Check out Frank Rich this weekend.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/opinion/04rich.html?_r=1

End of story. You are irrelevant.

"so it is OK, to whine about capitalism and race and all that stuff even if you make millions of off capitalism, have a huge CO2 footprint, and claim Flint, yet live in an all white community? Not just that but a Gated Community. Hey if you can't walk the walk just tell others to do it. And, Moore will never have the guts to make a film about Obama. never."

This stupid argument ALWAYS comes up anytime Mike Moore has a new project out.

What difference does it make? It's his body of work that counts. What kind of CO2 footprint have you left? What kind of neighborhood do you live in? So because Moore has an upper-middle class lifestyle, that means we should throw out everything he's done? Zinn and Chomsky aren't poor either. Besides, whatever they make pales in comparison to what CEO's and other such corporate criminals make, and those people are killing the world. Moore's just trying to enlighten and empower in his own way.

My guess is that Moore has to live in a guarded community because of all the wingnuts out there who'd like a piece of him.

so it is OK, to whine about capitalism and race and all that stuff even if you make millions of off capitalism, have a huge CO2 footprint, and claim Flint, yet live in an all white community? Not just that but a Gated Community. Hey if you can't walk the walk just tell others to do it. And, Moore will never have the guts to make a film about Obama. never.

I find it quite ironic that Obama was the least acceptable (yet acceptable) candidate for corporate approval, and now limited public option is the least acceptable (yet acceptable because insurance companies greatly benefit) health care reform. This is the lesson to take away from here and it is why single payer was buried from the getgo. You are getting the only options the corporate overlords allow you to have.

A Populist Expose And Manifesto That Begs A Sequel...Or Two!

I saw the new Michael Moore movie this afternoon. Here's a review.

______________________________________________________________________

"Capitalism" opens with disclaimer from some old film, and then segues into scenes from police videos of people robbing banks and convenience stores. Moore likes to compare. In this case he wants to show us who the real thieves are, and they don't tend to be desperate drug addicts wearing hoodies.

To me that's what Moore's latest film is: a cinematic treatise on crime. Moore uses his excellent skills as an editor to piece together old films in a manner that makes you want to scream "Where does he find this stuff?" to paint an accurate picture of what America is: a plutocracy. And yes, Mike uses that word and wants us all to learn it, even providing a definition straight out of a textbook.

What Moore also excels at is humanizing crises and the class war by showing us just who's affected by these forces and why. We're shown people, real people being thrown out of their homes, being pushed out of their jobs, being paid meager salaries to do dangerous, complicated work, and being informed that companies profited from the deaths of their loved ones through something called "dead peasant" insurance.

He even speaks to various clergy to try and find any sort of modern moral justification for capitalism. He can't. One priest even goes as far to state flatly that "Capitalism is radically evil."

Yeah.

Speaking of all things radical, Moore puts himself on the line by trying to raid the offices of financial institutions, implores us to do the same, and backs that up by showing current examples of how dissent and popular revolt can turn the tables on the gluttons in power, even if those victories are as small as one family being allowed to stay in their foreclosed home and window factory workers given severance payments after a long sit-in.

However, what "Capitalism" isn't is a mere bleeding-heart piece that is all emotion. Mike tends to do his homework. And that's what makes him a firebrand. The evidence is laid bare for the viewer to see.

There are some who would call Michael Moore and his documentaries "anti-American." He's even told by one Wall Streeter to "stop making movies" when trying to get an accurate definition of what are called "derivatives." Although I would definitely call Moore a subversive, I challenge anyone to find an ounce of hatred towards America in this piece. No, Michael Moore loves America, but his America is made up of those who toil and have little or nothing. His America is being looted by people that can only be described as white-collar sociopaths who would be selling heroin or whoring out young girls had they not been brought up in wealthy families.

If I had one gripe about "Capitalism" it would be that there was so much more ground that could have been covered. That's why I feel that a sequel is in order as well as a prequel since Moore rather glosses over earlier American history. But I suppose that's what he have Howard Zinn for.

Yes, this is a paramount polemic against capitalism and dare I say FOR socialism. Even Bernie Sanders gets some facetime.

As someone who has been identifying as a socialist for years, I can say that it only reinforced by belief that the free market is unsustainable, as if my personal experience as an American worker hasn't been enough to do so. Demons lurk in the details though, and Moore not only shines a light of veracity on them, but also splashes them with holy water, as any left-leaning Catholic such as Moore would.

