I ran across an article about Michael Moore's new movie (opening Oct. 2nd) "Capitalism: A Love Story." First, here is the link to the article: http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.reuters.com/quotcapitalism-evilquot-says-new-michael-moore-film-reuters. And here is the trailer for the film:
I know in order to make an informed judgment we need more than just the trailer, but I'm still very curious to see what you guys think about this.
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Capitalism has it's flaws and we are beginning to experience that. From debt, to jailing people for profit and health care for profit, you can certainly see why people are more inclined to make money than care about the country.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Capitalism reflects human nature which is inherently selfish for the most part. The government is saving corporations and letting everyone else pick up the bill.
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate the fact that Michael Moore is trying to maintain a sense of democracy for the average American citizen. The middle class is tired of getting reamed by government bailouts and corporate mistakes. Plus our capitalist society is feigning due to more and more greed/corruption.
ReplyDeleteI would say that Michael is a complicated man, like most political commentators are underneath the surface – however, a complicated human being does not necessarily equate to a wise human being.
ReplyDeleteHe is neither as intelligent and wise as some believe him to be, nor is he the literal incarnation of the devil and the vanguard of communism as others see him. He strikes me as an ordinary human being with basic assumptions about individuals, governments, policy questions, and corporations (and how all of these operate and should function) like anyone else, and like most people, he works enthusiastically to prove himself correct. Then add in the happenstance that he is gifted in the art of cinematography, and has little scruples about making films which carry the message that anyone who opposes his chosen side of an issue has either defective reasoning skills or insidious motives.
A free market has its flaws, and is very distant from being perfect. However, there are significant historical and socioeconomic indications that it encourages an efficient flow of capital, as well as facilitating enormous varieties of products, services, and technologies through harnessing the energy of human profit motive. Even with these advantages, there are still injustices and problems in a society, and we should never fool ourselves that the system is infallible.
I have no sympathy with either the left’s interpretation of capitalism as an engine of unbridled greed and exploitation, nor in the right’s interpretation of capitalism as a god-like invisible hand which never needs any correcting or supplementary attention.
My word of warning is simply to beware of men such as him, be they on the left or the right. A broken clock is still correct at least twice a day. Simply because an agent of ideology occasionally hits on accurate and very real grievances which occur in everyday life does not necessarily validate their belief system or broad message.
I've typed a few things and backspaced them because they weren't very polite. All I will say is that Michael Moore is a propaganda machine, and propaganda is not something I ever readily swallow.
ReplyDeleteTo choose a quote from one of my mentors: "The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another." -Milton Friedman
In my opinion, we are only psuedo-capitalists now, anyway. True capitalism wouldn't have any government involvement, i.e. bail-outs and welfare. The thing is, without true capitalism we (humans) would not work hard or aspire to do anything. Just look at how the Soviet Union ended up.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen his other movies but I think this one will catch my attention enough for me to purchase a ticket to see his point of view. I've heard a lot of negative things about Michale Moore (while the Bush Administration was in office). I would like to see how the media plays off of the various issues he is going to address. I am still waiting on my billion dollars so we'll see what happens.
ReplyDeleteCandice, you claim that you don't swallow propaganda easily, but then you go and regurgitate Friedman, and I happen to know you're a Limbaugh fan. Clearly, you've got kind of a biased view of what constitutes 'propaganda'.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Moore is a pundit like any other, and he takes drastic liberties in order to make his point (quote mining is particularly infuriating to me). In other words, take everything he says with a large helping of salt. That said, the points he makes are not without merit. There are people in this country who genuinely believe complete laissez faire is a viable solution, and Moore does a good job of shooting that down. The catch, of course, is that modern media selection means that the only people who will see this already agree. The people who really need to see it are sure to stay well away.