Imagine me walking away calling you and nut and giving myself a tour.
While I have not read any of Zinn’s work, I recognize the type from the columnist’s description of the trip to DisneyWorld’s porta-pots. I experienced this type of historical approach in the text for the required course in Oklahoma History when my children were in high school. I had a vigorous discussion with the teacher about text selection but it seems there is a dearth of high school level texts from which to choose in such a narrow field. Thankfully, there are other choices for American History.
The columnist used the term “anti-intellectual” to describe Zinn’s approach and illustrated it with some Zinn quotes. I’m puzzled by those who would so vigorously pursue an education only to arrive at an “anti-intellectual” worldview. Guess that takes me out of the running for a Mensa membership...
Your college children are likely to use one of his books for one of their courses during college. You are paying for it through your own money or taxes for the propaganda.
The left's primary intellectual shortfall is the obsessive pessimism they ascribe to freedom and capitalism, while, almost subconsciously, blind and ignorant to the horrors of collectivism.
It sure didn’t escape ME that Obama used our first American president’s birthday, Feb. 22, as the day to reveal his Marxist plan for America in his so-called “health plan!” Perhaps this is the guy he learned history from wherever he went to college....
The disney analogy is a good one. Howard Zinn hated America and distorted its history by attributing evil motives to every event. For example if an elderly widow takes in an orphan child found on her doorstep and raised it as her own, Zinn would say she did it to have someone to do her chores.
Anyone, like myself, who went to school in the fifties and sixties learned about slavery, discrimination, the mistreatment of Indians and the like. In high school, Catholic, we discussed the so-called “robber barons” and the growth of America. In short, nobody growing up in those days was unaware that America wasn’t a perfect country. But we knew how to separate the aberrations from the ideal. We knew America was a good country. Zinn’s “history” is a perversion of history of the worst kind.
Good find, Cindy! Thanks.