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Ken Burns: Student of History—or Left-Wing Gasbag?
Accuracy in Media ^ | December 16, 2016 | Arne Steinberg

Posted on 12/17/2016 11:22:41 AM PST by MarvinStinson

Ken Burns claims, “For nearly forty years now, I have diligently practiced a conscious neutrality in my work.” This “neutrality” includes the following: In 2008, the Democratic National Committee chose Burns to produce the introductory video for Senator Edward Kennedy’s Democratic National Convention speech, which, according to Politico, presented Kennedy as “the modern Ulysses bringing his party home to port.” When Burns endorsed Barack Obama for the U.S. presidency in December 2007, he compared Obama to Abraham Lincoln. In 2012, Burns wrote, “Like FDR, Obama has walked us back from the brink. He averted a depression, ended one war and put us on the path ending the other, rescued the auto industry…Obama has deployed the shrewd combination of speaking softly and using a big stick. Ask Bin Laden.”

Burns hammers at left-wing mantras in his documentaries, using standard and easily recognizable left-wing media techniques. He omits the long racist history of Democrat politicians in his documentary “Congress,” presenting the period just before the Civil War to the post-Reconstruction era without ever identifying a single pro-slavery congressman or senator as a Democrat. He omits the strong anti-abortion views of Susan B. Anthony in his suffrage movement documentary “Not For Ourselves Alone,” since that did not fit the left-wing ideology he was pushing. When a white shooter killed black churchgoers in 2015, Burns said, “As most Americans were, I was stunned, shocked, reduced to tears by what had happened in Charleston and felt like all the old ghosts were all still present in American life.” But when a Muslim terrorist killed 50 gays in Orlando, Florida, in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, Burns said of Donald Trump’s advocating a temporary halt to Muslim immigration to America: “Do not think that the tragedy in Orlando underscores his points. It does not.”

(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: kenburns; leftwing; propaganda
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To: Chickensoup
How about

"Significant Cog in the Left-wing Propaganda Machine"

21 posted on 12/17/2016 11:55:39 AM PST by MarvinStinson
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To: MarvinStinson

“Like FDR, Obama has walked us back from the brink. He averted a depression, ended one war and put us on the path ending the other, rescued the auto industry…Obama has deployed the shrewd combination of speaking softly and using a big stick. Ask Bin Laden.”

Okay, one bit at a time:

“Like FDR, Obama has walked us back from the brink. He averted a depression”

-— The worst year of the Great Depression was 1937 - 4 years after FDR became president. Obama did not save us from anything. TARP may have. Obama was NOT president when TARP was passed. Obama actually slowed our recovery with his taxes and regulations.

“ended one war and put us on the path ending the other,”

Actually fighting continues in Iraq and Afghanistan and we and our allies have suffered loses in both. Plus, we have a new war in Libya and ISIS spreading all around the world. We also have a soon-to-be nuclear Iran (thanks to Obama) and an emboldened North Korea. Russia operates with impunity in Ukraine, Syria, and Georgia. China is militarizing the South China Sea without any real resistance from the U.S.

“rescued the auto industry…”

You mean Toyota and Kia and Hyundai would have gone out of business without Obama??? Oh, you mean debt heavy, union organized, U.S. auto makers relying on outmoded thinking were prevented from experiencing a natural death for their stupidity by Obama?

“Obama has deployed the shrewd combination of speaking softly and using a big stick. Ask Bin Laden.”

If I want to ask anyone about Bin Laden, it will be the U.S. Special Forces who shot him to death and left with his body. How on earth Obama - and his sycophants - can make so much hay over shooting one scumbag terrorist leader I’ll never understand. If I want to rate how successful Obama has been against terrorist leaders, I ‘ll ask Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.


22 posted on 12/17/2016 11:56:19 AM PST by vladimir998 (Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
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To: MarvinStinson
Student of History—or Left-Wing Gasbag?

Typical leftist rhetorical fallacy - this time invoking a false dichotomy. I will not argue about whether or not he is a student of history, but he is certainly a left-wing gasbag. Again, here, the gas-bag is redundant and a judgment call suggesting he drones on excessively about his left-wing predilections as opposed to just droning on about his left-wing predilections. Again, I take no position in that debate.

23 posted on 12/17/2016 11:56:48 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: vladimir998
Now analyze this:

Often accused of obsession with race, Burns has described himself as “a privileged white man,” and once said, “Like the amputated limb felt long after it has been cut off, I miss Trayvon Martin.”

24 posted on 12/17/2016 12:00:33 PM PST by MarvinStinson
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To: MarvinStinson
Burns made one thing that was watchable from start to finish...his Civil War series. That likely was because Shelby Foote narrated the story straight up...both sides had good guys and guys whose motives were understandable or didn't require preaching.

