Forgive me Father, for I have 'Zinn'ed

This is a response to this article, sent to me by my dear ol' dad.

I took an American History class at GSU one summer, and the textbook for the class was Zinn's "Peoples' HIstory..." I was taken aback, to say the least. I had two history teachers in high school.. One was Dr. Coolick, a purple-heart winning Vietnam vet, who spent 15-20 years in the CIA, with a PhD in Western Military History, and a fierce patriotic love. He described the French, in class, as "Cheese-Eating surrender monkeys." He was intelligent, a seasoned patriot in every sense of the world. My best class in High School, possibly ever, was the constitutional law class, where he went through 15 monumental supreme court cases that shaped american law. All of his teaching ended in, "America is progressing to a better place (in contrast with the shitty negativity you get from the media nowadays)."

My other teacher was Mr. McKay, a much-less-seasoned veteran of the US' operations in Panama, with some Airborne Unit. He talked a huge game, and ate a huge game (he easily tipped the scales at 300+ lbs). His history was much less tempered and "intelligent-ey" than Coolicks: We knew it, he knew it. He was 100% sure (this was spring 2001) that the US would return to armed conflict with Korea, boots on the ground, within 3 years. I guess he, along with the US intelligence community, did not "see it coming." He encouraged us to all enlist, so as the be able to choose our unit as opposed to getting shoved in a crappy unit when we are (inevitably) drafted; me personally, he felt the US Army Rangers would particularly suit my energy level. I was a rowdy kid in highschool, and he more than once had me doing pushups before the class. McKay had a particular fetish with the Civil War, wrote some books on the matter, and presented what could be called, "The Rebel's History of the Civil War." Our military history class with him consisted mostly of field-trips to little pidgen hill, chickaumauga, and kennesaw mountain, where we saw first-hand the ploys of Northern Aggression, as well as his attraction to Wes' mom. Oh, our joy at seeing the jovial, obese man, sweat dripping from his pits, haul his fat ass up mountains that once ran red with union blood, now running white with tears of laughter. McKay is a good man, who, like alot of high school teachers, got a lot of undeserved flack from his students.

My knowledge of history, particularly of civil war history, I felt, was strong, stronger than most of my peers', at least. What I read in Zinn's book was really new to me, shocking. Columbus was a hero, dammit! Lincoln, well McKay would say he's a fucker, Coolick would say he led us to a better and more complete union. But Zinn basically rejected all of our hagiography. Thankfully, my fellow students at GSU were so uninterested and under-educated, that Zinn's message was fired way over their heads. But I never felt the same after. I felt like either Zinn was a liar, but I couldn't reject his thick bibliography. On the other hand, perhaps our leaders weren't as golden then as they are now. I recalled the words of my first class at YU, with Moshe Bernstein, the mousy, bitchy biblical scholar, when referencing Judaism's current view of the sadducees and karaites  (who told me, "Ben, there is no way you will pass this class with your current reading abilities." I took a W, bastard!): "The Winners write the history books." Could Rabbinic Orthodox Judaism, that shrine I [once] held so sacred, be subject to the same human fallicies of corruption, coercion, censorship, and not be handed down directly "Mi Pi El"?! Ah, the downfall and corruption begins...
But in that vane, perhaps America's manifest destiny was, additionally, not handed down from Gods lips, but only on the backs on all the people who stood in her way to the top. Perhaps then, the net good outweighs all the evil that undubitably follows it?

These are the questions, largely unanswered and unanswerable. But despite Zinn's uber-negativity and pessimism, which I reject, he filled an important seat: self-reflection. While he took the tack of never acknowledging all the good of the country--including the right to write such mean things about the very people who guaranteed him the very right to write such very mean things--exposing young minds to "the other side," is helpful.

I'll conclude with a story from Ben Poodiack, told to me not hours ago. In one of his classes at GSU (what's the deal with that place?), they were having a discussion about separation of church and state, vis-a-vis prayer in school. The punch-line of the story was a young lass proclaiming, "like, um, I don't get what the problem is. If I were jewish, and I wanted to take off for ramadan, I could just talk to my boss and he would let me." [sound of hand slapping forehead]. But what shocked poody about this whole class, was how the Average Joe American Protestant Christian consistently seemed unable to put themselves in the perspective of "them other people." Jews. Hindus. Muslims. It baffles them why a morning classroom prayer to Jesus would feel awkward to a Jew, yet how very strange would they feel bowing on a prayer rug in the mornings, or lighting some incense to Ganesh (that was a made-up ritual by me, but you get the point). So Zinn's view, "the other side," is important, even if rejected, hopefully, by those who know better.