Today’s wave of reality docu-series seems to be finding plenty of compelling stories in occupations that you’ll probably never see in a TV drama. Most of these careers don’t require an expensive college education, but they may ask you to risk a lot more than a few brain cells at a kegger.

If you’re wondering what to do for a living, or know someone who is, they might find inspiration in some of the shows below, which represent just a slice of the ways Americans pay the bills.

“Gold Rush” – Season two of this Discovery Channel show premieres Oct. 28 (it was called “Gold Rush: Alaska” in season one), again following the Oregon father-and-son team of Jack and Todd Hoffman as they take a second swing at gold mining in Alaska. They reassemble in season two, adding to their team of down-on-their-luck and/or adventurous miners for a return to remote Porcupine Creek. Once there, they’ll see if they can realize their American dream of pulling wealth out of the ground with muscle, determination and a lot of heavy equipment. I’ve seen a couple of episodes, and it’s not an easy ride for the Hoffmans, but to strike big, one has to take big risks, and they do.

“American Guns” – The Wyatts of Colorado are the focus of this Discovery series which premiered Oct. 10. Rich Wyatt and wife Rene own Gunsmoke, a family-run firearms facility just outside of Denver, where they buy, sell and trade all manner of guns. And if they don’t carry just what you want, their gunsmiths can make it for you. They also test-fire everything that goes out their doors. (more…)

Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the opening hostilities of the Civil War, the History Channel is offering up a bevy of programming which kicked off Sunday with the two-hour documentary Gettysburg. Executive produced by brothers Ridely and Tony Scott, it offers a very personal account of the war taken from the perspective of the “boots on the ground” so to speak who fought (and died) during those terrible first three days in July 1863.  As an unapologetic Civil War “buff” I was looking forward to this episode.  I was especially psyched as the Gettysburg campaign is my focus of study and I’ve walked  the battlefield many times.  I was not disappointed with the Scotts’ program…and yet I was at the same time.

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First of all, about the show itself:  Gettysburg takes us through the three-day battle starting us at around 9:00am on July 1, 1863 and then focuses on several key moments throughout the see-saw fighting that would ravage the town and the surrounding countryside, leaving 55,000 casualties in its wake.  It follows several men on the front lines, from foot soldiers to generals.  Some live, some die.  Each has a story to tell and we see the raw terror mixed with unimaginable bravery that such battles summoned.  It also shows the ghastly wounds that were a horrible consequence of modern weapons meeting outdated line tactics of the day. The program is also quite effective at showing this to be a savage affair (including a graphic depiction of a Union soldier splitting a rebel’s skull with his rifle butt that had me cringing.)  If Gettysburg’s purpose was, as the History Channel’s website announces, to “strip away the romanticized veneer of the Civil War to present the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg in a new light—a visceral, terrifying and deeply personal experience” then it does the job.

There were, however, disappointments that I really didn’t expect.  First is the heavy reliance on re-enactors despite the liberating aspect of modern CGI.  (Perhaps budgetary constraints were in play here).  Re-enactors are great for replaying tiny segments of the battle, and the consultants must have paid particular attention to the grime and filth, even the tattered uniforms, so prevalent among un-bathed Civil War soldiers in the field.  But like the Turner feature film of the same name almost two decades earlier, the numerical limits of available play-actors means that these depictions are hopelessly under-populated.  According to the June 30 rolls, a combined 185,000 soldiers (105,000 Union, 80,000 Confederate) were in the area.  This means that massive infantry formations and rows of artillery lined hub-to-hub were engaged.  For example, the Confederate line of battle that assaulted the Union position on Herr’s Ridge at the very beginning of the still-developing fight was almost a mile wide.  (And that was just two brigades.  Three to five brigades made up a Confederate division, three divisions a corps, three corps made up the Army of Northern Virginia).  Indeed, Gettysburg was one of the few open field battles where entire mass formations were in plain view at once creating what one Alabama soldier described as “a grand panorama with the sounds of conflict added.”

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Because we see so many left leaning, despisers of America in Hollywood and other celebrity hot-spots, it’s refreshing to come across a celebrity who loves this country the way most Americans do. Someone who actually gets a bit emotional when he talks about our armed forces and the price they pay to keep us free. Someone who spends his time far away from the esoteric glitz and glamour so many successful celebrities crave, choosing instead to rub elbows with the salt-of-the-earth folks who make this country work.

