You would be a fool to believe any claim of being "decieved". Sure, there are plenty of idiot congresspersons, but most were well aware of what they were getting into. Moreover, any truth to claims of such "deception" only make those persons as idiotic as those mentioned above, and equally as underserving of congressional status.
No worries - my general view of politics is that the best solutions come when both sides are communicating with each other. When one side shuts the other out and looks at them as "the bad guy" or whatever, the solutions become worse (Iraq was an example of this). In my worldview, both sides have valuable points and dismissing one viewpoint is a detriment to all. So for me, taking an automatic negative view of Wall Street or big banks or whatever misses the boat - ultimately, while they are "greedy capitalists", they also provide a valuable role in society, and dismissing them as the enemy doesn't make for good policy in the long run. The goal of the bailout was not to punish the banks, it was to repair the economy - that's what helps your everyday average American the most. And in that respect, I think it did a fantastic job. So whether it was too lenient or not is not a big issue to me - it worked. And it did so at basically no cost to taxpayers (and maybe a profit). That said, that's my view on actual policy issues. The kookery that's going on right now on the right side of the aisle is a totally different situation, and I think those people should be drowned out. (I said the same about the crazy left during the Bush years as well)
It's the 'crazies' who yell the loudes, who in turn get the most attention or bring the most attention to their respective parties. It's a shame that the centerminded people from both parties can't bond together and become productive. Imagine if there were no Dems and no Repubs......just people running for office. I digress: I do think MM is left of center and portrays his movies/documentaries in a manner that suits his beliefs. That his perogative. My problem with him is that he presents them as undisputed truths. I've enjoyed all of his films except the 911 film. Sicko angered me. Bowling I enjoyed but still will still hold on to my guns, thank you very much. Hate him or love him, his films will draw and 'Capitializm' will surely work in his favor.
Its laughable when he says stuff like 'Capitalism Did Nothing for Me' and goes home to his mansion that was bought with money earned though capitalism. Even liberals should think that's a little hypocritical.
You might have some sort of point if he actually said stuff like that. I take it you don't like Michael Moore. I really think Moore's attack on capitalism is focused on the type of Reagan-Bush type of capitalism that has led to the decline of the middle class. He seemed to speak highly of the previous type that allowed his father to support his family, easily payoff his house while young, send kids to college without massive debt and have a wife who could easily afford to stay home if she wanted.
Capitalism Did Nothing For Me He makes it sound like he's a victim of capitalism, not someone who is profiting from it.
Michael Moore is an arrogant liar. I can't respect someone who fabricates a story in places and tries to pass it off as the truth. I noticed this with 9/11 when he tried to imply that the Bushes were in league with Bin Laden's family to build a pipeline in Afghanistan. What utter crap.
I'd also like to add Michael Moore isn't a political activist, he's a self-aggrandizing entrepreneur who's taking angry liberals for a ride. He's the Glenn Beck of the left. Capitalism did nothing for him - I bet he says that all the way to the bank. His films do nothing for us.
On Conan O'Brien they aired this bit from his movie. Can anybody make out what Don Regan is saying after "Speed it up"? <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QTcL6Xc_eMM&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QTcL6Xc_eMM&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
i am not against capitalism.....not the early anglo protestant version at least... but let's not kid ourselves here.....business and government are in a bond of holy matrimoney in the us.....and both spouses essentially work for the same factory, that being the federal reserve banking corporation.... i guess u could call it a fascist system umbrella'd under the supreme overlord despot...
His fathers success was not due to a "type" of capitalism, but rather to a type of mentality. Remember, back then people didn't blow money on crap like overpriced game systems, cell phone plans, cable/satellite TV, overpriced luxury cars, eating out at restaraunts, overpriced name brand clothes, homes they can't afford, etc. Today, we spend way more money on crap we don't really need in order to impress people we don't really like. Thats why moms have to work and college educations are no longer funded before college. Last year, 45% of Americans were planning on buying flat-screen TV's. You cant' tell me that in 1 year, 45% of the Televisions in America's homes all broke, causing these people to Have to buy new TV's. They wanted new TV's, and so they bought new TV's. If you're in Debt and buying a new TV while your old TV is working fine...you're in debt because you put yourself there..and your not helping yourself out. Thats the world we live in now.
