Howard Zinn Gets to the Source

You’re very skeptical of the idea of objectivity. In the introduction to Voices of a People’s History you write, “But there’s no such thing as a pure fact, innocent of interpretation. Behind every fact presented to the world by a teacher, writer, anyone, is a judgment.”

This is depressing and I hope just wrong. If I state, as a fact, that energy equals mass multiplied by the speed of light squared, what judgement am I making? Perhaps I’ve privileged the speed of light over all other velocities and revealed what? That I’m an elitist liberal...no...I’m a right-wing Neanderthal for having exploited mass.  It’s cliché that the personal is political, but are we heading to where the phenomenal is also political?

“Condoleezza Rice would not be moved by a poem by Langston Hughes even though as a fellow African American she should be listening to him and paying attention. But no, she has her own agenda.”

Why not:

Langston Hughes would not be moved by a speech by Condoleezza Rice even though as a fellow African American he should be listening to her and paying attention (she is after all, Secretary of State!). But no, he has her own agenda.

I would be much more impressed if BOTH sides of the argument were presented. Given we already have Moore (and Coulter, for that matter) why would anyone read such one sided propaganda? How about including the views of parents and soldiers FOR the war, along with those against?

A fact can be selected for it brute usefulness in solving a problem. The non-selection of all other facts, simply means they weren’t as useful and that can be the only motivating factor.

Zinn’s work is a nonstop Marxist tirade against
the Founders, the capitalists and anyone who has
been successful. Many years ago when he was asked
his ideal government, he said it was Mao’s China,
which has killed more people than any government
in history, even Stalin doesn’t come close.
He uses as authorities fellow lefties that agree
with him like Chomsky and if you disagree your of
the wrong class or the vested interests, etc.
Zinn has every right to publish his views but those of us who think his scholarship lacks also
have the right to trash his work.
He’s a partisan ideologue and people need to
understand that going in. He’s interviewed out
here on KPFA and is always asked the most cult-
like softball questions imaginable.
In the Zinn world woman is better than man, black
better than white, Jew better than gentile, Arab
better than Jew and worker better than owner or manager.
If all you’ve ever listened to is rightwing talk
radio then Zinn is a good counterbalance as long
as you know his limitations.
But if you’re fed up with PC Left too, look elsewhere for illumination.

“In the Zinn world woman is better than man, black better than white, Jew better than gentile, Arab better than Jew and worker better than owner or manager.”

Don’t know much about Zinn, but if this is true it sounds like he’s a good counterbalance to the current administration.

“Very often we delude ourselves into thinking that if these people in high places only knew the truth, they would change their policies. No, they wouldn’t. Because the truth is, they don’t care.”

I find this to be one of the truest pieces of personal opinion I’ve read in a long time.  Reader, go through various threads on this site.
You find hateful people wanting to destroy democracy, inflame hatred against Jews, being vicious and repugnant in their every response.

One hopes that by blogging to these types, you might enlighten them.  But here is the truth--they don’t care.  They just want to destroy.  How sad, I thought I’d found a place to creatively and intelligently discuss the failings of this Administration and work together ideas to press out into public light for a hopeful solution.  Mostly I seem to find that 80% of the blogs just wish to insult, provoke and blashpheme.  Can someone recommend a site to me where progressive Democrats might talk unhindered by the Republican and Libertarian trolls?

Oh, yes, and watch out for Rick Cassidy who also masquerades as Lin Biao, JB, J. Craig and many other psuedonyms.  He is a hardcore Libertarian who wishes nothing more than to reduce the working class to an endentured slave class, subservient to the will of Corporate Fascism.  Look through these threads and you will see his poison and lies everywhere.

Wow, lot of trolls complaining that he chose stuff they don’t like to read. Relax, reality is diverse and it is “OK.” Mr Zinn writes a strong page turner and you;d think the world was saved - geeze. Thanks Mr Z :)

There’s no harm in Zinn grinding his ideological axe in his writings, and in fact when he does he’s in good company. In the present day many Americans seem to have lost the concept that the best way to find the truth of a question (whether historical, philosophical, or moral) is to permit a variety of viewpoints to be expressed, even (especially) the ones that appear outlandish or ill-supported at first glance. Frankly, factional loyalty and “correct” phrasing (i.e. supportive of one’s prior agenda) of historical controversies seems to be the emphasis du jour. History may be 99% written by the victors and their chroniclers, but Zinn writes more from the perspective of the victims of America’s history, to paraphrase from his intro in “A People’s History”. Surely it can be acknowledged that there have been victims, and that their experiences are worthy of being included in the story of the nation and its development. Why exclude them, or underestimate their significance? If a student of history were to reject those stories out of hand, refusing even to look at them, it would stunt her comprehension. And where that hypothetical history student is able to refute Zinn’s conclusions with historical assertions and evidence of her own, once again the discipline will be improved. Zinn may have his faults (endorsing Mao’s China was exceedingly regrettable, especially for a person who has any attraction to socialism), but if the events and people he writes about are based on verifiable primary documents, and to my knowledge they are so, even beyond the volume described in the article, then his emphases are legitimate and should be appreciated for the breadth they add to the study of history. If he distorts or misrepresents in the midst of his writings, this can be noted and, yet again, an additional grain of clarity can be added to the study of history, which is always a hazy endeavor considering how many other writers of history, in addition to Zinn, have axes to grind of their own.

why do Bushies write here?  i mean, go read the limbaugh letter or ann coulter or make some money or something.  Im serious.  It’s just irritating.  You control the government now.  Just run along and worship Jesus or be hypocritical or something.  Controlling inthesetimes.com is not going to change anything, ok?  so don’t litter it up.  Margaret has other important things to do than correcting you people.  It’s annoying. 

RESPONSE “Is it annoying, tw, that you liberals think freedom is not free...” yeah save it, ok?  it’s annoying.

PS FROM ABOVE A RESTATEMENT people far smarter than me write intelligent comments after the article and im sick of having to wade through your elitist conservative remarks.  I know, “elitist liberals like you control the world” i know.  please - rush is on afternoons on every market, man.  seriously.

Margaret,

In These Times seems to have grown quite a bit since the short time I’ve been visiting.  I believe this is because of the diverse nature of the serious discussions along with some humor and a little sling blading to keep it spicy.  Some of the articles like “Remote Control” do bring some really nasty folks into the fray, but otherwise the debates seem civil and educating.

Dissent seems to be a mantra for the left, yet you don’t want it here.  I applaud the actions of In These Times.  They seem to let the debate flow and understand there is something to be gained through the open exchange of thoughts and ideas.  The result appears to be a growing audience for a website that is dedicated to progressing the progressives.
There are blogs that block opposing views and post opinions only complimentary to the subject at hand.  I will do some research and see if I can find you such a place.  I believe
Democracy For America is one such place.

I guess I gave your tenacity and dedication to furthering your cause more credit than was due.  What I hope is occurring is you are beginning to move into the light and haven’t quite reconciled the change.

Just one little correction to something someone said: “Many years ago when he was asked his ideal government, he said it was Mao’s China” I’d like to know where this person picked this up. It’s false.

“Behind every fact presented to the world by a teacher, writer, anyone, is a judgment.”

Aaron Sarver, the above are Zinn’s words. He is a historian and they appear in the introduction to a history, but I didn’t understand these words to be exclusive to the presentation of history. I, certainly, can be wrong in my understanding, but my previous remarks were in rebellion to an idea that would seemingly politicize all discourse.

UScareMe,

I’m not going anywhere.  I would hope reading this site would make you aware that 49% of the people in this country want George W. Bush and his cronies out of office.  The conservative drift in America is another footstep in the decline of Western Civilization.  Hopefully, someday you will grow up and see the light.

I only complain about the trolls because we, Progressives, have very little representation in the media anymore.  We have to listen to conservative views everyday ad nauseum. I really am not interested in coming to this site to debate your views.  I really only want to hear from other people equally dissatisfied with our current Administration and learn data from them to use to bring it down.  Not really interested in your line of thought at all.  Otherwise I would blog on Powerline or some other neocon site.  Do you get it?

