Michael Moore on The Huffington Post

Michael Moore Threatens To Boycott Connecticut Over Lieberman

2009-12-17T16:59:15Z

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore is threatening to organize a boycott of Connecticut in response to Sen. Joseph Lieberman's opposition to key parts of federal health care legislation.

Moore tells The Associated Press he will launch the boycott if Lieberman continues to block the bill and residents fail to pressure him to change his mind. He called for residents to hold rallies and flood Lieberman's office with phone calls and e-mails.

Don McNay: Postage and Other Economic Outrages Against Soldiers

2009-12-07T22:13:41Z

Letters, never a letter
I get no letters in the mail
I've been forgotten, yes, forgotten
Now I'm a soldier, a lonely soldier
Away from home through no wish of my own

-Bobby Vinton

I recently found that families of military people pay regular postage and shipping costs when they mail packages to soldiers in a war zone.

America ships soldiers off to Afghanistan and Iraq for free. If you come back in a body bag, they ship that back for free, too.

However, we make families who send soldiers socks, food and underwear pay shipping costs.

In a world where we spend billions to bail out Wall Street bankers and run trillion dollar government deficits, our government makes the families of soldiers pony up for postage.

That's not right.

If America is going to send our troops to fight dangerous wars, we need to make sure that the troop's support systems are "too big to fail."

Instead, war has been hell on the home front, too.

Since the beginning of the Iraq war, the families of soldiers have been fighting an economic battle. Few military people come from wealth. As Michael Moore made clear in his movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, members of Congress aren't interested in sending their children to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Working class families allow the rest of us to avoid being subjected to a draft.

Yet, those families can't send a box of cookies to a soldier without paying shipping and postage.

Since the beginning of the search for "weapons of mass destructions" in Iraq, it seems like our government has declared an economic war on the soldiers and families fighting the war.

We sent troops into battle without proper body armor. The scandal at Walter Reed hospital showed how horribly injured veterans have been treated. We've sent the same people back to Iraq, over and over and over again.

And we won't let their families skip shipping costs when they send a box of popcorn.

The war in Iraq has gone on longer than World War II. And with an economic crisis and unemployment going full tilt, the military gets overlooked in the media cycle.

Americans are more likely to know the "body count" of Tiger Wood's mistresses than how many soldiers died fighting overseas.

When the Iraq war started, Congress and the Pentagon allowed military families to be subjected to every kind of financial scheme imaginable. Military families were getting slammed by payday lenders, cash cashing companies and a host of peddlers, hawking products that were designed "exclusively" for the military market.

The "exclusive" products created high commissions for the person who sold them but never did as well as comparable products offered to the general public.

Diana Henriques, of the New York Times, did a series of articles about how soldiers were being targeted by unsavory peddlers to buy financial products they didn't need and couldn't afford.

She mentioned in passing that soldiers were being sold "contractual mutual funds" by companies like the Fidelity Group, where Peter Lynch is vice chairman.

I wrote a long series of columns about the contractual mutual fund rip-off.

I've been familiar with contractual mutual funds since studying for my securities license in the early 1980's. They were great for the person selling them and lousy for the person buying them. I thought companies quit selling them long ago. It turns out that Fidelity had a special product which it marketed almost exclusively to military people.

It literally took an act of Congress to stop Fidelity from peddling those funds to soldiers. Congress also limited payday lenders to a maximum of 36% interest for transactions with military people and their families.

In several previous columns, I offered to have Peter Lynch, and his Hollywood chums, such as Lily Tomlin, shipped to Iraq to replace soldiers who bought Fidelity contractual funds.

Turns out, if a military family had shipped Peter and Lily, they would have been required to pay shipping and postage costs.

If we are sending soldiers off to war, we ought to allow them to receive an unlimited number of free packages from their immediate families.

Because of an odd quirk in the law, soldiers in war zones can send letters home for free. But if someone wants to send them a package, they pay full freight.

Currently, there are three bills before Congress to fix this problem, HB404, HR2126 and HR707. All three are buried in the Armed Services Committee, going nowhere.

We need to make one of those bills into law.

I hope people send many holiday presents to our soldiers. They have a job I would never want, in a place I never want to visit.

That gets us through this year. A more long lasting present is to call, write or email your Congressman.

Tell them to let the families of soldiers send packages and letters to the soldiers at no charge. Ask for their support for at least one of the bills buried in the Armed Services Committee.

You can help make it more like Christmas for our soldiers every day, instead of just once a year.

Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is one of the world's leading authorities in helping people deal with "Big Money" issues. McNay is an award winning, syndicated financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor. You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com McNay founded McNay Settlement Group, a structured settlement and financial consulting firm, in 1983 and Kentucky Guardianship Administrators LLC in 2000. You can read more about both at www.mcnay.com. McNay has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Eastern Kentucky University Hall of Distinguished Alumni. McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.

Michael Moore To Japan: "Don't Be Like Us"

2009-12-03T15:35:51Z

TOKYO (Reuters) - Firebrand director Michael Moore is in Japan to promote his latest documentary on the global economic meltdown, which he says should resonate in a nation that has already seen the dark side of capitalism.

Will Marshall: Time for Strategic Stamina

2009-12-01T16:27:33Z

Not even Michael Moore can accuse President Obama of rushing into war. He has taken two months to make a decision that seems dictated by the inescapable logic of his assessment of Afghanistan as a "war of necessity."

To Dick Cheney, such deliberation is -- surprise -- a sign of weakness. After eight years of war, however, most Americans are probably relieved to have to a president who thinks long and hard before sending more U.S. troops into battle. That's doubtless true as well of our NATO allies, who also will be asked to commit more troops despite widespread skepticism of the war in Europe.

Had Cheney and President Bush kept their sights on Afghanistan, Obama wouldn't be in this fix. Perhaps the former vice president is carping because he doesn't care to explain this week's report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. It recounts how the Bush-Cheney administration refused to commit the forces necessary to prevent Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, then bottled up in the Tora Bora mountains, from escaping across the border into Pakistan in 2001.

In any case, having thoroughly analyzed the multilayered complexities of the Af-Pak situation, President Obama now has a difficult sales job to perform. He must persuade war-weary Americans to back a second round of escalation -- 34,000 more troops on top of the 30,000 he already has dispatched to Afghanistan. In essence, his message will be: we need to get in deeper to get out sooner.

He's right. U.S. military commanders say more troops are necessary to stop Taliban advances, especially in southeastern Afghanistan. We also need more troops to accelerate the training of Afghan security forces. In his speech tonight, Obama is expected to stress that the purpose of his surge is not to defeat the Taliban, but to buy time for building up Afghan security forces so that they can take over the fight. He will emphasize the conditional nature of America's commitment -- conditioned on the Afghan government's ability to win popular backing and legitimacy by fighting corruption, offering services, and providing security.

At the same time, Obama must convey a sense of strategic stamina. He must convince our friends as well as our enemies in the region that the U.S. is not planning to walk away from the struggle against Islamist extremism.

It will take time to build up strong Afghan forces, to help the central government become more effective, to reconcile with local tribal leaders in Pashtun areas, to build roads, schools, and other basic infrastructure. So even as the U.S. hands off responsibility to Afghans and draws down its combat troops, we must signal our enduring commitment to help the country defend itself against our mutual enemies. The Taliban and their al Qaeda allies need to know they will not be able to simply wait for us to tire of the struggle and go home.

And Pakistan needs to know this, too. If it looks like the U.S. is once again abandoning Afghanistan, the Pakistani military and intelligence service will be tempted to go back to their old bad habit of using the Afghan Taliban and other radical groups as foreign policy tools. By turning up the pressure in southern Afghanistan, Washington will be in a stronger position to insist that Pakistan keep pressing the Taliban on their side of the border, and flush al Qaeda leaders out of their havens.

No one needs reminding that patience is a virtue more than the president's own party. Already, some leading Congressional Democrats are demanding what no president can responsibly offer -- clear exit strategies and precise timelines for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

America has a vital interest in ensuring that Islamist extremists don't seize power in Afghanistan -- and, even more important, in Pakistan. No one knows when this struggle will end, but the stakes for our security are such that they call for the same constancy and resolve America displayed during the Cold War.

Marshall is the president of the Progressive Policy Institute. This item is cross-posted at ProgressiveFix.com.

Daniel Hernandez: Why Outlining an Exit Strategy is a Good Strategy

2009-12-01T16:24:49Z

Until yesterday, I tended to agree with the argument that outlining an exit from the war in Afghanistan was, well, the least-inspiring way to deploy 30,000 troops there. Then I recalled the true nature of troop morale. A Pakistani journalist also clued me in to the view of the Afghan public. And I read Sarah Palin's facebook. It was an enlightening day. These three audiences, the American public, the troops, and the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan will all listen to President Obama's speech tonight with unique hopes and fears. It's a tough crowd for a tough sell. But indications are he'll strike the right balance, one that reflects the new strategy.

But first, the notion that morale will tank the moment Obama says "withdrawal" is not only overrated, it's condescending. Our troops are are trained professionals -- well-led, disciplined, proud soldiers. The media forgets that platoon by platoon, morale depends less on our presidents rhetoric than it does on whether or not their friends are killed. If General McChrystal's right, this decision will save both American and Afghan lives and, exit strategy or no exit strategy, save morale. Or so we pray.

That aside, why lay out a withdrawal plan now? As my colleague in the Pakistani media told me, after they're assured that America's serious, the Afghan public will want to hear that someday we'll leave. "They are weary of occupation," this correspondent told me. "The people do not want to be ruled by the Taliban, but not by the U.S. either." This may sound unflattering to some, but should come as no surprise. Look at the party the Iraqis people threw when we scaled back there. They called a national holiday. Even Japan, a country we've protected for over fifty years, kind of wants to kick us out of Okinawa. It's is a natural concern for them. And if we're serious about "a dramatic change in how we operate," a desire to work with local leaders, win hearts and minds and gain new allies, then the message from our Commander-in-Chief must reflect that new strategy: To build trust by signaling that as soon as we can, we'll leave.

