Via Cannonfire, Digby on Dennis Hartley's review of Moore's Capitalism:
It's extremely disheartening to see the administration and so many Democrats in congress completely ignore the political and policy ramifications of failing to engage in fundamental financial reform and fiery populist rhetoric at a time like this. This teabagger movement is happening in a vacuum created by a lack of interest in this topic by liberals who are so enamored of being members of the new "creative class" [see, e.g.] and the like that they aren't paying attention to the cynicism and anger that's reaching critical mass among average working stiffs out there. It's easy to dismiss it, but very, very foolish. The issues Moore raises in this film will be answered on the right with authoritarianism, militarism, immigrant bashing and violence. It's a recipe for disaster unless the left takes this on in direct, political terms.
Yep.
The administration has squandered the opportunity to build a policy bulwark against right wing populism. No HOLC. Horrible unemployment. No card check. The pissant public option. Banksters more powerful than ever. And on and on and on.
"Progressives" may think they're building a bulwark of snark -- Exhibit A, Sarah Palin, the Republican's first try at giving a right wing populist the national stage -- but that's going to be a FAIL, because not enough people read or view "progressive" media, and because the snark is too Whole Foods for words.
NOTE Of course, I did tell you so. Often, and for some time.
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What Merle Haggard said
In the recent Rolling Stone, if you can get past the cover shot of Megan Fox, there's a lengthy feature on Merle Haggard. After reading Digby's post, I somehow felt this observation from Hag was fitting:
I don't believe there's a dime's worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans. When we get someone new in the White House, don't you suppose they'd set him down there the first morning in the Oval Office and explain the rules? Give him orders about what to do, and if he didn't do 'em, they'd kill his kids? That's what I think. I think there's a No Shit Day, when they sit the guy down and he says "No shit." And they say, "Yeah, and it's this way, too." "No shit." "And we'll kill your fuckin' kids if you don't like it." I think we're there.
People are giving up, and they don't think our side is better than any other.
Don't no don't now try to get yourself elected
If you do you had better cut your hair
Dr S., there's footage of "No Shit Day" here
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechnetwork4.html
I just saw "Capitalism" yesterday, and Digby gets it right
Good gosh, she even dissed "creative class"!
I think she got it quite right about how Moore's message is a little fuzzy, even while his targets are way deserving and way timely.
It's a curious movie, certainly worth seeing for anyone with a liberal-populist bent. From a film-making and polemic-making perspective, it's not as incisive as Sicko, which remains his masterpiece. I felt that many of the vignettes, some of which were familiar stories, could have been portrayed even more movingly. For example, the story of the PA judges who railroaded kids into for-profit juvie jails pissed me off even more just from the original news reports than as shown in "Capitalism." These are quibbles, though, and not meant to discourage anyone from seeing it.
The virtual Obama commercial near the end is incredibly gag-worthy, at least for those who noticed that Obama is the Goldman-certified candidate, which is alluded to ever so briefly, and without any mention that Geithner -- whom Moore ridicules as something of a useful idiot or co-conspirator for the profitable FAIL -- is Obama's idea of a fitting replacement for Paulson, nor that Obama whipped votes for the robbery formerly known as TARP.
I missed the bankster aspect of campaign 2008
Big FAIL on my part.
I thought of them as just one more lobbying group. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Oh, I should add that interviews with Corrente favorites
William Black and Elizabeth Warren are featured. Not as much time with EW as Black, but nice to see them both get some visibility, and ditto for Marcy Kaptur.
Excellent post
But then the appeal of Obama during the primaries to these "Progressives" was exactly that he was the anti-populist and voting for him was proof that they were on a higher level than the common bitter racists who opposed him. In that sense Obama is less the triumph of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party than the "working class people are icky" wing.
Tdraicer
Yep
Exactly. Working people are icky, I love it.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
There Was Never
a snowball's chance of any outbreak of populism in the FMDP once Obama was annointed the party's great hope for future political dominance of the country's demographic trajectory.
This is the quintessentially conflict-averse Cool Dude President and the tone, to say nothing of the actions of the administration, flows from that basic reality.
Hell, at this point I'd settle for a competent technocrat, but he isn't even that.
"It's Easy to Dismiss It"
In a society that had any kind of healthy political discourse, it wouldn't be.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt