Mary Grabar, The Influence of Howard Zinn’s Fake History | National Leadership Seminar

uh our first speaker this morning is mary graybar mary is making her first appearance at a hillsdale college event and we hope there will be many more she was born in the former yugoslavia in what is today slovenia she was brought to america when she was two years old by her parents who escaped the then communist regime early in her career she worked in advertising and as a freelance writer and she later earned a phd in english from the university of georgia she's held a number of teaching positions including most recently in the program in american democracy and citizenship at emory university she has also written many articles about the corruption of education i guess that's a constantly a good source lots of material there she founded the non-profit dissident prof education project which only came about after what she calls quote a two-year struggle with the obama irs i don't need to remind all of you that she's not the only conservative who struggled with the irs during the obama administration she's currently a resident fellow at the alexander hamilton institute for the study of western civilization where she is working on a biography of the black conservative writer george schuyler thank you her most recent book was published in 2019 and is titled debunking howard zinn exposing the fake history that turned a generation against america i wonder how many of today's protesters learned their american history from howard zinn she'll be drawing on themes from her book for her talk this morning would you please welcome to the podium mary graybar well thank you for that nice introduction i'm going to try to sum up a lot of the things that are in my book today and i was supposed to talk about the influence of howard zinn today howard zinn represents the classic chicken and egg dilemma people often ask which came first howard's inn or the far left were drift of education how is it that a book like a people's history of the united states was allowed to get into the classroom in the first place to any reader with a modicum of knowledge about history zinn's book first published in 1980 and continuously published ever since is a deeply biased and flawed anti-american polemic zen book presents a view of the united states is irredeemably corrupt with a discoverer christopher columbus committing genocide the founders setting up a government to enrich the rich and powerful and capitalists getting rich off slaves and workers the bill of rights voting petitioning initiative and hard work mean nothing in this corrupt regime consider zinn's take on the founding which he describes in his chapter four titled tyranny is tyranny around 1776 certain important people in the english colonies made a discovery that would prove enormously useful for the next 200 years they found that by creating a nation a symbol a legal unity called the united states they could take over land profits and political power from favorites of the british empire in the process they could hold back a number of potential rebellions and create a consensus of popular support for the rule of a new privileged leadership end of quote the myth of the revolution as he calls it was that it was on behalf of a united people why was this a myth because quote some americans were clearly omitted from the circle of united interests drawn by the declaration of independence indians black slaves women aside from these exclusions zinn presents what is in his opinion a greater flaw he points out quote the declaration talked about government and political rights but ignored the existing inequalities in property and then he asks suggestively and how could people truly have equal rights with stark differences in wealth the corrupt founding carries over throughout american history into the 20th century to world war ii which zinn describes as quote a war waged by a government whose chief beneficiary was a wealthy elite the alliance between big business and government well back to the very first proposals of alexander hamilton end of quotation in zinn's view we did not defeat fascism rather fascism's quote essential elements militarism racism imperialism were absorbed into the already poisoned bones of the victors end of quotation when i began writing my book debunking howard's inn i thought i would be exposing the biases but although i had been witnessing and writing about the corruption in education for years and though i had graded many shoddy student papers sometimes plagiarized i was shocked by how much zinn had gotten away with zinn presented leading questions often several in a row he falsified evidence he left out key words when quoting sources to give the opposite impression of what they meant he plagiarized and not from a book of history but from a book for high school students by a fellow marxist radical who was a screenwriter and a novelist this was on columbus on which much of zinn's claim to fame as a path-breaking historian is based he also used as sources works of fiction statements by anonymous people and a holocaust denying historian he presented he valorized the black panthers and treated the naacp dismissively he presented american indians as woke denizens of 1960s communes he said all women in colonial america were slaves and he used the word slaves my book documents how zinn deliberately deceived the big question remains how did zen get away with this for 40 years which brings us back to the chicken and egg question howard zinn i maintain was the chicken a communist chicken born in 1922 to russian jewish immigrant parents he was early on influenced by the communist proselytizers coming into his brooklyn neighborhood during his teen years according to the best interpretation