Zinn's A Peoples History of the US. I'm listening to this great book

[rainy]

on my ipod and as I listen I realize that nothing has changed. The politicians throughout history have done everything for business, for corporations, for the monied people. They've always known it and they used propaganda to hide it. They have always lied to manipulate the people. They go to war to protect industries. Nothing has changed. I think this book should be mandatory reading for the whole world. There is a section where senators are discussing how the Philippines, if we take them, could give our furniture making factories so much wood. The senators at the beginning of the industrial revolution talk about the US surplus of products and how we need a national market. I could go on and on. I hope you all have read it. There is so much to learn from this rich amazing book. This it the book Will, in Good Will Hunting, recommended as a really great book.

Nothing has changed. And knowing this makes change seem so much more elusive. If they couldn't change it then, now seems even more daunting

[RKP5637]

1. The stakes are higher now, they can enforce their will with advanced technology. n/t

[leftstreet]

2. K&R for a great book

[sasha031]

3. one of my fav., you are so right, it should be required reading

[cali]

8. and in my son's public high school American History class, it was

[EFerrari]

4. I was wondering this morning if our foreign policy hasn't degraded

since WW2. Maybe it seems obvious now but in the attempt to project power (and rake in cash for cronies) during the Cold War, it seems like we've had a lot of failures. And after every one, a further entrenching of the same failed strategies.

You're right about the book. It's history but it's not past in any way.

[RKP5637]

5. I was thinking similar when I read the OP below, that we, our leaders, keep

further entrenching the same failed strategies.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x598880

[rainy]

6. thanks for that post. That's a good one. Great points.

[EFerrari]

7. .

[socialist_n_TN]

9. Along with the "Shock Doctrine".....

"The People's History" are the most important books written in a generation.

[ReggieVeggie]

10. kick

[houstonintc]

11. Zinn was a great historian, though a bit loose with minor details...

I recall reading his book, he is pretty solid on many major points but sometimes he is fast and loose with some facts.

In the first few chapters he goes after Samuel Eliot Morison for his book "Christopher Columbus, Mariner" for not going into great length about how Columbus' adventuring and sailing lead to the depopulation * cough * Annihilation * cough * of the Amerindian population. While true, Zinn omits the Samuel Eliot Morison was writing a book about sailing and Christopher Columbus as a Mariner, not the morality of his accidental discovery.

I like anything done by Zinn, but there are times when I take him with a grain of salt.