How about the social responsibility of Roger Moore? Either he's broke or he's not. If so, where'd his money go? Someone blogged that, but I can't remember who. It was in the past 3-4 months, tho, if I remember correctly.

I used to like Michael Moore - I thought he was witty and funny and intelligent. Maybe he was then _but_ after I realized his true bent I had to ban him... I'm just damn tired of socialists at the moment - I don't find them nearly as hilarious as I used to.

I'm sorry I don't know a good roger-n-me analysis but I did a little disection when he was on Donahue (I was the one viewer that night):
http://www.antiauthority.com/propaganda/article.asp?id=146

two words "Tim Blair"

What law school has a Corps. prof who pushes Moore? Typically the "social responsibility" types stick to con law or crim law (maybe torts). I went to NYU (very "socially" focused), and had no such issues in the numeorus corp/securities law classes I took...

While I don't mean to sound flip -- corporations make money, governments have social responsibility. Am I old fashioned?

I saw the movie several years ago. I don't recall it having much in the way of sophisticated commentary on corporate responsibility, except that it started and ended with the unexamined premise that GM was being really mean to its workers by shutting down a plant, and it's just not right for a corporation to deploy its shareholders' capital more efficiently, is it.

In fact, I think the film would be a better case study on ethics and responsibility of the media. As I recall nearly all of the funny moments were at the expense of the blue collar workers e.g. "bunnies for pets or meat"

Actually, Roger And Me is a pretty funny low-budget documentary.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/rogermerhinson_a0a906.htm

Moore didn't become an Insufferable Idiotarian until he got rich and started hanging around Hollywood types.

2 more words: lileks.com. Go to Screed archive for the definitive demolition.

Here are a few articles I've come across through the blogosphere that should give you a start.

Salon.com - 97/06/06 "Moore is less" by Daniel Radosh
97/07/03 Moore's reply and Radosh's rebuttal

Fox News Online, 3/22/02 "Sometimes Moore Is Less" by Tim Blair

Roger and Me is classic. I loved it. It speaks to a lot of issues, even though it may slur a little here and there. Of course, for the antithetical antidote, you must see the the definitive trinity of Wall Street, Glen Gary Glen Ross, and Boiler Room (leaving out all the lame anti-exploitation anti-business and pansy whistle-blower parts, of course). Throw in a little Bonfire of the Vanities and I think you've got it covered. (When's the movie of A Man in Full going to get made, by the way?)

OK, then.

From the Mark Steyn article at http://www.nationalpost.com :
If you want to see what "the masses" are meant to look like, buy a DVD of Metropolis, Fritz Lang's 1926 "expressionist masterpiece." As futuristic nightmares go, it's hilarious: The workers are slaves, living underground, chained to the levers, wheels, cranks and cogs of a vast machine, dehumanized by the crushing anonymity of their servitude, etc., etc.

Alas, nothing dates faster than a futuristic vision: Today, the nightmare that beckons is quite the opposite. Instead of a world in which the workers are forced to operate huge, clanking machines below the Earth all day long, the machines are small and silent and so computerized no manpower is required and the masses have to be sedated by shallow distractions like supersized shakes and Wal-Mart and 24-hour lesbian channels on Premium Cable.

It took the workers' tribunes a while to catch on: Even today, when your average union leader issues his annual Labour Day address, you can tell at heart he still thinks it's 1926 and Metropolis is just around the corner. But the intellectual left has been scrambling for decades to come up with explanations as to why, if everything's so bad, everything's so good: Noam Chomsky's theory of media manipulation -- "manufactured consent" -- can stand for an entire school of philosophers who believe a subtler breed of capitalist overlords are maintaining the workers in some sort of fools' illusion of content.

I believe James Lileks wrote a very funny Screed about Michael Moore. It basically painted him as a fatuous conceited terp (or maybe that's how I read it). I would include the http address for the essay except I have no idea how to do that. Hell, I'm pushing my boundaries writing this little message.

