the waxman report (as linked under eclippings on the right) is required reading - at least the exec summary and the (somewhat curt and limp) conclusion. invaluable the research that has been done for us by the 'third party' demonstration of the range of misrepresentation or straight lying by the bushies.

article on zinn below is a fucking travesty. "this is history as straight cynicism" says the reviewer, challenging zinn's approach that rather than "add one or two bricks" to the edifice of history attempts to "dynamite the lot". there's nothing more offensive than the original of course. the conventional interpretation is of course beyond respectable criticism and anything else is, a priori, a polemic. zinn's book is certainly not a polemic, i can report having read it. it is a bold thesis, and recognises itself as an attempt to change the focus point of history from elites to peoples - not as the last word but as significant in this change of focus.

that the standard account of history is a legitimating fairy tale should be obvious to all but the most naive observers - and of course our friend does not systematically consider any particular event from the conventional and zinn's standpoint. take say the american revolution. some wealthy landowners seek to rid themselves of the constraints of british rule and so go about manufacturing support for a bourgeoise revolution to further their interests. compare to the standard account about washington's love of freedom (rather than his love for the territory west of the appalachian mountains that George II had claimed for the crown) suddenly spilling over into a desire for revolutionary emancipation and the spontaneous overthow of the tyrant with peace and liberty for all. no mention in this account of the fact that the land was not empty (how did those 25m native americans, circa 1700, become 4m by 2000? magic? weak genes perhaps... impotence cause by continous exposure to ultra virility of aryan invaders? select the muder concealing myth of your choice - by the way washington did introduce biological warfare to the world by giving natives blankets from the smallpox factory and thus became the first war criminal to lead the US, but not the last of course).

well, take a look and judge for yourself. look at the wealth distribution and see whether things were improved by the revolution and if so for whom. black slaves? women? rich businessmen? cynical account?

if you want the straight answer, if you need convincing, consider this - in a functioning democracy, why would the majority of the people support a distribution of income, goods and services, that disadvantaged the majority. these inequalities would, if they existed at all, need to be demonstrably in the interests of the least advantaged - or else why vote for them? how would it be possibly to have 45m americans without health insurance and yet have a top 1% of earners with the same wealth as the bottom 50%? the answer is it takes a lot of time, effort and resources to legitimate all this. mens minds need to be trained to accept the 'reality' of such arrangements, even, perhaps amongst the intellectual/social managers that such arrangements are 'fair'.

the role that history plays in providing a legitimating fable of benign leaders is not questioned or even discussed and so zinn's work in essence remains uncriticised.