Friday, May 30, 2008
A Dying Breed.
I've recently been reading some books by George Will (The Woven Figure) and William F. Buckley (Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription), in reading their writings I can't help but be struck by the contrast between the tone and approach to political thought taken by these elder statesmen of the conservative movement and that taken by most of the popular political writers today. The late Mr. Buckley's style was one of laying out rational arguments for his worldview. This is a far cry from the current crop on the right and the left. It seems that the entire conservative movement has become a moral crusade, while the left is driven by a guilt-based crusade. A good percentage of the political books I've read in the last year have consisted of attacks on the morality (or intelligence) of the other side rather than a comprehensive case for the author's own political views. There are exceptions, like Christopher Hitchens, but he's persona non grata on the left due to his unflinching support for the Iraq War and the right probably isn't crazy about his anti theism. There are still intelligent people in both movements, but it seems that raw emotion is the driving factor in the political discourse. I find this to be one of the more disturbing developments in politics over the last 15 years or so.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Worst Book 3: Return of the Moon Bat
Part 3 of our Marxist tour guide Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.
-The biggest characteristic of the section of the book covering the period spanning from the late-1970's to present is the repeated and (of course) unsourced use of questionable statistics. I'm not going to go into too many of those since by the time I got to this section I had spent about two weeks on this book and wasn't about to spend hours researching each claim. So these (along with what I've presented so far) are by no means the only inaccuracies of the book. Some weren't interesting enough for me to include here and I'm sure others slipped past me unnoticed. Other parts don't fall into the category of "inaccuracy" but seem to me to be distorted by ideology.
-On page 573 he attacks the U.S. for its opposition to various "revolutionary movements" in the Caribbean. I think "Soviet and Cuban backed terrorist movements" might have been a more accurate term.
-On page 578 he claims that "Unemployment grew in the Reagan years". This is the exact opposite of the truth, unless when he says "grew" he means "dropped". When Reagan was inaugurated in January of '81 the unemployment rate was 7.5%. When Reagan left office in January of '89 the unemployment rate was 5.4%. Read it and weep.
-On page 585, Zinn praises the accomplishments of "a popular Sandinista movement" in Nicaragua and tells us how good they were for that country. He claims that the opposition Contras "seemed to have no popular support inside Nicaragua". I guess he's hoping none of us remember what happened when free elections were finally held in 1990. He also makes no mention of Soviet or Cuban military assistance to the Sandinistas. Apparently he feels the foreign interference was only on the part of the United States.
-He gives Reagan no credit for the end of the Cold War. On page 592, he tries to give the credit to Kruschev due to his "liberal reforms" enacted in the late 50's/early 60's. I guess this is kind of a relative argument but sandwiched between Stalin and Brezhnev pretty much anyone would look like a liberal reformer, even "the Butcher of the Ukraine".
-On page 638, we get one of very few mentions of Soviet Communism. He states that the "false socialism of the Soviet system had failed". Remember, the first rule of Socialism is that Socialism that exists in reality is "false Socialism". Conversely, Socialism that exists in one's imagination is "real Socialism".
-On page 646, Zinn implies that the FBI started the Waco fire that killed the Branch Davidians. He's smart enough not to state "the FBI started the fire". Instead he implies it, saying: "the FBI attacked with rifle fire, tanks, and gas resulting in a fire...". This clearly insinuates that the fire was not started by the cultists inside the compound. He then quickly transitions into a gruesome description of some of the bodies. Anyone who makes it this far into the book should realize that it is not your intellect that is being appealed to. It is the reader's emotional response that matters to the author. It is imperative to his "social aims" that you view America (and more importantly capitalism) as a force for nothing but evil in the world and the biggest threat to mankind.
-On the very next page he talks of the need to release people from jail, and states "violent crime continued to increase" during the 90's. Again this is the exact opposite of the truth. The 1990's saw a historic drop in virtually every category of crime. Explanations as to why this happened vary, but to claim that it didn't happen is nothing more than a politically motivated fantasy.
- U.S. military intervention in Somalia was wrong. The U.S. not intervening in Rwanda was wrong .(pp. 654,655) He's trying to have it both ways. You can't cry "imperialism" in one case and call for the same thing in the other (unless it could help your political agenda I suppose).
-In keeping with the "left-wing despot love-fest" he states on page 657 that Cuba "had no bloody record of suppression". I'm sure a lot of folks in Miami would beg to differ. As would these human rights groups.
-Can anyone explain to me why the far-left is so in love with people who murder police officers? As I should have seen coming, on page 668 Zinn talks about cop-killer (and hero to fringe leftist morons everywhere) Mumia Abu Jamal. Zinn states: "Jamal was a respected black journalist who had been tried and sentenced under circumstances that suggested his race and his radicalism, as well as his persistent criticism of the Philadelphia police, were the reason he now sat on death row." Actually, the reason he now sits on death row is because he is more guilty than OJ and Mike Tyson combined. Like most Jamal supporters, Zinn shows no interest in the facts of the case. I will briefly describe them. Far from being "a respected black journalist", Jamal had been fired from a local radio station for poor attendance and was driving a taxi at the time of the murder. On the night of the murder, officer Daniel Faulkner was trying to arrest Jamal's brother when Jamal saw the scuffle and ran over and shot officer Faulkner in the back from about 12 inches away. Before officer Faulkner fell, he shot Jamal in the chest (also from about a foot away). Jamal then shot Faulkner 3 more times while he (Faulkner) was lying on the ground, before finishing him off with a 5th shot which struck officer Faulkner between the eyes, killing him instantly. Jamal then staggered over to a sidewalk a few feet away and sat down. When more officers arrived less than 90 seconds later, they found Faulkner dead, Jamal sitting on the sidewalk wearing and empty shoulder holster, and Jamal's brother yelling "I ain't got nothin' to do with this". Laying on the sidewalk next to Jamal was the murder weapon, a .38 special revolver legally registered to Mumia Abu Jamal and containing 5 empty shells in the cylinder. 4 eyewitnesses also testified that Jamal had killed Faulkner. So yeah, sounds like he totally got railroaded to me. He later became a left-wing celebrity due in large part to radio interviews conducted from prison. If you've never listened to one, he talks in this mellow, deep voice about the injustice of the white man's legal system and his sympathy for all the oppressed people of the world. So this gets played on college radio stations where black militants, delusional leftists, and spoiled little white girls here it (who by this point would no doubt be willing to have the guy's baby) decide they need to do everything they can to keep him from getting the lethal injection he so richly deserves.
