Michael Moore's documentary" Capitalism: A Love Story

[spice756]

Have you seen Michael Moore's new "documentary" Capitalism: A Love Story? What do you think of it?


I think Michael Moore is no different than CNN, fox or candidates doing elections using sound bite information than explaining what going on and giving facts.No debates or explaining what going on , just sound bite information .

His movie sicko is okay explaining the problem with American healthcare but pumping Canada and Europe free heatcare what has he been smoking. The heatcare is not free in Canada we pay high tax , have to get permission from doctor for just about any thing unless we go to ER called refuelel ,average wait time 3 hours or more, blood work is not free , drugs are not free , parking not free ,alot of test you have pay for , 2 times hit the news in Manitoba of people spend over a day in the ER .. To get MRI or CT scan is like month or more.And surgery is like months of long wait time.

And eye-care and dental care is not free you got pay for it.

Most of Europe free stuff has been reform or droped.I hear healthcare in the UK is not good. What Michael Moore does not say is alot of private sector give money to hospitals in Canada , doctors get paid by every person the doctor looks at , heatcare has been downgrated to local level ,lack of med schools built , admistation pay and doctors pay going up despite cuts to healthcare , cost too much to go ned scool now and even with good marks do not get in to med school all ways to cap the doctors.

I'm sick of liberal sympathize that try to please both the working class and rich / big businesses it is not going to happen:crying:.It was tried in Canada and Europe and all push to the right now by neoliberalism.The rich and big businesses seem to have way too much control.


Look at all the healthcare cuts in Canada just 10 years ago and look at big healthcare cuts when NAFTA came around .The US spend more on healthcare than Canada .Look at the cap the goverment put on doctors .


Dam if I'm sick I'm going to South America or Cuba and pay doctor there before I give money to are trash greedy pig no good doctors in Canada or the US .Where the doctors in South America or Cuba would think they died and gone to heaven just to get $30,00 pay .

[PDXCommunist]

I love that one of the major "talking points" of the right (and even the left at times) has been the issue of long waits while in the hospital.

Do you know what long waits mean? That means people are getting cared for who previously wouldn't have gotten care. Can it honestly be an issue to people to know that people who need to see a doctor are? This isn't just people going in for nothing, there are clinics in almost every hospital for that. If you go to see a doctor, you need a doctor's advice.

[Havet]

I can't wait to see the movie, sounds like its thought-provoking (at least to centrists anyway).

[spice756]

The long wait are politically motivated push for private/ state run healthcare or just private.

People have come to level of understanding when you call 911 the police ,fire , EMS comes ASAP not 1 or 2 hours later.This not the case with healthcare .The private sector does not give money to healthcare for nothing .

The so called social programs is always under attack. Why did Canada GDP and wages gone up but a cut in health care than ? It is politically motivated .

Only in true socialist state with devoted members with every thing run and control by the people not the goverment or capitalist .

If you got a class system , goverment or capitalist your so called social programs will always be under attack.They will run it bad , lack of money and will destory it.

Cuba healthcare is better than Canada not because money grow on trees but Cuba does not put a cap on doctors , they push medicine is school to get kids interest in medicine to go to med school , the school is paid for by the goverment , it does not allows private sector .The drug makers are state run and drugs are lower the cost in Cuba than the US or Canada but not free.

The socialized healthcare in Canada can only allow so many doctors a year the budget allows.

I just don't see healthcare or any social programs will work in a capitalist coutry just look at Europe or Canada.

What Michael Moore is doing is playing into what the rulling class wants.

[danyboy27]

His movie sicko is okay explaining the problem with American healthcare but pumping Canada and Europe free heatcare what has he been smoking. The heatcare is not free in Canada we pay high tax , have to get permission from doctor for just about any thing unless we go to ER called refuelel ,average wait time 3 hours or more, blood work is not free , drugs are not free , parking not free ,alot of test you have pay for , 2 times hit the news in Manitoba of people spend over a day in the ER .. To get MRI or CT scan is like month or more.And surgery is like months of long wait time.

And eye-care and dental care is not free you got pay for it.

Most of Europe free stuff has been reform or droped.I hear healthcare in the UK is not good. What Michael Moore does not say is alot of private sector give money to hospitals in Canada , doctors get paid by every person the doctor looks at , heatcare has been downgrated to local level ,lack of med schools built , admistation pay and doctors pay going up despite cuts to healthcare , cost too much to go ned scool now and even with good marks do not get in to med school all ways to cap the doctors.

