Mickey Hearts Wolf
Here’s Mikey’s appearance on Wolf Blitzer’s show. Notice how craven Blitzer is this time around, since getting hounded by the Mooreons for his last encounter.
A few things. First, the description of capitalism as “legalized greed” is accurate. Humans are greedy creatures. The beauty of capitalism is that confines that greed to a region that is bounded by law and not controlled by power brokers (at least, in principle). Second, watch the clumsy way he completely dodges the question of why he is against capitalism when he does so well. He even lauds himself, to a sickening degree, as taking “great risks” and making “sacrifices” by putting out his money-making films. Third, he again fails to understand that the special interests who control Washington have and are being empowered by the very expansion of government he promotes.
Then there are the little touches we’ve gotten so used to—a bizarre rant about ATM fees (he prefers tellers); a profession to being a Christian. I especially like him calling socialism a 19th century idea and capitalism a 16th century idea. Wealth of Nations was published in 1776. That’s the 18th century (you may use your fingers to check my math, Mikey). And socialist ideas date back to prehistory.
But I want to focus on one thing Mikey said, which is at the heart of his film.
I just don’t think that if we’re going to call this a democracy, that we should allow the economy to be anything other than run democratically. You and I should have a say in how this economy is run.
We are not a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. And thank God. I don’t think Michael would care too much for all of us “having a say” in what movies he is allowed to make or where is allowed to live or what he is allowed to wear.
Private property rights are just as critical to our society as political and personal rights. Our Founding Fathers clearly thought so. Documents around the time of the Declaration talked of the rights to life, liberty and property. The Constitution specifically protects us against eminent domain and internal trade tariffs. And the Bill of Rights? As P. J. O’Rourke pointed out in Eat The Rich
The First Amendment implies a free market. Six of the remaining nine articles in the Bill of Rights defend private property specifically. And two of the others concern rights reserved to the people, some of which are certainly economic rights.
There is tremendous danger in allowing political control of an economy. Dangers such as—oh I don’t know—taking money from the taxpayers to support politically powerful industries; caving into pressure to inflate and keep inflated a real estate bubble; looking the other way when connected interests engage in fiscal shenanigans. Does any of this sound familiar?
If it had been up to a vote, does he think Americans would have voted for or against dangerously low interest rates? For or against the dot-com bubble? And does he think a massive powerful government would be more or less beholden to wealthy interests? How does Moore explain that two of the worst banks, two of the principal villains in this show, were the taxpayer-backed and politically-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Or that many are worrying about the explosion of FHA-backed debt?
Michael’s response to our current financial crisis is to do more of what we’ve been doing. He wants to treat food poisoning with a big serving of rotten meat.
The thing is that’s a pearl toward the end of the clip, for all the pretension with which it is delivered. While I would never describe banks as “public trust” or existing for the public good, I do think they acted irresponsibly. I do wish they would realize how deeply they have hurt and frightened the hundreds of millions of Americans who are working hard and pinching their pennies only to watch their 401k’s vanish in smoke or go up and down on the Dow Industrial Roller Coaster. I do think they were reckless in gambling people’s savings and investments on CDS’s and other financial bullshit.
But in a capitalist system, such stupid behavior would have destroyed them. The ones who committed fraud would be in jail. The companies that gave AAA ratings to shitty securities would be ruined. Only in a political company were they allowed to become “too big to fail”. Should we know allow them to become too popular to fail as well?
Comments
I actually disagree. I contend that Moore’s movies are deliberate works that aren’t fueled by some lustful rage against conservatism/capitalism (although I don’t argue that he has such rage)
I believe he knows how to use the ‘System’ and is doing so quite well. As stated in other articles/posts, he is a hypocrite, but it is deliberate. He intentionally uses capitalism to spread his ideology (which, ironically, is the only ‘-ism’ that would allow him to do so).
I do believe he has some balls trying to take on Capitalism, although, I think he was anticipating the ‘momentum’ of progressive ideas from the election of President Obama to coincide with his movie debut, but obviously, there’s been public backlash that has slowed, or stopped, any progressive momentum, causing bad timing for Moore’s movie.
