#6 A Power Governments Cannot Suppress by Howard Zinn

Up to page 124. I'm glad I'm doing this project. Now, I view each book as a potential *book club* book even if I'm not attending a book club. I mark the pages with things that may prove useful to know later when I'm writing a final analysis.

I haven't cried, yet, reading this book, so that's a good sign. I listened to Howard Zinn's history book, the Vietnam Part, and I just broke down and sobbed. I didn't want that to happen again. What's really interesting is that I constantly think about how can I talk about this stuff with my family. It's not as if I was *enlightened* yesterday. Most of the history written in the book is not news to me, but I still have a surface grasp of the enormity of corporate welfare, and how that plays into military policies. I don't want to come off as politically correct at the dinner table, but I don't want to deny an opinion.

I was at the Taking Action for Animals conference yesterday, and Colleen Patrick-Goudreau from CompassionateCooks.com was very funny. She said that she does not deny herself her opinion. She mentioned that if she talks about veganism she talks about it with grace and truth. There were two other words, but I forgot what they were. After the discussion it made me realize that people ask her about veganism not just to be antagonistic, but because people really want to learn. If I have informtion that I want known then I have to tell it with truth but also as a teacher who is willing to learn. It was so hard to tell my twin, my own twin, the person I'm most comfortable about that I became vegetarian again because I didn't want to be a warrior anymore. I'm doing it for the earth and living entities human/non-human alike, but I didn't have the words yet to say it with grace. If I talked about political subjects with grace at the dinner table it would be new. My family would think I'm someone else :) Good thing I live in different cities/states from them. Something to work on.