In 2005 Howard Zinn lectured at MIT on the subject of American Exceptionalism. Zinn, the author of A Peoples History of the United States, was squarely focused on the role of government, US Government, and the people working in it for their roles in founding and fostering inequality in the world that it is expanding into. The story of the divined manifest destiny tradition, an exceptional disregard for the basic rights of people, and it’s imperialistic legacy is undoubtedly lopsided historically in terms of any cultural righteousness. Zinn develops this point thoroughly. His continued emphasis, and reference to, the government and government agents as being the decision makers of unilateral national policy misses the mark. Presidents, ambassadors, and government representatives are announcing policy; not making it. The more he talked the more it seemed like the real drivers of imperialistic expansion were being given greater and greater cover. Presidents and national statesmen are puppets. They are puppets of corporate boards. It is the corporate entities of finance, medicine, and military that are devising and driving the agenda. How he doesn’t mention this is a wonder.
There is no question that Howard Zinn and many other historians are well aware of private corporations influence on the evolution of society, human history, and Earth’s overall state. By not including it in the discussion maintains the context corruption of our collective story that has us continuously coping with an intense collective identity crisis in which ideas of ANY exceptionalism can have seriously strong dis-unification leverage on us. It was discouraging to hear a guy with some real counter culture authority drop the ball. MIT with all the prestige, Howard Zinn with all the due respect he has, and a lecture recorded for posterity in the historical echo era of 911 have reinforced the cover for the world’s imperialistic corporate structure. Thanks dude.
Without throwing the baby out with the bath water, we’ll just have to take what we need, and leave the rest. Suffice it to say that any description of world affairs, evolution, and human condition that leaves out the albatross of corporate pressure is big time incomplete. Exceptionalism’s antidote is equality, and an egalitarian reality is cooperative not corporative. Hijacked governments are the political agencies that buffer the policy drivers of division and domination. We’ve all been reared to revere our societal legacies, and it won’t be easy to challenge them. Talks like Zinn’s at MIT in 2005 can be effective at making that challenge, but it won’t happen by going halfway. Uncloaking society’s technocratic plutocrats rather than pulling another cloak over them is the idea here. History, over time, doesn’t ignore, deny, or dispute the presence of corporate “would be” lords. Why should we? Why should Zinn? Who knows? At least it got the ball rolling on this affirmation. Another bit of coverup bites the dust. The barrier that the corporate fortress of coverup works to maintain, just got a little bit weaker.