Now that the history is out of the way we come to Zinn's vision for the future. This chapter is titled The Coming Revolt of the Guards. He lays out a vision of a Socialist utopia where we all rise up and "seize the reigns of power" (exactly what the hell that means and how it is accomplished are for someone else to figure out). By this point he wants his readers to feel so guilty about their nation's history that they're willing to embrace anything, even an ideology as destructive as Marxism. He never gives a good reason to embrace the only ideological system (political, religious, economic, etc.) in human history that can claim responsibility for 100,000,000 deaths in one century. The reason for this is that there isn't one. He merely spits out Socialist cliches so fast and furious that it seems as though they're being fired from a machine gun. A telling passage about the delusional nature of his goals is this one. "Work of some kind would be needed by everyone, including people now kept out of the workforce-children, old people, "handicapped" people. ... Everyone could share the routine but necessary jobs for a few hours a day, and leave most of the free time for enjoyment, creativity, labors of love, and yet produce enough for an equal and ample distribution of goods. Certain things would be abundant enough to be taken out of the money system and be available-free-to everyone: food, housing, health care, education, and transportation." The word that comes to mind is "fantasy". This kind of seems to rehash the old Communist canard that it hasn't worked because "it hasn't been tried by the right people". That's because the "right people" are a figment of your imagination. It always has started with grand visions and ended with famine, shortage, and brutal repression. This is lost on today's "Libertarian-Socialists" (a term that makes about as much sense as "carnivorous vegetarian"). But then, you see, people like Howard Zinn are luxury-Socialists who live in nice houses, have cushy jobs, and make big dollars speaking about the need to redistribute (presumably other people's) wealth. Practical Socialists, on the other hand, do the redistributing themselves and wind up in jail. These are the more consistent ones in my view. Not the ones who live in the fantasy world of Acadamia. If you'd like to see what this ideology does to people check out these pictures of a gathering in a large, (sort of) American city, and remember each face in these pictures is one family's tragedy.
I am now in search of a new "worst book". I'm not sure where I'll find something worse, maybe a Noam Chomsky book, or some 9/11 "truth" garbage.
-The biggest characteristic of the section of the book covering the period spanning from the late-1970's to present is the repeated and (of course) unsourced use of questionable statistics. I'm not going to go into too many of those since by the time I got to this section I had spent about two weeks on this book and wasn't about to spend hours researching each claim. So these (along with what I've presented so far) are by no means the only inaccuracies of the book. Some weren't interesting enough for me to include here and I'm sure others slipped past me unnoticed. Other parts don't fall into the category of "inaccuracy" but seem to me to be distorted by ideology.
-On page 573 he attacks the U.S. for its opposition to various "revolutionary movements" in the Caribbean. I think "Soviet and Cuban backed terrorist movements" might have been a more accurate term.
-On page 578 he claims that "Unemployment grew in the Reagan years". This is the exact opposite of the truth, unless when he says "grew" he means "dropped". When Reagan was inaugurated in January of '81 the unemployment rate was 7.5%. When Reagan left office in January of '89 the unemployment rate was 5.4%. Read it and weep.
-On page 585, Zinn praises the accomplishments of "a popular Sandinista movement" in Nicaragua and tells us how good they were for that country. He claims that the opposition Contras "seemed to have no popular support inside Nicaragua". I guess he's hoping none of us remember what happened when free elections were finally held in 1990. He also makes no mention of Soviet or Cuban military assistance to the Sandinistas. Apparently he feels the foreign interference was only on the part of the United States.
-He gives Reagan no credit for the end of the Cold War. On page 592, he tries to give the credit to Kruschev due to his "liberal reforms" enacted in the late 50's/early 60's. I guess this is kind of a relative argument but sandwiched between Stalin and Brezhnev pretty much anyone would look like a liberal reformer, even "the Butcher of the Ukraine".
-On page 638, we get one of very few mentions of Soviet Communism. He states that the "false socialism of the Soviet system had failed". Remember, the first rule of Socialism is that Socialism that exists in reality is "false Socialism". Conversely, Socialism that exists in one's imagination is "real Socialism".
-On page 646, Zinn implies that the FBI started the Waco fire that killed the Branch Davidians. He's smart enough not to state "the FBI started the fire". Instead he implies it, saying: "the FBI attacked with rifle fire, tanks, and gas resulting in a fire...". This clearly insinuates that the fire was not started by the cultists inside the compound. He then quickly transitions into a gruesome description of some of the bodies. Anyone who makes it this far into the book should realize that it is not your intellect that is being appealed to. It is the reader's emotional response that matters to the author. It is imperative to his "social aims" that you view America (and more importantly capitalism) as a force for nothing but evil in the world and the biggest threat to mankind.
