The Men and Women Who Sold America

Back to my blog, after doing some serious writing, for a little commentary. . . .

PBS just finished airing a four-part "documentary" series called "They Made America," based on the book of the same name by journalist/dinosaur Harold Evans. Though meant to celebrate American entrepreneurs and innovators who changed our lives, what it mostly did was pay tribute to rogues who wrecked our civilization. Among the folks profiled:

Russell Simmons, who made hip-hop mainstream and destroyed whatever popular music was not ruined already by Madonna or MTV;

Ida Rosenthal, founder of the Maidenform bra company (free advertising!);

Ruth Handler, who co-founded the Mattel Toy Company (more free advertising!) and pioneered the marketing of toys directly to children via television and thus turned them into conformist consumers at an early age, and invented the Barbie doll, which sent many a young girl to a psychologist for doubting her own self-worth;

Samuel Insull, the English-born businessman who provided cheap electricity and proceeded to spread the idea of a "public" utility as a profiteering private monopoly, and;

Thomas Watson, Jr., who, as head of IBM, helped make computers (hi, folks!) an everyday part of our lives and helped businesses find out more private information about ourselves and almost allow the Y2K bug to stop everything five years ago!

I'm surprised they didn't profile McDonald's franchise founder Ray Kroc for revolutionizing American cuisine.

This series did profile some genuine inventors, like Robert Fulton, who perfected the steamboat, but mostly the people the series looked at focused on people who made American civilization much more materialistic and much less civilized. Harold Evans, through the book on which this "documentary" was based, has not only argued that all of these innovations have changed America and the world profoundly, but that we're all better off for it. So what if these innovations made America crasser, shallower, and more machine-dependent (hi again, folks!) than anyone has a right to be? The whole idea of this series was to promote capitalism, the kind of capitalism that makes a fast buck while wreaking havoc on the fundamental values of society, the very idea that made America great!

"PBS" is increasingly standing for "Pro-Business Soapbox." :-(