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I’m talking about Larry the Cable Guy, and particularly the way he uses his newest show, “Only in America,” to highlight how the ingenuity and courage of everyday Americans has been (and remains) the backbone of this nation.

To put it plainly, Larry the Cable Guy is gitting-r-done when it comes to highlighting the greatness of the United States of America. And he’s doing it in truck stops, small towns, mom and pop diners, and by storming beaches with our Marines at Camp Pendleton.  (As I alluded to in my first paragraph, it’s safe to say Larry isn’t running into Susan Sarandon or Oliver Stone at any of these stops.)

“Only in America” is 100% pro-America. In each episode Larry the Cable Guy shows up next to someone who’s been doing something great but gone unnoticed for it. He then makes sure they get noticed and along the way reminds Americans of how fortunate we are to be here, even now.

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Late last week, Emmy award-winning producer Joel Surnow (co-creator of “24″) was gracious enough to give me a sizable chunk of his time for a broad-ranging interview that touched on everything from the current controversy surrounding the History Channel’s decision to dump the ”The Kennedys” to Hollywood’s overall treatment of all things conservative to something I’ve always found interesting, how “24″ made right-wingers fall in love with President David Palmer, a Democrat. 

We start with “The Kennedys.”

For those of you new to planet Earth, Surnow’s the Executive Producer of “The Kennedys,” a $30 million, eight-part miniseries that just completed a successful cable run on the Reelz Channel. It starred Hollywood heavyweights Greg Kinnear, Barry Pepper, Tom Wilkinson, and Katie Holmes and was originally set to air on the History Channel, until a last minute decision was made by the parent company’s board (Hearst, ABC Disney, NBC Universal) that the series didn’t meet History Channel’s standards.

No one bought that excuse for a second because at the center of this political storm sat Surnow, one of the rare, openly conservative players in Hollywood. From day one, the leftist knives were out and the narrative created that a conservative producer was determined to produce a hit-job against liberal Camelot. As early as last year, a left-wing documentary filmmaker launched a direct attack on the series that garnered a lot of attention and likely led to some of the the surviving members of the Kennedy family to successfully pressure History’s board to dump a completed project. 

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The Hollywood Reporter delivers an absolutely terrific and in-depth look at some of the maddening behind-the-scenes nonsense that ended, quite incredibly, with the History Channel’s cancellation of a $30 million miniseries, a move that likely cost its parent company, A&E Television Networks (and its owners Disney, NBCUniversal), millions already invested in production and marketing costs. This from the same network that broadcast a two-hour love letter to Howard Zinn. But it’s obvious the powers-that-be chose to lose a bundle in order to stay in the good graces of the Kennedy family (and therefore Hollywood) in the same way Disney appeases the Clintons by refusing to rerun or release on DVD “The Path to 9/11.”

In the middle of this political storm sat ”24″ producer Joel Surnow, whose only sin is his open conservatism and who obviously did everything he was asked of by every historian thrown his way in order to meet The Howard Zinn Channel’s lofty historical standards. In return, the goal posts were moved time and again until the inevitable came true. Here are some snips, but you’ll want to read the whole thing:

“They were down to specific words,” Surnow says. Producers, for instance, had wanted Jack Kennedy to go to Hyannis Port, Mass., before his father had a stroke, but the historians nixed that. “We had a magnifying glass over every line.”

Surnow reaches across the table, opens a computer and reveals an e-mail dated May 25 from Gillon to him, Koch and McKillop: “I have approved the latest version of episode one for historical accuracy. Congratulations.” Surnow has similar e-mails for all the other episodes.

But the fight wasn’t over. Even after shooting the miniseries in Toronto from June through September 2010, producers felt additional pressure over historical accuracy. After the project was canceled, The New York Times, citing anonymous sources, wrote that when History historians viewed the edited version of the miniseries, they complained that it still contained several scenes of questionable factuality, including depictions of the family’s sex lives.