of zinn's fbi file we can be confident the zinn was a member of the communist party usa from about 1948 to 1953. this was while zinn was attending graduate school on the gi bill after serving in world war ii as a bombardier he earned his phd from colombia and began teaching at spelman college in 1956. following party directives howard zinn led the long march of marxists into the institutions thus laying the egg that hatched the new left at spelman and later at boston university zinn a charismatic pied piper radicalized students turning them against the college administrations that sought to maintain academic standards zinn also churned students against their own country he was an influential mentor to the violent student nonviolent coordinating committee boasting of such leaders as stokely carmichael and h wrap brown at boston universities and inspired students to resist the draft for the vietnam war and to view ho chi minh as the true jeffersonian democrat it was one of his boston university students from the 1970s who became wealthy in our capitalist system that zinn disparages and who in 2007 donated the money to start the non-profit zen education project zinn was given the opportunity to put his communist version of american history into a book published by harper collins as i discovered it follows the contours of a history book written by cpusa chairman william z foster in 1951 the year party member howard zinn was teaching marxism at the brooklyn cpusa headquarters as his fbi file reveals by 1980 a change had come over the profession at the 1969 meeting of the american historical association the radicals began to take over harvard historian oscar handland rude the changes in his 1971 essay living history he described quote the pressures toward falsification that were arising from the radical historians objectives of social activism he compared these pressures to what happened in the soviet union when scholarship was put in service of ideology handlin wrote it was one of stalin's most impressive achievements to have converted marxism to an instrument of state purpose and it was not by coincidence that history was the first discipline to suffer in the process the soviet union did more than impose an official party line on interpretations of trotsky's role in the revolution of 1917. it actually expunged the name trotsky from the record so that the fact of the commissar's existence disappeared what started in the domain of history led in time to lysinko's invasion of the natural sciences end of quote i think the analogy applies to our current situation zin smeared such great historians as samuel elliott morrison and bernard baylin with false charges of defending genocide and tyranny and he did it with such moral fervor as he pretended to uncover historical secrets so as to disabuse any sophomore of a desire to read these historians or anyone other than howard zinn champion of the oppressed indeed zinn's book to many a naive adolescent has the power of revelation as others have noted today we are suffering from our own lysenko-ism the sciences including medicine are suffering from quotas as well as their overall rejection of euro-centric thinking down to the idea of rejecting two plus two equals four in the wake of the summer's rioting and struggle sessions librarians have also vowed to decolonize their libraries one book these librarians would keep is zinn's the people's history of the united states so will amazon and other retailers considering how well it continues to sell the book has broken records in terms of sales for its type topping 3 million today the book is sold in adaptations such as a young people's history of the united states used now for several years in all 8th grade classrooms in portland oregon and surrounding areas no surprise about what's going on in portland there are spin-off people's histories of everything from the civil war to art history to sports as well as graphic adaptations and films nearly a hundred and twenty thousand educators have signed up to receive material from the zen education project and over 300 000 follow it on social media as i can attest after participating in the recent white house conference on american history they are ready to spring into action whenever their hero is criticized whereas at one time teachers would photocopy pages of zinn's book to distribute and then collect before the end of class as i learned from attending teachers conferences since the revision of the ap advanced placement u.s history standards under the obama administration the book or chapters of a people's history are frequently and openly assigned to high school students other history courses tend to follow the lead of ap even other subjects like high school english follow zinn's example and present ho chi minh speech his proclamation of independence during his propaganda stunt in 1945 as a legitimate work of rhetoric to be investigated alongside the declaration of independence for its appeals to ethos pathos and logos many of zinn's claims such as the sins of omission of slaves women and indians in the founding have become commonplace in textbooks since zinn's book came out most textbooks now begin with christopher columbus and also portray him as a genocidal rapist to zindas zinn was proud of how his book had changed americans views of columbus and in my book i chronicled how columbus statues were being defaced on columbus day and how municipalities and states were replacing columbus day with indigenous people's day then recently cbs a few days ago reported that at least 33 statues of columbus have been taken down or are in the process of being removed since the renewed black lives matter protests began in late spring they were either toppled by protesters voted to be