Tag Archives: Howard Zinn

There has been a substantial push lately by some of Hollywood's big names to reeducate Americans on world history. The leftist-dominated television and film industries have taken it upon themselves to promote histories of the United States and its role in the world that portrays it as an evil, occasionally colonial, always destructive force in global relations.

The latest such effort is being undertaken by director Oliver Stone, well known for his loving portrayal of Venezuela's Marxist dictator Hugo Chavez and derisive portrayal of our previous president in "W". Now Stone has set his sights on Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. He plans to "liberalize" America's thinking regarding two of the 20th century's most murderous dictators by putting them "in context", whatever that means (h/t Hot Air headlines).

"We can't judge people as only bad or good," Stone said at the Television Critics Association's press tour, referring to two dictators who--unless this writer's understanding of history is not sufficiently "liberalized"--are responsible, in Hitler's case, for the extermination of 6 million Jews and 3 million others in killing camps during World War II, and in Stalin's, for the murders of 20 million individuals in Russia and Soviet-occupied Europe.
 
It seems, Stone's claims notwithstanding, that one is historically justified in classifying these two particular dictators as "bad".

Stone tried to dismiss what he calls "ignorant attacks" on what is likely to be a revisionist history of WWII and the legacies of Stalin and Hitler, while, ironically given his use of the term ignorant, comparing Preisdent Bush to the two European dictators (not the first time he has done so). THR reports,

"Obviously, Rush Limbaugh is not going to like this history and, as usual, we're going to get those kind of ignorant attacks," said Stone, who also also compared the experience of sympathizing with war criminals to making his "W" movie about George W. Bush. "I'm trying to understand somebody I thoroughly despised."...

The project will also show lesser-known positive aspects of American history and unsung heroes. Stone eventually hopes to send "Secret History" to schools as a teaching curriculum.

Stone is not the only leftist trying to peddle an uber-liberal history--via Hollywood--to our nation's schoolchildren. Marxist academic Howard Zinn recently teamed up with Matt Damon, a host of other A-list personalities, and the History Channel to propagate a socialist take on American history--dubbed "A People's History of the United States"--in American schools and universities.

The "People's History" teaches that America was founded as--and remains--a racist, sexist, xenophobic bastion of white aristocrats, who exploited minorities and immigrants for their own gain--you know, that familiar Hollywood refrain.

The book on which the series is based, which shares the same title, unsurprising ignores the countless successes of American capitalism, touts Maoist China as a shining example of a "people's government," and fails to mention in its recap of American history Washington's Farewell Address, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, or Reagan's speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Nowhere in the book will readers find the names Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk, or he Wright Brothers. The book does include the supposedly important stuff like the My Lai massacre, though it leaves out small details like the Normandy Invasion of June 1944.

Zinn and Stone twist history to fit their own radical political views--the same crime they accuse their opponents of and tout as the reason their works are necessary. Of course Hollywood has been producing this sort of dribble for years. But when such work is considered a history in the, you know, factual sense of the term, and when it is taught to students as such, it must be exposed for the revisionist political nonsense that it is.

There has been a substantial push lately by some of Hollywood's big names to reeducate Americans on world history. The leftist-dominated television and film industries have taken it upon themselves to promote histories of the United States and its role in the world that portrays it as an evil, occasionally colonial, always destructive force in global relations.

The latest such effort is being undertaken by director Oliver Stone, well known for his loving portrayal of Venezuela's Marxist dictator Hugo Chavez and derisive portrayal of our previous president in "W". Now Stone has set his sights on Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. He plans to "liberalize" America's thinking regarding two of the 20th century's most murderous dictators by putting them "in context", whatever that means (h/t Hot Air headlines).

"We can't judge people as only bad or good," Stone said at the Television Critics Association's press tour, referring to two dictators who--unless this writer's understanding of history is not sufficiently "liberalized"--are responsible, in Hitler's case, for the extermination of 6 million Jews and 3 million others in killing camps during World War II, and in Stalin's, for the murders of 20 million individuals in Russia and Soviet-occupied Europe.
 
It seems, Stone's claims notwithstanding, that one is historically justified in classifying these two particular dictators as "bad".

Stone tried to dismiss what he calls "ignorant attacks" on what is likely to be a revisionist history of WWII and the legacies of Stalin and Hitler, while, ironically given his use of the term ignorant, comparing Preisdent Bush to the two European dictators (not the first time he has done so). THR reports,

"Obviously, Rush Limbaugh is not going to like this history and, as usual, we're going to get those kind of ignorant attacks," said Stone, who also also compared the experience of sympathizing with war criminals to making his "W" movie about George W. Bush. "I'm trying to understand somebody I thoroughly despised."...

The project will also show lesser-known positive aspects of American history and unsung heroes. Stone eventually hopes to send "Secret History" to schools as a teaching curriculum.

