America the Flawed

Talia Whyte History Oliver Stone, Untold History of the United States

Last week’s post on testing out our Americanism made me really think about this country’s “collective history.”  And when I say collective history, I mean all aspects of American history, even the untold aspects.

So it would make sense to turn to one of the purveyors of alternative storytelling, The Concise Untold History of the United States by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick.  This is the companion book to Stone’s documentary of the same name written for general readers.

(Disclamer: This book was sent to me for free by a publicist a few months ago for me to review.)

America is a great country, but it is also flawed.

Both the book and documentary challenge the idea of American Exceptionalism.  While he says that America is a great country, Stone wonders if it has “drifted away from its democratic values.”

Are Americans freedom hypocrites? Do as I say, not as I do? Untold History tries to answer these questions by looking at American history through the lens of all the presidents from the last century and how their foreign policy decisions were mostly driven by greed, bigotry and a false sense of security.  From William McKinley’s disastrous Philippine-American War to President Obama’s drone program and NSA wiretapping, Stone makes the case that the American government has a sinister foreign policy agenda to dominate the world no matter the cost.

Each chapter examines successive administrations and comes to the same conclusion: start an unnecessary conflict overseas, occupy countries or install CIA-friendly heads of state under a guise of protecting American interests.  Before World War II the guise was to build an American Empire; during the Cold War it was communism; and after 9/11 it was democracy.  What would have happened if the United States didn’t get involved in the affairs of Iran, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador, Grenada, Haiti, Panama and the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Stone writes about the little-known progressive heroes who have been left out of history books because of their outspokenness, like Henry Wallace, FDR’s liberal reformist vice president who was forced out of his position by the more conservative members in his party.  He is best known for his 1942 speech “The Price of the Free World,” where he called for a more democratic post-war world where colonialism ended, world peace was supported and workers had a right to unionize.  In another speech he said the United States can not “fight to crush Nazi brutality and condone race riots” in Detroit.

As a side note, I was reading this book the day the State Department released it annual human rights report a couple of weeks ago.  While the report chastises other countries for their human rights abuses, there is no mention of the growing number of unarmed black males being shot down in American streets.

This same report criticized and then retracted its claim that the Jamaican government was monitoring private phone calls and online communications.

From the US Embassy in Kingston: “When there are inaccuracies, the Department of State documents these errors online and issues corrections to ensure the integrity of the reports.”

But doesn’t the US government monitoring data from its own citizens?

Back to Henry Wallace, the old guard of the Democratic party were not thrilled with his controversial positions, and made some backroom deals to nominate Harry Truman for vice president during the 1944 Democratic convention.
Stone contends that if Wallace was nominated and eventually became president upon FDR’s death 82 days later, Wallace probably wouldn’t have dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, ultimately killing thousands instantly and permanently injuring countless others.

Untold History also speculates how history would have been different if other life altering events didn’t happen. During his presidency, JFK actually wanted to end the conflict in Vietnam. If he wasn’t assassinated, would he have ended the conflict sooner? Would the United States have invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003 if George W. Bush hadn’t stolen the election wasn’t elected president?

I read this book in four days. It was well researched and I learned a lot about stuff I never learned in school. Regardless of your opinion of Stone and his leftist perspective, Untold History makes you really think twice about this country’s past, present and hopefully a different future.

“Have we been right to police the globe?” Stone writes. “Have we been a force for good, for understanding, for peace? We must look at the mirror.”