movie review- Capitalism: A Love Story

It came in a white cardboard courier envelope.

It was addressed to the YOUNG COMMUNIST LEAGUE. I was curious as to who would have sent it. Alliance films, Toronto, the return address stated.

I understood the moment I opened the package and several tickets fell out. They were tickets to an advanced screening of the latest Micheal Moore movie.

With a title of Capitalism: A Love Story, having a communist see the movie is a sure bet that they will like the movie and give positive reviews. Darn tooting. I liked the movie. And so sure enough here is that positive review.

You know what the movie is about by the title. Micheal Moore has his sites set on the economic crisis and the system that created it.

The movie starts with clips from many old corporate films. You hear the audio track from a school film that narrates reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire. While you hear the track you see images of examples from modern day America. It really does hit home that the Capitalist system is screwed up and ready for downfall itself. It's one of the best scenes in the movie.

Micheal Moore talks about growing up in Flint Michigan in a middle class family, living the American Dream in the Industrial Mid-West during a post-war economic boom. He asks after this scene about the current crisis, what the hell happened?

Later scenes will invoke various emotions: disbelief, heartfelt empathy, rage, and as you leave the theatre, hope.

Some topics covered are:

• a bank internal memo that declared the U.S. a plutonomy/plutocracy.
• an example of "dead peasant insurance"
• Airline pilots that are in fact in poverty because of the low wages they receive.
• mortgage foreclosures, evictions, and bottom feeder buyers.
  

It's not all bad news however:

• the premiere of a long lost film showing FDR outlining a second bill of rights-including the right to health care, a job, an education, etc. It shows what could have been. How close it can be. And still able to fight for.
  
• interviews of priests who say capitalism is evil.
• a sheriff who declares a moratorium on enforcing home evictions.
• a congresswoman, while speaking in the house of representatives, calls for people to revolt against foreclosures by squatting in their own homes.
  
• American examples of worker co-operatives.
• the sit down strike at Republic Windows.
  

It's like a movie adaptation of a chapter out of Marx's Capital. Or Lenin's Imperialism for that matter. As the end credits role you hear a jazzed up rendition of the Internationale. It's pretty obvious people power and socialism are implied.

You may know the movie's subject, but to see these scenes still leaves you reeling at the times we are now living.

Notice I did not say this is a documentary. Not in the objective sense anyway. Objectivity is pointless if one is to make a point of view known in dialogue or a debate. This is not the "objective" six o'clock news. But then again neither is Fox. It is a Micheal Moore film. And it argues a point. Effectively.

Moore says the Emperor has no clothes. Because the CEOs stole them.

watch the preview for yourself.

TAKE ACTION: H1N1 VACCINE & PRIVATE CLINICS

TAKE ACTION: H1N1 VACCINE & PRIVATE CLINICS

November 5, 2009

Dear friend,

As Canadian families stand in long lines for flu shots, or wait anxiously for access to a dwindling supply of vaccine, private for-profit health clinics are making the flu vaccine available to their high-income patients who are able to pay thousands of dollars a year for privileged access.

There have even been reports of private clinics selling the vaccine.

For many months, the Canadian Health Coalition has been asking the Prime Minister to take immediate action against these private clinics under the provisions of the Canada Health Act. Queue jumping is illegal – Canadian law prohibits the wealthy from buying their way to the front of the line for medically necessary services.

Now the situation is urgent. We need you to add your voice to the thousands of Canadians who want to protect our cherished Medicare.

Please let Prime Minister Harper know that Canadians expect him to uphold his legal duty and enforce the Canada Health Act. Take a moment right now and Email the Prime Minister - it will only take 2 minutes!

TAKE ACTION -- CLICK HERE TO EMAIL THE PRIME MINISTER

Related: Media Release (Nov. 2, 2009)

And be sure to follow-up your email with a telephone call. The Prime Minister’s phone number is: (613) 992-4211

Thanks for standing up for Medicare.

In solidarity,
-- The Canadian Health Coalition Team


AGISSEZ : VACCIN H1N1 ET CLINIQUES PRIVÉES

5 novembre 2009

Cher ami, chère amie,

Pendant que les familles canadiennes font la queue pour obtenir le vaccin contre la grippe ou attendent impatiemment d’avoir accès à un approvisionnement limité de vaccins, les cliniques privées à but lucratif administrent des vaccins à leurs patients à revenu élevé qui peuvent payer des milliers de dollars par année pour cet accès privilégié.

