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Few leftist icons are looked upon more favorably than professor and activist Howard Zinn. Like many radical ideologues, he is the darling of students, the professorate, and the glitterati. Indeed, Hollywood star Matt Damon provided the narration for a hagiographic documentary about his life entitled, Howard Zinn -You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.“You can’t be neutral” is a reference to Zinn’s belief that all history is skewed by the mind that conveys it, and that the best historians must be “engaged” in political and societal matters. Therefore, it is non-remarkable when their discussion of events always manages to be harmonious with their worldview. Such a post-modernist outlook is quite popular today, but prevalence is not always an indication of value. Zinn informs viewers that no work is ever completely objective, which then allows him (and other activists) to avoid using research and citations which do not substantiate their pre-determined suppositions.

That no historical account is ever 100 percent objective cannot be doubted, but an automaton’s level of clinical impartiality is neither possible nor expected. One commits a black-or-white fallacy by pretending that it is as nothing can ever be 100 percent objective or subjective. Good history doggedly attempts to be unbiased. When it abandons its detachment, any amount of distortion becomes acceptable; history gets alchemized into propaganda. Zinn minimizes his own lack of scholarship in The Peoples’ History of the United States by claiming that it was not written with an academic audience in mind.

As a man, Zinn appears to be more celebrity than egghead. He isn’t one to quibble over the nature of secondary or primary source materials, he’d rather illustrate his points by quoting lyrics from a Woody Guthrie song. No doubt that the directors of this film ascribe to their subject’s view of fairness as not one of the individuals interviewed uttered a single negative syllable about Zinn. Uniformly leftist luminaries like Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Marian Wright Edelman, Daniel Ellsberg, and Tom Hayden spent their segments exalting the importance of his impact upon society.

Their depiction of Zinn’s personality was most revealing and in keeping with the tendencies of leftists in general. According to his friends and associates, he possesses a “steely anger,” and “an endless capacity for moral outrage” which is representative of the whole. Dr. John Ray’s key psychological components of the leftist are discernible in Zinn as his need for fame, praise, power, and attention are quite pronounced.

An Alice in Wonderland moment comes when he is filmed giving a talk about his old boss, John Silber, once President of Boston University. Considerable ire is vented upon him and he is described as a right-wing fanatic. This should alert viewers to just how radical Zinn actually is because Silber happens to be a member of the Democratic Party. Most viewers won’t have the background to know this, and also might not realize that our protagonist’s main intellectual influence is Karl Marx. Nowadays, pointing something like that out invites being labeled a McCarthyist, but devotion to disproven dialectical imperatives tells us much about the intellectual box into which true believers place themselves. While the documentary itself never directly addresses communism, Zinn is shown at an event accepting an award from the Eugenes Debs Foundation. Even should one not be familiar with the name of (perhaps) America’s most famous socialist, they should not fail to be startled by the organization’s president introducing our activist as “Comrade Zinn.” He has also written a play called Marx in Soho, and a snippet from it is shown. The man whose ideas resulted in 100 million deaths comes alive and gives a speech about how, after examining the modern world, his ideas remain surprisingly topical. When he states, “Remember, to be radical is simply to grasp the root of a problem, and the problem is us,” he tells the audience much more about Zinn than about his manifesto.

The pernicious assumption that “the problem is us” is emblematic of those who make a living out of criticizing the United States. They can continue to do this by judging the United States within a vacuum. By ignoring the macabre incidents of brutality in other parts of the world and focusing on the democratic flaws of their own nation, fellows like Zinn can endlessly shower his own side with friendly fire. As long as human beings remain fallible, the utopian is always able to look down on the rest of us. It even has become fashionable for them to rationalize their compulsive venom as not being reflective of hate, but as a natural byproduct of their alternative “patriotism.”

Of course, America is not a perfect land; it never has been and never will be, but here freedom of religion and expression are birthrights which the state must go to great lengths to terminate. That certainly cannot be said about most of the other places in the world. That we are not a repressive country is self-evident from this film itself. No anti-democratic regime in history ever loaned out its police for the purposes of protecting protesters so they can safely, and aggressively, ridicule the government. Zinn may have been appalled, in his youth, by the behaviors of police at a communist rally, but their peers in a Marxist state would have arrested the agitators and shot them in the basement of the Lubyanka or liquidated them in the countryside around Phenom Penh.