Zinn,
See Daniel Flynn’s Intellectual Morons, he mentions the China statement therein.
I’ve seen it elsewhere too.
Margaret, we are tired of your crybaby antics.
This is a forum for debate, not for your prejudices to be catered to. No one with any
self-respect wants to carry coals to Newcastle.
If you can’t take the heat, get outta the kitchen.
There are many progressive websites and you can always start your own and talk solely to yourself. Which I imagine you do already.

Gee, never seen you around here before, Bob.  I speak quite frequently with people who find my data and opinions “on the money”.  If you want neocon blather, if you can’t stand the heat, why don’t you get out of the kitchen.

Instead, you bully.  Just like O’Reilly with Fonda, spreading lies.  Ha, ha , ha, he had to retract yesterday and admit it was a fallacy.  Why don’t you go to a neocon site where people give one fig about your opinion.

Jane Fonda has apologized for her act of treason
in going to Hanoi in 1970 and aiming a large
gun at US planes. We have pictures, it was treason
and no lies were spread about her as regards that
incident.SHE HAS APOLOGIZED FOR HER BEHAVIOR.
And I’m staying right here, I’m not a neocon but
that doesn’t matter.
You do not run this board nor speak for anyone on
this board. You are zero in the scheme of things.

You don’t even know what you’re talking about.  O’Reilly was furthering the urban legend that Jane passed notes from US GI’s to the N. Vietnamese.  Upon researching this, he had to admit it was a false urban legend and that no such action had taken place.  I heard him myself on the radio, apologizing for his error and that SNOPE was correct, no such thing had ever happened.

Also, if you read her bio she states that she realized the minute she had her picture taken on their tank or whatever, that she’d made a terrible mistake.  I, for one, don’t think it’s treasonous to reveal when your government has sold a big lie and people are dying because of their self-serving BS.  I think it’s great when people try to get the truth out there.  She could have handled it differently, but Tricky Dicky wasn’t one to put much faith into honesty either.

Oh, yeah, that’s right, you’re B.S.

If you want to talk about treason, how about mentioning those, who through the creation of the abominations at GITMO and elsewhere, have shredded the very Constitution they swore to protect and defend?  How can anyone claim to be a true American and not be outraged by the assault on due process and liberty occurring there?

---Hempshackle

Margaret,

*** I only complain about the trolls because we, Progressives, have very little representation in the media anymore.  We have to listen to conservative views everyday ad nauseum.***

Please give me a break.  The MSM is liberal and they continue to try and fool the American people into believing they are something other than what they are.  This is why viewers and readers are leaving.  Want a very recent example, go read the last issue of Newsweek. 

The reason the Liberal movement is not represented very well in alternative media is Liberal ideas don’t fare well when challenged.  Air America still can’t pay their bills while PBS and NPR need tax money to survive.  It is why Mr. Zinn spends so much time trying to convince us picking and framing certain things that fit his opinion are an accurate portrayal of history.  I believe this is the reason you don’t want dissenting opinions listed here.

If you don’t want to read conservative opinions, scroll on past. It takes less than 2 seconds.  I don’t post to change your opinion.  I post to give some balance to all the people who read but don’t post and may be forming a position.

***I really only want to hear from other people equally dissatisfied with our current Administration and learn data from them to use to bring it down.***

This sounds a little harsh.  Hopefully you mean you are trying to get a majority of Americans to agree with you and vote for a change.

Dan Rather has been a business partner in a New Mexico ranching operation with Don Rumsfeld.  Bob Schieffer’s brother, Tom, was a business partner with W and was rewarded with the ambassadorship to Australia.  Here, not far from John Ashcrofts hometown, the ABC franchise shares the same business office and broadcast facilities as FOX.  On the radio you can get Limbaugh and Hannity on not one, but six different stations.  Do you really want to tell me the media is that liberal?

Margaret,
Fonda waited for 35 years to apologize for her
treason and treason it was. She coldbloodedly
let herself be used by a vicious Communist
dictatorship being photographed aiming a missile
at a military plane of her own country.
She’s lying if she states she instantly regretted
it and then why does it take 35 years to publish her regrets. She regrets it now because she has seen the results of liberal treason going back to FDR and the mass murder of millions in Indochina after the Communist takeover which she worked so hard for came to pass in 1975.
No one said she was guilty of treason simply for
opposing the Vietnam War, that’s another BS Margaret Big Lie. She went way beyond simply oppposing the war and in WW2 she would have been
shot for pulling such a stunt.
BQ, it’s possible to oppose GITMO as well as the
Left’s treason, who said it was either/or ?
U Scare Me, you are right on target with your
comments. Margaret is simply an incorrigible liar,
three weeks ago she was posting on thsi board that
ITT was only going to allow views like hers !!!!!
Continue to rebut her at every turn.
Easier than shooting cows in a pasture and much
more fun.

Correction--It is the CBS affiliate that shares with FOX.  Interesting to note, the night 60 Minutes II aired the interview with Giuliana Sgrena, the station pre-empted the program with a Billy Graham Bible Crusade.

Liberal Bias in Media is a Myth

Originally published in the Baton Rouge Advocate, 1/11/02

It seems the “Liberal Bias” myth is rearing its ugly head again. The Advocate has just printed at least two columns on the subject, by Thomas Sowell and William Rusher. While there is plenty that is wrong with media coverage in this country, charges of media bias are misleading oversimplifications.

Ten multinational corporations own virtually all broadcast, internet, or print media in this country—General Electric, Viacom, AOL/Time Warner, Disney, AT&T;, News Corp, Liberty, Sony, Bertelsmann, and Vivendi. Who really thinks Jack Welch or Rupert Murdoch is going to appoint radical left-wingers to run their businesses? These companies depend on other big corporations for their advertising revenue—big corporations who don’t want news that equates to bad PR. They also have huge vested interests in parts of the conservative agenda, such as deregulation, that will further increase their already vast influence and profits.

Let me make something clear—when the media gives saturation coverage to Chandra Levy and her relationship to Gary Condit, D-CA, but shows no interest in a dead woman (Lori Klausutis) found in the office of Joe Scarborough, R-FL, that’s not liberal bias.

When George Bush’s DUI became public knowledge, the story became “Did Al Gore leak the story as a dirty trick,” and not, “George W. Bush committed a crime, and successfully covered it up for over 24 years.” That’s not liberal bias.

When Lexis-Nexis lists almost 14,000 stories about Bill Clinton’s having been a draft dodger, but less than 50 stories about George W. Bush’s having been AWOL from the National Guard, that’s not liberal bias.

80% of all talk radio is radically Conservative. So, sorry, I don’t buy your “liberal media” mantra at all.

Hempshackle,

I don’t know of anyone that wasn’t concerned and upset over the abuses of enemy captives.  We are now in the process of punishing the guilty.  The MSM made sure we all knew about the abuses, running the stories over and over and over and over.  And over and over and over again.  Then they ran them again.  We got it, finally.  Odd how the Army published it months before the MSM made it an issue.  When we all thought we could move on a little, Newsweek runs a fresh story based on lies that caused 16 people to die.  When the Liberals scream constantly about our image in the world, Newsweek does this and we wonder why people hate us.  Duh!

Our Constitution covers the citizens of America, not the rest of the world.  There are different rules covering terrorists, enemy combatants and others hostile to America.  Treason is when an American betrays their government with an enemy.  What Jane Fonda did.  Prisoner abuse is a crime where the guilty parties are punished under the code of military justice. What is happening now.

We are realizing the manifestations of GITMO now.  What Fonda did years ago is over.  I put it to you, which is more important to discuss?
Ought we not be addressing the malfeasance occurring now?

In his Farewell Address, George Washington wrote:
“Toward the preservation of your government and the permanency of
your present happy state, it is requisite not only that you
steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged
authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of
innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts.
One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the
Constitution alterations which will impair the energy of the
system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown.”
Was Washington a prophet?---
Have we forgotten the V Amendment concept of Habeas Corpus? 
What about the V Amendment guarantees that no person shall be ‘deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law’?

