Question.  What does this comment even mean?

Describing Howard Zinn as “a man of the left” hardly begins to do it justice. He was a dedicated Marxist revolutionary who would have been quite happy to see our constitution overthrown.

“Dedicated Marxist Revolutionary”.

I should not say too much about the man.  Do a little web surfing and see what you find, beyond the major obituaries where you’ll learn the old chestnuts that he was friends with Ben Affleck.  So, I guess Schlesinger was more or less right when calling Zinn “not a historian, but a polemicist.”    But punt past that, and go to the ordinary people — or, I guess, his audience comprised of a good deal of Grad Student radicals.  This is good, for instance.  As is this.   To get off that stereotype, maybe.  Furthering along.

A week or so ago, I saw that a poster at the “Daily Paul” (as in Ron) post a recommendation for Zinn on American foreign policy.  A curious item, but here he is eulogized in the same way at the lewrockwell blog with the caveat…  (ahem) While he was a bit of a pinko on labor issues.
It is a world where in mainline media discourse “left” is defined by the doings of the Democratic Party and “right” is defined by the doings of the Republican Party, so this is what we get.  But I guess things could get worse there.

One thing.  I’ve always seen these reports that Zinn’s famous polemic “A People’s History”, is used as an alternative textbook in “many high schools”.  I’d be uncomfortable with anything other than used as a supplementary item to draw upon.  But just for laughs, I suggest one of the members float the text before the Texas textbook adoption committee.  Just for the laughs the reaction from the right-wingers on the panel.

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