Tag: Michael Moore

GRITtv with guest Michael Moore: People Power

No need to say much as to an intro to this discussion, they, as usual, do a great job.

One thing I would like to say is that  think Keith would be doin great if he picked up Laura and gave her a spot on the rebuild of that Gore and company TV Station.

She’s always done a great job when doing radio, her books, and now with this GRITtv venture, though to a to small an audience and Rachel’s still under contract to MSNBC.

From Egypt to Wisconsin with Love

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Michael Moore has asked that we spread this message from the trade unions and workers in Egypt to the unions and workers in Wisconsin. Also, wear something RED today in support of the Wisconsin state workers.

‘We Stand With You as You Stood With Us’

The poster in the background shows photographs of some of the recent young victims of the Mubarak government. The writing says they are among the martyrs of the 25 January Revolution.

KAMAL ABBAS: I am speaking to you from a place very close to Tahrir Square in Cairo, “Liberation Square”, which was the heart of the Revolution in Egypt. This is the place were many of our youth paid with their lives and blood in the struggle for our just rights.

From this place, I want you to know that we stand with you as you stood with us.

I want you to know that no power can challenge the will of the people when they believe in their rights. When they raise their voices loud and clear and struggle against exploitation.

No one believed that our revolution could succeed against the strongest dictatorship in the region. But in 18 days the revolution achieved the victory of the people. When the working class of Egypt joined the revolution on 9 and 10 February, the dictatorship was doomed and the victory of the people became inevitable.

We want you to know that we stand on your side. Stand firm and don’t waiver. Don’t give up on your rights. Victory always belongs to the people who stand firm and demand their just rights.

We and all the people of the world stand on your side and give you our full support.

As our just struggle for freedom, democracy and justice succeeded, your struggle will succeed. Victory belongs to you when you stand firm and remain steadfast in demanding your just rights.

We support you. we support the struggle of the peoples of Libya, Bahrain and Algeria, who are fighting for their just rights and falling martyrs in the face of the autocratic regimes. The peoples are determined to succeed no matter the sacrifices and they will be victorious.

Today is the day of the American workers. We salute you American workers! You will be victorious. Victory belongs to all the people of the world, who are fighting against exploitation, and for their just rights.

Wendell Potter is the Daniel Ellsberg of the Health Insurance Industry

In their interview a few days ago on Keith Olberman’s show, Michael Moore called Wendell Potter the Daniel Ellsberg of the Health Care Insurance Industry and lauded him for his courage in standing up for the truth as a whistleblower and sacrificing his high paid job as a senior executive of Cigna Health Insurance.  There are several key moments in the interview:

I agree with Michael.  Wendell Potter is truly an American hero.

Why aren’t other companies doing this? Employees wonder.

Michael Moore’s new film puts spotlight on Petaluma company

By Jeremy Hay, Press Democrat

In “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which opens today around the country, Moore takes aim at what he characterizes as a capitalist culture run amok.

He holds up the bakery – with 117 employees and $24 million in annual revenues – as an example of a successful capitalist alternative, where workers are as powerful as executives, profits are shared equally and workers are valued for more than their labor.

“This could be potentially a new model,” said Cory Fisher, a field producer and researcher for Moore. “A way for workers to feel engaged and not marginalized, and that they have a stake in their future.”

[…]

“They stood out,” she said. “They’re successful, their workers are able to make a living wage, they seem empowered and happy and you just start to look around and wonder, “Why aren’t other companies doing this?”

 

Why aren’t other companies doing WHAT?

Starting their own, Employee Owned Business.

Michael Moore: “Deport Wall Street”

… any illegal immigrant they catch in Arizona, they should let him keep doing his job because he’s adding to the economy. For every one they catch, they should send one Goldman Sachs guy to Mexico.” – Michael Moore on Larry King Live, Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

Capitalism Driving Humanity’s Downfall

Raw Story, March 6th, 2010

In his film Capitalism: A Love Story [set to be released on DVD and Blu-ray Monday], Michael Moore squares off with the free-market system for its role in leveraging the United States’s wealth into the hands of a few.

But in one clip cut from the documentary — which Moore provided exclusively to RAW STORY — he interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, who explains how capitalism is actually contributing to the very downfall of the human race and the “degradation of the planet.”

“All sorts of people who have spent their lives studying climate change, from Bill McKibben on down, have warned us that we don’t have a lot of time left,” Hedges said. “So it’s not just that capitalism has destroyed our economic system and hijacked our political system, but it literally is extinguishing the system that sustains life. If that’s not thwarted soon…then we will begin to see massive dislocations, environmental refugees, further depleting of natural resources. Overpopulation is also an issue. The UN estimates that by 2050 the size of the planet will double.”

The very concept of capitalism, Moore declares in the film, is the problem because it inevitably leads to a system where the richest few control the means of production as well as the levers of power — leading to a “plutonomy,” a term used in a leaked Citigroup memo from 2005, in which the finance juggernaut concluded that the United States is no longer a democracy.

In the interview, Hedges decries America’s turn toward supply-side economics over the last three decades as the cause of stagnating middle class incomes, contrasting it with the increasingly lavish fortunes of the wealthy and the aid they often receive from the government at the expense of working people.

