Anyone catch the series on PBS about the Reconstruction?

[bleedingheart]

It was great and I think it really sheds a great deal of light on the modern political situation.

It was funny to hear about the radical republicans of that era that were for civil rights for all and who pushed a more progressive agenda. I am sure those radical republicans are turning over in their graves with the likes of Delay and Santorum running about..

Alas it made me very sad to see how lack of leadership in Washington and capitulation to the southern democrats allowed for slavery to continue on in an unofficial manner.

No matter what people say I think PBS still has some of the best television programming around.

[Zomby Woof]

1. The American Experience

First rate program. I also caught the one about the Lincolns the week before. TV doesn't get much better. :-)

[bleedingheart]

2. I am still fuming over the Post Gazette reviewer who proclaimed

PBS boring... alas it shows you how some people have no taste.

PBS actually has content and assumes that the viewer can understand more than a paragraph's worth of information.

[Zomby Woof]

3. Oh sure....boring!!!

Not being bombarded with commercials and people barking at you! Booooriiing! :eyes: I wonder if the critic had too much MTV in his young diet growing up...

[RainDog]

4. An excellent program

I watched it, too.

The Reconstruction era gets waaaay too little coverage in American history...and I think it's probably the most important precedent to what we are facing today.

Like you, I see too many uncomfortable similarities between today's extremist republicans and the democrats of that era.

I heard someone recently on C-span who noted that if Lincoln were alive today, he would not recognize the Republican party as his own because it has been co-opted by those same forces which were so powerful in the south and in Washington after the Civil War.

It feels like we have been doomed to repeat history at this moment. I hope that this truly divided nation will not have to face another civil war to stop the current conferderates.

For a while now, I've always associated the term "neo-con" with neo-confederate, not conservative, because their positions are in no way consersative as far as foreign, economic, of constitutional positions go.

however, as the appointment of Pickering shows, and as the cronyism of the Bush plantation owners (corporations) shows, these forces in our nation were not defeated as soundly as they should have been at the time.

[bleedingheart]

5. You have said it way better than I could.

You are so right...I see the link between the neo-cons and the confederates and it is chilling.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

6. I just picked up Eric Foner's Book on Reconstruction

as a result of watching this program. You're right-there is too little coverage of this time period. It will probably repeat, assuming you have access to more than one PBS affiliate. We have three in Boston, and I often find what I missed on Channel 2 last week appears on Channel 44 the next week.

Frontline did a great segment on the Chinese spying incident. Turns out he was a fundraiser for the GOP! and the Repukes like to blame that one on CLinton....