Saving Uncle Sam

It may very well be that I'm too cynical, but it seems to me that these movies and miniseries such as Band of Brothers and The Pacific are part of a propaganda scheme to glorify American militarism by portraying it in a heroic light, in this era of unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Irak. Steven Spielberg, which hasn't done anything to write home about lately, has teamed up with Tom Hanks, a movie star in decline, to try to distract our attention from the failures of the present by focusing on the great triumphs of the past.

It's so obvious, that it's downright embarrassing.

Comments

  1. Roberto Ariel FernándezJanuary 17, 2010 at 6:24 PM

    Not to mention that WWII was just another war in which soldiers (and civilians) were expendable. In that war, US soldiers fought -again- in a war that had nothing to do with the ideals of freedom, democracy or defense of the oppressed. Howard Zinn asked pertinent questions regarding the naive idea that WWII was a "people's war":

    "Did the governments conducting this war -England, the United States, the Soviet Union- represent something significantly different [from Germany], so that their victory would be a blow to imperialism, racism, totalitarianism, militarism, in the world? Would the behavior of the United States during the war-in military action abroad, in treatment of minorities at home- be in keeping with a "people's war"? Would the country's wartime policies respect the rights of ordinary people everywhere to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And would postwar America, in its policies at home and overseas, exemplify the values for which the war was supposed to have been fought?"

    Zinn goes on to mention briefly the abuses of power perpetrated everywhere by the US government prior to WWII, including that it

    "had seized Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and fought a brutal war to subjugate the Filipinos. It had 'opened' Japan and its trade with gunboats and threats. It had declared an Open Door Policy in China as a means of assuring that the United States would have opportunities equal to other imperial powers in exploiting China. It had sent troops to Peking with other nations, to assert Western supremacy in China, and kept them there for thirty years."

    Hanks and Spielberg are WWII buffs and sort of groupies of WWII veterans, who now can point to those movies (Saving Private Ryan), TV series (Band of Brothers; Pacific) and their involvement with WWII veterans (including the WWII memorial inaugurated in 2004) as signs of their patriotism, particularly if criticized for some "leftist" positions that they have also held from time to time. In the US, it's good for business to have that kind of track record.

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