.

wow wtf man, what have YOU been smoking. i am canadian for 25 year and i didnt remember the last time i paid for something else than dental care and glasses. My mother had a cancer and she was well treated, she didnt had to wait for her treatement and she didnt paid none of their prescriptions.

yes, the waiting time for hospital is relatively long, but that mainly caused by a lot of complete idiot who rush the ER beccause they have a bad cough or a headache, hell some old people are going to the ER just to get some attention sometimes.

one tips: go to your local clinics, waiting time is really small, last time i went there i waited 40 min. dont go to the hospital unless you have a precise reason.

Perhaps i dont have the same services since i live in quebec.

[spice756]

That is true that wait time is low in clinics and I remember in the late 90's at the most waint time was 1 hour for broken bone .I remember when eye care was covered in the 90's .

To get blood work or MRI cost nothing before .Toronto has best healthcare in Canada with less wait time .Mostly the long wait times are in towns or small cities.All the good doctors and money make their way to Toronto .

Some medical test cost money now and private room cost money .

[Jimmie Higgins]

Now I need single-payer healthcare because the base ultra-leftism of this discussion is making me ill.

In the US, fighting against neoliberal cuts in services (or creating a new service such as healthcare) would be a huge step in changing the dynamics of the class war. As you can see if you are following US politics right now - the Democrats and other establishment representatives do not want any kind of new national health for everyone. If we win this reform it will because unions and workers mobilized and fought for it - this would be a significant win for the US working class.

[Bud Struggle]

If we win this reform it will because unions and workers mobilized and fought for it - this would be a significant win for the US working class.

Unions and workers are no where to be seen in this discussion. Besides the unions get their health care from the companies that employ them, what do thy care about anyone else?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Unions and workers are no where to be seen in this discussion.The Nurses Union in California and many other unions have been fighting for universal healthcare for years. Unions have been mobilizing people - kinda late - to support Obama's plan, but I think that's a mistake and a loosing strategy... but to say thay are not in the healthcare debate in the US is just plain wrong.


Besides the unions get their health care from the companies that employ them, what do thy care about anyone else?Well, if you've ever met a union member, or been around a union or read about any union struggles in the past 20 years, you would know that healthcare is the number one sticking point in contract negotiations.

Without universal healthcare, most workers without healthcare are also bound to their jobs in the US - you can't quit if you don't like it because what if you can't get the same benifits. Having universal healthcare would help workers, unions, and even certain sections of the capitalist class to a certain extent. But even capitalists who may get some material gain from this, often oppose it because ideologically universal healthcare would be a defeat for the neoliberal project.

[spice756]

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Opponents of overhauling U.S. health care argue that Canada shows what happens when government gets involved in medicine, saying the country is plagued by inferior treatment, rationing and months-long queues.

The allegations are wrong by almost every measure, according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other independent studies published during the past five years. While delays do occur for non-emergency procedures, data indicate that Canada’s system of universal health coverage provides care as good as in the U.S., at a cost 47 percent less for each person.

“There is an image of Canadians flooding across the border to get care,” said Donald Berwick, a Harvard University health- policy specialist and pediatrician who heads the Boston-based nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “That’s just not the case. The public in Canada is far more satisfied with the system than they are in the U.S. and health care is at least as good, with much more contained costs.”
Canadians live two to three years longer than Americans and are as likely to survive heart attacks, childhood leukemia, and breast and cervical cancer, according to the OECD, the Paris- based coalition of 30 industrialized nations.

Deaths considered preventable through health care are less frequent in Canada than in the U.S., according to a January 2008 report in the journal Health Affairs. In the study by British researchers, Canada placed sixth among 19 countries surveyed, with 77 deaths for every 100,000 people. That compared with the last-place finish of the U.S., with 110 deaths.

Infant Mortality
The Canadian mortality rate from asthma is one quarter of the U.S.’s, and the infant mortality rate is 34 percent lower, OECD data show. People in Canada are also 21 percent more apt to survive five years after a liver transplant.

Yet the Canadian “bogeyman,” as U.S. President Barack Obama called it at an Aug. 11 gathering in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, may have “all but defeated” the idea of a public option in the U.S., said Uwe Reinhardt, a health-care economist at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Democrat from Montana, introduced on Sept. 16 compromise health-care legislation that, unlike other House and Senate bills, omits a government-backed choice for the uninsured living in the U.S. who can’t afford private coverage.

