THIS IS AWFUL - AT 7:49 P.M. ET:  The History Channel, which began well, has, in recent years, become something of a joke.  I don't know what shows like "Ice Road Truckers" have to do with history, but apparently History Channel does.  Nor do I understand how some JFK assassination conspiracy theories have made it onto THC in the form of programs presented as straight history. 

But nothing that the channel has done equals the sheer bias, corruption, and incompetence behind a new History Channel program based on the work of "historian" Howard Zinn, the radical Marxist of Boston University.  Big Hollywood reports:

Zinn has spent a lifetime teaching college students about the evils of capitalism, the promise of Marxism, and his version of American history – a history that has, in his view, been kept from students. His controversial 1980-book The People’s History of the United States paints traditional American history as a façade – one that has grotesquely immortalized flawed leaders and is based on principles that victimize the common man. In 2004, Zinn wrote a companion book entitled Voices Of A People’s History Of The United States, which includes speeches and writings from many of the people featured in The People’s History.

These two books have now become the basis for a new documentary, entitled The People Speak, to be aired December 13th at 8pm on the History Channel. The trailer portrays the documentary as a collage of compelling one-person readings, told through the words of “ordinary” people who have struggled throughout American history against oppression. Produced by Zinn, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Chris Moore, the documentary appears to be cloaked, ironically (given Zinn’s admitted socialist agenda), in many of the traditional ideas that were behind our founding. The verdict is still out on the doc, but it is not for the books that inspired the film as well as the educational initiative associated with it.

What is frightening is that the program marks the launch of an educational campaign aimed at bringing Zinn's Communist teachings into American classrooms, down to the elementary-school level.  The clownish Hollywood actors involved in the production probably think they're performing a public service.  They don't realize that, if Zinn's preferred political system were ever adopted here, their artistic freedom would be out the window in a minute.

Please read the story.  Initiatives like this are being started around the country.  This one, because of the stars involved, gets a blast on the History Channel, which once had something to do with history.

December 10, 2009