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Crossposted at Daily Kos
I give you the irreplaceable Michael Moore, courtesy of Cenk Uygur at theyoungturks.com
A transcript and more below the fold
(Transcript provided by Alex Wickersham)
Cenk: Now joining us, Michael Moore, director of ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’, and a couple of other ones you might remember, ‘Sicko’, ‘Fahrenheit 911′,’ Bowling for Columbine’, ‘Roger and Me’–just to name a few. Michael, welcome to The Young Turks.
Michael: Thank you. Don’t forget Blue Hawaii, too, with Elvis.
Cenk: All right, so the DVD is coming out for ‘Capitalism’ soon. My question is– you know I saw the movie–obviously, we agree on a lot of things, including the huge flaws in the system as it currently exists, but do you think that capitalism is fundamentally flawed, and we need to change it entirely? If so, to what?
Michael: Yes, I do believe it’s fundamentally flawed, because I don’t think that in the 21st century the big decisions that need to be made should be based on profit. They should be based on what we need as a society and what the world needs. And when I say that, I don’t mean that I don’t think people should be able to earn money or do well or work hard or have a great idea or whatever. That’s not what I’m talking about.
The kind of capitalism that we have now is a three-card Monte game. And it’s rigged–it’s rigged against the working person, and I just think that until we decide that we have to get away from that and into a more democratic economy–in other words, economic decisions that are made by our elected representatives as opposed to Wall Street, the banks, the Fed, etc., etc.
Cenk: But how do we do it? How do we do it? How do we switch to that system?
Michael: Well, no switch will occur until we remove money from politics. We would have to start a movement where people will be running for Congress and for Senate and signing a pledge that states that they will not accept in their first run for election more than $25 or $50 from a person. And after that, when they get in there, their number one priority is to remove funding of our elections from individuals who have the most money, and have it be federally funded like it is in most democracies.
Cenk: So you think that campaign finance reform is the critical part of this.
Michael: Cenk, there’s nothing else will happen. Look at right now. Here we are guys, we’re a year and a half away from the crash. A year and a half since the big crash. Not one single regulation has been put back in place. Not one rule. And for Wall Street, they’re back to doing the crazy derivatives. They’re back to the credit default swaps. They’re back to all the crazy loony bin casino stuff that got us in the mess that we’re in. And the Congress has not done one single thing to stop it.
Cenk: You know in the movie you talk about Chris Dodd, and of course he’s the head of the Finance Committee. And now he’s retiring. But that might be a worse thing, Michael, because now’s he’s got a payday coming just a couple of months from now. That’s going to give him a lot of incentive to not to be so tough on the banks, isn’t it?
Michael: Well, yeah, I guess that’s one way to look at it. But, a boy can hope.
Cenk: Because part of the problem is the implicit bribe that these guys are getting. The Treasury official just left yesterday, Damon Munchus, I believe is his name. And he’s got a great lobbying gig now with the Cypress Advisory Group. So it’s not just the campaign money they take, it’s not just their advisors that leave, but themselves–they leave at some point and they get huge money. So how do we ever fix a system that’s broken, especially given that it appears that Obama has no intention of doing so?
Michael: Well, you want the honest answer?
Cenk: Yes, definitely.
Michael: It’s not going to get fixed. There’s going to be another crash. The commercial real estate bubble hasn’t burst yet. That’s going to burst. The credit card debt is so huge right now, it will never be repaid. That’s a house of cards waiting to fall. So the crash of ’08 is going to look like coming attractions. And we’re in for a much, much worse time. That’s how I honestly feel.
But you don’t want to hear that from me, do you? I mean, I’m only the guy who said that there weren’t going to be any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that we were being lied to. And I’m the guy who 20 years ago made his first film saying that General Motors was a piece of crap company that was going to slide down the hill and bring us all down with it. So don’t listen to me.
Cenk: Part of the problem, Michael, is if it does crash–and I have the same fear as you do–right–is that then what the right wing media is going to step in and say “Hey, listen, you know what, it was too much government, and it was too much regulation, and it was the progressives who were the cancer, etc., etc.”
Michael: Oooohhhh, I know I’m so afraid of the right wing saying that. Oooohhhh. Typical Democrats. That’s the way the Democrats think. Oooohhhh, ooohhh, they’re gonna say bad things about us. Oooohhhh, we better not do too much. Oooohhhh.
You know, I tell you, these Democrats are disgusting. Wimps and wusses and weasels. You know, get some spine. This is why I have to admire the Republicans. They at least stand for something. They at least have the courage of their convictions. They get elected to office, they come into town, and they go “Get outta my way, there’s a new sheriff in town. This is the way we’re doing things. Get outta here.” And then they do it. You know. I mean what they do is crazy. But dammit, they are good at it. We should take a page out of their book.
Cenk: I couldn’t agree more with that. So to finish that thought, if you were, for example, Van Jones, how would you have responded to Glenn Beck?