“That’s not true,” Surnow responds. “The historians went through and asked us a couple questions, just crossing-every-t, dotting-every-i stuff, but they were just notes. Nothing of any historical substance.”

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“Kennedys” producer Joel Surnow talked to Entertainment Weekly:

EW: Didn’t historians vet the miniseries?

Surnow: “History has in-house historian Steve Gillan, who was there from the beginning and he vetted the script at every step at the way. After he was done, they brought in another historian named Robert Dallek who was highly respected and who has written books on the Kennedys. Historical accuracy is not the issue here. It has nothing to do with why this miniseries got canceled. Every script was approved. Every cut was approved. There was never any conversation like `we have a problem with this or that, let’s change it.’ This simply had to do with things other than what was said in the press release. In terms of trying to follow the story of historical accuracy, that’s not where this story lives. This story is about why a miniseries got canceled because of the political bent of some of the people involved. Or in this case one person’s involvement.

“If anyone has known my work for the last 25, 30 years, I’m not agenda-ized, I’m not even a political writer. I’m an agnostic filmmaker, I’m an agnostic writer. I go where the story is. It really felt like discrimination to me at the end of the day. I have no problem with the Kennedys. The Kennedys are absolutely in their right to want to protect their family as they see fit. It’s when the people who are inside our business, the ones making decisions who bend to that and cave to that, even when there is nothing valid about the objections being leveled against us, you have to start thinking about discrimination and censorship.”

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Hollywood elites and members of the upper echelon of political life have long been fascinated by the comings and goings of the Kennedy family.  In what is nothing less than an obsession, America’s “Camelot” has been a chink in the armor of many who take part in human rights’ campaigns and demand that rich people spread their wealth around, all the while remaining completely consumed with a family that demonstrated little respect for the rights of women and modeled the benefits of accumulating wealth and power.

On the other hand, Hollywood elites and members of the upper echelon of political life have long been embarrassed by President Ronald Reagan. Far from giving America another “Camelot,” he was born into a relatively poor family, and while children like those in the Kennedy family were learning which utensil to use for the various courses of their meals, a young Reagan was learning to go out into the snow and literally drag his drunk father into the house to keep him from freezing to death on a winter night.

The contrast between the Kennedy’s and Reagan was as great as that between upper white collar and lower blue collar: between a Fortune 500 executive and a brick layer. And with choices like that, elites threw their allegiance to the family (and experience) they’d most like to duplicate.

This was recently brought to mind with a vengeance when the History Channel refused to air an eight-part miniseries on the Kennedy’s, because it cast them in a bad light, but didn’t hesitate to air a special on Reagan that undercut his economic achievements as president. (To be fair, no History Channel representative said the series cast the Kennedy’s in a bad light, but that they pulled it from their lineup because of “pressure from the Kennedy’s over its depiction of the political family.”)

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Never forget that the same History Channel responsible for dumping the $30 million dollar miniseries “The Kennedys” due to “accuracy concerns,” is and was behind an all-out effort to mainstream Howard Zinn, one of the most dishonest, anti-American historians in what is a long line of them. Using celebrities like Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and the usual Hollywood suspects, the History Channel aided and abetted a glowing, much-publicized two-hour special around the old liar not long before he passed on to receive whatever reward he had coming.

Our contributors did a marvelous job documenting Zinn’s profane legacy and now, thanks to Josh Brolin, we’re reminded that we’ve arrived at the one-year anniversary of Zinn’s death:

By: Josh Brolin
February 2, 2011

It was a year this past January 27th that my friend, Howard Zinn, passed away in Santa Monica, California. …

The impact that Howard Zinn has had on the world of fair, conscientious people is profound, and the impact that he had as a friend will be forever felt by me and by all those that knew him with the deepest, most visceral tickle imaginable. He was mischievous, fun, childlike, and an appreciator of all things beautiful. My wife was so smitten with him and he knew, in that classy old-school way, how to sustain it. We had spoken about women and how we both felt that they are, ultimately, the keepers of all things good. He was a smart man, a gentle man, and a gentleman.

To admit: I still speak with him at times when I am alone. He brings that kind of solace. It’s not exclusive to crisis, no – it’s as a friend, as someone I could always have a laugh with, and as someone who could inspire with the simplest glance. He understood that to bring a smile to someone’s face was as important to our well being as was protesting the myriad issues that Howard did. His motive, how it resonated in me, was simply to carve a more loving life for our children and those to follow.