Well I beg to differ with you. As a longtime activist I consider Moore to be one. I accept that you don't like him. BTW I know leftists/liberals who find his style unlikeable. I think that is overall quite effective, and given that it exposes many times more folks to these ideas and facts (99.99% of which are true), his work is more valuable than almost any lectures by college professors or refereed journal articles regarding public policy.
Don't totally agree about the overlord exactly, but what I like about your post is the idea that there's enough meat here for a good movie. I think David Denby of the New Yorker just saved me a couple of hours and $10. From his review of Moore's movie, you get the Occam's razor idea that Moore is actually quite "bewildered" by capitalism on the modern stage. "There’s a good documentary kicking around at the moment that connects the arrogant behavior of bankers in New York to the loss of homes and the destruction of neighborhoods during the economic meltdown—Andrew and Leslie Cockburn’s “American Casino.” Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” is something else—not a good movie or a coherent exposition of the meltdown but an emotional attack on capitalism as a system, an attempt, literally, to de-moralize capitalism. Moore wants to end the notion that capitalism is good—benevolent, creative-destructive, the Lord’s work, or anything else positive that has ever been claimed for it. Capitalism, in this rendering, lays waste to everything; it’s a power structure that allows the rich to steal from the poor. There is much talk of “the rich” and their bad behavior. Some of the taunts may be justified, but, improbably, Moore has rich people and their bought-and-paid-for agents in Congress consciously planning every turn in the economy as a series of heists (Alan Greenspan’s recommending home-equity loans was the beginning of a scheme, it turns out, to get people “out of their houses”). If that’s the case, Moore might have offered some explanation of how “the rich,” as well as millions of others, lost thirty per cent or more of their equity in the stock-market collapse of 2008." and still Moore... "... (he) has never recovered emotionally from the closing of the G.M. plants in Flint. Once, it seems, there was a paradise, memorialized in home movies: his father worked at the AC Spark Plug plant, the family had plenty to eat and enough money to send the kids to school. In the movie’s most touching moment, Moore accompanies his father, now very old, as he stares in horror at the flattened wasteland where the plant once stood. But Moore is so mesmerized by Flint’s tragedies that he thinks G.M. went bankrupt because it closed plants in the eighties. Modern capitalism, with its torrential flow of money across borders, is beyond him. By the end of the movie, baffled, he resorts to his old gags: trying to get Henry Paulson, for example, on the phone to hold him accountable..." Ouch.
Ideas and facts in his movies are 99.99% true? Greenspan really wanted to kick people out of their homes, and so he pushed for home equity loans? Or is that little nugget of an idea just the untrue 0.001% of the new film? Do you see what I mean, glynch? He does some good things, but then he suggests some hyperbolic connections. I haven't seen the new film, but this has always struck me in the past. Oversimplification and sloppy analysis and really egregious suggestion of connections and/or intent on the part of his foes. I want to see "American Casino!"
People who go to a Moore flick and can't parse out his personal opinions from the facts are going to have a pretty hard time at life. The way I look at Moore material is as such: 1) Overriding idea/concept (what is the message or moral of the story) 2) Facts presented therein 3) Opinions presented therein You go for #1 and #2... #3 usually just goes for a few cheap laughs.
Looking back historically, I'm curious as to why the "rich" # has been stuck at 200k for so long. It was there in the 40's and the 60's, and it's wanting to rear its head again. I understand the concept of "too much earnings" but I think it could be solved much easier if a great deal of those earnings had to be vested over the next 5-10 years. I think it would completely take care of the old "take the money and run" schemes that have plagued this country time and time again. If the Gov't put a law into companies mandating it, I think we would see a lot less of this problem. Taxing people more just because they earned it is ludicrous and really doesn't solve anything other than apathy towards innovation.
I think this culture of usery is a big problem we have. Unhinged capitalism has a lot to do with that. You've also got to take a moment and ponder why the top 1% of earners in this country have more wealth than the bottom 95% combined. That is an increasingly evaporating middle class that hurts America.