What is ambiguous about the VI Amendment assertion that: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial..."---especially in light of the Constitution’s recognizing “capital, or otherwise INFAMOUS CRIME”, how does one parse and find exception to a class defined as all? 
The VI Amendment further guarantees, that along with the right to a speedy and public trial, the accused has the right “to be confronted with witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the Assistance of Council for his defence.”
The VI Amendment is a amplification of the Constitution’s Article III Section 2; “The Trial of all Crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.” Congress, and not the Executive, Department of State, Attorney General, but Congress!

What has happened to the VIII Amendment guarantees that there be no ‘cruel and unusual punishments inflicted’?

In maintaining camps such as GITMO, clearly we as a nation have discarded our commitment to the promises of the United States Constitution. 
To do so is to march on to totalitarianism.
To the extent that those within our government have aided and abetted this unfortunate process, it might be declared that they are not only culpable, but guilty of malfeasance.  Having contributed to the undermining of the document they all have sworn to defend and protect, ought we not throw treason into the mix as well?

All in all, it is amazing that people in the United States aren’t taking to the streets.

No, USM, this is real treason:

This link has a detailed account of three British citizens that were arrested, tortured and held for over 3 years, then sent home scot-free because they were INNOCENT.  We, the USA, did this. 

http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/randirhodes/messageboards/index.php?s=db0f02f1 160f58b943d3dd2cba6bebcc1&showtopic=50774

Bush is guilty of treason, as is Rumsfeld.  USM, no, I wasn’t harsh.  I won’t rest until these men are in prison, where they belong.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/iraq_when_was_the_die_cast.php

This link gives absolute proof that both Blair and Bush lied to their governments and peoples about Iraq.  Bush lied to Congress, which is an impeachable offense.  We should be talking about that but, oddly, the LIBERAL media just isn’t letting this story run in our country.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1592904-523,00.html

Margaret,

Treason has a definition and meaning that has stood the test of time.  You can go and make up any meaning you choose but it doesn’t reconcile with fact.  Americans aren’t nearly as dumb as you believe they are.

BQ,

I’ll try 1 more time.  The Construction of the United States of America covers and applies to citizens of the United States of America.  You can quote all you want and extend its covenants to anyone you chose but it doesn’t make it so.

They were obviously dumb enough to re-elect a chimp for a president.

Also, international treaties are binding, and we have broken so many in this war that we may eventually find ourselves in the Hague.

I gave you explicit examples of treasonous behavior by our current Administration, but you choose to brush it aside as it doesn’t fit your political view.  You are an excellent example of how stupid the American public has become.

Everyone knows Bush and Blair lied on Iraq, with
the full support of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. As did Blair and Clinton on rationale
for war on Yugoslavia in 1999.
Bush probably dodged the draft, as did Clinton.
But Clinton probably raped that woman in Arkansas
back when he was Attorney General, a rather more
serious crime.
FDR and HST let the Soviets infiltrate the whole
US Gov and the consequences of that was the Red
conquest of 1/3rd of the planet with tens of millions of death. JFK made a no invasion pledge
to Khrushchev on Cuba thus keeping Castro in power. Truman and Johnson initiated US involvement
in large landscale no win wars on the Asia mainland. The fact is that the treason has long
been bipartisan. FDR had the concentration camps
for Japanese-Americans too. Wilson inaugarated
a Red Scare hysteria after WW1 that resulted in
the deportation of thousands of people without
due process and none of these criminals were
impeached. Neither will Bush.
We can look at the whole sweep of history and not
just the narrow corner that some partisans wish
to confine us to.
There were thousands of stories about Bush’s draft
dodging and not just 50. what a crock !
Does that tin foil get warm in summertime, Margaret ?

Wow, ya talk about your wild conspiracy theorists!  Whoaaa!  You do take the cake, Big Al!  What a load of crap. 

Did too much acid back in the 60’s, Al?

GITMO is under the US Flag, and as such, under jurisdiction the Untied States Constitution.
Let me remind you of the original Patriot Act:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Right’s, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness---”

The above is a manifesto for the world.  From it derived such moral authority as others attributed to us.  That moral authority has been squandered with the creation of GITMO.

I notice, Margaret, that you have a history of
throwing out ad hominem attacks in lieu of reasoned responses on this board. Stan Goff
alerted me to your many postings and they are
nutcase city ! You seem to have created many
enemies.
If you can find any error in my comments, let’s
hear it. If not, shut up.

treason (tre/ z’n) n.  1.betrayal of trust or faith; treachery.  2.violation of the allegiance owed to one’s sovereign or state; betrayal of one’s country

The very foundations of this republic are under attack with the incremental dissolution of the Constitution and the rights it guarantees.  Those responsible for this assault are in effect waging war against the United States and under Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States therefore guilty of treason.

Does that tin foil get warm in summertime, Margaret ?

You started it, Big Al.

Actually, I just spoke with the Webmaster here and he thanked me for my real discussions and lamented people like you coming in with very disingenuous posts.

Besides, being correct often brings the vermin out to try to silence you.

Likewise, I found little correct in your post.

The difference is that I ended my comments with
the tin foil remark after rebutting your silliness. You only have insults.
You haven’t been able to rebut anything in my posts nor in anyone else’s that I can see.
Again, you are reduced to calling names.

I don’t know the webmaster here but he’s probably
just a nice fellow trying to humor you.
I’d do the same to get you off the phone.

Here’s a nice link to debunk Lin Biao’s, oops, I mean Big Al, no, wait Jack Barnes,well whoever he is on this post, anti-Truman theory. 

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-heilbrunn10may10,0,5175404. .story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

The author pretty well lays to waste this obsession of Lin Biao, Big Al, etc.

Too bad we’re never presented with any vetted facts from Big Al, Ling Biao, etc.

I saw that when it came out and rebutted it, live
in LA and get the Times. That’s no rebuttal at all
and people should simply check out The Twenty Year
Revolution:From Roosevelt to Eisenhower by Chesly
Manly, Regnery, 1954.
Hiroshima: An Assault On A Beaten Foe by Harry
Elmer Barnes, National Review, May 10, 1958.
The Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb by Gar Alperowitz, several editions.
How The Far East Was Lost by Anthony Kubek, 1962.
Back Door To War, The Roosevelt Foreign polcy, 1933-41, by Charles Callan Tansill.
Amrica’s Retreat From Victory:The Story of General
George Marshall by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy,
Devin-Adair, 1951.
America’s Second Crusade by William Henry Chamberlin, 1952
The Truman Scandals by Jules Abel, 1954.
Perpetual War For Perpetual Peace, edited
by Harry Elmer Barnes, Caxton, 1953.
The March 1953 speech by US Attorney General
Herbert Brownell documenting how Truman knowingly
appointed a top Soviet agent Harry Dexter White
as first head of the International Monetary Fund.
Just for starters.

I have looked over many forums here and I notice
that several people have recommended sources on
FDR, Truman, McCarthy, etc., and I notice that
Margaret apparently is too frightened to check them out but has to rely on whatever halfbaked
newspaper item that fits her pre-existing bias
instead of actually reading and refuting the
other viewpoint.

Like anyone would consider Joe McCarthy a credible source. 

That really made my day!  What a laughable crock!  Have fun, “Big Al”, as you notice, no one believes anything you say.  See Hempleshack and all other bloggers on this thread, except when you call yourself bob schwartz.

What an enchanting end to a pointless debate!

Quite a few people do and the 2000 Arthur Herman
book goes a long way towards totally vindicating
him, as you well know from having this pointed out
to you some time ago.
There are very few bloggers on this board and the
only one that has attacked me is you, and you have
nothing to back up your attacks.

