor.

All the people? Well almost.

On the night of
December 16th, 1773,

people of Boston, in
fact a group of just

60 patriots calling
themselves the Sons of Liberty

and disguised as Mohawk
Indians, feathers and all,

boarded three English
ships moored in the harbor

and tossed all the
chests of tea overboard

to protest against the taxes
imposed by the English.

A rebellion of colonists
against the colonial power.

For me this is
actually the embodiment

of what it means
to be an American.

What it takes for man
to understand that

God-given right to
freedom and to liberty.

I think that it often
needs to be remembered that

the tendency for
governments and for those

who rule people is to seek
ever more and more power

and the founding
principle of this country

is that people have
their own power,

they have their own right
to govern themselves.

Two centuries
later, the name Tea Party

has been appropriated by a
political pressure group.

Today's tea party opposes
taxes and bureaucracy

imposed by the Federal
Government in Washington and has

mobilized support in many
parts of the United States.

Essentially today's
Tea Party advocates

the rights of
Americans to individual

freedom unhindered by
a large government.

Do you see a link between

the reenactment of what we
just saw and today's Tea Party?

Oh exactly, I just
mentioned that to my wife.

I said the things that
they were talking about

today are exactly what's
going on right now.

In fact there is an organization
called the TEA Party.

Taxed Enough Already, T-E-A
and many of the participants

in that strongly believe
that the Federal Government

here in the United
States is much to big

and is not following
the Constitution.

So you're saying that

the British of the time
are today's Washington?

Correct, there are
no more British today

but there are too many
people that do not believe

in the principles upon
which this country was

founded and they believe
that there needs to be more

and more government to
do more and more things.

What the Tea Party
believes is no.

We believe in Constitutionally
limited government.

History can be
considered as a collection

of stories that we choose
to light up like candles

in order to illuminate the
darkness of the present.

But some people travel back

into the past and
never come back.

1775, the Battles of
Lexington and Concord.

A heroic moment
for the Minutemen.

Who were the Minutemen?

Militias of patriots
ready to mobilize

at a moment's notice
in case the enemy,

that is to say the
English attacked.

With a Company
coming back here...

During the night
of April 18th to 19th, 1775,

they opened fire for the
first time on English troops

and the first shot fired
here was described as

"The shot heard
around the world."

The Minuteman in American
history, he's iconic.

The statue at the North
Bridge of the Minuteman

sums it up in terms of in
one hand he has his musket

and in the other his plow,
he's ready to leave his,

ready to pick up weapons to
defend his land and his liberty.

Yes, some were landowners,
some were called mechanics.

So they had a craft.

We'll meet some of the
people this evening.

They were couriers,
they worked in leathers.

There was a tannery nearby.

I think it's a great story.

People who were
here for 150 years

and we were governing ourselves.

We refused to be put under
the control of another country

and stood up for our
rights and our freedoms

and that's a lesson we still
teach our children today.

And they fought the
British first at Lexington

as they were heading out early
in the morning at about dawn.

The next fight was
at the North Bridge

at about 9:30 in the
morning and the significance

of the fighting at the
North Bridge is it was the

first time that the Colonial
Militia and the Minutemen

were ordered to fire
on the King's soldiers,

an act of treason known today

as The Shot Heard
Around the World.

Make ready, prime and load.

Shoulder up, fire lock.

Make ready to prime
and load, fire.

That mostly everybody
was united was untrue.

Maybe 1/3 of the colonists
were supporting the Revolution.

They had to draft people to
go into Washington's army

and once they were in the
army, the small farmers,

the poor people who
were in the army,

when they saw what their
conditions were, they rebelled.

There were mutinies in the
army of thousands of soldiers.

George Washington
ordered the execution

of some of these mutineers,
some of these rebels

and these executions
were carried out

and we don't learn about
that in the schools.

And after the war, this
class conflict continued

because the veterans of
the Revolutionary War

who had been promised

land for joining the army,

they had little pieces of
land, they were farmers

and then they found that

the taxes being levied on them

by the rich who controlled
the State Legislatures,

they could not pay these taxes.

So they were being evicted,

their land and their farms
being taken away from them

and so they rebelled and
there were rebellions in

a number of states, in
Massachusetts, in South Carolina.

Rebellions, class conflict.

In the United States,

even a shoe shiner can
become a millionaire.

Propaganda has succeeded
in purveying this belief.

However the truth is as
studies have shown for years

that the poor in the
US generally stay poor

and the rich on the whole
generally get richer and richer.

It is a well established
fact and everyone can see it

but this fundamental
belief is still conveyed

in order to soften the
brutal economic reality.

The myth of the American Dream

developed at the end
of the 19th century,

the age of railways,
electricity, oil and telephones.

The height of the
Industrial Revolution.