-On the very next page he talks of the need to release people from jail, and states "violent crime continued to increase" during the 90's. Again this is the exact opposite of the truth. The 1990's saw a historic drop in virtually every category of crime. Explanations as to why this happened vary, but to claim that it didn't happen is nothing more than a politically motivated fantasy.
- U.S. military intervention in Somalia was wrong. The U.S. not intervening in Rwanda was wrong .(pp. 654,655) He's trying to have it both ways. You can't cry "imperialism" in one case and call for the same thing in the other (unless it could help your political agenda I suppose).
-In keeping with the "left-wing despot love-fest" he states on page 657 that Cuba "had no bloody record of suppression". I'm sure a lot of folks in Miami would beg to differ. As would these human rights groups.
-Can anyone explain to me why the far-left is so in love with people who murder police officers? As I should have seen coming, on page 668 Zinn talks about cop-killer (and hero to fringe leftist morons everywhere) Mumia Abu Jamal. Zinn states: "Jamal was a respected black journalist who had been tried and sentenced under circumstances that suggested his race and his radicalism, as well as his persistent criticism of the Philadelphia police, were the reason he now sat on death row." Actually, the reason he now sits on death row is because he is more guilty than OJ and Mike Tyson combined. Like most Jamal supporters, Zinn shows no interest in the facts of the case. I will briefly describe them. Far from being "a respected black journalist", Jamal had been fired from a local radio station for poor attendance and was driving a taxi at the time of the murder. On the night of the murder, officer Daniel Faulkner was trying to arrest Jamal's brother when Jamal saw the scuffle and ran over and shot officer Faulkner in the back from about 12 inches away. Before officer Faulkner fell, he shot Jamal in the chest (also from about a foot away). Jamal then shot Faulkner 3 more times while he (Faulkner) was lying on the ground, before finishing him off with a 5th shot which struck officer Faulkner between the eyes, killing him instantly. Jamal then staggered over to a sidewalk a few feet away and sat down. When more officers arrived less than 90 seconds later, they found Faulkner dead, Jamal sitting on the sidewalk wearing and empty shoulder holster, and Jamal's brother yelling "I ain't got nothin' to do with this". Laying on the sidewalk next to Jamal was the murder weapon, a .38 special revolver legally registered to Mumia Abu Jamal and containing 5 empty shells in the cylinder. 4 eyewitnesses also testified that Jamal had killed Faulkner. So yeah, sounds like he totally got railroaded to me. He later became a left-wing celebrity due in large part to radio interviews conducted from prison. If you've never listened to one, he talks in this mellow, deep voice about the injustice of the white man's legal system and his sympathy for all the oppressed people of the world. So this gets played on college radio stations where black militants, delusional leftists, and spoiled little white girls here it (who by this point would no doubt be willing to have the guy's baby) decide they need to do everything they can to keep him from getting the lethal injection he so richly deserves.
Now that the history is out of the way we come to Zinn's vision for the future. This chapter is titled The Coming Revolt of the Guards. He lays out a vision of a Socialist utopia where we all rise up and "seize the reigns of power" (exactly what the hell that means and how it is accomplished are for someone else to figure out). By this point he wants his readers to feel so guilty about their nation's history that they're willing to embrace anything, even an ideology as destructive as Marxism. He never gives a good reason to embrace the only ideological system (political, religious, economic, etc.) in human history that can claim responsibility for 100,000,000 deaths in one century. The reason for this is that there isn't one. He merely spits out Socialist cliches so fast and furious that it seems as though they're being fired from a machine gun. A telling passage about the delusional nature of his goals is this one. "Work of some kind would be needed by everyone, including people now kept out of the workforce-children, old people, "handicapped" people. ... Everyone could share the routine but necessary jobs for a few hours a day, and leave most of the free time for enjoyment, creativity, labors of love, and yet produce enough for an equal and ample distribution of goods. Certain things would be abundant enough to be taken out of the money system and be available-free-to everyone: food, housing, health care, education, and transportation." The word that comes to mind is "fantasy". This kind of seems to rehash the old Communist canard that it hasn't worked because "it hasn't been tried by the right people". That's because the "right people" are a figment of your imagination. It always has started with grand visions and ended with famine, shortage, and brutal repression. This is lost on today's "Libertarian-Socialists" (a term that makes about as much sense as "carnivorous vegetarian"). But then, you see, people like Howard Zinn are luxury-Socialists who live in nice houses, have cushy jobs, and make big dollars speaking about the need to redistribute (presumably other people's) wealth. Practical Socialists, on the other hand, do the redistributing themselves and wind up in jail. These are the more consistent ones in my view. Not the ones who live in the fantasy world of Acadamia. If you'd like to see what this ideology does to people check out these pictures of a gathering in a large, (sort of) American city, and remember each face in these pictures is one family's tragedy.
I am now in search of a new "worst book". I'm not sure where I'll find something worse, maybe a Noam Chomsky book, or some 9/11 "truth" garbage.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Worst Book: Part 2
Part 2: "You say you want a revolution?"
-On page 421 he states that "more than 100,000 people died in the fire-bombing of Dresden". The actual number is between 25,000 and 35,000. I guess that wasn't startling enough, hence the need to multiply it by 4. In my research I came to the conclusion that most people pushing a figure of 100,000 or higher were doing so to push a leftist agenda. And that anyone claiming over 200,000 is a Fucking Nazi.
-The World War II chapter was probably the worst in the book.
