Perhaps some of you saw Ken Burn’s most recent documentary in which he notes that our response to the genocide of the Jews wasn’t our “finest hour.” I thought to myself here we go again. How about thanking America … it’s soldiers and its civilians for what it did do during WWII rather than what more it might have done. To his credit, Burns opened his film by stating that America did more than any other country, any other people, to help the Jewish people (we saved over 225,000 of the roughly 500,000 whose lives were lost) during their time of dire need.
What he failed to mention was the number of Jewish families and businesses here in America and around the world that failed to act. I’m referring specifically to Lehman Brothers, the Rothchilds and the DeBeers. And how about Ambassador Joe Kennedy who was a vocal appeaser for fear of disrupting economic markets which he was heavily invested in at that time. He and Neville Chamberlain were notorious for wanting to give Hitler another chance.
What especially disappointed me with Burn’s work though was how he seemed to go out of his way to portray America and its people as isolationists, bigots, and anti-Semites. He failed to mention the Great Depression, the socialist revolutions that were roiling much of the world, and the many American lives lost in the Great War (England lost an entire generation of young men). This portrayal of Americans as being selfish isolationists seems to coincide too conveniently in today’s immigrant problem where people are entering the U.S. with no papers, no medical histories, no background checks and no permission. So, given the timing of Burn’s film, I wonder if this most recent piece of work was more of a political track than anything else. If so, them shame on you, Mr. Burns. Your presence, your words and your attitude on Colbert sure seemed like a partisan undertaking. So much for altruism. Thanks for more propaganda and slanted, biased reporting for political gain.
Brad Brigham
Colrain