Michael: Fuck off! That’s what I would have said. But again, you mentioned Glenn Beck, and of course, he’s the guy that’s called for my removal from the planet Earth, so…Cenk: So, it’s someone you’re familiar with, so apparently you had that refrain ready. All right, Michael Moore is the director of ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’, it’s coming out on DVD. Thank you so much for joining us on The Young Turks, we really appreciate it.
Michael: Hey, guys, thanks a lot. I love listening to you, on Sirius. Thanks.
Cenk: Thank you.
There really isn’t much more for me to add to this. I agree with Cenk and Michael Moore. Since the Conservative Deregulation crash of 08 NOTHING has been done to restore the regulations that were put in place after the Great Depression to make sure such a thing would never happen again. We have a bubble and bust economy. Change? When it comes to Wall St and the fundamentals of our economy we haven’t changed a damn thing, and we can’t blame that on mean ole Republicans no matter how hard anyone wants to spin it.
There WILL be another crash. It is a certainty. When it happens the whole house of cards our Wage Slave, Ponzi Scheme and War Profiteering driven economy will fall flat on it’s face. And there WILL be someone to blame . . .
The only way President Obama and Democrats can hope to avoid that blame is to actually DO SOMETHING about Wall St and our insane, rigged economic system. Otherwise we can expect another crash, we can expect Goldman Sachs and their sort to profit off of it at the expense of the rest of America, and we can expect the right wing to spin it in some way that makes Dems out to be the villains and tax cuts and more de-regulation to be the only answer possible . . . .
And you know what, if Dems do nothing, if President Obama’s Administration does nothing, the right wing will be kind of right. It WILL be the fault of Do-Nothing Democrats.
The only way to avoid that next crash, the only way to avoid another economic disaster and the blame that will deservedly go along with it is to actually do something that makes Wall Street really, really mad. The way to do that is to hold people accountable.
Does the Democratic party and President Obama have the audacity to do that? For the sake of millions and millions of suffering, struggling non millionaires, I hope they do.
Follow me on twitter @JesseLaGreca
Also crossposted at ProgressiveElectorate.com
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and for Cenk Uygar and Michael Moore for doing it like no one else can
The 2nd crash has been in the “Illuminati” watch circuit since…..since…before the first engineered crash in 2008. Plus my subsididary of “Globo-corp” knew even before that.
This though is a bit of misunderstanding:
It is never intended to be repaid. They don’t care.
So long as most people pay on it long enough at 29% before going belly up, then it doesn’t matter if the principle is ever recovered-they hope it won’t be.
For me, Michael Moore, has always had a “cool” handle on everything. He is not wrong!
Neither is this guy! The foremost American historian of all times:
An interview with Jay Paul *Real News Network), and others:
reins of power. It was an obsession of Ancient Rome. The emperors needed to keep the generals busy or face the possiblity of overthrow. The people were kept happy with free admission to “sporting events”. The elites divided the booty. When there was no one left to conquer, the whole thing slowly fell apart, with the barbarians and the church entering the charade.
The U.S. has been at war or preparing for it for 70 years now. Patriotism and Homeland Security now reign supreme at the top of the pyramid. We didn’t even have to pass through another McCarthy period. Meanwhile back at the farm, most of the people now realize their wallets were stolen: The old distract and extract trick working like a charm. They got caught with their pants down a little bit at the end of the Bush presidency, but Obama’s covered for them real well.
in believing as he does. Please consider these excerpts from a recent article, which, remarkably, appeared on the ABC News website, and details the concerns of a nonpartisan panel. Among those serving on this panel were bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren and Nobel prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, either of whom would have been a far superior choice to run the Fed that Ben Bernanke, whose sole mission seems to be that of someday being equated with the role played by Slim Pickens during the closing moments of that classic film, “Dr. Strangelove.” To see the article for yourself, go here.
The opening pararaph…
One of the panel members, Rob Johnson of the United Nations Commission of Experts on Finance, unequivocally states his grave concerns…
We recently survived what will hopefully go down as a “near miss”, however, we are not completely “out of the woods” yet. Without a doubt, the next time around could well be far worse…
The entire article is quite a fascinating read, if you have the time to take a look. It also stops short of predicting the nature of the proposed legislation to be submitted by Sen. Chris Dodd’s committee. While I would prefer to assume an attitude of cautious optimism, the following time honored quotation does little to support such a sanguine view…
…good post!
The current setup is smoke and mirrors anyway — I suspect that the emerging setup, which is a variant of the current one will also be more smoke and mirrors and misdirection — just more sophisticated. This is because everybody wants the status-quo, more or less. The oligarchy now has everything it wants and that is complete control over us economically and politically.
It will continue for awhile. In a few years the gap between illusion and reality will just be too great and it will crash in some form — hopefully, by then some of us will have woken up enough to alter alternative paths. We have a lot of work to do.