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The pernicious influence of the mass media obvious police corruption,,and the illegal phone hacking scandal rolls on daily. If the Murdochs, Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson thought they could keep themselves in a prelapsarian state of ignorance vis-a-vis the phone tapping scandal with the News of The Screws then they must have been living in cloud cuckoo land!
The bid for BSkyB should now be knocked into the sidelines. The bid should be dropped immediately.
Last night watched the Michael Moore DVD “Capitalism , A Love Story” , a rollicking two hour documentary on the rise of unregulated capitalism in the States and how evil and anti-democratic such greed is. Basically,capitalism is anti-human.
In fact, this is a timely film questioning the appropriateness of capitalism at a time when many will be undoubtedly feeling that it increasingly a system biased in favour of the greedy and reckless at the expense of the conscientious and cautious. The theme will resonate with many in light of banking bailouts. Moore quickly highlights the reason that Capitalism has proved so popular is the way in which the many believe that they might be one of the top brass themselves one day - so don't rock the boat that you might be climbing into... The connection with Brave New World is apparent.
Moore reminds us that however this is unlikely to be the case, because the game is rigged, people like Paulson and the other top bankers are pulling the strings of global government so they will always win the game at our expense. Until the point comes when there are are so many disenfranchised `peasants' that there is an uprising.
Capitalism: A Love Story starts well, drawing parallels with the fall of Rome, and echoes of Adam Curtis's short film for Punchdrunk's "It Felt Like A Kiss", using archive material of the American Dream. It reminds us out how we are increasingly expected to work harder and longer for the money to be concentrated in the hands of the few - i.e. working more for a lower quality of life, and the hand in glove relationship between the big banks, governments and how monetary policy and the focus on financial markets. All of which has generally been at the expense of the real economy.
Moore questions what has become of the `common good': altruism, humanity, open-source. People like Dr. Salk? Where are people's champions like them these days? He correctly identifies the fact that if you're smart and motivated, you go to Wall Street or the City where you use your gifts to develop ever more esoteric financial instruments to allow the world to engage in more and more complex financial betting.
Moore highlights how the short-termism of the markets frequently ends up costing those in the real economy, and increases the disparity between those at the top and bottom of the pile, and has contributed to the high levels of personal debt that the majority of the working classes now rely on to live their everyday lives. He reminds us of how we were persuaded to re-mortgage our homes to keep financing the consumer frenzy, which, now it has unwound, has driven the repossession boom in the US. The footage about the FOA's (Friends of Angelo of Countrywide) and the corruption at the very top regarding Countrywide is truly dismaying and alarming. As we all know, the people who are (still) running the show now are the very same people who caused the problem in the first place.
The documentary has a lot of POV footage of US home owners getting repossessed after foreclosure, and having to burn their worldly possessions after cleaning the property out. The human face of the credit bubble, the face that the bankers would obviously not like to, and don't have to worry about.
Many have said - capitalism isn't great, but it's the best system we have. Moore isn't convinced, and nor am I, but Moore doesn't offer up any alternative other than democracy, which in itself I am not sure is sufficiently strong. Regrettably, as is the case with a lot of American film-directors of his ilk, he gets swayed by the religious / righteous issue and the Christian view of capitalism. Though an American film about America, the same happened and is happening here in the UK.
Stalin reputedly said once" that one human death is a tragedy, a million a statistic". That can be applied to people losing their homes of decades for such relatively piffling reasons as being unable to pay utility bills or local taxes. We read that X-thousand homes have been repossessed and it is a statistic. This film shows a few real people and for them it is, as it is for most people in such a position, tragic beyond expression. Despite the so-called "free society", these people have no recourse but to curse, look upset and to mutter about how they "should" rob a bank to get their own back...but of course will not, in almost all cases. It is a film which makes one angry at the System.
Moore notes another phenomenon common to USA and UK: the takeover of public institutions such as schools and prisons by private contractors. Dreadful and always likely to lead to dreadful results in the end. I have no idea whether Moore knows about the opposing idea postulated by Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th Century, that of the Threefold Social Order, mutually autonomous spheres (Economic, Political/Rights, culture), so that, for example, the takeover of a soccer club in the UK by BUSINESS interests is worng in principle, because a sport club should be run, as a cultural institution, for the fans, spectators, players, staff, not for outside shareholders. We can see in the UK that when business takes over (for example) football clubs, it leads to degeneration and chaos ultimately.
That said, Moore does keep himself in check with the loudaphone and publicity stunts, limiting himself to only a few stunts in Wall Street towards the end of the film. He correctly gives over the majority of the film to narrating the real story here - the human cost to the people at the bottom of the ladder who can least afford it, and should be commended for reminding us all of their plight at a time of further excess in the City. Above all, it is incredible that a film questioning Capitalism has proved so popular amongst audiences in Capitalism's birthplace - the US. Had this film come out 10 years ago, I expect it would have been broadly panned across all social strata.