removed or stored away to avoid vandalism what is the reason christopher columbus committed genocide as the protesters claim as we know protesters had moved on from confederate statues and from columbus and on to any figure in american history in a summer of writing the zen education project attacks exempt 501c3 distributes lessons based on zinn's book and also material for teachers to engage their students in political lobbying they offer abolished columbus day packets that include sample resolutions resources and articles to teachers the project's lessons are also overtly political frequently naming republicans and president trump and indicting him as a re racist xenophobe the zen education project and other zen acolytes repeat zinn's own claims and argue that he was a path breaker in writing a history from the bottom up the perspective left out of traditional histories of the common people african-americans indians workers immigrants zinn however in a stalinist manner wiped out such things as the reality of brutal tribal warfare on the north american continent long before europeans arrived the role of peaceful christians in the abolitionists and civil rights movements and the stories of millions of immigrants like myself coming to america for a better life and achieving it and becoming citizens and celebrating national holidays like independence day but for zinn 1776 did not mark the birth of a united states remember those excluded and then in the post-revolutionary society as he writes the problem of democracy went far deeper than constitutional limits on voting it lay in the division of society into rich and poor for some people had great wealth and great influence if they had the land the money the newspapers the church the educational system how could voting however broad cut into such power one of his favorite questions zin admits that madison's argument for an extensive republic and federalist ten can be seen as a sensible argument for having a government which can maintain peace and avoid continuous disorder then comes a series of his questions but is it the aim of government simply to maintain order as a referee between two actual actually matched fighters or is it that government has some special interest in maintaining a certain kind of order a certain distribution of what power and wealth in that case the disorder they might worry about is the disorder of popular rebellion against those monopolizing the society's wealth this interpretation makes sense when one looks at the economic interests the social backgrounds of the makers of the constitution end of quotation of course the idea that governments represent dominant economic interests comes from charles beard whose theory which was first put out in 1913 has been repeatedly debunked but which zinn presents as a long hidden radical idea that he is finally revealing for those who would see opportunity here in america zinn says the constitution quote illustrates the complexity of the american system that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite but also does enough for small property owners for middle-income mechanics and farmers to build a broad base of support the slightly prosperous people who make up the space are buffers against the blacks the indians the very poor whites they enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion a maximum of law all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity so according to zen our fundamental rights are hollow shams in fact according to zen the united states has no right to exist zinn writes that the idea quote that there really is such a thing as the united states a community of people with common interests a nation is nothing but a pretense so i ask is it any wonder that young people some serving in congress are fighting the very idea of borders much less enforcement of immigration law with such ludicrous claims it's easy to see why most historians shunned howard zinn's book when it came out except for again oscar handlin who in his review in american scholar attacked a handful of important points of fact noted zinn's presentation of fiction as fact and deemed it a quote fairy tale however zinn's book was then in 1997 prominently featured in the oscar-winning movie good will hunting and sales shot up the book got more of a boost after the formation of the zen education project in 2007 their lessons today teach zinn's lessons that the black panthers were civil rights activists that japanese internment camps were prison camps much like nazi concentration camps that vietnam achieved independence after the withdrawal of you american troops that many of the statues of historical figures gracing our public places are those of racists and that michael brown and other black men were ruthlessly gunned down by white police officers the organizers of black lives matter were honored with an award in zinn's name in 2015 and the zen education project has been a distributor of black lives matter lessons and a promoter of black lives matter week in schools every february recently their curriculum writer ursula wolf raka wrote that the black lives matter protests in her city portland oregon sparked by the quote murder of george floyd were as she described it exhilaratingly extended period of nationwide protest wolf raqqa promotes zinn's idea that the united states is systemically racist zinn's storyline in his book is one of the people rising only to be put down by the system a word he uses nearly 200 times the heroes are the martyrs like abolitionist john brown who died violent deaths for their cause in a people's history zinn makes outrageous unhistorical claims such as one on page 23 where he writes there is not a country in world history in which racism has been more important