Inspired by Ken Burns’ PBS documentary “The Civil War” and Hollywood’s general refusal to tackle the issue of slavery, CSA: The Confederate States of America is an ersatz documentary on American history that begins with the premise that the South won the Civil War.

Every U.S. bomber and jet fighter kills people, even if it never leaves the ground. The people it kills are Americans. This warning, in essence, comes from Republican former president Dwight D. Eisenhower who pointed out how many hospitals or schools could be built for the cost of one plane. Today each and every missile lobbed into an Iraqi or Afghani neighborhood represents an untold number of Americans without health care, without decent schools, without housing and so on. As we vaporize “enemy” communities, we also economically decimate our own. But war is in our culture. We’re addicted to fighting. If we weren’t bogged down in Iraq, we’d be in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela or Bolivia.

The New Zealand character, says filmmaker Roger Donaldson (a Kiwi himself, so he ought to know) is marked by a “can-do” spirit. Use what you have to get the job done rather than wasting time complaining about what you don’t have. If you can’t do it the ways it’s supposed to be done, find some other way.