Truth-O-Meter
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
Saw Michael Moore’s Capitalism on Saturday afternoon.
One moving section of the movie, among many, such as images from Katrina, was footage from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s funeral. Although there is a crafted narrative promulgated with some energy and absolutism from conservatives to remind us many people thought Roosevelt was a Commie, the video in Moore’s film and this video I’ve posted from YouTube shows the enormity of his death as a national event. You get a feeling in these news clips for the genuine grief everyday people felt, people who recognized that Roosevelt answered the challenges of the Great Depression by answering the demands that the ideals democracy placed upon him. He had a heart for the country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B6J_z152cQ
Link to St. Petersburg Times Truth-O-Meter on Michael Moore’s Capitalism and Obama promises:
<script src=”http://politifact.com/media/js/politifactwidget3.js”></script>
Another disturbing part of “Capitalism” was Moore’s telling of how major companies are taking out life insurance policies on their employees. It’s a story that’s been around since 2005, but I for one was not really aware of it. It works thusly. Your employer takes out a life insurance policy on you with the company receiving the payout. If you die, your employer is paid millions and your relatives get nothing of it. If you die young, the payout is even higher. Wal-Mart and Bank America do it and Moore explores it through a handful of families in “Capitalism.” The insurance is known as ”Dead Peasants Insurance,” which I don’t know if that word for it is somehow related to the fact Wal-Mart and others have this insurance on their rank-and-file employees, but it is a loaded name for it, and probably reveals how the bigwigs view the little guy who works for them. Dead Peasants Insurance?
And this from MSN: http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/P64954.asp
— Susan Easmtan