A Quote by Howard Zinn

The Constitution. . . illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law--all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity.

Howard Zinn

Quote Topics

Against Also American Base Blacks Broad Build Coercion Complexity Constitution Control Does Elite Enable Enough Fanfare Farmers Income Indians Interests Keep Law Made Make Make Up Maximum Mechanics Middle Minimum Owners Patriotism People Poor Property Prosperous Slightly Small Support System Unity Up Very Wealthy Whites

Quote Author

Howard Zinn
American - Historian
August 24, 1922 - January 27, 2010

Great wealth could make an enormous difference over the next decade if they sensibly support the scientific elite. Just the elite. Because the elite makes most of the progress. You should worry about people who produce really novel inventions, not pedantic hacks.

James D. Watson

Class certainly loomed large in Katrina's aftermath. Blacks of means escaped the tragedy; blacks without them suffered and died. In reality, it is how race and class interact that made the situation for the poor so horrible on the Gulf Coast. The rigid caste system that punishes poor blacks and other minorities also targets poor whites.

Michael Eric Dyson

In my view, this is not extremism on the left. This is what the American people support in poll after poll. Support the right to a job. Support living wages. Support real climate action. Support small community-based banks that make loans available to every day people and small businesses, not these too-big-to-fail banks that rip us off, that crash the economy at taxpayer expense. Support a public-option healthcare system, not Obamacare, which has been a boondoggle for insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

Jill Stein

There was an interview that I actually listened to with John Cena where he says that he is an elite-level athlete - he is elite, and he needs to make people elite whenever he goes up against them - but I was like, gosh, as much as I hate to give him credit where credit is due, it is exactly right.

The Miz

Foreign policy always has more force and punch when the nation speaks with one voice. To remain secure, prosperous, and free, the United States must continue to lead. That leadership requires a president and Congress working together to fashion a foreign policy with broad, bipartisan support. A foreign policy of unity is essential if the United States is to promote its values and interests effectively and help to build a safer, freer, and more prosperous world.

Lee H. Hamilton

I have worked to keep the Bureau of Land Management in Grand Junction; protect energy jobs; support farmers and ranchers; mitigate wildfires; build infrastructure; support law enforcement; help constituents having issues with federal agencies and so much more.

Lauren Boebert

These people—the employed, the somewhat privileged—are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.

Howard Zinn

What you're saying is that 'I, the superior elite, will take care of you.' Why? Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite. And they can't be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around. So you keep them down there by feeding them.

Ben Carson

The base has chosen or is choosing a candidate that the establishment says is absolutely unacceptable. And what that means is this marriage of an elite, big business-backed establishment and a blue-collar, downwardly mobile base has really come to a divorce.

Mara Liasson

If we as a society want to cure unemployment, raise real wages, and in other ways improve our economy, we will base public policy on private property rights, the non-aggression principle and the law of free association. In the free and prosperous society, everyone may do precisely as he pleases, provided only that he does not initiate violence against non-aggressors.

Walter Block

Rent-control laws disproportionately benefit the non-poor because the elite pull strings, work the system and are better connected than the non-poor.

Larry Elder

Any external support, if you want to call it support, let's use this world, is... how to say... it's going to be additional, but it's not the base to depend on more than the Syrian support.

Bashar al-Assad

Essentially, we have a system where wealthy farmers feed the poor crap and poor farmers feed the wealthy high-quality food.

Michael Pollan

Unlike Marxism, the Leninist one-party state is not a philosophy. It is a mechanism for holding power. It works because it clearly defines who gets to be the elite - the political elite, the cultural elite, the financial elite.