I have to admit, I’m kind of looking forward to Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story”, because I’m hoping to see this site have a field day with it.
One thing that cannot be denied is that Moore is quite gifted at using shock to induce “epiphanies” in his viewers, who are primarily self-described “intellectuals”. In this way he’s essentially a preacher of religion, and very good at what he does. Therefore, if his movie is in fact chock-full of fallacies and nonsense (as I would bet bullion that it will be), it will mandate a thorough thrashing for the sake of honest reality.
It’ll be great to discuss it here if I can stomach the pain of seeing it.
It’ll be a pain in the neck is what it will be. Moore is an accomplished liar, an expert at it. What will happen is he will bring common myths to the forefront and perhaps even create some new ones of his own. While the movie will be easy to debunk in terms of theory and generalities, the reality is for every myth he creates there will be a sort of required factual and specific debunking necessary. It won’t be enough to say, “If company X did that, then they must have had government collusion/protection…” The specifics of company X and what actually happened will have to be researched and debated, and facts will be discovered by the honest, ignored by the left, screwed up by the right, and most people generally won’t give a damn and believe Moore’s version anyway because they’d rather be spoon fed lies than have to put some effort into knowing truth.
What you’re saying is along the lines of a layman disagreeing with a brain surgeon and trying to demonstrate, without training or aptitude of any kind, a better technique on a patient of his own. Even though he may have a point, someone is going to die. In order to compete with Moore we’d need an equally accomplished propogandist on our side to present our case using similarly effective techniques. Otherwise we’ll just get the same responses to any debunking or mythbusting we might do now.
It’s like that company, I forget which, that sold powdered baby formula in Africa. Stuff got mixed with dirty water, mothers lost the ability to make their own milk, and the kids paid the price. And of course everyone blamed the company and the private market even though the government controlled the water supply and was responsible for its quality. People believe what they want to believe. If Moore has proven anything it is that editing trumps facts any day of the week. As such debunking/busting a well presented lie or myth is not enough. We have to make people want to believe the truth. So until a film maker who is just as skilled gets off his rear end and makes a film just as effective showing how the government is the root of many of the problems the mainstream lays at the feet of the private market, competing with Moore is a lost cause.
I mean, think about it. You’re writing about a society that without fail points to problems in its most heavily regulated and controlled, if not outright nationalized business sectors, and blames the free market. We are a country who, upon coming home and finding the mailman screwing our wives, proceeded to shoot the FedEx and UPS guys. There’s a fundamental disconnect that the truth can’t seem to overcome.
I think you have made a great and very accurate assement of Michael Moore and his “intellectual” fans. I however do not share your enthusiasm for the film being released. I also don’t even think he is pareticularly good at what he does, he just delivers a patronizing message to a crowd that is in vouge; If he were preaching something unfashionable like Intellegent Design or Supporting the Patriot Act everyone would notice how absolutley cheesy and BS his tactics and style is and laugh him out of relevence..
I think he is aboutas good as those 50’s American propaganda films we are trained to snicker at, only this time around we are trained to take this propaganda seriously..
I think you have made a great and very accurate assement of Michael Moore and his “intellectual” fans. I however do not share your enthusiasm for the film being released. I also don’t even think he is pareticularly good at what he does, he just delivers a patronizing message to a crowd that is in vouge; If he were preaching something unfashionable like Intellegent Design or Supporting the Patriot Act everyone would notice how absolutley cheesy and BS his tactics and style is and laugh him out of relevence..
I think he is about as good as those 50’s American propaganda films we are trained to snicker at, only this time around we are trained to take this propaganda seriously..
I hope someone puts together a Best of Tom Woods video to refute everything he said. The nice thing about now versus a few years ago is that every major volley from either side results in hearty debate, and can even result in backlash by bringing lurking critics out of the woodwork.
I only drag myself to the theaters to see good “films”. This year the going has been pretty surprisingly decent (Gran Torino, District 9, The Watchmen, Coraline etc) so I don’t want to ruin my average.I also have no problems asking my money back for a really bad film.
On a different note I am glad somebody agrees with me on the fact that most of the elegant leftists idolizing Moore are self-described “intellectuals”. [Y]
I can’t wait for people to start asking me to explain why I like capitalism, since its responsible for the depression and subsequent bailouts etc etc. I presume that’s the thesis, that capitalism is the great evil that causes all of the scary things in the world, and we’d all be better off with some warm fuzzy socialism.
Yup. It never fails to amaze me either. I have some friends who, bless their otherwise kind hearts, are of this ilk. And when I axplain an oppossing opinion and ask them if they’ve ever read anything they disagree with, and what in fact they’re basing their heated and passionate opinions on, there’s always a void of justification and background study. IFor examle when they bring up Global Warming and how horrible it is and how devistating it will be and how stupid people are to ignore it, I talk to them about dendroclimatology, FOI requests for data which are evident in this field of ‘science’ but no where else, unarchived data, hidden studies, revised predictions, etc., they have no idea what I’m talking about and it turns out the depth of their knowledge and study is tracable back to an Al Gore speech. They’re typified in the public sphere by Bill Maher, always claiming to have ‘science’ on their side but never willing or able to actually discuss that ‘science’ to any great depth and evidently ignoring it when it suits their purposes.
My favorite recent example of this comes from Maher himself. He’s constantly touting that WHO ‘study’ on health care systems that rated the US 37th as the ultimate finding, staring at the camera with that smug face of his every time he mentions it. Show this guy a study that shows marijuana causes some negative effect and he and his ‘fact checkers’ will tear every problem with its methods apart, and rightly so. Most such studies are problematic being based on megadosing or mixed drugs, etc. He tears it apart because he wants weed to be legal, so it simply can’t be criticized. Show them a study that says what they want to hear about the US healthcare system though and it’s gospel, regardless of how blatantly crappy the methods used. The double standard is blatant and disgusting.
I went through a Bill Maher phase about 18 months ago. He’s an idiot and a demagogue. One of the new secular left that pretend to be above it all, but have no principles or consistency whatsoever.
As far as Moore, if someone is silly enough to give him their money to see his propaganda, …
I remember Michael Moore’s trick at the NRA showing the poster with a picture of Hitler and the caption “Raise your right arm if you favour gun control”, only, he missed off the caption and just showed the picture of Hitler or something like that.
If you get to talk with them about it do this. Ask one of them for a $20 bill. Make sure you have change. Put the twenty in your wallet, give him back a five and share the rest with everyone else. See what happens.
If the “donor” disagrees, put it to a majority vote! Then no matter how he objects, respond with, “We the People have spoken.” Of course, the real situation is worse, because he’d be imprisoned for resisting.