Stone is not the only leftist trying to peddle an uber-liberal history--via Hollywood--to our nation's schoolchildren. Marxist academic Howard Zinn recently teamed up with Matt Damon, a host of other A-list personalities, and the History Channel to propagate a socialist take on American history--dubbed "A People's History of the United States"--in American schools and universities.

The "People's History" teaches that America was founded as--and remains--a racist, sexist, xenophobic bastion of white aristocrats, who exploited minorities and immigrants for their own gain--you know, that familiar Hollywood refrain.

The book on which the series is based, which shares the same title, unsurprising ignores the countless successes of American capitalism, touts Maoist China as a shining example of a "people's government," and fails to mention in its recap of American history Washington's Farewell Address, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, or Reagan's speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Nowhere in the book will readers find the names Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk, or he Wright Brothers. The book does include the supposedly important stuff like the My Lai massacre, though it leaves out small details like the Normandy Invasion of June 1944.

Zinn and Stone twist history to fit their own radical political views--the same crime they accuse their opponents of and tout as the reason their works are necessary. Of course Hollywood has been producing this sort of dribble for years. But when such work is considered a history in the, you know, factual sense of the term, and when it is taught to students as such, it must be exposed for the revisionist political nonsense that it is.

In an interview with actor Matt Damon on Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith discussed the star’s role in a liberal documentary on American history: “‘The People Speak,’ based on one of Damon’s favorite books, ‘A People’s History of The United States’....examine’s America’s founding and expansion from the perspective of the revolutionaries, rebels, and rarely heard voices of dissent.”

Damon described the left-wing revisionism as “an honest look at – at where we’ve come from and the idea that all of these changes have been struggled for by everyday people.” Smith also spoke with the book’s author Howard Zinn and wondered: “Does it seem like this is an extra good time to be making a version of this book into a movie?” Zinn replied: “we want this history to speak to our present situation. What is our present situation? War. So in many ways the film, I think, speaks to things that are going on now.”

On Wednesday, Zinn proclaimed his anti-war views on NBC’s Today: “I believe the best way to support the troops is to bring them home. You’re not supporting them when you’re keeping them there and for not a good reason.”

During the Early Show interview, Smith noted how “Damon has known Howard Zinn since childhood” and asked the actor when he first read the book. Damon replied: “I started reading passages from it in 1980 actually. I remember when we got the book and for Columbus Day I took in – the first chapter is about Columbus and I took it in and was allowed to read parts of that to the class, actually, at the age of ten.”

One such passage on page four of that chapter:

Now, from his base on Haiti, Columbus sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, and put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route. The rest arrived alive in Spain and were put up for sale by the archdeacon of the town., who reproted that, although the slaves were “naked as the day they were born,” they showed “no more embarrassment than animals.” Columbus later wrote: “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.”

But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill his ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brough it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.

The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust gathered from streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed. Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners, they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, and suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.

While the Zinn includes a bibliography for each chapter in the book, there are no footnotes featured for any specific citations or claims.  

Here is a full transcript of the Early Show segment:

8:29AM TEASE:

HARRY SMITH: Also, more of my conversation with Matt Damon this morning. We talked about Invictus yesterday. We’re going to talk about a special project he has done with some really interesting folk for the History Channel. We’ll have that conversation in just a couple of minutes.

8:38AM SEGMENT:

HARRY SMITH: Yesterday we showed you my interview with Matt Damon about his new film Invictus. We also talked about another new project that stems from one of his passions, American history. He and fellow actor Josh Brolin appear in a documentary ‘The People Speak,’ based on one of Damon’s favorite books, ‘A People’s History of The United States.’ Howard Zinn has taught history for most of his life. Rarely has he produced a lesson quite like this.

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: The People Speak; Matt Damon’s Historic Documentary]

HOWARD ZINN: I wrote ‘A People’s History of The United States’-

SMITH: Matt Damon has known Howard Zinn since childhood. When did you read it?

MATT DAMON: I started reading passages from it in 1980 actually. I remember when we got the book and for Columbus Day I took in – the first chapter is about Columbus and I took it in and was allowed to read parts of that to the class, actually, at the age of ten.

SMITH: At the age of ten?

DAMON: Yeah.

[CLIP FROM ‘GOOD WILL HUNTING’]

ROBIN WILLIAMS: What about the one’s on the top shelf? You read those?

SMITH: The actor references Zinn’s best seller in the Academy Award winning film ‘Good Will Hunting.’

[CLIP CONTINUES]

DAMON: If you want to read a real history book, read Howard Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of The United States.’

SMITH: First published in 1980, ‘A People’s History of The United States’ examine’s America’s founding and expansion from the perspective of the revolutionaries, rebels, and rarely heard voices of dissent.

