January 8, 2005
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Topic: History 101 with Howard Zinn
This is a free course I am taking, that is consisting of reading “Passionate Declarations,” by Howard Zinn, following an educational model provided by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. The concept being, there’s nothing you can’t learn from most teachers that you can’t find in books, and at the very least, there’s no educational reason why one should pay money for the knowledge and insigt of others (there are economical reasons to paying for education, however, which is the only justification for paying to go to college at all).
Lesson 1:
When it comes to war, the government lies and makes gross errors:
In Vietnam, the US lied about its non-military bombings.
We lied about our ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, stating they were not provoking an attack. Nixon lied about his secret war with Cambodia.
On 8/6/45, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which was not necessary to have Japan surrender in WWII. Japan was willing to surrender under the condition their leader did not have to “unconditionally surrender.” Massive deaths could have been avoided, but, we chose a destructive means to strengthen US national power.
Lesson:
1) Always question the ends of what the government is trying to achieve
2) Also, examine the means to which those ends are being pursued
“If Americans received a better historical education, if they learned to look beneath the surface of easy labels…if they understood that out national orthodoxy prefers to conceal certain disturbing facts about our society, they might, in the 1980′s and 1990′s, look beneath the glitter and luxury and react with anger to the homelessness, poverty, and despair that plague milloins of people in this country.” (59)
“As a result of omitting, or downplaying, the importance of social movements of the people in our history – the actions of abolitionists, labor leaders, radicals, feminists, and pacifists – a fundamental principle of democracy is undermined: the principle that it is the citizenry, rather than the government, that is the ultimate source of power and the locomotive that pulls the train of government in the direction of equality and justice. Such histories create a passive and subordinate citizenry.” (61)
“It has been a century of attrocieites: the death camps of Hitler, the slave camps of Stalin, and the destruction of SE Asia by the United States. All of these were done by powerful leaders and obedient populations in countries that had achieved high levels of literacy and education. It seems that high scores on tests wer not the most crucial fact about hotse leaders and those citizens.” (65)
BOO-YAH!!!
Comments (7)
Not that I’m a huge proponent of college, but let me say why good colleges are essential: Reading books doesn’t do all you need. To be a decent citizen you need to know the widest variety of arguments, and you need to develop argument skills, question skills, and of course the ability to synthesize. This is why a “conservative Christian college” is not a school at all: it is simply an indoctrination camp. This is what is so frightening about the right-wing attempt these days to let right-wing students opt out of reading they find disturbing. Because sorry, if you don’t want to be educated: go home and leave room in the college courses for humans who will help the world progress.
So, though reading Zinn is great, make sure everything he pushes gets challenged. Don’t just read Marx, read Adam Smith and Tom Paine and Trotsky and Mao and the Wall Street Journal too. Only in comparison do these extreme positions come into focus.
But I’ll say this: One of the biggest things today’s right does is deny history. They are brilliant at it. To them, “the sixties accomplished nothing.” (hmm, ask any female or black American who lived through it). The Great Society failed (odd, why did all measures of social status increase?). The women’s movement did nothing (we can’t figure out why females went from 20% of college populations to 54%, maybe God did it). They know that it’s important to get people to believe that protest accomplishes nothing. It’s something they learned “at Hitler’s knee.” He did give in to protests at times, but made sure there was no public record of it.
very true…
Regarding your comment on my site:
I agree PR is a good a reason, and is indeed the only good reason to donate money from the US Treasury. But why must we euphemize, let’s call this what it is. We’re paying large amounts of money to buy the goodwill of others; in other words, we’re paying bribes.
And what is our investment in bribery getting us? Well I see little abatement in the hatred from most of the world. France is actually annoyed because we dare coordinate relief efforts outside of the framework of the UN. We have people like you comparing our donations in terms of percentages, and comparing it to what other countries have been able to afford. Perhaps the reason we can donate more than those countries on absolute terms, which I hope we both agree is the more important measure, is precisely because we do not donate such large percentages of our wealth, or more importantly, do not force our citizens to do so.
And speaking of PR, we must certainly work on our own. By the time President Bush had announced the US was donating $15 mill, private individuals were already donating much more. Not to mention the cost of sending Navy vessels there to help with the effort. In the future, all announcements should include those figures.
I guess I realize the biggest thing that separates the left and the right. The left believes in a moral structure to human society. The right (see the above comment) thinks only in terms of pure self-interest. Why would we help those who need help? The actual reason is that this is how humanity survives. It is still “the lone ape is a dead ape” theory. Why would those with more give more? Why would those more capable do more? Because that is the basic human equation.
The right denies all history: from the science of evolution to the inherent structure of primate societies. They are so caught up in individual greed that they cannot comprehend the path to doom they lay on. So I’ll put it this way. If I, as a police officer, see someone robbing or attempting to kill thatliberalmedia, why should I help him? For the PR value? (So he might not object as strenuously if the government wishes to increase my pay to slightly over 5% of the typical Wall Street salary?). Maybe. Maybe that’s the world thatliberalmedia wishes to create. One in which no one does anything with direct payment to oneself. But that denies who we, at the most basic level, are.
For all this talk of “basic human equations” who we are at “the most basic level,” the fact remains that you must use guns in order to enforce your social models. To me it’s a very strange idea, using guns to force people to be what you have apparently decided they are.
I’m not “creating” any world, you are. I’m showing you the world and humans the way they are. People are not ants or bees. We do not reason or love or live or die collectively.
This is where your lack of education has failed you most miserably, thatliberalmedia, you miss the most obvious facts of human existence. Go. Give up everything this overly “socialistic” society has handed you. Go naked into the fields and create your own environment. You won’t get rich: you’ll die.
” Go naked into the fields and create your own environment.” Yes, this is called subsistence farming. It’s what humans did before they discovered thebenefits of barter and trade. You might want to check up on your own history, if you honestly believe serfs and nobles starved together.
Again, the choice is not between the power of wealth and some sort of “moral power.” No, it is either accept the value of money, and freely engage in trade as you choose, or be ordered around at gunpoint. I realize the benefits of trade, that’s why I’m not a farmer, growing and making my own survival. It is you who have decided that people freely trading is less desirable than shoving a gun in their faces and telling them with whom and on what terms they may trade.