What historians usually
forget to mention

is that many of these
fortunes were made

with substantial
government financing.

Howard Zinn gives the
example of the Union

Pacific Railroad Company,
which received 14 million

acres of land and $27
million in Federal funding.

This public generosity
didn't benefit

the workers who
built the railroads,

of which there were 10,000
Chinese and 3,000 Irish laborers.

They laid over five
miles of rail per day

and died by the hundreds from
exposure to heat or cold.

In 1900, 1% of the US population

owned 45% of the
national wealth.

This was the age of
the robber barons,

the superheroes of
American Capitalism.

Carnegie,

Vanderbilt, JP Morgan,
John Davison Rockefeller.

Rockefeller possessed the
largest fortune in history,

up to $190 billion
in today's dollars.

That's three times
Bill Gates' fortune

and by what right?

Divine right, natural selection.

JD Rockefeller said it himself.

"The growth of big business
is merely the survival

"of the fittest according to
the laws of nature and God."

His colleague Carnegie
the steel magnate adds

"Wealth when concentrated
in the hands of a few

"serves much more to the
likes of progress than when it

"is dissipated into salaries
destined to feed the masses."

As for Carnegie's
associate Henry Clay Frick,

he purportedly stated
that "I can hire

"one half of the working
class to kill the other half."

With labor unrest and thousands
of strikes all over the US,

he sees the rising tide of
social conflict arriving

on his doorstep and he
doesn't like that at all.

In 1892 in Homestead,
Pennsylvania,

he hired 300 agents of the
Pinkerton Detective Agency to

infiltrate demonstrations as
agitators and break up strikes.

Frick also had a
company militia formed

which on the night
of July Fifth, 1892,

opened fire on the
strikers with machine guns,

killing 16 people

including one child.

Alexander Berkman
was a 22 year old

Russian Jewish
Libertarian Communist

and the lover of the
infamous Emma Goldman

who the President
later described

as the most dangerous
woman in America.

To avenge the workers
who were killed,

Berkman pays a visit
to Frick in his office

and shoots him
twice in the neck.

Frick is seriously injured but

a week later he returns to work.

As for Berkman, he's sentenced
to 22 years in prison.

Like the other robber barons,

Mr. Frick will be remembered
as a patron of the arts

and philanthropist, having
collected paintings by Rembrandt,

Renoir, Watteau and others.

"My dear friends, you,
the nouveau riche,

"you've acquired your
fortunes with the blood,

"sweat and tears of the poor.

"Yet you would prefer
not to pay taxes?

"In addition, you
want to be loved?

"No problem, setting
up a foundation,

"my wealthy friends, will allow
you to conserve your wealth,

"exempt you from
taxes and allow you to

"present yourselves as
benefactors of humanity."

In the superb Frick
Collection in New York City,

it is very unlikely
that you will

ever find Jacob
Reese's photographs.

Reese, a journalist
and photographer,

worked for the Popular
Press in the 1880s

and photographed the squalor
of tenement living in New York.

He portrayed how the
other half lives,

the other half being
the poorer half

of the population
of New York City.

Jacob Reese was one
of the journalists

that Theodore Roosevelt
labeled muckrakers,

those who denounced
corruption and violence

and the criminal practices
of the all-powerful

trusts in the rail, meat
and steel industries.

How many people living
in Chicago today

know of the events that
took place in May 1886,

the labor struggle
and the fierce

combat that raged here for days?

For Howard Zinn, an
essential chapter

in labor history was
written here with

consequences for workers
all over the world.

Here we are in Haymarket
Square with Tim Yeager,

union organizer with the
UAW and Matt Machowski

of the IWW of Chicago.

We owe Labor Day, May First
to events that happened in

Haymarket Square, which has
since become a parking lot,

and the eight hour work
day, both of which benefit

workers all over the
world and who surely know

nothing of what occurred
here in Chicago.

On May First, 1886,

one of the largest demonstrations
was here in Chicago.

The purpose of the
nationwide series of strikes

was to show support
for the eight hour day.

At the end of the 19th century,

the average work day was 10
to 12 hours, six days a week.

In 1886, the
movement for an eight

hour work day spread
across the country.

On May Third during a
demonstration in front of

the McCormick Factories, the
police fired into the crowd.

Four workers were killed
and several others wounded.

The next day, May Fourth,

the anarcho-syndicalist
unions immediately called

for a demonstration right
here in Haymarket Square.

It was a sunny day

and Lucy and Albert
Parsons had their children

with them and people marched
in their best clothing.

The police,

under orders of the
captains of industry,

looked for an opportunity
to attack the parade.

Around the country some of the

demonstrations were
attacked by police.

Here in Chicago they
looked for an opportunity

but there was good
discipline, good order.

There was no opportunity given

and so it was a successful day.