Christ wasn't a capitalist sympathizer, something Moore also shows us, and neither is Moore himself. So why should you be? It's not in your best interests to be one. Think of this as an intervention by way of motion picture for your friends and family who are thoroughly in love with an abusive spouse that is all take and no give.

Talk about a great candidate for an ABC Sunday Night Movie. If I could hold screenings for "Capitalism" I would. It needs to be seen by far more people than any action/adventure blockbuster.

Thanks for makin' the devils hiss Mike. And for making socialism cool again.

We are the slowly boiled frog just at the point of realization that we are being cooked. It's a jump out of the pot now or die proposition.

Who cares about teabaggers?

What's wrong with the vanilla explanation: that the insurance companies bought themselves a pack of legislators?

I'll be there on time for the movie, though. More Moore! Go!

I like Michael Moore, flaws and all. He seems like a rock-solid man of the people, and his flaws are involved in that character. I can't prove his rock-solidness, but it seems obvious to me from his person, speech, and nature of his works.

I say this having seen him numerous times, as he visits my area frequently, having relatives here. (Family obviously means a lot to him, a characteristic unaffected by his wealth.) He also has put on many free events and helped raise money for good causes.

He is a dolt about Obama, though. I checked out his movie this afternoon. Good stuff, but, darn it, unless I missed something, he talks about Summers and Geithner as bad capitalists but never mentions that they work for Obama now. (He does, however, list some of the corporate and Wall Street money that went into Obama's campaign.) This is a bit of uncharacteristic dishonesty (by omission) unworthy of the man. He *does* single them out. What are we to make of this? He's got to quit giving Obama slack.

I confess that, for friends, I prefer people with a few flaws and I hate "party line." Mike's a guy I *would* like to have a beer with. I might even be able to set him straight about Obama.

Moore's film taught me a few things.
1. that FDR had called for a 'second bill of rights' in 1936 guarranteeing Americans a job, a living wage, guarranteed vacation every year, and access to healthcare when sick, among several other things.
2. Americans, of course, were denied these things. However, today, most Asians and Europeans have ALL of these things, and the reason why will astonish you: they have them because we defeated them in WWII. When Americans took over their governments and forced them to draft new constitutions in 1946, the American's FORCED them to include all the items in FDR's 'second bill of rights' wish list. And so they did. That bit of history astonished me with its clarity and irony.

Empires fail because they are unfailingly stingy with their own people.

I think the cartoony teabag protesters are a diversion. As long as we are distracted by their ridiculous nonsense, the attention is off the people in congress and business who are really eighty-sixing the health plan.

I, for one, think it's time Obama got a royal kick in the arse because I believed him. I desperately wanted to believe in him but after more than 8 months in office I can't see that he done one damned thing I wanted done. If his administration is different from the last one, where's the evidence? He should have rolled up his sleeves; taken on the Democrats in Congress and read them the riot act instead he continues the Bush economic policies; the Bush military imperial policy; the Bush justice policy; the Bush economic policy. I worked to get him elected; I spent money to get him elected and it turns out I helped elect one of them, not one of us. Now I have to pin my hopes on the slim possibility that Ralph Nader's book "Only the super rich can save us" can spark a citizens revolt against all the whores in Washington.

The NY Times reported last week that several polls were all consistent on the level of public support for public health care option. The numbers were in the 60s in favor. Any issue person will tell you those are good numbers. So how did the health care issue get derailed by tea baggers? easy Congress is using the media fru fra to gut what their special interest buddies dont want. The system is corrupt. Tea baggers provide the veneer that many folks are against public health care when in fact they are not. Congress knows this as they read the same polls more closely than most of us. I'm not a Nader guy but he tells it like it is, the system is screwed by big money and health care debate in another example.

Most of the people who boast that we in America have the best military, best economy, best doctors, ect and we are the best in everything. We are the most intelligent, most hard working, most trustworthy,most compassionate, greatest country in the world. The government is supposed to be a representative group of us. It is ours. Why is it that these people who brag all the time about how wonderful we are as a nation, do not think that our government can deliver the best health care system in the world, with a single payer system? They talk out of both sides of their mouth. If our government is so inept that it cannot get the best health care to all of America's citizens , then stop praising and glorifying the U.S. as if we are the only nation with intelligent people and we are so much better than the people of the rest of the world.