The bid for BSkyB should now be knocked into the sidelines. The bid should be dropped immediately.
Last night watched the Michael Moore DVD “Capitalism , A Love Story” , a rollicking two hour documentary on the rise of unregulated capitalism in the States and how evil and anti-democratic such greed is. Basically,capitalism is anti-human.
In fact, this is a timely film questioning the appropriateness of capitalism at a time when many will be undoubtedly feeling that it increasingly a system biased in favour of the greedy and reckless at the expense of the conscientious and cautious. The theme will resonate with many in light of banking bailouts. Moore quickly highlights the reason that Capitalism has proved so popular is the way in which the many believe that they might be one of the top brass themselves one day - so don't rock the boat that you might be climbing into... The connection with Brave New World is apparent.
Moore reminds us that however this is unlikely to be the case, because the game is rigged, people like Paulson and the other top bankers are pulling the strings of global government so they will always win the game at our expense. Until the point comes when there are are so many disenfranchised `peasants' that there is an uprising.
Capitalism: A Love Story starts well, drawing parallels with the fall of Rome, and echoes of Adam Curtis's short film for Punchdrunk's "It Felt Like A Kiss", using archive material of the American Dream. It reminds us out how we are increasingly expected to work harder and longer for the money to be concentrated in the hands of the few - i.e. working more for a lower quality of life, and the hand in glove relationship between the big banks, governments and how monetary policy and the focus on financial markets. All of which has generally been at the expense of the real economy.
Moore questions what has become of the `common good': altruism, humanity, open-source. People like Dr. Salk? Where are people's champions like them these days? He correctly identifies the fact that if you're smart and motivated, you go to Wall Street or the City where you use your gifts to develop ever more esoteric financial instruments to allow the world to engage in more and more complex financial betting.
Moore highlights how the short-termism of the markets frequently ends up costing those in the real economy, and increases the disparity between those at the top and bottom of the pile, and has contributed to the high levels of personal debt that the majority of the working classes now rely on to live their everyday lives. He reminds us of how we were persuaded to re-mortgage our homes to keep financing the consumer frenzy, which, now it has unwound, has driven the repossession boom in the US. The footage about the FOA's (Friends of Angelo of Countrywide) and the corruption at the very top regarding Countrywide is truly dismaying and alarming. As we all know, the people who are (still) running the show now are the very same people who caused the problem in the first place.
The documentary has a lot of POV footage of US home owners getting repossessed after foreclosure, and having to burn their worldly possessions after cleaning the property out. The human face of the credit bubble, the face that the bankers would obviously not like to, and don't have to worry about.
Many have said - capitalism isn't great, but it's the best system we have. Moore isn't convinced, and nor am I, but Moore doesn't offer up any alternative other than democracy, which in itself I am not sure is sufficiently strong. Regrettably, as is the case with a lot of American film-directors of his ilk, he gets swayed by the religious / righteous issue and the Christian view of capitalism. Though an American film about America, the same happened and is happening here in the UK.
Stalin reputedly said once" that one human death is a tragedy, a million a statistic". That can be applied to people losing their homes of decades for such relatively piffling reasons as being unable to pay utility bills or local taxes. We read that X-thousand homes have been repossessed and it is a statistic. This film shows a few real people and for them it is, as it is for most people in such a position, tragic beyond expression. Despite the so-called "free society", these people have no recourse but to curse, look upset and to mutter about how they "should" rob a bank to get their own back...but of course will not, in almost all cases. It is a film which makes one angry at the System.
Moore notes another phenomenon common to USA and UK: the takeover of public institutions such as schools and prisons by private contractors. Dreadful and always likely to lead to dreadful results in the end. I have no idea whether Moore knows about the opposing idea postulated by Rudolf Steiner in the early 20th Century, that of the Threefold Social Order, mutually autonomous spheres (Economic, Political/Rights, culture), so that, for example, the takeover of a soccer club in the UK by BUSINESS interests is worng in principle, because a sport club should be run, as a cultural institution, for the fans, spectators, players, staff, not for outside shareholders. We can see in the UK that when business takes over (for example) football clubs, it leads to degeneration and chaos ultimately.
That said, Moore does keep himself in check with the loudaphone and publicity stunts, limiting himself to only a few stunts in Wall Street towards the end of the film. He correctly gives over the majority of the film to narrating the real story here - the human cost to the people at the bottom of the ladder who can least afford it, and should be commended for reminding us all of their plight at a time of further excess in the City. Above all, it is incredible that a film questioning Capitalism has proved so popular amongst audiences in Capitalism's birthplace - the US. Had this film come out 10 years ago, I expect it would have been broadly panned across all social strata.
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