This was a video that I could not pass up blogging about. Filmmaker Michael Moore delivered a speech this week in which he summarized a section from his new book where he makes seven proposals for President Obama. You can watch the video, and I share my take on his seven proposals below.
Proposal One: Institute a military draft, but only for the children of the top five percent of wage earners in the country. Okay, this is not one that I would support; I don't think that a military draft is justified in any but the absolute most dire of circumstances. However, the underlying point behind this is clear: In practically every war that our country has ever fought, it has been the poor and underprivileged who bore the brunt of the fighting, whether or not it was as the result of a draft. Perhaps if the people who send our troops into war actually had a personal family stake in the fight, rather than just a financial stake, we might actually not go to war unless it was absolutely necessary.
Proposal Two: Sign into law congressman John Conyers' universal health-care legislation (HR676). I cannot agree more wholeheartedly on this one. Even Barack Obama's health care plan, though better than McCain's, still leaves the health insurance companies at the table. We should not have to go another year being the only western industrialized country in the world without quality single-payer universal health care, and HR676 is the health care solution that our country so desperately needs for the twenty-first century.
Proposal Three: Ban high fructose corn syrup. While I would say that this should be the lowest priority of these seven proposals, high fructose corn syrup really is less healthy than sugar, plus its dominance as a sweetener in our country demonstrates our government's collusion with agribusinesses. And please don't tell me that anything with "high fructose" in its name is "natural." That's worse than baloney, because baloney actually is natural.
Proposal Four: Build wells in the developing nations to provide clean drinking water for all. Michael Moore says that the cost to do this is only $10 per person--assuming a billion people in these nations, then the cost of doing this is only $10 billion! We'll be spending over $12 billion in Iraq this month alone. I mean, this is kind of stuff we could be doing if we didn't spend our time getting ourselves into unnecessary wars! Dare I bring up that eight years ago, we had the biggest budget surplus in our history? Eight years later, we've changed that to the biggest budget deficit in our history! Don't tell me that there's not enough money to provide clean drinking water for all, or to fund single-payer universal health care, or to pay for education, or any of that. We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars a day on an unnecessary war. There should be no reason why we're spending billions killing people but we can't find enough money to help people. It's just not a valid excuse anymore.
Proposal Five: Remove the $102,000 income cap on the social security tax. Is your family lucky enough to be earning more than $102,000 annually? Did you know that you only pay social security tax on that first $102,000? Any income you have beyond that is not taxed at all for Social Security. According to Moore, Chris Dodd's staff researched this, and said that if that $102,000 cap was lifted and everybody paid the exact same Social Security tax rate on ALL of their income, Social Security would be fully funded for at least the next 75 years. Why is this not being reported more widely? Everyone's saying that Social Security is just about to go bankrupt, but if we made this one simple change requiring the rich to pay the exact same rate that the rest of us paid, Social Security would be fully funded long enough to ensure that even our generation would be fully covered when it came to be our turn to start receiving the monthly check. The next time someone comes up with this great plan to "save" Social Security, everyone should be crying "foul!"
Proposal Six: Change the way we do elections. Moore brings up the example of how Canadians do their whole election system quickly and efficiently with nothing more than a piece of paper and a No. 2 pencil, and mentions how many democratic countries holds their elections over a weekend to give people more of an opportunity to go vote. I'm somewhat value-neutral about this, but I will say that we should be much more worried about our voting system when it's filled with electronic voting machines that are proprietary and closed-source. If there's anything that should be completely transparent to the public, it should be the mechanisms through which we exercise our democratic rights. Maybe voting machines will someday find a proper place in our elections, but right now voting machines feel too dangerous and too suspicious to be fully trusted.
Proposal Seven: Change the Pledge of Allegiance to reflect "the America we all believe in." This is a proposal that I can wholeheartedly agree with. I don't say the Pledge of Allegiance. I chose to stop saying the Pledge of Allegiance in seventh grade because I did not believe in pledging allegiance to a flag, and I did not feel allegiance to the country that was going into an unjust war and was using the American flag for such purposes. I choose not to pledge allegiance to a flag that is used in the hurtful, angry ways that it is used for. I do not have a problem with swearing an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States because I feel that that is something that should be protected from all enemies foreign and domestic. (And, in my opinion, the people currently in the executive branch are domestic enemies of the Constitution. Dennis Kucinich has 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush that identify how he has betrayed his oath of office, but I digress.) Moore's proposed new Pledge of Allegiance is one that reflects the values of the America I believe in and the values of America that we should all believe in: "I pledge allegiance to the people of the United States of America and to the republic for which we stand; one nation, part of one world, with liberty and justice for all."
Overall, these seven proposals for President Obama are worthy proposals that reflect the dream of a better America. One where we stop chanting "USA! USA!" out of hate and anger, and start reaching out to the world around us. One where we stop thinking only of ourselves, and start reaching out more to our fellow Americans. Now that's change that I could believe in.
