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posted by martyb on Monday December 28 2015, @01:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the why-not-invade-Capitol-Hill? dept.

MovieTickets.com says[1]

This is an expansive, rib-tickling, and subversive comedy in which Moore, playing the role of "invader", visits a host of nations to learn how the U.S. could improve its own prospects. The creator of "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Bowling for Columbine" is back with this hilarious and eye-opening call to arms. Turns out the solutions to America's most entrenched problems already existed in the world--they're just waiting to be co-opted.

[1] Despite just 1 HTML error and 3 warnings, that page doesn't "Degrade gracefully" at all for me without specifying No Style in my browser. (I block everything that is not readable text.)

The Ring of Fire notes Republicans Will Hate Michael Moore's New Movie

"The American Dream seemed to be alive and well everywhere but America", says Moore.
["Where To Invade Next"] is the sort of documentary that will have Republicans sputtering angry America-themed rhetoric and completely missing the point.

From the other side of the aisle, Esquire says Noted Schmuck Michael Moore Just Made a Very Good Movie

Michael Moore is the worst kind of asshole: the kind who's right a lot of the time. He tells us mostly agreeable things in the most disagreeable way, rich in smarm and hyperbole and self-regard. A certain kind of messenger seems to revel in people's occasional desires to kill him. Moore is that kind of messenger.

[More after the break.]

AlterNet reports

"Where to Invade Next" begins with the observation that the United States has not won a war since World War II. It then comically imagines the Department of Defense calling on Moore to step in and save our nation. His plan? Invade nations not to take them over but to take their good ideas. We then see a hilariously ironic shot of Moore on a ship draped in the American flag and heading out on his quest.

Moore then embarks on a tour of a series of European nations and one in Africa where he finds society getting it right. From debt-free education to paid leave, women's rights, prison reform and delicious school lunches, Moore offers viewers a world where people simply live better than we do here.

In a brilliant move, Moore has made his most patriotic film yet without shooting a single frame in the United States.

[...] As Moore moves throughout the film [displaying] the American flag, he isn't just claiming the good ideas of other nations; he is claiming the flag and its symbolic force for those on the [Social Democratic middle.]

[...] Moore's film offers an alternative to the militaristic version of American exceptionalism. And he moves away from the negative politics that have haunted the [Social Democratic middle] since the '60s. [...] Moore realizes that progressive politics need to move [...] [toward] a platform that can inspire the imagination.

[...] By the end of the film "Where to Invade Next" refers as much to invading our apathetic political zeitgeist as it does to invading other nations. The ultimate irony of the film is that all we need to do to improve our nation is change the way we think.

[...] Bush won [...] because the Republicans got out the fear vote.

On the other side of the fence, [many in the center vote against the right], not for anything. And that's where the political potential of Moore's film lies. It asks us to imagine, if the invasion this country really needs is not an invasion of another country, but rather the invasion of the people into our own political process. Now that would be a real revolution.

[...] "Where to Invade Next" has a wide release set for Feb. 12, which is also Abraham Lincoln's birthday and the week of the New Hampshire primary. Coincidence? Definitely not.

[...] So Moore asked his distributors to get on board with a release plan designed to rock the nation: "I said .... give me a month or so to barnstorm the country, me personally, in a big rock 'n' roll tour bus, and we will criss-cross the country showing the film for free, leading up to the New Hampshire primary--because the issues in the film are the issues, the real issues, people want being discussed in this election year." They may also have music and rallies along the way.

TIME has some specifics about what Moore found:

In Italy, workers receive generous paid vacations, extended maternity leave, and two-hour lunch breaks! In France, little kids are fed tasty, nutritious school lunches, including fancy cheeses! In Finland, young students aren't burdened with childhood-crushing homework, while in Portugal, no one is arrested for using drugs! In Slovenia, a university education is free! In Iceland, wicked bankers who threw the country into recent economic crisis were actually convicted of their crimes!


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @04:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @04:46PM (#281736)

    Moore offers viewers a world where people simply live better than we do here.

    Other nations have found a way to have a vibrant middle class withOUT the huge inequality we have. Republicans will try every trick in the book to distract voters from this fact, throwing up red herrings.

    The biggest problem with our huge inequality is that the rich are buying laws they want, and squishing laws they don't like by bribing politicians and flooding the ad-ways. Pollution laws that hurt your profits? No problem: pay politicians to scrap it via campaign donations, or run bunches of ads saying the pollution regulations are "job killers".

