Oliver Stone (was:Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies)

[malignd at aol.com]

So your number is two?



-----Original Message-----
From: Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com>
To: malignd <malignd at aol.com>
Cc: Pynchon Liste <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, Jan 16, 2013 6:50 am
Subject: Re: Oliver Stone (was:Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies)


I'm just being honest and forthright.  Let's throw innocence to the side for the moment, as it is a practically meaningless, and ask if you would be willing to ensure the death of two people holding your child hostage in order to ensure the safety of your child?  Where is your moral compass now?  



Yours truly,
٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
Henry Musikar, CISSP
http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20



On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 5:31 PM,  <malignd at aol.com> wrote:

"Some number"?  What might that "some" be?  Tens of thousands in order to save your nephew?  Do you have a moral compass?



-----Original Message-----
From: Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com>
To: Pynchon Liste <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, Jan 15, 2013 1:09 pm
Subject: Re: Oliver Stone (was:Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies)



In an us vs. them world, x should not be the number of lives saved or lost by an act, but how many more of their lives are "we" ready to terminate in order lower, or end, "our" losses.  It may sound harsh, but I'm comfortable with some number of innocent people dying (as long as I don't know them or see them die) in order to save the life of someone in my family; fewer people to save a bff; still fewer people to save someone I grew up with; even fewer to save someone I don't know at all but with whom I share something more than being human. 


Yours truly,
٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
Henry Musikar, CISSP
http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20



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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