Insurance Mandate
Private insurers, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession fear the “market power” of a public plan, Reinhardt said. They “deployed certain think tanks to find horror stories around the world that can be used to persuade Americans a public health plan in the U.S. would bring rationing.”

Given that Congress is likely to pass a mandate to cover the uninsured, Americans forced to buy policies will be left with no alternative to coping with “double-digit rate increases” on commercial premiums, Reinhardt said.
“Both systems ration medical care,” he said. “In Canada, they make people wait. In the U.S., we make people pay.”

Fifty-four percent of chronically ill Americans reported skipping a test or treatment, neglecting to go to a doctor when sick, or failing to fill a prescription because of the cost, according to a 2008 survey by the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that focuses on health care, and pollster Harris Interactive. That was more than twice the number in Canada, data from those New York-based groups showed.

Payment Worries

As the price of health care in the U.S. has risen three to four times faster than the rate of inflation, surveys show that Americans have become concerned they won’t be able to pay medical bills. Forty-three percent of consumers in a June poll by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor said they worried they might not be able to afford care, even with insurance.
“Canadians value fairness, and they cannot conceive of a system in which someone can’t get health care,” said Wendy Levinson, a Canadian who runs the department of medicine at the University of Toronto and worked in the U.S. from 1979 to 2001.

The U.S. spent $7,290 on health care for each person in 2007, 87 percent more than Canada’s $3,895, according to the latest OECD data. The U.S. also devoted the highest percentage of gross domestic product to health care, 16 percent, OECD numbers show. Canada’s expenditure was 10.1 percent.

Canada’s system consists of 10 provincial and three territorial nonprofit insurance plans that cover all citizens, including those with pre-existing conditions. It operates like Medicare, the U.S. program for the elderly and disabled. In Canada, the government uses taxpayer funds to pay claims by doctors, who mostly work in private practice or for a hospital and are paid fees for their services.

Effect of Technology
Care is free where it’s provided, as in a doctor’s office, except for dentistry, nursing home stays, prescription drugs outside hospitals, and rehabilitation services. The elderly and low-income residents get help with pharmaceutical purchases.

Technology partly explains the cost discrepancy between the two nations. There are 67 percent more coronary-bypass procedures in the U.S. than in Canada and 18 percent more Caesarean sections, OECD data show. In 2006, the U.S. had more than four times the number of magnetic resonance imaging units - - 26.5 for every million residents compared with 6.2 for every million in Canada -- making Americans three times more likely than Canadians to get a scan, according to the OECD.

In the U.S., technology is “overused” because doctors have to justify equipment purchases with revenue, according to Gerard Anderson, a professor of public health and medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Canada in the 1960s was about as expensive as the U.S., he said.

No. 1 in Cost
“The real difference has been their ability to control technology costs,” said Anderson, who directed reviews of health systems for the World Bank and developed U.S. Medicare payment guidelines for the Health and Human Services Department. “The only thing the U.S. is consistently No. 1 in when it comes to international comparisons with Canada and other OECD countries is cost.”

Less technology and, according to a 2007 report from the World Health Organization, 20 percent fewer doctors in Canada than in the U.S. have led to longer lines north of the border.
In 2008, 20 percent of chronically ill Canadians surveyed by the Commonwealth Fund reported waiting three months or more to see a specialist. Five percent of Americans polled said they had to wait that long.

Television Commercial
Washington-based lobbying groups including Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks have seized upon the delays, arguing that Obama’s proposal for a public option would eventually put private insurers out of business and force everyone to live with government-paid coverage and substandard care. FreedomWorks is led by Dick Armey, a former Republican congressman from Texas.

An educational foundation affiliated with Americans for Prosperity paid $3.3 million to run a 60-second television commercial on U.S. stations in which Shona Holmes, a 45-year-old native of Waterdown, Ontario, accused the Canadian health-care system of almost causing her to die by delaying critical treatment, according to Amy Menefee, a spokeswoman for the foundation. The ad ran for three weeks and was repeated on Sept. 9 after the president’s speech.

The TV spot first aired in May. Holmes, a mother of two and a self-employed family mediator, said in the ad that she went to the U.S. for care. She traveled 2,237 miles (3,599 kilometers) to the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, and spent $97,000 for treatment of a benign brain tumor rather than wait for insurance-paid care in Canada, she said in a telephone interview.

