“Here are some apples for you to enjoy.”
Variety has an article about the History Channel’s upcoming docu-drama “WWII in HD” — Gary Sinise will narrate, and a solid cast of actors (including Steve Zahn, Amy Smart, Ron Livingston, and LL Cool J) will provide additional voice work. But what I found most interesting was a tidbit about a History project farther down the pipeline:
History will also unveil “The People Speak,” a Matt Damon-spearheaded adaptation of the Howard Zinn book “A People’s History of the United States,” in the fourth quarter of this year.
Rewind to 12 years ago. Damon’s titular character in Good Will Hunting tells Sean (Robin Williams) that A People’s History (first published in 1980) is a book that “will knock you on your ass.” Damon, of course, wrote that script with Ben Affleck, and their Zinn-fatuation goes back to childhood. From IMDb:
As a boy, Matt Damon was Zinn’s neighbor and provided the voice for the CD recording of that book.
I’ll save you several hundred pages of wasted hours and sum up A People’s History for you: white men are dicks. Man, I’m tired of that book getting lauded by faux intellectuals with liberal white guilt. Zinn’s book is a leftist, reactionary piece of garbage. Granted, popular American history texts glossed over our darker moments of racism and injustice for too long, but a one-sided history from the other side is still one-sided. It’s just as incomplete and inaccurate as the works Zinn was fighting against when he wrote it.
And now, because Matt Damon was his neighbor growing up, we get a televised version of it. Blech. Get bent, Damon.
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The funny thing is,I did learn about WWII Japanese-American internment camps as a kid.
Never heard about the internments camps for German- and Italian-Americans though. But they were white people so no need to feel guilty.
Why so angry stilleto? At least try to make an informed, rational, objective opinion for once in your life.
Amazingly enough, Zinn thought that Mao’s china was the closest thing ever to a true peoples government. (the 50 million killed in the cultural revolution don’t count. they weren’t killed by white people so they stay of the scorecard)
And stilleto, imagine someone cut and pasted the entire post without a hint as to who wrote it. Ideas either stand on their own or fail on their own. Attacking the messenger is simply the easiest way of telling people that you aren’t comfortable debating the topic at hand and would much rather seek to discredit the source.
What Zinn wrote was just as biased as the texts he railed against. Being wrong in the opposite direction still makes you wrong. Why is that so hard to understand?
Gimme a fucking break. Todd posts a link to frontpage? For chrissakes it’s written by horowitz. Fuck, I need an air freshener for just writing his neocon, racist name.
Hey blogger who writes about tits and ass, stick to what you know and leave your crybaby white ass opinions in your poorly educated brain cave. We fucked up beaucoop people to build this country. Same story immemorial. Zinn just reminds us. If you can’t handle the truth move to Russia.
For just a starting summary of how unfactual and stupid Zinn’s book really is, try this site:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=17914
Who said FDR? I just vomited blood all over my keyboard, so I know somebody did.
WE did not do ANY Japanese internment camps. That was FDR. Newsmedia don’t mention this because he was a member of their party. This WE business helps the perps get away with murder all the while being given a ticker tape parade and being lauded in our textbooks for being the greatest president!
“Lies My Teacher Told Me” (Loewen) is a much better read..
My kitty’s breath smells like cat food.
Matt Damon is a self important douche.
So, this blogger isn’t qualified to write about Howard Zinn because he’s a blogger. But somehow Matt Damon is qualified because, why, exactly? He’s an actor? I’d take a blogger’s word over an actor’s, any day. At least a blogger has to know how to write. An actor is nothing but an overpaid parrot.
Matt, you need to stick to Mad Men news and odes to episodes of Simpsons past. Posts like this seem to attract the saltiest of the douchebags.
Oh, and I still like Matt Damon. Sorry. Good Will Hunting rocks.
After reading the first 50 or so pages of Zinn, I caught on. So i went to the section on WW2. Because some mid-level bureaucrat referred to economic advantages resulting from the war, the entire U.S. involvement was solely motivated by our greed.
Let’s try Zinn’s technique on another country: harvesting gold would presumably lower the price, reduce the profits of greedy speculators, and thereby minimize income inequality, so Stalin’s decision to stock the Kolyma with laborers stemmed from altrusitic motives.
I award myself the door prize for excessive length and douchiness.
I have a double major in history and political science from Northwestern.
With how much Ufford drinks, I’d be surprised if he can remember what happened two hours ago, let along two hundred years ago.
Oh, and JrW, if you’re still searching for those 60 extra words, “Screw Flanders” is always acceptable as filler.
Everyone knows Northwestern grads blow Harvard grads.
See, you forgot about Vickers.
Take it back, Uff. Be proud of yourself for graduating from the same school as Mike Greenberg!
Amen, Ufford. Matt Damon’s crush on Zinn is pathetic. People who don’t leave Boston, NYC, DC, or SF for most of their lives tend to become institutionalized blowhards. If only they could do the honorable thing, like the librarian with the rat or pigeon from Shawshank.
Applesauce, bitch.
What’s a battle?
My sister gave me that book when I was in high school and she was going through her hippie phase. I never got around to reading it. Too many big words. Looks like I’ll just be rereading Harry Potter again, thank you.
@Matt–no worries on the name drop. You were called out and were justifiably acting in your self-defense. Let he among you who is without Zinn cast the first stone.
P.S. I looked it up; turns out Northwestern is in the midwest and is accredited-ish. Who knew Matt had book-learnin’?