You are so missed dear Howard, but your smiles will always live on.

On background, someone told me Brolin’s original draft was written in longhand and that all the i’s were dotted with little hearts.

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Though based on a screenplay approved by their parent company A&E Television Networks (AETN), on January 7th the History Channel buckled to the demands of the Kennedy family and unceremoniously pulled the rug out from under the completed $30 million miniseries “The Kennedys.” Today, after weeks of what was likely a bruising scramble to outrun the tentacles of the Kennedys, in an exclusive, the Hollywood Reporter tells us the mini will air in eight parts on the ReelzChannel starting April 3rd. The channel is currently available in 60 million homes across the country and a big advertising blitz is planned to get the word out.

I’m not someone who believes in the magic of controversy to automatically drive people to watch something they normally wouldn’t, but there’s always been public interest in the Kennedy family and at the very least this uproar has upped the profile of the mini. You also have this built-in interest backed by respected talent with successful track records. “24″ co-creator Joel Surnow is the Executive Producer and there’s a number of high-profile, critically acclaimed actors in lead roles, including Greg Kinnear as President Kennedy, Barry Pepper as Bobby and Tom Wilkinson as Joe Sr. Furthermore, some real good can come out this and not just for the miniseries.

The Kennedys | Movie Trailer | Review

The four-year old independent ReelzChannel now has an opportunity with a product they normally wouldn’t have been considered for, to break out and and make a name and brand for themselves. The more entertainment outlets not owned by politically-connected multi-nationals (AETN is owned by NBC-Universal, Disney, etc.), the better it is for our democracy. This is also an opportunity for 60 million people to see the mini. That might be a smaller pool than the History Channel has, but it’s more than double the number of HBO subscribers, a network that passed on the project.

The other good to come out of this is that now we know for certain that the The History Channel really isn’t The History Channel. The same network that said “The Kennedys” didn’t meet their standards is is the same network that attempted to mainstream that degenerate anti-American liar of a historian we call Howard Zinn. No institution with any kind of accuracy standards would do such a thing and so now we know they are The Left-Wing History Channel. (more…)

Howard Zinn wants teachers to bring in whatever materials they want to your child’s class room. He wants them to use their own judgement to teach whatever they think is appropriate. He wants them to subvert the rules regarding the approved curriculum at the school you are paying for. Of course, if Zinn’s advice is followed, there is nothing keeping a teacher from bringing materials related to Holocaust denial, or 9/11 conspiracies or creationism into the class room, as well. Unless Zinn is recommending only HIS enlightened view of history should be secretly brought into the classroom.

There are some very important people in our country who have aligned themselves with Zinn. With his philosophy. With his view of history. With his view of the United States. And, with his strategy for getting his message into the public schools outside of the legal construct of School Boards and State Departments of Education.

They made a film of his book.  They walked the red carpet and they posed with the man they admired.  He was the inspiration for their film and they spoke of him glowingly, almost like he was a hero.  They began their film with him striding out alone onto a stage in a theatre full of admirers.  It was his way of taking a curtain call (a standing ovation, by the way) before the show even began. (more…)

This is America and leftist filmmaker Robert Greenwald and his ilk have every right to wage a propaganda war to pressure the History Channel to kill their upcoming JFK miniseries. The miniseries’ script might not be done yet, but that’s how we roll in this country and until Senator Harry Reid steps in and threatens to put the History Channel out of business, like he did ABC in order to muscle a “Path to 9/11″ edit to his and the Clintons’ liking, Greenwald and Co. can all knock themselves out. And knocking themselves out they are: a website, petition, videos, and an all-too expected personal attack against “24″ co-creator Joel Surnow, an openly conservative producer and creator of  “The Kennedys.”

The New York Times reports that Greenwald appears to have gotten his hands on an early draft of the script for the 10-hour miniseries and found parts of it objectionable. According to a video Greenwald put together — where he has bad actors recreate the “offensive” scenes — JFK was some kind of serial adulterer. Who knew, right? Then there’s longtime Kennedy friend and counsel Ted Sorenson who appears in the video with a not very subtle threat to sue the History Channel should they proceed. He claims the screenplay contains Oval Office conversations that never happened. Who do you think is more worried about Sorenson winning a lawsuit against dramatic license? Surnow or Oliver Stone?