April, 1945.  250,000 Japanese died in the Battle of Okinawa.  100,000 Japanese combatants killed and only 10,000 prisoners captured.  The United States Navy lost 36 ships and damage was reported to 368 vessels.  5,000 naval personnel killed and another 5,000 wounded.  The US ground forces sustained 7,613 fatalities and over 30,000 wounded. Fighting continued until May, 1945.  All this to gain a dot one third the size of Rhode Island 350 away from Kyushu, Japan. 
It has been stated in the past on these boards that Japan was ready to surrender.  These figures seem to belie that notion.
This is not a black and white existence and it is hubris to attempt to cast complex circumstances into absolute terms.

The Japanese had been trying to surrender for over
nine months, see the National Review article by
Harry Elmer Barnes cited above and the more leftist Alperowitz massive book. If the US had not
held to the insane policy of unconditional surrender, none of this bloodshed would have been
necessary. In fact the US ended up abandoning that
policy at the very end by not deposing the Emperor. No US military invasion was necessary.
They could have had a tight blockade and they could have dropped a test a-bomb elsewhere to
demonstrate its awesome power. Whether the phony
estimates of one million US soldiers dead during
an invasion of Japan or the 20,000 or less Ike said was more likely, doesn’t matter. An invasion
was never necessary. The decision to drop the bomb
was political, not military. It only benefitted
the Soviets by blackening the US as mass killers
and considering the incredible number of Communists around Truman, see the Arthur Herman
book, that was probably the intention.
BQ, stop your shabby form of Holocaust Denial here
by concocting apologies for this shabby little
goy war criminal Truman, the mass murderer and
failed haberdasher, a jackasss from Missouri and
the perfect symbol of the Dems.

Good web source on Truman: go to lewrockwell.com
website, search for the Ralph Raico Archives on
same, then download Harry S. Truman:Advancing The
Revolution by Ralph Raico. 38 pages of which the
last 15 are footnotes. Completely debunks HST,
who left office with 16% rating and was our worst
President in all aspects, domestic and foreign.
When you get to the footnotes some of web losers
might want to actually look up some B O O K S.
Boy, that would be an experience for you !
Truman was the most hated President in history
and To Err Is Truman was a favorite saying in
1952.

So who care about a President lots of people didn’t like 60 years ago when we currently have the WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES currently in office!  I have no doubt that history will show him for the loser/pawn he is.

But you are right on one point, BA, LewRockwell is a great site.  Terrific article today by the former Undersecretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan.  Just for the benefit of other readers, here it is:

George W. Bush and his gang of neocon warmongers have destroyed America’s reputation. It is likely to stay destroyed, because at this point the only way to restore America’s reputation would be to impeach and convict President Bush for intentionally deceiving Congress and the American people in order to start a war of aggression against a country that posed no threat to the US. America can redeem itself only by holding Bush accountable.

As intent as Republicans were to impeach President Clinton for lying about a sexual affair, they have a blind eye for President Bush’s far more serious lies. Bush’s lies have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, injured and maimed tens of thousands more, devastated a country, destroyed America’s reputation, caused one billion Muslims to hate America, ruined our alliances with Europe, created a police state at home, and squandered $300 billion dollars and counting.

America’s reputation is so damaged that not even our puppets can stand the heat. Anti-American riots, which have left Afghan cities and towns in flames and hospitals overflowing with casualties, have forced Bush’s Afghan puppet, “president” Hamid Karzai, to assert his independence from his US overlords. In a belated act of sovereignty, Karzai asserted authority over heavy-handed US troops whose brutal and stupid ways sparked the devastating riots. Karzai demanded control of US military activities in Afghanistan and called for the return of the Afghan detainees who are being held at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Abundant evidence now exists in the public domain to convict George W. Bush of the crime of the century. The secret British government memo (dated July 23, 2002), leaked to the Sunday Times (May 1, 2005), reports that Bush wanted “to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. . . . But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. . . . The [UK] Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorization. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult.”

This memo is the mother of all smoking guns.

Why isn’t Bush in the dock?

Has American democracy failed at home?

Well, we agree on something. Paul Craig Roberts
has been consistently exposing Bush for years
now. I agree he should be in the dock.
If enough people work on this it can happen even
though a long shot. The neocon and centrist
establishment press (including NPR & PBS) is not
going to make it happen but at the grassroots we
might make the difference.
At least that insufferable smarmy punk Blair was
only narrowly reelected against pitiful Tory
opposition.
I have to tell you, you’ll probably disagree, but
if we just substitute Hillary for him it will be
like changing the pin and leaving the dirty diaper
on the baby.
So it just can’t be any Democrat, a Lieberman would be as bad and though I voted for Edwardsin
primary out here, he’s bad on foriegn policy.
I did like his Two Americas theme and so did Roberts.

I absolutely agree that Hillary would be a very poor choice for the Democratic Presidential candidate.  I have nothing against her, but I simply believe she cannot win.

Margaret,

Let’s assume for a moment all of your iron clad evidence proving President Bush committed high crimes and treason is true and undisputable.  Why is your party, which is totally unhinged after loosing election after election, not yelling from the mountain top.

Maybe you should send your proof to Pelosi, Reed, Kennedy, Clinton, Waters, Wrangle, and I could go on and on.  Better skip Clinton, she’s a religious conservative at the moment and might leak the plan.  I’m sure if they thought they had something even resembling the truth, they’d be using it.  I don’t mean the normal rhetoric either.  We’d have special prosecutors and committees galore. 

Maybe the Democratic leadership and members of Congress aren’t as smart as you.  Maybe they don’t have the advanced research skills you have.  It could be the evil Republicans took away all their computers.  I hear that was buried in the No Child Left Behind Bill.  I know these liberals discredit our President at every turn, I see it happening everyday, so why no action.  Maybe Rove has put a Vulcan mind block on the liberals in Congress.  He can do that, I have proof.  I read it on the internet in a British website.

Take all your irrefutable proof and go to Washington.  Find a way to release the Vulcan mind control thing and you could be the next Deep Throat.  Bring down the whole administration all by yourself.  You’d be the poster person at all the protest marches from now on.  Hollywood movies, sleep-overs in the Lincoln bedroom.  Endless possibilities.

Thanks again for your feedback.
I don’t think she could win either but the more
problematic point for me is what would change
if she did ? On foreign and military affairs
she’s not so different from current neocon criminals. On domestic issues, I think she’d
also disappoint liberals. She’s not a great
civil libertarian either, I don’t trust DLC
influence though we voted for ex-DLCer John
Edwards in Calif Demo Primary last year and
I think Edwards would have been better than
Kerry.

Bush sat on his butt an polished a chair as two major centers of world trade were totally destroyed. This on the heels of Tyco, Enron, WorldCom (to name a few). America isn’t about saving the world anymore.

If the Iraq war cost $300,000,000,000 so far, the world trade centers I have no idea, the companies mentioned above even more money vanished into thin air.

I am led to believe that less than 100 people are responsible for the loss of a hundred thousand people and trillions of dollars - without transponder explanations?

The military needs to understand economics and stop American businesses from acting improperly with other entities. This would go a LONG way to enforcing America’s reputation for positive economic growth.

Everything’s causal - war is a failure. Mr. Zinn knows this or something similar by instinct and is a colorful presentationalist.

Neaner neaner neaner

Insanity was refusing to surrender after the fire bombing of Tokyo.  It was more devastating that the atomic devices used later.
What is worth noting about the hostilities in WWII, are the similarities to the adventures being conducted today.  Pre-emptive wars and their consequences, the folly of underestimating you enemy.  As mentioned before, this is not a black and white existence.  Notions that the Japanese would surrender ring with very much the same tone as the similar assurances made by Wolfowitz, Perle, and Rumsfeld prior to our debacle in Iraq.  Speculation, conjecture, and theory have their place.  How does it compare with the empirical evidence? 
An important aspect of Asian culture is surrender---surrender of desire and thoughts of self.  The concept of selflessness, I suppose, is a notion completely incomprehensible to the Libertarian mind.  This might explain the inability to appreciate the lethal effectiveness of a warrior willing to sacrifice everything in defence of a belief.  I suggest to you that such was the case in Japan and such is the case in Iraq today.