They moved the crowd from
there up to this area

just north of this alley
here and they hauled

a hay wagon up and the speaker
stood on the hay wagon.

At the end of the demonstration,

someone threw a stick of
dynamite at the police.

Eight policemen were
killed in the explosion

and more than 60
others were wounded.

The police open
fired on the crowd,

killing several demonstrators
and wounding at least 200.

Who threw the dynamite?

No one ever knew.

Some suspect it was a
deliberate provocation

carried out by the
Pinkerton Detective Agency,

employing more
than 10,000 agents

for their business and
industrial clients.

Their agents would
infiltrate labor movements,

act as police informers and
incite acts of violence.

This became the excuse for

a nationwide assault
on the labor movement.

Yes.

Here in Chicago, the police
raided labor union offices.

They attacked and

beat

people who were still on
strike for the eight hour day.

The police, unable to find

the real culprits,
arrested union organizers.

There was no evidence
brought against any of them.

The trial was a
mockery of justice.

The union men were evidently

sentenced to death
for their ideas.

One of them, Louis Lingg,
committed suicide in prison

by setting off a stick
of dynamite in his mouth.

He was 21 years old.

There was a show trial

where their writings
for the labor movement

and about anarchy were
used against them.

Were the executions public?

It was by invitation

and the people who
were invited were

the captains of
industry, the well-to-do.

The McCormick family
was invited, who had

owned the newspaper which
is now the Chicago Tribune

and a sympathetic reporter
asked one of the attendees

why he had come to the
execution and he said

"I have come to watch the
death of the labor movement."

Four of the union men

were hung on
November 11th, 1887.

August Spies, Albert Parsons,

Adolf Fischer,

George Engel.

These events had
repercussions worldwide.

In Paris, the French decided
that May First should

be a day of action in favor
of the eight hour workday.

A fight for
recognition of people's

right to a life outside
of the workplace.

But it wasn't until
May 23rd, 1919

after four years of
sacrifice in the trenches

that the French workers
obtained an eight hour day

and May First became
a public holiday.

In 1893, the Haymarket
murders were pardoned

by the progressive
Governor of Illinois,

John P. Altgeld and
the three remaining

union men were
released from prison.

He said let's forget it.

At this point let us pardon

these three men

and let them live
out their life.

On the gallows
with a noose around his neck,

August Spies, one of
the martyrs declares

"The time will come when
our silence will be more

"powerful than the voices that
you are strangling today."

Not far from this monument
in the Forest Park

Cemetery just outside of
Chicago lies Emma Goldman,

one of Howard Zinn's heroines,

buried among other
famous labor activists.

She was an anarchist,

a feminist, a labor organizer

and she was

imprisoned many times

and she opposed war

and

she became famous as a

speaker all over the country.

Finally during World War One,

because she opposed
World War One,

she was put in jail
and then after the war,

she was deported,

sent back to her
homeland to Russia.

Emma Goldman arrived in the US

in 1885 at the age of
16 and participated in

a large number of political,
social and labor struggles,

particularly for women's rights.

She was imprisoned
on several occasions

for pacifist opinions,
inciting people

to riot and defending
birth control.

She even had her own
newspaper, Mother Earth.

In 1921, she wrote
extensively to explain

her disillusionment with
the Russian Revolution.

In 1936, she went to Spain to
support the Republican cause.

She died in 1939 in Toronto
and asked to be buried

here in Chicago next to
the Haymarket martyrs.

Look, there's Emma
Goldman's grave.

It's dressed with flowers
and there are stones placed

on her tombstone as according
to the Jewish tradition

and that guy there, he's
a member of the IWW who

came all the way from St.
Louis to pay tribute to her.

He has left a button
from his union

as well as an apple.

You see the red apple?

It was in his bag.

The apple came all the
way from St. Louis.

In memory of Emma Goldman.

"Liberty doesn't
descend to a people,

"a people must raise
themselves to liberty."

The news of the
Haymarket Massacre

changed Emma
Goldman's life forever

and the lives of many
activists of her generation.

Howard Zinn, optimistic
as usual in his analyses,

believes that social
conflicts like these no matter

how dramatic contribute
to understanding history

and the education of
following generations.

For Zinn, this is
how class struggle

and the movement for social
progress move forward.

♪ As we go marching, marching

♪ In the beauty of the day

♪ A million darkened kitchens

♪ A thousand mill lofts gray

♪ Are touched with
all the radiance

♪ That a silent sun discloses

♪ For the people hear us singing

♪ Bread and roses,
bread and roses

♪ As we go marching, marching

♪ We battle too for men

♪ For they are women's children

♪ And we honor them again

Bread and roses.

Bread and roses too.

We want bread but
we also want roses.

Sometimes a song
suffices to keep an

event alive despite
the passage of time.