Here at home, however, Sarah Palin and Michael Moore are not impressed. Tell me "America is in it to win," Palin said. Anything less is defeatist. Moore, on the other hand, thinks it's time to "stop the madness. Stop the killing." The rest of the country, while somewhere between these two I'd like to think, is no less divided with 49% public approving, 51% opposed. We can only hope the people of Afghanistan are more supportive. The new strategy depends on it, and it starts tonight. Hopefully this brings peace.

Michael Moore: An Open Letter To President Obama On Afghanistan

2009-11-30T04:00:50Z

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn't so.

It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around. That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. "You're fired!," said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen. McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we f*#&in' hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought redemption).

So now you feel backed into a corner. 30 years ago this past Thursday (Thanksgiving) the Soviet generals had a cool idea -- "Let's invade Afghanistan!" Well, that turned out to be the final nail in the USSR coffin.

There's a reason they don't call Afghanistan the "Garden State" (though they probably should, seeing how the corrupt President Karzai, whom we back, has his brother in the heroin trade raising poppies). Afghanistan's nickname is the "Graveyard of Empires." If you don't believe it, give the British a call. I'd have you call Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev's number though. It's + 41 22 789 1662. I'm sure he could give you an earful about the historic blunder you're about to commit.

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion if you become the "war president." Empires never think the end is near, until the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the line -- and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan! A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker than you can shout "tea bag!"

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over, when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?

Don't be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan will make a difference, or earn you the respect of the haters. They will not stop until this country is torn asunder and every last dollar is extracted from the poor and soon-to-be poor. You could send a million troops over there and the crazy Right still wouldn't be happy. You would still be the victim of their incessant venom on hate radio and television because no matter what you do, you can't change the one thing about yourself that sends them over the edge.

The haters were not the ones who elected you, and they can't be won over by abandoning the rest of us.

President Obama, it's time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say, "No, we don't need health care, we don't need jobs, we don't need homes. You go on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters overseas, 'cause we don't need them, either."

What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that's what they'd do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.

All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name: torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full terror of which we scarcely know.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

Tonight we still have hope.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this. You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.

We're counting on you.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. There's still time to have your voice heard. Call the White House at 202-456-1111 or email the President.

Oscar Short List SNUBS Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

2009-11-19T08:04:53Z

LOS ANGELES — Of the 89 documentary films eligible for Oscar consideration this year, 15 were selected for a short list of potential nominees. And Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story" wasn't one of them.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 15 titles Wednesday.

Sheri and Allan Rivlin: Can the "Yes Men" and Michael Moore Fix Capitalism?

2009-11-06T13:22:43Z

With billions of taxpayer dollars propping up the largest financial institutions amid news stories about record bonuses on Wall Street and forecasts for a "jobless recovery" at best, there are a lot of good reasons to doubt the core promises of the capitalist system these days. Populist anger abounds and two movies in theaters now are helping bring the evils of capitalism into focus; The Yes Men Fix The World by the "Yes Men," (opening in Los Angeles this weekend) and Michael Moore's Capitalism, A Love Story.

Perhaps you haven't seen Michael Moore's latest film about capitalism because you've seen some of Moore's other works -- Roger and Me about the demise of GM's auto plants in Flint Michigan, Fahrenheit 911 about September 11, 2001 and the buildup to the Iraq War, Bowling for Columbine about gun violence and the political power of the gun industry, and Sicko making the case for socialized medicine in America -- and you just assumed you already knew how he would treat this topic. Well, you just might be right about that, but the topic and the times seem to be a particularly good fit and Moore raises important questions even if he becomes substantially less eloquent when he tries to answer them.

In Capitalism Moore continues to do what does best, which is to introduce you to real people with real problems. Capitalism produces winners and losers, and Moore wants to introduce his audience to some of the losers, people who have lost their jobs, lost their homes, and lost their confidence in "the American Dream." And Moore also continues to do other things you expect him to do; using archival footage, cartoons, juxtaposition, and campy "educational" film reels from the 50s and 60s to amuse (occasionally) and enrage.

The best moment of the movie is video of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1944 State of the Union Address, where he proposed a Second Bill of Rights, which would be an Economic Bill of Rights, guaranteeing every American an education, a job, a home, and medical care. This footage alone, apparently unearthed by Moore for this film, is worth the price of admission and serves as the film's climax.

At the core, though, the problem with Moore's body of work is a lack of growth. Just like too many other films at the multiplex, especially the ones with comic book origins, Moore presents an economic landscape populated with villains and victims. This immature world view was forgivable when Moore was young and making his first film about the demise of his own hometown, but now in his mid-50s, Moore should have realized that his audience is made up of more complex beings. Most people in his audience are themselves capitalists. In some ways each are part villains, and at the same time each of us are also victims of the capitalist system -- suffering and inflicting suffering on others.

In short, Moore lacks the ability to take his audiences farther than he has traveled himself, and Moore's meditations on evil seem to have stopped a few semesters short of Hannah Arendt or the Buddha's teachings on compassion. Moore's compassion for his victims may be admirable, if a bit thick, but his lack of compassion for the people he supposes are "villains" comes up short of enlightening, so rather than informing, educating, and motivating corporate executives to change their behavior, Moore is betting on complaining, taunting, and mocking. That Moore consciously places himself at the end of the film standing alone outside the glass tower of a major Wall Street bank pleading with his audience to join him in a "revolution to replace capitalism with democracy" is perhaps the most honest and sympathy inducing moment of the film.

The Yes Men Fix the World is the second movie by the "Yes Men" who are actually Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. Since we didn't see the first one, their brand of impishness and chutzpah is fresh for us. You may know the Yes Men's work from a stunt they pulled off a few weeks ago -- probably to get publicity for the movie -- where Bichlbaum impersonated a spokesman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at the National Press Club "announcing" that the Chamber will now support legislation to fight global warming until a real Chamber spokesman showed up.

Just like Comedy Central's Daily Show, the Yes Men have found chink in the armor of an entity in a self-important industry to exploit. Jon Stewart frequently has to remind people that despite the easy target that was the Bush Administration, the real purpose of the Daily Show has always been to expose the foibles of the cable news channels that seem important but have 24 hours to kill every single day, so they do a lot of stupid stuff while most of us are at work, and the Daily Show makes sure we don't miss it when we get home.

The Yes Men appear to be skewering corporate America, but the real vulnerability they exploits is in the corporate conference industry, that will sell tickets to just about anyone willing to spend a couple of hundred dollars to see presentations by just about anyone. And like bookers for 24 hour news shows, conference organizers are not checking credentials as closely as the TSA inspects your toiletries. So with a fake website that intriguingly combines the words "Dow Chemical" and "ethics," the Yes Men are able to get invited to these conferences, where they presumably wait out two other unrelated presentations on disjointed panels, and then impersonate executives from Halliburton or Exxon and "announce" the company is finally taking responsibility for its past wrongs.

The announcements are designed to shock, but the fact that hung over conference attendees find their stunts more amusing than appalling is only remarkable to those who have experienced little of the boredom of these conferences. The real audience is the cameras the Yes Men bring, and with skillful editing, juxtaposition, some cartoons, and -- oh did we mention the movie is co-edited by Kurt Engfehr, veteran of two Michael movies?

The Yes Men have a firm Michael Moore legacy (he appears in the trailer for their 2003 film, The Yes Men) but they do not yet have his audiences. Despite stunts at the National Press Club and the U. S. Capitol earlier in the week, the film opened to less than sell out crowds when it came to Washington, DC. This is unfortunate because the Yes Men are nearly as good as Michael Moore at his best, and we can hope both sets of filmmakers will add greater depth of understand to their current mix of humor and outrage.

George Goehl: A New Crossover Hit: "Break Up the Big Banks"

2009-10-24T02:16:14Z

We've reached an incredible moment when Alan Greenspan, Michael Moore, FDIC head Sheila Bair and Elizabeth Warren are all singing the same tune. These four, and others, have formed a distinct choir that is calling for breaking up the big banks.

In the United States, three banks hold almost 34% of the nation's deposits, four banks issue 50% of the country's mortgages, and the five largest credit card lenders control 74% of the market. These companies have a stranglehold on our wallets. And as we've seen, when they make bad decisions, they can take the whole economy down with them.

Our wallets aren't all that's being strangled -- so is our nation's democracy, as Wall Street lobbyists and campaign contributions tighten their chokehold on Washington. You would think that after sending the economy south, needing billions in taxpayer bailouts, and handing out lavish bonuses, that these institutions would be too toxic for elected officials to hang with. Think again. The big banks and their lobbyists are as welcome on the Hill and in the White House as ever. And until average Americans begin to mobilize our primary currency -- our family, friends, and neighbors -- to move into the streets, we will watch the big banks become bigger, more powerful, and less accountable.

Now is the time to move toward a vision in which financial institutions are more accountable to and more controlled by the communities they serve. So, dust off your songbook, warm up your vocal chords, and join the band that is calling for breaking up so called "too big to fail" institutions.

Your first chance comes October 25-27 in Chicago as people from 20 states come together for a showdown with the nation's largest banks and their trade group, the American Bankers Association. Make your way to Chicago and let's ensure the message of "break up the big banks" is heard loud and clear.

Elizabeth Warren Speaks With Michael Moore (VIDEO): Exclusive Footage

2009-10-22T17:41:33Z

The House Financial Services Committee passed a watered-down version of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency Thursday morning.

In the words of Financial Services chairman Barney Frank: "We have restricted the CFPA from what the administration proposed."

The CFPA is largely the idea of Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who serves as the chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP program, and who has long advocated for stronger consumer protections.

