Watch this, but have a sick bucket at hand
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Also, try not to throw your computer at the wall in disgust.
I posted this to generate a bit off discussion about a few issues surrounding this documentary.For starters, the docu' pulls no punches in it's description of some of America's richest men and their successful attempts to control US politics, for the sole aim of becoming even richer.It demonstrates quite well the myth of the American dream.The suggestion is that being rich magnifies the negative properties found in people. However given that the mega rich in the docu' seem to already have been utter bastards, I am not too sure how relevant the idea is?The reemergence of Ayn Rand, (what a horrible image, her undead corpse once more amongst us) with particular reference to the film of her book Atlas Shrugged. I have never read her work, but I am aware of her pro capitalist nausea of a so called philosophy supporting laissez -faire capitalism.The docu' points out the facts concerning the dramatic increase in profits acquired by the 1% in America (not just bankers) since the mid 1980's onwards. It is a trend that has been mirrored in this country.The tactics of the elite of pitting the so called "middle" class against, by their definition, the "lower" class. The same is happening in this country (UK). Divide and conquer.The tactic of pitting public sector workers against private sector workers, again the same is also taking place here.I suggest we start on Ayn Rand. An analysis of her ideas could be informative. Has anyone read any of her stuff? Know anything about her? Maybe where her ideas came from etc?How about it, anyone?
Ayn Rand was a fruit cake and nasty with it. Her ideas and those of other "libertarians" such as Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises were popular in the 1980s and 1990s but have since been marginalised again even though she seems to still have a following in US Tea Party circles, as also mentioned in this article from last December's Socialist Standard:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2010/no-1276-december-2010/can-tea-party-save-american-dreamWe clashed during their heyday with their supporters in Britain, the Libertarian Alliance, Free Life and Libertarian Student. They seemed to like debating with us as we were the only group calling themselves socialist that was prepared to take up their criticism that a moneyless society couldn't work by arguing that it could.You can get a flavour of the debate from these:http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/econn/econn046.pdfhttp://www.la-articles.org.uk/FL-6-4-7.pdfThere's also this debate with them.To tell the truth, although these debates were entertaining basically they only allowed us to hone our anti-capitalist arguments. Most people out there can see that they are nutters without us needing to point this out.
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