If we're looking at book sales, all three of the ones you listed are far greater snake oil salesmen than Zinn ever was.

I grew in the south, deep in the heart of stupid redneck country. Smack dab in the middle of 1980's racism, sexism, and homophobia. The public education in my town and the surrounding areas was appalling, and the people who lived there were utterly ignorant of the world outside of Saturday football, Sunday church, and year round violent hatred of anything that challenged their paradigm. Never were the consequences of a poor education more apparent than in that s-hole of a town.

What IS education, then? A broad understanding of the world and how it works.... about the plurality of our country and beyond. An appreciation for the different ways in which different people *get on with it*. An array of subjects ranging from foreign languages to math to history to art to science. Most importantly, a real education instills a knowledge about curiosity in the student, and gives them the tools to analytically take in evidence, and then formulate their own opinions about things based on this evidence and critical thinking skills.

Well, thanks for keeping it civil, at least.....

Wilson and FDR were Democrats, not Progressives. And as far as modern-day sedition acts go, I have two words for you: Patriot Act.

I suppose it's a subjective term. In my opinion, success is making a contribution that leaves the world in a better state than you found it in. Smarter people tend to make better ethical choices (yeah, yeah... broad over-generalization), hence the importance of education in the whole process.

If it's all about free speech, then let's remember that the parties who have sought to restrain it over the years have been: The Federalists, The Democrats, The Republicans. If anything, the voices who have been legally silenced throughout the years have been: The Progressives, The Socialists, The Communists. Court records and Sedition laws don't lie.

Ah Turtler, I thank you for such an erudite response. Anything that makes me dig through my books in order to respond with something other than an off-the-cuff response is a good thing. Cheers. Of primary concern here was my contention about the necessity of using the atomic bomb, so that's where I'd like to begin my response. Whatever viewpoint you or I might have in retrospect is less important than what our leaders were thinking in 1945, so let's listen to their own words regarding the subject of using the bomb against Japan:

Dwight Eisenhower: "...in [July] 1945... Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ...the Secretary, upon giving me the news of the successful bomb test in New Mexico, and of the plan for using it, asked for my reaction, apparently expecting a vigorous assent. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'."

Admiral William Leahy (Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman) "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children."

Herbert Hoover: "I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we would have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria."

Norman Cousins (consultant to General MacArthur during the American occupation of Japan). "MacArthur's views about the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were starkly different from what the general public supposed. When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted. What, I asked, would his advice have been? He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor."

These are the heavyweights who were involved AT THE TIME, and their candid words clearly show that they felt that these actions were considered politically unnecessary, and furthermore, that the use of the bomb was morally abhorrent. Zinn's opinions aside, I think that the words from the aforementioned who were actually involved in the process bear some serious consideration.

I'll get to your other points as I have time today.

We're dealing with malleable terms here. It's just as arguable that "conservatism" in America is about military-controlled totalitarianism, which is what the Bush administration was angling for, and which runs in direct contradiction to the kind of conservatism espoused by people like Buckley and Will, etc. My interpretation of "progressive" is contained precisely in the tenets that I described above... nothing more. I don't seek an overthrow of the capitalist system and production ownership by the state. I'd like to to see more regulation of the industries that have bilked the American public dry over the last few decades, sure, but ultimately, the primary M.O. should be that we, the PEOPLE should actually have some power in the political process. If this last week tells us anything, it's that our corporations are not firmly re-entrenched in this process and now have unlimited power in the process that should belong to us.

How about Cheney. He said those words exactly on several occasions.

Oh god.... Kazin? Pro-Iraq war Kazin? He is just as biased as Zinn. But I'll spare you the ad hominem attack. In his article, he doesn't actually state that Zinn is lying.... merely that he disagrees with the whole "radical" paradigm that Zinn is trying to promote. There's a difference. That people get their panties in a bunch about Zinn only reflects just how tightly dissent is controlled in the world of academia. Is the left to be allowed no voice whatsoever in this discussion? We can have as many idiots like Beck and Limbaugh and Coulter, but the second someone espouses an ideological viewpoint from the left, they are clearly out of touch?