Views in brief
Howard Zinn sought the truth
REGARDING "DEFENDING Howard Zinn": The recent invective against Howard Zinn's historical work is typical of what we might expect from the right and even from liberal academics known for their whining and discrediting of peers, both living and dead.
Joseph Ellis's assessment about "forces of light vs. darkness" may not be altogether incorrect, but what of it? Doesn't history generally portray good vs. evil, freedom vs. tyranny, right vs. wrong? Isn't Hitler shown as a bad guy and Franklin Roosevelt as good?
Every historian tells a story based on both clear and cloudy facts, and from a set of particular perspectives and points of view. An unbiased historian is about as improbable as any media source being totally objective with regard to news reporting. Zinn makes that crystal clear in his introduction to A People History of the United States.
Michael Kazin's assessment that Americans willingly accept the capitalist regimen has a lot more to do with a sense of powerlessness and lack of weaponry than any sort of "herd mentality" innately ingrained within the human psyche. Humans aren't born capitalistic or socialistic--they learn these ways of looking at the world by education and cultural conditioning. Slaves didn't consent to their fate; they happened to be born into slavery, which is no easy thing to resist or overcome by one's own will.
Moreover, there is a serious lack of knowledge and propagation of alternative world views in our schools and in the media. We Americans are propagandized from an early age, and few, if any of us, question who or where we are in relation to the larger world.
Where explicitly does Zinn refer to the governing class as a "pack of lying bullies"? His critics can certainly be accused of "white vs. black hat-wearing" more than Zinn ever could. Kazin clearly needs a refresher course on how the establishment continues to help millions of Americans today: moving jobs, bailing out Wall Street and beggaring the nation with regressive taxation while they get generous tax cuts and free health care for themselves and other special interests.
Zinn helped to analyze ideas and social movements so that we might better understand our present condition. Whatever refutations can be made to his scholarship, many of us believe that he was a genuine seeker of truth and justice for common people and the oppressed.
For those wishing to immerse themselves in the lives of kings, caesars and presidents, there is no dearth of material from which to draw upon. For the rest of us seeking rebel voices proclaiming the vision of a different world, let us take up where Zinn left off so that we may challenge the established order, with its all-too-common antagonism toward the masses.
M.B.H., Chicago
Musicians making a difference
REGARDING "THERE'S got to be a soundtrack": This is a great interview! I am happy to see these topics covered every now and again in SocialistWorker.org. I wish this interview also brought to light similar acts that very much deserve attention like Blue Scholars and Jedi Mind Tricks.
Paul Degrandis, Philadelphia
Charter schools give us options
REGARDING "DUNCAN'S twisted vision for our schools": After reading the commentary, I was very curious to know the author's perspective in general.
Hailing from Chicago, with my children both attending Chicago public schools and working as a member on the Local School Council, I feel like perhaps my perspective may well be different. It appeared to me that there were huge gaps in the commentary where the policies and the reasons behind them were assumed, but not discussed.
I don't pretend to have the answers, and yes, our schools are segregated--but so is our population! Where the neighborhoods are integrated, so are the schools. If you look at the "turnaround" neighborhood schools here in Chicago, what you find is where the community works together and reflects the school population is where you get achievement, or at the least, a desire to achieve.
Charter schools have given students options that they would not otherwise have had, and they are a workaround to an administration and union that are equally corrupt at worst, and misguided at best.
Much as with health care, the problem is too big to make minor tweaks and expect success. I believe the whole issue of education cannot be boiled down to a civil rights, education or governmental problem. It is a systemic failure overall, and to try to look at solutions from one perspective makes us as prone to failure as those working within the system to "make it better."
Kristin, Chicago
The left lets Democrats ignore us
LANCE SELFA gives the Democrats too much credit ("The liberals fall in line").
At the end of his excellent piece, he states that the problem is that the liberals have a propensity to settle immediately for half a loaf, and never even ask for a full loaf.
I'd say instead that the leadership of the Democratic party has taken millions in contributions from the corporations that benefit the most from the health care bill, and that exactly such a bill, deliberately designed to do exactly this, was the goal all along.
Remember how this process began: President Obama holding secret meetings with his big health care contributors that basically laid out this bill. While at the same time, single-payer advocates were being led away from hearings in handcuffs for daring to even mention single-payer in the hearing room without permission.
This bill was no accident, and "the liberals" didn't do anything at all in terms of concrete action to change it. At some point, you have to ignore words and focus on actions. And in this case, when you do that, then the liberals look like perfect team players helping this bill along. In hindsight, much of their so-called "opposition" looks staged and phony.
I'm starting to like the old Kennedy family motto: "Don't get mad. Get even!" This should be the year the left gets even with the Democrats. The Democrats assume that although we'll get mad, we'll eventually get over it. Let's show them otherwise.
There are lots of vulnerable Democrats who won in 2008 on Obama's massive coattails. They face tougher races this time around. What the left should do is to get even by running pro-single payer, pro-peace, independent campaigns in all of these races. Let every Democrat in a close race have to sweat a close election because the left has rebelled and these independent campaigns are taking votes the Democrats need.
Call it the "Kick the Democrats in the nuts in 2010!" strategy. The idea is to have the story of the 2010 elections be that the Democrats lost seats, and maybe their House majority, because an angry left rebelled against them on exactly the issues of single-payer health care and the failure of the Democrats to end the wars.
Once the Democrats know that in order to get either a return to a House majority, or to re-elect Obama, that they need our support, then the Democrats will be a lot more accommodating towards the left, its projects and its goals. Right now, they ignore the left, and that's because the left has developed zero political power by supporting the Democrats.
Make 2010 the year of the angry left if we want to move forward.
Marc Schuler, Denver
Why not tax the corporations?
REGARDING "SCHWARZENEGGER'S bitter budget": Chevron gouged $24 billion in excessive profits in 2008, according to The Tyranny of Oil. Arnold Schwarzenegger should put an excessive profits tax on Chevron, instead of protecting the oil corporations from fair taxation. Then, there would be sufficient public funds for all the vulnerable social programs.
Big Business lost the fight to eliminate funding for domestic violence programs, so now they are coming back with a vengeance. There is no funding provision for battered women's shelters in the proposed budget. Schwarzenegger is picking on the most vulnerable--and not on corporate "deadbeats."
Earl Richards, from the Internet
