Howard Zinn

[Pthalo BlueMoon]

I introduced a colleague to this man's work, and now she's using his book A People's History of the United States as a template for her Social Studies class.

Ahhh. Another mind opened...

Howard Zinn

 

[Number_6]

Just so you know: I'm not going to respond to your idiotic trolls. I hope you and your colleague are fired for abusing your position of power to politically indoctrinate your students.

Until you post something that's not designed to provoke a negative reaction from me, don't expect my username to appear in a thread.

That is all.

 

[Pthalo BlueMoon]

I wasn't trolling. I just posted something that I thought would provoke such a strong response from you that you'd post something.

No trolling involved...just a little hopeful friendly manipulation.

 

[Pthalo BlueMoon]

Now that we've gotten the niceties out of the way, old friend....

(LOL I actually just rolled up my sleeves!)

Howard Zinn's recounting of historical events are NOT political indoctrinations. They simply come from a perspective that is not european, male centric.

I concede that you are tired of addressing this issue, so I don't expect a response.

Just know that you are not the only person that holds strong to ideologies that are personally relevant.

 

[WordInterrupted]

I'm not a huge fan of Zinn, but I did find one of his columns linked from his site interesting:

It would be naive to depend on the Supreme Court to defend the rights of poor people, women, people of color, dissenters of all kinds. Those rights only come alive when citizens organize, protest, demonstrate, strike, boycott, rebel, and violate the law in order to uphold justice.

The distinction between law and justice is ignored by all those Senators--Democrats and Republicans--who solemnly invoke as their highest concern "the rule of law." The law can be just; it can be unjust. It does not deserve to inherit the ultimate authority of the divine right of the king.

LINK

This is a point that needs to be made more often on the left. Most of the great liberal victories of the last century--such as desegregation, abortion rights, and environmental regulation--have come at the hands of highly educated technocrats, like judges or regulators in the executive branch. This mode of political change--which relies on abstruse technical arguments instead of democratic victories at the ballot box--has given rise to a strain of anti-democratic elitism in liberal politics. We're more willing to trust our rights to highly educated judges than to the supposedly ignorant masses. The huge practical problem with this strategy if you don't have a strong popular movement in support of liberal policies enacted by the courts, you'll eventually lose control of the courts. If liberals want to stay relevant, they need to focus less on fighting court cases and more on building a grass roots political movement.

 

[Friday]

Hmm...

Your argument sounds downright socialist.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...