Bridge to Canada


“I felt strongly I could speak out because I’ve seen both systems,” Holmes said. “I have seen how government involvement plays very negatively.”
Obama administration officials are trying to use the public option as “a bridge” to a system like Canada’s since “they realize it isn’t politically acceptable to go directly to that,” said Phil Kerpen, the director of policy for Americans for Prosperity.

In Ontario, where Holmes lives, the average waiting time for surgery to remove a tumor was 99 days in the second quarter, according to the Ontario Health Insurance Plan’s Web site. If a patient was willing to go closer to Ottawa, the wait was 36 days at Pembroke Regional Hospital Inc. in Pembroke, 460 miles from Waterdown and 93 miles northwest of the Canadian capital. Closer to Waterdown, a patient could go to St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, less than 10 miles away, with a 56-day wait.
Ontario Appeal

Holmes began speaking out publicly, she said, after she couldn’t get Ontario in July 2005 to speed removal of her craniopharyngioma, a type of slow-growing cystic tumor that can put pressure on the brain or optic nerve. She is now pushing for the province’s insurance plan to reimburse her for the money she spent on surgery, tests and follow-up, she said in the interview.

Andrew Morrison, a spokesman for the Ontario plan, said Canadians need approval before getting care outside the country if they want to be reimbursed. He declined to comment on the Holmes case. Lori Coleman, registrar for the Toronto-based Health Services Appeal and Review Board, which handles complaints about the Ontario plan’s eligibility and payment decisions, also declined to comment.

Even with the waits, a majority of Canadians balk at the idea of turning government insurance over to private hands. In a July Harris/Decima poll, 55 percent of respondents said improvement should be made through the public plan, while 12 percent favored a private solution.
Doctor Visits

In both the U.S. and Canada, 26 percent of people interviewed told the Commonwealth Fund survey of chronically ill adults they got a same-day appointment with a doctor when they were sick -- the lowest number in any of the eight countries polled by the foundation. Thirty-four percent of the Canadians said they had to wait six days or more, compared with 23 percent of the Americans.

Canadians visited their doctors more frequently: 5.9 visits per person compared with four for those in the U.S., according to 2005 OECD data.
The U.S. leads industrial countries in the portion of the health-care dollar devoted to processing claims and paying providers, the Commonwealth Fund said.

Private-insurance administrative costs in the U.S. are 12.7 cents of a dollar, and as high as 18 cents for some companies, said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund. Government plans, including Medicare and Medicaid, spend 5.8 cents excluding costs of private drug plans, she said. In Canada 4.2 cents is spent on administration.
“If we lowered our administrative costs to that of the lowest three countries with mixed public-private health-care systems, we could save $50 billion a year,” Davis said. “This would go a long way toward financing coverage for the uninsured.”


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=a_zs1Y1FspIM

[Bud Struggle]

The Nurses Union in California and many other unions have been fighting for universal healthcare for years. Unions have been mobilizing people - kinda late - to support Obama's plan, but I think that's a mistake and a loosing strategy... but to say thay are not in the healthcare debate in the US is just plain wrong. There are, of course, some unions doiing something especially those diectly involved in the debate like as you said the nirses union, but you don't see mass mobilization by the big non healthcare unions that one might expect to see.


Well, if you've ever met a union member, or been around a union or read about any union struggles in the past 20 years, you would know that healthcare is the number one sticking point in contract negotiations. That's true--but that's part of the problem with the unions. Each one is more interested in its own negotiations with their employer than in concentrating on the national whole.


Without universal healthcare, most workers without healthcare are also bound to their jobs in the US - you can't quit if you don't like it because what if you can't get the same benifits. True. That's good for employers and bad for workers.


Having universal healthcare would help workers, unions, and even certain sections of the capitalist class to a certain extent. But even capitalists who may get some material gain from this, often oppose it because ideologically universal healthcare would be a defeat for the neoliberal project.Also true.