♪ Give us bread
but give us roses

In his People's
History of the United States,

Howard Zinn relates
the episode of the 1912

textile strike of the
men and women working

in the mills of
Lawrence, Massachusetts.

The story of bread and roses.

1912, Lawrence Massachusetts was

an unusual event

in the history of labor
struggles in the United States.

Unusual because

it followed a whole series of

strikes and struggles which
were lost by the workers.

In Lawrence, Massachusetts,

the workers won their strike

even though

the workers were

poor immigrants, women

and divided by a
dozen languages.

But they were helped

by the labor union IWW,

Industrial Workers of
the World which believed

in bringing all
workers together.

In 1905 in Chicago,

a group of anarchist
and socialist

union organizers
created the IWW,

Industrial Workers of the World.

One of the founding
members of the IWW was

Mary Harris Jones, better
known as Mother Jones.

She participated in
many minor strikes.

She supported women who resisted

when strike breakers
were called in.

She aided children
exploited in factories

and organized large
demonstrations in which

they marched up to
the homes of the great

Puritan bourgeois families
that employed them.

Eugene Debs was another
founding member of the IWW.

In 1894 he was thrown into
prison for his participation

in a strike against the
Pearlman Wagon Factory.

Debs ran for President of the
United States several times.

Big Bill Haywood was
another founding member.

He was dreaded by all
the bosses of his time,

particularly those
of the silver mines

as he was head of the union.

At the first ever IWW meeting,
he addressed the assembly.

"Comrades, we are here to
confederate the workers

"of this country into a
working class movement

"of which the purpose
is to emancipate the

"working class from the
slavery of Capitalism."

The IWW was also
the hobo's union,

itinerant farm workers who
were low cost travelers.

During the massive strikes
in Lawrence in 1912,

the Industrial Workers of the
World totaled 50,000 members.

They were called the Wobblies.

This is the Lawrence industrial
zone one century later.

Cotton produced by slaves
in the South arrived by

this river to be processed
by wage slaves of the North

in one of the 34 buildings of
the American Woolen Company.

In 1912, this factory was one
of the biggest in the world.

It employed 30,000
workers, mostly women

who came from 25 different
European countries.

They all came with the
hopes of a better life.

They all came with the
belief in the American Dream.

Much to our surprise,
here in the middle

of these abandoned
buildings is a small,

little-visited museum
run by Jim Boshen.

- Is that where they worked?
- Yes.

The mills right across
the canal from us

were all textile mills and
at the height of the industry

in Lawrence which is around
the time of the strike,

over 30,000 people worked
in the textile mills here.

Hard work

in

Tough conditions.

The mills were hot
and loud, dusty.

A lot of dangerous
machinery close by.

These were all textile mills.

It had begun

primarily for cotton textiles,

by the turn of the
century, mostly woolen.

The mills in the
North had a very

close, interdependent
relationship

with the Southern plantations.

In the
cotton fields of the South,

African-Americans were
exploited and here in the North,

immigrants were exploited.

Very much so and those
comparisons were made at the time.

It was something that

defenders of
slavery in the South

would point to and say
how can you criticize us?

You're exploiting the
immigrants in the North.

Well the first wave of immigrants
to Lawrence was the Irish

escaping the Irish Potato
Famine in the late 1840s.

Then many waves of
immigrants followed,

including many of my ancestors

who were French-Canadians
from Quebec.

Saw a huge influx of immigrants

during the late 19th
and early 20th century.

The famous massive wave from
southern and eastern Europe,

many of whom went through
Ellis Island in New York.

The workers'
nine dollar a week salary

was just enough for them to
buy food and pay their rent,

which naturally was
owed to their employers.

One study conducted at
the time estimated an

infant mortality rate of
50% for children under six.

In Lawrence starting in 1911,

the factory owners
decided to put

the ideas of Frederick
Taylor into practice.

Skilled workers were
no longer required.

Gains in productivity
and in competitivity

were achieved by
speeding up production.

No one is irreplaceable.

However in 1912, a Federal
law was passed limiting the

work week for women and children
to 54 hours instead of 56,

two hours less work
for the same wages.

But at the end of January when
the workers received their

pay, they found that their
meager raise hadn't been granted.

The two hours less work had
been deducted from their pay.

This set off an
immediate strike.

In just a few days,

the number of striking workers
went from 1,000 to 5,000

and then to 10,000.

♪ The freaks and fools are apt

♪ To trod in
burdens all the time

♪ What we want to see

♪ What I need is a
good old picket line

Of the small number of members

they had here when
the strike broke out,

most of whom were Italian
immigrants by the way

who had brought some
of their radical

political philosophies
with them.

The IWW sent in organizers

to aid the striking workers.

The best known were Arturo
Giovannitti and Joseph Ettor.

Both of them were
young, Joseph was 27.

He could speak Italian,
Polish, Hungarian and Yiddish.

