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Education: Stop Subsidizing Howard Zinn’s Communist History of the United States
Townhall ^ | 09/07/2019 | Mary Grabar

Posted on 09/07/2019 7:59:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind


This Saturday teachers will gather at the Smithsonian (specifically the National Museum of the American Indian) for a continuing education class about Christopher Columbus. They will get lessons using Howard Zinn’s Marxist A People’s History of the United States, and produced by the Zinn Education ProjectBreaking publishing records, Zinn’s book has sold over 2.6 million copies since it was first published in 1980. Sales grow each year.

ZEP was started by one of Zinn’s adoring Boston University students-turned-wealthy-capitalist. By 2018, 84,000 teachers had downloaded their lessonsSchool districts pay for ZEP organizers to give workshops to teachers and librarians on such things as Islamophobia, climate change, and the labor movement. ZEP lessons are bracketed by such accusations against our president as spewing “racist rhetoric” and conducting a “war on immigrants.” At the prompting of the Southern Poverty Law Center, South Carolina adopted ZEP materials for use statewide in the teaching of Reconstruction. Like the passage of laws for child labor, food safety, and civil rights, Reconstruction is presented as a failure of an irredeemable American system.

Fittingly, Saturday’s workshop (along with another on September 28 in New York City) is being called a “teach-in,” for Zinn presents all Native Americans as living in idyllic and socially advanced communes—until the evil Europeans came in. The first was Columbus who is accused of genocide against the peaceful “Arawak” Indians. Zinn is perhaps most famous for these opening pages, but as I discovered in writing Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America, they are so blatantly plagiarized and full of distortions that they would have justified failure or expulsion if committed by any college freshman I taught. Zinn’s source is Columbus: His Enterprise: Exploding the Myth,a thin paperback screed for high school students written by his anti-Vietnam War comrade, the socialist novelist Hans Koning. Zinn also deceptively quotes Columbus’s diary to make it appear that his sole aim is subjugation unto death of the Indians for gold. At the Smithsonian, teachers will learn this falsified history, along with how, accordingly, to conduct an “Abolish Columbus Day” campaign with their students.

Zinn lied about the discovery, as well as about the colonists, the Indians, the Founding, slavery, the Civil War, women’s rights, both World Wars, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War. Government documents are selectively quoted to make it appear that the war in Indochina was motivated by imperialistic desires for resources—instead of the actual expressed desire to stop Soviet and Chineseimperialism. Ho Chi Minh embodied the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. My Lai was typical of American soldiers’ conduct.

Taxpayers pay for such continuing education courses for which teachers earn credit and consequently advance in their careers and salaries. Tuition, travel, materials, and facilities do not come cheap. The Smithsonian, the nation’s museum, was allocated one billion dollars this year.

Furthermore, in 2006 the US Embassy in Moscow published Zinn’s book, which presents the Soviet Union in a much more favorable light than the United States, in the Russian language. This year the National Endowment for the Arts funded the Kronos art and music festival, where performers paid homage to Zinn. Last year, New York City public parks hosted Zinn-readings by famous actors. PBS has given Zinn a friendly platform.

When elected officials attempt to remove Zinn’s book, ZEP, teachers, and the professoriate attack. In Arkansas in 2017 when Representative Kim Hendren introduced a bill to keep Zinn’s materials out of schools, ZEP launched a fundraiser, sending A People’s History to almost 700 teachers and librarians. When it was revealed in 2013 that Purdue University President Mitch Daniels had attempted to keep Zinn’s book out of classrooms during his governorship, the professoriate screamed censorship, held a Zinn “Read-In,” and established a Howard Zinn graduate scholarship!

Lawmakers face a daunting task in fighting administrators and professors who, although driven by left-wing ideology, are held up as experts.

Zinn’s common charge against his critics, including accomplished historians, was that they disagreed with his politics, which promoted peace, democracy, and help for the oppressed and the overlooked. Not so. Zinn failed to give credit to everyday heroes, like E.D. Nixon of the NAACP, even when it was pointed out to him. He instead valorized communists and famous radicals who promoted violence and bloodshed.

We would not justify using a book by a Holocaust denier like David Irving—or books that sugar-coat the exploitation of African-Americans or the expulsion of the Cherokee.

But Zinn used Irving as a source, misrepresented Communists’ exploitation of African-Americans, and stereotyped Indians.

It is time taxpayers stopped subsidizing Zinn’s fake, America-hating history.


