Plan B Forum

Oliver Stone to RT: ‘US has become an Orwellian state’

RT: It took both of you almost five years to produce this series. And in it you have a chapter called Obama: Management of a Wounded Empire. You give a harsh critique of the Obama administration. What in your eyes has been the most troubling aspect of his presidency, Oliver?

Oliver Stone: I think under the disguise of sheep’s clothing he has been a wolf. That because of the nightmare of the Bush presidency that preceded him, people forgave him a lot. He was a great hope for change. The color of his skin, the upbringing, the internationalism, the globalism, seemed all evident. And he is an intelligent man. He has taken all the Bush changes he basically put them into the establishment, he has codified them. That is what is sad. So we are going into the second administration that is living outside the law and does not respect the law and foundations of our system and he is a constitutional lawyer, you know. Without the law, it is the law of the jungle. Nuremburg existed for a reason and there was a reason to have trials, there is a reason for due process – ‘habeas corpus’ as they call it in the United States.

RT: Do you agree Peter?

Peter Kuznick: I agree, if you look at his domestic policy, he did not break with the Bush administration’s policies. If you look at his transparency – he claimed to be the transparency president when he was running for office. There has not been transparency. We have been actually classifying more documents under Obama than we did under Bush. All previous presidents between 1970 and 2008 indicted three people total under Espionage Act. Obama has already indicted six people under the Espionage Act. The surveillance has not stopped, the incarceration without bringing people to trial has not stopped. So those policies have continued.

Then there are war policies, militarization policies. We are maintaining that. We are fighting wars now in Yemen, Afghanistan, we are keeping troops in Afghanistan. We have not cut back the things that we all found so odious about the Bush administration and Obama added some of his own. The drones policy – Obama had more drone attack in the first eight months than Bush had his entire presidency. And these have very dubious international legality.

OS: Peter was hopeful that the in the second term there will be some more flexibility, we hope so. But, there is a system in place, which is enormous – the Pentagon system.

continues here....

Peter Kuznick
Associate Professor
Department of History

The author of Beyond the Laboratory: Scientists as Political Activists in 1930s America and coeditor of Rethinking Cold War Culture, Professor Kuznick is currently writing a book about scientists’ opposition to the Vietnam War. As director of American University’s award winning Nuclear Studies Institute, he takes students on an annual study abroad trip to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He spearheaded the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy in response to the Smithsonian’s Enola Gay exhibit and co-founded the Nuclear Education Project. He writes often and lectures frequently about nuclear issues in general and the atomic bombings in particular. He has recently completed a historically based Hollywood screenplay and teaches the path-breaking course Oliver Stone’s America. He regularly provides commentary to the media on a broad range of subject and was selected Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer, 2004-2007.
Degrees
PhD, Rutgers University
MA, Rutgers University
BA, Rutgers University

http://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/kuznick.cfm

Enola Gay

teaches the path-breaking course Oliver Stone’s America

He has recently completed a historically based Hollywood screenplay

was selected Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer

rubato wrote:Oliver Stone is not an intelligent man. And not typical of any meaningful group. He has nothing of interest to say about anything.

"Salvador" was a decent movie but the rest are varying degrees of awful. "Full Metal Jacket" was a good movie set in the Vietnam war by a director who was an artist. "Platoon" was shit.

yrs,
rubato