The Gaming Den

I was clicking around threads and somebody had linked to the Huffington Post, which ended up getting me to Michael Moore's blog.

I knew he was a self-righteous douchenoozle before, but he did have something to say that was so incredibly stupid that I need to complain about it on a tabletop gaming forum on the Internet.

Relevant bit:

"Young people -- we, the '60s generation, promised to create a better world for you. We got halfway there -- now you have to complete the job. Do not stop until these wars are ended, the Pentagon budget is cut in half, and the rich are forced to pay their taxes. And demand that that money go to your education. We'll be there with you on all of this! And when we get this fixed and you graduate, instead of being $40,000 in debt, go see the friggin' world, or tinker around in your garage a la the two Steves, or start a band. Enjoy life, discover, explore, experiment, find your way. Anything but the assistant manager at Taco Bell."

First, what the fuck does he mean by we got halfway there? Was it the drugs? Was it...I don't know, Vietnam? Ok, so he has an inflated sense of self-worth. That's fine, we already knew that because he's Michael Moore. Let's move on.

I can totally get behind the "let's stop having as many wars" thing, but that's not a new idea or anything and he really isn't proposing a way to achieve this. The movement isn't called "Occupy the Pentagon." I don't think OWS has anything to do with the military at all, come to think of it. What the fuck are you talking about Michael Moore? Choose a damn message.

Ok, the rich needing to pay their taxes has something to do with OWS. Back on track.

Holy shit, "We'll be with you on all of this, and when we get this fixed and you graduate..." Michael Moore is either a really terrible writer (bad enough to word it like his generation is making sacrifices for my own) or is such a cockbag that he honestly thinks his generation is the one who's going to fix shit. No, you idiot, you fucked it up. If he wanted to sound less like a douche he could re-write it:

We're all in this together, and when this gets fixed and you graduate...

I don't know, it's so easy to not sound like a massive tool and he just HAD to write it that way.

He then proceeds to tell everyone who graduates to not get jobs, and go do quirky things instead. Michael Moore clearly needs to pull his head out of his ass. Protip for Michael: If you aren't in debt and don't have a job you still can't afford to go see the world, tinker around in your garage or start a band (unless your parents have a bunch of money they're willing to give you). No, you need to get some money first you insipid fool, stop spouting idiotic garbage at people who your advice will actively harm.

My favorite part is when he shits on everyone who works in the fast food industry, saying that they amounted to absolutely nothing and are wasting their lives. They're more productive members of society than you, Michael Moore.

Tl;dr: Michael Moore is a self-righteous idiot not only in movies, but also in writing.

Fatass Boomer scum.

Yes, Boomer. In my experience, Boomers from the Dems camp believe what he says and Boomers from the Repubs camp act like tzor. Both of them are the biggest bunch of narcicistical, self-righeous bastards that have ever walked on this planet and both of them sold their children and grandchildren to debt serfdom and now they will try to steal every last penny from the hollow carcass of the Global Economy before finally biting the dust.

Before I descend into a stream of profanities, let's leave it on I am so fucking mad.

Michael Moore is a terrible writer, but mostly because he didn't go to college and he still believes the blue-collar propaganda of American exceptionalism and innovation.

That being said, you are projecting way too much onto this. Having contempt for a McJob is perfectly reasonable since it's not a career. It's a low-paid job with no future that actually harms your chances of getting a better job with a living wage, so telling people to not enter wage-slavery and try something else is sound.

Are you mad because you work at a McDonalds and think it's great? I mean, MM is one rich self-made dude, so taking career advice from him is not too terrible of a plan as plans go.

@K

Selling people the college debt scam for an useless degree and then tell them that they are suckers for getting the only job that said useless degree can get, specially on this economy is a big pile of BS.

And that is one of the big reasons for the OWS movement.

Gx1080 wrote:and now they will try to steal every last penny from the hollow carcass of the Global Economy before finally biting the dust.

Well, at least when they die, they can't take it with them.

What? Whoa, I don't work at a fast food place, but you work that sort of job to pay for shit you need while you're looking for a good job.

It's stupid to tell people "don't take fast food jobs" when they're jobs that are completely necessary. Everyone in school ends up working a shitty job for a while to pay for things, that's just how it goes. if I didn't get a good job after I graduated I'd probably still be working shitty jobs (pizza delivery, sandwich artist, McJob, I've had a bunch) while I looked for a good one.