for so long a time as the united states this comes after he quotes a lengthy creatively rendered description of the arrival of the africans at jamestown in 1619. american slavery zinn says was quote the most cruel form of slavery in history this is because of the quote frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalist agriculture and because of quote racial hatred this racism comes from money incentive for exploitation so we've seen how howard zinn presents 1776 as a sham so which year better represents the slaveocracy that pretends to be the united states you you guessed it it's 1619. the 1619 project the 100 page new york times magazine supplement has been adopted in over 500 schools the zen education project quite naturally promotes the 1619 project and offers their own lessons to supplement it as in nicole hannah jones's 1619 project narrative in zinn's narrative the united states has never gotten over its slave past zinn calls the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s the black revolt he's it emanated he says from the memory of slavery and after that of segregation lynching humiliation and it was not just a memory but a living presence he says part of the daily lives of blacks and generation after generation what follows then is langston hughes's poem about the dream deferred exploding and a number of similar passages from other poems martin luther king's i have a dream speech in 1963 according to zinn was quote magnificent oratory but it did not express the anger that many blacks felt malcolm x was probably closer to the mood of the black community says zinn ignoring surveys that consistently said otherwise zinn writes that the new civil rights laws did not change the root condition of black people the civil rights bills emphasized voting but voting was not a fundamental solution to racism or poverty racism in zinn's book is also evidenced in police brutality zinn presents five dubious cases of black men shot or beaten by police zinn claims these were quote normal cases and says they were and i'm quoting endlessly repeated in the history of the country coming randomly but persistently out of a racism deep in the institutions the mind of the country it's an example of some of his rhetoric howard zinn died in 2010 but since then his influence has grown he was mourned by rock bands and hollywood celebrities like jane fonda his words are read in performances book fairs are held in his name lectures in his name are given every year at boston university barack obama was reported to have a special interest in zinn's book in 2011 during the occupy wall street protests zinn's book was a favorite in the library of the new york city encampment out of occupy wall street grew the american version of antifa in 2012 as i can personally attest georgia state university held an all-day teach-in for teachers led by the zen education project it was an effort to stop legislation that would forbid the classroom use of la raza materials zinn's book has influenced political leaders for oklahoma city council member jo beth hammond a people's history has replaced the bible in april 2019 she took her oath of office on it instead of the bible last december a fairfax county virginia school board member also took her oath on zinn's book in maine in 2019 newly elected district attorney natasha irving pledged to follow zinn's example from his autobiography we also of course have professors now espousing the violence of antifa one of them is mark bray teaching at rutgers probably today this is the kind of violence that zinn glorifies in his book zinn's book has also influenced terrorists tarak mahana who was ultimately found guilty of terrorist conspiracy with al qaeda requested a people's history along with other reading materials like the autobiography of malcolm x and an islamic text according to an article published in 2010 boston bomber zokar and sarnov if i'm pronouncing that correctly said that reading a people's history of the united states had opened his eyes to america's evil he had bonded with his history teacher larry r aronson a long time friend of the late howard zinn willem vance bronson a member of antifa and the john brown gun club who tried to blow up an ice detention facility in 2019 left behind a manifesto saying read howard zinn a people's history of the united states he said it would reveal the quote fascism ascendant in the u.s a new book in defense of looting uses zinn as one of many marxist sources this year many schools are following the lead of the zen education project and teaching black lives matter curriculum zen education project has been reminding teachers of black lives matter week every february encouraging them to wear t-shirts advertising such and to use their lessons such as when black lives matter why teach reconstruction by adam sanchez this lesson begins every day seems to bring new horrors as the u.s president's racist rhetoric and policies have provided an increasingly encouraging environment for attacks on black people and other communities of color in the buffalo new york public school districts blm lessons will begin with pre-k and will infuse black lives matter guiding principles into everyday curriculum and resources there is a service that adapts news articles for grade appropriate reading levels called new zealand as one of its partners it has the zen education project to put the spin on the news a year ago two teacher teach-ins really continuing education programs on abolishing columbus day were put on by the zen education project one was held at the smithsonian as i reported in my book the zen education project for a fee provides trainers to schools across the country taxpayers through the national endowment for the humanities subsidize continue summer