And Showtime is about to present, in a ten-part miniseries, Oliver Stone’s “Secret History of America.” Don’t you wonder why, if Stone (and Michael Moore, for that matter) is right about the evils of capitalism, an enormous capitalist corporation has produced--and will now show--what is, almost by self-advertisement, a nutcase reconstruction of the American past, focusing on its enemies, who he seems to think have been traduced by historians?
Someone named Jackson Creswell, from a website called Collider, seems to think that Stone “revel[s] in political controversy ... extremely well.” And that “JFK with all of its inaccuracies and fabricated drama was entertaining.” Oh, those entertainment values. But “[i]f anyone has the clout and talent to pull off a more human portrayal of the most evil figure in history, then it’s Stone.” Surely, that figure is not Kennedy. Still, amongst the most evil figures in history are Stalin and Hitler. And Stone finds things to like about them--things that no other historians have discovered--although Hitler apparently liked dogs, and Stalin children. Or maybe it was visa versa.
In any case, Ronald Radosh has put the whole public record of Oliver Stone in the sunlight--OK, there is no sunlight in the northeast, so it’s under a scholarly microscope-- and revealed just how mendacious Stone is.
And what about CBS? Hey, as long as it sells.