-His section on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is particularly bad. (pp 422-424) He paints a picture of a Japan that has been trying for months to surrender, and were already about to do so when the A-bombs were dropped. He also scoffs at the notion of how many lives an invasion would cost (as he gets ripped apart for here). I realize there is debate on this, but I haven't said anything truly inflammatory since I started this blog, so I'd like to take the opportunity to do so right now..... If ever there was a society that earned the right to have 2 nuclear weapons used against it it was Imperial Japan. Japan used chemical and biological weapons against China, killing somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 with biological agents, also evidenced by over 700,000 shells containing various chemical munitions they left behind in China that are still killing people. Hiroshima prefecture was the home of a poison gas factory (this gas was used to kill around 80,000 Chinese), and they were doing things that would almost make even the Nazis cringe. (for more info, google the phrases "unit 731", "unit 516","rape of Nanjing","Bataan death march","Japanese treatment of POW's", "comfort women", "Okunoshima", "battle of the Philippines", "Japanese forced labor", etc.) Also, given the most recent example the Allies had, the battle of Berlin in which the combined casualties on both sides exceeded 200,000, they had every reason to believe that an invasion of Japan would be just as brutal. Zinn claims that the only condition for the Japanese with regard to surrender was the continued rule of the emperor, omitting the other 3. 1) No occupation 2) No handing over of war criminals 3) They would be in charge of their own demobilization. Needless to say these were unacceptable. The Pottsdam declaration also contained a warning and terms of surrender, but it was rejected by the Japanese. Another thing that always stuck out to me in this debate is that generally if someone's already going to surrender...they probably would surrender after the first bomb was dropped. The fact that there even had to be a second bomb leads me to believe that they may have been willing to fight it out until total societal collapse was inevitable. If they had surrendered within a few months, how many Chinese, Koreans, etc would have died in that time frame? Does this make the bombings morally justified? Maybe not. But in my opinion it made them absolutely necessary. I understand and to some degree sympathise with those who disagree with me on this issue, but when facts are distorted or omitted from the argument that tends to fall flat with me. To frame this issue as innocent civilians dying in massive numbers vs. no innocent civilians dying is also inaccurate; the only question here was whether they were dying in Japan or in China, Indochina, Korea, etc.
-Also, on page 424 he states "the bombing of Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped". He seems to think it was because the U.S. wanted to use Nagasaki as a guinea pig for the "fat man" bomb design (even though this design was very similar to the one tested in New Mexico). Actually Nagasaki was not the intended target when Bock'scar left the ground that day. The target was Kokura, but due to cloud cover they diverted to Nagasaki. Perhaps he means that the idea of a second bomb was scheduled well in advance but without citing any documentary evidence he doesn't back up this claim at all. As to why it was dropped, I think maybe it was because they didn't surrender after the first one was dropped. So again, we can debate Hiroshima but they had no one but themselves to blame for Nagasaki.
-His views on the Korean War plumb new depths in terms of delusion. He presents it as if the Chinese were just minding their own business until forced to enter the war. (p.428) One would be well served to remember who invaded who.
-On page 439 he tells us what a great guy his friend Fidel Castro is (was?). He set up "a nationwide system of education, of housing, of land distribution to landless peasants". No mention of firing squads or secret prisons. At this point it becomes obvious that he doesn't think it's enough just to bash the U.S. (which again is fine with me, he has the right to say any stupid thing he wants) but he has to glorify our enemies simply because they are our enemies, no matter how horrendous their crimes. More on Cuba still to come.
-His love for Ho Chi Minh seems to be unconditional. On page 469 he tells us about the Vietnamese declaration of independence (written by Ho) states that "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator....(you know the rest)" And I have no doubt that Zinn actually believes Ho Chi Minh believed in those things. The true hallmark of a "useful idiot".
-On the same page he states that the U.S. made "a maximum military effort" against a "nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country". Maximum military effort? Not even close. I would also point out that at the time Vietnam had a population of around 75 million, making it one of the 20 largest nations on earth. Here we see the first appearance of a pattern of using the word "revolutionary" to refer to Communist dictators. In Zinn's view a group of revolutionaries who implement a Constitutional government are dictators, but Soviet-backed dictators are "revolutionaries"
-Still on the same page he says " it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won." At this point I laughed so hard I almost dropped the book. The only human beings who "won" were the ones who escaped the living hell that country was when the "revolutionaries" took over. This chapter had a lot of promise. You'd think that a person writing an anti-American book would have a lot of good material to work with when it comes to Vietnam, but his unvarnished cheer leading and apparent glee over that regime's victory (rivaled only by fellow moonbat and left-wing totalitarian apologist Noam Chomsky) makes it hard to take him very seriously. The phrases "reeducation camps" and "boat people" appear no where in the text. The North Vietnamese are portrayed as true believers in freedom, justice and equality who never committed any atrocities. This makes it very hard for me to view the author as a guy who just wants peace.
-He spends about half the chapter (the "revolutionaries"=good half, not the U.S.=bad half) telling us how much better the Communists made life for people in the North, so I was kind of surprised when we reach the end of the war and he doesn't tell us how wonderfully things turned out once the "imperialists" were driven out. No mention of how happy people were, or the reconciliation and era of plenty that ensued. One can only dream about living in such a Socialist paradise I suppose.
-On page 551 he tells how an American cargo ship was captured in 1975 "in Cambodia, where a revolutionary regime had just taken power" He then describes how friendly they were to the crew. He doesn't say anything else (literally, not one word) about these "revolutionaries". He doesn't tell us how they were a group of nice people called the Khmer Rouge, or that they were led by a wonderful man named Pol Pot. They were true underdogs, unable to afford things like bulldozers or lots of bullets. Still they persevered. They made people dig their own graves and used iron bars to "club their brains out like baby seals". They overcame these disadvantages and managed to cause the deaths of somewhere between 1,200,000 and 1,700,000 people in just 4 years! That is an amazing accomplishment even by communist standards considering the short time frame and the fact that there were only 7.5 million people in the country to begin with.