Zinn’s Marxist beliefs are discordant with his supposed devotion to “non-violent action.” It simply is not possible for a central apparatus—ostensibly as a means to noble redistribution—to non-coercively abscond with the earnings of its citizens. Pointing a barrel of a gun is the only way in which our species, as opposed to ants, will ever part with their possessions, homes, and personal choices.

At one point, Zinn’s perceptions appear utterly astonishing. As a Jew in the Air Force who was sent to fight the Nazis during World War II, he found himself in a position of, what should have been, absolute moral clarity. If ever a person was placed into a position where war was morally just, this was it. However, his reminiscences are confined to indignation over his unit’s bombing an enclave of German soldiers. He lamented the action as the men in the French village, “weren’t doing anything to anybody”—except defending the boundaries of a genocide state.

Perhaps the best way to sum up Howard Zinn is through words he applied to Uncle Sam: “limited, opinionated and with special interests.”

Bernard Chapin expects to be named to Hillary Clinton’s shadow cabinet at some point in the coming months. His email is veritaseducation@gmail.com.

The sports autobiography may be one of the few genres in which the publishing industry has realized strong growth as there is no shortage of new releases concerning the athletes that so many of us admire. Golfer John Daly is the latest to tempt readers with an autobiography. Just after it was issued, it received considerable media attention, mostly due to its admission that the author gambled away, in the course of his career, over 50 to 60 million dollars.

My Life in and Out of the Rough: The Truth Behind All that Bull**** You Think You Know About Me promises to be a wild and “shocking” ride, but, strangely enough, it isn’t as John Daly is one of the few people on this earth whose personality and essence closely correspond with his physical appearance. Simply due to repeated observation, readers will not be surprised to learn that he is impulsive, undisciplined, gluttonous, financially reckless, extremely emotional, friendly, kind, prone to bad habits, and a complete “Razorback Redneck” (in his own words). Golf is the only thing in life that he’s ever been really good at, and the links were the only place he felt comfortable during his troubled childhood. We can sum him up by saying that he is the epitome of a southern good old boy who happens to be plagued by, in the vernacular of our day, some serious issues.

Regardless of our not being made privy to the mental health diagnosis given to him by the clinicians at the rehab clinics he attended or by the therapeutic representatives of his sponsor’s Team Daly, it does not take a psychologist to discern that this is a rather troubled man. Daly’s not so sure, however. In fine redneck fashion, he blames many of his problems on the medications doctors prescribed to ameliorate his actual problems. Then, he decides that he is not an alcoholic and excuses his drinking due to a belief that a future without beer would be far more punishing than one marred by pharmacy bottles and proscription. This is harmonious with his stated worldview, which he summarizes with the sentence: “My philosophy then, and my philosophy now, is that ‘it is what it is.”

Such an opinion about the universe would meet with great approval today, and Daly’s commonality may well be the principal reason why he is so beloved by fans. Like Bill Clinton, a president he never voted for, Long John possesses many of the same flaws the rest of us have which only serves to intensify his appeal. Daly also exudes charm and honesty which is evident in both this text and in media interviews.

His daily behaviors exemplify that he is not one to idly chat about personal philosophy. Daly follows his mantra and is what he is which means he has little interest in self-improvement. “The Lion,” the nickname he most prefers, will smoke, drink beer, and eat at McDonalds until one of the habits kill him. Intentional exercise also is not something to which he can relate. All of this leads us to the one aspect about the “Big ‘Un” not readily detectable via observation which is his toxic level of masochism.

John Daly is a thoroughly self-destructive man. When he becomes upset, and this does not appear to be an infrequent occurrence, he responds by hurting himself as opposed to hurting others. He has trashed numerous hotel rooms, and even, after a fight with one of his wives, wrecked his own house. What these damages ended up costing him I cannot fathom.