[SocialPhilosophy]

I just got back from seeing this movie. it was kinda funny seeing the uber democrats get all shifty when he said democrats handed the government to Goldman Sachs. There was a visible wave. xD

[spice756]

Here is what I found at wiki.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism:_A_Love_Story


"I'm gonna show you the stuff the nightly news will rarely show you [...] Ever meet someone from the Wall Street Journal who bluntly states on camera that he doesn't much care for democracy and that capitalism should be our only ruling concern? [...] You'll also meet a whistleblower who, with documents in hand, tells us about the million-dollar-plus sweetheart loans he approved for the head of Senate Banking Committee — the very committee that was supposed to be regulating his lending institution! You'll hear from a bank regulator why Timothy Geithner has no business being our Treasury Secretary. And you'll learn, from the woman who heads up the congressional commission charged with keeping an eye on the bailout money, how Alan Greenspan & Co. schemed and connived the public into putting up their inflated valued homes as collateral — thus causing the biggest foreclosure epidemic in our history [...] None of this is an accident, and I name the names others seem to be afraid to name, the men who have ransacked the pensions of working people and plundered the future of our kids and grandkids."



The film alternates between a fierce critique of the status quo, personal portraits of the suffering caused by the recent economic crisis, and comical social satire.[1] Some featured stories include an internal Citibank report happily declaring the United States a "plutonomy" (plutocracy), with the top one percent of the population controlling more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent, along with an expose of "dead peasant insurance" policies that have companies profiting from the deaths of their employees.[1] Additionally, the film contrasts the present economic reality in America with archival footage of US president Franklin D. Roosevelt calling for a Second Bill of Rights that would guarantee all Americans "a useful job, a decent home, adequate health care, and a good education."[1]

[Decolonize The Left]

It was definitely a great film for mainstream America to see - cloaked social welfare in a decent light and also portrayed the capitalists somewhat as they are. Most of us here are far too familiar with this line of thinking, but I think it will open some minds to the ideas of the left.

- August

[Comrade Anarchist]

I saw it and loved it, but i thought that he wasnt hard enough. He didn't take on our current dictator for more than a minute. As a movie it got slow in some places but over all he just didn't go far enough. I mean he rarely mentions socialism and never mentions what it is and he does not present it as an option to capitalism.

[#FF0000]

I saw it and loved it, but i thought that he wasnt hard enough. He didn't take on our current dictator for more than a minute. As a movie it got slow in some places but over all he just didn't go far enough. I mean he rarely mentions socialism and never mentions what it is and he does not present it as an option to capitalism.

I agree, pretty much but at the same time you have to remember that it was aimed at American audiences.

[DesertShark]

It was definitely a great film for mainstream America to see - cloaked social welfare in a decent light and also portrayed the capitalists somewhat as they are. Most of us here are far too familiar with this line of thinking, but I think it will open some minds to the ideas of the left.

- August
I thought the same thing after I saw it.

One thing I was surprised about was how much rich people used to pay in taxes, 90% up until the Reagan administration. Do yo think they'll make the rich pay that much again? The other thing that surprised me was how much the cost of living rose while income didn't, it really explains why so many people struggle to get by every day even when working 2 jobs.

[eyedrop]

I thought the same thing after I saw it.

One thing I was surprised about was how much rich people used to pay in taxes, 90% up until the Reagan administration. Do yo think they'll make the rich pay that much again? The other thing that surprised me was how much the cost of living rose while income didn't, it really explains why so many people struggle to get by every day even when working 2 jobs.

Was the 90% on income taxes? I can't imagine there having been such high taxes on capital gains for example.

[DesertShark]

Was the 90% on income taxes? I can't imagine there having been such high taxes on capital gains for example.
I believe it was income tax. The following link gives the "history of federal individual income bottom and top bracket rates."
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=19

[DesertShark]

I forgot to mention that I was happy to see him endorsing worker run/controlled companies. Hopefully, it will start a trend.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

The soundtrack for the ending credits was L'Internationale. I thought that was a nice touch.

Also, Michael Moore comes within an inch of openly endorsing a fully democratically-run economy - in other words, you know... socialism. Of course he would never use that word. But this film might get people thinking about class struggle and worker-run factories, so, overall, it's bound to have a very positive impact.

[Havet]

oh, i might get tickets for the premiere!

[Havet]

Just watched the movie and it was spot-on. I liked to see that some alternative institutions were already springing in the USA (co-ops mostly) and that workers had mobilized to fight some of the injustice.

So I recommend it :)

[tongueLaRouge]

Yeah in conclusion the film is good for the audience that so desperately needs to see it. I liked the shout out to co-ops, the struggle of the Chicago window workers, & Eisenhower's proposal of a Second Bill of Rights. Hell, even the priests calling capitalism evil was welcome.

