Fahrenheit 11/9 on You Tube

[fragger]

Below is a link to Michael Moore's (relatively) new film, "Fahrenheit 11/9". I don't know how long it will stay on You Tube, but I found it compulsively viewable. I reckon it should be watched not just by every American, but by everyone. But especially Americans.

Some criticize Moore of pursuing agendas or being biased, but I thoroughly disagree. I believe this documentary is one of the most objective takes on the current situation in the USA that anybody has put forth in visual media so far. He takes absolutely no sides (or prisoners) politically, being no less scathing of the dirty tricks of the Democrats than he is of those of the Republicans, and his genuine concern for his fellow human beings is evident throughout. And he is certainly no Obama-lover, as some have claimed - he is anything but.

Moore is not a leftist or a bleeding-heart "libtard". He's a humanitarian and a great believer in proper justice for everyone - what we here would call "a fair go" for all. There should be more people like him.

The show is not your usual diatribe on the US political scene - in fact, the bulk of the movie is an emotive and enlightened examination of the how the so-called common people are dealing with the illusion that is American "democracy", and the section on Flint, Michigan is absolutely startling (I knew they were having problems with drinking water there, but bloody hell, I had no idea why nor how bad it really is...)

I think it's an excellent, and at times quite moving, piece. And as always with Moore's w0#k, many of his insights are both profound and spot-on. I thought there were a couple of contentious points, but they were few and far between. Overall, I was right with him throughout.

Due to copyright reasons, the final 30 seconds of the movie had to be left out. But considering the remaining 2 hours is presented in its entirety, and in high quality, I think that's fair enough.

[Art Blade]

impressive.

[PZ]

All I can say is that the video clearly indicates how polarized the country has become - you either love or despise tRump. I think the world would be a much better place if the tRump family never existed. He and his family would be just another crackpot family if they were not foolishly placed in their current position of power. Having tRump as president is akin to having Kim Jong-un as our president - kiss his *bleep* and you'll be revered no matter how corrupt your intentions.

The current political climate makes me want to stick my head up my *bleep* like a tRump supporter. That way I would not need to examine what is right or wrong.

[Art Blade]

I need to mention (because it kept returning to my mind) that the video showed Obama making a big show flying to Flint, Michigan, asking for a glass of water, apparently a demonstration of "if the President drinks it, it's gotta be OK," but he only sipped half a drop to minimise the lead intake. If it had been his true belief that it really was OK, he'd have drunk all of it to the last drop. And "years later" nothing had changed. And to top it off, the information was given that he took more money from Goldman Sachs than anyone else.

This is the first time I saw him in a really bad light.

[PZ]

True - I remember that video byte and was disgusted even at the time. Politicians of all flavors are nothing more than assholes wanting little more than to serve themselves. If the people benefit, then it is because of the side fallout, not because of design.

[fragger]

There are people on the "left" who are no less rabidly one-eyed then those who support the Republicans. I see a lot of "I wish Obama was still here" in comments around the net. I think that some people are so aghast at trump and what he's doing that they see the previous administration as some sort of idyllic period in the country's history by comparison, conveniently forgetting that Obama was not exactly the soul of compassionate rule and the country was just as beset with problems under his presidency.

I'd never seen that lousy stunt of Obama's at Flint until I watched this (and I could feel the vibe of that room without even being there), but it didn't terribly surprise me. I was never a fan of that guy either. I don't think he was as bad as trump - or maybe he was, just in different ways. A decent president would have taken action immediately over Flint and not only made the restoration of clean drinking water a number-one priority, but would also have striven for compensation and government underwriting of medical aid for the victims - but then, a decent president would never have let it come to that in the first place. Obama was just another corporate darling and speaking from a purely subjective viewpoint, there was always something about him that rubbed me the wrong way. Something felt intrinsically wrong about him and I could never quite put my finger on it.

The Democratic party is certainly no bastion of righteousness. After knifing Bernie Sanders in the back and running an election campaign that seemed almost blatantly aimed at the money-men, scorning the mass public rallies that trump undertook and instead hosting $100,000-per-head soirees and sending cardboard cut-outs of the candidate instead of the candidate herself, it was no great surprise that they pushed voters into trump's camp. Michael Moore was actually one of the very few public figures who predicted that trump would in fact win. He has always had his finger on the national pulse and he could see just how it would go down - and he was dead right. Hubris was what cost the Dems the election, the smug belief that trump had no chance of winning, as evinced by the fact that Clinton's mob was celebrating her victory before the final results were even in. Hubris and a massive disconnect from public sentiment.

Whether Sanders would have made a decent president I can't say, I don't know enough about the guy. Nobody can say, really. All I do know is that he was hugely popular and on the face of it, he seemed to understand peoples' plights and what they wanted. Had he not been cheated out of the running in the most despicable and cowardly way possible short of outright murder, he quite likely would be POTUS now. When the Dems shot him in the back, the bullet went right through, ricocheted, then hit them in the foot.

I think what has happened in America is much like what has happened here, what ultimately seems destined to always happen with two-party systems. The two parties start out embracing two distinct political ideologies or as representatives of two groups of people (usually haves and have-nots, or bosses and workers, or something of that nature), but eventually they just degenerate into two indistinguishable groups of politicians scrambling over each other for power, with their original formative ideals thrown out the window and forgotten. Democrat and Republican, Lords and Commons, Labor and Liberal, they simply cease to have any meaning. They all just become mobs of greedy, power-hungry politicians, nothing more. And every single one of them hates democracy, which is why they never stop trying to keep people divided through whatever means they can devise. A population which is divided though fear, xenophobia, or mistrust of their fellow people, is easier to rule. "United we stand, divided we fall", as they say.

[Art Blade]

we have more than one party, actually plenty of parties, but in the end it doesn't matter much because they've all shifted away from what they used to stand for and instead, they simply strive for power promising what people want to hear and once elected, forget about everything. The only difference are extremist parties and they gain just the way Trump gained.

[fragger]

We have other parties too (the Green party, the Shooters and Fishers party, the United Australia party, well over 20 of them, actually) but it's only ever the two "biggies", Labor and Liberal, who garner the lion's share of the votes. Mainly because people generally aren't interested in studying the others, and in many cases, with good reason. I've looked into a few of them and they are generally focussed on just one or two core issues, when what is needed is a party which can address all pressing concerns - which leaves Liberal and Labor as the only really viable choices. Unfortunately.

[Art Blade]

about the same here. Two major players but oftentimes neither one can get a majority so they have to team up with the biggest of the smaller parties or even with themselves which can be fun. Fun as in, if the Vatican could only continue if they allowed a female protestant to become pope. Not so funny for the tax-paying people, us.