Assigned Entry #4: Capitalism Rhetoric

When I first heard the title of the documentary we were going to see in class, my first thought was that it was just another of those boring documentaries shown in history class that you wanted to sleep through. As I started watching the film, my attitude toward the film flip-flopped a whole 180-degree. It opened my eyes to a lot of issues that have occurred or are happening now. What Michael Moore was basically trying to get across to his audience is that America is headed straight down the toilet if a change doesn’t occur with corporate and government dominance over the everyday lives of Americans. Moore film uses a famous and controversial word to get his point across, Capitalism. He is basically describing our country’s economic system to a one that is run by private and corporate ownership, which defines Capitalism.



One of the part of the film that first caught my attention was when at the beginning Michael Moore compares the U.S. government to the Roman Empire. He states that the imbalance and the irresponsible behavior of public officials is what made the Roman Empire fall and eventually the U.S. will one day fall too if it keeps going this pathway. It is obvious that when Moore mentions irresponsible behavior of public officials, he is referring to ex President Bush.

The documentary takes us back to almost 24 years ago when life was good. When everyone was living a life with no economical worries. When the middle class families only needed one person in their household (men) to work. When everyone could afford luxuries and family vacations. When the rich needed to pay a top tax rate of 90% and they still lived good. All this went downhill when Ronal Regan took office as president and cut the rich taxes in half. Everything Regan did was good for America’s stock markets and Americas CEO’s. Is this what America really needed? A president that was leading the country to capitalism?

As I was researching more on this film, I found something that really left me thinking about it. The intriguing information was that many big corporation and Americas CEO’s greatest fear is democracy, where in a one person, one vote system a rich person has the same power as a poor person. This meaning, that for all these big business this is no bueno.