Requiem for the American Dream (2015)

"Chomsky finds the roots of the Requiem in how the United States was originally set up. The U.S. Constitution put power in the hands of the wealthy. The Constitution was written to prevent, not promote, democracy. Concentrations of wealth resulted in concentrations of political power. The course of our history has been defined by the struggles of this wealth and political power against upsurges in democratization, most notably in the 1930s labor movement and the 1960s peace, civil rights and women's movements.Power and wealth fought back against these popular movements by trying to shape ideology and manufacture consent. Elections are engineered. Attempts to regulate the economy are undermined. Solidarity of the American dreamers is attacked. As Chomsky has shown through earlier work ("Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" with Edward S. Herman, 1988) control was extended beyond the use of force into the domain of culture by marketing compliance and marginalizing dissent.Chomsky himself provides an example of the extent to which dissent is marginalized when he chooses to avoid mentioning by name the great sources of ideas which help us understand how power and wealth function: socialists like Gramsci, Lukacs or even the scholar of the British Museum himself.Rather than end his dissertation in despair, Chomsky offers elements of hope, if not exactly a well lit path to redemption. Popular movements, efforts to dismantle illegitimate authority, freedom of speech and new forms of political action all offer hope. He cites philosopher John Dewey's admonition that institutions should be under participatory democratic control. What matters, relates Chomsky quoting his friend Historian Howard Zinn, is the countless deeds of unknown people who lay the basis for the events of human history. Ultimately, learning how the world works will greatly aid in changing it."

This is a very important documentary with a lot of information - especially for the uninformed about society and what mechanisms there are that's "controlling" us and how we then behave, like puppets.But what I miss here is discussions about solutions, and that's why I can't give this documentary a 10 out of 10. I would like this documentary to be more educational and have more discussions about alternative solutions - like the "Zeitgeist Moving Forward"-documentary did!But Requiem for the American Dream is, of course, very much worth seeing! This informative educational documentary should be viewed in schools! Why isn't it?

Noam Chomsky mentions the works of Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman as two examples of renowned economists and Nobel Laureates who agree with his views, but what is different is the way he explains the development of inequality during the last 4 decades from the historical perspective of previous times when inequality was rampant during other times and the forces that drive societies into one direction or another. I don't agree with Chomsky on many issues, but this one he is spot on.I gave this movie a 9 star rating instead of 10 because the background music was too loud and seriously interfered with the understanding of what Chomsky was saying.Excellent documentary.

Somehow, conservatives have awoke from their slumber and become aware that we have severe economic problems in this country and the American middle class has seen their economic power erode while the "masters of the universe" just become richer and richer and exert more power and money to ensure that legislation is written that will continue to benefit the 1%. Donald Trump acknowledges this in his stump speeches while Bernie Sanders has made it a cornerstone of his campaign. Clinton tries to avoid the subject lest her opponents bring up Goldman Sach's yet again. Choamsky puts the intellectual underpinnings on why the American Dream is fast becoming a nightmare. His ten principles are pretty easy to understand as he invokes the Founding Fathers and Adam Smith to buttress his intellectual arguments that income inequality in the U.S. is not only a problem but a huge problem that not only affects us in the pocketbook but undermines our democratic processes that have stood us so well over the last 200+ years. We have a professional class in the U.S. that has become immune to the globalization issues facing blue collar workers and both political parties have turned a blind eye to helping American's who have borne the brunt of trade policies that benefit corporate America at the expense of working people. Also the constant drumbeat of the elites against labor unions in our country, an organizing group that once had immense power to protect American wages. In the new "sharing" economy there are vicious fights to keep the sharing workforce from unionizing. Also massive attacks mounted against public sector workers including teachers because they belong to a union. These attacks are not random events but carefully orchestrated events with an end in mind: the continued growth of the 1% that even Adam Smith warned us about. The big fear among the enormously wealthy is that the majority of American's will get too much democracy and start pushing for rights that have long been denied them. They rely on law enforcement and even the military if necessary to protect their property rights and right to govern or manipulate the legislators who supposedly represent their constituents but in reality only represent the interests of the !%. Chomsky lays this all out in his documentary. You may not agree with everything he lays out, but he makes an awful lot of common sense. Many American's are finally waking up to this reality. Watch this documentary and it will provide a good insight into how this country arrived at this economic state.