Tuesday Late Night Open Thread
4 hours ago
11 comments:
I agree with most of your opinions, but there was one ridiculous post that caught my eye. You won't pledge allegiance to the flag? You have got to be kidding me. These kind of things I feel are the essential reason why there is a lack of nationalism and pride in our counrty. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have died under the very flag you won't pledge allegiance too. Of course the government makes decisions that we don't like and that don't go in our favor, but that is no reason to not pledge allegiance to the flag. We should pledge allegiance for the liberty and safety the country provides for us. Not pledging is equivalent to not puting your hand over your heart during our national anthem, and it is a dishonor to all the veterans. Not pledging to the flag but pledging to its people? They are one in the same. I find that statements like these only do a diservice to our country. It's amazing how far our liberal state of California can go by giving up national pride for politics.
I understand where you're coming from. I completely agree that we should remember and honor the soldiers who have died for our country, and should also honor the liberty and justice that this country offers.
I don't consider the heart and soul of America to be in a piece of red, white, and blue cloth; I see it in the people of America. I don't consider the meaning of patriotism to be flying flags around all day and saying that America is so great; I see patriotism in those who exercise the right to vote, who take the time to run for office, or who ask the hard questions, who speak out for the unpopular view, who exercise their democratic rights. As a comparison, I don't love Aragon because its mascot is the Don, or because its colors are red and black. I love Aragon because of the wonderful teachers and students who make it a welcoming and friendly school, and a great place to be.
In my opinion, it makes more sense to pledge allegiance to the people of the United States of America--the thousands of people who have died so that we may enjoy liberty and justice for all, and the millions of people alive today who are exercising their rights to keep our country moving forward.
Even though I'm fairly liberal and even I cannot even come close to taking Michael Moore seriously. America has much larger fish to fry than worrying about changing the Pledge of Allegiance to reflect the separation of church and state, or banning high fructose corn syrup. As a country we have too many large issues like the economic fall or our ongoing occupation of Iraq to have to worry about the ideas of one filmmaker. I agree that something must be done about the economy and health care but listening to Michael Moore is surely not the answer. I didn't read HR676 but considering how unrealistic a list this is i probably wouldn't approve of it as a viable solution. I invite you to enlighten me on why it is a good idea.
Proposal 1 - will never happen, is incredibly unfair anyway.
Proposal 2 - I don't want to pay for other people's health care.
Proposal 3 - there's nothing wrong with high fructose corn syrup. It's unhealthy, but so are many other things. If you don't want to eat it, don't.
Proposal 4 - not the US's job we have enough problems in our own country
Proposal 5 - social security needs to be eliminated, not supported
Proposal 6 - don't know anything about it.
Proposal 7 - sure, the pledge of allegiance is stupid.
While I do disagree with the sentiments about the draft and the pledge of allegiance, I want to draw attention to the part about high fructose corn syrup. The answer is not to ban high fructose corn syrup, but to repeal the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill gives unecessary subsidies to big agribusinesses that grow corn, soy, wheat, cotton, and rice, distorting the free market while making corn artificially inexpensive. Corn is really not that good for you, but since it is so cheap, companies use it in anything; thus we get high fructose corn syrup in many processed foods. If we eliminate the farm susidies, we eliminate this major health concern as the free market will make corn more expensive and it will not be used as much in processed foods. This would be just one of the many benefits (others include a true free market in the food industry and bringing an end to undercutting foreign farmers (and driving them to illegally immigrate to the US--like from Mexico)) to ending the Farm Bill.
listening to Michael Moore's opinions is... interesting. First off, I think his first proposal is impractical. I doubt it would ever work or happen as I'm sure the top 5% of wage earners have significant influence in politics and would make sure that such a draft doesn't happen. It also comes across to me as a sort of thing that just doesn't promote the whole American virtue/sense of equality to only draft a small portion of the population. It seems a little spiteful, even, but that's just my opinion... As for proposal Three, well, High fructose corn syrup? High fructose corn syrup is his third big proposal? If the order he says them in refer to its' importance to him, I'm a little surprised as I think there are so many more issues plaguing the nation that should be dealt with before being so concerned with some corn syrup... As for Proposal 6 and 7, I'm a bit undecided. I believe in tradition and keeping things that have existed for so long to remain unchanged. Yet at the same time, I think that it is important for politics to change with the times to adequately reflect upon the current status of our ever changing society.
I often wonder why so many people seem to lack the ability to recognize sarcasm when they see/hear it. I think it's pretty clear that he's being a bit sarcastic with his first & third proposals, but is using them to make a more general point about our society. I posted this not as a blank endorsement of Moore's proposals (as I noted in the post, I'm against his first proposal and his third proposal should probably be the lowest priority of all of them), but rather a chance to discuss the merits of these and to see if there are other issues that a President Obama should address that he hasn't yet touched on during his campaign.