The most disturbing element of his war on self, even more deleterious than his gambling, is the nature of his romantic relationships with women. Daly appears to be one of the few men who never heard the phrase and warning, “so if we get married, and it doesn’t work out then she gets half of my stuff.” Despite widespread knowledge of the way in which men, particularly wealthy men, are economically and spiritually destroyed by our civil court system, he decides to get married not once but an astounding four times. He is a gold digger’s dream as he is incapable of learning from his mistakes. Daly may want to be called, The Lion, but to materialistic women everywhere he will always be known as “The Mark.” He’s the sucker they’ve been fantasizing about since they were old enough to pronounce the angelic word “Nordstrom’s.”

It is in this interpersonal area where his masochism is irrefutable. We know that he is perfectly aware of the pathology behind his matrimonial unions as he named one of his chapters, “All My Exes Wear Rolexes,” but his cognizance has not altered his behavior. He is ripped off time and again by women who discard him as soon as they have put in the court mandated days for pension and earning vestment. One of his wives leaves him while he is on tour while another filed their divorce papers as he lay prone upon a hospital bed. Another, he went ahead and married despite the fact that he knew she had lied to him about her age, marital status, and that she had a child from her existing marriage. He disregarded her past fabrications as if they were warnings stamped upon a cigarette carton.

Daly’s present wife, the love of his life, has recently been convicted of a felony and was serving a five month prison sentence at the time the book was written. His reaction to her incarceration can be summed up in another chapter title, “Stand By Your Women,” which is exactly what he’s doing. Although, the only thing for certain is that if it had been him who committed the crime she’d be standing by her lawyer.

All of these blunders should not amount to our being over-sympathetic towards the author as he is an adult who has made his own willful choices. He may be naïve and ignorant but he is not stupid. These recurring disasters have been inflicted and enabled by his own mind. They are psychologically satisfying to him in a way to which the rest of us cannot easily relate. He rebelled whenever friends, family, sponsors, doctors, and society tried to change him which means that he will remain uneven and unfinished forever. The only consolation is that, when the final tallies are penciled onto the scorecard, the only person he’s ever really hurt is himself.

Bernard Chapin is a Chicago based writer and one time winner of the Moveon.org “He’s the Real Liberal” award. You can contact him at veritaseducation@gmail.com.

I recently had a chance to see the documentary, “The Divided State,” which I thought, perhaps more than any other film, reflects the political left’s method of dealing with their adversaries. The practice amounts to propping up a straw man and setting him on fire. Many conservatives are personally familiar with this approach after discovering that, unbeknownst to them, their desire for decreased taxation or a privatized Post Office is a result of their latent religious fundamentalism, homophobia, and hatred for all living things.In this documentary, the action stems from Michael Moore’s planned visit to Utah before the 2004 election. His was invited there by the student council of Utah Valley State, and the local Mormons who attempt to prevent him from speaking are the plot’s straw men. Rather than do the logical thing, which would be to let Moore gibber, and then dissect his positions via rebuttal, they attempt to censor him. Their stance was unquestionably wrong; however, despite the fact that Mormons are often politically conservative, their act of intolerance has far more in common with the tactics of the left than those of the right.

Ironically, it is the improperly named “liberals” who embody repression and restriction in our nation today. The movements of radical feminism, socialism, and multiculturalism have—with the aide of their enforcer, political correctness—diminished our pride, created a war between the sexes, wrongly distorted history, undermined the value of public education, and shamed us into financing a federal government big and powerful enough to take away our every need or aspiration.

Excellent examples of illiberal liberalism can be found on our college campuses everyday. Here, the professors of Utah Valley State uniformly support Moore’s views and passionately depict this fabulously rich and thriving millionaire as a modern day Lenny Bruce. Their self-righteous stances and emotations are vigorously recorded by the camera, yet their conformity merely serves to highlight the hold the political left has upon higher education. A politicized professorate is a worthless professorate. The current dispensation instructs young men and women that they live in a patriarchal apartheid state even though their instructors’ state financed existence indicates just how wildly tolerant our country actually is. Only in our universities is social justice, the notion of citizens keeping what they earn, revamped into being an act of governmental policy favoring one group of citizens over another. There, the solution to every problem is more government spending and government’s increased grip upon the economy.

