HALESTORM

Quite possibly the greatest podcast ever!! Listening to it = time not wasted.

Listened to an interview with a professor who “debunks” Zinn. I will admit off the bat that I am a big Zinn fan.. I plead guilty to that. But, her comments are almost comical. For example, she talks about Columbus’ “good intentions” as if she has firsthand knowledge of his intentions (as opposed to despicable behavior towards the Indians). She says a dozen or more times that Zinn was a member of the Communist party as if that is somehow proof that his perspective on history is not valid. Zinn admits in his book and a million times in interviews that he absolutely is biased and is emphasizing (or not emphasizing) people, places or events. That doesn’t make the topics he emphasizes and the points he makes invalid. Neither does being a Communist.. she doesn’t seem to refute his points. In discussing his “life”, she doesn’t mention that he was a soldier in WW2, but emphasizes that he was a womanizer. Being a womanizer does not make him inaccurate. Nor does being in a car with a student when he taught at Spelman constitute proof of having a “me too” problem. She makes the claim that his reason for teaching at Spelman was to “foment” discord.. what is the proof of that claim? The interviewer makes a gratuitous (and stupid) comment that when Clinton was POTUS, he was despicable in personal behavior but that the left only makes Trump guilty of despicable behavior. There is some truth to this to the extent that both the left and right engage in hypocrisy, but I must ask him whether he gives Trump a pass for his behavior as opposed to maybe not being as forgiving of Clinton for his behavior. Maybe he is an equal opportunity critic of both, but something tells me hypocrisy knows no ideology. Overall, it was not a well spent 40 minutes or so. I went in open minded and came away with no proof that Zinn misstated fundamentally the facts of American history that he admittedly chose to emphasize.

After what seemed to be a promising start, things went downhill quickly. Shapiro and Barron are speaking levels above Hale’s comments. Hale does a good job pointing out the things he is unhappy with, but truly fails to respond with rational and thought out responses. Sounds like more emotive rants and polemic finger pointing than coherent and logical refutation and argumentation. Would be a much better podcast if Hale would do some research before his comments.