Posted on 01/10/2010 5:06:27 PM PST by Steelfish
Oliver Stone Suggests Hitler Is 'Easy Scapegoat' Oliver Stone, the controversial film director, is facing another backlash after suggesting that Hitler was made an "easy scapegoat" by history.
By Nick Allen in Los Angeles 10 Jan 2010
Stone, who has previously been accused of promoting conspiracy theories and glorifying violence in his films, has made a new documentary series which he says will place historical figures including Hitler and Stalin "in context". In the trailer for "The Secret History of America" the director says: "You cannot approach history unless you have empathy for the person you may hate."
He told a press conference at the Television Critics Association in California that "we can't judge people as only 'bad' or 'good'". "Hitler is an easy scapegoat throughout history and it's been used cheaply. He's the product of a series of actions. It's cause and effect," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Pol Pot didn’t like doctors or teachers very much.
Stalin was a control freak.
It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Then I put Hitler in the same leaque of Oliver STone, He too wants to re-write history. One was just more evil.
Well the 10 million people he murdered in death camps and the about 30 or 40 others killed through his war machine didn’t help him in that regard. Most people would say it’s pretty much his own fault he’s an “easy scapegoat”.
Bad is good and good is bad
Would he extend the same grace to Joe McCarthy or Roy Cohn? I don’t think so.
What about that junior lawyer on McCarthy’s staff during the hearings... whatsisname... oh..mmm Bobby Kennedy?
While Hitler’s regime was clearly evil, I submit that Hitler was no more and no less evil than a large number of dictators throughout history.
What is clear, is that the winners in any war are the ones who get to write the history. Had the Germans won World War 2, Hitler’s legacy would have been far different.
Oliver Stone is in good company with Sean Penn who is starting to look like a nazi.
The PaulBot type should like this film since they
didn’t believe in fighting WWII
On balance, Oliver Stone is right in this case.
Hitler was a very evil man, and any redeeming qualities he may have had (he had some) are overshadowed by the abject evil that he did. However, it is dangerously simplistic to view him only thru this “evil” lens — even tho’ it is really tempting to.
Those who do evaluate the Hitlers-of-this-world thru only their “evil” lens fall into the trap of electing someone like Hitler who is good at promoting his redeeming qualities and even better at hiding his evil ones.
(I wonder if that sounds like anyone we know?)
I’m happy to defend this position with reasoned debate.
My great uncle who was in Patton’s 3rd Army and helped liberate Buchenwald would have a different view than yours
In this article it states that Stone won a Purple Heart in Vietnam. ???I read elsewhere he also won a Bronze Star,,,, I did not know this...or how to take it.
Hilter vas, shure, a badt mann, but at least he luft shildern undt docs.
In other words, interpretation of history should be based on feelings, not facts? What a load.
Agreed. The one thing separating him from the others is he controlled a modern society and had available cutting edge technologies.
In your opinion, what were his redeeming values and how are you defining redeeming?
If I recall correctly, Pol Pot wanted to return Cambodia to a pure agricultural society. He primarily slaughtered the educated and “infirmed,” including those who wore glasses.
I wonder if Stone would be willing to call Nixon an easy scapegoat?
I worked with a guy who said he served with Stone. (This was at IBM, and the coworker seemed like a very upstanding guy.) My co-worker said that Stone accidentally discharged a grenade lancher into an overhead tree thereby wounding several of his platoon mates. Not sure if this is how Stone got his Purple Heart.
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