NEWS: Michael Moore: For The Love Of Money

Yep, huge privatized profit, while the taxpayer picks up the risk and losses.

This is why regulation was and is so essential, and why the intentional lack of it under mostly Republican leadership was so disastrous.

You do realize that a huge chunk of this shit happened under Obama right? supported wholeheartedly and ramrodded through legislation in a decisively Democrat congress right? ... and that he has surrounded himself with Wall St. insider after insider right? ... and that all of his advisers are the very people who embraced the deregulation (rubin, summers, geithner) right?

There was a seamless transition in January. You have the biggest Wall St. puppet ever to exist.

The foxes are guarding the hen houses. And all the right wing attacks do nothing but buttress Obama - his weakness is at his left flank. That is why he takes every opportunity to mention Hannity, Cheney, Limbaugh, and others - it props him up to be called a "socialist" or "left wing radical."

More right wing, fascist stuff can be accomplished under left camouflage than in a full frontal assault.

Obama has been in office for less than six months, and was handed a disaster on the scale of the Great Depression that was eight years or more in the making. The worldwide scale of this disaster by nature limits the ability of any one chief executive to remedy it, as does the obstructionist nature of the GOP opposition.

Even in the best of times, it takes more than 6 months do undo 48 months of bad policy and total fiscal chaos - and these are far from the best of times.

While I certainly do not agree with everything the obama administration has done, nor all the choices for regulators they have made, I realize that they are limited in many ways.

They were handed a huge shit sandwich and no matter what they do, it's going to stink to someone.

You're not disappointed, you just figured that was the best argument you could hang your hat on. Moreover your assertion is inane, and rather like saying, "Gee, I was so hoping that now Michael (that's how you spell Michael, BTW) Bey has matured as a director, he would take on a sensitive costume drama instead of Transformer 3".

Only you would assert that a global economic collapse wasn't a challenging or fit subject for exploration.

Agreed. Michael Moore has been demonized and mocked by right-wing media types. And, look, it worked! He's a fatty and a liar!

I think Michael Moore picks topics he thinks he can do something about, instead of just raising awareness for. The majority of the people that watch a movie about Zimbabwe or Mexico would leave saying "that's a shame" and not do much from there, whereas something that seems to affect them personally would have a greater call to action.

Admittedly, this is a very Obama way of thinking ("let's ignore gay marriage right now so we can take care of health care") and I don't necessarily agree with it, but at least I understand it.

Not speaking for anyone else, my issue with Michael Moore has a lot less to do with how truthful his information is & more to do with how is information is presented, & the tactics he uses. I think his presentation leaves a lot to be desired, regardless of the veracity of his facts, & that the presentation he often uses is part of what opens him up to criticism.

Bowling for Columbine being a particularly good example, presenting information in cartoons, juxtaposing images that are unrelated to underscore points that don't need to be underscored, & his interview with Charlton Heston in which he appeared to just be badgering a confused old man. Not saying any of his points are invalid, or even that he distorted fact to support his claims, just that in many ways he comes off as just as insane as the extreme right wingers who target him.

I feel pretty similar to him the way I do to Maureen Dowd or Keith Oberman. There's nothing inherently wrong with what they're doing, they're just not the public face I want put on liberals, & I don't want to be lumped in with them just for holding similar views.

even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I disagree. I think Moore chooses subjects for his documentaries that he knows won't be fixed. I have yet to see a "follow up" documentary from him on any of the subjects/problems he's chosen.

I believe that just like the large, cold-blooded corporations and individuals that he opposes, he is still in it for the money. In my opinion, he's just very talented at playing the role of a compassionate, caring person who just wants to "make a difference" by pointing fingers.

That's not to say he didn't start out being sincere - but I do believe money has changed him.

Ace, please find a way to watch Manufacturing Dissent. You may be a little surprised with Moore's early career moves. You may be even more surprised with the uncut video of him avoiding a Canadian reporter confronting him on the spin he put on the auto manufacturers and the copies of replies they sent to Moore (even though they were shitty in my opinion). Moore claimed that nobody from the auto industry even bothered to respond.

Now, I am NOT saying they aren't douche bags. But there was a significant amount of spin orchestrated by Moore to make situations seem worse for sensationalistic reasons.

You're not looking very hard.


Moore did a follow up to Roger & Me three years later, called "Pets or Meat: the Return to Flint"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105134/

Oh, and the guy is such a money grubber that he is giving away his latest movie (Slacker Uprising, a Toronto Film Festival selection) for free - download here:

http://slackeruprising.com/

Dunno, dude. 1992 was a pretty long time ago - even for a 30 minute update.

And Slacker Uprising (2007) was made free for download in late 2008 - long after the film's release.

But I guess that is something considering he probably realizes all of his movies are available for download via USENET and Torrents.

I hope that isn't coming across as sarcastic...I guess it's just that I don't find those efforts impressive. What he didn't do in that update was include the responses from Roger Smith's attempts to meet him. That was just one of the issues addressed and deliberately avoided by Moore in the Canadian documentary "Manufacturing Dissent."

My problem with Moore has nothing to do with the issues he addresses. I am totally behind him in those issues. My problem is in the spin and misinformation/lies he uses to make his point. He doesn't disclose return comments, opinions, or questions from his opponents.

I do appreciate you posting that stuff though.

He also pleaded that people be allowed to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 for free before the 2004 election, and he streamed Sicko online for free (it's still available on Google Video).

Greedy bastard.

No prob. You said he never did a follow up, and he did do one. That's all.

To be clear, I'm not a huge Moore fan, but I find the criticism that

kind of wanting. After all, what documentary filmmaker does do that? Come to think of it, how often do you see an in-depth follow up story on a complex, wonkish issue on your local TV news? Not too often. How many tickets do you think he'd sell at ten bucks each for another follow up to Roger & Me?

That said, it looks like he is taking things more seriously this time around, to wit:

Here's Moore's fact-checking page for Sicko:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/

I'm not printing it here because it is around 470 lines long.

Here's Moore's page tallying mistakes and inaccuracies (and subsequent corrections and retractions) made by CNN (on Larry King live and the Situation Room shows), USA Today, and the AP in reference to articles involving Sicko:

http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/setting-the-record-straight/

Its all been down hill for him since Canadian Bacon