Oh by the way, thanks to Instapundit for bringing Mr. Lileks' blog to my attention. I read a great deal of columns/op-eds and naturally I agree with the conservative ones (brilliant, insightful) and slap the computer when I read the liberal/leftwing ones (stupid, clueless, no idea of how life works outside of Harvard).

I especially like witty and humorous columnists. Like Mark Steyn. And Kevin Myers when he writes for the Irish Times, not when he writes for the Daily Telegraph, assuming that is the same guy. He wrote a hysterical column last year about the harmonious relationships between developing countries at the Durban Conference. If I ever figure out the http stuff, maybe I can include the link to that as well.

The Screed on Moore might give some helpful insight on the guy.

Here is one just where you would NOT expect it: Salon.com

http://archive.salon.com/june97/media/media970606.html

My suggestion for the reader: Use your OWN critical faculty. That's probably what your professor is after in the first place.

Re: the earlier poster who suggests the prof. is "pushing" Moore

Good professors often present material they disagree with. I do this all the time. It is NOT a safe assumption, from what little information we have, that this prof. is "pushing' Moore.

The man who foists "Canadian Bacon" on an unwilling world certainly has no place in any discussion of responsibility corporate or otherwise. You might want check some of the reviews at IMDB of Roger & Me. If memory serves, some reviewers at the time of its release noted some blatant distortions in the film and its rather misleading editing. As a previous post noted, the film's contempt for the workers it supposedly empathizes with is plainly obvious. There's a good column on Moore (concerning his recent book) at Spinsanity as well: http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20020403.html

Good luck.

Law Professor Ronald Goldstock teaches corporate ethics at NYU law school. I would contact him.

For an interesting approach, readAnn Coulters' take in her book Slander...you may be able to set the tone for debate not propaganda.

Watch how he portrays the "little people" in the film. Especially the rabbit lady (yah, funny). I saw the film when it first came out with a lefty friend of mine, and she was appalled. Money and fame didn't corrupt Moore (as one commenter said). He was corrupt already.

Moore wants everyone to believe that he's sticking up for the people of Flint, MI, his old home town, against people who treat them like crap. But in the film he essentially invites his (presumably sophisticated, Indy-film viewing) audience to laugh at the yokels. There are several tricks he uses, likewise, to distort the situation (the Big Business Tycoon refuses to talk to Moore. So they must be bad. There's a lot of innuendo and preaching to the choir, but analyize the arguments and see if this "corporate responsibility", as Moore sees it, would be a good thing (and yah - as another commenter pointed out, check out the Lileks screed on Moore).

Don't let people divert you and say "hey, it's not about Moore personally, lets keep it on corporate responsibility" when you point out that the film displays more contempt for the people of Flint (Moore is big on "The People" and bad on people) than the supposedly inhumane company (what's Flint like today, btw? I really don't know): he's here telling us he has a better way and if he got to do things "right" - but he's an elitist who doesn't think people can take care of themselves or make their own decisions (thus the ideological need to poke fun at the local jerks who, unlike him, didn't escape Flint and are just ignorant bumpkins); at its core, this is an authoritarian mindset, not a populist "man of the people" one.

You asked for resources to check your prof on "Roger and Me". The critics, after momentarily lauding the thing, pretty well zeroed in on the deliberate out of sequencing of scenes in a fraudulent way. This is why the movie lost its initial audience push. Just check the criticisism; for once the Liberal Media became honest. Particularly shoddy was the
"setting up" of real people and then making fun of them. This was offensive, particularly the scene with the woman having to kill and sell rabbits to make ends meet, and ridiculing the Miss Whoever winner.

As for the movie itself, it was propaganda at its best. The point was to show how out of touch GM was with workers, customers, and most of the country. It did a good job, and had it been an honest film could have caused great damage to GM. Does a particularly good job when running scenes of corporate parties compared with workers with zero.

See the movie and judge for yourself.

A. Cline,

It's not a matter of perspective, its a matter of relevancy. There are so many issues in a corporations class that a decision to add a whole session on "social responsibility" strikes me as suspicious.

