America’s Blinders By Howard Zinn April 2006 Issue Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled? … It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived. One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior. ….If we don’t know that history, then any President can stand up to the battery of microphones, declare that we must go to war, and we will have no basis for challenging him. He will say that the nation is in danger, that democracy and liberty are at stake, and that we must therefore send ships and planes to destroy our new enemy, and we will have no reason to disbelieve him. … We would remind whoever we can that President Polk lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico in 1846. It wasn’t that Mexico “shed American blood upon the American soil,” but that Polk, and the slave-owning aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico. We would point out that President McKinley lied in 1898 about the reason for invading Cuba, saying we wanted to liberate the Cubans from Spanish control, but the truth is that we really wanted Spain out of Cuba so that the island could be open to United Fruit and other American corporations. He also lied about the reasons for our war in the Philippines, claiming we only wanted to “civilize” the Filipinos, while the real reason was to own a valuable piece of real estate in the far Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that. President Woodrow Wilson—so often characterized in our history books as an “idealist”—lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to “make the world safe for democracy,” when it was really a war to make the world safe for the Western imperial powers. Harry Truman lied when he said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima because it was “a military target.” Everyone lied about Vietnam—Kennedy about the extent of our involvement, Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon about the secret bombing of Cambodia, all of them claiming it was to keep South Vietnam free of communism, but really wanting to keep South Vietnam as an American outpost at the edge of the Asian continent. Reagan lied about the invasion of Grenada, claiming falsely that it was a threat to the United States. The elder Bush lied about the invasion of Panama, leading to the death of thousands of ordinary citizens in that country. And he lied again about the reason for attacking Iraq in 1991—hardly to defend the integrity of Kuwait (can one imagine Bush heartstricken over Iraq’s taking of Kuwait?), rather to assert U.S. power in the oil-rich Middle East. Given the overwhelming record of lies told to justify wars, how could anyone listening to the younger Bush believe him as he laid out the reasons for invading Iraq? Would we not instinctively rebel against the sacrifice of lives for oil? … We have been led to believe that, from the beginning, as our Founding Fathers put it in the Preamble to the Constitution, it was “we the people” who established the new government after the Revolution. When the eminent historian Charles Beard suggested, a hundred years ago, that the Constitution represented not the working people, not the slaves, but the slaveholders, the merchants, the bondholders, he became the object of an indignant editorial in The New York Times. Our culture demands, in its very language, that we accept a commonality of interest binding all of us to one another. We mustn’t talk about classes. Only Marxists do that, although James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” said, thirty years before Marx was born that there was an inevitable conflict in society between those who had property and those who did not. Our present leaders are not so candid. They bombard us with phrases like “national interest,” “national security,” and “national defense” as if all of these concepts applied equally to all of us, colored or white, rich or poor, as if General Motors and Halliburton have the same interests as the rest of us, as if George Bush has the same interest as the young man or woman he sends to war. …. The deeply ingrained belief—no, not from birth but from the educational system and from our culture in general—that the United States is an especially virtuous nation makes us especially vulnerable to government deception. It starts early, in the first grade, when we are compelled to “pledge allegiance” (before we even know what that means), forced to proclaim that we are a nation with “liberty and justice for all.” … If your starting point for evaluating the world around you is the firm belief that this nation is somehow endowed by Providence with unique qualities that make it morally superior to every other nation on Earth, then you are not likely to question the President when he says we are sending our troops here or there, or bombing this or that, in order to spread our values—democracy, liberty, and let’s not forget free enterprise—to some God-forsaken (literally) place in the world. It becomes necessary then, if we are going to protect ourselves and our fellow citizens against policies that will be disastrous not only for other people but for Americans too, that we face some facts that disturb the idea of a uniquely virtuous nation. These facts are embarrassing, but must be faced if we are to be honest. We must face our long history of ethnic cleansing, in which millions of Indians were driven off their land by means of massacres and forced evacuations. And our long history, still not behind us, of slavery, segregation, and racism. We must face our record of imperial conquest, in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, our shameful wars against small countries a tenth our size: Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq. And the lingering memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is not a history of which we can be proud. Our leaders have taken it for granted, and planted that belief in the minds of many people, that we are entitled, because of our moral superiority, to dominate the world. … What is the idea of our moral superiority based on? Surely not on our behavior toward people in other parts of the world. Is it based on how well people in the United States live? The World Health Organization in 2000 ranked countries in terms of overall health performance, and the United States was thirty-seventh on the list, though it spends more per capita for health care than any other nation. One of five children in this, the richest country in the world, is born in poverty. There are more than forty countries that have better records on infant mortality. Cuba does better. And there is a sure sign of sickness in society when we lead the world in the number of people in prison—more than two million. A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world. It might also inspire us to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars and killers who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join the rest of the human race in the common cause of peace and justice. Howard Zinn is the co-author, with Anthony Arnove, of “Voices of a People’s History of the United States.” http://www.progressive.org/mag_zinn0406
IMO, people who still support this war are either too stubborn or proud to admit their mistake or financially benefitting from this war.. edit change dumb to stubborn or proud
I disagree on the "dumb" conclusion. I think most people are smart enough, but too afraid to personally admit a mistake of this magnitude to themselves, especially when people they at least disagree with and in some case downright hate were on the right side of the question. In other words, there are quite a few people who have used the Bush Administration/War as a critical piece of their personality and to admit that they were either blinded by emotion, hoodwinked by politicos, or driven to be the opposite of someone else is tough and would necessitate a rezstructuring of their personal ideals. My Mom is this way. Deep down she knows this thing has screwed our country greatly, but can't quite admit it. Because of this, I've quit talking to her (yes we have discussions, not arguments) about it because as long as she is forced to defend it, she will. If she doesn't have to defend it, I suspect she will come around eventually.