If he wasn't actively telling people to not get jobs then I wouldn't have a problem (with that part, everything else he says is still stupid). The thing is he literally says "you should never, ever, work at a fast food place; you're a special snowflake." I don't mean to shit on people when I say this, but not everyone is a special snowflake. There are people who are working at McDonalds because it's the best job around right now since they're competing with people who have degrees and 20 years of experience, insulting those people is just being a massive dick.

Besides, you can enter wage-slavery and still tinker in your garage (well, parent's garage because you can't afford one) or even start a band. Hey, then if you do something awesome you get out of wage slavery. He thinks everyone is entitled to a nice job but there are not that many nice jobs. The economy is tough and finding a good job is tough. Instead of saying "hey, keep doing what you're doing and keep your head up, you'll eventually work your way out once shit gets fixed" he says "HEY FAST FOOD JOBS SUCK AND GO NOWHERE." The people working those jobs realize that, but they need the damn money and are looking for better jobs.

His retarded "holy shit the 60s generation did a bunch of stuff to make the world better" is also one of the most rage-inducing things I've ever read. What the fuck did Michael Moore do for me, ever? I mean, Bowling for Columbine was good... so thanks? That really helped the entire world, right?


Points:

1) Michael Moore is giving advice he is unqualified to give.

2) Michael Moore is clearly delusional, thinking college will be free soon enough that the OWSers will benefit from it.

3) Michael Moore appears to think that the Pentagon is funded by Wall Street, making him an idiot.

4) Michael Moore is a self-righteous prick

5) Michael Moore isn't good at getting his (non-)points across.

You know, it isn't even all of his stupid ideas that bother me. It's the way he delivers them.

Young people like me (I'm 22) who graduated in the past few years are suffering from all the bullshit that fueled America for Moore's generation. That is not our fault. Moore should be apologizing to us, not saying "hey man, we got you half way there" and telling us to rage against the machine (some ways that include breaking the law, like trespassing all over the damn place) that his fucking generation allowed to be created.

As a non-idiot of my own generation I am upset, even though I have no reason because the system is treating me better than I expected to be treated, that he gives condescending bad advice while pretending to be one of us. His attitude is fucking awful, and I want to print out his blog and shove it down his fat gullet while explaining that he is not our friend, he is not one of us and he needs to eat all the dicks.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:It's the way he delivers them.

Yes.

I'm sure that Michael Moore has some wonderful - and even important - things to say, but for the life of me, I cannot stomach his presentation. I've been to see him in person. I've watched most of his films, but half-way to three quarters of the way through, I'm sick of listening to him.

I can't help but feel like he's selling me something.

Maj wrote:I'm sure that Michael Moore has some wonderful - and even important - things to say, but for the life of me, I cannot stomach his presentation.

I don't think he has anything important to say. On the other hand, I am reminded of the joke about how a broken (analog) clock tells the correct time twixe a day. Sometimes he does say somethings that are both important and true. Generally he says it for the wrong reasons. Most of his reasons is personal self ego mastrubation.

K wrote:It's a low-paid job with no future that actually harms your chances of getting a better job with a living wage

I think this needs a cite, or at least an explanation, since it runs counter to everything I've ever been told about getting a job (namely, you are more likely to get a job if you have a job, almost regardless of what the jobs in question are). Besides that...OP's point about everyone needing to eat is entirely valid.

So, I'll bite: why is it better to be unemployed than underemployed?

I mean, Bowling for Columbine was good...

No, it was actually a major pile of shit. Just like about everything of Moore's I've seen/read (which admittedly, was only BfC, Dude Where's My Country, and assorted bits and pieces from the internet).

I make no bones about the fact that I'm pro-gun, but there are anti-gun arguments and proponents of gun control that I am willing to listen to, who make good points. Moore is not one of them.

Maj wrote: I can't help but feel like he's selling me something.

Uh, he is? He didn't make millions of bucks by giving his shitty opinion away.

Polite Newb wrote:I make no bones about the fact that I'm pro-gun, but there are anti-gun arguments and proponents of gun control that I am willing to listen to, who make good points. Moore is not one of them.

Uh... Bowling for Columbine is not an anti-gun movie. It talks at length about how there are guns in Canada and less gun crime. The thesis of the movie is that a culture of fear causes violence and that the guns are a symptom and not a cause.

I'd pick your diatribe about McJobs apart, but it's honestly very difficult because your writing is a confusing befuddled morass. You make gigantic leaps to weird hyperbole that isn't even exaggerations of things Moore is saying but just straight tangents. I mean fuck:

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:I can totally get behind the "let's stop having as many wars" thing, but that's not a new idea or anything and he really isn't proposing a way to achieve this. The movement isn't called "Occupy the Pentagon." I don't think OWS has anything to do with the military at all, come to think of it. What the fuck are you talking about Michael Moore? Choose a damn message.