Furthermore, showing a movie is a fairly unorthodox means of teaching law. Typically it involves reading case law, studying statutes and, in this case, corporate documets. I don't think I ever watched a movie in my law studies. If the prof. really wanted to "traditionally" discuss corporate social responsibility -- she could depend on a wealth of case law and law review articles. The fact that she has chosen a movie, tells me that she has an agenda to push.

Well, my main gripe with Michael Moore concerns his annyoing tendency to reflexively wax poetic about the joys of socialism. It might be worthwhile to point out the Sweden, the official poster boy for socialism (if ever there was one) if it were a US state would be the poorest in the union http://money.excite.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?cat=TOPBIZ&feed=reu&src=201§ion=news&news_id=reu-sta438301&date=20020504&alias=/alias/money/cm/nw
Futher, I've often heard Michael Moore blather on about how wonderful France's socialistic system is, again ignoring the fact that France's unemployment has historically been 2-3 times that of the US
http://www.bea.doc.gov/bea/ARTICLES/INTERNAT/BPA/2000/0500dpgh.pdf

TalkLeft,

Goldstock is an adjunct who teaches Criminal (not Corporate) Law.

Why not contact some of Moore's own employees? Maybe one of them could come talk to your class and let you know how Moore really feels about the proletariat. Wearing a ski-mask, of course.

The film assumes that GM, already unable to effectively compete with Japanese and German automomakers, should "prove" its humanity by bleeding its current employees, banks and shareholders dry to keep open a plant no one needed. To keep producing Pontiacs that no one wanted to buy. What does Mr. Moore think the Trolley car companies should have done when cars became affordable--kept on producing because it would be "bad" for them to stop? How is forfeiting a chance to keep the business going and its other people employed and covered by health insurance etc--how is that a "good" thing? This is how Japan got into its current difficulties. It is painful to see people laid off; but it is not a good thing to waste money making horse drawn buggies when people want Model T's.

...While I don't mean to sound flip -- corporations make money, governments have social responsibility. Am I old fashioned?

No, just sheeplike.

God forbid that a professor should call into question in even the tiniest way the structures of modern capitalism. If you don't want to think, stay out of school.

While not a direct response as it pre-dated "Roger and Me" by several decades, Milton Friedman's "Capitalism and Freedom" is a great place to start any discussion of the responsibilities of the capitalist system. I can recommend most of his other writings as well.

God forbid that a professor should call into question in even the tiniest way
the structures of modern capitalism. If you don't want to think, stay out of
school.

That's pretty much all professors do anymore. No thinking involved whatsoever. If you just want to regurgitate the same things as if it was the 19th century or some Nash cartoon with bloated robber barrons conspiring over a trust while labour is crucified on a cross of gold (this is the "progressive" world-view: unchanged for a century or more) and not think, then that's where the action is.

Exactly T. The industry I work in, iron casting production, is facing massive overseas pressure. We (the foundry where I work) are adapting into niche markets that we don't think the off shore competition will be able to fill. Those foundries that fail to adapt will not survive.

Bravo comrade alkali!

We should start questioning "the structures of modern capitalism" in every class and discipline! There is a distinct sheepishness about capitalism in our mathematics, engineering, music and medical schools.

Just so you understand: Corporations class assumes the existance of corporations, like medical classes assume the existance of human beings. The discussion you speak about is interesting, but it belongs in a political science class (or linguistics, at certain universities).

Alkali sets the tone of a response by starting off with an unconstructive insult and then says:

"God forbid that a professor should call into question in even the tiniest way the structures of modern capitalism. If you don't want to think, stay out of school."

Or, in other words: Conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections

That's the open-minded tolerance of diverse views we've come to expect from the enlightened!

No wonder many universities are an intellectual closed-shop and a close-minded one at that.

