Oliver Stone - Les États-Unis, l'histoire jamais racontée

History is a biological organism trapped in a cyclic time axis. Doomed to eternal repeating, differing in lesser or greater details. Until the end of days. Stoney highlights the human factor, that changeable, often contradictory driving force of change on our planet. He points at minor matters, close victories and contradictions that didn’t prove to be crucial until later. By looking into the past, a person can learn something, but only a person with a untainted mind who doesn’t criticize until he sees the whole picture. How can you be impartial? How can you differentiate good from evil? The powerful will always fight for control. Using colonial or indirect influence. Without a common enemy, the top two will always be fighting each other. The round USA vs. China is just beginning. George Orwell’s prophecy about “doublespeak" from his novel “1984" has come true - first they steal the words, then they steal their meaning... Expressions like “the axis of evil" the “war on terror" “regime change", “waterboarding", “preventive war". Dead civilians were now “collateral damage". CIA kidnapping is now “extraordinary rendition". And the most patriotic “national security" has grown into a giant new federal agency. (03/04/2014)

This history is by no means unknown - at least for someone who is even remotely interested in history and American politics. Additionally, Stone took too large a part of American history to delve into any interesting details, and practically any topic he touches can be found in a more detailed and informed documentary, moreover without ideological bias. Stone's cycle is valuable for something else. It represents a comprehensive view of a member of the American intellectual left on modern US history and its place in the world. This perspective can be interesting for Czechs because Czech society has taken different paths in recent decades and our intellectual elites and journalistic community pretend that such opinions do not exist and if they do, they are outrageous demagoguery. With Stone, of course, one can argue on many points, but he is a creator with a highly developed sense of moral integrity, not a demagogue like Moore. Moreover, the prevailing discourse here has not avoided numerous mental short-circuits and errors oriented toward the opposite side of the political arena. Overall impression: 80%. (04/12/2014)