He said that the budget should be rebalanced with more investment in the younger generation. He suggested paying for this investment with tax increases on wealthier Americans (a group that includes himself) and military spending cuts. He said that young people would have to fight for that if they were to actually receive that investment. I'm sorry that you found that incredibly simple point to be too complicated, but if you did I sincerely doubt that the fundamental problem is that Moore is an idiot.

This is America. If you have a thing you want the government to do (in this case: education spending), you'd better suggest a way to pay for that if you want it to work (like say: cutting five hundred million dollars of defense spending and raising taxes). Any spending proposal that doesn't include a financing scheme is not a serious proposal. Moore suggested a program and a way to finance it. That is like a billion percent more cogent and serious than you normally get on a fucking blog post. So you calling it out as unfocused is just fucking weird. It's a blog, couldn't you have found some rambling story about not liking a new flavor of potato chips to get angry about?

Or to put it another way: if Moore had instead made a blog post about how he thought education spending should be increased and he didn't suggest spending cuts in other areas and tax increases to pay for that spending increase, would you have made a post about how Moore was an idiot for suggesting the government pay for something with money it did not have? Because based on the rest of your tirade, I'm guessing the answer is yes. If someone on the left suggests a balanced budget proposal, you'll freak out about how they are stupid for having a suggestion that is too complicated, and if they have a single item you'll freak out about how stupid they are for not being realistic with serious budget items.

Edit: Fuck, I just realized that Polite Newb and Pseudo Stupidity are different people. They both begin with P and are apparently stupid in the same way, and I honestly had not noticed that they were different posters. My apologies. Although looking through their posts again: I'm not sure that they aren't just clones of each other.

-Username17

Frank, I think you meant to attribute the second quote to Pseudo.

A Frank post, excellent. You took one paragraph, ignored where I said taxing the rich is fine and actually relevant, said you would pick the McJobs thing apart but won't because it's confusing (without explaining why), and then said I make gigantic leaps to hyperbole with, again, no fucking explanation or example.

I am disappointed.

Frank, if you thought Polite and I were the same person you thought I both quoted and then promptly disagreed with myself. It really looks like you didn't read either of my posts, or make any attempt to understand them. If you could point out a paragraph where I don't manage to stay on topic you'd have a point, but I'm fairly certain they're all on topic.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say you don't know the DoD is already getting its budget cut a shitton ($55 billion a year if that super committee can't choose what it actually wants to cut) over the next decade. That's what's supposed to happen, at least.

Moore did say to cut the pentagon's budget, but that shit is already happening so he just doesn't know what's going on. He didn't make any mention of the Supercommittee or that the Pentagon will be looking at automatic budget cuts, so is it difficult to believe he doesn't know these things are happening?

His proposal is to tax the rich. OWS is already about taxing the rich and stopping them from abusing laws and people. Wow Michael, that's some great guidance.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:I'm going to take a wild guess and say you don't know the DoD is already getting its budget cut a shitton ($55 billion a year if that super committee can't choose what it actually wants to cut) over the next decade. That's what's supposed to happen, at least.

Huh? Do you get all your information from Mitt Romney?

The DoD has gotten no cuts and probably won't be cut. The super committee theater uses potential defense cuts as a hammer to threaten people into budget agreements, but there are already people in congress threatening to roll those back. The potential defense cuts are political theater, and in any case are not very big. $55 billion dollars sounds like a lot, but considering the Pentagon's $680 billion yearly budget that is chump change.

Historically, the military budget looks like this:



That little tick at the end that brings the DoD's budget back to 2007 levels is the projected decrease. You know, unless congress changes its mind and ends up increasing the budget again like they have every year this century. The United States hasn't seen a dollar in peace dividend since 1998, and I am not holding my breath that will suddenly change tomorrow.

So no. That probably won't happen, and it doesn't qualify as a shit tonne in any case. The kinds of budget cuts that Moore was talking about were in the hundreds of billions, not tens of billions. The kind of thing that would bring us down to "only" China, Russia, France, England, and Japan's military expenditures combined. That is a shit tonne. That is the kind of budget cuts that would make a real difference and wouldn't just be political theater.

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Moore did say to cut the pentagon's budget, but that shit is already happening so he just doesn't know what's going on. He didn't make any mention of the Supercommittee or that the Pentagon will be looking at automatic budget cuts, so is it difficult to believe he doesn't know these things are happening?

