Howard Zinn‘s 1970 essay Vietnam: The Moral Equation is the seventeenth chapter of The Power of Nonviolence: Writings by Advocates of Peace .  I am proponent of Zinn’s People’s History of the United States,  and especially the graphic novel version, A People’s History of American Empire.  And Zinn seems to be a force behind this book of pacifism, including contributing the introduction.

Yet, here I go committing heresy:  Howard Zinn is wrong.  In the first few paragraphs of this essay he gives away the whole pacifist store.  Now I am all for the concept of free, but not when it means surrendering my pacifism from the get-go.  Zinn starts by giving up on pacifism:

I would start such a discussion from the supposition that it is logically indefensible to hold an absolutely nonviolent position . . . .  Continue reading Howard Zinn’s The “Moral Equation” of War is Wrong →