Fred Nickols advises that the commencement address by Howard Zinn at
http://www.tomdispatch.com/indexprint.mhtml?pid=2728
is "...well worth the read."
Which prompts me to ask:
1. While celebrating that "ordinary people organized and took risks and
challenged the system and would not give up" which occurred not only in the
South but also more recently when the Guardian Angels helped clean up
neighborhoods in NYC and elsewhere, what is gained by labeling as
"vigilantes" those ordinary people who organized and took risks and
challenged the system to suppress illegal immigration across the border with
Mexico? Further, what is gained by labeling all those who are attempting
to cross as "Mexicans" when many, perhaps the majority are not citizens of
Mexico? Or is 'Mexicans' used not as a nationality designator but as a
racist term? Finally, where is the evidence for the assertion, "...ready to
kill anyone who crosses a boundary."
2. And, while celebrating the effort to stop involvement in SE Asia which
killed 500,000 people, why not mention that those enabled by the cessation
then proceeded to murder 6,000,000 people? Sounds like nationalism myopia
to me.
3. In an era where the largest failure mechanism in management continues to
be 'dishonesty' (Schutz, UCLA) why should MED participants be impressed by
semiotic chicanery (aka' forked tongue rhetoric)?
Now that Rather has earned his comeuppance, perhaps the media can use Zinn.
Seems he would fit right in.
ps. "Constructive Criticism is an Oxymoron" is a false syllogism. Criticism
isn't anything but an assertion. Criticism 'becomes' constructive,
destructive or ineffective depending solely on how the receiver processes
it.
cheers,