Stone Teaches Us History - Oi

People get ready. He's baaacckkk! Stone is out to shed new light on two infamous historical figures.

"Stalin has a complete other story," Stone said. "Not to paint him as a hero, but to tell a more factual representation. He fought the German war machine more than any single person. We can't judge people as only 'bad' or 'good.' Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and its been used cheaply. He's the product of a series of actions. It's cause and effect ... People in America don't know the connection between WWI and WWII ... I've been able to walk in Stalin's shoes and Hitler's shoes to understand their point of view. We're going to educate our minds and liberalize them and broaden them. We want to move beyond opinions ... Go into the funding of the Nazi party. How many American corporations were involved, from GM through IBM. Hitler is just a man who could have easily been assassinated."

Here's thing, most intelligent people and historians already know the circumstances leading to Hitler's rise. We understand the context that linked WWI and WWII. We know the Europeans were bent on making Germany pay and the United States asked for more lenient punishment thus contributing to Germany's depraved economic state making them vulnerable for a sociopathic demagogue to seize power.

It's, moreover, pretty much a known fact Stalin ironically helped defeat the Nazi's and that Russia paid the highest price (although much of it could have been averted had they been more strategically sound) in terms of body counts. And so on.

In other words, all that is being claimed by Oliver Stone is already discounted in most historical accounts and opinions worth its salt.

It still doesn't detract from the fact that Hitler and Stalin were murderous (and paranoid) assholes. You can put people in a 'bad' or 'good' category. I consider that nonsensical post-modern, revisionist idiocy to think along these lines.

As to empathy, a historian's job, to me anyway, is not to be empathetic. It's to objectively examine the facts and to paint a fresco with them. History is very much like a puzzle. If you're empathetic, you've compromised your objectivity. Selon moi of course.

"He's not saying we're going to come out with a more positive view of Hitler," emphasized professor Peter Kuznick, the lead writer on the project. "But we're going to describe him as a historical phenomenon and not just somebody who appeared out of nowhere."

Like I mentioned, to the educated (even the mildly educated), I don't think people think he came "out of nowhere." I'd love to see how they're going to communicate and connect Hitler making the jump from legitimate grievances to wanting to exterminate Jews and creating an Aryan race - and make us "empathetic" in the process. If they pull this off...greatest movie ever!

The truth is, Hitler has been psychologically profiled and "put in context" to death by many great historical and philosophical minds. I doubt Stone has anything to add to the discussion. But hey, I could be wrong.

And then he pulls this crap:

"Obviously, Rush Limbaugh is not going to like this history and, as usual, we're going to get those kind of ignorant attacks," said Stone, who also also compared the experience of sympathizing with war criminals to making his "W" movie about George W. Bush. "I'm trying to understand somebody I thoroughly despised." 

Of course. Conservatives are ignorant of history. Sure.

For such an 'enlightened' and 'empathetic' mind, he sure knows how to be partisan.