Oliver Stone must love kittens and puppies and rainbows. What other kind of person could possibly see some good in everything and everyone, like Adolph Hitler? Stone apparently thinks the monster of the twentieth century has gotten a bad rap and the reason why is a real hoot.
His comments to the Sunday Times of London were stunning:
"Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support...Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30m."
Stone's explanation for all the "attention" paid to the holocaust was simple. "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 fucked up United States foreign policy for years."
I suppose the systematic segregation, imprisonment and murder of millions of people, based solely on their ethnicity needs to be put in context for Stone. He points out that while six million Jews were exterminated, Hitler, he continues, was also responsible for the deaths of twenty-five to thirty million Russians. Silly me. I should have realized that to make one abomination seem not so bad you simply need to compare it with another abomination. I have a number of friends whose families were in those death camps and many lost loved ones in the atrocities that occurred behind those barbed wire fences. I wonder what they'd say to Stone, if they had the chance?
Maybe Stone thinks we owe Hitler an apology for showing him in a bad light. This guy should forget filmmaking and open a PR firm. Still, I am not alone in my shock and disgust for Stone's comments. After understandable uproar, Stone issued this apology for his comments, which were viewed by many Jewish groups as anti-Semitic:
"In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret," Stone said in a statement released by his publicist. "Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity -- and it was an atrocity."
I guess he just misspoke. It happens all the time. By the way, I certainly support Oliver Stone's prerogative to say anything he wants. It is, after all, his right under our coveted First Amendment. It is also my right to voice my disdain. Perhaps Stone's next project should be a buddy film. Let me suggest "Adolph and Me." Maybe Mel Gibson is available for the lead.
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Brad Hirschfield: Holocaust Lessons From Oliver Stone
I could not agree more. Moret, I'm afraid your reading comprehension fails just like that ignorant segment of the American population that get their information on the internet and cannot make the difference between their left foot and their right ear.
To pretend that this film director is an anti-Semite is stupid.
Stone was way too polemical in the way he spoke, but the fact is that one person (Hitler) has no CHANCE of rising to power in a major industrial state like Germany without some serious financial and ideological backing.
Hence Stone's annoyingly accurate statement that Hitler was Frankenstein - aka extremely terrible - but that there also had to be a DR. Frankenstein - aka the people who gave him life. You can hide your head in the sand about that fact if you want.
I'll just suggest anyone who is curious look into Union Bank Corp for some good learning.
Stone's comments are not only legitimate, they are important, and they could help the entire world avoid wars in the future. We have a revisionest and somewhat tunnel view of World War II which results in our children learning that the war occurred because Hitler hated the Jews. But that's a tiny part of the truth, and probably not the main factor. The truth is that Wall Street was the primary cause of the conditions in the world, the depression, destruction of economies and currency, loss of jobs, widespread hunger, all of which made people receptive to the idea of invading others to steal resources and help themselves. If our government had simply arrested and prosecuted the people who caused the depression, and the world had seen some justice, the war might have been avoided. By refusing to look at the economic causes of the war, our country continues to allow Wall Street to do it over and over again, and we once again are facing the conditions which could easily lead to another world war. In that respect, Stone's comments are worthy of fair consideration, even if he phrased it poorly.
Moral relativism sprout in all directions. His politics derive from progressive ideology that in turn adheres to totalitarianism that his dictatorial/socialistic friends exploit for their benefits.
Socialists know right from wrong while liberals believe in the individual as the progenitor of morality.
In this case, Stone is just wrong because Nazism and fascism are direct attacks on socialism and are the opposite (right-wing) reaction to capitalism.
You need to understand what the words you use are, though both fascism and communism are totalitarian they are totalitarian in opposite ways and hate each other (hence why Uncle Joe was a friend of the USA for his war on the Nazis).
I still think platoon was a very good movie.
I do not think he wrote the apology. It does not matter much. If all he really wants to point out is that Americans really do not know much about the horrors of the Eastern front in WWII, uwell OK. Yet he is blaming the Jews for that, isn't he?
But now he reread 'Night' and just maybe understands. The light unto the nations may lead to places which most of us wish had stayed in darkness.
Such places are in the artistic domain. They are given special license to wander further than the ordinary citizen. They know how fine that line is and how quick is the cut when the joke is no longer funny.
I doubt that he meant harm yet harm happened anyway. Let us see what Mr. Stone has in mind but for me no more sleepers please.
Spin