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  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @06:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @06:10PM (#281758)

    Why are you so myopic to think this is a US-only issue? Sure, "Insightful" mods are easy to come by around here with "everywhere is great except the US" comments, but you'd really sound more insightful if your comments had proper perspective. Even the World Bank has pointed out that it is a worldwide problem.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @08:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @08:06PM (#281809)

      Come on man. He didn't say anything about it being uniquely american. Just that some other countries have done better. In the discussion of a story about America's problems it should be no surprise that the focus is on america's problems. Nit-picky sheldoon cooper posts like yours are the equivalent of grammer flames - technicalities that draw focus from the issues.

      • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday December 29 2015, @04:48PM

        by isostatic (365) on Tuesday December 29 2015, @04:48PM (#282084) Journal

        America is leading the way, but don't worry, other countries are catching up.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday December 28 2015, @06:18PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Monday December 28 2015, @06:18PM (#281761)

    The TPP is going to be a big surprise to those nations that have avoided the worst of it so far.

  • (Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Tuesday December 29 2015, @01:32AM

    by digitalaudiorock (688) on Tuesday December 29 2015, @01:32AM (#281933) Journal

    Other nations have found a way to have a vibrant middle class withOUT the huge inequality we have. Republicans will try every trick in the book to distract voters from this fact, throwing up red herrings.

    They distract voters from plenty around this issue...like how just about all economists believe the best way to a strong economy is to have a lower class with more money to spend, and that our own history has proven this time and time again. Yet somehow we seem doomed to continue disproving trickle-down by example decade after decade at the expense of everyone but a tiny handful of "job creators".

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 29 2015, @05:37PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 29 2015, @05:37PM (#282105) Journal

    Moore offers viewers a world where people simply live better than we do here.

    Other nations have found a way to have a vibrant middle class withOUT the huge inequality we have. Republicans will try every trick in the book to distract voters from this fact, throwing up red herrings.

    And once again, the high costs of employing US labor relative to labor almost everywhere else in the world are completely ignored. It's not a matter of Republican distractions, it's a matter of supply and demand. Global supply of labor has increased. Similarly, the US has over the last century found a variety of ways to make US labor less attractive, thus, reducing demand for US labor. This contributes to the current level of wealth inequality since from the middle class on down, gains of labor makes up most of a person's wealth. While the wealthy get most of their wealth from capital and hence did not experience a similar decline in wealth.

    The biggest problem with our huge inequality is that the rich are buying laws they want, and squishing laws they don't like by bribing politicians and flooding the ad-ways. Pollution laws that hurt your profits? No problem: pay politicians to scrap it via campaign donations, or run bunches of ads saying the pollution regulations are "job killers".

    And here we see a complete disconnect from reality. There are two things to note. First, pollution laws even when remarkably bad, like Superfund, have not been repealed. Second, pollution laws can hurt your profits, but they can also help them by increasing the barrier to entry. A huge cause of the big multinational corporation is onerous regulation. That creates an economy of scale that favors the huge over the small. The narrative is wrong here and we should wonder why a blatantly wrong view of the world is so pernicious.

    It's also worth noting that pollution regulations really were job killers. The harm was a bit overhyped and new, less polluting businesses managed to spring up to suck up most of the lost jobs, but it did happen as forecast with consequences you currently blame on Republicans and the rich.

    Finally there is this fellow reply by digitalaudiorock [soylentnews.org]:

    They distract voters from plenty around this issue...like how just about all economists believe the best way to a strong economy is to have a lower class with more money to spend, and that our own history has proven this time and time again. Yet somehow we seem doomed to continue disproving trickle-down by example decade after decade at the expense of everyone but a tiny handful of "job creators".

    A "strong" economy depends on what you want to be strong. For example, a typical Keynesian metric of economic strength is GDP. Here, we run into the really poor metric of wealth equality. Humanity varies greatly in its desire for and ability to gain wealth. So we would not expect everyone to be equally wealthy. It would not even be a worthy goal.

    Nor do I see GDP as being all that good a goal either since it leads to the Broken Window fallacy as a standard tool of economics (destroying wealth in order to increase economic activity).

    In the phrase "lower class with more money to spend", we see both erroneous metrics of economic strength implied. For some reason it is considered better to dump money on the "lower class" and then have them flush it to the "upper class" (a process which doesn't actually improve wealth inequality, but does increase economic activity), than it is to encourage thrifty behavior (which does reduce wealth inequality, but at a cost of reduced short term economic activity). Similarly, there's no reason for "job creators" to be a "tiny handful". This is just a consequence of the enormous pile of regulation on US business activity increasing the barrier to entry for anyone wanting to create a business rather than a natural consequence of "trickle down" economics.

    In summary, I see the same clueless advocacy for bad economics policy that ignores the reality of global labor competition while simultaneous backing policies that make things worse.