Oliver Stone opens his mouth. Controversy follows.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I'm suprised that I haven't seen any threads about this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/11/oliver-stone-hitler-a-sca_n_418304.html) yet.

He basically said that Hitler is a scapegoat, that his actions need to be put in context, and made some remarks about the Jewish-controlled media. He also said that Stalin is misunderstood.

[danyboy27]

I'm suprised that I haven't seen any threads about this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/11/oliver-stone-hitler-a-sca_n_418304.html) yet.

He basically said that Hitler is a scapegoat, that his actions need to be put in context, and made some remarks about the Jewish-controlled media. He also said that Stalin is misunderstood.

my head hurt.

[RadioRaheem84]

"Stalin has a complete other story. Not to paint him as a hero, but to tell a more factual representation. He fought the German war machine more than any personThis is true. Soviet forces sustained at least 75% of the casualties in WWII.


"Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and it's been used cheaplyI am sure he means the countless number of people who say stuff like Obama = Hitler, Saddam = Hitler, etc. And Western propagandists have used him as a huge source of good vs. evil battles against countries it disagreed with.


Other topics addressed in the documentary will be Truman's decision to drop the bomb and the origins of the Cold War.Good.

[Robocommie]

Oh Ollie.

Mind you, he's not really wrong. Hitler did not come into existence because he was the Antichrist or something. The Great Man theory of history is bullshit whether it's a positive Great Man or a negative one. So Stone is right in that one; Hitler like anyone in history must be seen in context. I wonder if his scapegoat comment was meant in the same vein as what Norman Finkelstein said about the Holocaust industry. Hitler's been used as the repository of the sins of the entire global bourgeoisie connected to the Nazi rise to power, including American industrialists like Henry Ford. Easier to just say that Hitler was evil incarnate than to own up to how the rest of the world helped make him what he was.

I don't know about the Jewish media comments, the link didn't say anything about that. I'd have to read them more before speculating.

[RadioRaheem84]

Oh yeah. Where is the Jewish controlled media stuff, Explosive?

[Steve_j]

here ya go

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/oliver-stone-jewish-domin_n_659795.html

[Os Cangaceiros]

Oh Ollie.

Mind you, he's not really wrong. Hitler did not come into existence because he was the Antichrist or something.

Yeah, I actually agree with him about that.


"Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support."

[RadioRaheem84]

I was with him until this....


"The Jewish domination of the media," he said. "There's a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States

Ollie is a left populist with some influences from the right conspiracy crowd.

He really should've pointed at the obfuscation in the media of just how Hitler rose to power. Jews have nothing to do with it. Liberals do. Secondly, there is a Holocaust industry out there, like Norman Finklestein pointed out.

The simplified rehashing of history in the mainstream makes it seem like Hitler just went after Jews, and not trade unionists, communists, socialists, anarchists, and old social democrats. The right wing argument that Nazis and Communists were just competitors like Coke and Pepsi also degenerates WWII to a tendency squab!

I saw Schindler's List again after long time and just thought man there were so many missed opportunities to point out how Nazism was very capitalist and the status quo on steroids! That's probably one of the most unintentionally Marxist movies ever made, it just wasn't explained to the audience, (mostly because Speilberg is not a Marxist). Then again I do not want to be like those right libertarians kids that sees anti-socialism in Orwell's work. Damn I got off topic!

[LimitedIdeology]

The interest in blaming Hitler for all the horrors of the war simply plays to the inaction that the world took as he and his Party committed their atrocities. Much easier to chalk it up to Hitler being a "bad man" than everyone pretty much caving in and greasing the wheels for him.

[Adi Shankara]

The interest in blaming Hitler for all the horrors of the war simply plays to the inaction that the world took as he and his Party committed their atrocities. Much easier to chalk it up to Hitler being a "bad man" than everyone pretty much caving in and greasing the wheels for him.