@Matt,
Hist/PoliSci guy who got to blow shit up in the cradle of civilization and now works in whatever manner of undress he pleases. Sounds like a good resumé to me.
People’s History of the United States is the douchebag faux intellectual’s bible. Fuck that book. I worked in a bookstore through high school and college, and every once in a while some douchebag co-worker who just finished his first college class would start talking about how awesome that book was in hushed tones, like it was banned or something. Hey you freshman fuck, there’s a stack of 20 of them on the front fucking table. I know because the massive fucking corporate bookstore I work for made me put them there. But I’m sure that book is really dangerous! Go balance your perspective out jackass and quit being a mental seesaw. There’s some fucking rational middle ground in between nationalist propaganda and socialist propaganda if you can possibly find it somewhere deep in your fetal alcohol syndrome-rattled mind.
Fact: 75% of all people who think that book is good have said book lodged deep within the safety of their own rectums.
By the way, this post will be the counterpoint for the next person who says I have a “liberal agenda.”
Also, I apologize for name-dropping my college. It’s a douchey move, and not even all that impressive of a school.
Fuck lets see some tits. History is filled with naked chicks. Rosario Dawson(Dawsome?) in Alexander for example.
@KP, was it a coloring book? Personally, I prefer my manifest destiny in Paint-by-number format.
It sounds like a lot of people read this book in college. All I read in college were Penthouse letters and The Daily Racing Form.
+1 KP. That made me laugh.
if white people can’t feel guilty about ben affleck, the terrorists are right about us.
Good news for those of us who graduated from state universities — there’s a kid’s version! With pictures! Just look at that injun gettin’ scalped.
The book is one-sided and (I felt) very short-sighted on the contemporary governments involved in Nation/Empire building in the eras covered. Social evolution is not pretty or easy. It was an interesting read, but it is only a small piece of the puzzle.
I find it thoroughly annoying when someone stammers on from one narrow viewpoint and this book seems to bring that out in some people. Back in college, any discussions with junior socialists or communists always came back to this book for why America was evil.
Uff lays waste to the purveyors of white guilt. Matt Damon is still a fag though.
A People’s History looked at specific injustices without giving the reader any proper context or sense of scale.
It’s really little more than a poorly organized list of grievances against America from an American who lives comfortably, in a nice suburb outside of Boston.
It’s always nicer to be a socialist in a capitalist country (ok- quasi-capitalist country) than actually being in a socialist country.
If he doesn’t like it, he could geeeet out!
It’s a history-off!
“It seems to me that it is the author of this blog who is being reactionary to his own white guilt.”
Uff’s white?
Perhaps the writer of this blog is entitled to his own opinion, JrW.
On a side note, I’m white and I have absolutely zero guilt about anything at all, ever. Is that wrong?
@El Barto: That’s a little harsh – Genghis Khan might have slaughtered thousands upon thousands of people, but he also had lots and lots of love to give. Some might even say his greatest crime was loving too much.
I like apples.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it might seem like garbage to a guy who writes a celebrity blog
For what it’s worth, I have a double major in history and political science from Northwestern. And I happen to not be alone in the argument that history texts are supposed to accurately reflect all sides of a story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_United_States#Critical_reception
But what do you know? You’re just someone who would comment on a “celebrity blog.” I’m surprised you had time to read the book with all the time you spend making reductive, simplistic arguments.
Ugh. Howard Zinn is such a POS. We aren’t perfect, but has any other nation had the kind of economic and military dominance the US has and used it so benevolently? What would the Soviets or Chinese do in our position? The Romans and the Mongols under Genghis Khan were the last societies to have that kind of dominance, and they were total pricks.
I was going to get all self-righteous and make some sort of Howard Zinn defense post. But, I don’t really give a shit.
Props to Zinn for at least trying to publish alternate perspectives of American History. Props to Ufford for shooting at brown people. Seriously, I don’t trust ‘em! My little brother lives with a Sikh and I keep trying to get DHS to carry them away!
Ufford word count: 219. JrW word count: 160
@JrW: Just sixty more words and you could start your own blog.
It didn’t take long for the faux intellectual with liberal white guilt to chime in, did it?
In Matt’s defense he also writes a sports blog. As far as text books glossing over our history I remember reading about slavery, the treatment of native Americans, and Japanese interment camps when I was in school. There have been dark moments in our history, but I think we are still the greatest country on Earth. Also, how does slavery and interment camps want to make Muslims want to fly planes into our buildings?
AmHisFlaWa!
I could have sworn two wrongs did make a right.
Does this mean I shouldn’t have burnt down the bar that fired my favorite bartender?
You blew Conan O’Brien??
This post couldn’t be more off the mark. That book is a masterpiece. It seems to me that it is the author of this blog who is being reactionary to his own white guilt. It may seem one sided, but the other side has been written plenty and can be read in any high school textbook. This text is meant to fill the gaps that are left by the mainstream Western version of history. This book is written to show the readers how our national history is are perceived by the rest of the world, which may also have something in part to do with why there are those that feel justified in flying planes into our buildings. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that it might seem like garbage to a guy who writes a celebrity blog, and frankly I am amazed that he had time to read the book with all the time he spends blowing Conan O’Brien.
To all white people — It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault … it’s not your fault.
Matt Damon. Member of FAG. And I dont mean that Film Actors Guild.
The only reason I knew about Japanese Internment Camps was because my dad and gramps told me about them; I sure didn’t learn about them in school. So that’s a valid point; that we ignore or even deny our own atrocities.
At the same time, fuck them bad driving mofos.*
*the views of all commenters are solely the opinion of Mr. Ufford.