>> ^gorgonheap:
It amazes me how people interpret U.S. history as either being rife with darkness and deceit and scandal or noble and virtuous. The world is made up of imperfect people. Some are evil or selfish in their intentions or choices. Others take great responsibility and pride in their achievements. If you don't like your country, do something about it now. Don't try an warp history to better suit your ideals.

oh, come on, if you're gonna accuse anyone of warping history, blame your government and the media sock puppets. Zinn's not trying to be black&white, these are simply the facts that you and so many others choose to ignore, facts that will never be televised or found in school books because they are inconvenient and not very amusing either (except when briefly mentioned in some comedy talk show, accompanied by a live audience laughing their passive ignorant asses off).

>> ^jwray:
>> ^gorgonheap:
It amazes me how people interpret U.S. history as either being rife with darkness and deceit and scandal or noble and virtuous. The world is made up of imperfect people. Some are evil or selfish in their intentions or choices. Others take great responsibility and pride in their achievements. If you don't like your country, do something about it now. Don't try an warp history to better suit your ideals.

You just get a false impression of that black-and-white thinking when you hear people talk about one topic , and it's a particularly dark topic. The USA's invasion of lands inhabited by people who didn't want to join the USA, is not pretty.


Your right about the not pretty part. Supplying chemical weapons to Saddam, encouraging his war with Iran, continual funding of violent coups... But there are also things like WW2 and North/South Korea that aren't pretty either, but reflect well on America.

The parent poster was correct about distorting history and black/white thinking. Even the particular topic of American foreign policy is only black/white through biased glasses distorting the true shades of gray.

>> ^gorgonheap:
It amazes me how people interpret U.S. history as either being rife with darkness and deceit and scandal or noble and virtuous. The world is made up of imperfect people. Some are evil or selfish in their intentions or choices. Others take great responsibility and pride in their achievements. If you don't like your country, do something about it now. Don't try an warp history to better suit your ideals.


You just get a false impression of that black-and-white thinking when you hear people talk about *one topic*, and it's a particularly dark topic. The USA's invasion of lands inhabited by people who didn't want to join the USA, is not pretty.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Viggo Mortensen, Howard Zinn' to 'Viggo Mortensen, Howard Zinn, ww2, united states, korea, vietnam, iraq, empire, invasion' - edited by Eklek

>> ^Jordass:


I don't know how old you are nor where you grew up, but Zinn was one of the first to denounce the bad history taught in U.S. schools. So you own him at least a part of that. Also, fustigating the bad southern slave owners is a favorite past-time of everyone who don't want to look deeper into the causes and motives of the slave trade and the much more serious segregation problems the U.S.A. still faces (not to mention that in the South, many don't even talk about slavery as a problem!). When you emphasize a problem so much that you don't look at the other side's point of view, it's usually because you want to hide something: that the solution to that problem brought new as yet unresolved problems of its own, problems that you don't want to confront. What you're saying then is, "We were bad, but now we're good!". Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

Ah yes, Howard Zinn, pretentious ultra-left wing socialist theorist first and fact-free "historian" second.

For the same 'lessons' Zinn preaches, watch:

http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Communist-Manifesto-as-Told-by-Cartoons

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

http://www.videosift.com/video/A-Peoples-History-of-American-Empire-by-Howard-Zinn#comment-371726

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Here we go:
http://www.videosift.com/video/A-Peoples-History-of-American-Empire-by-Howard-Zinn-2

>> ^Fedquip:
What would you like to discuss Dag?

Oh, that was because my discuss invocation didn't seem to work. There's a potential bug that's being looked into.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this matter.

I don't want to speak out of turn here, but I think dag has made his position on this crystal clear on more than one occasion.

The question remains, though, what happens to the vid? I don't see how we can fairly let it stay.

In reply to this comment by henryholt:
Hi everyone,

I apologize for submitting my own link, I honestly did not read the rules carefully enough when I registered. I take complete blame for this, and it won't happen again.

Thank you very much for responding - apology humbly accepted. Basically, we have to be vigilante about potential spammers, etc.