Several years ago there was an article in the Weekly Standard entitled "A Fool and His Camera." Gives plenty of history of Mr. Friend of the Little People prior to "Roger and Me", showing that he was always a fraud. Also gives info on his firing of employees who tried to join a union because he was such a terrible employer. Typical leftist, he held the objects of his wrath to a standard he himself didn't try to meet, then believed it improper to point that fact out.

Believe it made the cover, and is probably not on the web.

Eric: Not PoliSci, but Theology. Leftist anticapitalist thought has far more in common with the Doctrine of Transsubstantiation than it does with any quantifiable study.

How about Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom (either the book or the documentary TV series which still is available on VHS)? Friedman dissects in his singularly clear fashion those who suggest that corporations have a broader responsiblilty than to make money for their shareholders. His genius is that he explains clearly how society is better off (and 'social goals' are more easily met)when coroprations focus on their businesses, not on some vague extraneous 'social goals'.

Maybe that prof could show Capitalism and Freedom as a counterpoint to Moore's film. I watched C and F recently, and amazingly it has aged very well and fits right into much of the current debate on corporate regulatory issues. (But I guess it's too much to expect that kind balance in most Law Schools nowadays from what one hears....)

Many years ago, I heard a discussion of _Roger and Me_ on NPR, maybe it was Weekend Edition. The reviewer concluded that the film was unfair to General Motors. Considering the source, that's sayin' something!

I write this before reading all the comments...

I attended a 'lecture' by Mr. Moore at the University of Oklahoma. I believe George Will was also speaking on campus that evening. I will forever regret not hearing Mr. Will.

See this story about how Mr. Moore-on treats his former employees at OverLawyered (Sept. 16 1999).
The short summary: After he was fired by Moore-on, Alan Edelstein followed Michael around with a video camera. Moore-on had Edelstein arrested for stalking.

'It might be worthwhile to point out the Sweden, the official poster boy for socialism (if ever there was one) if it were a US state would be the poorest in the union.'

Nope.

_Roger and Me_ is a cliche-ridden tendentious flick. I was working in Detroit when it premiered, and the local lefty paper praised it, but my own impression was that it was rather trite (unshaven lout in dirty ballcap seeks appointment with Roger Smith; when functionary asks for a business card, said lout hands over a Chuck E Cheese's pizza club card), reductive (same lout goes to a country club in West Bloomfield on ladies day and asks a couple of elderly pensioners if they had seen Smith) and unoriginal (Moore tries to talk his way into the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club to see if Roger Smith is there). As a way of drawing contrasts in the way people live, it might make a few points, but making the point that Smith is elusive it does not.

Might as well get a Roger Moore movie for all it will teach them about social responsibility of corporations. Roger and Me is good for a laugh or two but not really anything of educational value. GM lays off people...the people have crappy lives and Roger exploits them for his own personal gain. Stepping Stones come in all shapes and sizes I guess. Meanwhile, the Republicans keep golfing oblivious to it all. There is a rabbit scene if I remember correctly where he meets some lady who has a lot of rabbits in her yard and cooks them...she should show that part for sure...that's all GM's fault too I guess.

I seem to recall someone documenting major factual errors in Roger and Me and a number of people who claimed that Moore took their quotes way out of context...I will look for it and post here...

"With the success of "Roger and Me" also came a critical rap: That he took liberties with the truth, fiddling with the chronology, for greater dramatic effect. "

Ben Fritz - Spinsanity

Oh, boy, first post & I mess it up. Michael Moore, not Roger. Just found this:

http://www.kaleo.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/07/25/3d3f346205a57

Author's 'truth' more farce, fancy than fact
Best-selling author uses inaccurate data to prove point

via Crow.

BTW, Jason, re: Sweden? Check out vodkapundit. You could be wrong.

