I renew my objections to the biased content of the History Channel's "America: The Story of Us" project, sponsored by the Bank of America, and indeed, make my objections even more strenuously than I have before. I admit that I have not watched every single second of every single segment that has aired so far, but I've watched more than enough to realize that the problems I had with what I'd seen as of a couple of weeks ago have not only not gone away, but have gotten worse.
Objection the first: the B of A ads have been deliberately designed to be very difficult for a casual viewer to tell from the content of the actual program. Historical narrative (timed to coordinate with the period being discussed at that moment in the program itself) intercut with comments by various "experts" extolling the B of A . . . someone who didn't know much about American history or who wasn't paying really close attention would be left with the impression that the B of A has actually been THE central player in all of US History. One almost expects to see painted portraits of B of A executives at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention, the Gettysburg Address, and so on.
Give me a break!
Objection the second: the program itself is designed to exalt the role of business and banking in US history at the expense of actual fact. For an example from what aired last night, one need consider only the segments "explaining" the Dust Bowl, Great Depression, and the lead-up to America's participation in World War II.
(1) More time was given to explaining how the dust storms of 30s affected urban centers such as New York City and Washington, D.C., than was given to explaining how the farming practices of rural America contributed to their creation, and how the rural American economy had been in shambles for years before the technical start of the Great Depression, namely the stock market crash of October, 1929.
(2) I never heard FDR mentioned by name regarding the bank holiday called after he was inaugurated in 1933, to stop the runs on all American banks that threatened to plunge the country into a crisis so deep there would be no digging out from under, ever. One sentence--ONE SENTENCE--was devoted to the fact that economic deregulation had produced excessively risky economic speculation which led to the crisis in the first place . . . while several verbal paragraphs were devoted to the admittedly anonymous single investor who entered a bank in 1933 and demanded ALL his deposited funds back, which triggered the nationwide run on all banks. The result? An impression that this one anonymous individual with his one self-preservative act was responsible for the downfall of our entire economic system, and not the decade-plus of irresponsible behavior by the baking industry that was the hallmark of the Roaring Twenties.
(3) The assertion that FDR's [again, he was never mentioned by name, which makes me wonder whether this was done to avoid a more direct protest against the program's contents by those who know what FDR did for this country--Ed.] public works programs didn't end the Depression; it was our being dragged into World War II that ended the Depression. The writers and producers of this biased interpretation omitted or ignored several salient facts.
--The Republicans, then as now, objected to spending directly to help the American people, and never gave FDR sufficient funding even for his programs that were put into law and effect.
--FDR himself erred in early 1937 when he listened to some of his more conservative economic advisers and pulled back on even the relatively paltry amount of money he had been given to use for his "great economic experiment." This had the effect of shutting down a proto-recovery that had, in fact, begun by 1936, once his public works programs had been in effect long enough to have had real effect on the overall economy.
--The assertion that it was WWII and not FDR's programs that ended the Depression is totally specious. What was it about the war that ended the Depression? Here's a clue: GOVERNMENT SPENDING. It's just that what the money was being spent on had changed from domestic programs designed to help people survive, to armaments production and the entire panoply of what has become the modern military-industrial complex. The source of the spending didn't change. The purpose of the spending did. The amount of the spending increased, dramatically. Had FDR been able to spend on domestic initiatives what he was given to spend on the war effort, the Great Depression would never have been so deep nor long-lasting is it actually proved to be.(4) The program's continued emphasis on recounting individual anecdotes and what amounts to winning info for the trivia-mad [of which I confess to being one--Ed.] as opposed to focusing on the greater significance of many of the events it describes. Indeed, some of the anecdotes chosen seem to contradict whatever larger point they are cited to "support." A traditional and valid sub-narrative of the Great Depression story is how people, desperate for work, gladly took on any jobs they could find no matter the working conditions, just to be able to bring home even the most paltry pay. The building of Hoover Dam and the sculpting of Mount Rushmore are two of the most commonly cited illustrations, and "America: the Story of Us" does not surprise by choosing them.
However, its telling of the story of Hoover Dam has as its upshot that the money the men earned went to a nearby little, dusty, gambling town of Las Vegas. So the great work of constructing Hoover Dam ahead of schedule and under budget has by implication been reduced to the spark that ignited the boom of decadence in the desert. Talk about your damnation with faint praise!
The story of Mount Rushmore's creation likewise has been trivialized by what the program's writers and producers chose to emphasize. They didn't explain that there was no incentive to implement real safety measures at the site because there were far more men willing to do the work than there were openings available, even allowing for the number of deaths and disfigurements that made new openings available on a regular basis. No, the program implicitly pooh-poohed the dangers by telling the story of one worker who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a nearby lightning storm hit some power lines, thus ultimately igniting almost 100 dynamite charges 30 minutes early . . . only to suffer naught but a broken ear drum and the loss of his shoes, which had literally been blown off his feet.
One is left with the impression that the work wasn't so much dangerous as quirkily amusing. Truth would have been better served had the actual death and disfigurement totals been cited . . . but oh, yeah! Numbers and statistics are so BORING! We can't have that, now, can we? Well, numbers and statistics may be boring, but they are facts. And it's facts, not anecdotes, which lead to truth.
This entire program is insidious. It's dangerous. It's not the history of America; it's a paean to a right-wing, pro-business interpretation of American history which omits so many salient facts that it cannot be deemed substantively accurate. I cannot protest it strongly enough. It's another example of why certain things, like history programs, should never be put in the position of having to make a profit in order to justify their creation.
Lest any of you think that I protest because of my own biases, let me remind you: my sole bias is for the truth. The truth based on facts. I was not a fan of FDR who thus interprets his response to the Great Depression based on any predisposition favorable to him. I was someone who learned about the Great Depression by studying what happened, and gained an admiration for FDR as a result of that study. Developing an opinion based on fact is not the same as shoe-horning selected facts to fit one's predispositions. I do the former. That's why I'm at heart a historian. "America: The Story of Us" does the latter. That's why it's a piece of pro-business propaganda.
So my love-hate relationship with the History Channel continues. I love that more Americans are being exposed to history, in often interesting and frequently innovative ways designed to pique interest. I hate that this is coming at the behest of corporate sponsors who have their hands in production from Day One, and which call the shots about how that which is being presented will be interpreted. I hope that even such biased efforts will spur viewers to do some investigating of their own--and thinking of their own--about what they discover. I fear that that won't happen. I am left with this question: is exposure to some, albeit biased, history better than no exposure to history at all? 'Tis a puzzlement.
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