[IcarusAngel]

I've seen like every Moore film in the theaters but this one, perhaps his most important one. I guess I'm a burnout but i've recently been watching movies in which I've read the book first.

However, I know that it was FDR, not Eisenhower, who purposed the second bill of rights.

Notice how Libertarians claim to be for our 'rights' when in fact we have no rights in Libertarianism except to be treated as property.

[RedRise]

So the movie recently and it was absolutely brilliant. Michael Moor is right that capitalism is incompatible with democracy - hell, capitalism is incompatible with just about everything. The film even turned my mum in a social-democrat. I highly recommend it.:thumbup:

[RED DAVE]

The soundtrack for the ending credits was L'Internationale. I thought that was a nice touch.

Also, Michael Moore comes within an inch of openly endorsing a fully democratically-run economy - in other words, you know... socialism. Of course he would never use that word. But this film might get people thinking about class struggle and worker-run factories, so, overall, it's bound to have a very positive impact.Lest we forget:


Bullworth (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000886/): Yo, everybody gonna get sick someday / But nobody knows how they gonna pay / Health care, managed care, HMOs / Ain't gonna work, no sir, not those / 'Cause the thing that's the same in every one of these / Is these motherfuckers there, the insurance companies!

Cheryl and Tanya: Insurance! Insurance!

Bullworth (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000886/): Yeah, yeah / You can call it single-payer or Canadian way / Only socialized medicine will ever save the day! Come on now, lemme hear that dirty word - SOCIALISM!:D

RED DAVE

[Havet]

Anyone knows the name of the very first credits song? I think its "The International", but it is sang in a very americanized way (50s blues)

[IcarusAngel]

So the movie recently and it was absolutely brilliant. Michael Moor is right that capitalism is incompatible with democracy - hell, capitalism is incompatible with just about everything. The film even turned my mum in a social-democrat. I highly recommend it.:thumbup:

Capitalism is incompatible with socialism, utilitarianism, modern social science, nearly every philosophical theory out there, and, I guess, in many ways, is incompatible with most religions, including the church of Atheism, humanism.

The only modern social science not critical of capitalism is economics.

This is why leftists should educate themselves about all of these things, perhaps they may even pick up a philosophy or two that they should be applied to certain communes or federations in a 'communist society.'


Libertarians want people to be dumb; leftists want the working class to be educated so that they are able to think for themselves and combat the propaganda and tyranny that they hear.

[Die Rote Fahne]

For an American film, it is very radical.

I need to get it on DVD when it comes out.

I'm a huge fan of Moore.

---Also, there's a video of him after a screening where he openly endorses socialism as democracy.

[Skooma Addict]

Capitalism is incompatible with socialism


Correct.


utilitarianism

Wrong.


modern social science

Wrong.


nearly every philosophical theory out there

Wrong. In fact, it doesn't even make sense to say that capitalism is compatible or incompatible with most philosophical theories.



including the church of Atheism, humanism.

Of coarse, not all Atheists feel the need to cling to humanism.


This is why leftists should educate themselves about all of these things, perhaps they may even pick up a philosophy or two that they should be applied to certain communes or federations in a 'communist society.'

Most leftists know nothing about philosophy, so this may actually be a good idea.


Libertarians want people to be dumb; leftists want the working class to be educated so that they are able to think for themselves and combat the propaganda and tyranny that they hear.


Strawman.

[Robert]

leftists want the working class to be educated so that they are able to think for themselves and combat the propaganda and tyranny that they hear.Well, that sounds fine. Except for the "tyranny that they hear [sic]."

But I wouldn't put any of the prominent leftists here in charge of the ministry of education. They are far more likely to be rabid, sloganeering propagandists than any undergraduate professor of history at any community college the workers can presently audit at reasonable cost.

In a history of Cambodia or of Palestine class, would you be willing to play the Dershowitz-Chomsky or, better, the Hitchens-Chomsky debates and then invite civil discussion of the merits of each? Or just "FAIL" (get it?) anyone who doesn't genuflect at mention of the latter's name, as is done here as predictably as a sunrise?

In fairness to teachers, it must be very challenging to discuss political and social issues without allowing it to be politicized. I just wish professors would respect dissenting voices. No one knows everything.