On a même signalé des cliniques privées qui vendent le vaccin.

Voilà plusieurs mois que la Coalition canadienne de la santé demande au premier ministre d’agir immédiatement par rapport à ces cliniques privées en vertu des dispositions de la Loi canadienne sur la santé. Passer avant son tour est illégal – la loi canadienne interdit aux mieux nantis de payer pour être les premiers à recevoir des services médicalement nécessaires.

La situation est maintenant urgente. Nous avons besoin de vous pour que vous ajoutiez votre voix à celle des milliers de Canadiens et de Canadiennes qui veulent protéger le régime d’assurance-maladie, si cher à nos yeux.

Faites savoir au Premier ministre Harper que les Canadiens et les Canadiennes s’attendent à ce qu’il assume son obligation légale et mette en application la Loi canadienne sur la santé. Prenez un moment, immédiatement, et envoyez un courriel au premier ministre – cela vous demandera seulement deux (2) minutes!

AGISSEZ -- CLIQUEZ ICI POUR ENVOYER UN COURRIEL AU PREMIER MINISTRE

Documents reliés : Le communiqué de presse (2 nov 2009)

Et assurez-vous de donner suite à votre courriel par un appel téléphonique. Le numéro de téléphone du premier ministre est le 613-992-4211

Merci de vous porter à la défense de l’assurance-maladie.

En toute solidarité,
-- L’Équipe de la Coalition canadienne de la santé

A look back: Veterans of Future Wars

As you can read below, students in the 1930s started a movement called "Veterans of Future Wars". The goal of which was to raise awareness that they would almost certainly end up fighting a major war in the future, and therefore wanted advance payment while they were still alive to use it.

Click on the page images to zoom in and read

Above: an except of the 1936 article is appropriate for remembrance day 2009,

- A handful of decrepit veterans are posing on Armistice Day before a hideous column of stone "dedicated to the sacred memory of those who died that we might live." We pass by on our way and stop to watch the ridiculous mimicry. suddenly we realize that it is this, that you and I in the event of another war, will be doing. this nincompoop, tin-soldier tomfoolery that is enough to make every victim of the last war turn over in his grave and cry aloud 'But this is not what our children were promised' This thing was to end. There was to be no more clashing of guns and sabres' 'Tis done forever'"

Below: a front page from the 1920s. A headline reads: Collegiate pupils are coerced into military training.

Another paper from the 1920s. This one reads: fight forces of war! abolish the cadets!

Sadly the predictions of the Future Veterans came true. This front page shows how Fascist Italy's invasion of Ethiopia was a sign of things to come.

In a few short years it became clear that Nazi Germany and fascism had to be stopped the hard way.

Bridle Path Halloween: The horror!

Reprinted from The Toronto Star
November 01, 2009
Rosie DiManno

Bridal Path is a bougie hood in Toronto - RY Eds.


Boo.

Hoo.

And thanks for nothing. Which is just about what two of my nearest and dearest DiMannos got door-to-door last night – one measly chocolate mint wafer, handed over by an apologetic maid: "Sorry but you're the first trick-or-treaters we've ever had here."

Or, as my nephew put it succinctly: "This sucks."

Chimed in my niece: "The worst Halloween ever."

Yes, we'd just entered the Twilight Zone of ... The Bridle Path.

It was with trepidation that we approached the Monster Houses: Gothic, Tudor and Greco-Roman piles of brick.

Here, behind wrought-iron gates, are the ghouls of high finance, the fiends of power, the boogiemen of Canada's upper-uppest establishment; a coven of the moneyed, privileged, butlered and Brazilian-balled.

On this most sacred, if pagan, holiday on a child's calendar, the hoi-polloi DiMannos, junior edition – Master Joshua and Mistress Juliet, aged 11 and 10 – ventured across class boundaries as trick `n' treat supplicants at some of Toronto's toniest addresses.

Haunted, as it turns out, either inhabited only by domestic staff – is everybody Palm Springing it? – or in-situ residents peering suspiciously from behind the drapes, but definitely not answering the bell.

A short cut to bonbon lucre, some too-clever-by-half Star editor had enthused, cackling, an Invasion of the Sugar Snatchers upon the enclave of the A-list swank, the palazzos of the swank, on the one night when upstarts wouldn't be directed to the delivery entrance.

