If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

People in the anti-war movement used it. He had been scheduled to speak at the Santa Monica Museum of Art for an event titled "A Collection of Ideas. in 1951.

Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United States. Howard Zinn (August 24 1922 – January 27 2010) was an American academic historian author playwright and social activist. He wrote extensively about the civil rights and anti-war movements as well as of the labor history of the United States.