continuing education programs for teachers coordinated by or with the zen education project one being held this coming summer at duke university called the civil rights movement grassroots perspectives features veterans from the student non-violent coordinating committee the group mentored by zinn in the 1960s writing the curriculum are deborah menkar co-director of the zen education project and ursula wolf raqa one of the organization's two curriculum directors the one who had praised the black lives matter protests in portland she too wolf rocca regularly infuses her articles and lessons with anti-trump invective one article published in september 2018 bore the headline civics will not save us from trump this is not the first time such a workshop was put on in 2018 a similar one was conducted again at duke with the zen education project's mencart as the curriculum coordinator the zen education project i think was disappointed that their lessons offered for this constitution day in a mailing labeled black lives matter rethinking constitution day in 2020 and beginning with these words black lives did not matter to the rich white men who met in 1787 were challenged by the president of the united states and me i was so happy to get that invitation mere hours after my talk at the white house conference on american history on constitution day the zen education project sent out a fundraising email stating teaching people's history is about empowering and invigorating students to better understand the perspectives of workers women black indigenous and people of color whose voices are too often erased in the corporate produced textbooks but mary graybar doesn't want young people to hear those voices graybar who has written an anti-howard zinn book and travels the country attacking zinn and the zen education project said at the white house conference on american history that zinn's writing imposes the false idea that the united states is characterized by quote systemic racism wealth inequality and police brutality end of my quote graybar offered no evidence to refute this critique of u.s history of course they knew about my book and the evidence i provide there they seemed to know my travel schedule but they did not even mention the title of my book instead they charged that i quote fretted that impressionable readers have been stirred to action by the zen education project curriculum and howard zins of people's history of the united states saying quoting me again people reading it cry and get angry sometimes taking to the street the zen book was the most popular book for occupy wall street protesters and of quoting me they continue we at the zen education project plead guilty teaching people's history can elicit great emotion about oppression and injustice and may inspire people to move to action so there you have it teaching people's history can elicit great emotion about oppression and injustice and may inspire people to move to action in their words these people however are often mere children or adolescents so the zen education project admits to being an activist organization they do not even deign to defend criticism of their lessons there is more than enough reason in my opinion to remove zinn's materials from classrooms i think all would agree here there is no reason also not yank zen education projects non-profit status and educators openly brag about using zinn's history we may keep our own children from zinn's baleful influence but his today his true believers are out on the streets ready to accost anyone refusing to repeat their revolutionary slogans and sadly i have heard from many parents who had homeschooled or privately schooled their own children only to have them lured by a professor or friend to zinn's seductive prose not all students are like hannah wright who wrote to me last winter about her zen worshiping professor who repeated zinn's own claim to have written history from a quote different perspective the professor told her that callings in biased was offensive because it meant quote that either the author ignored evidence that would have changed his conclusions or he didn't bother with evidence at all end of quote those who would criticize zinn's book are quote the people who have a problem with any history book that does not seek to stimulate a nationalist pride in america or are some joe schmoe on the internet i guess like me and she also accused those like me this professor that they never provide evidence for their criticism my book has been out for over a year now but zinn's book does not simply present offer another perspective without question the falsifications that pepper every page are intentional it is propaganda communist disinformation and as if such a domestic disinformation campaign were not bad enough zinn's book is used in international anti-american campaigns it has been translated into more than a dozen languages including french spanish chinese and arabic it has been distributed all over the world including in russia by americans by the bureau of educational and cultural affairs of the american embassy which sponsored the 2006 russian language publication of a people's history of the united states a few days ago to bring us up to date i received an email from a journalist in iran a former american studies student as he described himself at the faculty of world studies at the university of tehran where he said a people's history was quote a bible as it was for anti-americans in iran it is the only book on u.s history not published by the regime in publication in iran he wrote that he was happy to see my speech and the white house's initiative i guess he caught it on the youtube channel that the white house has and he would try to get my book this young iranian is