The Tea Bag Nation may be over, but the Douchebag Nation is eternal

"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats

Several points I'd like to make here:

It's nobody's business if MM is a millionaire as long as he makes his money w/o stealing, cheating, hurting or killing people.
Some socialists may not agree with this, although most people on this site who call themselves socialists rarely explain what they mean by the term.
If socialism means total state ownership of the means of production (which is the strict Marxian meaning), I don't think most Americans want that. For chrissakes, not even the Chinese Communist Party believes in such a system any more.

Just for the record, I think what most fed up Americans properly want is a humanely and democratically-regulated market economy, along with with a one-person/one vote political system that can't be legally bought-off by money. In other words, an end to corporate personhood plus a publicly-financed system of elections. Something resembling the mixed-system, social democracy of Scandinavian countries

Back to Moore: He's often sloppy both as a systematic political thinker and as a political film maker -- but he's all we have at the moment; the only progressive, mass artist who IS clever enough to at least get millions of people to see the inhumanity and rot in what wrongly passes in the USA for capitalism, economically, and republican democracy, politically.

But since Moore is no more of a scientific socialist (a strict Marxist or Lenninist) than Ralph Nader, he is, alternately, again, sloppy and not too clever in naming his latest film "Capitalism - a Love Story," and then condemning under THAT title what is really a system of Plutocratic Oligarchy or, if you prefer, outright Gangsterism.
Moore's film's TITLE will not only render it difficult for his average viewers to make distinctions between the present rotten system he's condemning, and the popularly acceptable, regulated-market kind of capitalist system which most Americans would like a return-to (and which during the FDR era allowed a huge and prosperous middle class to arise), it (the film title) also stupidly allows, nay invites, the right to easily call him, and those who agree with his perfectly valid criticisms, a 'socialist' -- thereby enabling false polarization and confusion to ensue from whatever useful public debate his film might otherwise engender.

Dumb dumb dumb.

Someone suggested that for Moore's next film (if there is one), he work together with Ralph Nader -- assuming Ralph would want to.
I think this is a excellent idea. With Nader's greater depth, concision, terminological precision, and reputation for never even hinting at advocating state socialism, coupled with Moore's talent at showing the human consequences of (what falsely passes for) capitalism/republican democracy), something truly powerful and clarifying for the change-wanting public, could and probably would result.

Having said all this, I AM nevertheless sincerely grateful for Moore's efforts to date, and I hope his present film WILL create more insight than right-manipulated polarization.

Amen! No points for simply being not Republican. Next step, stop being so evil. Complacency has gotten the world into a huge mess and if Moore does nothing else, he at least gives us a push in the right direction. If only everyone would follow the lead: http://theendisalwaysnear.blogspot.com/2009/10/rent-seeking-parasites.html

I too, despise Moore's coddling of the democrats. (To his credit, he did support Nader--once.) As far as supporting Obama, Moore can only be blamed for taking another chance with the democrats--on a man that clearly offered the best chance for hope & change. Hell, I voted for the jive-turkey as well.

I look forward to seeing the movie--as I do all of his work.

What I'd like to see next from Michael Moore is a film about the MSM.

?

Michael Moore, what a joke and hypocrite. He a spokesman for the working class, give me a break. He is a multi-millionaire working his way to that 1 percent who owns 99% of the world’s wealth. He is a man who charges 25,000 to 40,000 dollars per speaking engagement. What blue collar worker makes $40,000 an hour?

"For two months, we've sat and watched the rabid right achieve the unimaginable: Derail universal health care and send the Democrats in Congress running for cover. Many have asked, "How did this happen? How could a small minority of angry people control the public agenda? Where is the majority's response? Why the silence?"

The most astonishing thing about this question is that it never crossed the questioners mind that the answer was...its not the rabid right, that it was not a small minority of angry people.......that the answer was simply that that was the majority's response, that those angry folks represented a majority of people, Republicans, Seniors, Independents, Democrats, even Liberals that are extremely angry at this charade.

That the majority's answer is "get lost" to put it politely. They want no part of any of these proposal's at this point. None of it.

Poll's are not that hard to read, but this is beginning to look more and more like a case of cognitive dissidence.