Margaret,

I think your outrage about the “smoking gun” British memo reveals a certain misunderstanding about why Bush led the nation into war, and what was necessary in order to make that happen:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=12230

As for media bias, I believe you greatly overstate the power or the desire of corporate owners of media outlets to influence how the news is reported.  And why do you assume that they are all Republicans?

Also, I think you greatly underestimate the partisan passion of reporters and editors, the vast majority of which are even further to the left than the average Democrat.

ABC News reporter Terry Moran gave a revealing interview to Hugh Hewitt:

Asked where anti-military bias in the media comes from:

“It comes from, I think, a huge gulf of misunderstanding, for which I lay plenty of blame on the media itself. There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it’s very dangerous.”

HH: Are there members of the White House Press Corps, Terry, who actually hate Bush?

TM: I would say the answer to that is yes.

HH: And what percentage of them, do you think that amounts to?

TM: Uh, small, I would say, but some big fish.

HH: What’s your guess about the percentage of the White House Press Corps that voted for Kerry?

TM: Oh, very high. Very, very high.

HH: 95%?

TM: No, I don’t think that high. But I would certainly say, you know, it’s hard for me, but I’d guess it’s in...upwards of 70, maybe higher. You know, it’s hard for me to say, but I would say very, very high.

Full transcript:  http://www.radioblogger.com/#000697

See if you can identify the flaws in the highlighted portion of this now corrected ABC news story.  This historical revisionism is IMHO the result of bias.  Or even more chilling, the result of attending an American university history class:

http://bhs03.com/kevblog/media/abcgoofscreenshot.png

What you may not realize Margaret, is that you are at your best when debating with or responding to someone that disagrees with you.  You are motivated to further explain and defend your views and do research to find evidence to support your contentions.  Instead of condemning people for posting opposing views, you should actually be thanking them.  There’s not many things more boring or unproductive than a mutual admiration society.

BQ, you’re dead wrong, insanity was the US pursuit
of the unconditional surrender policy.
You can try to rationalize Truman The War Criminal
anyway you please but you are just making a fool
of yourself. Truman’s own Chief of Staff,Admiral
Willaim D. Leahy, wrote that the bombings contributed nothing of military battle, they were
totally unnecessary to winning the war which had long been won. And in the end after all the unnecessary bloodshed including Iwo Jima, et al,
the US dropped the unconditional surrender policy
and permitted the Emperor to remain. It’s not insane to defend your own land, it is insane to
pursue a policy of backing people into a corner
in their own country.
BQ, you are no different from NAZI apologists who
deny the Holocaust, Truman was a bonafide war
criminal or there is no such thing as a war criminal.
The analogy to Rumsfeld and the war criminals today is the apologists like you for Democratic
war crimes. Spare us your condescending racist
pablum about Asian culture, when ANY group’s
country is attacked, they will defend it and this
includes anti-war libertarians too.
Just check out the sources that I gave here, the
Barnes 1958 National Review piece, the leftist
Alperowitz book and the Ralph Raico essay on
Truman at the lewrockwell website.

Natalie, you make some great points about the
necessity to debate opposing views to sharpen
one’s own wit and check out your own premises.
And also about the center-left-liberal bias of
much of the DC press corps despite what the GOP
owners might think.
But you are wrong on Bush. He and his whole Adminstration lied in every aspect about Iraq,
I’m surprised he didn’t resort to his lying Dad’s
BS about Saddam stealing Kuwaiti baby incubators
and the worse than Hitler nonsense.
Every premise about WMDs, Al Queda ties, Iraq
threat to US (what a crock !)Iraq threat to Israel
(another crock since Israel possesses 400 nuclear
bombs)and that there was any sort of UN approval for this aggression are big lies exceeding Hitler.
The fact is that the Bush Administration has
functioned as a division of Israel, which said
country is in violation of hundreds of UN resolutions. Hard Right Neocon nuts staff the
Bush Administration and with all due respect to
you personally, their supporters like David
Horowitz, the ex-Commie nut turned neocon nut,
are braying loudmouths specializing in classical
Communist Party smear and fear tactics. I know
Dave when I lived in the Bay Area years ago and
live near him down here in LA now.
He wrote ONE scholarly book in 1965, The Free
World Colossus, which is a popularization of
DF Fleming’s 2 vol The Cold War And Its Origins,
Doubleday, 1960. Fleming gives the Soviet viewpoint as reasonably as it can be given.
And oddly enough he’s violently pro-Israel too.
Dave’s book gives full acknowledgment to Fleming,
so it’s ok. But afterwards he went off into a
hardcore Commie Black Panther tangent.
Then later became a rightwing nut. I wouldn’t
trust anything on Frontpage.com unless I could
independently verify it. I’m not saying everything
he prints is wrong but much of it is. He has
published crackpots like Stephen Schwartz and his
current hard right pro-Likud stance is strictly
a money making gimmick, rest assured he is too
smart personally to believe a word of it.
There’s much more to say about Blair too, another
lying creep and the Clintons too, they lied about
Yugoslavia war but this will do for now.

Natalie,

But you miss the point that I do that (debate opposing viewpoints) everyday in my daily life, and I want a place to go where I can talk with like-minded individuals who can share new facts and insights with me.  I can hear the opposite viewpoint by simply turning on the TV.  The webmaster here also agrees with me, as he stated yesterday that “ITT should be a haven for thoughtful progressives looking to debate
real issues (i.e. YOU).  And we will achieve that. Thanks again for your concern and continued support.  The added pressure makes it clear that something must be done immediately.”

I don’t mind civil discussions like we’re currently having, I’ve never objected to that.  I object to the psychobabble that some neocons use whenever they don’t like your answer, and that they endeavor only to create chaos and disrupt the thread.  The webmaster agrees that it’s gotten out of hand.

I think you underestimate the power of Murdoch and Welch in developing the footpath of American media.  As you know, fascism is really just the conglomeration of corporate and governmental/military power.  Just as corporate lobbyists are now threatening to pull funds out from any Republican who opposes the “nuclear option”, power and money retarding the exercise of free speech reduces democracy to totalitarianism.

I also think you’re not feeling total outrage at having been completely lied to about the correlation between Al Qaeda, 9/11, WMD’S and Saddam/Iraq is telling.  The fact that our President committed what is tantamount to treason by offering up American lives and money for a personal Crusade for Oil and Power should bring him before a judge.  I don’t misunderstand that memo whatsoever.  He and Blair deliberately constructed intelligence to fit their purpose, most (their “facts") all of which has been shown to be false.  I have many documents saved that show this was a purposeful deceit, an impeachable offense for lying to Congress.

The leftwing shows, however, are not letting this one go.  We’re NOT going to let it go.

I make apologies for no one. My contention is that all war is a failure of imagination. 
Not to know enough is enough is foolishness bordering on the insane.
You are still not acknowledging the empirical evidence.  The numbers do not interest you.  An appreciation of the dynamics of the situation escape you.  You demonstrate little capacity to recognize the contradictions complex issues present.  Yours is a world of absolute and unyielding values incapable of discerning subtle distinctions.  When flustered you resort to infantile name calling.  You have a drum to beat and you persist pounding away the arrhythmic cadence of your ‘sources’. 
So, you offer citations for my edification.  National Review?  With all its associations to the Company, ought we not refer to it as the Langley Lampoon?  Does anyone actually believe that periodic screed cranked out by the delinquents from Skull and Bones is not advancing an agenda?  You disappoint me.
Who else...Lew Rockwell, or is it George Lincoln Rockwell?  What would be the difference?  George Lincoln Rockwell had a better education at Brown and was more honest about his designs.  At least he was willing to admit his bigotry and openly embraced his admiration for the Nationalsozialistische Deutshce Arbeiterpartei.
Such honesty escapes Lew, although hios purpose has been recognized by others within the Libertarian movement and for them, at least publicly, an embarrassment.
Oh great White Knight of The Golden Libertarian Ayrian Confusion, your acrid taunts and rash invective grow tedious.