With that said, I believe this system may be flawed, what is going to stop someone from creating a new account here, or another video sharing site, with different usernames?

You'd be surprised how many have tried that and failed. It's usually quite obvious for one reason or another.

Again, please accept my apologies. I'm looking forward to becoming a part of this community, and promise to read your rules more carefully.

We don't really have too many hard and fast rules here. If in doubt, always feel free to ask. We're a pretty friendly bunch for the most part.

Welcome to the sift! I hope my comments didn't put you off - looking forward to other great submissions and comments from you.

>> ^Fedquip:
Here we go pulling the video, after it had done really well, really quickly. Just so we can hear him "explain himself"

It's not about any specific explanation, but a way to make sure it wasn't a drive-by and to ensure the potential new user is actually interested enough in the site to take the time to read the FAQ, which in this case, he apparently is.

Basically we're starting another one of our famous siftquisitions

oh come on - this is nothing like a siftquisition. You of all people should realize that. And maybe you hadn't noticed, I tend to be against those as well.

I will put my money on him not explaining himself and simply moving onto "more friendly" video sharing pastures. (who do I owe...)

I'm happy to see that you lost that bet.

Did this submission ruin the quality of the Videosift environment? (Imperialists don't answer)

The content doesn't, but the precedent of allowing a self-link does. It would not only be unfair to existing users who have plenty of great vids of their own they would like to share, but creates an unworkable response system to future self links. Where do we draw the line? What's the criterion for allowing self links? A vid that gets 10 votes? 20? makes it to top 15 in a day? submitted by a friend you asked to join? Or is it simply an ad hoc solution. I guarantee ad hoc would piss off a lot more people.

Could we not have just given the first time error producer a Private Warning and move on. Naturally, for the ban birds out there we can consider a banning if he is caught a 2nd time.

Except in many cases there won't be a second time, because some new users have no interest in sticking around. So should we just let drive-bys float onto the front page out of an eagerness to attract new users?

Do you really want to hear what he has to say?

Yes I am very much interested in what he has to say, again, because it let's us all know he's an interested user, someone who will be a benefit to the community.

Or are you just aching to ban.

Did my comments here suggest that I was? Don't you think I would've invoked it right from the start if that was the case? I didn't even send it for discussion in my first response, hoping that henryholt would reply to that alone. Once it made it to the front page, though, I saw that as a really bad precedent to set.

how many potential members have we lost simply because theyre opening act was a self link.

I'm willing to bet very few, unless you want to include spammers and drive-bys. In most cases where it was an honest mistake, the user comes back. Hell, we even have a user who is quite proud of that fact.

We have to handle these wisely on a case by case basis.

Do we not? A ban was not even invoked on this post. Instead, it was discussed in a fairly mature manner, and the outcome is pretty much exactly what we want, right?

Problems again getting a vid discussed in sift talk. The commonality seems to be both had already been published. Bug perhaps?

>> ^my15minutes:
...this is so not the comment i wanted to have to leave, after watching this.


Then edit it. The voting sifters apparently enjoyed the post enough to overlook the technicality.

I honestly believe that Howard Zinn is one of the few historians who actually has a grip on reality, both past, present, and future.

/does a drive-by SMACK!to his favorite canook.
nice post my man.
ron paul called it "soft fascism".
i agree.
when a government starts to disobey it's own laws and creates laws giving themselves immunity.
when a government has the media as its lapdog and can control the message.
when a government politically controls the judicial branch of justice,and USES it to marginalize political opponents and dissenters.
when a government uses a fearful time to demote civil rights to mere suggestions,all in the name of "national security".
well then....i would say that,while not being a full-fledged "fascist nation",we are heading down a dangerous path with not much path left to change course.
someone here posted the importance of the internet.
i could not agree more.this is the last vestige of free debate and must be protected with fervor.
for those who do not see america's slip towards despotism/fascism.i recommend howard zinn's books.a great historian who does not wear rose colored glases when it comes to american history and foreign policy.another great book is "blowback" by chalmers johnson,former US foreign policy advisor.
till next time..peace.
Enoch.