Although Michael Moore's films don't usually tell me anything I haven't already read about, I enjoy them very much. I plan to see this move this weekend because it is the modern American way of advising the public discourse that there are a significant number of Americans who oppose capitalism. We cannot become "socialism in one person," and neither can Michael Moore. Just letting the public know we exist is all that can happen at this point.
It is the same issue queers like me faced until very recently, and still have not overcome in terms of politics.

Michael makes a film, made with resources, gotten through the military corporate oligarchy.

And he is making a lot fo money from it.

And the movie is called Capitalism a Love Story.

The thing about Michael Moore and John Stewart and Steve Colbert is that they use humor to talk about serious issues.

There is nothing funny about losing your health care.

It's miserable and you die.

YOU die. Not Michael Moore. Not John Stewart. Not Steve Colbert.

YOU.

They just pay the doctor, with cash.

The underlying problem is the the population increases at three people per second. And we live on a finite PLANET with limited resources. Each of us decides what is necessity and what is luxury, and woe be to anyone who disagrees.

Make a movie about that Mike, and point the camera in the miror.

Good article by Michael Moore promoting his new movie. One thing tho: at one point he mentions " How could a small minority of angry people control the public agenda".

There was poll this week in the NY Times (not exactly a bastion of conservatism) and the small minority is about 30%. That's on the public plan only.

Now if they got asked about what the gov actually wants to do, only 30% actually support it whereas 46% "Don't know enough".

More here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/us/politics/25poll.htm

MM is the BEST reporter we have--if the tea bag peoples had seen his SICKO movie they would have felt differently about Obummer's insurance plan and opposed it on some real grounds--like it isn't really different--it's only insurance-friendly, not user friendly like single payer would be. If we are ever going to bring some reform to the health industry this would do it. Otherwise IT will continue to rip the users off. He gets at the truth on all the subjects he tackles--if we only had representatives with hie discernment on things that effect our country we would be ahead of the game instead of last in everything except causing trouble.

Michael Moor, please come to DC this week I would love to hear what you think about Obomber's war???

FOUR DAYS AND COUNTING...

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Okay, so what can people do? One thing is to make sure we are self-sufficient enough so that we don't disappear when food chain disappears. Grow our own food and encourage all sorts of local training in practical skills. See our website http://www.cleanearth.net for a proposal we're working on putting into being in North Coastal Maine.

Michael Moore's problem is that he is still a dyed in the wool democrat. He seems to believe the democrats are something other than the less right wing side of our essentially one party system. It is a terrible blind spot for him.

"Last weekend in New York and L.A. many shows sold out (making "Capitalism" the biggest per screen average at the box office for 2009)..."

Michael! YOU are a CAPITALIST.

"Smoke in the wind'"-------------*

Only equal force will put the control that the Plutocratic Oligarchy has over the USA into the hands of the 'people'.

Anything else; is 'smoke in the wind'.

* "Smoke in the wind" refers to the imagery of 'smoke' that is dissipated by the wind'---looks good, but has no substance after the wind 'blows it away'.

"If the USA were another nation the USA would invade the USA to keep the world safe; and they would be justified."

The small minority controls the propaganda media that misinforms & lies to the citizens of this country. Until that ends, we the people lose.

My wife and I will be seeing this intriguing film tonight. Michael Moore inquires, "How could a small minority of angry people control the public agenda?" One suspects it is because a majority of people did not become angry enough to demand a single payer system in this country. As T.R. Reid points out in his extremely well written book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care:

"Everybody [in Switzerland] gets to vote, everybody gets a jury trial, everybody gets an old-age pension, everybody pays the same price for a ticket on the national railroads. And everybody has access to medical care. In Switzerland, the "right to medical care" is not a political argument advanced by left-wing parties but, rather, a basic truth of modern life."

As Reid notes in his book, the US is the only industrialized country in the world that can claim [as if it is proud of that fact] that it does not provide universal health care for its citizens. As the above quote from Reid's book should affirm, if there are things and rights that one takes for granted, then the obvious question should be why is health care for everyone not considered one of those rights? And why are not the progressive politicians and the people in this country outnumbering the conservative and libertarian Neanderthals who have dominated and taken over this important topic?

I'm shocked at Moore's lack of knowledge regarding Obama and the Democrats healthcare reform. It is NOT "univerasal healthcare" nor was it ever intended to be. It was and is becoming more so, a reform to enlarge the overstuffed coffers of HMO's and big pharma. How dissapointing that even Moore has been bamboozled by the criminals in the WH.