---Hempshackle

BQ,
You’ve inhaled way too much hemp. Surprised you
didn’t throw in Norman Rockwell too ! Maybe he’s
related to George Lincoln too !
National Review is quite neocon, establishment
and respectable but in the days when it was more
conservative they ran a piece by the great left-liberal Harry Elmer Barnes on the A bombings that
they would never run now.
You presented no empirical evidence whatsoever to
justify Truman’s war crime of dropping the atomic
bombs on defenseless civilians living in a nation
that had been trying to surrender for nine months.
I was able to provide you with three sources from
across the political spectrum.
There is nothing complex about Truman’s dropping
of the nuclear weapons, all the rationales for it
have long been shredded which is why I did you the
favor of providing sources.
As far as name calling goes, please take a look at
your own illiterate screed above.
Your alleged general opposition to war means zilch
when you defend actual war crimes. Cocktail party
blather, nothing more serious.

The number from Okinawa are meaningless to you?  Iwo? China? Luzan? Leyte Gulf?  That about covers the nine month period you describe.  The actions of an enemy ready to capitulate? 
Pre-emptive war is a crime.  Everything about war is criminal.  How can you make distinctions?  Again, it is a failure of imagination.  I take it you have never been confronted with a life or death altercation.  As a situation escalates out of control, the solutions become more grave.  No apology.  Statement of the recognition of reality.

George Lincoln Rockwell started his rant against Truman when he integrated the Army.  Lew from Alabama is carrying on a Southern tradition and parroting George.  Why not read some of George’s speeches from the 50’s and 60’s and then tell me where the difference lay.

---Hempshackle

As stated before, who gives a rip about Truman when we have the worst president in US history currently dictating over the “empire”?

Big Al, you’ve got to lose the smugness.  I don’t know why Truman is such a burr under your fur but, baby, that’s a LONG time ago.  No one cares or should care about it in regard to our current situation.  It is irrelevant.

BQ,
You can’t see the forests for the trees.
That the troops gamely fought on in THEIR
backyard does not mean that the govt was
not trying to surrender, why not just read
the sources I gave you ?
George didn’t found the American Nazi Party until
late 50s under Ike. He was not active politically
in Truman years.
Like Army integration justifies dropping of the
atom bombs !!!!
Lew is no relation to George. politically or
otherwise. He’s not FROM Alabama either, he
happened to open an institute at Auburn University.
Margaret, respectfully suggest it’s not either/or.
Gore Vidal has pointed out that National Security
State started under Truman, I think we Americans
need to have a longer grasp of history than we
do now. Of course, I totally agree with you about
current Neocon criminals under Bush.

Big Al,

Just for conversation’s sake, let’s say you’re right in all regards of your point.  That being said, what does your point have to do with our current situation?  I really don’t see what you’re driving at.  Please explain the relevance, otherwise your posts really just seem to be directionless.

The military-industrial complex and its attendant
national security state are bipartisan, they did
not begin with Bush. I grant you that Bush is the
worst of the lot but I’m trying to give the big picture here. If Bush & the neocons were swept out
tomorrow, that would be great and personally satisfying but I’m not sure how much of an actual
change in policy would take place. Since FDR’s
death the country has been locked into a permanent
war economy regardless of Dem or Repub or Lib or Con and unless the premises are challenged I do
not see that changing in any fundamental way that
makes a concrete difference in most peoples’ lives. Clinton instituted NAFTA and abolished
the New Deal welfare net which Bush Sr. couldn’t
have done. None of the Democratic candidates last
year were challenging fundamental cold war & US
might makes right foreign policy except Kucinich.
My wife was for him but we voted for Edwards in
the end because Kucinich appeared too Left to
get a fair shake from the media.
Frankly, if we do not learn from history we will
not change anything basic. If the Trumans and Reagans et al are held up as great or even good
Presidents then we are lost.
I think if FDR had lived longer or Wallace had remained as his Vice President instead of being
dumped in 1944 for Truman the postwar period would
have been much different and the national security
state, Asian land wars, assaults on civil liberties and the huge deficits may not have happened.
I apologize for not making the larger context
clearer before.

I don’t think people often even think of Truman other than the phrase, “The buck stops here”.  I don’t see where current policy has much to do with the way he governed 50 years ago.  I think the Marshall Plan led to the best relations the USA has ever experienced with Europe and Asia.  Of course, the Korean War changed that dynamic with Asia, but I can’t say I would agree we shouldn’t have assisted the South Koreans.  Vietnam was a total loss, a complete breakdown in visionary politics. 

Honestly, I think you put too much power in the name Truman.  I really don’t believe this current Administration cares one bit about his history or policies.

Also, what period of American history hasn’t been locked into a wartime economy?  Revolutionary, 1812, French-Indian, Civil,with lots of smaller wars inbetween, it goes on and on.

Marshall Plan did not include Asia at all.
Except maybe part of Turkey. It’s contribution
to even European welfare has been greatly overplayed. In the Raico essay which I reread
yesterday there is a footnote reference to a
book or essay which debunks a lot of the Marshall
Plan myths. I’m not saying it was all bad but it
has been greatly exaggerated as a cause of the
West European recovery.
Korea was a forerunner of Vietnam. In both cases
we supported corrupt rightist dictatorships that
gave the Communists an opening, in both cases we
fought a limited, no-win war that still managed
to kill millions of locals without achieving
victory over the Communist aggressors of North
Korea and North Vietnam, in both cases HST and
LBJ ignored Congress and waged an illegal war.
I absolutely agree with you that most people
now never think of Truman (or probably LBJ too)
but means nothing as far the ongoing influence
of their policies is concerned.
Before 1939 we did not have an ongoing war economy
in the US, we had periods of war mobilization,
the biggest one being WW1 before 1939 and smaller
wars like 1812, Mexican War, etc. But these were
small scale conflicts and the whole economy was
never on a war footing at all till WW1 for two
years and not again till 1939 but then ever since.
Truman and Marshall whipped the war scare to keep
us in a war economy after WW2. Normally after the
war the economy would be transferred back to a
private civilian sector but that never happened.
Of course the Soviets were evil and they had plenty of agents in our government and society but there was never a danger of a military takeover by the Soviets and that was the big lie that was hyped from Truman to Reagan. Actually until 1990.
Truman was a symbol of these policies, not so
important in and of himself but he was the front
man as W is today for a similar mindset.
Particularly in foreign policy, in domestic policy
there are some differences between the Parties.

I think the idea that the mainstream media is liberal to be laughable.  The media is owned by large corporations which profit by selling market share to other large corporations.  As a result, one would expect to see low-quality, tabloid-style sensationalism biased toward the views and interests of big business—and that’s precisely what we see.

Having attended the University of Heidelberg and lived in Germany (West Germany at that time), I know that the older people I met and go to know really felt that the Marshall Plan had not only helped them recover, but that it had been a strong symbolic statement of friendship and cooperation between Europe and the U.S. 

In 2000 I went to Normandy and was so happy to see the French there so kind and still so thankful for our help, both militarily and monetarally.

Frankly, I see a stronger bond between the military build-up in prewar Germany than I do with any president before Reagan.  One of my professors at the UofH often said that an economy based on militarization is only profitable if one has a war. 

One does, however, have to realize that the threats to us are very real.  There is a minority out there that would destroy us just for fun,out of spite.  Others because we’ve wronged them.  We have to be honest and admit that we must protect ourselves.  But that doesn’t mean basing your entire industry on war.  Why do you think that non-military related industries are being outsourced overseas like hot cakes?  It is the neocon plan to have our economy based in the military and the peripheral industries that spring from it. Therefore, we will fail to survive as a representative democracy with civil liberties intact unless we change the course of events.

The mainstream media is only as “liberal” as the private corporations that own it. And private corporations, by definition, are not left-wing at all. Individuals in those corporations may be liberal on issues such as abortion, gay rights, affirmative action, etc. But don’t expect them to ever take the side of labor against capital, and don’t ever expect them to question U.S. foreign policy.