-On page 554, he states as a fact that "[the CIA] had introduced African swine fever into Cuba in 1971, bringing disease and then slaughter to 500,000 pigs." I assume he means literal pigs, not capitalists. I had to search for hours to find any reliable source on this, one way or the other. After viewing about 500 Marxist, pro-Castro, and "CIA created AIDS" type websites (and the CIA "family jewels"). I finally found that this claim had been pretty much debunked in a study by Raymond Zilinskas. It was published in a paper called "Cuban Allegations of Biological Warfare by the United States: Assessing the Evidence" in Critical Reviews in Microbiology, 25:3 (1999) pp.173-227. So the question is who do I believe? 500 wack-job websites or one peer reviewed scientific journal? That's a pretty easy choice. The only thing I found to back up the claim was the word of Castro (always reliable) and an interview from the San Francisco Chronicle in the late seventies with an anonymous person who claimed to have worked for the CIA and delivered a vial of this stuff to some Cuban dissidents. I've got news for you. This nation's mental hospitals are full of people claiming they work for the CIA. To pass off this claim as though it were an established fact in an alleged history book seems to me, at best, negligent.
-The last point I will include in this section is this: on page 570 he rips Jimmy Carter because he "opposed federal funding to poor people who needed abortions". Needed? or wanted? This one wouldn't have bothered me in a book that wasn't being used in high schools across the country. But again, this at least pretends to be a history book. (Although the pretext becomes flimsier and flimsier the further the book moves along, by the time we reach the modern era it's painfully obvious that this is a run of the mill Marxist tract. And not a very good one at that.)
That's all for part 2. The next section will run from 1980 through our Socialist Wonderland future.
And believe me, it's equally inaccurate, but with more nuttiness thrown in.
In the mean time check out this parody of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky doing audio commentary for the first Lord of the Rings movie.
-On page 421 he states that "more than 100,000 people died in the fire-bombing of Dresden". The actual number is between 25,000 and 35,000. I guess that wasn't startling enough, hence the need to multiply it by 4. In my research I came to the conclusion that most people pushing a figure of 100,000 or higher were doing so to push a leftist agenda. And that anyone claiming over 200,000 is a Fucking Nazi.
-The World War II chapter was probably the worst in the book.
-His section on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is particularly bad. (pp 422-424) He paints a picture of a Japan that has been trying for months to surrender, and were already about to do so when the A-bombs were dropped. He also scoffs at the notion of how many lives an invasion would cost (as he gets ripped apart for here). I realize there is debate on this, but I haven't said anything truly inflammatory since I started this blog, so I'd like to take the opportunity to do so right now..... If ever there was a society that earned the right to have 2 nuclear weapons used against it it was Imperial Japan. Japan used chemical and biological weapons against China, killing somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 with biological agents, also evidenced by over 700,000 shells containing various chemical munitions they left behind in China that are still killing people. Hiroshima prefecture was the home of a poison gas factory (this gas was used to kill around 80,000 Chinese), and they were doing things that would almost make even the Nazis cringe. (for more info, google the phrases "unit 731", "unit 516","rape of Nanjing","Bataan death march","Japanese treatment of POW's", "comfort women", "Okunoshima", "battle of the Philippines", "Japanese forced labor", etc.) Also, given the most recent example the Allies had, the battle of Berlin in which the combined casualties on both sides exceeded 200,000, they had every reason to believe that an invasion of Japan would be just as brutal. Zinn claims that the only condition for the Japanese with regard to surrender was the continued rule of the emperor, omitting the other 3. 1) No occupation 2) No handing over of war criminals 3) They would be in charge of their own demobilization. Needless to say these were unacceptable. The Pottsdam declaration also contained a warning and terms of surrender, but it was rejected by the Japanese. Another thing that always stuck out to me in this debate is that generally if someone's already going to surrender...they probably would surrender after the first bomb was dropped. The fact that there even had to be a second bomb leads me to believe that they may have been willing to fight it out until total societal collapse was inevitable. If they had surrendered within a few months, how many Chinese, Koreans, etc would have died in that time frame? Does this make the bombings morally justified? Maybe not. But in my opinion it made them absolutely necessary. I understand and to some degree sympathise with those who disagree with me on this issue, but when facts are distorted or omitted from the argument that tends to fall flat with me. To frame this issue as innocent civilians dying in massive numbers vs. no innocent civilians dying is also inaccurate; the only question here was whether they were dying in Japan or in China, Indochina, Korea, etc.
-Also, on page 424 he states "the bombing of Nagasaki seems to have been scheduled in advance, and no one has ever been able to explain why it was dropped". He seems to think it was because the U.S. wanted to use Nagasaki as a guinea pig for the "fat man" bomb design (even though this design was very similar to the one tested in New Mexico). Actually Nagasaki was not the intended target when Bock'scar left the ground that day. The target was Kokura, but due to cloud cover they diverted to Nagasaki. Perhaps he means that the idea of a second bomb was scheduled well in advance but without citing any documentary evidence he doesn't back up this claim at all. As to why it was dropped, I think maybe it was because they didn't surrender after the first one was dropped. So again, we can debate Hiroshima but they had no one but themselves to blame for Nagasaki.
