Great film. Very nice. Great to watch while reading C. Wright Mill’s The Ruling Class.

I love how all of the ads targeted the wrong demographic.

The film raises the question: Is it better to rule the world, or to save it?  Initially presenting both sides,the films downgrades detestably in the third portion, leaving the viewer with an intense dissatisfaction at the conclusion. After clearly presenting the case that there is indeed a ruling class, the film answers the original question. Their answer is a resounding: rule the world. This kind of thinking is precisely the reason we are in our present environmental dilemma.  We have borne witness to environmental denigration since the Industrial revolution yet industry has continually been allowed to dump toxins in the name of progress. Many will say that we have made great strides in cleaning up industry over the past century and a half, and this is undoubtedly true, yet we are still seeing polluted rivers, drained marshlands, and continual species extinction.  It is not time to pat ourselves on the back just yet.  It has ceased to be a matter of gradual change. There needs to be sweeping reform now. 

The film sends the clear message that we should simply become complacent social automatons and give in to the corruption of the upper echelon.  I strongly object to the direct quote from the film; What must never change is the belief that doing well is also doing good.  Doing well is defined by social values, which currently revolve solely around money; the coolest car, the biggest house, the nicest clothes, and this is clearly not good.  The overwhelming majority of the products that we purchase contain carcinogenic substances, environmental toxins, and are produced by child labor at the behest of multinational conglomerates.  Emphasis on social values such as these lead an entire nation of people into deep debt within a vicious lifelong cycle of buying. Not only does money not buy happiness, but studies have demonstrated an inverse relationship between consumption and satisfaction.

Another quote from the film speaks to the same issue. It was roughly; Equate national interest with self interest and no moral roadblocks remain on the road of ambition. This is an absolutely detestable outlook that permutes, propagates, and compounds our national issues over successive generations.

To paraphrase Michael Pollan, we now stand on a moral and existential precipice.  If we do not make more than token efforts to improve the current environmental conditions we will surely fall off the edge and the only thing waiting for us at the bottom is extinction.

Coming from those “nickle and dimed”, I too have thought about the fall of the empire and how we would be viewed as humans and not the sand beneath the pyramid. I’d rather be free range plankton, than a barnacle on a destructive barge.

incredible movie.  I love it. so well done.

Way too many f’n commercials.
they also interrupt full screen viewing.

Obama has made a new pick for Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin.  Regina Benjamin, MD, graduated from Morehouse School of Medicine, and ran a practice dedicated to low income families around Bayou La Route since the early 90s, and moonlighted in clinics and ER’s to fund her practice.  Her practice in Louisiana was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and again by a fire almost a year to the day afterwards, and she used a cash loan or two to rebuild.  Her position on socialized medicine is unknown.  Regina Benjamin is a credit to the human race, a great pick for SG – and many would give a cash advance to see someone as qualified take the post.

Unfortunate that this film contains advertisements.  This film is one fairly decent starting place to learn the nature of the method by which our nation’s economic subsystem has been corrupted, (only one of our nation’s several corrupted support subsystems) with the collusion of the government, to benefit the ruling class, rather than the equal benefit of the people of our nation the better known of our founders intended.  One measure to start to bring back the capitalism of our preferred nation’s founders intent is to eliminate the legal fiction of corporations as individuals, distinct from those individuals that direct the policies and behaviors (work) of the corporations.  Return corporations to the status of companies where individuals are held personnally liable for the damages they cause.

Too much of the american people have no idea on how to earn , you can’t just spread wealth to people. welfare is not the answer, Obama is also just another Cog, although a charismatic and smart talking cog, just part of the machine. different presidents are not the answer, the answer comes from the bottom, and the first step is to have less mouths to feed, some good contraceptives would go a long way to stabilizing things allowing what we do have in resources to actually spread evenly in a natural way. and you need education, stupid parents generally breed stupid kids. and the morons of the brainwashed pious folk need their talons taken out of young minds. you cant truly progress if most of your population believes it must pay for a mistake involving fruit long long ago in faerie tale land. were a nation of stubborn backwards morons with an outer coating of trivial technology, that differentiates us from other stone-age countries. 

this film is very good by the way....

Loved this. I thought it was very well done. As much as it was informatve, it was done with wit, good interviws with interesing notables. I liked that it got the perspective of one from $ and the other not. Want to see it again.

This film is a real jewel!  I first saw it on Sundance 2 years ago and see it finally is available as a DVD. Finally!
It says much about who runs this country.  It indicates the flexibility of the ruling class in always looking for new talent to admit to the ranks.  Think Barack Obama!

Lets just hope that Obama can undo the damage done by 20 of the past 28 years of GOP rule. Obama seems to be doing away with all the idiotic and dangerous cowboy rhetoric of the Reagan and Bush crew. Hopefully we can take back our country from the wealthy and spread the vast wealth that we have a tad bit more evenly.

I had to blog/share this movie, big time. It’s searingly
brilliant. Best of Class - Top of Show. My humble opin.

Another astounding unrecognized movie that has ringding
of truth:

“Half Moon Street” with Sigourney Weaver.

Yes, there are people in power who believe the rest
are “less than...” Are they wrong?

Freedom from being “ruled” demands a price. Like all
fine, rare and precious things, someone will always
try to take it away from you. And, it does not come
cheap.

Speak up, choose good, DO right, or be pwned.

This movie openly proves how the power structures have assumed power. The ruling class is real. This is happening and like the movie said “Either you sell your soul for personal profit, or you dance the beggar’s Waltz”. And those people were right the secret is out. But when they construct your reality and own it what makes you think they won’t just use you up as another resource. And Having a Yale degree means that you have learned how to critically think at the high level,which can be said for many others as well, but that is only half. Use those skills for progression. Instead of present profit. Show that abundance is among us and quit creating scarcity for profit. Money is the root to all evil. And in his pursuit man sells himself for profit, when he doesn’t need to sell himself in the first place. Power is progression and imagination and possibility, not how much paper or data you trade for it. You can either reproduce the same with no possibility for progression or you can build and create with just as much efficiency as they destroy. Do we believe in Liberty, Goodness, Chivalry, Virtue, Freedom. Or only when they provide a profit?

And with all the change over the past 50 years, there really hasn’t been any until now. With the 2008 election, is real change finally achievable? Even when Obama is elected? Is this so called grass roots upswell real and if it is, will it last? The working Americans have not been united on any one thing in over 60 years. So the ruling class has been able to enslave them (nickel and dime them) for all these years. And now when the ruling class institutions have crashed the working people let them bail themselves out with our tax dollars.
No one will ever help the working class. Not even themselves, unless they do unite and say enough is enough. I fear this will not happen in my life time.

The picture that asks the question: “What is the point of having a degree from Yale if you are not going to join the ruling class? Granted, you won’t know how real people live, but why would you want to know that when you can live so much better?” Strikingly honest and original in its use of explicit statements about the power structure and of raw interview content.
The interviews with real members of the power structure who have more or less made peace with themselves is much more powerful than any Hollywood fiction could begin to convey. In some cases, their essential decency stands out; in others, their self-deceit is uppermost. James Baker is in a class by himself. For contrast, interviews with Pete Seeger and Barabara Ehrenreich (while she was researching “Nickeled and Dimed") are included.
The picture leaves open the question of whether one can change the system more effectively from inside, near the top, or from outside, near the bottom--if at all.
Highly recommended.