Jason & Matt,

Natalie is always off the mark that way.  LIBERAL PRESS, MY ASS.

I certainly don’t doubt that many people in the
former West Germany thought the Marshall Plan helped them. Fair enough, all I’m saying is that
if you do a detailed analysis of the German
recovery the Marshall Plan had very little to
do with it. In fact, the US was pushing a very
brutal modification of the Morgenthau Plan up
to 1949, large sections of the German population
were surviving on starvation rations but then
the annexation of East Germany by the Soviets
caused the US to wake up and radically change
what had been a very punitive occupation.
The same with the Berlin Airlift, it was a
great thing but would have been unnecessary
if Truman and Co had insisted on Allied
access to Berlin at the Potsdam Conference
in 1945.
I agree with you that free trade, so-called,
has been a disaster and actually Pat Buchanan
is quite good in this area on documenting the
historic tariff protection that enabled US
to develop and he criticizes severely the
extreme free trade libertarians. Much as
I may disagree with Buchanan on other issues,
he’s well to the left of most Dems on this one.
On prewar buildup I mostly agree with you but
it hardly originated under Reagan, it was FDR’s
prewar buildup that got US out of Great Depression, most of the New Deal measures did
not help much in ending the depression.
I agree with most of the rest of your comments.

Can’t we all just get along ?

“Very often we delude ourselves into thinking that if these people in high places only knew the truth, they would change their policies. No, they wouldn’t. Because the truth is, they don’t care.”
I have been writing for more than a year to all levels of government, prominent media and public figures and organizations about the very troubling facts of obvious well-organized surrealistic persecution, mind games and foul play around me for several years.
Unfortunately my experience clearly shows that beyond of visible and invisible powerful control and manipulation of reality everything else is like Hamlet says, just “Words, words, words…”

Araik Margarian,
http://journals.aol.com/aramargar1/MyAmericanDream/

Please don’t feed the trolls!

My man, Big Al, you never really convinced me that George Lincoln and Lew are no way alike.
You are known by the company you keep.  So, just for starters my little white brother, how do you explain this:
Myths of Martin Luther King http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/epstein9.html
I want you to know that I was around the first time this was said, and who do you think it was saying it?
Earlier this year, these ‘Myths’ were used on hate posters spread around Madison, Wisconsin on Dr. King’s birthday.
What do you think Lew is talking about in this quote:
“[Clarence] Thomas calls the segregation of the Old South, where he grew up, ‘totalitarian.’ But that’s liberal nonsense. Whatever its faults, and it certainly had them, that system was far more localized, decent, and humane than the really totalitarian social engineering now wrecking the country.”
What’s going on with this:  An Abolitionist Defends the South http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo82.html ?

or this:  The Yankee Problem In America http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson12.html

By the way, George Lincoln Rockwell was 40 years old in 1958.  You are going to tell me he only just started thinking that shit then? 

I think I get why Lew ‘happened to open an institute’ in cracker land.

Excuse, Crenshaw & 54th, but why should I care
what you think ? You are a person who can’t deal
with an opposing viewpoint and feels the necessity
to resort to ad hominem attacks.
George Lincoln Rockwell was a nonfactor both in the Right as a whole and in opposing forcible
integration in particular.
Alan Stang, a Jewish & Zionist writer for American
Opinion, the JBS monthly, exposed MLK’s Communist
Party connections as well as his socialist philosophy quite independently of any dimestore
National Socialist. In fact the Kennedy Brothers
had MLK bugged for years because of his Communist
connections. Maybe they were working for George
Lincoln too ? Yeah, that makes sense, Jack & Bobby
were national socialists come to think of it.

For Zinn quote on Mao’s government go to page 100 of the book, “Intellectual Morons” by Daniel J. Flynn.Hardback edition.
Zinn stated that Mao’s government was the closest
on earth to an independent government.
Since it was the mass murderous in history, what
was Zinn babbling about ?

One typo above: Mass should read as most.

The death toll from the regimes of both Stalin and Mao was somewhat exaggerated during the Cold War. This is particularly true of Mao’s, for which ridiculous figures like 70 million are frequently given.  It is likely that both killed around 15 million people. 

The most murderous regime in history was actually that of Adolf Hitler.  The statistic usually associated with Hitler is “6 million.” But this only refers to the Jews killed in the concentration camps.  The camps also claimed 6 million Poles, Gypsies, gays, political prisoners, disabled people, and criminals.  Then there were the murders of Jews throughout Eastern Europe at massacres like Baba Yar, the ghettoes of Warsaw and Lodz, and the small mobile extermination centers that preceded Auschwitz.  Then there was the decimation of Poland, Greece, and Yugoslavia and the 20 million Soviet citizens slaughtered to open the USSR up for German colonization.  All told, Hitler likely killed 34 million.  That’s excluding military and civilian casualties from WWII, which you really can’t, since the Nazis started the war.

As to Zinn’s comment, if he actually made it—I have never read “Intellectual Morons” and place little stock in conservative efforts at character-assassination—it is important to remember that, for all its brutality, Communism in Russia and China did accomplish some good things.  At heart, Communism was not evil, merely too good to be true.  That’s why so many leftists were naive about the true nature of the Communist experiments during their early years, when they either hadn’t degenerated into totalitarianism, or news of the atrocities had not yet leaked out.  It should also be pointed out that both the moral and economic failings of Communism owe to the utopian nature of the experiment (Marx hated utopian socialism), and that non-utopian alternatives to capitalism, revolutionary or gradualist as the situation dictates, may still be attainable.

Matthew,
You are wrong. During the Cold War the figures
on Mao were greatly UNDERstated. The new research
indicates a minimum of 90-100 million victims.
Actually scholars such as Simon Leys in The New
York Review of Books have stated that 100-150
million people were killed during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976, alone and that another 100-150 million Chinese starved to death during the Great Leap Forward from 1958-61. This would not count the many other genocidal
campaigns such as the Anti-Landlord Campaign
from 1950-53, the Anti-Rightist Campaign from 1957-59 and many more million.
Stalin’s death toll alone is over 100 million victims. The Black Book of Communism lists 60-70
million Mao victims and 30-40 million Soviet victims but both figures are understated.
On Hitler, as a typical leftist you greatly OVERstate the number of victims, nowhere near six million Jews died, the Auschwitz figure alone has been reduced from 4 million to 900,000 Jews and that’s still too many. Nor were six million Poles killed by Nazis, at least half or more of the Polish death toll was at the hands of the Soviets.
The Nazis never started the WORLD war, the UK and
France did when they gave that untenable guarantee
to Poland over its German held territory at Danzig
in 1939. Many of those Russian “victims” were soldiers and guerilla fighters legitimately killed during the war. All the figures for Nazi
killings are gross exaggerations based on Communist sources in eastern Europe and they have
become more discredited by the day since the
fall of the Soviet bloc.
You pull the usual pathetic Communist trick of
assigning the blame for ALL WW2 deaths to Hitler !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Since the Allied side
won the war it is more likely they KILLED MANY MORE PEOPLE THAN THE NAZIS DID.
Communism never accomplished one good thing for either the Soviet Union or China, China never made
a bit of economic or social progress until the Gang of Four were arrested and they started for the first time to a form of semi-capitalism.
Ergo for the Soviets. Their whole economy and society were in a shambles when they finally gave
up the ghost.
As to Zinn, he definitely made those comments, they come right of his book, it is sourced as to
the page, you can to take off the Lefty blinders and start checking out things instead of parroting the old, stupid CPUSA party line.
There were never any mobile gassing centers, another canard exposed by Holocaust revisionists,
check out the ihr.org website.
Check out Solzhenitsyn corpus of writings on the
Soviet deaths, see Robert Conquest on Stalin,
see The Private Life of Chairman Mao by his former
private physician and more. I can look up further
refs for you if need be.
The Communist never degenerated into totalitarianism, it was always totalitarian
to the core, Lenin was a mass murderer as was
Trotsky. You need to get your history from someone besides notorious liars and Communist
apologists like Noam Pol Pot Chomsky and Zinn.
“Too good to be true” !!!! What utter horsepukey.
Hitler enacted gun control, anti-pollution laws,
anti-smoking laws and campaign, socialized housing, the great governmental VW works, etc.
So from your pwogwessive viewpoint, he’s your
guy. Not mine.