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: communist; davidirving; elizabethwarren; fauxahontas; history; howardzinn; massachusetts; slingingbull; wardchurchill
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1 posted on 09/07/2019 7:59:05 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

2 posted on 09/07/2019 7:59:56 PM PDT by SeekAndFind (look at Michigan, it will)
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To: SeekAndFind

I had kind of a funny experience (well, at least it was funny to me) with my introduction to Howard Zinn…

My departed mother-in-law was, in life, a major-league liberal. She was a community organizer type of liberal. Now, I didn’t know this about her before I married my wife, but it wouldn’t have made a difference to me.

As the years went on, both my viewpoints and her viewpoints became known to each of us… and we entered a phase where she would say things deliberately to get a response out of me (or to see if I would just sit and say nothing)

Needless to say, I wasn’t about to sit and get baited by my mother-in-law, so I gave back in like kind when she initiated something. This went on for a relatively short period of time, then we kind of came to a mutual understanding. Neither one of us said a thing, but the understanding was there nonetheless that we would keep the peace by keeping our tongue. Not to say she wouldn’t occasionally poke at me (or me at her) but after that, that was pretty much all it was. I was kind of got the impression she was doing it just to see if I would stand up for myself.

In any case, I received a Christmas present from her one particular year. She knew that I was a history buff, and I read history prodigiously, so it was no surprise to me when I opened one of her Christmas presents and saw a history book. It was a fairly good-sized glossy volume, and I figured I’d put my feet up when I got home and begin reading.

When I got home, I opened the book up and began reading. At first, I was puzzled. “What the heck is this?” I read little bit further, and got even more perplexed. “What the hell kind of book is this?” I thought to myself.

I immediately begin skipping through the book, preferentially stopping in key areas in American history. As I reached each section, I would read sometimes only a sentence, or occasionally a paragraph. After I had been through multiple sections in this manner, I stood up angrily and exclaimed “screw this piece of crap!”

I walked out in the garage and through the book in the trash.

The name of the book was “The People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.

I was appalled. I had never seen a history book quite like that one. I was even more disturbed to find out later that this was an actual textbook used in public school classrooms all over the country. I’m still appalled at that thought.

In retrospect, it popped into my mind almost immediately as I was throwing the book in the trash, that this was perhaps my mother-in-law poking her finger in my eye. After a few more seconds of contemplation, I guessed that was not the case.

Knowing how my mother-in-law shops, particularly for Christmas presents, this book was almost undoubtedly on the bargain bookshelf at the front of the Borders bookstore when she walked in. I’d be willing to bet that she didn’t pay more than a few dollars for, because I doubt you could find it inside the store at regular price.

So, every time I hear the name Howard Zinn, I think of the anti-American far left political screed that was his book, that I had the pleasure to throw into a garbage can.


3 posted on 09/07/2019 8:05:49 PM PDT by rlmorel (Trump to China: This Capitalist Will Not Sell You the Rope with Which You Will Hang Us.)
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To: SeekAndFind
...my research had affirmed what I long suspected: Many self-professing "liberals/progressives," especially those railing against the alleged evils and excesses of America and, more so, of America's anti-communists, were, in fact, hardened communists -- albeit closet communists. To cite a few now being carefully reevaluated: Arthur Miller, Harry Hopkins, I.F. Stone, and Howard Zinn.

Yes, Howard Zinn. I include Zinn among an ignominious group of leftist writers whose screeds against the Vietnam War were used by the Vietcong to indoctrinate American POWs in places like the Hanoi Hilton -- to learn the "truth" about America's intentions in Vietnam. Can you imagine? The Vietcong actually assigned books by the likes of Zinn to our POWs.


Howard Zinn's Dupes? by Paul Kengor August 11, 2010, shortly before his book "Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century."
4 posted on 09/07/2019 8:06:17 PM PDT by \/\/ayne (I regret that I have but one subscription cancellation notice to give to my local newspaper.)
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To: LS

I remember you have some fun facts on this fiction author.


5 posted on 09/07/2019 8:12:54 PM PDT by KC Burke (If all the world is a stage, I would like to request my lighting be adjusted.)
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To: KC Burke

This is the re-writing of history by the Left.

Hard to stop and expose it, but necessary.


6 posted on 09/07/2019 8:24:34 PM PDT by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: rlmorel

Good story.

This guy sounds like a POS and I’m VERY disturbed to find out it’s being used all across America in schools.

But to be honest, I don’t have a “no expiration” stamp on me may be gone by the time complete collapse comes.

If the young were taught well at home they will know it’s garbage and they need to fight back.

It’s their own world and future they’ll be building. Or destroying.


7 posted on 09/07/2019 8:31:54 PM PDT by dp0622 (Bad, bad company Till the day I die.)
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To: dp0622

It is discouraging. When I got that book and threw it in the trash, I had no idea of its status in the world of education.

