Oliver Stone (was:Pauper and Sweatshop Fallacies)

[Tofuman]

Just to add a few words as a Korean, I'm sure the atom bombs saved
countless Korean lives who would have been killed in the continuing war
effort of Japan. The irony is that the liberation of Korea led to the
Korean War, in which hundreds of thousands were killed. I guess the lesson
is the history is a fickle son of bitch and even if you don't fuck up,
somebody will get fucked.

(and even if it's true that Stalin stopped Hitler, he certainly caused
great damage to Korea)


On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 6:40 AM, <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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