-His views on the Korean War plumb new depths in terms of delusion. He presents it as if the Chinese were just minding their own business until forced to enter the war. (p.428) One would be well served to remember who invaded who.
-On page 439 he tells us what a great guy his friend Fidel Castro is (was?). He set up "a nationwide system of education, of housing, of land distribution to landless peasants". No mention of firing squads or secret prisons. At this point it becomes obvious that he doesn't think it's enough just to bash the U.S. (which again is fine with me, he has the right to say any stupid thing he wants) but he has to glorify our enemies simply because they are our enemies, no matter how horrendous their crimes. More on Cuba still to come.
-His love for Ho Chi Minh seems to be unconditional. On page 469 he tells us about the Vietnamese declaration of independence (written by Ho) states that "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator....(you know the rest)" And I have no doubt that Zinn actually believes Ho Chi Minh believed in those things. The true hallmark of a "useful idiot".
-On the same page he states that the U.S. made "a maximum military effort" against a "nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country". Maximum military effort? Not even close. I would also point out that at the time Vietnam had a population of around 75 million, making it one of the 20 largest nations on earth. Here we see the first appearance of a pattern of using the word "revolutionary" to refer to Communist dictators. In Zinn's view a group of revolutionaries who implement a Constitutional government are dictators, but Soviet-backed dictators are "revolutionaries"
-Still on the same page he says " it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won." At this point I laughed so hard I almost dropped the book. The only human beings who "won" were the ones who escaped the living hell that country was when the "revolutionaries" took over. This chapter had a lot of promise. You'd think that a person writing an anti-American book would have a lot of good material to work with when it comes to Vietnam, but his unvarnished cheer leading and apparent glee over that regime's victory (rivaled only by fellow moonbat and left-wing totalitarian apologist Noam Chomsky) makes it hard to take him very seriously. The phrases "reeducation camps" and "boat people" appear no where in the text. The North Vietnamese are portrayed as true believers in freedom, justice and equality who never committed any atrocities. This makes it very hard for me to view the author as a guy who just wants peace.
-He spends about half the chapter (the "revolutionaries"=good half, not the U.S.=bad half) telling us how much better the Communists made life for people in the North, so I was kind of surprised when we reach the end of the war and he doesn't tell us how wonderfully things turned out once the "imperialists" were driven out. No mention of how happy people were, or the reconciliation and era of plenty that ensued. One can only dream about living in such a Socialist paradise I suppose.
-On page 551 he tells how an American cargo ship was captured in 1975 "in Cambodia, where a revolutionary regime had just taken power" He then describes how friendly they were to the crew. He doesn't say anything else (literally, not one word) about these "revolutionaries". He doesn't tell us how they were a group of nice people called the Khmer Rouge, or that they were led by a wonderful man named Pol Pot. They were true underdogs, unable to afford things like bulldozers or lots of bullets. Still they persevered. They made people dig their own graves and used iron bars to "club their brains out like baby seals". They overcame these disadvantages and managed to cause the deaths of somewhere between 1,200,000 and 1,700,000 people in just 4 years! That is an amazing accomplishment even by communist standards considering the short time frame and the fact that there were only 7.5 million people in the country to begin with.
-On page 554, he states as a fact that "[the CIA] had introduced African swine fever into Cuba in 1971, bringing disease and then slaughter to 500,000 pigs." I assume he means literal pigs, not capitalists. I had to search for hours to find any reliable source on this, one way or the other. After viewing about 500 Marxist, pro-Castro, and "CIA created AIDS" type websites (and the CIA "family jewels"). I finally found that this claim had been pretty much debunked in a study by Raymond Zilinskas. It was published in a paper called "Cuban Allegations of Biological Warfare by the United States: Assessing the Evidence" in Critical Reviews in Microbiology, 25:3 (1999) pp.173-227. So the question is who do I believe? 500 wack-job websites or one peer reviewed scientific journal? That's a pretty easy choice. The only thing I found to back up the claim was the word of Castro (always reliable) and an interview from the San Francisco Chronicle in the late seventies with an anonymous person who claimed to have worked for the CIA and delivered a vial of this stuff to some Cuban dissidents. I've got news for you. This nation's mental hospitals are full of people claiming they work for the CIA. To pass off this claim as though it were an established fact in an alleged history book seems to me, at best, negligent.
-The last point I will include in this section is this: on page 570 he rips Jimmy Carter because he "opposed federal funding to poor people who needed abortions". Needed? or wanted? This one wouldn't have bothered me in a book that wasn't being used in high schools across the country. But again, this at least pretends to be a history book. (Although the pretext becomes flimsier and flimsier the further the book moves along, by the time we reach the modern era it's painfully obvious that this is a run of the mill Marxist tract. And not a very good one at that.)
That's all for part 2. The next section will run from 1980 through our Socialist Wonderland future.
And believe me, it's equally inaccurate, but with more nuttiness thrown in.
In the mean time check out this parody of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky doing audio commentary for the first Lord of the Rings movie.
The Worst Book I Have Ever Read.
