I was calling out Ken Burns for promoting American exceptionalism in his PBS documentaries (mockumentaries?) more than 15 years ago. That piece is a roundup of some of the worst of his issues, which I'll tackle in a minute.
But, the photo above, from this Pro Publica piece not actually focused on Ken Burns, but rather on Clarence Thomas, is
proof positive of him as that "Empire Whisperer."
Kudos
to Pro Publica for noting in the caption that Koch has financed Burns'
movies. He's also financed other things via "The David H. Koch Fund for
Science," which long ago pressured PBS to tone down anything it said
about climate change.
The latest egregiousness? Burns telling the BBC that he really does talk about the dark side of American history. Besides being bought off by the Kochs, which includes that David
Koch apparently bought Burns' silence
about the carcinogenic power of petrochemicals, this is simply not true.
For starters, that link also notes
him writing American Indians out of the picture in his librulz-acclaimed
National Parks series. And, written out they are. (Also, national parks are not America's greatest idea; the First Amendment is.)
His Vietnam miniseries? A shitload of bland pro-Americanism. I mean, he doesn't interview Daniel Ellsberg, gets Tonkin Gulf wrong, ignores the imperialism and more.
He got both Roosevelts wrong in that mini-series. Well, more, he got the legends of both right, and everything that the legends obscure, wrong.
He omitted Reconstruction as part of his Civil War series, getting back to the top link, pulling the same switcheroo that White folks both north and south of the Mason-Dixon did at the (in)famous 25th anniversary of Gettysburg.
In all of these things, he's been very White. He didn't talk about how much of the New Deal was Whites-only; he didn't talk as much as he could have about minority contributions to WWII; he didn't at all look at racial issues on Vietnam.
And now, per that Beeb link? He's going to do an American Revolution miniseries to cash in on the semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary? And, yes, cash in it shall be.
Let's start with this:
Burns doesn't gloss over the uncomfortable parts of US history, pointing out that, for him, being patriotic doesn't mean erasing the past; for instance, the fact that Benjamin Franklin owned slaves. "He knew it was wrong, and he kept doing it," Burns says.
Really? All of the above says this ain't so true. So, Ken, I won't hold my breath over whether or not you mention the Somerset decision as a possible factor in the revolution. I won't hold my breath looking for Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment of escaped slaves.
Then there's his pop-American historiography:
On the subject of history, Burns says he does not subscribe to the popular view that it is always doomed to repeat itself, deferring to the opinion of the 19th-Century Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," was Santanya's comment, in reference to the Holocaust. "It's [a] lovely phrase you'd wish would be true," says Burns. He also points to the famous quote that is attributed to US author Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does often rhyme."
Really? As I type, Donald Trump is denying that Smoot-Hawley tariffs contributed to the Depression and his sheeple all believe him.
Beyond that, Twain and Santayana aren't in opposition. Twain was being snarky, first. Second, Twain didn't say that; it's first attributed in 1970. Third, even if he HAD said that, it wouldn't have been in opposition to Santayana, who clearly said "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," something entirely different from some "eternal recurrence" idea.
His "10th inning" add-on to "Baseball" was meh and included hero-worship of racist commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
Even when he's not actually wrong, whether for racist reasons or not, watching Burns, I once noted, is like eating stereotypical Chinese food.
That said, per the Beeb interview, and to riff on a phrase uttered about FDR?
If he's working on a miniseries about Dear Leader Obama, "The man and the hour have met!"
Or, per NBC, that's "Must not see TV!"