DAMON: It’s just an honest look at – at where we’ve come from and the idea that all of these changes have been struggled for by everyday people. And that that’s a good thing. That being an America means participating.

SMITH: After Zinn’s book sold a million copies, his publisher wanted to commemorate the achievement.

HOWARD ZINN: I asked him ‘how do you propose to do it?’ Well, we’ll do it at 92nd Street. Why in New York? Because it’s the usual venue for events. And we’ll have some historians on the stage. And I said, ‘please, not that.’

SMITH: Zinn had a better idea.

ZINN: It happened I knew some actors and I thought, yeah, let’s have some actors read historical documents.

MORGAN FREEMAN: Your shout for liberty and equality, hollow mockery.

DAMON: If you’re reading about Frederick Douglas, I mean, wouldn’t you want Morgan Freeman reading the actual – what Frederick Douglas wrote?

BROLIN: When you see these live readings and you see the people react to the live readings.

KERRY WASHINGTON [ACTRESS, ‘THE PEOPLE SPEAK’]: Where did your Christ come from? He came from God and a woman. Men didn’t have nothing to do with it.

SMITH: As the format evolved, an idea for a film began to take shape.

DAMON: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

SMITH: Was there fighting about who was going to get to read what – what part?

DAMON: No, on the contrary, there’s so many things to be read that there – you know, that the big problem is cutting it into – into one film.

JOSH BROLIN: I want to be there when they talk about honor and justice and making the world safe for democracy.

SMITH: In all, 96 hours of historical prose performed by today’s biggest stars was condensed to produce ‘The People Speak,’ which will air on the History Channel.

SMITH: Does it seem like this is an extra good time to be making a version of this book into a movie?

ZINN: Yeah. You know, we say at the beginning, you know, we want this history to speak to our present situation. What is our present situation? War. So in many ways the film, I think, speaks to things that are going on now.

SMITH: ‘The People Speak’ airs this Sunday on the History Channel.

Editor's Note: The following was originally published December 1, 2009 at Big Hollywood, where Nolte is editor-in-chief.

Don’t believe for a second that the History Channel — which should now be called The Revisionist History Channel — will be the end of Matt Damon and Howard Zinn’s cinematic ode to trashing America. The obvious next step for the adaptation of Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States,” will be taken up by nitwit, pseudo-intellectual, America-loathing teachers and professors everywhere – many of them paid by the taxpayers of GodDamnAmerica – who are no doubt panting in anticipation for their first chance to screen this toxic mix of guilt and victimization in classrooms everywhere stocked with young, captive, impressionable minds.

And the film’s producers are showing academia the way with “The People Speak College Tour,” which launched at Boston University November 4th and ends right here at UCLA this coming Friday [December 4].

Turning Zinn’s textbook poison into an even more powerful brew of sound and fury has been a goal of producer Damon’s for going on a decade now. When I first heard that this skewed, leftist dwelling on America’s sins (some real, most imagined, all delivered without historical context) had received the seal of approval from the History Channel it was a shocker – until I remembered the History Channel is owned by NBC – a network now working like a propaganda war machine to boost every leftist cause imaginable.

There’s an older preview here. Should be interesting to see if the now inconvenient history of Cindy Sheehan made the final cut.

NBC's Meredith Vieira, on Wednesday's Today, invited on radical leftist Howard Zinn to promote a new History Channel documentary, The People Speak (based on his revisionist book A People's History of the United States), in which the Today co-anchor pointed out Zinn makes "a very interesting point that the Declaration of Independence was a, was a statement of, you know, hope and, and positive democracy. And then the Constitution came along and sort of negated that." [audio available here]

Vieira offered Zinn and his co-producer Chris Moore a platform to toss our their left-wing version of history and even make anti-war proclamations, which was awkward considering that the Today show's Matt Lauer and Al Roker are visiting the troops in Afghanistan all this week, something that Vieira pointed out in the following exchange:

MEREDITH VIEIRA: You, you take some rather harsh look at some of our military endeavors, Chris. And, and some people are gonna to look at this, this documentary and say it's unpatriotic. You've heard that already with regard to your book. Matt and Al are right now in Afghanistan with the troops.

HOWARD ZINN: Yeah.

VIEIRA: What would you say to them and their families who might not like what they hear in the documentary?

CHRIS MOORE: Well, I think the larger point of the documentary is to question authority and question why they're there. I mean, but what I'd say is I'm a huge supporter of the troops and I think they're there and we think they're there. Howard served in World War II. It's not anything against the military. It's against when it's chosen to be used, how it's being used and that people in power should think very long and hard and the people should support that or not support that about when we put people in harm's way. And I'm sure every person there in Afghanistan is thinking about their family back here, thinking about the holidays, and I guarantee you all of them are thinking, "Why am I here? What am I doing here?" And I think it's the people's right to make sure that the government thinks that through before they send people.