An important question to ask here is why are there so many “liberal” professors? The answer is simple; they refuse to hire anyone who thinks differently from them. They can tolerate no disagreement or diversity on campus. If they did, none of their positions would be tenable. America is only a racist and sexist state when one refuses to examine anywhere else. As far as human beings go, we, as a people, are the most generous and kind on the planet. Yet, political correctness instructs that every white person has the heart of Bull Connor and that every man lords over women as if he were the Sultan of Brunei. These lies, rather than racism, are the true beliefs institutionalized in the system. Political correctness is the height of anti-intellectualism and is an excellent illustration of why a college education has little more value today than helping one to procure one a job. Our professors, supposedly great lovers of the masses, impoverish and bankrupt those they know best, students, as tuition costs irrationally escalate each year.

As it turned out, the locals had little to fear from the Fabricator in Chief’s visit. Moore’s performance was completely devoid of substance. He is nothing more than an emotion merchant. All he offered was chants, repetition, and clichés. This generous man attacked Republicans continuously, but did say that he would forgive them (specifically, for their poor treatment of minorities) in exchange for a vote for John Kerry in November. Of course, there is no truth in his assertion that the right treats minorities badly. When juxtaposed with the left, the right is a wellspring of equality and opportunity. Currently, as in the past, illiberals are obsessed with race. This is not surprising given the roots of the Democratic Party which was the party of slavery, the party of Jim Crow, and now the party of affirmative action. The only alteration is that now they keep whites and Asians down instead of blacks.

Sean Hannity visited the town before Moore in the hopes that he would be an antidote. He gave a speech in which he too ridiculed his opponents, but there was a vital difference between he and Moore as Hannity allowed his enemies to speak. He took questions from the audience who turned out to be the same “engaged” professors interviewed previously. They hogged the microphone, and, rather than ask anything, gave diatribes concerning George W. Bush. It was also amusing to note that the far left protested both celebrities as two members of the Green Party had to be removed for aggressively heckling the emotor behind “Fahrenheit 911.”

“The Divided State” does raise some important questions, but they surely are not the ones the film intended.

Bernard Chapin is a writer in Chicago who, sources have leaked, is about to be named Chairman of the National Organization of Women. You can reach him at veritaseducation@gmail.com.

Millions of people have been forced to flee their homes. Children watch, and sometimes are forced to participate in, the horrors of mass killing and torture as child soldiers…cutting people up, cutting off women’s breasts, limbs, etc. The child soldiers say they do it because if they do not, they will die by the hands of adult rebel militia men.

Unbeknownst to many people in the U.S. until recently, massive human suffering is occurring in the African countries of Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Uganda, and Chad. The area which has held the attention of most in the media is Darfur, Sudan. People there have suffered beyond measure. Many have endured rapes, torture, maiming, gross bloodshed, loss of life and home, malnutrition, and slavery, all at the hands of rebel militia groups. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell called this enormous problem genocide.

I watched a recent Oprah show which aired concerns from actor George Clooney and reporter Lisa Ling on these horrible atrocities. I sat shocked and horrified as I heard one horrific story after another… how militias cooked people and family members were made to eat the flesh! Are you sick to your stomach yet? Because I was! Such brutality is allowed to exist, and not enough voices are speaking out on the behalf of those affected by this evil!

The mass slaughter and brutality in Africa has been going on for 3 years. Over 200,000 people have died and another 2 million forced from their homes in Darfur, Sudan. Positive strides have been made to end the violence. On Friday, a peace agreement backed by the U.S. was signed between the main rebel group in Darfur, and the Sudanese government. Under the peace agreement, the government backed Arab militia group Janjaweed (responsible for most of the suffering in Darfur) will be disarmed, and rebel fighters merged into the army.

However, the region is not in the clear yet. Two other rebel groups have not joined in the signing of the peace agreement. The Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice/Equality Movement has not stepped forward to make an effort to end the violence, so the suffering continues.

