Michael Moore & Colbert

[Proukunin]

I just finished watching their debate on Colbert Show( He's funny as shit though really)

I was wondering after seeing Moore's comments about spreading wealth and talking about the cons of the free-market. Is he a social-democrat or democratic socialist? or neither?


I haven't really checked any of his films out because Ive read around that he is mainly Liberal.

However, I did enjoy some of his ideas on the colbert show when he was talking about how Republicans try to bash Unions and how he is Pro-union, etc. etc.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

He's a liberal, a reformist Social Democrat in European jargon.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In fact, he has steadily drifted leftwards over the last twenty years or so. His latest film -- Capitalism: A Love Story -- all but situated his views in revolutionary politics, albeit a very watery-thin and weak form of it.

[Rooster]

I don't know much about Michael Moore's closely held beliefs. He could be, for all I know, a deeply convicted revolutionary hard-line communist who just dresses himself up as a fuzzy liberal to appeal to people.

[Magón]

"Comrade, Comrade, the tractor does not belong to all of us in the village." LMFAO

[The Idler]

Does he actually read any leftist literature or just research mainstream media for his latest movies?

[Le Socialiste]

I've watched a few of Moore's films, and they are quite good in offering up insight into the structural decay of our sociopolitical/economic "democratic" system. His "Capitalism: a Love Story" takes American corporations and business leaders to task, but doesn't quite go so far as some revlefters (myself included) would like. What's more, he is a firm supporter of the Democratic Party, and went so far as to laud praises upon praises over the "bravery" of the Fab 14 (the fourteen Democrats who left Wisconsin over Walker's bill). His views appear to be staunchly anti-free market and pro-workers' rights, but he interprets this outlook through the muddled vision of the Democrats. His documentaries are worth watching, but they require an awareness for the average leftist that he doesn't advocate anything truly revolutionary.

That all said, I enjoyed his conversation with Colbert last night. Colbert and Stewart are funny guys - even if they frown on (and disagree with) socialist/communist/anarchist theory. They remain firmly in line with Obama and the Democrats...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^But he has also become increasingly critical of their spinelesses over the Iraq war and the way the cow-tow to Big Capital and the HMOs.

He is definitely on the far left of the Democratic Party, but it won't take much for him to wave it goodbye.

[Gorilla]

During the 80's MM got shitcanned as editor of Mother Jones for refusing to print State Department propaganda against the Sandinistas by some trash-reptile from Dissent. Be surprised if he's one of us, but he's more than just a social-democrat.

[Agent Ducky]

"Comrade, Comrade, the tractor does not belong to all of us in the village." LMFAO

That quote made my day. I rofl'ed when Stephen said that.

[Aspiring Humanist]

I don't respect Michael Moore at all. He produces a film critical of U.S. capitalism...and makes millions of profit off of it. He's nothing but a scumbag hypocrite.

[Drosophila]

MM is great in theory but absolutely useless when it comes to doing the work. He supported Kerry in '04 and Obama in '08. He buys into the bullcrap that progressives third-parties elect Republicans.

[Gorilla]

MM is great in theory but absolutely useless when it comes to doing the work. He supported Kerry in '04 and Obama in '08. He buys into the bullcrap that progressives third-parties elect Republicans.

So he looked at a bourgeois reformist scum with working-class backing and a bourgeois reformist scum with no working-class backing and chose the bourgeois reformist scum with working class backing?

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I think Michael Moore is like the CPUSA. At times he says things that seem radical and what we believe in like here:

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But then when the protests start happening in Wisconsin he's just all too eager to talk about how he loves the Democrats who left, how those Democrats are heroes who are going to take the fight to "the man" or whatever.

[Brah Brah Bro]

did you guys see roger and me or sicko he may not be ideologically pure enough but he comes from the working class and can communicate with a lot of middle america on critical issues I don't really know why you would expect more from him hes just a filmmaker

[Tablo]

I remember him admitting to being a democratic socialist, but his politics seem much closer to that of social democrats.

[wunderbar]

He is definitely on the far left of the Democratic Party, but it won't take much for him to wave it goodbye.

He already sort of did in 2000 when he supported Ralph Nader, then afterward bought into the false theory that Nader "spoiled" the election for Gore. He's stuck with the Democrats since then, and if he does ever support another party, he'll probably be bandwagoning on an already significant movement.

[DuracellBunny97]

all in all I think he's a liberal who flirts with the idea of socialism, even though I'm not sure he fully supports a pure form of socialism, just a more regulated worker friendly capitalism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, like most people, his ideas are not fixed in stone.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

He does talk a decent game, but he seems to support the Socialism of the type that the Labour Party enacted in 1945-51. i.e. not real existing Socialism, merely Capitalism with a happy face - some worker control, 8 hour day, minimum wage, right to strike, welfare state.

If we're not going to support the likes of Lord Attlee, then we shouldn't support explicitly the likes of Michael Moore, especially whilst he supports the Democrats, but we should keep in mind that for the past 30 years, America has been in the thrall of the economic far-right, and even a glorified liberal such as Michael Moore offers a radically less dangerous alternative than exists in most of the Republican and Democratic movements.