College: Re-Telling American History

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
Take something like this chapter…

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/zinn-chap16.html

Its really not that long. Obviously it has some interpretation but its not particularly radical imo. What points of it that aren’t clearly opinion do you think are factually incorrect? Hell a lot of the stuff that he writes could just as easily but used by conservatives that think the government was opportunistic and overstepped its bounds.[/quote]

For example: “They also acted to control their own populations, each country with its own techniques–crude in the Soviet Union, sophisticated in the United States–to make their rule secure.”

This is a rather blithe and flippant appraisal–set up as an equivalency–of what amounts on one hand to a bunch of official paranoia, some ruined careers, and the execution of maybe one innocent woman, and on the other to a seven-figure body count. HUAC v. the Gulag.

The two, in other words, are not so alike that they can be set up as equals, their differences dismissed by the impotent and laughably euphemistic use of the adjectives “crude” and “sophisticated.”[/quote]

Well I’d imagine the other side would claim the body count is higher with a few wars. I would agree that its a very simple analysis.

[quote]groo wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
Take something like this chapter…

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/zinn-chap16.html

Its really not that long. Obviously it has some interpretation but its not particularly radical imo. What points of it that aren’t clearly opinion do you think are factually incorrect? Hell a lot of the stuff that he writes could just as easily but used by conservatives that think the government was opportunistic and overstepped its bounds.[/quote]

For example: “They also acted to control their own populations, each country with its own techniques–crude in the Soviet Union, sophisticated in the United States–to make their rule secure.”

This is a rather blithe and flippant appraisal–set up as an equivalency–of what amounts on one hand to a bunch of official paranoia, some ruined careers, and the execution of maybe one innocent woman, and on the other to a seven-figure body count. HUAC v. the Gulag.

The two, in other words, are not so alike that they can be set up as equals, their differences dismissed by the impotent and laughably euphemistic use of the adjectives “crude” and “sophisticated.”[/quote]

Well I’d imagine the other side would claim the body count is higher with a few wars. I would agree that its a very simple analysis.
[/quote]

Indeed it would be, but in question here is control of “their own populations.”

In any case, Vietnam would barely budge the scale against the crushing weight of Soviet iniquity.

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
Take something like this chapter…

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/zinn-chap16.html

Its really not that long. Obviously it has some interpretation but its not particularly radical imo. What points of it that aren’t clearly opinion do you think are factually incorrect? Hell a lot of the stuff that he writes could just as easily but used by conservatives that think the government was opportunistic and overstepped its bounds.[/quote]

For example: “They also acted to control their own populations, each country with its own techniques–crude in the Soviet Union, sophisticated in the United States–to make their rule secure.”

This is a rather blithe and flippant appraisal–set up as an equivalency–of what amounts on one hand to a bunch of official paranoia, some ruined careers, and the execution of maybe one innocent woman, and on the other to a seven-figure body count. HUAC v. the Gulag.

The two, in other words, are not so alike that they can be set up as equals, their differences dismissed by the impotent and laughably euphemistic use of the adjectives “crude” and “sophisticated.”[/quote]

Well I’d imagine the other side would claim the body count is higher with a few wars. I would agree that its a very simple analysis.
[/quote]

Indeed it would be, but in question here is control of “their own populations.”

In any case, Vietnam would barely budge the scale against the crushing weight of Soviet iniquity.[/quote]

I’m not gonna defend the soviet union. I think though that its clear the cold war was great for the American economy. If we could rework something with the war on terror that had the same result I’m sure the government would give it a go, but the world is different.

I think he tries to stay above making a deep analysis for a few reasons. Likely the book is meant for beginners or the general population and thus has to be a bit dumbed down. If he is a leftist which I don’t really know or care, but we will assume he is such a deep analysis could either hurt his case or alienate his readers.