Here's someone who's put together a web dossier on him.

http://poserpundit.blogspot.com/2002_08_25_poserpundit_archive.html#80715048

This is a depressing example of the thinking abilities of Glenn's readers. If you want to open your minds just a little, take a look at yesterday's newspaper. A pennyslvania judge enjoined the sale of Hershey Foods because of its potential effect on the local community. Good decision? Bad one? Why would this happen? Something worth debating and considering in your corporations law class? Roger&Me provides some insight into the effect corporation decisions have on the local community, and whether the corporation should take that into account. Pennsylvania and New Jersey have passed statutes stating that the corporation should take these factors into account instead of focusing merely on shareholder value, as Delaware corporation law does. Oh no. I'm getting a little too intellectual for this crowd. Michael Moore bad! Michael Moore fat! Michael Moore liberal! Ok, I've corrected it.

Moore's whole premise in "Roger & Me" is that the big bad CEo won't go on camera with Moore. But if Moore had ever called the guy's PR people, presented himself as a legit. filmmaker (as opposed to the little guerilla), I'm willing to be he could have gotten the guy to go on camera. The whole set-up was phony.

Well, I have seen the movie, though it's been a while. I agree with the lawyer; it's a movie with an overt political agenda that took dramatic liberties with the truth for effect. There is nothing wrong with such movies, but they don't belong in a classroom, especially a law classroom -- how do you construct a legal argument when the facts are suspect and there's no cross?

Points that struck me: Oprah had a town meeting with the town of Flint, which I saw. Michael Moore and the town's citizens, basically came right out and said yes, the plant was unprofitable, yes our union made it unprofitable, yes, the cars we produced sucked and no one wanted to buy them -- but that's not the point of the plant. The purpose of the factory, in their view, was not to produce cars; it was to produce jobs. It seemed to be of supreme indifference to anyone on the Flint side whether actual products were made or not.

I also met the son of one of the execs that Moore made such a big deal about not being able to contact. What he said was that it was bulls***. Michael Moore walked in off the street and asked to see an executive vice president at GM. There are a lot of people who would like to see executive vice presidents at GM, and said vice presidents are busy. You do not walk in off the street and schedule time with them. Nor do you get to see them by essentially stalking them. EVP's get stalked by a lot of people, and their response is pre-programmed. Despite what Moore seems to have believed from presumably ingesting a large number of reporter movies and novels, you do not get a "scoop" or an exclusive interview with high up executives at any company by blindsiding them with a camera in the bath or on the golf course. You get asked to leave. He was treated no differently from any other idiot with an agenda who thought that he had a "right" to speak to someone who's time is very precious. They weren't afraid of him; he was far too insignificant to inspire fear.

And as the poster above says, if he'd followed protocol, he could easily have gotten an interview. They thought he was an obnoxious nut. Correctly, it seems to me.

My advice is to use that opportunity to take a well-deserved nap.

Egads, Not again! Back in my first year at WNEC School of Law, my Corporations prof excerpted some of Moore's film(s). Fuse burning slowly, it wasn't until days later I realized "this nozzle shows up at a business with a cameraman, and then proceeds to harass some receptionist or human resources type, and were supposed to lionize him for this?" NO! One segment dealt with an attempt to browbeat Nike into assembling shoes in the U.S., as there were unemployed factory workers available for the task. If Moore was so concerned about these workers in peril, couldn't he hire them as film splicers or the like? Easier to bother others, I suppose.

As a postscript, the general consensus of the prof by the students was that she taught the class nowhere near enough corporation law.

And I'm sure it will be followed up by a documentary with the opposite point of view. What's that, it won't? Wow, I can't believe it.

And no, pj, exposing the fact that Moore is a liar and a hypocrite doesn't mean one hasn't "opened their minds." Moore's reaction to criticism shows how "open-minded" he is.

I am the law student who sent Glenn the request. My sincerest gratitude to all who posted sources, thoughts and various exhortations. Moore repulses me but having never seen the movie I intend to assess it impartially. Perhaps he has somethig wothwhile to say, even the blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut.

Dear Glen:

I am in the same class as the writer above. I too will be watching "Roger and Me", and am eager to reflexively adopt a pro-corporate position, irrespective of the content of the movie or the accuracy of the substantive claims made therein.