Talkin’ ’bout my generation…

There are many people who lament the end of the ’60s and complain about today’s self-absorbed, materialistic youth.  Now, I’m a teenager, and I can tell you that there’s a grain of truth (maybe a boulder…) to those complaints, but there’s also a vibrant political culture among those of us whippersnappers who do care.

Well, we all know Dylan, Lennon, and Young.  But what about Francis, Folds, and Morello?  If you take a look at the music scene today, it’s apparent that there are a lot of young people who care.  There’s currently a lot of music in the same spirit, if not the same style, as the classics of protest music.

Dystopia 16: A Place of Her Own

The World Turned Upside Down  (One version of the Digger’s Song)

 

In 1649 to St. George’s Hill

A ragged band they called the Diggers

Came to show the people’s will.

They defied the landlord, they defied the laws,

They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs.


“We come in peace,” they said, “To dig and sow,

We come to work the lands in common

And to make the waste ground grow.

This earth divided we will make whole

So it will be a common treasury for all!

 

The sin of property we do disdain,

No man has any right to buy and sell the earth for private gain.

By theft and murder they took the land,

Now everywhere the walls spring up at their command.

   

They make the laws to chain us well,

The clergy dazzle us with heaven or they damn us into hell.

We will not worship the god they serve:

The god of greed who feeds the rich while poor folk starve.

   

We work, we eat together, we need no swords;

We will not bow to the masters or pay rent to the lords.

Still we are free, tho’ we are poor,

You Diggers all stand up for glory, stand up now!

   

From the men of property the orders came:

They sent the hired men and troopers to wipe out the Diggers’ claim.

Tear down their cottages, destroy their corn,

They were dispersed, but still the Vision lingers on!

   

“You poor, take courage, you rich take care,

This earth was made a common treasury for everyone to share.

All things in common, all people one, We come in peace…”

– The order came to cut them down.

The Plutonomy — aka. that Top One Percent

I’m just back from seeing Michael Moore’s new movie, “Capitalism – A Love Story”.

It was moving, funny, and educational, all rolled into one. It made me feel both, proud and sad, to be an American. … but it’s recommended viewing if you still want to take OUR Country back, from the Powers that Be.

There are many lessons to be learned from the film — But the one that struck me, the one I’m motivated to write about now —

Is the Lesson of Plutonomy …

Be a Good Patriot — Die Quickly!

Crossposted at Booman Tribune

Alan Grayson has recently raised the ire of the corpatocracy and their volunteer army of teabaggers merely by simply stating the obvious, this being our obligation as good citizens, as defined by the Republican Party and the mislabeled “centrists” of the Democratic Party:

1. Don’t get sick.

2. If you do get sick…

3. Die quickly.

The Economic Royalist cabal has cried loudly, and in unison, demanding that Mr. Grayson apologize.  And even some in the so-called liberal blogosphere have joined the call for him to fall on his sword for his Holocaust reference. Although the numbers of dead (officially) are not yet as large, Big Money in this country has positioned themselves to realize a profit from the deaths of those inhabiting the “undesirable” class, those whose lack of wealth must surely be due to laziness and sloth.  Even the Nazis, to our knowledge, did not realize six and seven-figure tax-free payouts from those who were sent to the gas chambers. Fortunately, Rep. Grayson’s recent apology was not what his detractors had in mind, that of apologizing for the congressional inaction that continues while approximately 122 people per day die in this country due to lack of access to healthcare. In case you haven’t seen it yet:

BrokenRoots: Heros for Homeless: Free Screenings of Michael Moore’s Movie Tonight

Movie marques in cities across America tonight showcase “free admission” to Michael Moore’s latest film,”Capitalism: A Love Story” for anyone who’s “fallen on hard times.”

“To kick off the national release of “Capitalism: A Love Story,” I’ve asked the studio to offer a number of screenings in the nation’s hardest hit cities — the ones with the highest unemployment rates and highest foreclosure rates — where those who’ve lost their jobs or who are in foreclosure (or have already been evicted) may attend my film free of charge,” Moore writes.  “They’ve agreed, and so tonight (Thursday), the night before our opening day, ten cities will grant you free admission if you have fallen on hard times. The list of theaters and cities is below. You don’t need to bring any proof of your situation — just show up — it’s the honor system, no questions asked. Link

The free 7:30 p.m. screenings are scheduled in Saginaw, Michigan; Elkhart Indiana;Peoria, Illinois; Las Vegas, Nevada, Fresno, California, Phoenix, Arizona, Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina;Baltimore, Maryland, Tampa/St. Pete/Florida and Cleveland, Ohio. For information on theater locations, click here.

“Capitalism, A Love Story” debuts tomorrow.



(from dmott9’s flickr photostream

Is Health Care a Commodity, or a basic Human Right? with Poll

Well according to this former HMO Medical Director, she traded Necessary Patients Care, for Career Advancement and a 6-figure Salary:

Linda Peeno MD, testifies



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Question: Are the Patients, who are Denied Care, to save the Insurance Companies Money — DO those Patients have a RIGHT to their Health Care?

Or are Those Patients simply a Commodity — a “Cost Center” — that must be constantly constrained?  

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