Across the canal
from us right now is

part of the Pacific Mills
which was another one of the

very large textile companies
in Lawrence at that time

and this is the site of one of

the famous episodes
early in the strike.

This bridge across
the canal there

is where the marching
strikers were hosed

with water from the
fire hoses from,

and of course this was
during a very cold winter,

so the water would be
freezing on their backs.

There were strikes all over

the country at the time but
this one became a legend.

The mill owners and city
officials began to panic

as did the clergy and other
local business leaders.

The Governor called
out the local militia,

then the National Guard.

So during one of
the confrontations

between strikers and
police at the intersection

at the far end of the mill,

a young Italian woman
named Anna LoPizzo

was hit by a shot
and fell and died.

Ettor and Giovannitti were

arrested and charged as
accessories to murder,

to the murder of Anna LoPizzo

even though they were
nowhere near the scene

on the theory that they
had encouraged people to

protest in the streets and
that led to the shooting.

Let's start walking
back this way.

The winter of 1912 was cold

and hard and the strikers
started running out of food.

The welfare of the
strikers' children was

at stake but a show of
solidarity occurred.

400 families around the country

volunteered to take
in their children.

Yeah, the strike became

a national and
international cause celebre.

You did have the

transport of
children of strikers

to live with sympathizers
in other cities.

And they were helped
by the solidarity

of the Socialist movement
because when they

were starving in this
winter of the strike

and did not have enough
food for their children,

the Socialist
newspapers advertised

for families that would
take care of the children of

Lawrence and that enabled
them to continue the strike.

On February 10th, 1912,

119 children left Lawrence
for New York City.

They were met by union workers
singing the revolutionary

songs The Internationale
and the Marseillaise.

In Lawrence, the repression
had been so violent

that a special Congressional
Committee was appointed.

The testimony of Camilla,
a 12 year old girl whose

scalp had been torn off
working at a spinning machine

helped lead to a
resolution of the strike.

♪ As we come marching, marching

♪ Un-numbered women dead

The stories of these
struggles are not told

in American schools or
in American textbooks.

Most Americans,
even workers today

have never learned that history.

For instance I was in
Lawrence, Massachusetts

a few years ago.

I found that the people
in Lawrence, Massachusetts

did not know about the
history of that strike.

That's why I considered it
very important in my book to

tell the story of these labor
struggles in American history.

Why did you
become interested in this story?

My personal family
history as I mentioned

was a grandfather who kept
out of it, stayed away.

Is there anyone

here who could
still sing the song?

Okay.

Bread and roses.

♪ As we go marching, marching

♪ In the beauty of the day

♪ A million darkened kitchens

♪ A thousand mill lofts gray

♪ Are touched with
all the radiance

♪ That a sudden sun discloses

♪ For the people hear us singing

♪ Bread and roses,
bread and roses

♪ As we go marching, marching

♪ We'll bring the bread to them

♪ The rising of the women

♪ Is the rising of the rest

♪ No more the drudge and idler

♪ Ten that toil
where one reposes

♪ But the sharing
of life's glories

♪ Bread and roses,
bread and roses

♪ Bread and roses,
bread and roses

♪ Our lives shall not be sweated

♪ From birth until life closes

♪ Hearts starve
as well as bodies

♪ Bread and roses,
bread and roses

One evening
after this film was shown

in the Bastille de
Rouilleroux, a town in the Tarn

Province in the south of
France, a lady in the audience

very politely informed us
that a similar situation

had occurred in her region
at about the same time.

She told us about
the 1909 woolworkers

strike in the mills of
Masame and Graulhet.

The strike in Graulhet
lasted 147 days.

The workers were
predominately women

who were paid only
half as much as men.

They worked with
toxic substances

in foul-smelling workshops.

So they went on strike.

The strike was long
and food ran out.

They invented Communist soup
kitchens in Graulhet and the

workers' children were lodged
by families all over France.

The same type of solidarity that

was shown for the
children of Lawrence.

In England, France, Germany

as well as in the United States,

we share a common history with
the Industrial Revolution.

The same causes produced
the same effects,

the same suffering and
the same resistance.

But there were other forms of

resistance and
innovative opposition.

We're here with Noam
Chomsky at MIT in Boston.

This region where we are now

are the origins of the
Industrial Revolution.

There is a rich literature
from the mid-19th

century by working
people, people working in

the textile mills and
artisans and others.

They had their own newspapers,
they were running them.

They were eloquent and had

very interesting
material in them.

There was no European influence.

This was just
developed indigenously.

They bitterly condemned
the industrial system

which they said
was crushing them,

taking away their culture,
their dignity, their freedom.

They said that people who work
in the mills should own them.

They opposed wage labor as

an attack on
elementary integrity

and those views were
very widely accepted.

For example Abraham
Lincoln described

wage labor as not very
different from slavery.