I cannot believe what I am reading on this site.

Here are two recent snippets:

“The death toll from the regimes of both Stalin and Mao was somewhat exaggerated during the Cold War. This is particularly true of Mao’s, for which ridiculous figures like 70 million are frequently given.  It is likely that both killed around 15 million people.”
- Matthew K.

“On Hitler, as a typical leftist you greatly OVERstate the number of victims, nowhere near six million Jews died, the Auschwitz figure alone has been reduced from 4 million to 900,000 Jews and that’s still too many. Nor were six million Poles killed by Nazis, at least half or more of the Polish death toll was at the hands of the Soviets.”
- Jack Barnes

Am I the only person here who sees the ridiculous bias inherent in these opposing views? 

One guy is basically saying, “Mao wasn’t so bad, he only killed 15 million people,” and the other guy is saying, “Hitler was not such a devil, he only killed 400,000 Jews, not 6 million.”

Are you listening to yourselves?

You people spend so much time trying to nail each other and claim the crown of truth that you are ignoring the simplest truth of all.  Both of these guys were not good for the people unfortunate enough to be under their thumbs - period.

How about we have a real conversation about politics in here folks?

Neil,
There’s nothing ridiculous in trying to get to the truth of the matter. Matthew made many
false statments and not just on the numbers.
I can’t speak for him but my take is that he
represents a certain Communist apologist strain
on the left that used to be even more widespread
than it is now because thankfully so many of
these old apologists have died off.
I am not an admirer or defender of Hitler and
in fact listed several of his accomplishments
that would be more likable to a Matthew than
to myself as a libertarian.
Also I never claimed only 400,000 Jews in German
controlled territory died or were killed during
WW2. I’m sure at least a million did, largely by
shooting in the Ukraine, etc.
I agree that all THREE, Stalin, Mao and Hitler
were bad.

I never said Mao wasn’t a bad guy.  What I said was, Hitler was worse, which is by way of saying that capitalism has been as bad as Communism.  Worse, in fact, if you add up all the fatalities resulting from imperialism, slavery, fascism, and war over the years.  Hence, the moral indignation directed against Communism by most conservatives, which helped lead us into the Cold War, is entirely ludicrous and hypocritical. 

The real rubbish comes from John Bircher Jack Barnes, whose ridiculous statements in defense of fascism are not founded on any legitimate scholarship of which I am aware.  The figures I used for China came from Jonathan Spence’s “The Search for Modern China” (on review, the actual statistics were 15-20 million).  The highest figure I have seen from Russia comes from respected conservative historian Orlando Figes, who estimates the toll from Russian Communism at around 30 million. Even this is likely way too high.  The “Black Book of Communism,” cited by Spence, estimatest the TOTAL death toll from Communism - meaning all Communism, everywhere- to be at 100 million.  The scholarship behind this figure was at best mixed, and the book itself actually a collection of essays by conservative historians.  There is no reliable, first-hand documentation to back up this statistic, let alone fascist sympathizer Barnes’ ridiculous assertion that Russia and China killed 100 million each.

The only people who dispute my figures on the Nazi atrocities are Holocaust-denying crackpots.  If Mr. Barnes wants to make a convincing argument, let him base it on real books written by real historians, not pamphlets distributed by a wino at the local bus station. If the Holocaust never happened—where have all the Jews of Europe gone?

The Allies did not kill more people than Hitler.  The Allies did not force Hitler to invade Poland.  Most Russian victims were not guerrillas.  The ones who were were often ordinary citizens protecting themselves from the S.S.  The basis for the reports of Nazi killings is stories from ordinary people, diplomats (including Japanese and Italian diplomats) stationed or travelling in Eastern Europe, and the Nazis butchers themselves, who kept careful records of all their crimes against humanity.  (But then, I’m sure Mr. Barnes has been too busy reading Mein Kampf under his human-skin lamp to trifle with actual research.) Communism achieved many great things, including: the destruction of ancient, exploitative landowning classes, significant levels of industrialization (under Stalin Russia became the 2nd largest economy in the world), universal job provision, universal health care, housing, and education, economic equality, greater equality for women, and, in Cuba, greater racial equality.  This does not excuse the horrific human cost of Communism, but at least the Communists achieved something.  Barnes’ buddy Hitler did not.

As for Hitler being a liberal, that’s just plain stupid.  “Anti-smoking laws” and “gun conrol” are defining issues?  On all the major issues of political economy and war and peace, Hitler was as far right as possible.  He was Hitler.  Which is, no doubt, why Barnes wasted so much time defending him.  Hitler suppressed civil liberties, jailed and executed Socialists and Communists, slashed the welfare state, crushed labor unions, privatized state industries, persecuted ethnic minorities, gays, and disabled people, enforced a reactionary code of sexual mores that reduced women to chattel, and waged imperialist wars.  All the while, private property, profit motive, and the labor market remained the basic institutions of Nazi society.  Sounds like a conservative’s paradise to me.

The fact that sick, evil people like Jack Barnes even exist troubles my sleep.  Why can’t they all just hole up in a bunker in Idaho and leave the rest of us alone?

On China, we now know the full extent of the death
toll from the Great Leap Forward and Great Proletarian Cultural Revolutions and that is
why scholars like Simon Leys are estimating 100-150 million victims of EACH, when you count in all
the other purges it easily comes to 200-300 million victims of Mao’s Communism.
Your source is simply in error.
On USSR as Solzhenitsyn noted in 1980 there were
at least 100 million victims of Soviet Communism
by then, 12 years before they fell.
Figes is neither respected nor conservative, he
is simply a Communist Holocaust Denier like
Matthew K.
The Black Book is quite scholarly, just on the low
side. Even ultraleft Noam Chomsky has endorsed
their figures. Check it out on ZNet.
Dissecting The Holocaust is just the latest massively documented work to challenge conventional views, go to the IHR website and
download the 400 pages of essays of Robert
Faurrison, then check out Walter Sanning’s
The Dissolution of East European Jewry for
the answer to your population question as
regards Jewish demographics in Europe.
More to follow.

During the Nazi occupation of France around 20,000
people were killed, during Liberation at least
400,000 or maybe much more. Allied air bombings
in Germany alone took two million lives.
Many millions of Sudenten Germans were killed
and many more expelled by Czechs after the
war than German killings of Czechs during the
war. The same pattern is repeated throughout
Europe. At least as many partisan or guerilla
killings as killings by the Germans.
FDR had over two million Russians forcibly returned to USSR after the war, see Operation
Keelhaul by Julius Epstein. For starters.
The Nazis never kept any records of a centrally
planned mass extermination program because none
such existed. 1 to 1 1/2 million Jews were either
killed by shooting in western USSR or died of disease in the camps. A real tragedy but peanuts
compared to the Communists.
Communist housing was terrible, they built nothing
but instant slums, medical care was a disaster
and consumer goods were few and shodddy.
Women were treated beasts of burden and the only
equality was in human misery.
All Soviet economic development was done by
western capitalists, see three volume Antony
Sutton work on Soviet economy and western aid,
published by Stanford/Hoover.
Also East Minus West Equals Zero by Werner Keller.
Nazi Germany was more Matt’s model of a successful
welfare state. Hitler did not slash social programs, he greatly increased them and he did
not privatize industry, he actually created the
VW as a state works. He was a total Keynesian as
Keynes hmself noted at the time. See Revisionist
Viewpoints by James J. Martin.
More to follow.

Hitler did more to abolish feudalism in Germany
than even the Soviets. He broke up the states
rights, centralized the government and severely
limit