I don’t see why someone that would be willing to entertain the idea that the government killed a bunch of schoolkids in a ploy to get control would think it a radical idea that the government worked largely in collusion with the Soviets to advance both of their controls over the world and their own populations…not saying the chapter asserts that necessarily but the base of it would be there.

You are debating it from a different position than that though. That its too simple of an analysis and makes comparisons that stretch credulity, but that is a different argument altogether. There are a lot of bad history books from many political perspectives.

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:
Oh and here is the ONLY historians he has presented

  1. Theodore W. Allen

  2. Noel Ignatiev

  3. Howard Zinn[/quote]

LOL. Radical leftists are scumbags. Don’t let on what you really think or you’ll likely be marked down.

[quote]
Is this common in all colleges?[/quote]

Pretty much. Although if you say academia is riddled with leftists you’re accused of being a conspiracy theorist or a whacko.[/quote]
I dont even think left vs. right is a good comparison. This stuff is off the grid, I could tolerate a leftist perspective but i consider the text no more than anti-american fairy tales.

[quote]NikH wrote:
How has the socialist teacher scewed the view of history?
What is it that he is teaching wrong?[/quote]
Check out some of the writings from the above “historians” i posted.

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:
So i recently started going to a university for the first time (im 26) What concerns me is the “american history” course im taking. In a nutshell they are re-telling american history through the eyes of socialist/marxist historians.
[/quote]

I don’t see any problem with this. Where in Russia do you live by the way?

[quote]sufiandy wrote:

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:
So i recently started going to a university for the first time (im 26) What concerns me is the “american history” course im taking. In a nutshell they are re-telling american history through the eyes of socialist/marxist historians.
[/quote]

I don’t see any problem with this. Where in Russia do you live by the way?[/quote]
I wasnt aware Missouri was part of Russia, but I guess thats why im in school.

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:

[quote]NikH wrote:
How has the socialist teacher scewed the view of history?
What is it that he is teaching wrong?[/quote]
Check out some of the writings from the above “historians” i posted.[/quote]

SHREDTODEATH, I’m not going to dispute your telling of events. But could you please provide the full title and description of the course you’re referring to and, if possible, the full list of texts you’re expected to read through the syllabus?

[quote]groo wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
Take something like this chapter…

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/zinn-chap16.html

Its really not that long. Obviously it has some interpretation but its not particularly radical imo. What points of it that aren’t clearly opinion do you think are factually incorrect? Hell a lot of the stuff that he writes could just as easily but used by conservatives that think the government was opportunistic and overstepped its bounds.[/quote]

For example: “They also acted to control their own populations, each country with its own techniques–crude in the Soviet Union, sophisticated in the United States–to make their rule secure.”

This is a rather blithe and flippant appraisal–set up as an equivalency–of what amounts on one hand to a bunch of official paranoia, some ruined careers, and the execution of maybe one innocent woman, and on the other to a seven-figure body count. HUAC v. the Gulag.

The two, in other words, are not so alike that they can be set up as equals, their differences dismissed by the impotent and laughably euphemistic use of the adjectives “crude” and “sophisticated.”[/quote]

Well I’d imagine the other side would claim the body count is higher with a few wars. I would agree that its a very simple analysis.
[/quote]

Indeed it would be, but in question here is control of “their own populations.”

In any case, Vietnam would barely budge the scale against the crushing weight of Soviet iniquity.[/quote]

I’m not gonna defend the soviet union. I think though that its clear the cold war was great for the American economy. If we could rework something with the war on terror that had the same result I’m sure the government would give it a go, but the world is different.

I think he tries to stay above making a deep analysis for a few reasons. Likely the book is meant for beginners or the general population and thus has to be a bit dumbed down. If he is a leftist which I don’t really know or care, but we will assume he is such a deep analysis could either hurt his case or alienate his readers.

I don’t see why someone that would be willing to entertain the idea that the government killed a bunch of schoolkids in a ploy to get control would think it a radical idea that the government worked largely in collusion with the Soviets to advance both of their controls over the world and their own populations…not saying the chapter asserts that necessarily but the base of it would be there.