That the only difference
is with wage labor,

it's not permanent, with
slavery it's permanent.

It's taken a lot of effort
to drive these thoughts

out of people's minds because
those are very natural ideas.

In fact if you look back
at the United States,

the United States had a
very violent labor history,

much more so than Europe.

Hundreds of American
workers were being

killed when nobody was
being killed in Europe

and when there were

developments of
socialism and democracy,

they were crushed by force.

Crushed revolts
and forgotten victories.

If the modest success in
Lawrence had been forgotten

by history, it's because
for the ruling class,

it set a very bad example.

The Rockefeller
family doctrine is

"Don't let them think
that revolt can succeed."

JD Rockefeller Jr., who
had Rockefeller Center

in New York City built
would get a chance to

apply this principle in
Ludlow, Colorado in 1914.

There, a coal miners strike
was ruthlessly repressed.

When Howard Zinn started
studying history,

he began with research
on the Ludlow Massacre.

1914, Ludlow, Colorado.

11,000 coal miners worked
here for JD Rockefeller Jr.

Immigrants of all
different origins,

Greeks, Italians, Serbs as
well as African-Americans.

The work was dangerous
and the wages were low.

The miners decided to organize,

hoping to obtain better
working conditions but a union

representative was shot down
by the company's militia.

So the miners went on strike.

They received a visit
from Mother Jones.

At 80 years old, she was
wanted by police all over

the US but she was able to
arrive secretly at Ludlow.

She aided the strikers
until she was arrested,

imprisoned and thrown out
of the state of Colorado.

Then Rockefeller hired
a private militia.

They were armed with
rifles and machine guns.

The Colorado National
Guard was then called in.

When they arrived in Ludlow,

the miners showed relief
because they thought

that the National Guard
had come to their rescue.

Despite the bitter
cold and the snow,

the miners greeted the soldiers
with flag-waving and shouts

of joy but then the National
Guard maneuvered towards

them and charged against the
miners, women and children.

The miners resisted,

digging foxholes and trenches
in order to defend themselves.

Then one day, management
offered to negotiate

but when the union representative
arrived for discussions,

he was shot down in cold blood
by Rockefeller's hired guns.

That evening the
National Guard charged

once again and burned
down the miners' camp.

The Governor had ordered
the soldiers to open fire.

13 people were killed.

At dawn the next
morning, the shriveled,

burned corpses of 11
children and two women

were found under a metal
plate covering a ditch.

The miners union sent
out a call for help.

300 miners arrived in Ludlow
from other nearby mines,

cutting telegraph and telephone

wires on the way
and ready to fight.

In solidarity with the miners,

train conductors refused
to transport troops

and even certain Guardsmen
refused to go to Ludlow.

Armed miners counterattacked.

They destroyed all they could

and blew up several mine shafts.

Other unions in the country sent

armed workers as reinforcements.

There were demonstrations
and meetings of support

all over the country and
even as far away as New York.

The New York Times
called on the President

to take firm action
against the strikers.

Finally President Wilson
sent in the US Army.

The 14 month struggle
left 66 people dead

and many more wounded
and for what reason?

Because of Rockefeller's
sacrosanct principle,

don't let them believe
that revolt can succeed.

The repression of the IWW
became increasingly violent.

The Wobbly leaders were
harassed and killed.

One of their most famous
figureheads was Joe Hill,

the singer-songwriter
of protest songs.

In November 1915
in Salt Lake City,

Joe Hill was
accused of murdering

a grocery store owner
during a robbery.

No evidence was ever
brought against him.

He was sentenced to
death by a firing squad

despite protests from
all over the world.

Before he was executed,
Joe Hill wrote

"I die like a true blue rebel.

"Don't waste any time
mourning, organize."

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no no no

♪ Don't mourn, organize

"My body, ah if I could choose,

"I would to ashes it
reduce and let the merry

"breezes blow my dust to
where some flowers grow.

"Perhaps some fading flower then

"would come to life
and bloom again.

"This is my last and final will.

"Good luck to all
of you, Joe Hill."

His ashes were distributed
in small envelopes

and were scattered
throughout the United States

and other countries
around the world.

The Wobblies were provoked
into violent reaction.

Ferociously repressed
and stigmatized,

the union lost momentum
and its popular support.

The First World War would
bring the final blow to the

Wobblies and other progressive
movements around the world.

It's been historically true

that when the government
has been in trouble,

it has used

military action, intervention

elsewhere as a way of

trying to solve the
domestic crisis,

the economic crisis
and this has happened

at other times in
American history

and

especially if there's a great
opposition in the country

which threatens
the Establishment.

One way of dealing with
the opposition is by

going to war and when you
have a war atmosphere,

you're in a position to
suppress the opposition.

That's what happened
in the First World War.