I heartily agree with the conclusion, but the article is filled with gross misrepresentations about the motives of former presidents that enable them to fit nicely in a modern perspective on history, and even the ones that can be considered "accurate" fall on the most cynical and sinister extreme of the spectrum of motives attributed by historian. For someone whose thesis is that understanding history is important, the author is remarkably caviler in his interpretation of past events.
you're right.. I was actually gonna say stubborn or proud but dumb got in there.. I think was gonna say another reason why people who still support the war is that they're plain dumb but I realized that its not true.. coz the people who has changed their minds are most likely smart..
People who get their news exclusively from Faux News may be thinking that the Iraq War is going better than expected (and people like Howard Zinn should be tried and convicted for treason). Of course, if Bill Clinton pull this sh*t as President, Howard Zinn would be The Voice of God.
Could you provide a link, especially if those elipses represent parts you have edited out. The article takes an extremely pacifistic stance, decrying our involvement even in WWI and Afghanistan and our execution of WWII. I disagree with quite a few of his points, to say the least.
I have several relatives who are long-time Reagan Republicans, and certainly intelligent. Every one of them, with the exception of my brother-in-law, has done a 180 on Bush and his policies, and not just the war. It's rather remarkable to me, as I've been having conversations with them since the early '80's about politics, why they became Republicans, and the differences between the 2 parties. My brother-in-law fits the stereotype of refusing to find any flaw with the President, the Administration, his policies, and so on. None. Nada. I guess it's a bit like your Mom, although "the man none of us want married to my sister, and it has nothing to do with his politics" is no doubt less intelligent. It gets pretty frustrating. If he's around, politics never comes up in conversation. It's not worth it. Keep D&D Civil.
http://www.progressive.org/mag_zinn0406 Sorry I screwed up on the link. Howard Zinn was a bomber pilot in WW II. I'm not so sure he disagreed with WW II.
nowhere in that article did he disagrfee with wwii.. he only disagreed with the bombing of hiroshima..
Thanks for the link. Mr. Zinn seems to have a dim view of America indeed. He views us through the prism of racism, slavery, hatred, and genocide. There is no mention of our contributions to the world: medicine, computers, the Internet, and countless other things. If you consider every other country to have a value of zero and only look at the negative aspects of this one, you are bound to feel as he expresses, that there is no basis for nationalistic feelings. I would say that since its creation, the US has done more good for the world than any other nation. Oh, and I didn't say he disagreed with WWII, only with its execution, ie nuking Japan. Dropping the bomb on Japan may or may not have cost more lives than it saved in the long run. I am of the opinion that it prevented a future war against the Soviets which would have been far more costly.
I read People's History of the United States when I heard it mentioned on Goodwill Hunting. It remains one of my favorite books, even though I do not agree with all of Zinn's views.
I see Zinn as a counterbalance to other historians. He emphasizes our dark side, while most historians tread very lightly. I suspect that you have a disdain for those other historians as well? I think it is human nature to remember our accomplishments while not our disappointments. This may also apply more to the US than other countries. Case in point, think of our obsession with gold medals at Olympics. We can compile a list of great American athletes who medaled at the Olympics but did not get the gold.. Their faces are not on boxes of Wheaties. They do not get to ride on Disney World floats. etc.
I felt the same way about the article too. It brings up some good points, especially the lack of historical perspective which is something that really bothers me. At the sametime though he plays fast and loose with history too only choosing very narrow and cynical interpretatirons. I also thought his rant on health care seemed rambling and distracting from his main points. It seemed like it was a tangent tacked on at the end.
Chalabi, and the other shia high officals who hold power now wrere and still are Iranian Spies. they were trained by the iranians on how to dupe the Americans into attacking iraq. on one hand, the mullahs got rid of there biggest nemises and on the other, they are sending there special forces into iraq to creat a mess. the IED bombs which are tearing american tanks into pieces are iranian made. the mollahs of irn killed 2 birds with one stone.