These may be perilous times for titans of industry and Bay Street boffos, portfolios plundered by economic upheaval.

But surely the money-bag brigade wouldn't skimp on Halloween largesse, pull down the blinds, turn off the lights and make like nobody's home.

Indeed they did, even at manors all dressed up for the occasion, with pumpkins on the hearth and scarecrows affixed to the front facades, Halloween chic à la House & Garden.

"Trick or treat," the kids chirped into driveway speaker-phones, on the rare occasions they received a response.

Then click and silence. On one occasion, a burst of laughter and: "Nobody home."

Boldly we trespassed on estates where the gates were open, right up to front doors with oversized knockers and organ-pipe ding-dong bells, loot bags dangling from outstretched arms: Candy alms for the kids!

On this particular evening of shenanigans, the little DiMannos were resurrected as She-Devil and Emperor of Evil – not to be confused with sca-a-a-ry couple Barbara Amiel and Baron Black.

Of course, he's not home, temporarily dungeoned in a U.S. penitentiary, self-proclaimed victim of an eat-the-rich hysteria south of the border.

But the serial bride chatelaine appears not to be in residence either, their mansion on Park Lane Circle spookily shuttered, only a dog snarling on the grounds. Moving along to High Point, houses deeply recessed from the street, protected by topiary and statuary – Edward Scissorhands landscaping – we search vainly for a joint that looks remotely inviting. "Ooh," whispers Juliet, pointing at a ridiculously ornate construct of columns and pillars. "Is that the White House?"

"Forget it," says Joshua. "See, there's a camera in the bushes. They know we're here, but they're just pretending not to be home." He pulls a face at the little red light.

One wonders, where do the children of the wealthy – the little trust funds – go to trick and treat? Not around here apparently, not a costumed kid to be seen on these winding roads.

Maybe they go to Parkdale and Cabbagetown, dressed as the working poor.

Nobody here but pikers and meanies, folks who'd begrudge a youngster a licorice swirl or a pack of M & Ms – which is maybe how they got so filthy loaded in the first place.

After 90 minutes of trudging through some of the country's poshest real estate, empty bags in hand, we give up.

"Let's go back to Toronto," says Juliet. "Maybe the real people haven't run out of candy yet."

Joshua: "We should never have come here. Worst. Halloween. Ever."

Video review-nuclear series 2

operation cue 1964 revision

Operation Teapot, was named "Operation Cue" for this film and most recently, elements of it were used in the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Watch for the refrigerator.

A review of this short film points out that it was "... hilarious that the male narrator would ... narrate the piece, and the woman would come on with silly female asides as 'being a mother and a house wife, I was quite interested about the food tests". Along with stating that there is a "simultaneously calming and menacing tone of the film", reviews shows that this film is a product of cold war propaganda and a male dominated society of 1955.

They seemed well prepared for nuclear war, but how about Hurricane Katrina?

the house in the middle (1954)

This film is produced by the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association. This film's goal is to scare us into painting. And to buy more paint. How low can one go to sell a product?

Among reviews for this film include such quips as:

• Just keep a clean, well painted house, and remember to put a newspaper over your head when under the table."
• "If it takes an orderly house to survive a nuclear blast, looks like I'll be dead."
• "I am thinking that if the white paint is good to protect the house, why don't I just pour a bucket of white paint over my head???... the answer to continuing life as we know it is in a Jones-Blair paint can!"
• "An alternative title for this film might be "Dr Stangelove... Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Repainted My House Instead."

Bored and want to see other films related to this one ? An megaton of them exist at the prelinger archives.

Student struggles in Canada

Excerpt from the 25th Central Convention documents of the Young Communist League of Canada on the struggle of high school and post-secondary students.

The primary contradiction in the struggle for increased access to education is: corporations want a trained workforce but they will not pay for it through corporate taxes, forcing the people to pay for education through wages, savings and especially debt. The working people want accessible, emancipatory education.

This class perspective is often obscured. The struggle for access is presented as a simply universal fight against the government. Right-social democratic ideas in the student movement deliberately avoid class perspectives and misrepresent the state as neutral. Yet the state’s decisions are, generally, in line with the banks and businesses. And the single largest group of youth impeded and excluded from post-secondary are youth from the working-class majority.