Before the First World War,

there was a powerful Socialist
movement in this country

and a radical trade
union movement, the IWW.

But when the
government went to war,

when Wilson took us
into the European war,

it created an
opportunity for him

to crush the Socialist movement

and the IWW.

In 1914, while
the miners were being shot

down in Ludlow, the First
World War broke out in Europe.

The Battle of the
Somme in July 1916

was one of the biggest
military disasters in history.

It was the first joint offensive

by French and British troops.

The battle was personally
conducted by General Gough.

On the first day, July First,

the British Army commanded
by General Haig lost over

20,000 soldiers with 40,000
more missing or wounded.

10,000 men were killed
within the first hour.

Nine million men in the
prime of their lives died in

the mud of the trenches,
farmers, workers and others.

Another 20 million
more people died

after the war from
subsequent epidemics.

France alone counted 1,400,000
killed or missing in action,

10% of the active
male population.

Three million were
wounded in battle,

of which 100,000 were mutilated,

42,000 blinded or
visually impaired

and 15,000 disfigured.

In the United
States as elsewhere,

the war whetted the appetites
of bankers and industrialists.

The US economy was
expanding rapidly in 1914

but it wasn't yet
internationally dominant.

The First World War
helped it to consolidate

while in the meantime
weakening its competitors.

With the conquest of
new markets abroad,

the US was soon in a
position to crush its rivals.

In the US, savvy businessmen
know that it is better

to sell shovels to prospectors
than to dig for gold oneself.

Two billion dollars worth
of material had already been

sold to their allies before
they entered the war in 1917.

In the French paper Les Annales,

the journalist Cami
Fari Pisane quotes

an important and
influential American banker

in his article on
March 25th, 1917.

"The war enabled us to
quintuple our profits.

"We got rich by
providing cotton,

"wool,

"meat,

"steel, artillery shells,

"wheat, leather,

"shoes, machine guns,

"horses and automobiles.

"Anything we could
sell, you bought.

"You paid with gold,
with paper currency,

"with bonds and with loans.

"So you must win the war at all

"costs in order to pay us back.

"Then the money we have
made by these sales will be

"lent to you again to rebuild
your cities and factories.

"But we will only
profit if you win.

"That is why we want
you to win rapidly."

The sinking of the ocean
liner Lusitania by a German

submarine on May Seventh,
1915 offered the United

States the pretext they
needed to enter the war.

The incident was
presented to the American

public as a war crime and
became a major argument

in persuading the US to
go to war against Germany.

The Germans claimed
that the ship

was transporting
munitions for the Allies.

This claim that the Lusitania
was carrying American

ammunitions was confirmed by
historians years later in 1972.

President Woodrow
Wilson declared that

"Some countries are simply
too proud to fight."

But he swallowed
his pride and led

the US into the
war in April 1917.

He then asserted that the
United States should be willing

to sacrifice lives in the name
of its founding principles.

The President was more
discrete about the two billion

dollars lent to the Allies,
a debt that would never be

repayed if the Germans with
their submarines won the war.

In 1917, the war led to
the Revolution in Russia.

10 days that shook the world.

It was a new feeling
that the oppressed,

the downtrodden could make
the world a better place.

Russia pulled out of the war,

thus freeing up the
German Army in the east

and putting a possible
victory within their grasp.

The United States had no
choice but to intervene

in order to protect
their best interests.

But fighting a war in
faraway Europe was an idea

that would have to be sold
to the American public.

Despite the indignation
provoked by the sinking

of the Lusitania, most
young Americans weren't

ready to die overseas for
a matter of principles.

In order to convince them,

President Wilson made
eloquent speeches.

He spoke about "a
war to end all wars"

and "making the world
safe for democracy."

Out of four million
American soldiers mobilized,

two million were
sent to the front.

116,000 of them
would never return.

In this elementary school
in Chicago, you see children

throwing down German books
in front of the camera.

The journalist George
Creel became the official

Head of Propaganda for the
Committee on Public Information.

He launched the
operation 4 Minute Men.

It consisted in sending out
accomplished public speakers

ready to intervene anywhere
at a moment's notice

to make persuasive
four minute speeches.

Creel mobilized 75,000 orators

who made 750,000 speeches
in over 5,000 towns

and cities across the US
to convince the public.

This is Douglas Fairbanks.

This is Charlie Chaplin.

Charlie Chaplin was called
into service to sell

Liberty Bonds in order to
support the war effort.

"I want you for US Army."

Despite the
unprecedented propaganda,

very few young people in the US

volunteered and recruitment
was disappointing.

So the government decided
to institute the draft.

The opposition to the
war had to be silenced.

The Espionage Act, a law
ostensibly against espionage

enabled the authorities
to imprison anyone who

wrote or spoke against the
war for up to 20 years.

Union activists were
the first victims.