The most important fact in this dust up is that it’s occurring over a project that’s still in the development stage. The script is still being written and will be vetted: (more…)

“[Howard Zinn] was a treasure and an inspiration. That he was considered radical says way more about this society than it does about him.” -  Bob Herbert 

Public school children are innocent victims of a radical “guerrilla warfare” being waged by the late professor Howard Zinn’s Zinn Education Project (ZEP), Rethinking Schools Magazine, and Teaching for Change. 

These anti-establishment educators’ mission includes curriculum-subversion in order to radically transform schools into centers of social justice wherein  students are trained to become global citizen change agents. 

Perpetuating Zinn’s revolutionary mission, his surviving business partners proclaimed: 

Howard Zinn, in honor of the marvelous victory of your life, we will act in defiance of all that is bad around us and attempt to spin the world towards justice. 

With the national spotlight on History Channel’s “The People Speak” and its ZEP curriculum — parents, teachers, school boards and administrators should beware of the celebrity-opiate being dealt to their schoolchildren by way of Zinn-doctrination.  (more…)

You can see the possibility that small acts multiplied by the millions can merge into great movements of social change. — So speaketh Howard Zinn in summing up the theme of last night’s two hour History Channel telecast of “The People Speak.” But like all Leftists, Zinn’s using a t-shirt ready face, focus group-tested platitudes, and cherry-picked bits of American history to further a monstrous ideology that will ensure all but a few Matt Damon-esque elites lose their liberties to Big Government overseers.

If you think about it, taken at face value, that Zinn quote personifies the Tea Party movement, doesn’t it? But what do you think Zinn and his fellow celebucrats think of those everyday people? That question can be answered in two words: Sarah and Palin:

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A large portion of “The People Speak” celebrates “everyday” women who came from nowhere to fight the establishment and have their voices heard … and yet here’s Matt Damon trashing the self-made reformer from Alaska who took on her own party.

It’s important to keep in mind that in Zinn’s poseur-infested world, some who believe democracy is not a spectator sport are more equal than others. (more…)

Below is Big Hollywood’s “People Speak” LiveBlog, brought to you by ScribbleLive.com.  Head over there and set up a user profile and picture.  All are welcome to participate, contributors and readers alike.

Also check out Stage Right’s “People Speak” podcast special on Blog Talk Radio.

East Coast and West Coast threads after the jump. (more…)

In a classic episode of the Sopranos, Tony tries to excite his two children about their Italian-American ancestry and the upcoming Columbus Day parade.  Tony’s son A.J., eager to show up his fuddy-duddy dad, invokes Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States as proof that Christopher Columbus was bad.  “My teacher told us that.  It must be true,” he says.  “You finally read a book,” Tony fires back, “and it’s all [baloney].”  Only he didn’t say “baloney.”

What Tony Soprano knows the History Channel doesn’t.   Howard Zinn isn’t a great historian.  He’s not even a good one.

How, then, to explain his widespread popularity, and the History Channel’s willingness this weekend to give Zinn an even larger megaphone?  After having visited scores of K-12 schools and working with thousands of history and social studies teachers in national civic education programs, one of which I direct for Hillsdale College, I have concluded that Zinn is popular because he tells a great story.  The only problem is that his story is not true.  This inconvenience has not stopped school administrators from commending Zinn to their teachers.

Several years ago, in a meeting of the Ann Arbor public school system, home to Michigan’s largest high school, the superintendent, distressed at his district’s lack of progress in closing the racial “achievement gap,” held up a copy of A People’s History.  “Have you heard of Howard Zinn?” he asked the throng of thousands of district teachers and employees, gathered for a large “in-service” assembly.  In fact, they had, and many teachers already taught from the text the administrator prescribed as the cure for what ailed the district. Instead of helping, many teachers told me, the book had contributed to the malady, for Zinn’s basic message is one of division, not unity. (more…)

“Even World War II is cast as a false model for American military domination.”

