is a great american/human being



wow i just watched you cant be nuetral......... and i had no idea what a part of progressive america he was a part of


a role in the civil rights movement.......was a part of free'd hostages in vietnam.......dropped bombs and had bombs dropped on him.......all for the usa and still stood up and sang god bless america in front of the viet kong.......fuck yea......good american.....good man



that is all and i know there are 40 other threads with the mans name but this one is just for him-not him on a show or in a book-just the man

Saw "You cant be neutral...." as well as read about 5 of his books. One of the most amazing people that's existed in my lifetime.

I've only read the "People's History" book, but I liked it (in fact, I gave a copy of it to my cousin's husband for Xmas, who's a history major). I may not agree completely with Zinn's vision for the world, but it's quite handy to have a good source handy that doesn't take a straight Anglo-Saxon point of view.

Honestly, it's hard to take someone seriously who finds so much wrong with America yet so little wrong with a long line of oppressive Marxist governments. The great irony, of course, is that Zinn couldn't write about those governments if he lived in those countries, here he's free to write what he wants.
Here's a good critical essay of APHOTUS: http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/Re ... sp?ID=8145

Gee, BIG surprise that you'd find someone that doesnt like Zinn on a hellbent conservative website

You want me to find you some "cirtical essays" on some liberal website on how much George Bush and his ideas suck?

I think this quote sums up the rebuttal, found in that article:



Zinn fully admits that his worked is biased, but argues that all work is biased, which I happen to agree with. Obviously I have taken APHOTUS with a grain of salt, and it shouldn't be the Holy Bible of US history, but it can serve as a powerful complement to traditional history books.

Absolutely, and it was never supposed to be a Holy Bible of US History, but as Zinn admints, and is quoted in that article...



Zinn tries to supplement in his writings many important ideas and details that are left out of traditional history books.

Wow, that's creepy, we said nearly the same thing. I almost used the word "supplement" as well, but I thought it would imply that Zinn's book should replace other books.

I also thought of quoting the section that you quoted.

I like how I said "admints". Obviously, my mind is on these mint flavored KitKats I've been munching on.

The trouble with every single rebuttal of Zinn I've seen is that they are almost never grounded in facts, and almost always devolve into a questioning of his patriotism. And the funny thing is that you'd be hard pressed to find a guy who loves America more than he does.

I love his style of writing, and his sheer humanity. I like how his autobiography wasn't 1000s of pages long. I like that he's unapologetic about being biased.

I sense serious problems with his world view (somewhere along the way, he ceased being pragmatic), but there's also something that feels very right (his optimism), which is inspiring.

Well, how about addressing some of the points made in the article, and how about addressing this point:

Honestly, it's hard to take someone seriously who finds so much wrong with America yet so little wrong with a long line of oppressive Marxist governments. The great irony, of course, is that Zinn couldn't write about those governments if he lived in those countries, here he's free to write what he wants.

Perhaps it's because so many other people have written about what's wrong with Marxist countries that he doesn't want to rehash it?

No that's not it.

The problem, of course, with Zinn, Chomsky, and all the "intellectuals" on the left, is that Socialism, Marxism, Communism, whatever you choose to call it, has been an abject failure; why they continue to embrace it is a mystery.
Socialist countries, in general, have two defining characteristics:
-brutally oppressive governments
-widespread poverty.
What Mr. Zinn will never admit is that the two defining characteristics of this country, free-market capitalism and democracy, have made it the most successful state in modern history, with a standard of living that is the envy of the world. Poor people in the US would be considered rich in many places in the world; I'd like to hear Howard admit that.

So no, GH, I don't think that Howard is worried about "rehashing"; accepting the collosal failure of socialism wouldn't fit his rather illogical view of the world.

Why wouldnt he admit that? I've never read anything that suggested he didnt admit this. Perhaps, you can enlighten me? He has never denied that the system has in many ways, been successful. But there are certainly many things that are not a success with the system. These things are often omitted from typical history texts.

I know you made that statement in the context of "modern history", but I would also argue that there is not enough proof to suggest that it is a system that is capable of long term sustainability. So it's entirely possible that it will collapse on itself for one reason or another and a different system will take it's place. In fact I would say that it MUST develop into something more and better as a healthy system should be doing. Capitalism+Democracy has steered this country for a few hundred years, and that is just such an amazinlgy small amount of time. The Roman empire was around for over 1,000 years, and everyone thought it was the best working empire/system that would be around forever, and it still collaped.

No disagreement here--like I said, I don't agree with most of Zinn's world view. For what it's worth, though, he's more of an anarchist, and opposed to centralized governments as well.



I don't think truly free-market capitalism has really defined this country, especially in the latest century.

Hey Buggy, I think I know why we are commenting in this thread so much. We, like Zinn, are biased:

aaaaaaahhhh, good times.

I think we know what *some* people here want to see happen...

I just found out that Mr. Zinn is coming to my campus in just a few weeks to give the keynote address at a sort of social justice conference taking place here. I am really really psyched. He is my number one political reference point, since his beliefs are so compassionate, grounded in history, and most importantly ring true for me. I'm sure plenty people here feel the same way, but I'm going to get to see him live and in person!
This is about twelve times cooler than the last speaker to come to campus that I was psyched about, John Irving.
I love being in school. I really recommend it.

How do you get that idea of widespread poverty in communist countries ? Their standard of living was not as high as the one in the USA but I would'nt make it that they were poor. They, in fact, became poorer after turning violently from planned economy to total unregulated free-market.
As for the 2nd bolded phrase, man, that's laughable !

The low end was higher than it is now. One of the most immediate results of switching to capitalism was the lost of a lot of jobs.