Getting the right narrator was a mistake he would not make again in another "documentary."

I tried other Burns' documentaries. I could not wait for his baseball effort to start. I also never watched it to the end.

The world would be a better place if Burns went into his fetal position and waited for a liberal abortionist to put him out of our misery.

25 posted on 12/17/2016 12:01:21 PM PST by stevem
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To: MarvinStinson

The man definitely is trying too hard.


26 posted on 12/17/2016 12:01:26 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: MarvinStinson

Not much different than Michael Moore, except that he’s a self-righteous gas bag instead of an obnoxious gas bag.


27 posted on 12/17/2016 12:02:32 PM PST by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
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To: Snickering Hound

Ken Burns is lazy in his research, since he just is repeating the narrative which includes lies and misconceptions promoted by our government censors. Even about Ty Cobb, as the historian Leerhsen pointed out in his recent well-researched book on the real Ty Cobb.

Ken Burns reminds me of a chocolate-covered marshmallow, but with a tiny razor blade inside. He is so dangerous because he promotes the Big Lies through beautiful images and luring narration which sounds and looks like truth, but skirts the hard truth. It is so warm and fuzzy and such that we will be incapable of putting the dots together and figuring out what REALLY is going on in our country-—the end-game.

Without Truth, there is no Freedom because we need an educated populace (who knows the truth of Pres. Wilson). Having “knowing, Informed people” demands accuracy in EVERYTHING unless it is labeled as Fiction, His versions of anything is the PBS whitewashed distorted version of history—all smoke and mirrors which cover up Jekyll Island and the usurping of our Constitution, and takeover of our institutions, etc.

He literally puts chocolate and whipped cream on all the dead bodies and expects us to swallow it all (so we remain ignorant of our govt. intentions, the takeover of the minds of our children, and that water that we all are sitting in IS coming to a Boil-—thanks to people who control the narrative, like the either evil or useless idiot, Kenny.


28 posted on 12/17/2016 12:05:38 PM PST by savagesusie (When Law ceases to be Just, it ceases to be Law. (Thomas A./Founders/John Marshall)/Nuremberg)
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To: smokingfrog
The bad part is that Burns' "documentaries" are heavily marketed to US public schools, where they are presented to students as unvarnished fact.

The article has disgusting details on this.

29 posted on 12/17/2016 12:06:15 PM PST by MarvinStinson
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To: smokingfrog

Exactly right and the question answers itself.


30 posted on 12/17/2016 12:08:52 PM PST by gibsonguy
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To: MarvinStinson

“Significant Cog in the Left-wing Propaganda Machine”

______________

has a nice ring!


31 posted on 12/17/2016 12:13:44 PM PST by Chickensoup (Leftists today are speaking as if they plan to commence to commit genocide against conservatives.)
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To: MarvinStinson

I’ll take Left-Wing Gasbag for $400, Alex.


32 posted on 12/17/2016 12:20:23 PM PST by Albion Wilde ("Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo."--Donald Trump)
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To: MarvinStinson

“I’ll take “ left wing gas bag” for 200, Alex.”


33 posted on 12/17/2016 12:23:09 PM PST by jmaroneps37 (Conservatism is truth. Liberalism is lies.)
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To: GoldenPup

Just like the media when they claim to be impartial. The bias is however so obvious.


34 posted on 12/17/2016 12:23:35 PM PST by xp38
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To: Albion Wilde
$400?

PBS and Ken Burns take in Millions promoting his crap.

35 posted on 12/17/2016 12:23:52 PM PST by MarvinStinson
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To: MarvinStinson

There’s a lot of these type of people trying to sell it. But there are a lot of people out there that buy it and put it on the roses thinking it’s gospel.

Trick is to smell what he’s selling and look for better.

red


36 posted on 12/17/2016 12:25:43 PM PST by Redwood71
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To: MarvinStinson
“For nearly forty years now, I have diligently practiced a conscious neutrality in my work.”

It wasn't until his first documentary that I begin to dislike Ken Burns.

Burns reminds me of Bill Moyer. I can't put it any plainer than that.

37 posted on 12/17/2016 12:26:31 PM PST by jeffersondem
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To: MarvinStinson

[ALT] [LEFT] propagandist.


38 posted on 12/17/2016 12:28:38 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum (President Trump is coming, and the rule of law is coming with him.)
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To: MarvinStinson

Put me down for Left Wing Gasbag. LWG


39 posted on 12/17/2016 12:30:23 PM PST by Holdem Or Foldem (If it is settled it isn't science. :))
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To: Holdem Or Foldem
If you want to read something funny read the section of the article on Burns "documentary" on Jack Johnson.

It's hilarious.

40 posted on 12/17/2016 12:33:19 PM PST by MarvinStinson
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