December 4, 2008 - 1:59pm
You can always count on Michael Moore to offer an outrageous left-wing point-of-view.
Moore made two appearances on cable talk programs Dec. 3 – first on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann and then on CNN’s “Larry King Live.” He pushed his proposal for a complete government takeover of the U.S. auto industry, a proposition he originally made on Nov. 19.
“This new president and Congress has to say to the Big Three, ‘I’m sorry, but this car thing isn’t working out,” Moore said on Olbermann’s show. “We’re running out of oil you need to build hybrids, electrics and we need mass transportation. So you have got to build trains and subways and light rail and all this.’”
According to Moore – a $34 billion bailout would give the government license to dictate this, or as he put it – the government would “own your ass.”
“‘That’s going to be the policy of the country and, and we’re going to tell you what to do because we just gave you collectively,’ if they get the $34 billion,” Moore continued. “’If we’re going to give you $34 billion, we’re going to own your ass. That should be – I can’t figure out how it could be any other way.”
From Moore’s viewpoint, the bailout culture that has invaded Washington is a last-minute attempt to grab wealth on the way out with President George W. Bush having only a month and a half remaining in the White House. However, Moore failed to recognize the bailout effort originated in the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
“When you put the Fed in there, the FDIC, and everything else that’s going on – the loans, all the stuff: $8.3 trillion,” Moore said. “And I’ve got to tell you, I think what happened here is that the wealthy in the country saw the Democrats and Obama coming, talking about there was going to be a tax increase for the rich, and they thought, ‘You know what? The party is going to end soon and we better collect as much silverware as possible before the party ends.’ And I think, I think that this is a looting of our Treasury going on right now.”
Moore told King he would like to see the three auto executives – who were scheduled to testify before Senate Banking Committee on Dec. 4 –say capitalism and free enterprise don’t work.
“I would like to see – when they come to Congress tomorrow and the next day, these auto heads, I would like them to stand up, raise their hand, and say, ‘I just want to tell you that, you know what – capitalism doesn’t work,” Moore said. “The free enterprise system that we have been telling you about all these years, it doesn’t work. We don’t really believe in it. We believe that if we build cars that people don’t buy – you, the taxpayer, should give us money anyways.”
On Nov. 19, he told Larry King “good riddance to capitalism.” - a persistent theme in his work. He has been a crusader for socialized health care in the U.S., especially with his 2007 documentary “SiCKO.” Moore depicted the health care systems used in Canada, France, the United Kingdom and the communist nation of Cuba as what the U.S. should have – an expensive taxpayer-funded health care system.