inspiring but i i think that we can do more than someone living in iran in terms of taking zinn's falsified communist propaganda out of our schools and i hope people will start to work on that so thank you very [Applause] much some time for q a if you have a question please make your way to one of the microphones in the side aisles question on the speaker's right thank you my name is tanya store and i am so grateful to get to be here and and listen to you today and just more of a statement i guess um than a than a question but this is much deeper than even i was aware and in january i took a serious look and actually one of the reasons that i filed to run for the nebraska legislature was because the sitting senator had co-sponsored a bill to replace columbus day with indigenous people day it struck me as very wrong and as i continued to do a little homework and including what you've shared today i understand why and and how and i'm shocked at even how deep the roots of this go my children were all raised in a conservative home went to country school in nebraska and i i was shocked in a conversation with my son who is a conservative a strong christian young man about this issue of columbus day and he agreed we shouldn't be getting rid of american holidays absolutely mom i support you in that but he said something very troubling to me that woke me up and he said but you have to admit he wasn't a very nice guy and my response to him was who told you that and and the conversation you know i it became aware that somewhere along the line um he had been taught in school that he wasn't a very nice guy and and i said i was never taught that um i was taught he was courageous and he opened up the free world um to the gospel among many other things and and his response was well you you do have to admit your history books were probably a little whitewashed um so so this is a young man who was raised in a conservative home into a country school um in a small rural conservative community and so the the the threads of this are much deeper than i was even aware so thank you so much for what what you've done to bring light to this thank you [Applause] yeah i'm proud to say that i will be honored by the sons and daughters of italy in february or exposing i've got a lot of italian groups writing to me and thanking me because what i do in my book is what zinn did was criminal he did what every english teacher says you should not do which is when you use ellipses those four dots or three dots that indicate an emission of words but you're not supposed to change you know the meaning right they're not essential well he uses ellipses to eliminate two days worth of columbus's journal entries and he misidentifies uh you know the who they are and that begins the quotation and he leaves out words that columbus wrote down like uh and i instructed my men to treat them with kindness for we can convert them more by love than by force and has repeated uh you know orders to his men to treat them with kindness he um even you know had six of them baptized he adopted one of them he did everything that he could to you know convert the natives he never pillaged or raped or chopped off hands which is what you get from zinn's book and it has just permeated our understanding or americans understanding of christopher columbus and so i'm hoping that you know when a young man uh like the questioner's son asks you know and says that this is you know he was not a nice guy that at least i i provide the evidence i look at the passage and i look at what zinn says and i say this is what he's leaving out and people can go back and they can look at my endnotes and there are almost a thousand of them and look at the original source and look at what zin says and also there you know i have pages of comparative quotations from zinn and the guy he quoted from hans koning and that's not a history book it's a polemic so i'm hoping with the evidence you know that that um you know zinn was not simply writing history from another perspective he is not simply biased he changes the facts and we would never use a textbook that changes the facts or uses a holocaust denying historian um as a source for a textbook this you know zinn's book was never vetted and um but yet you know it's been there for 40 years and it's trickled down we we have a question on the speaker's left mary a couple things number one is i'm wondering in your research if you've come across any evidence of george soros dirty money funding any of this zen project that's my first question and number two i would hope that everyone here contacts their congressman and emails and writes letters to them to request this organization's 501 c 3 status be eliminated yeah i think there needs to be a public campaign to pull um the non-profit status i know from what i went through just to try to get my organization going and i was criticizing common core standards you know have after having taught college english saying that they you know were bad and um you know i had to you know they put you through hell um i have not come across you know where the funding comes from that's not very apparent because the zen education project coordinates with rethinking schools and another organization that writes the curriculum and then the zen education project puts it out there so it it's not they they don't put their 990s online like a lot of nonprofits do so that would be an interesting uh thing to look at they claim they get a lot of private donations but i'm sure um you know that i wouldn't be surprised um you know uh the student of howard zinn's from the 1970s bill holtzman uh you know continues to give money uh matt damon who wrote and uh co-starred goodwill hunting gives money promotes it so you know you've got some rich