The most interesting bit from the interview was Moore’s insistence that we replace capitalism with democracy. If I were Mr. Blitzer, I would have asked Moore the following question:
What’s more democratic than the free market? In a truly free market, you choose what you consume and what you produce. Ever been in a Rite-Aid? All you have to do is look at the toothpaste aisle, and see the bewildering number of choices for keeping your teeth clean to see that the free market offers us the chance to “vote” every single day. It’s why “Cop Rock” isn’t on the air anymore, and why they continue to broadcast “American Idol.” It’s why we can choose between the expensive, elitist fuzzy-wuzzy-wuvvy computer-pet culture of Apple, or the exasperating, frustrating, cheap and sometimes workable PC. Coke or Pepsi? Ford or Chevy? (Not much of an example anymore, I suppose) McDonalds or Burger King, or maybe actual food? Colt, Springfield, or In the free market, everyone gets a vote. Kids get a vote, gays, get a vote, people of all skins and religious persuasions get a vote.
I like having choices. Thanks to government meddling, my choices are dwindling. If the government hadn’t been propping up the big 3 for the past 50 years, there might be 50 car companies out there innovating. instead, we have three failing businesses with no one to take their place.
This is my first post, and given my username, I’m sure you’ll forgive me my stupidity. What is wrong with you people? Why does Moore have to be a saint to send a message? You all make it sound like he’s a hypocrit because he’s good at what he does and makes money for being good at something. All he’s trying to do is point out the things that are wrong in his country, so enough people might get pissed off enough to make the politicians to do something about it. You all make it sound like he’s wrong for trying to take on a topic like this. I agree with one of the previous posts one point, that this is a brave thing to do, because it’s such a broad topic. Surely this movie won’t answer all questions, and of course it will have a slant, but only to open people’s eyes in a shocking manner. You right wingers make it sound like this is some sort of new tactic. Dick Cheney scared the shit out of so many people for the 04 election, he had everyone convinced if they voted for Kerry the world would end in a matter of days. Anyways, just my thoughts, I’ve been reading this site for a while but only last week FINALLY had submission for a login approved.
Well---a big part of it is that Moore does not practice what he preaches. I have seen many reports that say that as an employer, he’s “like Idi Amin, but without the laughs.” For someone who puts on an act of being all about helping the “little guy,” this sort of thing tends to discredit anything that comes out of his mouth.
He’s also been caught out distorting facts, or just plain old outright lying, in his books and movies alike. Roger and Me was disqualified for the Oscar for “Best Documentary” partly because the Academy found out about a lot of his deliberate lies and misrepresentations, and his track record for truthfulness hasn’t improved a bit. Falsus in unus, falsus in omnibus is not a bad rule---once someone’s been caught deliberately lying, it’s a good idea to ignore anything that comes out of their mouth that you can’t independently verify.
His private lifestyle is also everything he rails against---he lives an upscale life very like the CEOs he’s always on about.
In short, he’s a hypocrite and a deliberate liar. The way that the Left has fastened on to him destroys a lot of whatever respect I used to have for them as, at least, honest.
You’re right, but the way the right gloms onto fox “news” like it’s an unbiased representation of the days news. Yeah, that’s where you should get your information.
You’re right, but the way the right gloms onto fox “news” like it’s an unbiased representation of the days news. Yeah, that’s where you should get your information.
As opposed to CNN or MSNBC? Get real. One network panders to one side, most of them pander to the other. NONE of them tell the unvarnished truth, so what precisely is your point?
why do people feed into this guy and make him seem smart. he can’t even dress himself properly for an interview. as he ever heard of a suit and tie?
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Michael Moore is not a deep thinker. (Understatement of the year) He’s basically taking out his rage at being, as he sees it, kicked out of Paradise (or Flint when GM was doing really well) and will do anything and say anything to vent his spleen.
He’s boiling mad, and latched on to his second-hand socialism as a vehicle for his anger. He brags in one of his books about how, when he was elected to the school board in Flint, he went out of his way to get the principal of the high school fired, even though the man had been good to him, by his own admission.