VIEIRA: And, go ahead.

ZINN: You know, I think the most patriotic thing a person can do is to question the government when the government is not fulfilling its obligation. And you know, in the case of the troops, I believe the best way to support the troops is to bring them home. You're not supporting them when you're keeping them there and for not a good reason. You know, one of the things, one of the things we have in the documentary is we have Josh Brolin reading Mark Twain and Mark Twain is commenting on our invasion of the Philippines. [He] said, "Why are we killing these people half a world away and for what reason?" They say it's for democracy, for civilization. Same things that are said about Afghanistan and Iraq.

The following is the complete transcript of the segment as it was aired on the December 9, Today show:

MEREDITH VIEIRA: And now to the power of democracy. An interesting new History Channel documentary uses celebrity readings and performances to highlight the ordinary Americans who changed our nation's history. Take a look.

(Begin clip)

JASMINE GUY: If the land is free and the flag is mine, then how come I can't do like the white kids?

ROSARIO DAWSON: He has taken from her all right and property, even to the wages she earns.

DON CHEADLE: Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. 

MATT DAMON: Maybe a fella ain't got a soul of his own but only a piece of a big one.

(End clip)

VIEIRA: Howard Zinn narrates The People Speak and is one of the project's executive producers along with Chris Moore. Good morning to you both. Howard, I would like to start with you. Very powerful documentary. It's based on your book, "A People's History of the United States," and you have said that you wanted to present history with a different point of view than what we learned in school, where you think a lot of history is sugar-coated.

[On screen headline: "The People Speak," Celebrating Our Nation's Democracy"]

HOWARD ZINN: Yeah. I think a lot of history emphasizes too much the people on top, the presidents, the military heroes, and we, you know, I wanted to emphasize, yes, the working people, the dissidents, the antiwar protestors, and generally, the people who are left out of the traditional histories. I wanted to really encourage people to speak up. And so, we, we draw on historical examples in, in this documentary of people speaking up.

VIEIRA: So, maybe people are gonna understand that we all have a voice. Chris, you've said a major theme in the documentary, I think that Howard just touched on this, is that democracy doesn't come from the top, it comes from the bottom.

CHRIS MOORE: I think that, that we have to help our leaders figure out where to go, what to do, how they should have their companies behave or how the country should behave. And so the idea is to put it all in one place - these very dramatic and inspiring moments where people stood up for something and actually made a difference.

VIEIRA: Well the documentary makes a very interesting point that the Declaration of Independence was a, was a statement of, you know, hope and, and positive democracy. And then the Constitution came along and sort of negated that.

ZINN: You obviously saw our documentary.

(Laughter)

ZINN: No, and we have Matt, Matt Damon reads from the Declaration of Independence, which is very crucial to our documentary, because what it says is that governments are not supreme. Governments are artificial creations. They're set up in order to ensure life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and when governments become destructive of that, it's the right of the people to oppose it. It's a fundamental principle of democracy.

VIEIRA: You, you take some rather harsh look at some of our military endeavors, Chris. And, and some people are gonna to look at this, this documentary and say it's unpatriotic. You've heard that already with regard to your book. Matt and Al are right now in Afghanistan with the troops.

ZINN: Yeah.

VIEIRA: What would you say to them and their families who might not like what they hear in the documentary?

MOORE: Well, I think the larger point of the documentary is to question authority and question why they're there. I mean, but what I'd say is I'm a huge supporter of the troops and I think they're there and we think they're there. Howard served in World War II.. It's not anything against the military. It's against when it's chosen to be used, how it's being used and that people in power should think very long and hard and the people should support that or not support that about when we put people in harm's way. And I'm sure every person there in Afghanistan is thinking about their family back here, thinking about the holidays, and I guarantee you all of them are thinking, "Why am I here? What am I doing here?" And I think it's the people's right to make sure that the government thinks that through before they send people.

VIEIRA: And, go ahead.

ZINN: You know, I think the most patriotic thing a person can do is to question the government when the government is not fulfilling its obligation. And you know, in the case of the troops, I believe the best way to support the troops is to bring them home. You're not supporting them when you're keeping them there and for not a good reason. You know, one of the things, one of the things we have in the documentary is we have Josh Brolin reading Mark Twain and Mark Twain is commenting on our invasion of the Philippines. [He] said, "Why are we killing these people half a world away and for what reason?" They say it's for democracy, for civilization. Same things that are said about Afghanistan and Iraq.

VIEIRA: Well, the point, I think, of the documentary is for people to think, think for themselves and to speak out.

ZINN: Exactly.

VIEIRA: Howard Zinn, appreciate you being here, Chris Moore as well. The People Speak premieres on Sunday night on the History Channel. We're gonna head back to Matt and Al in Afghanistan in just a moment.