Zinn & his disciples

[Joseph Tracy]

The old" I won't read it because I know it's no good" approach to history. So far you have not challenged directly any inaccuracies by Naomi Klein or Howard Zinn.  In fact I could have used Wikipedia for a source on my comment below, but Klein provides thorough documentation.  
  
On Dec 12, 2014, at 6:13 AM, alice malice wrote:

> 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
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>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> 
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