I could actually agree with this; everyone loves to say Hitler was solely responsible for all the atrocity and war crimes in World War II (well, along with whipping boy Stalin)...but where would he be without the appeasement of Neville Chamberlain, or Franklin Roosevelt, or the industrialists like Prescott Bush, and Jack Morgan Jr:


And it is important to consider the size of American investments in Nazi Germany at the time of Pearl Harbor. These amounted to an estimated total of $475 million. Standard Oil of New Jersey had $120 million invested there; General Motors had $35 million; 111 had $30 million; and Ford had $17.5 million. Though it would have been more patriotic to have allowed Nazi Germany to confiscate these companies for the duration-to nationalize them or to absorb them into Hermann Goring's industrial empire-it was clearly more practical to insure them protection from seizure by allowing them to remain in special holding companies, the money accumulating until war's end. It is interesting that whereas there is no evidence of any serious attempt by Roosevelt to impeach the guilty in the United States, there is evidence that Hitler strove to punish certain German Fraternity associates on the grounds of treason to the Nazi state. Indeed, in the case of ITT, perhaps the most flagrant of the corporations in its outright dealings with the enemy, Hitler and his postmaster general, the venerable Wilhelm Ohnesorge, strove to impound the German end of the business. But even they were powerless in such a situation: the Gestapo leader of counterintelligence, Walter Schellenberg, was a prominent director and shareholder of ITT by arrangement with New York-and even Hitler dared not cross the Gestapo.



Hitler didn't act alone; he had all our governments as accomplices

[Robocommie]

Yeah it looks like North was pretty much right on the money until he fucked up and started blaming "the Jews" for this shit. There is a big pro-Israel lobby in this country, but it's not like it's all Jewish or even mostly Jewish.

[IllicitPopsicle]

Yeah it looks like North was pretty much right on the money until he fucked up and started blaming "the Jews" for this shit. There is a big pro-Israel lobby in this country, but it's not like it's all Jewish or even mostly Jewish.

I believe you mean Stone, Ollie North was baaaaad.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

I was with him until this....



Ollie is a left populist with some influences from the right conspiracy crowd.

I feel like Oliver Stone is just a watered down version of what could be if the movie industry was communist. His movies document history (although not with 100% accuracy) that most capitalist-owned media consider taboo to talk about, but he obviously has weaknesses, like being inclined to make antisemitic statements. A racist remark doesn't just slip off the tongue by itself. Even if he "didn't really mean it," the fact that he "accidentally" said it just shows that he at least had the idea in his head, and by some malfunction in his brain, just let it "slip out."

Stone's movies have a certain appeal, but I think few, if any, of them are real masterpieces. The movie industry suffered greatly from Washington's campaigns to blacklist and jail Hollywood communists in the 1940s and 50s. For example, before that they could make socialist critiques of capitalism in a major popular film, like the Grapes of Wrath whereas now what we analyze as critiques of capitalism are mainly low-budget documentaries, while Spielberg, Schwarzenegger, Borat, Danny Boyle (slumdog millionaire) get billions of dollars from their movies that consistently reinforce negative stereotypes and exploit the poorest segments of the world's population for their own profit. They pass it off as 'just entertainment,' but films about people are inherently political. For example, the most recent Indiana Jones movie and some of the older ones make Nazi's the bad guys. But Indiana Jones shooting "cannibal savages" and stealing from them is totally romanticized in the same films!

[Robocommie]

I believe you mean Stone, Ollie North was baaaaad.

:lol: Freudian slip or something.

[Dean]

A lot of people fall into the trap of confusing pro-Israeli lobby and media watchdogs as "Jewish," and it ultimately leads to widespread media coverage in an attempt to discredit any criticism of the racist state.

What is interesting is how frequent are attacks on Arabs and Arab media like Al Jazeera, even just in terms of rhetoric in the news media. Its shocking how quick people are to jump on references to "Jews" as being this or that, but when "Arab" is used as hyperbole it gets no media outrage, or is even lauded as legitimate punditry.

[RadioRaheem84]

http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/hitchens-in-cringing-apologies-to-pope.html

[LimitedIdeology]

Yeah it looks like North was pretty much right on the money until he fucked up and started blaming "the Jews" for this shit. There is a big pro-Israel lobby in this country, but it's not like it's all Jewish or even mostly Jewish.

Yeah, most of it consists of wealthy fundamentalists who, through some sort of fucked up theology, that they need to support Israel so it can bring about Armageddon.

[Robocommie]

Yeah, most of it consists of wealthy fundamentalists who, through some sort of fucked up theology, that they need to support Israel so it can bring about Armageddon.

I don't think that's really it either, that's no more likely to me than it is to say Jews are behind it. It's an imperialist class venture, supporting American interests abroad.