The Huffington Post has been given exclusive video of a candid interview Warren gave to Michael Moore for his documentary "Capitalism: A Love Story," much of which never made it into the film. In it, she expresses her disappointment at the lack of accountability that has come with the massive bailout of Wall Street, and explains why the need for a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency is so urgent.

The video is broken up into three clips below.

In the first clip, Warren delves into the ever more complex financial instruments that Wall Street has designed in order to continue to enlarge their profits at the expense of their own consumers. It is here that Warren explains why we need a robust CFPA:

Financial products, and they are products, just like toasters, are sold today with the most dangerous features embedded in them because that's what drives profitability. What's astonishing is that we let this happen. You can't buy a toaster in America that has a one in five chance of exploding. But you can buy a mortgage that has a one in five chance of exploding, and they don't even have to tell you about it... We have consumer protection for everything you touch, taste, smell, feel... But there is no equivalent for credit cards, for mortgages; there's nothing.

At one point Warren laments: "I teach contract law at Harvard Law School, and I can't understand my own credit card. No, I am not kidding you."

WATCH:

In the second clip, Warren describes how "the very people who drove the car over the cliff have been instrumental in shaping how the American taxpayer was supposed to save it. In the past," she notes, "when you drove the car over a cliff, you lost your job." She criticized the government for not conducting a thorough and transparent investigation into the causes of the financial crisis, which is essential because "responsibility is not just about blame. Responsibility is about making sure we fix this and it will not happen again."

Warren also suspects any such investigation would have serious legal ramifications: "I was talking to someone who spent many years as a prosecutor, and he said when that much money disappears it's usually because somebody broke some laws somewhere."

WATCH:

In the final clip Warren talks about what led her to Washington and what motivates her to continue her fight to protect the working class Americans. Her family is from a poor background, she relates, but they worked hard and succeeded, and then were sucked into the crisis along with much of the nation's middle class. "If the people who were directly affected, people whose lives have been wrecked by this, are not represented at the table, we won't get the right solutions," Warren says emotionally. "Yeah, we'll patch this up - and then in ten years it crashes again and it crashes again and it crashes again... My job is to be here for the people who just don't get a voice in this game. They've been shut out now for 30 years in this. It's to say no more."

Moore ends by professing his belief that the financial crisis and the ensuing solutions prove that not only is our current system immoral but also that it does not work. Warren grimaces but does not disagree directly with Moore. Instead she takes a different approach:

But we made up these rules. The rules are of men, of people. We pick what the rules are. The rules have not been written for ordinary families, for the people who actually do the work. We have to rewrite those rules.

WATCH:

Michael Moore: My Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now

2009-10-22T07:06:47Z

Friends,

It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so now what can I do?!"

You want something to do? Well, you've come to the right place! 'Cause I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to fix this very broken system.

Here they are:

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.

2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is H.R. 3200 -- but this bill is worthless without the amendment from Rep. Anthony Weiner that will bring us closer to the real bill that should be passed: H.R. 676. You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand that they support this amendment, no compromises allowed.

3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.

4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)

5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!

FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US:

1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. Let them know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent -- or even a candidate from another party -- if they don't do our bidding. Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email. And if you really want to drop an anvil on them, send them a snail mail letter!

2. Take over your local Democratic Party. Remember how much fun you had with all those friends and neighbors working together to get Barack Obama elected? YOU DID THE IMPOSSIBLE. It's time to re-up! Get everyone back together and go to the monthly meeting of your town or county Democratic Party -- and become the majority that runs it! There will not be many in attendance and they will either be happy or in shock that you and the Obama Revolution have entered the room looking like you mean business. President Obama's agenda will never happen without mass grass roots action -- and he won't feel encouraged to do the right thing if no one has his back, whether it's to stand with him, or push him in the right direction. When you all become the local Democratic Party, send me a photo of the group and I'll post it on my website.

3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year -- or, better yet, consider running for office yourself! You don't have to settle for the incumbent who always expects to win. You can be our next representative! Don't believe it can happen? Check out these examples of regular citizens who got elected: State Senator Deb Simpson, California State Assemblyman Isadore Hall, Tempe, Arizona City Councilman Corey Woods, Wisconsin State Assemblyman Chris Danou, and Washington State Representative Larry Seaquist. The list goes on and on -- and you should be on it!

4. Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the bailout money. Hold vigils and marches. Consider civil disobedience. Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (and there's more of us than there are of them!). Make some noise, have some fun, get on the local news. Place "Capitalism Did This" signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure. (You can download them from my website.)

5. Start your own media. You. Just you (or you and a couple friends). The mainstream media is owned by corporate America and, with few exceptions, it will never tell the whole truth -- so you have to do it! Start a blog! Start a website of real local news (here's an example: The Michigan Messenger). Tweet your friends and use Facebook to let them know what they need to do politically. The daily papers are dying. If you don't fill that void, who will?

FIVE THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR LOVED ONES UNTIL WE GET THROUGH THIS MESS:

1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money and place it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union.

2. Get rid of all your credit cards but one -- the kind where you have to pay up at the end of the month or you lose your card.

3. Do not invest in the stock market. If you have any extra cash, put it away in a savings account or, if you can, pay down on your mortgage so you can own your home as soon as possible. You can also buy very safe government savings bonds or T-bills. Or just buy your mother some flowers.

4. Unionize your workplace so that you and your coworkers have a say in how your business is run. Here's how to do it (more info here). Nothing is more American than democracy, and democracy shouldn't be checked at the door when you enter your workplace. Another way to Americanize your workplace is to turn your business into a worker-owned cooperative. You are not a wage slave. You are a free person, and you giving up eight hours of your life every day to someone else is to be properly compensated and respected.

5. Take care of yourself and your family. Sorry to go all Oprah on you, but she's right: Find a place of peace in your life and make the choice to be around people who are not full of negativity and cynicism. Look for those who nurture and love. Turn off the TV and the Blackberry and go for a 30-minute walk every day. Eat fruits and vegetables and cut down on anything that has sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour or too much sodium (salt) in it (and, as Michael Pollan says, "Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants"). Get seven hours of sleep each night and take the time to read a book a month. I know this sounds like I've turned into your grandma, but, dammit, take a good hard look at Granny -- she's fit, she's rested and she knows the names of both of her U.S. Senators without having to Google them. We might do well to listen to her. If we don't put our own "oxygen mask" on first (as they say on the airplane), we will be of no use to the rest of the nation in enacting any of this action plan!

I'm sure there are many other ideas you can come up with on how we can build this movement. Get creative. Think outside the politics-as-usual box. BE SUBVERSIVE! Think of that local action no one else has tried. Behave as if your life depended on it. Be bold! Try doing something with reckless abandon. It may just liberate you and your community and your nation.

And when you act, send me your stories, your photos and your video -- and be sure to post your ideas in the comments beneath this letter on my site so they can be shared with millions.

C'mon people -- we can do this! I expect nothing less of all of you, my true and trusted fellow travelers!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

Etan Thomas: Not New Rules, But New Questions

2009-10-20T15:36:11Z

1. In Michael Moore's documentary, Sicko, he showed the story of an employee of the largest HMO in the country, Kaiser Permanente. Her name is Donnell Keys and she was fully insured by Kaiser. However, when her 18-month-old daughter drew a temperature of 104, and she took her to the hospital, she was somehow not allowed to be treated because she was told Kaiser would not cover the medicine needed. Her daughter later died after going into cardiac arrest. Now, how can Republicans see this story and feel proud of our health care system?

2. Democrats now control the House and the Senate, but for some reason it appears as though they are having great difficulty getting things done. Why is it that when the Republicans were in control, if they had an agenda they didn't seem to be running into the same difficulties that the Democrats are experiencing?

3. Bill Maher posed the question to his guest panel if they believed that Rush Limbaugh is a racist, and they all kind of danced around the question or gave very careful answers. Do people who are not racist constantly make racist statements?

4. Just to be clear, I am in no way shape or form criticizing the replacement referees. They were all put in a very tough position and I believe they are approaching the games with a tremendous amount of professionalism and enthusiasm. But, when are we getting the old referees back?

5. Alan Grayson from Florida said that the Republican health care plan is for sick people to die quickly and when asked to apologize he said, "yeah, I apologize to dead people... to all of the people who have died in this country because didn't have health care. Why can't more Democrats stand firm on what they believe in this way? Why does it appear as though far too many Democrats are so afraid to step on anyone's toes or ruffle anyone's feathers?

6. Why is it that America has the audacity , no matter if there is a Republican or a Democrat in office, to feel that we have the right to dictate who has a nuclear weapon and who doesn't?

7. Before President Obama's address to students last month, Jim Greer, the head of Florida's Republican party said on CNN, "In this day and age the president has enough to do focusing on the economy and finding jobs for Americans than writing lesson plans out of the oval office". Is education really not a priority at all for Republicans?

8. Do Republicans have respect for the position of President of the United States only if it's a Republican in office? Or is there some other trait that President Obama possesses that has drawn their disrespectful tendencies?

9. What happened with the whole controversy with Louisville head coach Rick Pitino? It sounded like a pretty intense story. Having sex with a woman in a public bathroom, paternity tests, death threats, extortion, etc. But somehow it just kind of magically all went away?

10. Commissioner Roger Goodell finally spoke out on Tuesday saying that Limbaugh's "divisive comments" had no place in the NFL. "I have said many times before, we're all held to a higher standard here," Goodell said to reporters. "I would not want to see those kinds of comments coming from people who are in a responsible position in the NFL. No. Absolutely not." My only question is what took him so long to say this?

Linda Milazzo: Step Up to Mike's Challenge

2009-10-17T16:47:03Z

Our great buddy Mike is angry. For the past twenty years, Michael Moore, our everyday hero, has worked hard for us. He's documented sadistic acts against us by industry and government. He's exposed case after case of devious schemes that robbed us of our homes and our jobs, sent our children to war, and sacrificed our health. He's given us irrefutable proof that our leaders lied us to war, our insurers denied us care, and our lenders deceived us into hopelessness and destitution.