Emma Goldman, Zinn's heroine
took part in antiwar meetings

all over the country
and helped organize

the No Conscription League
to oppose the draft.

She and her companion Alexander
Berkman were arrested.

They were then imprisoned on
Ellis Island and deported back

to Russia, their country of
origin on December 21st, 1919.

Socialist Leader
Eugene Debs would

also be silenced by
the Espionage Act.

His political career was
brought to a halt in June 1918.

He was arrested in Canton,
Ohio after giving an antiwar

speech to an audience that
included young men of draft age.

He was sentenced to
10 years in prison for

obstructing the Recruitment
and Enlistment Service.

But Debs ran for
President in 1920 from his

prison cell and received
almost a million votes.

Chris Hedges is a journalist,
Pulitzer Prize winner

and a former War Correspondent
for the New York Times.

He ended up resigning
from the paper because

he didn't agree with
their editorial policy.

He has investigated the
part played by the elites

during the First World War
and the role of George Creel,

the chief organizer
of war propaganda.

Creel was

created to destroy Debs
and what was created,

and I take this from Dwight
Macdonald's observation

is the imposition of the
psychosis of permanent war.

You are constantly keeping
a population in fear

and in the name of
the war on Communism,

you destroy your
populist and your radical

movements and disembowel
your liberal class.

You re saying that in 1917,

that's when propaganda
was invented,

when modern advertising
was invented.

Yes because it was the
first system of modern

mass propaganda because it
employed the understanding

of crowd psychology
pioneered by Le Bon, Trotter,

Freud which grasped that
people were moved not by fact

or reason but by the skillful
manipulation of emotion

and that system of mass
propaganda is the model that

Goebbels uses when he creates
the Nazi propaganda machine.

And quite specifically
Bernays' book Propaganda

and when you read the great
radical thinkers of the period,

Randolph Bourne or Jane Addams,

they despair that not only
have the masses been seduced by

this propaganda but most of
the intellectual elite as well.

So the moment the war is over,

that entire machinery which
was massive goes to Madison

Avenue and starts working
on behalf of corporations.

That's when

you overturn traditional
values of thrift,

self-effacement and you
replace them with consumption

as a kind of inner compulsion
and the cult of the self.

1917 is also the
year of the Russian Revolution

and you're saying they went
from the Kraut to the Commie.

Yes and of course,
that is correct.

That instantly the dreaded
Hun becomes the dreaded Red

and the way they do it is
to claim that the Germans,

the Kaiser was behind Lenin's
arrival because the train

was allowed passage through
Germany from Switzerland

and so the ruling elite
recognizes that that

apparatus of propaganda,
fear and permanent war

is one that can keep them
in power which is why

the moment the Cold War
is over, we begin the War

on Terror because it
serves the same purpose.

And they recognize
that if they perpetuate

that propaganda, that
fear and permanent war,

they can get the masses
to call for their own

enslavement which is
precisely what's happened.

Go right.

Halt.

Left, left, go left, right,

go left.

Thank you very much, you
have a good parade, thank you.

They manufactured a
will of the people for

a very short time right
after the war started

as governments are
able to do right after

the beginning of
an armed conflict.

They're able to create
an atmosphere of

war hysteria and so
for a short time,

they captivated the minds
of the American people.

Yeah.

Our women are proud of
us, yeah, that's right.

The rabbits
who didn't have historians

and who knew nothing of
their own history didn't say

anything when the hunters
arrived with their big guns.

"We're here for your security,"
the hunters told them.

"We're here to protect you
from the terrorist rabbits,

"from the Communist rabbits,
from the Jewish rabbits,

"from the Muslim rabbits,
from the perverted rabbits,

"from those who want
to cook a rabbit stew."

The terrified
rabbits, paralyzed in

the hunters' headlights,
huddled together.

"There's nothing to be afraid
of," the hunters told them.

"You'll be free once
you're in the cages

"and don't let our
big guns scare you.

"If you want peace,
you must prepare war,

"war against the bad
guys, a just war.

"War is peace."

What Howard Zinn has
to say is the power of

the hunters depends on the
obedience of the rabbits.

♪ My will is easy to decide

♪ For there is nothing to divide

♪ My kin don't need
to fuss and moan

♪ Moss doesn't cling
to a rolling stone

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no no no

♪ Don't mourn, organize

♪ My body, ah if I could choose

♪ I would to ashes it reduce

♪ And let the merry breezes blow

♪ My dust to where
some flowers grow

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no no no

♪ Don't mourn, organize

♪ Perhaps some
fading flower then

♪ Would come to
life and bloom again

♪ This is my last and final will

♪ Good luck to all of you

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no no no

♪ Don't mourn, organize

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no

♪ Don't mourn, no no

♪ Don't mourn, oh no no no

♪ Don't mourn, organize