You are debating it from a different position than that though. That its too simple of an analysis and makes comparisons that stretch credulity, but that is a different argument altogether. There are a lot of bad history books from many political perspectives.
[/quote]

Fair enough. For the record, I’m equally critical of the flip side–the whitewashed, flag-waving fantasy re-imagination that the Texas State Board pushes like meth.

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:
Oh and here is the ONLY historians he has presented

  1. Theodore W. Allen

  2. Noel Ignatiev

  3. Howard Zinn[/quote]

LOL. Radical leftists are scumbags. Don’t let on what you really think or you’ll likely be marked down.

[quote]
Is this common in all colleges?[/quote]

Pretty much. Although if you say academia is riddled with leftists you’re accused of being a conspiracy theorist or a whacko.[/quote]
I dont even think left vs. right is a good comparison. This stuff is off the grid, I could tolerate a leftist perspective but i consider the text no more than anti-american fairy tales.[/quote]

Well they are radical leftists. Howard Zinn was a member of CPUSA and half a dozen of its front groups. Theodore W. Allen and Noel Ignatiev are proponents of critical race theory(Judge Richard Posner of the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has “label[ed] critical race theorists and postmodernists the ‘lunatic core’ of 'radical legal egalitarianism.” Ignatiev is best known for 'his call to “abolish” the white race, which he defines as “white privilege and race identity.”

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:

[quote]NikH wrote:
How has the socialist teacher scewed the view of history?
What is it that he is teaching wrong?[/quote]
Check out some of the writings from the above “historians” i posted.[/quote]

SHREDTODEATH, I’m not going to dispute your telling of events. But could you please provide the full title and description of the course you’re referring to and, if possible, the full list of texts you’re expected to read through the syllabus? [/quote]
When I get off work tonight ill post what I’ve got . The course is poli-sci American history. As far as texts he assigns at random and we download. I’ll provide what we have been assigned thus far.

This isn’t a university issue or professor issue but an issue with individual professors. There are left leaning English professors who adhere to a conservative view of the canon (i.e., dead white men) and history professors who think comparing Alexander the Great to Hitler is ridiculous.

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
“If you think that is an exaggeration, get a copy of A People?s History of the United States by Howard Zinn and read it. As someone who used to read translations of official Communist newspapers in the days of the Soviet Union, I know that those papers? attempts to degrade the United States did not sink quite as low as Howard Zinn?s book.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337103/role-educators-thomas-sowell[/quote]
Thats the exact text he is teaching from. I know its garbage but i see all the young minds around me eating it up as factual[/quote]

In addition to what beans and company have said, get used to feeling like this. In my more cynical moments I meditate on this and resign myself to the fact that we are lost.

On a completely unrelated note, my cynical moments seem to be taking up more and more percentage of my days lately. haha

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
“If you think that is an exaggeration, get a copy of A People?s History of the United States by Howard Zinn and read it. As someone who used to read translations of official Communist newspapers in the days of the Soviet Union, I know that those papers? attempts to degrade the United States did not sink quite as low as Howard Zinn?s book.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/337103/role-educators-thomas-sowell[/quote]
Thats the exact text he is teaching from. I know its garbage but i see all the young minds around me eating it up as factual[/quote]

In addition to what beans and company have said, get used to feeling like this. In my more cynical moments I meditate on this and resign myself to the fact that we are lost.

On a completely unrelated note, my cynical moments seem to be taking up more and more percentage of my days lately. haha[/quote]

Milk and Squats will help with that.

[quote]smh23 wrote:
Fair enough. For the record, I’m equally critical of the flip side–the whitewashed, flag-waving fantasy re-imagination that the Texas State Board pushes like meth.[/quote]

That doesn’t bother the hicks though. 'Merica has never screwed up!

