The critical flaw with this is that Zinn's book was published in 1980, and even those who claim that all of our ills can be traced back to the 1960's can't make this timeline work. The progressives, however, have been manipulating the historical record in a major way since 1913. Preceding Zinn's book by 67 years, Charles Beard practically admits to his scheme with the title of his most well known work An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. "An economic interpretation" is in actuality a re-interpretation - the first of its kind for Americans - under the sole basis that money rules all. A People's History, it can be truthfully stated, is nothing more than the offspring of a much earlier progenitor.
Early in its pages (page 90) A People's History embraces its heritage, quoting directly from the economic re-interpretation. On page 13 of An Economic Interpretation,(as quoted in People's) Beard wrote the following:
Inasmuch as the primary object of a government, beyond the mere repression of physical violence, is the making of the rules which determine the property relations of members of society, the dominant classes whose rights are thus to be determined must perforce obtain from the government such rules as are consonant with the larger interests necessary to the continuance of their economic processes, or they must themselves control the organs of government.
Progressives just cannot handle the concept that government's job is to protect our liberties. It just can't be that, because in the progressive view all rights come from government anyways. It all has to be about money, right, this is a capitalist society, after all. Such flaws in the progressive reasoning. Such profound, staggering flaws.
Reading the introductory pages of Beard's work is very illuminating, as is the rest of the work, because while the arguments we face today have reached their maturity you can see those very same arguments in a more juvenile form right there on his pages.
The most interesting part of Beard's book is that as he introduces three theories of history, his being the third, he can't even give it a name. It's that new. Today we would know it under the name of Critical Theory, but back then it was something..... something, anything we can get onto paper, anything we can grow with, make progress with. Something that can be a brand new beacon with which to remake the very historical record itself. Taken in full, Zinn's book is quite insignificant by comparison.
The progressives knew: We can't make progress until the American people forget about the founding - and the people can't forget it until we force them to forget it. This won't be forgotten, it must be maliciously erased.
And starting with Beard, they did just that. What makes it so devious is the patient and surreptitious nature of how they set out - and achieved their purpose. The most dangerous aspect of progressivism is their patience. They make plans that outlive their human lifespans.
