Zinn & his disciples

[alice malice]

That's not an easy trick to pull off. I doubt I'd give it more than a
few minutes before I would chuck this book to the curb. If this is the
kind of thing Zinn inspires, that's too bad.

On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 10:40 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>  In Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein goes into detail about the connections between the Brazilian coup/ military dictatorship and the Milton Friedman economic school in Chicago whose proteges were part of the reign of torture. The CIA were big players in this one too.
> On Dec 11, 2014, at 7:32 AM, alice malice wrote:
>
>> I like Dilma's response. Sometimes, as Van Morrison says, we cry. Not
>> like Johnnie Ray...
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/world/americas/torture-report-on-brazilian-dictatorship-is-released.html?_r=0
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 7:28 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> One of my favorites. A woman with only half her ass, that almost as
>>> funny as Saci, the one-legged cartoon lad.
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saci_%28Brazilian_folklore%29
>>>
>>> will that redeem us Uncle Remus?
>>>
>>> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 6:55 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Read Candide.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 10:42 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> I love Zinn for writing about the people who built America, but I
>>>>> dislike his simple minded approach to debunking the orthodox history
>>>>> that, he and his disciples, and so many others ... stuff into the
>>>>> strawman. The problem, Zinn argues,  is not history but who tells it
>>>>> and how. Of course, Zinn has an excellent  point: how we tell stories
>>>>> and who tells them to whom is an excellent point to focus on, as any
>>>>> high school history student knows.
>>>>>
>>>>> They also know that you can't do anything about history. It's history.
>>>>>
>>>>> But you can teach people history, and, though I don't think history
>>>>> ever repeats itself, it does, sometimes, as someone said, echo, and
>>>>> so, by teaching it we might make things a bit better in the future,
>>>>> and we might even solve some big problems.
>>>>>
>>>>> I like to think the Beatles had it right when they said things are
>>>>> getting better all the time. And they are. Zinn's history is too often
>>>>> focused on how things are getting worse because of who has been
>>>>> telling us a pack of lies.
>>>>>
>>>>> The truth is, this kind of conspiracy theory approach to history, not
>>>>> muckraking or truth finding, but radical debunking all the lies our
>>>>> history teaches told us, assumes that we've been lied to all our lives
>>>>> and, stupid people that we are, we believed the lies.
>>>>>
>>>>> First off, this is not 1955. This is not because Zinn awakened us,
>>>>> but, as Zinn shows us in his history of people, because countless
>>>>> others made and wrote and spoke history that countered the American
>>>>> propaganda books and broadcasts, and because  we are not stupid people
>>>>> who suck in the slime from the TV set and salute the flag. Though we
>>>>> have our moments of hysteria and jingoism, and even decades of
>>>>> retrograde (Nixon to Reagan revolution plus Bush Clinton and the black
>>>>> president ...etc.), we won't be fooled again. So Zinn is history. And
>>>>> knocking Fox news or these other idiots in the "press" is a waste of
>>>>> time. Unless of course, you really believe that we are still a nation
>>>>> of slime sucking idiots.
>>>>>
>>>>> The shining light on the hill is capitalism. America is the Empire.
>>>>> You live in it. I don't love capital anymore than the next poor
>>>>> person, but you can't fight the Fed, or a coordination of central
>>>>> banks or the maniacs who run nation states. That's over.
>>>>>
>>>>> Buy oil stocks. They are cheap now. Growth will never increase enough
>>>>> to improve your welfare. You must own assets. Hate it, but don't be a
>>>>> fool. Hell, you've read Zinn. So even if you were a fool in 1955, you
>>>>> been educated now.
>>>>> -
>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l