Oliver Stone

[Paul Mackin]

On 1/15/2013 9:29 AM, rich wrote:
> there's plenty enough legitimate exposes to go around without the
> moronic Oliver Stone getting involved. what sort've moral blindness
> does it take to praise Joseph Stalin. wtf
>
> Dropping the A bomb--not an easy issue to say yea or nay--it's been
> debated again and again. think you have to consider the mood at the
> time--two bloody battles on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. am i glad we dropped
> it. no. who would be. but real life is complicated. and yeah, it
> would've been my dad and uncles on the front line if the war was
> extended. has japan ever questioned officially its many war crimes in
> China and southeast asia? no. maybe stone mentioned it. but he was
> never interested in nuance.

Thanks, Rich, for something that needed saying.

P

>
> rich
>
> On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 4:53 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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 ;-)]?
>>
>>
>> --
>> www.innergroovemusic.com