Mike's been our teacher, our ally and our devoted friend. Few people in recent memory have worked harder to inform us - ALL OF US - of the inhumanity and greed that are decaying our nation, which we perpetuate through apathy and inertia.

It is our apathy and inertia that frustrate our pal Mike. No matter how much he tries to revive us, we still don't seem to revive. We continue the same behavior that leads to our demise. We elect socio-sadist politicians who finance themselves off our sorrow. We enrich socio-sadist bankers who leave us homeless and in debt. We toil for socio-sadist employers who terminate our jobs. Despite all we've learned from Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Roger and Me, we continue to take this abuse.

The punches keep landing. The socio-sadists score blow after blow. POW! Another foreclosure. POW! Another job gone. Again and again we're down for the count. Politicians retain office, corporations turn profits, and we sell our blood to get by. We're perpetual victims. No wonder Mike's so angry that at the end of his new movie he challenges us to act.

Our pal Mike, who's never asked a thing from us, is now asking us to act - and act fast. At the end of Capitalism: A Love Story, which I saw on September 25th, Mike issues this challenge to his audience:

You know, I can't really do this anymore - unless those of you who are watching this in the theater want to join me. I hope you will. And please, speed it up.

Mike's right. He can't solve our problems on his own. He can't create a movement all alone. He's given us the truth for twenty years. He's exposed the thieves, liars and sadists we elected to office. He's shown us the thieves, liars and sadists who run the corporations that foreclose on our homes and refuse us medical treatment. Mike's shown us the enemy. If there's to be a movement to rescue our economy, to restore our humanity, and close the gap between rich and poor, WE-THE-PEOPLE have to do it. Mike's done his part. It's time that we do ours.

But what is Mike's challenge?

Here's his response to that question when asked by Chris Matthews on MSNBC:

I want them [the American people] to start pressuring our Congress people to get the money out of Congress. We need publicly financed elections and we need the people deciding how this democracy is run.

Pushing our Congress to pass legislation for campaign finance reform is a move toward freeing legislators from entanglements with big money interests who finance their campaigns - and to whom they presume allegiance.

We can do this. We can step up to Mike's challenge. Right now in the House and Senate there is key campaign finance legislation called the Fair Elections Now Act (FENA - S. 752 in the Senate and H.R. 1826 in the House).

FENA was introduced in the Senate by Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), and in the House by Representatives John Larson (D-Conn.) and Walter Jones, Jr. (R-N.C.). If passed, this bill allows federal candidates to run for office without relying on large contributions, big money bundlers, and donations from lobbyists. Candidates will be free from constant fundraising to focus on constituent needs.

I've called my Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and my Congressman Henry Waxman, to ask their support for FENA. If you visit Change Congress, you can do the same.

We live in a participatory democracy that requires participation beyond voting. As Mike tells CNN's Anderson Cooper (in the video below), Americans can't vote every two and four years, then walk away and expect our democracy will just fall in line:

The Democrats may control the House, Senate and the Presidency, but the corporate sadists, like health insurers and Wall Street financiers, control the Democrats and Republicans. As long as there are backroom deals with big money special interests, the American people will suffer.

We see from the substantial contributions made to Democratic and Republican Senators and Representatives by the health care industry, that electeds' opposition to legislation that eliminates corporations is expected. Also expected is universal single-payer not being on the table since it cuts corporations all together. The ongoing histrionics behind the battle for a public option speaks volumes to the need for public financing of campaigns. Only when lobbyist bribery is forced entirely out of campaigns can we have any probability of honest representation.

Gratefully, my resident state of California is moving forward on campaign finance reform. The Fair Elections Bill, AB 583, authored by California Assemblymember Loni Hancock, will appear on the June 8, 2010 ballot. Californians who are interested in working to bring campaign finance to California are welcome to volunteer to help pass this landmark legislation.

According to California Fair Elections, campaign financing is currently quite successful in seven states where the system has been in place. Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Vermont have all adopted Fair Elections systems. In the seven states and two cities where the system is being used, nearly 400 candidates were elected using only Fair Elections funding in their 2008 campaigns. Since public financing was first instituted in Arizona and Maine, elected officials have passed bi-partisan, critically important legislation that would not have been possible if they continued to fear retribution from powerful special interests. In addition, more women and candidates of diverse backgrounds have won election in these states.

At the end of Capitalism: A Love Story, before he issues his audience challenge, our pal Mike tells us:

We live in the richest country in the world. We all deserve a decent job, health care, a good education, a home to call our own... and it's a crime that we don't have it. And we never will as long as we have a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many. Capitalism is an evil and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people. And that something is called DEMOCRACY.

My overly expensive iPhone dictionary app (Wordbook, $7.99) defines DEMOCRACY as:

1. the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives.
2. a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them.
3. the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group.

I deduce from this definition that if our elected officials represent those who bribe them over those who elect them, democracy doesn't exist. Thus, in our current system, we do not have a democracy. It is crystal clear to me why our pal Mike is challenging us "to start pressuring our Congress people to get the money out of Congress." I understand why Mike believes "we need publicly financed elections and we need THE PEOPLE deciding how this democracy is run."

I'm wholly on board with our buddy's challenge. I will participate fully and energetically to get the bribery, thuggery and robbery out of government. Only when that task is accomplished can a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, exist.

Thanks, Mike, for issuing this challenge!

David A. Love: Will Obama Save America From Capitalism?

2009-10-15T17:09:54Z

Michael Moore’s new film Capitalism: A Love Story looked and sounded a lot like a huge conspiracy theory. Too bad all of it was true.

Missing this time around were the legions of corporate shills employed to discredit this film -- much like they did for Moore’s previous film about the healthcare industry, Sicko. Maybe they just gave up. There comes a time when no amount of spin will cover up the truth. You can sprinkle sugar on a turd and call it candy, but in that moment of reckoning, the truth becomes self-evident.

American-style capitalism is the system that gives you airline pilots buying groceries with food stamps; sheriffs and robber barons throwing families out of their homes and into the street; corporations taking out insurance policies on their own employees; corporations slashing jobs to earn record profits; college loans the size of mortgages, and people dying because they have a pre-existing condition, or can’t afford to get sick.

For a number of years, the boosters, the sales representatives, the pimps and prostitutes of this deeply flawed system did a great job of convincing the rest of us that no one else in the world had it better. This is the land of opportunity, they told us. The reality is that for all of its rhetoric, America is more unequal in terms of wealth and income than other industrial democracies. Far more economic mobility is found in those “socialist” European nations that conservatives are so loathe to emulate.

America is a nation of sharecroppers. Not in the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps sort of way, either. The few at the top now have more than ever because they stole it from the many, typically by highway robbery. And every day, they continue to dupe the many into giving more. Many at the bottom actually believe that they will emerge at the top someday, so they don’t make a fuss. Capitalism, American-style, is that great big Ponzi scheme. And apparently, we was had. This is what they do, unfettered, unaccountable and unconcerned.

Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Committee that is investigating the $700 billion bank bailout giveaway, a.k.a., Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), told the Washington Post that “the middle class is under terrific assault.” Middle class families are actually earning about $800 less than a generation ago. This reality precipitated the need to have two wage earners in each family, and to borrow more and save less just to stay above water. But people are drowning by the millions.

Meanwhile, the economic puppeteers seem to gloat over the fact that they are stealing an ever-increasing part of the economic pie at the expense of the multitude. On March 5, 2006, Citibank -- a TARP welfare recipient of late -- issued a memo to investors entitled Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer. Plutnomy is defined as “An economy that is driven by or that disproportionately benefits wealthy people, or one where the creation of wealth is the principal goal.” The Citibank memo proclaimed that:

The latest Survey of Consumer Finances, for 2004, has been released by the Federal Reserve. It shows the rich continue to account for a disproportionately large share of income and wealth in the US economy: the richest 10% of Americans account for 43% of income, and 57% of net worth. The net worth to income ratio for the richest 10% of Americans increased from 7.4x in 2001, to 8.4x in the 2004 survey. The rich are in great shape, financially.

Perhaps the most invidious part of the report warns that electoral democracy threatens to disrupt the wonderful party the rich are having:

Our whole plutonomy thesis is based on the idea that the rich will keep getting richer. This thesis is not without its risks. For example, a policy error leading to asset deflation, would likely damage plutonomy. Furthermore, the rising wealth gap between the rich and poor will probably at some point lead to a political backlash. Whilst the rich are getting a greater share of the wealth, and the poor a lesser share, political enfranchisement remains as was -- one person, one vote (in the plutonomies). At some point it is likely that labor will fight back against the rising profit share of the rich and there will be a political backlash against the rising wealth of the rich. This could be felt through higher taxation (on the rich or indirectly though higher corporate taxes/regulation) or through trying to protect indigenous laborers, in a push-back on globalization -- either anti-immigration, or protectionism. We don’t see this happening yet, though there are signs of rising political tensions. However we are keeping a close eye on developments.

Capitalism is as capitalism does. Maximization of profit above all else -- to the exclusion of ethics, morality and the public good -- is the mark of a vulture society. And this arrogant, coldhearted endeavor has been a bipartisan effort. Beginning with Reagan, Republican administrations have championed drastic cuts to the social safety net and massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Meanwhile, the Clinton years ushered in deregulation of the financial markets, and an end to welfare as we know it. Corporations have far more power than a free society can tolerate. And both major political parties are the water carriers of this plutonomy. They are the field hands for the financial interests that currently run the show and drive public policy -- and are driving this nation into the ground.

The U.S. economy is worse than at any time since the Great Depression. In fact, as Simon Johnson of MIT recently told Bill Moyers, we are currently experiencing elements of a depression.

But in this jobless recovery, where there is one job for every six job seekers, Wall Street is doing well because its fate is not dependent upon the employment of everyday working people. Rather, its fate is dependent upon government handouts, paper shuffling and the exotic hustling instruments to which they have grown accustomed.