In an ideal world neither side would have credence, but they often do. Any story has multiple sides. Sadly the money on the left and right is for pushing an agenda towards developing the minds to believe what you want. I didn’t see much left/right bias from my professors, but maybe I was too young to look for it or too caught up in having fun to pay attention :slight_smile:

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]smh23 wrote:
Fair enough. For the record, I’m equally critical of the flip side–the whitewashed, flag-waving fantasy re-imagination that the Texas State Board pushes like meth.[/quote]

That doesn’t bother the hicks though. 'Merica has never screwed up!

In an ideal world neither side would have credence, but they often do. Any story has multiple sides. Sadly the money on the left and right is for pushing an agenda towards developing the minds to believe what you want. I didn’t see much left/right bias from my professors, but maybe I was too young to look for it or too caught up in having fun to pay attention :)[/quote]

As far as High School education goes in Texas, absolutely. By contrast, I feel that my undergrad experience at a large public university in Texas presented both schools of thought and encouraged students to come to their own informed conclusions.

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:
Is this common in all colleges? [/quote]

Yep. U.N. controls the educational curriculum.

[/quote]
The information in that link hints at the possibility that the U.N. might control the educational curriculum now or in the future. But standing by itself, the information in that link doesn’t seem to do more than just hint at that possibility. Standing by itself, the information in that link does not seem to provide any strong indication of anything nefarious.

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:
Like rascism was created [/quote]

Anyone that says this shouldn’t be teaching a college course.

Slavery was a means for “wealthy” to produce goods to bring to market. Nothing more, nothing less. Some saw it is a dying economic tools until things like the cotton gin came along and made the costs out weight the benefit. (Don’t know if I totally agree with that, read it in passing.)

Well, this is sort of true, but not in the context you put it. USofA was founded by educated smuggliers and tax evaders that were willing to risk life and limb to keep the fruits of their labor and be left alone/have more say by/in government. [/quote]

WTF. srsly W-T-F.

Slavery existed everywhere in human history and is one of the few bona fide culturally independent institutions that you could find. There were more slaves in India, e.g., in 1800 alone than had been in the US during the entire history of slavery. In 1865 about one-third of slave owners in New Orleans were black. Thomas Sowell wrote a very illuminating history of slavery which should be required reading for everyone.

You immediate charge that slavery was created for economic benefit smacks of Socialist theorizing, not history. No. Historically, slavery was a form of indentured servitude that lasted about 7 years. The rise of Mercantilism and quasi-state run enterprises in the 17th century gave rise to vast plantations in French and Spanish colonies. The British decided to get into the act and imposed heriditary slavery starting the 1670’s in its US possessions. At first they tried Indians, who ran off. The Irish (most slaves in the British Empire were Irish in the early 1600’s) died. Blacks were seen as premium workers and that is why they were imported.

It should be noted that Commerce, the conducting of business by mutually agreed contracts, was an Enlightenment concept. “Capitalism” was a term brought into general usage by the (National) Socialists during the 20’s to describe any non-state run business. Yes, when you use the word “capitalist” you are using textbook Nazi terminology and economic theories. You probably don’t intend this or realize it, but during the 1930’s it got embedded into the popular mindset as being progressive and the province of educated people. In point of fact too, the Gulag system in the USSR and later the forced labor camps in Germany were an attempt to recreate the state-run enterprises of the 17th century. Their avowed aim was to destroy the “Liberal” economic system that was taking root internationally.

North America was first settled by Puritans who had been brutally oppressed by the Crown, fled to the Netherlands and saw Europe descending into the Hell that was the Thirty Year’s War. (Half of the population of central Europe died between 1618 and 1648, btw.) They decided that European politics, religious strife and unrelenting warfare were repugnant and decided in what was a vaguely suicidal move to “make haste from Babylon”, so they could just live their lives. Later immigrants were of the same mindset. This tended to attract all the trash from Europe, such as the Catholics from Protestant lands, the Protestants from Catholic countries, Jews, Anabaptists and grimly oppressed minorities.

