Why would I possibly go see a historical film made by a guy who shows a complete ignorance of history.
This actually ticks me off. This asshat Steven Spielberg belongs to a party that has for its entire history sought to declare certain people as “not human” so as they can legally act in a barbaric manner and he criticizes the Republican Party? You know, the thing is he doesn’t even criticize the party, he just says it like it’s common wisdom that the GOP is pro-slavery and racist. Like it’s common freakin’ knowledge. Maybe that’s what passes for common knowledge in Hollywood but in these parts we call that ignorance.
And this idiot made a movie about the Republican Abraham Lincoln? Here’s the nugget from Weasel Zippers:
“Don’t let this political football play back and forth,” the Oscar-winning director said he urged distributors, noting the “confusing” aspect in the film that shows how U.S. political parties back in Lincoln’s time “traded political places over the last 150 years.”
In contrast to today, the Republican party to which Lincoln belonged was founded by anti-slavery activists and Republicans were often tagged “radicals.”
That’s just idiocy. The Democrats were pro-slavery and they were against civil rights when Republicans were pushing the 1964 Civil Rights Acts. And they’re still the ones who condescend to African-Americans and act as if they can’t help themselves.
I don’t give much of a damn about the Republican party per se. But you know he’s talking about everyone on the right here. Yeah, Steven Spielberg thinks you’re a pro-slavery racist. And the president that Spielberg is running around donating money to advocates the legal killing of both the unborn and recently born. And we’re the inhuman ones?
I’m not boycotting this jerk. I’m just not seeing his movie. I repeat — Why would I go see a historical film made by a guy who shows a complete ignorance of history.
October 10, 2012 at 11:31 pm
"“Don’t let this political football play back and forth,” the Oscar-winning director said he urged distributors, noting the “confusing” aspect in the film that shows how U.S. political parties back in Lincoln’s time “traded political places over the last 150 years.”
A common trope trotted out by people even dumber than Spielberg. No, the parties did not "change places." Ideologically speaking, Republicans of the 1860s would be little different than Republicans today. The Democratic party has certainly shifted its political positions, but the underlying ideology of the party is actually quite the same.
October 10, 2012 at 11:55 pm
WSJ's James Taranto wrote a blurb about this today. The part you are upset about is not a quote from Speilberg. It was apparently the reporters own, grossly ignorant, thought.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443749204578048502233238458.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
October 11, 2012 at 1:58 am
I don't know, you could make the case that the Republicans of the Reconstruction era passed on some policies to today's Democrats.
Namely, many Republican officials refused to enforce laws—even the ones against rape and murder—where former slaves were concerned, because they felt that white Southerners, a small minority of whom had been slave-owners, deserved to suffer.
That actually does sound quite a bit like the Dems.
October 11, 2012 at 4:26 am
Namely, many Republican officials refused to enforce laws—even the ones against rape and murder—where former slaves were concerned, because they felt that white Southerners, a small minority of whom had been slave-owners, deserved to suffer.
Yeah, that didn't happen, at least not to any significant degree.
October 11, 2012 at 4:57 pm
Sophia's Favorite is correct. The Republican's of the post-bellum era treated the defeated white southerners like crap. The whites were politically disfranchised by the Union government. The blacks were told told they were 'equal' to the white. Actually, since the whites were disfranchised by the government, the blacks were superior in rights. The blacks,under the protection of the Union army, proceeded to do things like loot the whites of private property, real estate, and force themselves on white women. Any southerner who tried to resist these outrages against himself was lucky if he wasn't shot by the Union troops, many of whom were black. For someone to say "Yeah, it didn't happen, at least not to any significant degree", shows an incredible ignorance of the true history of the post-bellum south.