Howard Zinn died two days ago, as you will probably know. Here is him speaking on ideas and dreams:

Question: What is your philosophy?

Howard Zinn: I believe, I suppose, in what could be called democratic socialism. I believe that we need a society where the motive for the economic system is not corporate profit, but the motive is the welfare of people, health care, jobs, child care, and so on, where that is dominant; where there is a greater equalization of wealth and a society which is peaceful, which devotes its resources to helping people in the country and elsewhere.

I believe in a world where war is no longer the recourse for the settling of grievances and problems. I believe in the wiping out of national boundaries.

I don’t believe in visas and passports and immigration quotas. I think we need to move toward a global society. They use the word “globalization,” but they use it in a very narrow sense to mean the freedom of corporations to move across boundaries. But what we need is a freedom of people and things to move across boundaries.

When I talk about socialism without jails, I mean greater societal intervention into the economy, but without deprivation of civil liberties. Dalton Trumbo, the Hollywood writer, put it very simply. He said, “Socialism without jails.”

I’ve had these words floating through my mind for days both sung by Lhasa de Sela and by Mercedes Sosa. Indeed it’s the lyrics to the song in my previous post, written by Fito Paéz. But the ladies perform it the best.

¿Quién dijo que todo está perdido?
yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón,
tanta sangre que se llevó el río,
yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón.

No será tan fácil, ya sé qué pasa,
no será tan simple como pensaba,
como abrir el pecho y sacar el alma,
una cuchillada del amor.

Luna de los pobres siempre abierta,
yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón,
como un documento inalterable
yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón.

Y uniré las puntas de un mismo lazo,
y me iré tranquilo, me iré despacio,
y te daré todo, y me darás algo,
algo que me alivie un poco más.

Cuando no haya nadie cerca o lejos,
yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón.
cuando los satélites no alcancen,
yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón.

Y hablo de países y de esperanzas,
hablo por la vida, hablo por la nada,
hablo de cambiar ésta, nuestra casa,
de cambiarla por cambiar, nomás.

¿Quién dijo que todo está perdido?
yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón.

I recently rewatched Avi Lewis & Naomi Klein’s The Take, their documentary from 2004 on Argentina’s reclaimed factory movement that rose out of the ashes of 2001′s economic melt-down (imposed by speculative neoliberalist policies, not surprisingly). I was particularly moved by the scene towards the end of the film which shows Buenos Aires street protests against a government shutdown of the worker cooperative Brukman —a textile factory run by its seamstresses— at a similarly desperate time for the film’s protagonists, industrial workers struggling to claim legal the legal rights over their autoparts factory, Forja. Lhasa de Sela’s version of the song Yo vengo a ofrecer mi corazón, popularized by la negra Mercedes Sosa, is definitely among the emotionally strongest I’ve heard. The next day I was saddened to learn that Lhasa died only days ago, on New Year’s Day – following a long struggle against breast cancer. Here’s to her—Bless her soul!