When I found out...I was flabbergasted. Just struck dumb. Honestly, I still cannot believe it, but...it’s true.

Of all the things that demonstrate the hold the Left has on education, the prevalence of Howard Zinn’s work in our schools would be one of the best indicators.

By the way, it has been my experience that many things maintain their effectiveness and quality after an expiration date...:)

Except milk. Milk goes bad immediately and predictably...DON’T BE MILK!


8 posted on 09/07/2019 8:40:57 PM PDT by rlmorel (Trump to China: This Capitalist Will Not Sell You the Rope with Which You Will Hang Us.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Regarding Christopher Columbus’s mission to find a new route to the spice islands by sailing west. In 1492 the overland trade routes from Europe to the Orient were blocked by the Ottoman Caliphate.


9 posted on 09/07/2019 8:47:31 PM PDT by MacNaughton
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To: marktwain

It is almost too late,
Thousands upon thousands of school districts have eagerly purchased and indroctrinated Zinn’s communist history lessons.


10 posted on 09/07/2019 8:53:21 PM PDT by A strike (Import third world become third world)
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To: rlmorel

lol

I’m the exception. I spoiled before my expiration date :)

And this guy is welcome to come to Staten Island and give a lecture about what a monster Columbus was.

He probably wouldn’t leave in one piece since probably 60 percent of the island’s population is descended from Italians.

That might not be such a bad thing :)


11 posted on 09/07/2019 8:55:39 PM PDT by dp0622 (Bad, bad company Till the day I die.)
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To: dp0622

Heh, if he wasn’t already room temperature, I would donate money for a one way ticket to visit you guys!


12 posted on 09/07/2019 8:58:06 PM PDT by rlmorel (Trump to China: This Capitalist Will Not Sell You the Rope with Which You Will Hang Us.)
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To: SeekAndFind

***The first was Columbus who is accused of genocide against the peaceful “Arawak” Indians.***

Before ZIN, it was known that the Arawak Indians were almost wiped out by the hostile Canabs or Carib Indians. It is where we get the word “Cannibal” and Caribbean.
Columbus found a Carib camp with pregnant Arawak women kept in cages. It appears the Carib-Canab Indians loved to snack on newborn Arawak babies.


13 posted on 09/07/2019 9:20:02 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: rlmorel

I just looked. He lived a long time too.

I just read the whole article and now i am TWICE as sickened.

I never so many people live in a country where they are not forced to say who want to destroy it.

SMH

Have a good one.


14 posted on 09/07/2019 9:21:16 PM PDT by dp0622 (Bad, bad company Till the day I die.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I’m about halfway through Grabar’s book now and it is truly excellent and long overdue. Zinn has been the rock star of Marxist history for far longer than his actual merit warrants. If America were actually anything like his representation he’d have been stood up against a wall and shot rather than celebrated.


15 posted on 09/07/2019 9:29:43 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: SeekAndFind

I wonder how much money the Zinn Educational Foundation gives to the teachers’ unions.


16 posted on 09/07/2019 9:49:03 PM PDT by Piranha (Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have - Saul Alinsky)
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To: Piranha

Howard Zinn has done more damage to this country than almost anyone else.


17 posted on 09/07/2019 9:52:16 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Blame Matt Damon:

Good Will Hunting popularized that lunatic and his propaganda.


18 posted on 09/07/2019 11:24:52 PM PDT by YogicCowboy ("I am not entirely on anyone's side, because no one is entirely on mine." - J. R. R. Tolkien)
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To: SeekAndFind

“They will get lessons using Howard Zinn’s Marxist A People’s History of the United States, and produced by the Zinn Education Project. Breaking publishing records, Zinn’s book has sold over 2.6 million copies since it was first published in 1980. Sales grow each year.”

“A People’s History of the United States”

HEY, Dingbat Parents here. Wake Up!!! Zinn even uses a MARXIST codeword, “people’s” in the Friggen TITLE of his book - and your ‘wonderful’ public schools (I know, yours are ‘wonderful’, it’s all of those ‘other schools’ that suck) are buying them by the MILLIONS.

Please, just don’t blame anyone but YOURSELVES when your kids grow up to hate America - because you were warned here, over and over.


19 posted on 09/08/2019 1:05:48 AM PDT by BobL (I eat at McDonald's and shop at Walmart - I just don't tell anyone.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Nearly pointless to get inside the system and attempt to change it. RATs get too much loot to stop now. When the state funds education you're going to get statist propaganda. The solution is to stop state funding. If parents had to pay out of their own pocket they'd insist on getting the most for their money. Just like everything else in the Free market.
20 posted on 09/08/2019 1:29:38 AM PDT by Nateman (If the left is not screaming, you are doing it wrong.)
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