people there supporting this organization we have a question on the speakers right thank you so much i learned so much today i'm my question is this is just an overwhelming amount of information when you try to share it with somebody so we're in an era of sound bites of and so my question to you is what are the top three takeaways of what howard zinn is doing the effective howard's inn today for our students he's he inspires them to hate their own country he inspires them to violence and i think he inspires a sense of hopelessness you know in a country because the way he presents it is that this country cannot be redeemed as it is set up through our own government and when president trump described this kind of education as child abuse it is it really is it's um you know it sets people up against each other and um you know to to tell young people that you know the country that they live in is irredeemably racist and uh unfair and unjust it you know has got to do a number on young people and that and i think you know i would like to do a survey of people out there protesting and black lives matter and antifa and see how many of them were inspired by zen that'd be very interesting we have a question on the speaker's left so zinn seemed to make a very long career on an indictment of the united states including especially the founding of it so if he took his principles and applied them outward towards other countries and nations of the world what country or nation's history would pass muster under zinn's principles to him i think you probably would say none but what would he say to that well what howard zinn does and he uh takes this from angles and william z fosters he presents uh the native tribes living here before the europeans came as this kind of bucolic paradise where there was no war where women were empowered where people were free there was no greed which is the exact opposite of the way it was and so these were kind of proto-hippies the way he presents them you know remember he is someone of the 1960s that was the heyday for him and so he claims like other communist propagandists do that the native people lived in this paradise where they shared and he implies that if we sort of drop all the characteristics of eurocentrism or western civilization like hierarchies and linear thought and you know all those uh you know criticisms of you know that post-modernists have that we can return to that sort of garden of eden that that's that's who it is and he also he also claims that in other countries like vietnam that the communist movements were local movements the people just rising up and trying to you know have more control over their own government and live more fairly and justly we have a question on the speaker's right i've been listening to the nonsense of the liberals for many many years and i fail to understand why seemingly intelligent people can let themselves be seduced by this these thoughts is it they they have envy the freedom that we have or do they just want to control everybody and everything that they do well zen targets and people who use this materials target young people and what zinn hides in his book you know are the horrors of communism so if you get only one side of history and you don't know any other and increasingly as surveys show young people are ignorant about history and um and there is a false reality that's created and i think this is part of uh you know the propaganda that's taught in our schools so a student can say well you know um you know we have affirmative action uh our laws are race new supposed to be race neutral um i see kids of all races and ethnicities of varying income levels but if they have this material pounded into them day after day they begin to believe it and also one of the things that i critiqued about common core is the teaching strategies have changed we now have social and emotional learning so students aren't sitting down and reading long works discussing them in class listening to lectures they get short snippets you know selected for their emotional appeal and they're told to uh you know just discuss in their groups they're graded on their ability to respect you know diversity and one of the things about howard zinn and i you know i focused mostly on the facts that he twists around the deliberate disinformation along with a chapter on his sordid life which is kind of interesting notorious womanizer with his students is is his very skillful use of propaganda to someone who is young and naive and doesn't know any better they get sucked up into it they you people even adults say that they cry after they read howard zinn's book they get angry so you know he he was kind of an evil genius he knew what he was doing and he used the techniques of propaganda david horowitz called it the mind conf of american history and he uses the same strategies and i you know and i think students also need to be taught you know what our legitimate history writing techniques how is someone manipulating your emotions with words so you know we we need to start teaching that again and this reliance on emotion i think is is you know swaying people and it sort of clouds their judgment all right please join me in thanking dr [Applause] graybar

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Views: 164,724

Keywords: hillsdale, politics, constitution, equality, liberty, freedom, free speech, lecture, learn, america, Howard Zinn, Fake History

Id: bhyYaFvELaU

Length: 59min 29sec (3569 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ragnarok62]

I wanted her book to be an arrow to the heart of the Zinn nonsense, but Grabar’s book was not good. It wandered too much, didn’t reinforce its points, and lacked a sniper’s focus. It needed a better editor. Disappointing.