Los Angeles Times:

“Class division is a drumbeat throughout “The People Speak,” which is a primer of liberal ideology with a decided bent toward socialism; no one’s reading a few rousing passages of Ayn Rand’s, for instance. The letters and journals and speeches selected cover the American timeline, from the abolitionists through AIDS activists, but the theme of personal and political enfranchisement, tolerance, peace and American humility is the consistent theme. Equal rights, protection of workers, protection of children, even rent control are celebrated while concepts such as patriotism — the last refuge of scoundrels, according to pacifist and anarchist Emma Goldman — and national security are portrayed as the whip and cattle prod used by the power elite. Even World War II is cast as a false model for American military domination.”

At the UCLA event, producer Chris Moore said something about “The People Speak” being “two hours of anti-WWII programming.” (more…)

“Objectivity is impossible,” self-styled “peoples’ historian” Howard Zinn once remarked, “and it is also undesirable. That is, if it were possible it would be undesirable, because if you have any kind of a social aim, if you think history should serve society in some way; should serve the progress of the human race; should serve justice in some way, then it requires that you make your selection on the basis of what you think will advance causes of humanity.”

History serving “a social aim,” rather than chronicling the past in a detached manner, is what readers get in A People’s History of the United States. With any luck, “The People Speak,” the History Channel documentary based on the book that premieres this Sunday, will be, like so many Hollywood productions, unfaithful to the original. Given A People’s History of the United States’ infidelity to facts, this might be the only chance viewers have of seeing anything resembling an accurate retelling of history.

Through Zinn’s looking-glass, Maoist China, site of history’s bloodiest state-sponsored killings, transforms into “the closest thing, in the long history of that ancient country, to a people’s government, independent of outside control.” The authoritarian Nicaraguan Sandinistas were “welcomed” by their own people, while the opposition Contras, who backed the candidate that triumphed when free elections were finally held, were a “terrorist group” that “seemed to have no popular support inside Nicaragua.” Admitting some human rights abuses, Zinn writes that Castro’s Cuba “had no bloody record of suppression.”

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The History Channel is “making history” by airing “The People Speak,” a film based on the book by historian – and Marxist – Howard Zinn. More on Zinn in a minute.

A number of actors who wish to be more than just pretty faces are behind this effort, including Wallace Shawn (“Inconceivable!“), Colin Firth and Marisa Tomei, all who serve on “The People Speak’s” board of advisers. Those enlightened thespians who are more active in bringing this project to life are:

Howard Zinn, Josh Brolin, Chris Moore and Matt Damon

Matt Damon: Serving  as producer, Damon is no stranger to political theatrics. An extremely vocal critic of former President George W. Bush and the Iraq war, he said that it’s “not fair that we have a fighting class in our country that’s comprised of people who have to go for…financial reasons” and suggested that the Bush twins should be shipped off to war because their daddy started it. Should we bring back the draft? Then actors like Damon, with cushy jobs and big salaries, could help out the poor suckers who have no choice. He also “let out a cheer” when Kanye West claimed that George Bush hates black people.

He proudly declared his support for John Kerry in 2004, and his stature as an actor means he knows more about running the country than some chick who “was the mayor of a really, really small town” and was “governor of Alaska for less than two years.” Surely Damon knows more than Sarah Palin. After all, he dropped out of Harvard, but then played a closet genius in his first big film (co-written by Ben Affleck) “Good Will Hunting.” Surprise, his “Good Will Hunting” character was a fan of Zinn’s book. (more…)

Children are uniquely malleable beings, readily convinced of magically colorful tales – Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are the first that come to mind. This innocence is beautiful, but it is a quality that can easily fall victim to radically foreign ideas if taught consistently and pervasively at an early age. One need only look at the birth of fascism or socialism to see a recipe for how radical ideas become ubiquitous among a nation’s youth.

Enter Howard Zinn – an author, professor and American historian – who, with the help of Hollywood and the History Channel, intends to change the way our pre-K through high school children learn American history. His current curriculum suggestions, like introducing three-year-olds to the lynching of African-Americans, or quizzing seven-year-olds on which Presidents owned slaves, should be a red flag to parents.

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. (more…)