(Note: this is another massive post. But it's not every day that I read a 700 page Marxist tract. For that reason I have split it into three parts)
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts."-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
I have recently read A People's History of the United States, by Comrade Howard Zinn. I may have read a worse book at some point in my life, but I would be hard pressed to think of one. I normally wouldn't waste my time with something this far out of the mainstream, but since this is a very popular text in the political indoctrination centers we call public schools I thought I would check it out. I want to point out up front that my problems with this book don't stem as much from the author's politics as they do from the approach he takes toward history. I have just as much objection to revisionist historians like the ones found in the religious right. My objections also don't stem from patriotism or a naive belief that the U.S. has never done horrendous things. My objections mainly have to do with presenting a Marxist (not liberal, Marxist) political tract as a history book. Dr. Zinn admits this in the opening chapter of the book and makes no apologies for it, believing that it is more important to "inspire social change" than to deal accurately with the events of history. He fits in with a common postmodern dis-enlightenment school of thought that objectivity is a myth, and thus it is okay to bend events to suit your ideological predispositions rather than vice versa.(People have always done this, they just don't even bother to pretend any more.) He also presents all historical events as being caused by class struggle, thus finding a simple overarching "magic bullet" theory to explain even the most nebulous and complex historical events. Events are virtually never placed in context, are often distorted, opinion is presented as fact, and in several cases factual claims are made that are patently false. Every formal logical fallacy I know of makes an appearance in the book: reductio ad absurdum, appeal to popular opinion, straw-man, false dichotomies, etc. I should say that this could have been a good book if he had been willing to leave well enough alone. The chapters on the civil rights movement, and some of the sections on slavery were very good, and I found the section about the American war against the Philippines to be pretty good. Also, before ripping the book I should give credit where credit is due and say that I appreciate Dr. Zinn's work in the civil rights movement, dating back to before most Americans knew there was a civil rights movement. I also appreciate his service to the nation in World War II. That being said here is a list of things I didn't like about the book. (This is by no means a complete list. Only the things that jumped out to me enough to write them down and research them.) I am also including a number of links to resources that refute some of the various claims, and wherever possible I have chosen sources from the left side of the political spectrum. All page numbers are from the 2003 edition of the book.
- The major problem that appears throughout the book (and one which is, to me, unforgivable) is the complete absence of source citations. Often something is claimed as a fact with no support whatsoever. If I had handed in a paper like that during my days as a poli. sci. major at Western Michigan I would have received a big fat F. Dubious claims and statistics are presented throughout the book in this manner with nothing to back them up. This is probably more confusing to the reader who is not very familiar with American history (which honestly seems like the type of person this book is targeted at), when coupled with the way his opinions are consistently presented as fact no matter how outlandish. This also made researching the claims that were questionable enough to jump out at me much more difficult. I spent more time researching dubious claims than I did actually reading the book. (I've been exposed to more moonbat websites of communists, Fucking Nazis, aids-conspiracy types, etc. in the last two weeks than in my entire life.) Almost the only time he tells where he got certain information is when he directly quotes another author (The authors he quotes are overwhelmingly Socialists). There is a bibliography which reads like a who's who of leftist whack-jobs (Chomsky,etc.), but he doesn't ever tell what claim came from whom. For example, on page 49 he says "A historian" concluded that "in 1770 1 percent of Boston owned 44 percent of the wealth". Really? What was the name of the historian? What was the specific source material?
-Throughout the book "the rich" and "the powerful" are portrayed as a monolithic entity responsible for all of the ills that fall upon "the people". This oversimplification really sums up the message of the book as a whole.
-Prior to the American revolution, nothing happened except slavery and genocide. No decisions were made by anyone apparently that did not have slavery and genocide as the intended outcome. And of course, slavery and genocide spring from capitalist greed.
-On page 59 he states that the founding fathers "created the most effective system of national control devised in modern times" when referring to the constitution. He presents the constitution as a document designed to protect the interests only of rich white men as well. This is sheer idiocy and crosses over the line into delusional. The best way to control the population and expand the power of government is to write a document limiting the powers of said government? It would have been far more effective to point out the ways in which the constitution has not been lived up to over the years, but instead he indulges in conspiracy theory. He pretty much restates the position of early 20th century socialist historian Charles Beard, which is pretty well dismantled by progressive author and Air America host Thom Hartmann here (he bashes Bush at the same time, so this article has something for everyone).
-On page 85 he states "George Washington was the richest man in America." Nope. He wasn't even the richest man in Virginia. It would fit in great with Marxist mythology if he was though, wouldn't it?
-In a chapter about the treatment of women in the early 1800's he makes no comparison between the U.S. and other societies of the same era. Sexism is presented as being almost unique to the United States. Where comparisons are made they are made between the America of 200 years ago and the America of today. He also seems to be linking sexism to capitalism, as though non-capitalist societies do not oppress women. Some of the stories are interesting though.
-Lincoln gets no credit for freeing the slaves. The Civil War was all about greed.
-An entire chapter expounds on the horrors of how some people became rich in the late 1800's (of course because they all exploited "the people". On page 263, philanthropy is presented as a way for the elite to strengthen their control by producing an army of middle-men who would protect "the system". It is a recurring theme that any time the government does something good it is just a desperate measure intended to shore up its control of the proletariat.
-He suggests that the shelling of Veracruz in 1914 was a ruse to divert the nation's attention from labor unrest, including a miners strike that was going on in Colorado at the time. (p.357) Again all events must be connected by a unifying force and any events occurring simultaneously must be directly related.
