"A Peoples History Of The United States"

 It simply makes my skin crawl and my innard's bark, when certain liberal's use the term " peoples". It remind's me of places like "The Peoples" Republic of China or The Democratic "Peoples"Republic of Korea, two places which use propoganda to keep their people in line, and far removed from the concern's of the people and anything democratic.

When liberal's are exhibiting their control in both houses of government to hammer us out a revisionist culture, and using their iron grip on the media and Hollywood to spew out revisionist history, holding in high reguard and rubbing elbow's with dictator's, despot's and murderous thug's, how long will it be before we start to see a revisionist Constitution.

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious. "

                   - Ben Kenobi on  Liberals, and the MSM.

...is a huge disappointment.  While not starring as a promoter of the AARP (be afraid), he spends his time talking up his good ol' boys Castro and Chavez.

Ask the average Cuban if they think that an equal share of nothing is better than the opportunity to be a part of something great - like a free market economy.

The good news for conservatives is that the movie ends with Zinn's hideous death at the hands of the SS Bush Gestapo.

He is hung by piano wire after being tortured for his beliefs and spending his last pitiful years in the Berkeley Gulag...  It's a real feel good movie.

Oh I'm sorry, that's the TEAM AMERICA: THE LIBERAL DUMMIES HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES version.

Check out my exclusive edit of BBC News America's interview with Mrs Clinton: It's news to me!

I vividly remember this bilious trash being touted as the definitive historical text when I was in college- ---- and of course, required reading (brain-washing) and indoctrination. And I was even a voting Democrat back then! I believe that it was this very book and then later on the Bork hearings that transformed me into a Republican. Thank you Howard Zinn! Thank you Ted Kennedy, Metzenbaum, etc.   

Remember OJ Simpson's story about what happened on the night his ex-wife was murdered? Yeah, I don't recall much of it either, because when I first heard it, it was immediately contradicted by the DNA evidence and overwhelming testimony to the contrary. OJ's team told a story that masked the weaknesses of its case, and exploited anything and everything to manipulate the audience. I heard both stories during the trial, and since the defense story was literally incredible, and the prosecution's story made sense (though it was told ineptly), I dismissed the defense story.

• That's what happens when a story is told in court. The court is adversarial, and parties can reveal/attack the weaknesses of their opponent's story.
• The reason we put these stories into an adversarial forum is because we want someone to make a judgment.

History is not mere entertainment. History is academic. We want the public, and especially the professionals in that field, to make a judgment about what the author asserts. When Zinn first published his work, it was reviewed and argued about, and that was the proper forum. It doesn't matter whether you agree with Zinn or not, the marketplace of ideas was the appropriate forum. That's also why documentaries and TV series are inappropriate for real history. Film and TV scripts are not interactive, and they don't allow adversarial opinions. You can't debate a film that's already in a can.

• Historical documentaries are fine when the history is widely accepted. They're also fine when they report what the controversies are, without taking sides.
• When they take sides, they immediately discount themselves.
  • It's a free country, and people can film whatever they want. But it's important for the viewing audience to discount the truth value of a documentary, and especially a TV series.
  • A documentary doesn't tell the truth; it tells one view, and not every view is true.
  • Like defense lawyers, documentaries mask the weaknesses of the argument, and exploit every available emotion to manipulate the audience.

When someone offers a documentary on a controversial topic (e.g., Michael Moore), viewers should ask: "Why doesn't this guy want me to hear the other side, from the other side? Why is he trying to control what I hear?"

You're all missing the point. It's called "People's" because it is from the perspective of laborers, minorities, and other marginlized/abused people in American history. It is emphatically not anti-American; at most it is anti-Capitalist/Imperialist. And with a few exceptions, I would argue that Zinn does an excellent job of peeling back the veneer of patriotism that obscures many incidents that do in fact amount to imperialism.

The very title of the book, paranoid Communist associations aside, is, I think, meant to indicate that Zinn does not hold America responsible for these things because America is constituted by the people. He holds responsible a small minority of plutocrats and corrupt politicians. And if it's blasphemous to discuss the largely obscured economic and aristocratic-beneficial aspects of The American Revolutiona and WWII, then all the better that someone engages in such iconoclasm. I suspect that what you all dislike has more to do with his tone than with his relaying important epochs of US History from a point of view other than the proverbial winners.

And before the personal Zinn-bashing starts up, lets keep in mind that he flew bombing missions in WWII and has certainly earned the right to condemn war across the board if he so chooses.

"He was, and is yet, most likely, the wearisomest, self-righteous
pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself
and fling the curses on his neighbors." -Emily Bronte