Could you direct me to some canned talking points that disparage Roger Moore or dispute scenes in his movie so that I can mindlessly parrot them and thereby continue to be a handmaiden for corporate power in good standing?

Thank you!!

Law school is, in essence, trade school - you pays your tuition to get the kind of training that will make you a good lawyer, the kind of lawyer that clients want to hire. If your law professors aren't doing this, you are being ripped off. If you are not in law school to be trained up into a good lawyer, what the hell are you doing there?

As a law school graduate and practicing lawyer, I can assure you that many law schools are ripping off their students by wasting their law school years with this Poli Sci crap. If you want to tear down the system, pj and soopadoopa, that's cool, but don't expect law schools to cater to your desires.

Watching "Roger and Me" will do nothing to make anyone a better lawyer. Debates about corporate responsibility are not really a topic for a corporate law class, except to the extent that these debates have crystallized into law. "Roger and Me" has nothing to do with this.

Rip both Roger and your prof a new one, I say.

'BTW, Jason, re: Sweden? Check out vodkapundit. You could be wrong.'

Swedish and American consumers don't buy the same basket of goods. You could just as easily use the fact that the Swedish poor buy more healthcare per capita (paid for indirectly through taxes) than the poor in american to "show" that the Swedish poor are richer than the American poor.

Neither is especially illuminating. I'm sticking to purchasing-power adjusted hourly wage as the best determinant to compare well-being between countries.

Sir

Your Corporation Law Professor wants to show a 13-year old film in which silly Michael Moore embarrasses Anita Bryant, Pat Boone, & Bob Eubanks. I have some other movie springboard suggestions below.

But first, is your lawschool accredited?

One of the complaints against some ghetto school teachers is that they show movies rather than teach, or show the movie made from the book rather than assign the book to be read. Didn't know that this epidemic had reached lawschool.

My considered legal opinion on your Prof's approach: res ipsa loquitur. This is a per se violation of teaching. There is no sense in your trying to discuss anything with such person.

What next, a consideration of the urban legends the pranksters send as real cases?

Further suggested movie springboards:

Evidence 101: Oliver Stone's JFK
Torts 101: Any Three Stooges or Jerry Lewis movie
Contracts 101: Treasure of Sierra Madre; Casablanca; Strangers On A Train
Labor Law 101: Spartacus
Economics & The Law: Scrooge McDuck cartoons
Religion & The Law: The Flying Nun
Military Law 101: Sgt. Bilko or McHale's Navy
Diversity Law 101 : Invasion of The Body Snatchers; The Fly.
Real Estate Law 101: Gone With The Wind
Environmental Law 101: Them
Sports & The Law: The Champ
Law & Medicine: Frankenstein
Criminal Law 101: Jailhouse Rock
Political Law 101: Adventures of Robin Hood
Accounting & The Law: The Producers
Business Law 101: Born Yesterday
Family Law 101: White Heat; Fatal Attraction; The Sopranos

Tom Comerford

A friend suggested that I was judging this issue solely on the student's presentation & that the Prof. might really be a great teacher. In other words, I should wait for "the rest of the story."

The Prof. may indeed deconstruct Moore's efforts to any conservative's satisfaction; she may raise questions such as: "Did Mr. Moore have the right to come in off the street & ask to see the CEO of a major corporation without stating a corporate purpose? Does anyone today have this right after the Terrorist Attacks on 9/01? Does anyone have the right to come in off the street at Jesse Jackson's or Ralph Nader's corporate HQ & ask to see them?

Also, can't I cut the Prof. some slack? Today's law students were weaned on TV & an occasional visual stimulus may be needed. Finally, we would hope that no Prof. would show movies in law school in place of discussing real cases as reported in official texts.

OK, I guess I was saying that I thought the student had made a prima facie case. I'll reserve judgment on this Prof. until I hear her rebuttal evidence.

Tom Comerford

PS: Moore's movie has one value for law students: It shows the need to stay focused in one's arguments; if you're attacking GM, stay away from the Anita Bryant/Pat Boone stuff.

T.