The U.S. says it is doing what we can to make sure parties who signed the peace deal, to keep up their end of the deal. People have been displaced and forced from their homes and now live in unsafe camps. Food is scarce. People sleep where they can, and women are targets of rape from the Janjaweed.

President Bush said that the U.S. would step in and provide 85% of the food and called on U.N. peacekeepers and humanitarian aid to help in the region. I hate to say we have not been largely influential to help end this shameful, horrible blight on the African continent. And we can do more.

I believe the U.S. military should be involved to some degree. Why not have our military airdrop food to those in need? This conflict in Darfur has raged for 3 years too long, and the UN drags its feet. The U.S. could provide better security, there are people dying who are pleading for our help, and the weak peace deal signed on Friday will only be a ripple in this huge cesspool of trouble.

The only obstacle is the Sudanese government who still won’t allow UN troops in Darfur. Thousands of lives are at stake. If the Sudanese government is concerned at all about the suffering of their people, they’d let anyone in to help, including the U.S.

After seeing such suffering on a massive scale, one cannot help but to be affected in some way. I know President Bush is doing what he can, but I think throwing more money towards this cause is not going to help. It really hasn’t in the past. A more hands-on approach is needed now. It’s time to get serious before more people die unnecessarily.

Again, I will write Congress and the President and ask that we get on the ball, pressure the Sudanese government to allow UN peacekeepers in the country, and let the U.S. help. The least we can do is airdrop supplies and food for those who have nothing. If U.S. troops can deliver supplies to people recently affected by the massive earthquake in Pakistan, then they can do the same for those suffering in Africa.

Please put pressure on Congress and the President to act:
The Senate: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

The President: President@whitehouse.gov

Related Reading:

The Shocking Story George Clooney Has to Tell:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Main parties sign Darfur accord:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4978668.stm

Nowadays, it is surprisingly simple to be political. All you have to do is live near a major metropolis, prop yourself up against a parking meter, and wait for the demonstration to come to you; which is exactly what I did on May 1^st in anticipation of the impending immigration rally.

With amazing punctuality, at high noon, an elephantine wave of social consciousness trampled by on their way to Chicago’s Grant Park. Diverse flags were everywhere as six unmarked police vehicles, along with two patrol cars, led the march. Seven helicopters hovered as a PA sloganeered in both Spanish and English. One of the first chants I could make out was “Viva la Mexico,” although, as many American flags were waved as Mexican ones. The scene was not combative, however. Bystanders beneficently looked on. My neighborhood church, Old St. Patrick’s, even hung a banner of welcome reading: “Yesterday’s Immigrants Support Today’s Immigrants. Your Journey is Our Journey.”

The crowd included countless families and could not be confined to the road as the extra participants rivered out upon the sidewalk. A local radio station, “Multicultural 950 AM”—the station which first broadcast Air America in Chicago, camped out on a corner and blared Spanish music from its speakers, and, even though it was a decidedly Hispanic affair, people of all persuasions were present, including the hyphenated pride of Polish and Irish Americans.

Ubiquitous among the throng were assistants with green t-shirts. They had pink tags around their necks stamped with the word “Peacemaker.” I spoke to two of them who informed me that Congress was planning to imprison illegal aliens, and that the government wanted to make it a crime to even know an illegal. Of course this was simply a lie. Nothing within the pending legislation even remotely mentions such Draconian measures. The passage to which they mistakenly, and emotionally, refer actually pertains to smugglers:

Subjects an individual who knowingly aids or conspires to allow,

procure, or permit a removed alien to reenter the United States to

criminal penalty, the same imprisonment term as applies to the alien

so aided, or both.

Sadly, in our new century, there can be no politics without distortion. To discuss the merits of erecting a 700 mile fence or the Green Card Lottery is too mundane for effective discussion; only sound byte argumentation can persuade.