-On page 387 he states that the onset of the Great Depression showed that the capitalist system is "by its nature unsound" and "a sick an undependable system". As opposed to the plan of starvation that is Marxism, of course
-I'm not sure if the chapters got worse as I got closer to the modern era, or if it just became easier to spot inaccuracies and unsound logic as it got into events I was more familiar with. In the next section I look at the WW2- Vietnam eras. In the mean time check out this hilarious site.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts."-Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
I have recently read A People's History of the United States, by Comrade Howard Zinn. I may have read a worse book at some point in my life, but I would be hard pressed to think of one. I normally wouldn't waste my time with something this far out of the mainstream, but since this is a very popular text in the political indoctrination centers we call public schools I thought I would check it out. I want to point out up front that my problems with this book don't stem as much from the author's politics as they do from the approach he takes toward history. I have just as much objection to revisionist historians like the ones found in the religious right. My objections also don't stem from patriotism or a naive belief that the U.S. has never done horrendous things. My objections mainly have to do with presenting a Marxist (not liberal, Marxist) political tract as a history book. Dr. Zinn admits this in the opening chapter of the book and makes no apologies for it, believing that it is more important to "inspire social change" than to deal accurately with the events of history. He fits in with a common postmodern dis-enlightenment school of thought that objectivity is a myth, and thus it is okay to bend events to suit your ideological predispositions rather than vice versa.(People have always done this, they just don't even bother to pretend any more.) He also presents all historical events as being caused by class struggle, thus finding a simple overarching "magic bullet" theory to explain even the most nebulous and complex historical events. Events are virtually never placed in context, are often distorted, opinion is presented as fact, and in several cases factual claims are made that are patently false. Every formal logical fallacy I know of makes an appearance in the book: reductio ad absurdum, appeal to popular opinion, straw-man, false dichotomies, etc. I should say that this could have been a good book if he had been willing to leave well enough alone. The chapters on the civil rights movement, and some of the sections on slavery were very good, and I found the section about the American war against the Philippines to be pretty good. Also, before ripping the book I should give credit where credit is due and say that I appreciate Dr. Zinn's work in the civil rights movement, dating back to before most Americans knew there was a civil rights movement. I also appreciate his service to the nation in World War II. That being said here is a list of things I didn't like about the book. (This is by no means a complete list. Only the things that jumped out to me enough to write them down and research them.) I am also including a number of links to resources that refute some of the various claims, and wherever possible I have chosen sources from the left side of the political spectrum. All page numbers are from the 2003 edition of the book.
- The major problem that appears throughout the book (and one which is, to me, unforgivable) is the complete absence of source citations. Often something is claimed as a fact with no support whatsoever. If I had handed in a paper like that during my days as a poli. sci. major at Western Michigan I would have received a big fat F. Dubious claims and statistics are presented throughout the book in this manner with nothing to back them up. This is probably more confusing to the reader who is not very familiar with American history (which honestly seems like the type of person this book is targeted at), when coupled with the way his opinions are consistently presented as fact no matter how outlandish. This also made researching the claims that were questionable enough to jump out at me much more difficult. I spent more time researching dubious claims than I did actually reading the book. (I've been exposed to more moonbat websites of communists, Fucking Nazis, aids-conspiracy types, etc. in the last two weeks than in my entire life.) Almost the only time he tells where he got certain information is when he directly quotes another author (The authors he quotes are overwhelmingly Socialists). There is a bibliography which reads like a who's who of leftist whack-jobs (Chomsky,etc.), but he doesn't ever tell what claim came from whom. For example, on page 49 he says "A historian" concluded that "in 1770 1 percent of Boston owned 44 percent of the wealth". Really? What was the name of the historian? What was the specific source material?
-Throughout the book "the rich" and "the powerful" are portrayed as a monolithic entity responsible for all of the ills that fall upon "the people". This oversimplification really sums up the message of the book as a whole.
-Prior to the American revolution, nothing happened except slavery and genocide. No decisions were made by anyone apparently that did not have slavery and genocide as the intended outcome. And of course, slavery and genocide spring from capitalist greed.
-On page 59 he states that the founding fathers "created the most effective system of national control devised in modern times" when referring to the constitution. He presents the constitution as a document designed to protect the interests only of rich white men as well. This is sheer idiocy and crosses over the line into delusional. The best way to control the population and expand the power of government is to write a document limiting the powers of said government? It would have been far more effective to point out the ways in which the constitution has not been lived up to over the years, but instead he indulges in conspiracy theory. He pretty much restates the position of early 20th century socialist historian Charles Beard, which is pretty well dismantled by progressive author and Air America host Thom Hartmann here (he bashes Bush at the same time, so this article has something for everyone).
-On page 85 he states "George Washington was the richest man in America." Nope. He wasn't even the richest man in Virginia. It would fit in great with Marxist mythology if he was though, wouldn't it?
-In a chapter about the treatment of women in the early 1800's he makes no comparison between the U.S. and other societies of the same era. Sexism is presented as being almost unique to the United States. Where comparisons are made they are made between the America of 200 years ago and the America of today. He also seems to be linking sexism to capitalism, as though non-capitalist societies do not oppress women. Some of the stories are interesting though.
-Lincoln gets no credit for freeing the slaves. The Civil War was all about greed.
-An entire chapter expounds on the horrors of how some people became rich in the late 1800's (of course because they all exploited "the people". On page 263, philanthropy is presented as a way for the elite to strengthen their control by producing an army of middle-men who would protect "the system". It is a recurring theme that any time the government does something good it is just a desperate measure intended to shore up its control of the proletariat.
-He suggests that the shelling of Veracruz in 1914 was a ruse to divert the nation's attention from labor unrest, including a miners strike that was going on in Colorado at the time. (p.357) Again all events must be connected by a unifying force and any events occurring simultaneously must be directly related.
-On page 387 he states that the onset of the Great Depression showed that the capitalist system is "by its nature unsound" and "a sick an undependable system". As opposed to the plan of starvation that is Marxism, of course
-I'm not sure if the chapters got worse as I got closer to the modern era, or if it just became easier to spot inaccuracies and unsound logic as it got into events I was more familiar with. In the next section I look at the WW2- Vietnam eras. In the mean time check out this hilarious site.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
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