Richard Stamper
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Richard Stamper
@richardstamper.bsky.social
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Reposted by Richard Stamper
affirmationcoyote.bsky.social
Homework:

"Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world." -- Howard Zinn

www.howardzinn.org/collection/t...
I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests. Wherever I go, I find such people. And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to know of one another’s existence, and so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that boulder up the mountain. I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement. Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. From: The Optimism of Uncertainty By Howard Zinn • ZCommunications • September 30, 2004; The Nation • September 20, 2004 An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. From: The Optimism of Uncertainty By Howard Zinn • ZCommunications • September 30, 2004; The Nation • September 20, 2004
October 19, 2025 at 2:45 AM
Reposted by Richard Stamper
jonmsweeney.bsky.social
Sometimes it just feels like a poem was written exactly for you. I've read this one a hundred times, have even heard WB read it, but when I began to read it this morning the first line brought tears to my eyes.
October 10, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Richard Stamper
friendsjournal.org
"Shame is common to many soldiers during and after combat and is one of the most troubling reactions to war," the late Edward W. Wood Jr., a WWII veteran, wrote, "and one that they must deal with throughout a lifetime. It is also the one least often admitted and the one almost never talked about."
Recovering from the Shame of Combat
The power of narrative to heal.
www.friendsjournal.org
September 15, 2025 at 1:00 PM