You can go ahead and disagree with his suggestion, but it's not confused or muddled. The person who seems to be muddled in this conversation is you. He suggested cutting the department of defense by three hundred and forty billion dollars a year. That is most definitely not already going on. What is going on is less than 1/6th of that being put on the block to maybe be cut from projected increases of the budget in the future. In 2013. Unless Congress comes to a different budget agreement before then. Which they will, because they have to (and do) pass a new budget every year.

Edit: Best response to this situation is actually from Rand Paul of all people. He's about as far politically from Moore, but he had this to say:

"I think we need to be honest about it," Paul said in an interview on CNN Sunday. "The interesting thing is there will be no cuts in military spending. This may surprise some people, but there will be no cuts in military spending because we're only cutting proposed increases. If we do nothing, military spending goes up 23 percent over 10 years. If we sequester the money, it will still go up 16 percent. So spending is still rising under any of these plans."

-Username17

That's what I'm talking about, graphs and explanations!

The DoD cuts are supposed to start in 2013, which is a while off, but it's still a thing. While it likely won't go through because we are very bad at getting things done, it still made me kind of hopeful that shit would get done eventually.

I'd also say $550 billion over 10 years is a pretty heafty amount of change. That's half a trillion dollars, which is half a trillion we could spend on things that aren't delicious violence. The problem is yeah, it probably won't happen because congress is shitty and everything is shitty.

I wasn't aware about it just cutting increases though, I thought it was a $55 billion net decrease per year. That would actually matter, as I routinely see companies like Raytheon getting $50 million contracts multiple times per day whereas my old high school was rocking 13-year-old history books.

Could you give me a link to the information that shows the spending increase even if the cuts start happening? I clearly need to read up on it more.

I'd also still like to hear why you agree with Moore that McJobs are bad as temporary work. I just don't see what the problem is with them, and have always thought it was good to have a resume without employment gaps.

Huh. We spend 250 billion dollars every year on interest on past military-related debts. Is this a 'minimum monthly payments' thing, or are we actually paying it off?

Pseudo Stupidity wrote: I'd also say $550 billion over 10 years is a pretty heafty amount of change. That's half a trillion dollars, which is half a trillion we could spend on things that aren't delicious violence. The problem is yeah, it probably won't happen because congress is shitty and everything is shitty.

No argument about Congress being shitty. Everyone hates congress, and with good reason. They are an outdated and corrupt body that has ridiculous systems and is increasingly incapable of doing even the most minimal for the country. Politico's "healthcare policy maker of the year" is a person whose healthcare plan not only did not get passed, but which was incapable of being implemented because it wasn't even finished and the numbers didn't add up. Congress managed to officially declare pizza to be a vegetable.

But when you're talking about the defense budget, you really have to consider whether any particular large sounding number is in fact actually a large number. A common sleight is to talk about debts and deficits as if they were the same thing, or to compare single-year cuts to ten, twenty, or even fifty year cuts. But perhaps the most insidious is to compare ten years from now dollars to today dollars. Because even at 2 percent annual inflation, every dollar today is worth $1.21 in ten years. And if the inflation was 3 percent instead, it would be $1.34.

What this means is that over ten years, you can "cut" the military expenditures by $437 billion over ten years just by assuming an inflation increase of 2% instead of 3%. So anytime anyone talks about ten year military spending growths or cuts in the five hundred billion dollar range, I am thoroughly unimpressed. Because that shit can be created just by optimistic or pessimistic accounting procedures.

If someone isn't talking concrete program cuts or actual budget slashing of the military today, they just are not serious. The price tag of the department of defense is so expensive that by itself it would constitute the 21st richest country in the world (falling between Argentina and the Netherlands). That's not even including defense costs that are not in the department of defense like "Homeland Security". The numbers are so big that adding or subtracting a single percentage point from your future estimates really is adding up to half a trillion dollars per year all by itself.

I'd also still like to hear why you agree with Moore that McJobs are bad as temporary work. I just don't see what the problem is with them, and have always thought it was good to have a resume without employment gaps.

That depends. One of the things that potential employers check is what you've worked for in the past. People who accept lower wages get offered lower wages. Having a shitty McJob can actually permanently lower your expected wages. The money you make working at Jack in the Box can actually be more than offset by those future wage cuts. Depending on how far you want to go in life, you might be making negative money over the long haul working a soul destroying career having hot oil sprayed on your shirt.

-Username17

RadiantPhoenix wrote:Huh. We spend 250 billion dollars every year on interest on past military-related debts. Is this a 'minimum monthly payments' thing, or are we actually paying it off?