I fairly agree with Michael Moore's opinions since the first amendment allows him to speak freely in the public. But most of his proposals were merely idealistic. A numerous amount of viewers and audience believe his speech was either absurd or ludicrous.(which I strongly agree with)
The following are my opinions about his "modest" opinions: Such as his third proposal regarding clean water, $10???? What in the world can you do with ten dollars to serve a villager? Despite the fact there are hundreds/thousands/ millions of people in a village, let alone the entire world(which other country's may deal with the problem, not necessarily require our assistance). I agree with what the anonymous had said, our country are occupied with our own issues. Another unreasonable dispute would be the third proposal: high fructose corn syrup. These are just ordinary pleasure within our mouths, completely out of topic is just part of business(same as for smoking if he hasn't noticed). Overall in general, I would give him effort in attempting to create a notifying message to President Obama, but his message was just too absurd with no proof or evidence to back up and with awkward proposals that 80% of it relates nothing whatsoever to most of our current problems we facing. And proposal 7....too bad, live with it. There are many things in the world we the people don't like and want to change, so get used to it. If you Michael Moore, don't like it,then go live somewhere else, go discover your own little island and make your own regulations and themes.
I fairly agree with Michael Moore's opinions since the first amendment allows him to speak freely in the public. But most of his proposals were merely idealistic. A numerous amount of viewers and audience believe his speech was either absurd or ludicrous.(which I strongly agree with)
The following are my opinions about his "modest" opinions: Such as his third proposal regarding clean water, $10???? What in the world can you do with ten dollars to serve a villager? Despite the fact there are hundreds/thousands/ millions of people in a village, let alone the entire world(which other country's may deal with the problem, not necessarily require our assistance). I agree with what the anonymous had said, our country are occupied with our own issues. Another unreasonable dispute would be the third proposal: high fructose corn syrup. These are just ordinary pleasure within our mouths, completely out of topic is just part of business(same as for smoking if he hasn't noticed). Overall in general, I would give him effort in attempting to create a notifying message to President Obama, but his message was just too absurd with no proof or evidence to back up and with awkward proposals that 80% of it relates nothing whatsoever to most of our current problems we facing. And proposal 7....too bad, live with it. There are many things in the world we the people don't like and want to change, so get used to it. If you Michael Moore, don't like it,then go live somewhere else, go discover your own little island and make your own regulations and themes.
So here is the problem with dismissing the plights of foreign nations. It always comes back to bite us in the ass. So say we decide to be selfish and not cough out the 10 bucks per person to supply the world with drinking water. Then we have millions of people who are dying of thirst and are miserable and begin to blame their government. Because of this a revolution takes place, and a scary communist dictator is their waiting to take the place of the former government. This new dictator doesn't like the U.S. and convivces his people that the reason none of them have clean drinking water is because of us. Suddenly we have a whole new goup of terrorists to contend with. Knock on wood that none of this happens, but I am a pessimist and I can't help but think of the worst case scenario. I just think that if we could prioitize our monetary expenditures we could see the benefits. I think that if we did make supplying the world with water a priotiry, not only would we look good in the eyes of the internaional community but we would see an increase in the global food supply, we would see more nations begin to industrialize and prosperity, education, and health world wide would improve. As far as high fructose corn syrup and its effects on human health, well thats just silly. Why not attack the tobacco industry instead. Ciggarettes are just as harmful to human health if not more so than a diet filled with high fructose corn syrup. Just a thought.
Ok, I have ignored this too long because it makes me want to kill things. to address them in order:
1: It has been the poor and underprivileged because they do LESS for the country than the more wealthy people. people are wealthy (usually) because they are the most innovative or smartest. By sending the smartest to die, you are essentially making the war harder to win because of lack of innovation. If it were up to me, the draft board would set up IQ tests and everyone scoring below 100 would be drafted. There is educational deferment for a reason.
2:The last thing we need is universal health care. socialized health care (where everyone gets it) is inherently slow and poor quality. The worst doctors would be treating the most people, and the best specialists would lose their practices and not care as much about helping people who do not pay. People are going to say but Max! doctors help people! they are nice people! Bullshit. Everyone who is good in their field wants money no matter how philanthropic the field might be. Remember the USSR? To each according to his needs? if the best doctors got paid as much as the worst, as it would invariably be, then there would be no good doctors.
3:This illustrates exactly how out of tune Moore is. Ban high-fructose corn syrup? Does he know that most of the budget food (that the people who he supposedly is the spokesman for eat regularly because it is all that they can afford) has this?
4:Third world countries who can't support themselves and their people because the leaders are corrupt or the country is helplessly backward do not deserve the help of developed nations. The indigenous peoples of Africa have survived without intervention for thousands of years, what is different now?
5:Hey! I have a better fix! Lets take all the royalties that Moore makes for his crappy movies and burn it! It's not like giving the trust fund an extra percent of capital a year will forestall its inevitable collapse for any much longer. The best we can do is phase out social security NOW.
6: This is the only one I agree with. Elections should be transparent and we should do everything we can to make sure everyone votes.
7:The pledge of allegiance is overrated. It was created as a solemn oath so the children of the nation wouldn't become royalists. It isn't needed. I haven't said it since 2nd grade.
In conclusion: go die Michael Moore.
Post a Comment