Revisionist History

You have to get it on national television, and get the story out into the theaters before the masses can start asking questions and talking back!

A blog on the Washington Post has an interesting piece on Micheal Moore's new Movie.

44 The Obama Presidency

It's hard to believe that this guy is for real and that so many people believe what he says

the film spends quite a lot of time building up last fall's financial bailout as the ultimate showdown between Wall Street interests calling in their Washington chits and a vanguard of hardy populists in Congress standing in their way. Left unsaid is that a larger proportion of House Republicans than Democrats voted against the bailout --

I have not seen the movie, but I can already hear and visualize the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy diatribe that he will use to place blame for the melt down and the bailout. Apparently he does go after Sen Dodd for being cozy with the wall street fat cats, but we'll have to wait and see if anything other than friendly acquiescence is laid at his feet.

The article really gets interesting near the end when it talks about revising history.

when asked whether the film had glorified the anti-bailout position assumed by so many conservative Republicans, saying that what he had really set out to do was to reclaim the bailout critique for skeptics of capitalism, away from the anti-government types.

"I wanted to stop the revisionist version of how the bailout is remembered," he said. Republicans "are trying to ride some phony populist wave because they know there's anger brewing. Beneath the surface, history is full of people taking advantage of [populist anger] and taking this country to an extra reactionary place."

Which revisionist version? And yesterday President Obama got into the act as well. The timing could not be choreographed any better either. Moore's movie premiere last night was at the same AFL-CIO convention that the president is speaking at today. Like yesterdays speech that he gave to Wall Street, I am sure we will here the same message that puts the bloody knife into the hands of the Wall Street fat cats.

giving loans to those who they knew could never repay

Now, he's right, of course. But, by not giving you the whole story, or by not sharing the blame with bad govt policy, and lack of enforcement of existing regulations, he effectively revises history to place all of the blame on Wall Street and the Republicans.

Never mind that it was the Community Reinvestment Act signed into law by Jimmy Carter which was

designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.^[1][2][3] Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.

Never mind the  Financial Services Modernization Act signed into law by President Bill Clinton

which repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, opening up the market among bankingsecurities companies and insurance companies. The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and/or an insurance company. companies,

 Never mind that in September of 1999

the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.


Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

 In that same New York Times article, there were those who were already sounding the alarm.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

I wonder if Barney Frank makes an appearance in Mr Moore's new movie?

What They Said About Fan and Fred

 Rep. Frank: I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. .