Speaking of distortion, I discovered that alongside me were two women handing out copies of The Revolutionary Worker, now re-titled, Revolution, which is the flagship magazine of a Maoist offshoot of the Communist Party. Sales did not look to be brisk, but that could not be said of the red flags and t-shirts they were peddling. I asked them about their goods and was handed a flag which, unfortunately, a great many others in the crowd waved. I resisted a sudden urge to set it on fire. The t-shirt that the activists wore accused the Bush administration of being illegal immigrants themselves. It featured a prisonesque shot of Bush, the most pro-no accountability for immigrants leader in history, upon its front and back.

Your average red stater may be surprised to discover that communists are common at today’s leftist gatherings. They are tolerated perhaps due to their being “liberals in a hurry” or that they are unduly regarded as brave and devout. Sympathy should be extended to immigrants tricked into an association with a bloody flag symbolizing 100 million deaths. These leftists should be confined to Federal Plaza or the Daly Center where all the other bureaucratic elites congregate. They don’t belong among the people.

For the apparachnik, immigrants mean nothing in themselves. They are merely another way to foment social disorder. I recall one of their number telling me, back in 2001, that she was “very excited about the recent revolutionary activity in Cincinnati.” What she actually was referring to were race riots. Anti-American hate groups, like International A.N.S.W.E.R., vehemently support immigrant demonstrations and agitations as they represent instability. They know that citizenship restrictions have nothing to do with waging war or racism, but champion any group critical of our nation.

After it was over, I could not help but wonder if any of the organizers realized just how counter-productive these actions were. Closing down streets, in our already overcrowded city, will endear them to no one. I’m sure that consciousness was raised among the general population, but that consciousness may not have been favorable.

The demonstrators also made clear their obvious devotion to their homeland which should remind undecided Americans that illegals will not easily morph into vested citizens. A Pew Hispanic study suggested that 55 percent of Americans with Mexican descent considered themselves Mexican “first,” and a quarter even viewed “Hispanic” as their primary identity.[i]

The story of immigration control is one imbued with as much futility as the war on drugs. In both cases, government response has done little to prevent inflow. Unfettered immigration is possibly more dangerous than drug usage as we have no idea who is entering our country on any particular day. To greatly improve the situation, Congress needs to do very little—just build some barriers and assign agents to patrol them.

As for the status quo, it’s a joke. Last week, I had a chance to see part of our southern border and could not believe what constitutes a “fence” in the mind of some politicians. It’s not a fence as much as a “Do Not Disturb” sign. Stone Age engineering will not improve the situation.

Unlike other leftist positions, this one cannot be defended. There’s no reason in the world why we shouldn’t know who enters and leaves our shores. It also clashes with the standard Democratic mantra in regards to minorities. The left claims that they alone protect the “economic interests” of blacks and indigenous Hispanics, but no minority benefits from increased competition for jobs and a steady decline of wages. Those who support unlimited immigration due to its positive impact upon economic growth are misguided. The integrity and viability of the nation is what is essential. As to whether we continue to consume at the rate we do is immaterial.[ii]

One of the many tricks used by the left, and reflective of their Manichean mindset, is that everything must be either black or white. This is their stance on every issue: you either hate taxes or love them, you’re either politically correct or a bigot, and, in this instance, you either are pro-immigration or a nativist marauder. Delineations such as these turn debate into a farce and are not reflective of the way people think. With immigration, I have found that everyone I talk to possesses a rather nuanced view—including this writer. I believe we should establish a yearly quota and then enforce the laws. Annually assimilating 500,000 to 1,000,000 new citizens will not be a problem.

Obviously, such a practical view is anathema to the left. They’d call whoever made such a proposal a racist or a fascist which is their standard response to any challenge. These names don’t apply to this discussion, however. It doesn’t matter to me if all the yearly quota hails from Ghana, Burma or wherever. There’s no reason for coercive government action here either. We should shore up the borders as opposed to sending out the FBI to ferret passports from the masses. Barriers are not the stuff of authoritarianism, they simply protect the people. We need politicians who recognize that American preservation is more important than vote accumulation. We have the greatest country on earth—for now. Sharing the land with immigrants is not an option; it’s a foregone conclusion, but we must defend our interests and ensure the future. Let’s move forward together.