But we have been here before. Eighty years ago, between October 24th and the 29th of 1929, the stock market collapsed. It was a testament to an economic system run amok, unregulated and unrestrained, for the benefit of concentrated, monopolistic power. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in the New Deal -- a series of economic programs and initiatives based on relief to farmers and the unemployed, reform of business, banking and finance, and economic recovery. The New Deal meant public works and infrastructure programs, economic planning by the government, social security and labor standards that favored union growth. There was a sense that workers, consumers and farmers should have influence with the government, not just corporations.

Today -- with the erosion of the New Deal legacy creating the huge mess that is early twenty-first-century America -- President Obama has a golden opportunity to make things right. But will his administration step up to the plate and bring in the necessary reforms? Just as F.D.R. saved capitalism from itself, will Obama save America from capitalism? Or is the game already too fixed?

These times scream out for a “new” New Deal. Jobs are sorely needed by millions, but they will not appear out of thin air. The foreclosed and unemployed middle class are joining the ranks of the poor and the homeless. The national infrastructure is crumbling. And the cartels and monopolies of old have returned. A paltry and ineffectual stimulus package, accompanied by some tweaking at the edges of a carnivorous, predatory system, will not make a difference.

If the Obama administration wants to be a truly transformational force in American history, rather than a slightly-better-than-average, one-term presidency with good intentions, it will give America the "new" New Deal. The Obama administration will find the intestinal fortitude to take on the banking system, and divest itself of Wall Street enablers and Goldman Sachs cronies. It will cast out such underwhelming individuals as Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, and seek the advice of Nobel laureates such as Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia and Paul Krugman of Princeton. It will go beyond its laudable plans for a consumer protection agency, and either reform the current economic system, or replace it entirely with one that reduces the status of corporations, and brings economic fairness and justice to the people.

In other words, President Obama will do what the people voted for in November.

David A. Love is an Editorial Board member of BlackCommentator.com, and a contributor to the Progressive Media Project and theGrio. He is a writer and human rights advocate based in Philadelphia, and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. His blog is davidalove.com.

Dylan Ratigan, Michael Moore Slam Wall St. Over Latest Round Of Bonuses (VIDEO)

2009-10-15T08:59:00Z

MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan and filmmaker Michael Moore appeared on the Today Show this morning to discuss the latest round of massive bonuses that Wall St. is doling out to their executives just a year after the financial industry paralyzed the economy.

With unemployment continuing to climb, and soon likely to break the 10 percent barrier nationally, Ratigan argued that Wall St. and Main St. are largely disconnected:

The government changed the rules on behalf of Wall St. to allow them access to trillions of our dollars, as Michael Moore has documented. When you have access to trillions of dollars of taxpayer money with no strings attached, it's very easy to make a few billion dollars...

There is a direct connection between those you see suffering in films that Michael documents and the abdication of duty by our government to allow all the taxpayer money we all work so hard to create to be the plaything, the gambling toy, of the financial industry as opposed to forcing the financial industry to get back to the business of being investors, actually putting money into the economy as opposed to taking it out.

Moore expressed his disgust over the bonuses:

They burned down our economy. They completely crashed it. And now they're getting rewarded for it... It's absolutely insane that we allow this to happen.

He also ridiculed the argument that these bonuses are a way to ensure that the financial companies don't lose their most important and productive employees: "Let's pay the best people, who helped to wreck and ruin our economy... This is absolutely crazy logic."

Ratigan also took on retention argument, used often by the banks, saying it's key to look at what you're paying, and retaining, these prized workers to do:

If you're paying your best people to extract as much money as possible from the economy, yes, they are creating that "value", if you want to call it that, but they're creating it at the expense of the totality of the system.

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Michael Moore: Pilots on Food Stamps

2009-10-13T22:02:38Z

We're on the descent from 20,000 feet in the air when the flight attendant leans over the elderly woman next to me and taps me on the shoulder.

"I'm listening to Lady Gaga," I say as I remove just one of the ear buds. I know not this Lady Gaga, but her performance last week on SNL was fascinating.

"The pilots would like to see you in the cockpit when we land," she says with a southern drawl.

"Did I do something wrong?"

"No. They have something to show you." (The last time an employee of an airline wanted to show me something it was her written reprimand for eating an in-flight meal without paying for it. "Yes," she said, "we have to pay for our own meals on board now.")

The plane landed and I stepped into the cockpit. "Read this," the first officer said. He handed me a letter from the airline to him. It was headlined "LETTER OF CONCERN." It seems this poor fellow had taken three sick days in the past year. The letter was a warning not to take another one -- or else.

"Great," I said. "Just what I want -- you coming to work sick, flying me up in the air and asking to borrow the barf bag from my seatback pocket."

He then showed me his pay stub. He took home $405 this week. My life was completely and totally in his hands for the past hour and he's paid less than the kid who delivers my pizza.

I told the guys that I have a whole section in my new movie about how pilots are treated (using pilots as only one example of how people's wages have been slashed and the middle class decimated). In the movie I interview a pilot for a major airline who made $17,000 last year. For four months he was eligible -- and received -- food stamps. Another pilot in the film has a second job as a dog walker.

"I have a second job!" the two pilots said in unison. One is a substitute teacher. The other works in a coffee shop. You know, maybe it's just me, but the two occupations whose workers shouldn't be humpin' a second job are brain surgeons and airline pilots. Call me crazy.

I told them about how Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger (the pilot who safely landed the jet in the Hudson River) had testified in Congress that no pilot he knows wants any of their children to become a pilot. Pilots, he said, are completely demoralized. He spoke of how his pay has been cut 40% and his own pension eliminated. Most of the TV news didn't cover his remarks and the congressmen quickly forgot them. They just wanted him to play the role of "HERO," but he was on a more important mission. He's in my movie.

"I hadn't heard anywhere that this stuff about the airlines is in this new movie," the pilot said.

"No, you wouldn't," I replied. "The press likes to talk about me, not the movie."

And it's true. I've been surprised (and slightly annoyed) that, with all that's been written and talked about Capitalism: A Love Story, very little attention has been paid the mind-blowing stuff in the film: pilots on food stamps, companies secretly taking out life insurance policies on employees and hoping they die young so the company can collect, judges getting kickbacks from the private prison industry for sending innocent people (kids) to be locked up. The profit motive -- it's a killer.

Especially when your pilot started his day at 6am working at the local Starbucks.

Francine Hardaway: Last Words From the Vanishing Middle Class

2009-10-13T17:32:58Z

I began trying to refinance my home in Half Moon Bay
on the day Obama announced the supposed homeowner retention program. At
first I wanted to do it because I was having trouble making payments
during the fall and winter financial crisis. I'm still trying to do it
because I'm about $150,000 under water, which wipes out my second
lender completely and makes it impossible to refinance the house when
the ARM adjusts. I have no equity, but I like living in the house.
Eventually, the ARM will adjust and I will be kicked out or the
payments will get higher.

Because I own my own business, Aurora Loan Services
asked me for three years of tax returns, three months of bank
statements, a year-to-date P&L, a hardship letter, and a personal
financial statement. I sent them all, at a cost of about $100 by the
time I printed everything at Kinko's and FedExed it to them. And then I
had to turn around and do the same thing for Citibank which holds my
home equity line, because the "mortgage" I was given is actually a
melange of a mortgage and a HELOC (common in California avoid the very high rates for jumbo loans).

After about 60 days Aurora told me 1) I was not eligible for Obama's
program because I didn't have an FHA loan, and 2) they couldn't do
anything for me.

After I heard the government had put more pressure on the lenders to
restructure mortgages, I reapplied. Once again, I had to send all those
documents, and once again I was told they couldn't help me. Their
"investors" had said no.

In April, I learned that if I could break even on paper I could
refinance, so I sent everything again. This time Aurora asked for my
2008 return, and I sent it. They told me they were now very busy trying
to restructure loans, and to wait 90 days.

I heard nothing, so I called: they said they were missing my tax
returns, proof of the contracts responsible for my income for the rest
of the year, and three months of current bank statements. I sent those
in July. I called in August, and they asked me whether I remembered
that I had to wait 90 days.

Last week I emailed them. And guess what? They told me they needed
copies of my 2008 tax return, a year-to-date P&L, those contracts
again, and proof of which bank deposits came from those contracts. You
have no idea how hard it is to keep generating and updating these
documents, even for me a person whose information is mostly in the
cloud as mine is (not the contracts, which are sent to me by
municipalities for signing as hard copies that I have to mail back).

It has been 9 months since I began trying for relief. So it's only fitting that this afternoon I went to see Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story.

I urge you to see this film.

I am the first to agree that Michael Moore exaggerates. But in this movie,
not so much. It is 100% true that Congress is owned by the financial
institutions lock, stock and barrel. I don't care which party you
belong to -- I'm an independent -- you should be outraged by this movie if
you are young, or have children, or work, or build businesses. Because
America has been, and continues to be, ruined for the rest of us by
about a hundred people on "Wall Street" who have all the money and
therefore run the government and your life. It's everything from credit
card fees to subprime mortgages, to Ponzi schemes, to health insurance
reform.

In Phoenix, the real estate market has bottomed and the "investors"
are coming in and beating first-time home buyers to foreclosed houses
with all cash deals. The banks don't care who they sell to; the people
who want to take advantage of the tax credit can't get in on the deals.

Because Moore shows a lot of archival footage in the movie, I got to
think about how much American life has deteriorated for the middle
class during the past 25 years. When I started my business in 1980, I
made a great deal more money doing essentially the same thing, and I
had a pretty good life. Twenty-five years later, my standard of living
has totally deteriorated. I personify the vanishing middle class, and
so do most of you. I wouldn't ignore it if I were you. As my friend
Fred says to me every Saturday night, "It's a good thing we're not
going to be here to see what's coming."

Randy Shaw: Has Obama Hurt Michael Moore's New Film?