Government accounts are weird as fuck. They don't have mortgages or credit cards, and they don't have individual loans that they are paying off. So right away they aren't the same as household debts.

Governments issue bonds that are repaid in full at a specific time in the future. And then they pay off those bonds in full. But they also issue new bonds, all the time. So if there's a surplus, they issue less new bonds than they are paying off at any given time. If there's a deficit, they issue more new bonds.

But there's no principal that is being paid off, it's a series of bonds not a series of payments on a single debt.

-Username17

I can see that working a shitty job will hurt your chances in getting a good one.

My ex wife refused to work any shitty jobs for somewhere around 3 years or so. Instead, she sat around the house on my generosity doing literally nothing except playing video games and eating calzones.

When she finally got hired somewhere, she was making more money than I was at the time working as chief operator at a sewage plant for years.

Something similar happened with my last girlfriend. She was a doctor, but was struggling with building her clientele. I motivated her to expand in ways that didn't cost her anything, I helped her get prepared for job interviews, I paid her phone bill to make sure she got any calls for jobs. When her practice took off, she dropped me for a different guy nearly immediately.

The last interview for a decent job I had, I watched the plant foreman tear up my application, and was told to "go back to wal-mart, you don't deserve a real job".

I don't LIKE the fact that I have had no choice but to work these shitty jobs because I don't have anyone in my life willing or able to support me while I get my shit together, but it is nonetheless true. And every day I strongly consider sucking off a shotgun rather than dealing with making 15k a year and paying $150 monthly in student loans that edfinancial refuses to offer any sort of forbearance or IBR plan for whatever reason.

So yeah, if you have the chance to live as a bum off someone else's income while you get your crap together, DO IT. Offering to support someone else, even one you love, isn't going to work out because they're going to jet once they've gotten what they want out of you. You will get nothing in return, not love, not financial support while you chase your own dreams, nothing. That person will take from you what they want then seek out someone new.

There is of course the option of just not including the shitty jobs on your resume, but ultimately, I would recommend any of the following over working fast food (or at least, McDonalds):
[*]B&E
[*]Mugging
[*]Drug dealing
[*]Prostitution
[*]Weird fetish porn that doesn't even do it for you
[*]Unlicenced bareknuckle boxing

Am I missing the option where he takes the shitty job he needs to survive then omits it from his resume?

Juton wrote:Am I missing the option where he takes the shitty job he needs to survive then omits it from his resume?

Then you need to explain employment gaps. Although I'm honestly not sure which is worse.

Holy shit, Count you are severely unlucky. If you've got a solid education you can probably just try and ride that to a good job and not mention the shitty jobs. I did this for my resume and only mentioned substitute teaching, freelance IT work and a work-for-free internship that I did during college.

I'd strongly suggest finding some sort of internship (even if it's working for free) in your field and busting your ass on it to get awesome references.

It's incredibly stupid for an interviewer to rip up a resume because somebody was working crappy jobs. That should just show the person wants to work and clearly gives a shit about working rather than being an entitled fuckwit who hasn't worked an honest day in their life.

Edit: Employment gaps can generally be mitigated with volunteer work if you really want to swing for the fences. Of course, this involves picking up volunteer work in addition to your real job.

Juton wrote:Am I missing the option where he takes the shitty job he needs to survive then omits it from his resume?

That option is probably slightly more viable in both the short and long term. It also causes less brain damage/venereal disease/prison time.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

Juton wrote:Am I missing the option where he takes the shitty job he needs to survive then omits it from his resume?

Then you need to explain employment gaps. Although I'm honestly not sure which is worse.

Then Count should do whatever his ex did to explain her employment gap. If it's only a short gap then maybe 'lived off my savings' would be an acceptable twisting of the truth.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:

Juton wrote:Am I missing the option where he takes the shitty job he needs to survive then omits it from his resume?

Then you need to explain employment gaps. Although I'm honestly not sure which is worse.

You mean the employment gap you'd have to explain ANYWAY if you didn't take the shitty job?

Anecdotal (in answer to Count's), I have never had a shitty job count against me, and that includes working as a dishwasher and at Wal-Mart. Granted I'm not exactly a doctor or a lawyer now...and I also moved up in stages, not from "shitty" to "awesome". Usually, it goes from "shitty" to "slightly less shitty" to "halfway decent" to "fair" to "good". I realize this is far from ideal...but expecting to go from "none" to "awesome" is unrealistic in most situations, unless you have a very good skill set in an in-demand field.

(plus, any place where the hiring officer tears up your resume in front of you is probably not a place you want to work. I realize that's not really comforting, but it's still true.)