Oliver Stone (was:Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies)

[Keith Davis]

Thanks for this well-balanced critique of this interesting show.


On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 4:40 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> Alice said:
>
> [insert your choice here, but please no Howard Zinn or Oliver
> Stone ;-)]?
>
>
> Oh, Alice, Alice, you brought it upon yourself!  I was looking for some
> gratuitous opening to bring up Oliver Stone's new series:The Untold History
> of the United States, and you supplied it.  Now before you start beating on
> me, I'll say that it's a pretty flawed documentary.  One device he uses
> that's both dishonest and annoying is to have actors recite quotes from
> various personages, making it seem as if we're listening to a historic
> oration, rather than a reenacted reading of someone else's written or
> spoken words.  He's weak on attributing sources, uses way too much
> Hollywood footage to make rhetorical points (as opposed to using it to show
> the mentality of the particular time), and gets over-zealous in praising
> various personages (as various as Henry Wallace and Stalin), to the point
> where the so-called documentary devolves to overt propaganda of Fox-level
> intensity.  The worst part of this is that, in doing so, he drives away
> mainstream viewers who could actually be enlightened by some of the things
> he has to say.
>
> But he still makes some good points, and asks questions that are rarely if
> ever asked on such a mainstream venue as Showtime.  In last week's episode,
> by way of discussing Bushes senior and junior, he brought up the shameful
> history of Prescott Bush and other American industrialists who supported
> the Nazi regime (something that we discuss all the time here, by way of GR).
>
> I particularly liked the episode that covered Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
> wherein he tackled the standard orthodoxy:  By dropping the bomb, we saved
> x number of lives.  This passionately defended point has been the endless
> fodder for Thanksgiving dinner fights with in-laws, etc., with countless
> (always male)defenders shrieking variations of (naively confident that no
> one will make the obvious, hostile rejoinder): "Hey my [father,
> grandfather] was stationed in the Pacific.  If we hadn't dropped the bomb
> [incinerated small children], he would have had to invade Japan, and I
> would never have been born!"
>
> The Stone episode brings up some convincing evidence that Japan, afraid of
> an impending invasion by the Soviet army, was ready to capitulate, but
> Truman stalled any negotiations, and convinced the Soviets not to invade,
> so the "tests" could be run.  Stone also provides a nice montage showing
> how the variable x in "we saved x number of lives" increased steadily over
> time.  I suspect there are plenty on this list who are devoted to the
> bomb-saved-lives orthodoxy.  I'm glad Stone questions it, if only on
> subscriber cable TV.
>
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> >Sent: Jan 14, 2013 5:49 AM
> >To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> >Subject: Re: Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies
> >
> >Why would I deny it? Why would anyone who knows a bit of history, who
> >reads the newspapers, who has read One Hundred Years of Solitude,
> >M&D...any decent narrative about colonialism, orientalism, a but of
> >Said or [insert your choice here, but please no Howard Zinn or Oliver
> >Stone ;-)]?
>
>


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