Just a note on Oliver Stone. It's too bad Howard Zinn wasn't around for the consulting gig. He tells the story in much simpler terms. Below is a brief thirty minute talk on three holy wars that were not: the revolutionary war, the civil war, and WWII.
^^^^^ CB: As Herbert Aptheker put it , the US Civil War abolished a major form of private property ( in slaves), so it was a revolutionary war, i.e. the working stiffs won that one. I don't know if Zinn means revolutionary by "holy". The South started the war, so Lincoln and the Union did not assume the only way to fix slavery was by war. Lincoln's position was that slavery could not expand to new territories. ^^^^^^^
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=XUBYI97cUgU&feature=endscreen
The fat cats win, the working stiff loses and lots of people die most often because we the people don't have the imagination to figure out a better way. The central mistake is to be opposed to some development like British rule, slavery or fascism, and then assume the only way to fix it is war.
CG