2009-10-13T08:18:56Z

After seeing the U.S. premiere, I wrote that Michael Moore's Capitalism, A Love Story, is a must-see movie and his most powerful and politically fulfilled work. Moore thought so as well, and engaged in a media blitz to encourage a massive turnout to the 962 theater opening on the October 3-4 weekend. Moore argued that a top-grossing film critiquing capitalism would send a powerful message to Wall Street that the public is fed up with its greed.

But this expected rush to theaters did not materialize. In fact, Moore's new film did less than half as well per theater than Sicko, his previous movie. Overall, Capitalism, A Love Story finished a disappointing sixth in its opening week, tied with Drew Barrymore's roller derby film Whip It. This past weekend, Moore's film fell to ninth. There are many possible reasons for this. Did Moore overestimate the popular base for a movie that fundamentally critiques a system that most Americans support? Or has the popular anger that fueled attendance at Moore's anti-Bush administration films diminished with President Obama's election, so that the public no longer sees attending a Moore film as politically and psychologically necessary?

Michael Moore's new film opened in nearly 1000 theaters, the largest coverage in his history and more than double the venues that showed Sicko. But opening weekend revenue for Capitalism, A Love Story only slightly exceeded that generated by Sicko in only 441 theaters. And the film fell to ninth in its second week. Why did this powerful film that generated largely positive reviews not do better?

The Nature of Moore's Audience

First, Moore's primary audience is not teenagers eager to see the new date film on its opening weekend. Nor is it the under 12 crowd who packed theaters to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Moore's core crowd -- activists, progressives, union members -- are not the type of folks who feel compelled to see a movie the first weekend it opens. I spoke to several progressive activists last week, and none had yet seen the film though all intended to do so.

So Moore may have simply misread his audience's need to see his movie on opening weekend. He also overestimated his ability to get people to theaters by framing attendance as a political act.

Moore's Systemic, Rather than Targeted, Challenge

While Moore aptly describes his new film as the fruition of his prior works, there is a difference between a film attacking a nonsensical war (Fahrenheit 911) or the nation's health care system (Sicko) and one that directly attacks the capitalist system. Alex Vitale, a Brooklyn College sociologist, suggested to me that so many potential moviegoers are implicated in capitalism that they could feel less comfortable rushing out to see Moore's new film.

In contrast, few attendees of Moore's brilliant anti-Iraq war film felt they were part of the system that led to that nightmare, and in fact millions opposed the U.S. invasion from the start. Similarly, there is vast public anger at the nation's health care system, and people could rush out to see Sicko without feeling implicated by the outrages Moore depicts.

Moore tries to avoid this problem by attacking Wall Street and the ruthless exploiters of capitalism, rather than small capitalist businesses or even the large but more socially conscious corporations that created good, middle-class auto industry jobs for Moore's father and those of his generation. But Moore's provocative use of the term "capitalism" in the film's title may have left many who would agree with its message feeling less compelled to rush out and see the film.

The Obama Factor

The nature of Moore's audience and the systemic challenge to capitalism aside, President Obama's election is likely the biggest factor in the less than hoped for opening attendance. Few Democrats or independents feel the sense of hopelessness and rage that compelled them to spend a couple of hours watching Michael Moore tear President George W. Bush apart.

Moore did not have to hit the airwaves or the blogosphere to convince people that seeing Fahrenheit 911 or Sicko was a political act -- folks were already desperate for ways to show opposition to the Bush administration. But Capitalism, a Love Story is targeted not at the current President but at the more amorphous "Wall Street," so the link between movie attendance and social change activism is less clear.

The fact is that public anger at Wall Street has been obvious for some time. People could understandably question why this point had to be reconfirmed by attending Moore's film on opening weekend.

Moore Acts, Hollywood Escapes

While Michael Moore's efforts to dramatically increase his Sicko audience through a film critical of capitalism may fall short, his ambitions stand in sharp contrast to that of Hollywood's many other "liberal" filmmakers and actors. While these folks regularly pat themselves on the backs for their donations to one cause or another, even the most progressive -- such as George Clooney, Matt Damon, or Brad Pitt, each of whom can make whatever film they want -- are fostering a culture where films are largely escapist fantasies that avoid truly telling it like it is.

Many Hollywood actors, producers and directors may define themselves as political progressives, but, unlike Michael Moore, they do not use their films to make a difference.

So get out and see Capitalism, A Love Story to send a message not just to Wall Street, but to the movie industry. Michael Moore should not be the only filmmaker with a progressive message that can open a movie in nearly 1000 theaters, but unless this film does well, he could be the last.

Randy Shaw is the author of Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.

Esther Iverem: Bombing Capitalism

2009-10-12T11:01:49Z

On a throwback vibe, you could say that Capitalism: A Love Story is the bomb.

By exploring the economic system of capitalism as an evil, Moore fires a salvo into the heart of America's social machine. Along the way, he explodes some serious myths: Myth #1: that the economic system of capitalism is the same as or tied to the political system of democracy. Myth #2: That to be an American is to be a capitalist and that to be anti-capitalist is to be anti-American. Myth #3: That people of color with bad credit, who bought houses that they couldn't afford, caused the financial meltdown in the United States. Myth #4: That mainly Blacks and Hispanics are losing their homes to foreclosure.

He also drops other bombshells, such as the internal Citigroup memo declaring that the United States is no longer a democracy but is, rather, a plutocracy, where the richest one percent of the country is in charge of the rest of us peasants, and where government has been warped in the past 30 years to serve the rich. Then there is the relatively unknown Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur from Ohio -- not one of the usual suspects on talking head news shows -- calling the bailout of Wall Street a financial coup d'etat and telling Americans who have lost their homes to become squatters in their homes and not leave. There is the laundry list of Washington insiders who received sweet V.I.P. mortgages from Countrywide, which was a leader in dispensing high-interest "sub prime" loans to homeowners. The explosions go on and on.

Moore's documentaries, exposing the smelly underbelly of American society, have always included poignancy, comedy, and a smart-assed attitude. In Capitalism: A Love Story, he ties together all that he has covered in the past, beginning with Roger and Me, a funky exploration of General Motors, released 20 year ago, followed by documentaries on America's gun culture, post-9/11 realities and the warped health care system.

His current exploration of ideology provides a convenient framework for Moore to again organize his attitudes toward the world and life. So we see those Chicago workers from Republic Windows and Doors staging the factory takeover that garnered international attention. We see, again, the shameful aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. We see, most poignantly, the national frustration that helped to elect a black man who promised change.

Moore is bold and he minces no words in his attack. He goes for broke, betting that he can bring the American public -- or at least a sizable gang -- to join him. Or he thinks that we will at least stop drinking the fantasy Kool-Aid that we, too, might make it into realm of the magical one percent.

His level of success in that effort will not change the fact that he has produced his documentary masterpiece.

Michael Shermer: Capitalism: A Propaganda Hate Film

2009-10-12T10:56:49Z

Michael Moore is the Leni Riefenstahl of our time. Or, perhaps he would be better characterized as a Bizzaro World Leni Riefenstahl, because while she propped up with propaganda the political powers of her time, Moore uses the same techniques to bring down the powers of our time, be it GM (Roger and Me), the gun lobby (Bowling for Columbine), the government (Fahrenheit 911), the health care industry (Sicko), or free enterprise (Capitalism: A Love Story).

In this latest installment in his continuing series of what's wrong with America, Michael Moore takes aim at his biggest target to date, and the result is a disaster. The documentary is not nearly as funny as his previous films, the music selections seem contrived and flat, and the edits and transitions are clumsy, wooden, and woefully short of what we've come to expect from the premiere documentarian (Ken Burns notwithstanding) of our time. And, most importantly, the film's central thesis is so bad that it's not even wrong.

First, let me confess that even though I have disagreed with most of Michael Moore's politics and economics throughout his career, I have thoroughly enjoyed his films as skilled and effective works of art and propaganda, never failing to laugh -- or be emotionally distraught -- at all the places audiences are cued to do so. My willing suspension of disbelief that enables me to take so much pleasure from works of fiction does not always serve me well when pulled into the narrative arc of a documentary. Thus it is that with his past films I have exited the theater infuriated at the same things Moore is...until I rolled up my sleeves and did some fact checking of my own, at which point Moore's theses unravel (with the possible exception of Bowling for Columbine, his finest work in my opinion). But with Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore's propagandistic props are so transparent and contrived that I never was able to suspend disbelief.

What was especially infuriating about Capitalism: A Love Story was the treatment of the people at the bottom end of the economic spectrum. The film is anchored on two eviction stories contrived to pull at the heart strings. One family filmed the eviction process themselves and sent the footage to Moore in hopes he'd use it (many are called, few are chosen), and the other was filmed by Moore's crew. The message of both is delivered with a sledge hammer: Greedy Evil Soul-Sucking Bankers (think Lionel Barrymore's villainous Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life) are tossing out onto the streets of America poor innocent families who are victims of circumstances not of their making. Why? First, because this is what Greedy Evil Soul-Sucking Bankers do for fun on weekends. Two, because the economic crisis caused solely by said bankers has made it impossible for families to make the payments on those subprime loans they were tricked into taking by those same bankers, who themselves were suckered into a Ponzi-like scheme cooked up by Alan Greenspan and his Wall Street/Federal Reserve buddies to take back the homes fully owned by (first) the elderly and (then) the poor. In the fine print that the bankers carefully slipped past the elderly and the poor for these second mortgages and subprime loans, the contracts said that the rates on variable rate loans could go up, and that the house was collateral for the loan such that if the loan payments are not made the home is subject to foreclosure and repossession by the bank (which is what the bankers are hoping happens).