The result is that Europeans, especially more aristocratic ones (or wannabe aristocrats) “know” all sorts of stuff about Americans and anti-American philosophizing has been part of the intellectual landscape there for over 200 years. Even Jefferson and Franklin were extremely exasperated at the complete obtuseness of the Europeans. Our own intellectuals in the US parrot a lot of this and are in point of fact, shockingly ignorant of the most basic facts of American politics and history. Most of them even think that there are Left and Right Wings to politics here, the Socialists (Nazis) are the Liberals and the “liberals” are actually some form of Euro-socialist. For those of us that pay attention to History, the entire effect is Orwellian and surreal.

The OP just ran into this in college, where careers are made by writing up claptrap for academic journals that other peers sign off on. I work at a university as a researcher and the stupidity I deal with from the supposedly educated simply beggars belief. I have said before and will state again that some of the hands down dumbest people I have ever met had Ph. D. after their names.

– jj

[quote]smh23 wrote:

[quote]groo wrote:
Take something like this chapter…

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/zinn-chap16.html

Its really not that long. Obviously it has some interpretation but its not particularly radical imo. What points of it that aren’t clearly opinion do you think are factually incorrect? Hell a lot of the stuff that he writes could just as easily but used by conservatives that think the government was opportunistic and overstepped its bounds.[/quote]

For example: “They also acted to control their own populations, each country with its own techniques–crude in the Soviet Union, sophisticated in the United States–to make their rule secure.”

This is a rather blithe and flippant appraisal–set up as an equivalency–of what amounts on one hand to a bunch of official paranoia, some ruined careers, and the execution of maybe one innocent woman, and on the other to a seven-figure body count. HUAC v. the Gulag.

The two, in other words, are not so alike that they can be set up as equals, their differences dismissed by the impotent and laughably euphemistic use of the adjectives “crude” and “sophisticated.”[/quote]

Herbert Marcuse is the source for this. He was a leading Socialist thinker during the 1960’s and was extremely inifluential in the American radical scene. An awful lot of his analysis makes it onto the nightly news still.

The first concept you ran into is what he called “repressive tolerance”. The idea is simple. Some countries are openly repressive. In the case of Liberal democracies, whenever you give them an idea that opposes their thinking, they try to make you more moderate. Therefore, tolerance in Western countries is more insidious and repressive than in other countries. His solution? become a troll. If you have a Socialist idea and someone tries to make you actually think about it, your job is to derail the conversation in anyway you can. He flatly stated that the only real tolerance allowable is for ideas from the Left.

He also is the author of the idea that progress is really an illusion, that needs and wants are manufactured by “capitalists”. Part of this is the explanation for why nationalizing all industry would be a step forward. he also though that pretty much everything that could be invented had been and managed to miss out on computers, the internet, MRIs, gene therapy and pretty much everything done since 1965. But you still hear his analysis about manufactured wants as part of the chic cynicism every High School kids gets to learn.

His final gift was to push for an enlightened (but despotic) ruling class that would just “know” how to do things right. It was strongly irrational (his rant against Math would particularly amusing if it weren’t the defacto criticism of it anyone who struggles with the subject gets to invoke.) This was taken by a ton of US radicals such as the Weathermen, Symbionese Liberation Army and others.

Probably my least favorite intellectual, second only to Focault for the sheer disaster of their thinking…

– jj

[quote]undoredo wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]SHREDTODEATH wrote:
Is this common in all colleges? [/quote]

Yep. U.N. controls the educational curriculum.

[/quote]
The information in that link hints at the possibility that the U.N. might control the educational curriculum now or in the future. But standing by itself, the information in that link doesn’t seem to do more than just hint at that possibility. Standing by itself, the information in that link does not seem to provide any strong indication of anything nefarious.
[/quote]
Sorry, I meant to respond to this much earlier.

You’re right. It only hints. The UNESCO website provides a lot more information. This particular page lists the sub-groups that plan everything out.

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/worldwide/education-regions/europe-and-north-america/