Via The Rhetorican, Futureofcapitalism.com has this interesting little revelation about the next bit of pabulum Michael Moore is about to release on his slobbering public:
The funniest moments of all in the movie, though, may just be in the opening and closing credits. We see that the movie is presented by "Paramount Vantage" in association with the Weinstein Company. Bob and Harvey Weinstein are listed as executive producers. If Mr. Moore appreciates any of the irony here he sure doesn't share it with viewers, but for those members of the audience who are in on the secret it's all kind of amusing. Paramount Vantage, after all, is controlled by Viacom, on whose board sit none other than Sumner Redstone and former Bear Stearns executive Ace Greenberg, who aren't exactly socialists. The Weinstein Company announced it was funded with a $490 million private placement in which Goldman Sachs advised. The press release announcing the deal quoted a Goldman spokesman saying, "We are very pleased to be a part of this exciting new venture and look forward to an ongoing relationship with The Weinstein Company."
Knowing that background puts the rest of the movie in a different context. Mr. Moore shows Rep. Dennis Kucinich asking rhetorically on the floor of the House of Representatives, "Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs?" Later, Mr. Moore shows up at Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan driving an armored Brinks trunk and announcing, "We're here to get the money back for the American people." Maybe Mr. Moore should look in his own pockets.
And because Mr. Moore sprinkles tiny bits of valid points amidst the laughable manipulation on film that his films typically represent, his public lap this pap up without question. Daniel Kalder, at When Falls the Coliseum, sums the Michael Moore phenomenom succinctly:
Indeed were I of a conspiratorial mindset I might argue that Moore is a secret agent of the very powers he claims he has come to dethrone. His films — filled as they are with well- documented distortions — are not really documentaries, and as he himself admits have been totally ineffective as agitprop. What we are left with then is a kind of political pornography for bien pensants in which Moore carefully orchestrates and manages his scenes and arguments to arouse a sense of anger and moral outrage in an audience which he knows desires to be thus titillated. Moore then feeds a series of stimulating scenes to the viewer, keeping that engorged muscle of angry indignation fully enflamed, until a climactic release at the end of the film. But once that climax has been reached, the world has not changed and the viewer has not participated in any meaningful form of protest, rebellion or dissent. This is ultimately an experience without real contact, without consummation, or the exchange of any bodily fluids. The energy of outrage is dissipated and fades away. The manipulated viewer simply returns to his life, most likely carrying on as a good servant of Capitalism.
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