In Michael Moore's worldview, a goodly portion of the American people are ignorant, uneducated, clueless pinheads too stupid to realize the fundamental principle of a loan: you have to have collateral to secure the loan! No collateral, no loan. You say to the banker "I would like to take out a loan." The banker says to you "what do you have for collateral?" What happened in the housing boom was that bankers relaxed their standards for what they would require for collateral (and income, assets, etc.) because (1) the government told them to do so and promised to cover their losses if it didn't work out, and (2) they wanted to make more money; and borrowers wanted in on the cash cow that everyone was milking, from individual house flippers looking for a quick buck, to ordinary families wanting extra cash for remodeling, tuition, or whatever, to mortgage giants wanting corporate expansion. And all were driven by the same motive: greed!

Yes, greed. Those evicted families knew perfectly well what they were doing when they freely chose to climb onto the housing bubble and take it for a ride. I have a much higher view of the American public than does Michael Moore. I don't think the American people are so stupid or uneducated that they didn't know what they were doing. This wasn't rocket science. It was even on television, the ne plus ultra of pop culture! I well remember watching A & E's television series Flip This House, and reading all those magazine articles and get-rich-quick books on how to make a fortune in the real estate market, and thinking "Wow, everyone's getting rich except me; how can I get in on the action?"

What I felt is, I'm sure, what lots of people felt. I looked into securing a second mortgage on my home in order to build a second home on an undeveloped portion of my hillside property, and then selling it to turn a tidy profit. Everyone was doing it. What could go wrong? Well, for starters I thought, what if it takes longer to build the home than I projected? We all know how slow construction projects can be. Could I make the payments on the second mortgage for an additional six months to a year? And what if I couldn't sell that second home? Could I make the payments on the new loan indefinitely? What if my income decreased instead of increased, like it was at the time (and, subsequently, did...dramatically!). And what would happen if I couldn't make the payments? The answer was obvious, and it wasn't in the fine print: I could lose my primary home.

Forget that! Making a profit on a second home would be nice, but losing my first home would hurt more than twice as much as making a profit on the second home would feel good. That's a basic principle of risk aversion: losses hurt twice as much as gains feel good. Now, I'm not really a risk-averse guy (I gave up a secure career as a college professor for an insecure career as a writer and publisher), but even I could see the inherent risks involved when the home you live in could be taken away. My hillside remains sagebrush and wild grass.

What about the people on the other end of the economic spectrum -- the bankers and Wall Street moguls? Why aren't they being evicted? Now, given that I'm a libertarian, you might expect me to come to the defense of Corporate America. Not so. Here I am in complete agreement with Michael Moore that, as I've been saying since the day it was first pronounced, "too big to fail" is the great myth of our time. None of these giant corporations -- GM, AIG, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, et al. -- should have been bailed out. In fact, they should have been allowed to fail, their stocks go into the toilet, their employees tossed out on to the gilded streets of lower Manhattan, and their CEOs dispersed to work as greeting clerks at Walmart. They gambled and lost on all those securities, bundled securities, derivatives, credit default swaps, and other "financial tools" that I'll bet not one in a hundred Wall Street experts actually understands.

If you really believe in free enterprise, you must accept the freedom to lose everything on such gambles. These CEOs and their corporate lackeys are nothing more than welfare queens who adhere to the motto "In profits we're capitalists, in losses we're socialists." Sorry guys, you can't have it both ways without corrupting your morals, which you have, along with the politicians you've bribed, cajoled and otherwise coerced to your bidding.

The solution? I have some suggestions of my own, but Michael Moore's solution is beyond bizarre: replace capitalism with democracy. Uh? Replace an economic system with a political system? Even the über liberal Bill Maher was baffled by that one when he hosted Moore on his HBO show. How does a democracy produce automobiles and computers and search engines? It doesn't. It can't.

Capitalism: A Love Story, ends with a remarkable film clip that Moore discovered of President Franklin Roosevelt reading from his never proposed second Bill of Rights (he died shortly after and the document died with him). Included in the list are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

That's nice. To this list I would add a computer in every home with wireless Internet access. I'm sure we could all think of many more things "under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all -- regardless of station, race, or creed," in Roosevelt's words. But there is one question left unstated: Who is going to pay for it? If there is no capitalism, from where will the wealth be generated to pay for all these wonderful things? How much does a "decent" home costs these days, anyway?

Do you see the inherent contradiction? Of course you do. So does Michael Moore, who elsewhere in the film longs for the good old days when the "rich" were taxed 90% of their earnings. So did Willie Sutton, who answered a similar question after being nabbed by the FBI during the Great Depression and asked by a reporter why he robs banks: "Because that's where the money is."

Michael Moore: Get Off Obama's Back: Second Thoughts From Michael Moore

2009-10-10T18:10:38Z

Friends,

Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize. "No, I don't think so," I replied. I thought it was important to remind him he's now conducting the two wars he's inherited. "Yeah," she said, "but to tell him, 'Now earn it!'? Give the guy a break -- this is a great day for him and for all of us."

I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they could to crap all over Barack's big day. Did I -- and others on the left -- do the same?

We are weary, weary of war. The trillions that will have gone to these two wars have helped to bankrupt us as a nation -- financially and morally. To think of all the good we could have done with all that money! Two months of the War in Iraq would pay for all the wells that need to be dug in the Third World for drinking water! Obama is moving too slow for most of us -- but he needs to know we are with him and we stand beside him as he attempts to turn eight years of sheer madness around. Who could do that in nine months? Superman? Thor? Mitch McConnell?

Instead of waiting to see what the president is going to do, we all need to be pro-active and push the agenda that we want to see enacted. What keeps us from forming the same local groups we put together to get out the vote last November? C'mon! We're the majority now -- the majority by a significant margin! We call the shots -- and we need to tell this wimpy Congress to get busy and do what we say -- or else.

All I ask of those who voted for Obama is to not pile on him too quickly. Yes, make your voice heard (his phone number is 202-456-1414). But don't abandon the best hope we've had in our lifetime for change. And for God's sake, don't head to bummerville if he says or does something we don't like. Do you ever see Republicans behave that way? I mean, the Right had 20 years of Republican presidents and they still couldn't get prayer in the public schools, or outlaw abortion, or initiate a flat tax or put our Social Security into the stock market. They did a lot of damage, no doubt about that, but on the key issues that the Christian Right fought for, they came up nearly empty handed. No wonder they've been driven crazy lately. They'll never have it as good again as they've had it since Reagan took office.

But -- do you ever see them looking all gloomy and defeated? No! They keep on fighting! Every day. Our side? At the first sign of wavering, we just pack up our toys and go home.

So, at least for this weekend, let us celebrate what people elsewhere are celebrating -- that America now has a sane and smart man in the White House, a man who truly wants a world at peace for his two daughters.

Many, for the past couple days (yes, myself included), have grumbled, "What has he done to earn this prize?" How 'bout this:

The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man -- a man who opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning -- offered to end the insanity. The world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they watched the descendants of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson light the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn't attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had gone mad.

And if all that wasn't enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression.

So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for him won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the Grant Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago, billions of people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of relief. It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise of peace to the world -- and most were ready to go wherever he wanted to go to achieve that end. Never before had the election of one man made every other nation feel like they had won, too. When you've got billions of people ready, willing and able to join a cause like this, well, a prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve.

One other thought. The Peace Prize historically has been given to those who have worked to throw off the yoke of racial discrimination and segregation (Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu). I think the Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio).

The fact that this one man could cause this seismic historical event to occur -- and to do so with such grace and humility, never succumbing to the bait, but still not backing down (yes, he asked to be sworn in as "Barack Hussein Obama"!) -- is more than reason enough he should be in Oslo to meet the King on December 10. Maybe he could take us along with him. 'Cause I also suspect the Nobel committee was tipping its hat to all of us -- we, the American people, had conquered some of our racism and did the truly unexpected. After seeing searing images of our black fellow citizens left to drown in New Orleans -- and poor whites seeing their own treated no better than the black man they had been raised to hate -- we had all seen enough. It was time for change.

Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving us the opportunity to redeem ourselves. Now for the tasks ahead. We need you to do all that you promised to do. We need it. The world needs it.

My prediction for the future? You become the first *two-time* winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! Yeah!

Fred (that's Norwegian for "Peace"),

Michael Moore

MMFlint@aol.com

MichaelMoore.com

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Michael Moore: Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize -- Now Please Earn it!

2009-10-09T14:40:01Z

Dear President Obama,

How outstanding that you've been recognized today as a man of peace. Your swift, early pronouncements -- you will close Guantanamo, you will bring the troops home from Iraq, you want a nuclear weapon-free world, you admitted to the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1953, you made that great speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, you've eliminated that useless term "The War on Terror," you've put an end to torture -- these have all made us and the rest of the world feel a bit more safe considering the disaster of the past eight years. In eight months you have done an about face and taken this country in a much more sane direction.

But...

The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of what is quickly becoming your War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush's Wars over, and bring all the troops home. Now. That's what a true man of peace would do.

There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do -- capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11. But you cannot do that with tanks and troops. You are pursuing a criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a mouse.

The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of Afghanistan to resolve -- just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789, the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people who wish to be free -- they ultimately have to bring about that freedom themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else's Humvee.

You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don't, you'll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

Yours,

Michael Moore

MMFlint@aol.com

MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Your opposition has spent the morning attacking you for bringing such good will to this country. Why do they hate America so much? I get the feeling that if you found the cure for cancer this afternoon they'd be denouncing you for destroying free enterprise because cancer centers would have to close. There are those who say you've done nothing yet to deserve this award. As far as I'm concerned, the very fact that you've offered to walk into the minefield of hate and try to undo the irreparable damage the last president did is not only appreciated by me and millions of others, it is also an act of true bravery. That's why you got the prize. The whole world is depending on the U.S. -- and you -- to literally save this planet. Let's not let them down.

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Richard Zombeck: Bloody Peasants

2009-10-09T13:33:54Z

I saw Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story earlier this week and it took me from pissed off to infuriated in the first 30 minutes.

After seeing the report on "Dead Peasant Policies" the word "peasant" has been rattling around in my head for days. Dead Peasant Policies are life insurance policies a company takes out on its employees in order to collect the payoff if and when the employee dies. So while your family and friends are hoping you make it home safely from work, your boss is hoping you don't. Nice to know that your death is in the company's financial interest isn't it?

The concept of peasants isn't foreign or new to me. I've been using the term in reference to me, colleagues, and employees for years. Every time my mother would tell my brother and I to clean the yard, our rooms, the cat box, or the bathroom we'd make jokes about being peasants and that she was the Queen of France. In fact my family in France were peasants and farmers, but it had a more respectable and romantic connotation. You know, because they're French. I also referred to my staff when I ran bars and restaurants as "the peasants."

The scene with King Arthur and the peasants from Monty Python and the Holy Grail has stayed with me since the first time I saw it some thirty odd years ago and maybe that's why I've used the term in jest:

ARTHUR: Well, I AM king...

DENNIS: Oh king, eh, very nice. An' how'd you get that, eh? By
exploitin' the workers -- by 'angin' on to outdated imperialist dogma
which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society!

Is that any different now?

A year ago the too-big-to-fail Masters of the Universe blew up the economy and sent all of us along with the Bush administration into mass panic.

Henry Paulson, former master of the universe turned government crony wrote his buddies a check for $700 Billion and we have no idea where that money went. Moore asks that very question in his movie. "Where's the money," he asks?

Elizabeth Warren, soon to be super hero and Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee answers that question.

"I don't know," Warren says, in her signature perky flabbergasted way.

Bless her heart. And she really doesn't.

She responded to that clip in an interview with The Washington Post:

Well, we don't know where the $700 billion is because the system was initially designed to make sure that we didn't know.

When Secretary Paulson first put this money out into the banks, he didn't ask 'what are you going to do with it?' He didn't put any restrictions on it. He didn't put any tabs on where it was going to go; in other words, he didn't ask. And if you don't ask, no one tells. And so we have a system that originally put more than $200 billion into the financial institutions basically saying just take it.

See? Screw up the entire monetary system and economy because you found new and interesting ways to play with other peoples' money and when it all goes bad, tap the peasants for the losses - no questions asked and no accountability. Not to mention that there's actually a chance that the bailout wasn't needed at all. But we still don't know where that money is.

We have Socialism for the big guys and the worst form of Capitalism for the rest of us, as former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich pointed out during an On Point interview.

So now that they have our money and we'll be paying it back for years to come the fleecing and pillaging of the peasants continue.

$75 Billion of the peasants' money has been dumped into modifying loans for homes whose values were over inflated and the results are pathetic. Most of the banks and servicers actually continue to abuse and threaten the peasants. Ocwen Financial for example, who is receiving $500 Million has sent paperwork to less than 5% of its peasants.

Ocwen was Freddie Mac's poster child for the Making Home Affordable plan back in March, but when their shady practices ended up in court, "It successfully petitioned to have itself removed from oversight by the Office of Thrift Supervision, thus ending their supervisory agreement hatched just months before...," according to McClatchey.

Bank of America stands accused, by one woman's account of causing the death of her husband. Maybe they have a life insurance policy.

Meanwhile insurance companies are spending millions to lobby against a public option or any reform that might benefit the general population and want the government to fine the peasants that don't buy their crappy product. In fact if you're WellPoint Insurance Company, you fight reform and cut the benefits of the peasants who work for you.

And if that weren't enough pillaging, last week the Center for Responsible Lending reported that the banks, the same ungrateful aristocracy who last year were begging for help, looted the peasants for a whopping $24 billion in fees. Credit Card companies, in order to fight the economic slump are doing their part by raising interest rates and adding fees, cutting credit, and doubling monthly payments. The peasants make too much money as it is.

There's another scene that struck me deeply in Moore's film. One of the homeowners losing his home due to predatory lending and an out of reach mortgage, speculates briefly towards the end of the film about his empathy towards people who walk into "these places" with guns. He doesn't quite finish his sentence because he's choked up and seemingly in disbelief of his own feelings.

A couple of months ago I watched an episode of Flashpoint in which three men had lost their homes to predatory lending. One of the older men had lost his wife who had killed herself when their mortgage skyrocketed. They had taken the bank employees hostage in an effort to get their homes back. By the end of the show I had tears running down my face. Not because the acting was particularly good or because the episode ended on a positive note, but because I found myself empathetic to their cause. Because I found it in myself to find violence or the threat of violence to be a plausible means of negotiating and that somewhere in a place I don't care to visit again soon, I hoped that it might happen.

How much more can the peasants really take? Just how far can you push them before they take to the streets with torches and pitchforks?

And just how much more are they willing to push to find out?

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Michael Parrish DuDell: An Accidental Lesson in Responsibility

2009-10-08T14:46:33Z

Just days after my 14th birthday, I rolled up the sleeves of my youth and made a grand entrance into America's workforce. At an upscale bakery near my childhood home in Tampa, Florida stood an adolescent version of yours truly, apron-clad and grinning, perched carelessly behind a lengthy, oak-stained rectangular table, serving sticky samples of overpriced pastries to soccer moms on cell phones.

Originally procured as a fundraising campaign towards the purchase of my first car (and to satisfy a rather curious, natural-born tendency towards workaholism), it was at this part-time job where I discovered one of life's most important lessons and first uttered its familiar catchphrase: How can I help you?

Be careful how you say it. If thoughtlessly spoken this powerful expression can come across stale -- reminiscent of the disingenuous type of language found in the customer service training manual of any large corporation. To really understand the power of this expression -- and to avoid the naturally precious undertones -- one must place the emphasis on the last syllable. How can I help you?

In a culture that praises excess and idolizes greed, it seems that we've somehow lost our connection to what matters most. A survey done by the Nonprofit Finance Fund in March of this year concluded that "America's nonprofits ... are strained to the breaking point," and that out of the 1,100 nonprofits analyzed, "31% don't have enough operating cash in hand to cover more that one month of expenses, and another 31% have less than three months' worth." And yet in the last year over 4 million Snuggies have been sold, grossing more than $50 million in profits. Somehow this seems backwards.

While watching Michael Moore's latest film Capitalism: A Love Story I found myself yearning for an America I never knew. Ronald Reagan was years into his presidency when I was born and the make-money-or-die ethos had already kidnapped the country my parents and grandparents recall so vividly. In an era of Madoff-size scandals and Vice-Presidential candidates like Sarah Palin, one can't help but wonder if decency is lost forever.

The truth is the future of our society lies in the apathetic hands of my generation and the one below. And quite honestly that frightens me. Sure there are plenty of young people who have dedicated their lives to the advancement of a stronger society, but it just seems like there are so many more who are satisfied with staying home and watching The Hills. We twenty-somethings-and-under have been bred with a grandiose idea of entitlement that fosters laziness and encourages ignorance in the worst kind of ways. I suppose that's what happens when a group of people is never asked to truly sacrifice.

What I learned 12 years ago at that silly part-time job is that making something better for someone or something else is the greatest gift one can give ... and receive. And the very best part about this gift is that once it's given it never dies. Goodwill unites. Decency flourishes. Generosity inspires.

Because when all is said and done, isn't this living business supposed to be about improvement -- leaving the world a better, cleaner, more thoughtful place than when we arrived? Isn't the idea behind community that we watch out for everyone's best interest and not just our own?

Henry Ford once said, "To do more for the world than the world does for you -- that is success." In other words, the most savory part of this delicious condition we call humanity is only discovered when we show up, put on that metaphoric apron of service and genuinely ask, "How can I help you?"

Cenk Uygur: How Alan Grayson and Michael Moore Changed the Conversation

2009-10-08T11:43:34Z

It's not the answer that matters, it's the question. So when Alan Grayson suggested that the Republican's health care plan was for people to die quickly, he began a conversation that the Democratic Party couldn't lose and the Republicans couldn't win. Because then the question being debated was: Do Republicans want people to die quickly?

For the whole summer, the Republicans had managed to shift the debate from "should we reform the health care system in this country?" to "is the Democratic plan to reform health care a government takeover?" So, instead of the onus being on the health care industry and their Republican lovers to prove that we should maintain the status quo, the onus shifted to Democrats to prove that their plan was perfect.

This is an old trick of lobbyists (really well demonstrated in Thank You For Smoking). You change the conversation to a battle you can win. So, Rep. Grayson used their methods against them. And now the conversation we're having is whether the health care system is acceptable or if it leads to killing people for profit. Mission accomplished.

Michael Moore is doing the same in his move Capitalism. First, he is changing the conversation on who caused the financial collapse in the first place. Most people are acutely aware that it was the bankers, but not the Fox News audience. So, when he went on Sean Hannity's show the other night, he introduced that idea to them and then Hannity was stuck in the position of defending the bankers and blatantly blaming the victims and the poor. Instead of discussing how government was at fault, Moore started a conversation on how deregulation might have led to this mess.

But more importantly, he started a battle for the heart and soul of Christianity. He proposed in the movie and in his debate with Hannity that being on the side of the rapacious rich is un-Christian. He claimed his position is the more Christian position. For so long, the Republicans have simply claimed that they are more Christian without anything to back them up. They just shouted louder. Now, Moore is shouting just as loud.

By putting them on the defensive on how they are not good Christians if they help the rich crush the poor, he has once again changed the conversation. Are the Republicans bad Christians? It doesn't matter what the answer is, that's a question you can't lose with.

What the conservative movement has understood for a long time is sometimes it takes something a little inflammatory to change the conversation. You have to draw attention to you, so people can start discussing the topic you want.

This was perfectly demonstrated by the wild and angry town hall crowds. They were sometimes saying hideous things about Obama but they succeeded in shifting the burden of proof on to the Democrats. Now, it looks like we have a couple of guys that know how to play this game. And they have succeeded in shifting the focus back to where it should be. It's refreshing to have people who know what they're doing on your side.

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