Posted on 09/25/2007 4:18:57 PM PDT by VOA
This is a "heads-up" for the airing of "The War", the Ken Burns
(Florentine Films) production on PBS.
“....where one has to sift through the hate America crap to find good history. I guess one is not permitted to produce anything about American history these days without reminding us about all of the social evils of the times...kind of like throwing the baby out with the bathwater if you ask me.”
I guess a simple question is:
Should they lie to spare people of some of the not so great things that took place at that time?
“Too much attention paid to the status of Japanese and Black Americans During the war. Yes of course, it was horrendous and shameful in retrospect; but somehow it seems out of place and jarring in this Documentary.”
The Doc is called “The War” It’s meant to talk about what happened to Americans from different backgrounds during that time.
Hate to break it to some people here, but it wasn’t all happy Victory gardens and USO shows. Some Americans who wanted to do their all for this nations were treated like crap for some pretty stupid reasons even for the 1940s.
I want to hear their stories as I want to hear the stories of everyone else.
They hadn’t invented post-traumatic stress syndrome in 1946, but I’ll bet most returning frontline troops qualified for it. My father suffered from “nervousness” that made him unable to sit at a desk for extended periods, for example. Unfortunately, his physical ailments prevented him from taking up any of his pre-army occupations. He had worked mostly as a logger or in cattle ranching. He had a job as timber cruiser when he met my mother.
Aside from watching this result of a leftist skewed viewpoint, there are plenty of America loathing apologist universities in this country to entertain your wish. Knock yourself out.
The highlight of last night’s episode was Inoyue’s father’s comments to him as he left to go to boot camp. His Dad was truly an American.
YES....I did see that, and was amazed.....and got the feeling the Jr would have a hard time saying the same thing to his own son.....I am so tired of the Internment camp stories......My mother in law put it well once.....she lost her only sibling (brother) in the War....she said...re: the interned Japanese.....”at least they got to come home...”
1941-1945 - World War II:
Some 500,000 Blacks were stationed overseas, amounting to 4% of the 11 million Americans who served on foreign shores.
About 10% of blacks were in combat units.
The all-black 92nd Infantry was in Italy, and had 616 killed in action and 2,187 wounded.
The 93rd Division was stationed in the South Pacific, losing 17 KIA and 121 WIA. There was also the black 366th Infantry.
Now hats off and a salute to those who served, but don't tell me Burns isn't "skewing" the viewing just a little. I want to see the other 10.5 million stories, not pictures of a colored water fountain four times in a half an hour. These are his 2007 viewpoints of the 1940's. Period.
“Now hats off and a salute to those who served, but don’t tell me Burns isn’t “skewing” the viewing just a little. I want to see the other 10.5 million stories, not pictures of a colored water fountain four times in a half an hour. These are his 2007 viewpoints of the 1940’s. Period.”
Um, there were plenty of people in the 1940s who thought the same thing.
What exactly was the “skewing”? Maybe he should have left it out so that some people’s rose colored glasses vision of that time isn’t rocked. Burns talked about the black workers and the soldiers who trained and worked in the south and how it wasn’t all roses for them. It’s the truth. Like I said before, do you want him to lie?
If seeing how honest Americans who wanted to contribute to the war effort were treated as less than equal to others bothers you then that’s too bad. Besides the show was 2 hours long, the 5 whole minutes spent on the drinking fountains is nowhere near enough to get all upset over.
OOPs, my last line was supposed to be
“Don’t watch anything produced AFTER 2007”
PLEASE NOTE:
Here is the URL for a discussion thread for Part 4 that airs tonight
(Wed. 9-26-07).
“The War” (by Ken Burns) Part 4 of 7; Airing on PBS @ 7PM Central 9-26-07
pbs.org ^ | undated | PBS staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1902654/posts?page=1
The Part 4 summary at pbs.org says this is the D-Day episode, along
with more Pacific island-hopping.
“VOA” will be have to attend to a prior committment, so everybody
feel free to get in there, comment and keep the thread bumped.
I just hope I can get free to see the re-airing at 9PM Central.
Just another bump and post to let folks know about the thread started for
Part 4 (D-Day, etc.)
“The War” (by Ken Burns) Part 4 of 7; Airing on PBS @ 7PM Central 9-26-07
pbs.org ^ | undated | PBS staff
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1902654/posts?page=1
No, we need to be reminded of the social mistakes we made. What I'm watching though seems to have morphed into an 80/20 lefty political statement to interesting history. When we spend more time on the intern camps and racial inequalities then we do on what evilness we were combating in Asia and Europe, I smell something. Burns seems to overemphasize our mistakes in several campains as well(Cassino, Anzio, Kazernine, Guadalcanal, Tarawa).
If someone who knew nothing of WWII were to watch this, they would not have a sense of pride for America upon watching it.
I love history & will give it another try tonight, but last night it affected my sleep.
I depise the intern camp scenes. Our local University has a huge section on the Japanese intern camps (A large model) & nothing of the rest of the war. I’ve heard that this is the case in other schools as well. It seems like it is an effort to rewrite history a little at a time.
Watching the Burns series one would think it was all about Japanese internment camps juxtaposed against German concentration camps and the treatment of blacks. We had 16 million people under uniform. Why the inordinate amount of time spent on these groups and their sacrifice?
Of course not; it's a matter of emphasis. The social injustices of the time and the few U.S. military failures have been over-emphasized and the brilliant U.S. military successes and tales of individual heroism have either been glossed over quickly or omitted altogether. The agenda of both the author and PBS comes through loud and clear.
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