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| -Obits- |
| "Zinn was heavily involved in providing aid and comfort to the enemy" |
| 2010-01-29 |
| Jules Crittenden provides the obituary To the extent that Zinn popularized a ground-up view of history, he deserves credit. History is made of ordinary people, and all that protest this, resist that is part of history. To the extent that he considered America a crime against humanity, and denied the legitimacy of the forces of history that, however flawed they may have been, shaped the greatest nation on Earth, he was as one commentator noted yesterday, not much of a historian. Probably should have gone to live in the Soviet Union, where the historical forces he seemed to prefer prevailed. One of the great things about America is, how those two forces have balanced each other and moderated each other over the centuries, allowing us to have both equality, freedom, social mobility and prosperity, that is to say, to have our cake and eat it too. So if there have been horrible acts committed here historically … our history torturous as our nation exited slavery and racial discrimination through protracted, bloody war and social strife, for example, to arrive at a place where a black man who is the descendant of slave owners and a black woman who is the descendant of slaves now occupy the White House … we were spared the equally great if not greater soul-killing horrors of the French Revolution that led France into war, set France's industrial development back and impoverished her people for decades, or the communist subjugation and murder of millions upon millions of people in a vast swath of Europe and Asia from the Danube to the Pacific Ocean, under the guise of exactly the status quo-upending liberation values Zinn championed, only exploited to fullest extent by other crowd of powermongers. Meanwhile, Zinn was heavily involved in providing aid and comfort to the enemy at a time when international communism was very much a threat to freedom everywhere, though I'm willing to take at face value, in the interest of historical reconciliation, that he simply had the best interests of the American people and open government in mind. That war's over. Capitalism won, finally, at least to the extent that the global communist threat is gone and its remnants have devloved into naked kleptocracies even worse than the sort Zinn railed against. Re Iraq, I'm happy to report Zinn was dead wrong. Democracy and peace have in fact, been shown to be “attainable' in Iraq, and American soldiers are leaving with their heads high having helped the Iraqi people attain that. There are still challenges, suicide bombings by the insidious and deadly forces that seek chaos not just in Baghdad but in Kabul, Pakistan, Bali, London, Madrid and New York. In Iraq, a murderous despot on a par with all the historical villains Zinn hated so much … and exceeding many of them in intent and execution of purposeful evil … is no longer in business. Not thanks to any uprising of people so physically constrained and psychological traumatized as to be immobilized, but thanks to the liberating force of American arms, and the breathing space and support it provided, at such great cost. Demands for representative government, one of the best of America's gifts to the world … best taken with the other one, free enterprise … have spread throughout the Middle East and even taken root as a result of the Iraq example. There's a popular force of history for you.... |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #3 IIRC NEWS KERALA > ONLY DEMOCRACY PREVENTED INDIA FROM ATTACKING PAKISTAN AFTER THE 26/11 ATTACK ON MUMBAI. versus IIRC SAME > PAKISTAN HAS SUFFERED 101 26/11 MUMBAI-STYLE TERROR INCIDENTS??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-01-29 23:05 |
| #2 Zinn has a lot of admirers and followers. The p.o. once mistakenly delivered his mail to my box. I do remember several letters with "state prison" as the return address. |
| Posted by: Ulasing McGurque3294 2010-01-29 17:44 |
| #1 Zinn has a lot of admirers and followers. I read web posts from them on the afternoon of 9/11. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2010-01-29 15:07 |