If you get a chance, take a peek at the Oliver Stone presentation of American History on Showtime...

[WCGreen]

A lot of stuff is covered that we don't always get a chance to hear about.

It's good stuff, I know, because I have caught comments on the right dismissing the history as packaged by Stone.

So if you can, it's Showtime and it can be watched on demand.

[get the red out]

1. It's wonderful!

I've been watching it as much as I can. I really like it. It's hard to dismiss direct quotes from historical figures and actual written documentation, I don't care who "packaged it". I think a lot of what makes this presentation interesting is all the information that always existed but has been pushed to the side in favor of an extremely one sided account through the years. At the time people heard the interviews and read the articles, but what we get now is a boiled down "ra-ra USA" version like everything else.

I remember the first time I ever encountered any information that questioned any American motives at all, that was during a Freshman history class in college. It was so against everything I had ever been presented to ever question anything our country ever did that I almost freaked out and had to call my Dad that night. I'll just say I've matured a lot in my thinking since 1983 (thankfully), but I think a lot of the country has slid even farther backward into unquestionable American exceptionalism.

[Selatius]

2. Was it A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn published in 1980??? nt

[get the red out]

6. I don't recall

That was a long time ago and I've damaged a few brain cells along the way.

[HiPointDem]

3. I put up a similar post & was told Stone is an untrustworthy historian by multiple posters.

Maybe you will have better luck.

I don't have showtime. If you wouldn't mind mentioning some of the topics he's covering?

[Le Taz Hot]

4. How timely.

I just checked out "The Untold History of the United States" by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick from the library yesterday along with Doris Kearns Goodwins' "Team of Rivals" upon which the movie "Lincoln" is based. I started with the latter (GREAT read, btw) and as soon as I'm finished I'll dig into the Stone book.

[kooljerk666]

5. So far I have seen 2............

Roosevelt, Truman & Wallace and The Bomb.

I have learned a lot about the extension of WW2 for months in order to use the Bomb & try to bully the Russians.

How we started the cold war & so far spent over one trillion dollars on bombs & delivery systems ($$$$ estimate from FAS but Truman was a big mouth lying punk).

The best was how Hiroshima & Nagasaki had no bearing on the end of WWII.

BTW this was the first I had heard of Wallace, If He had been VP when Roosevelt died we could have avoided the cold war, Korean War. Vietnam War, the cold war, & women & minority's would have been treated nicer 20-40 years ahead of time.

I talked with my parents about this & they are 85&84 yo & all I got was "Wallace was a COMMUNIST"! and about dragging WW2 out & starting the cold war, Then the shit just started flying. They had a hard time looking at America as a delinquent gangsta.

[Selatius]

7. The propaganda was deafening even in the days of Franklin Roosevelt.

Anyone of that generation can remember the tempo of pro-US propaganda blaring over the radio and movie screens of that era. We were the good guys; they were the bad guys. Few, in that time, were able to put a mirror up to America's face and show the real colors.

If the US had lost the war, many of our leaders would've been put to death for similar war crimes such as the camps for Japanese people, intentional firebombing of entire cities which is an intentional targeting of civilians, etc. It would've been one thing if the US had used a nuke on a fleet of Japanese war ships or a Japanese infantry division, but nope, it used it on a whole city, two of them.

[kooljerk666]

8. I liked the casualty counts...........

150,000 dead, 250 soldiers & 20 POWS, now that is some effective bombing.


Truman amping up the #s of dead from an planned invasion of Japan HAH!

First it was thousand and as time went by it went to millions. In the the 1958 Truman interview he really came off like a jerk.

I think I got my good ideas/memories from brainwashing central & the Chicago Song "Harry Truman" which I have not heard in 25 years.


Other than some desegregation in the Armed Forces, did he do anything worthwhile?

Oh looking for the song check out this response on youtube

DougFunny32 must be watching the series:

fuck this shitty band, not because they suck, but because they actually think harry truman was a good leader. Truman could've ended the war before all the lives he took. and people support him.. smh

DougFunny32 2 days ago

Well other than the Truman ref, it ain't a bad song.....

[Springslips]

9. Sounds too much like they ripped off the Beatles.

Sounds like something off Sgt. Pepper.

[kooljerk666]

10. It reminded me of Randy Neuman..........

[Blue_In_AK]

14. First I knew about Wallace, too,

And I'm kind of pissed off about it considering that I'm 66 years old and should have been taught this recent history at some point or other. I was always under the impression that Truman was a good man who had to make a difficult decision about using the bombs, but after seeing episodes 2 and 3 my opinion has changed.

[kooljerk666]

16. Well I am 51 & I never heard a thing till this week.................

What is really eating at me is the fact all the weapons & wars since WWII were not necessary.

Ths SAC, TAC, ADF, NUke subs, cobalt bombs, multi MEGA ton H-bombs, all a scam & waste.

Early Cold War Measures

Events came to the rescue when the Communists took over
the Czechoslovakian government early in 1948. Lieutenant
General Lucius Clay, military governor of the U.S. Zone in
Germany, helped to create a war scare by sending a telegram
warning that war between the United States and the Soviet
Union might occur "with dramatic suddenness. n In March Presi-
dent Truman called for a supplemental defense appropriation
of more than $3 billion (1948 dollars), which Congress quickly
passed.[3] Hoping to gain a rally-'round-the-flag response
from the citizenry while seeking reelection, Truman gave a
major speech that stressed the danger of war with the Soviets;
he denounced their "ruthless action" and their "clear design"
to dominate Europe.[4]

With these events, the cold war had definitely begun.
Congress approved defense appropriations for fiscal year
1949 about 20 percent higher than those for fiscal year
1948.[5] The Berlin crisis that began in mid-1948, the forma-
tion of NATO in 1949, and the outbreak of the Korean War in
1950 ensured that the superpower rivalry and confrontation
we know as the cold war--a state of permanent national emer-
gency and military readiness--would remain thereafter the
dominant fact of life in U.S. foreign and defense affairs.

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dludden/USmilitarybudget02a.htm

The cold war was an election scam for Truman, I am beginning to see why the Democratic Party was also considered the war party.

[Mr Dixon]

11. Agreed

I have been watching it, has part 3 come-out on yet?

[WCGreen]

12. It's on Demand already so I gather it would be in Showtimes cable

schedule.

[Blue_In_AK]

13. I love this series.

[Archae]

15. Oliver Stone(d) wouldn't know actual history if it fell on his head.

All anyone has to do is watch his movie "JFK."

There were two facts in "JFK."

Kennedy was shot and killed.
Jim Garrison put Clay Shaw on trial, and Shaw was acquitted.

The rest of the movie is pure bullshit.

Likewise, this series is bullshit.
WW2 was dragged out so we could nuke Japan?

It was the JAPANESE military that dragged it out, with their insistence on fighting to the death!

Oliver Stone can make good fictional movies.

But docu-dramas and documentaries? He's a total fucking failure.

[WCGreen]

17. This isn't a movie like JFK was....

This series takes a deeper look at the history of the US from WWII till now.

It's all sourced and presented not as an alternative but more layered.

For instance, the Doc goes way into why things turned out so differently after FDR passed away. Truman was on the outside looking in and had no real idea of what FDR wanted and so turned to the right wing of the party and we ended up stumbling into the cold war.

There was no real military need to drop the bomb in fact most of the generals at the top did not want to drop it. Truman felt it would halt Soviet expansion.

It's a nuanced presentation.