I really enjoyed -- if that is a word you can use when describing the satanic greed of corporations -- this work. The two authors present an exhausting history behind the lead and vinyl chloride industries and their penchant for trying to buy science and keep the public and government misinformed, decade after decade, about the toxicity of their products.

One aspect of the ongoing struggle with corporate giants that the authors point out is that these industries often enjoy immense tax relief, especially in states like Louisiana, as the following excerpt indicates:

". . . "For example, IMC-Agrico, which received $15 million in property tax relief between 1988 and 1997, was a major polluter in Louisiana, releasing 12.8 million pounds of toxic chemicals in the manufacturer of fertilizers and other chemical products; Rubicon, Inc., a chemical company in Geismar, released 8.4 million pounds of chemicals and was exempted from $9 million in property taxes; Monsanto released 7.7 million pounds of toxic chemicals, but Lousiana 'excused Monsanto from payment of $45 million in property taxes over the past decade.'" [page 275]

One can easily see the inversion of the idea of corporate responsiblity in the above excerpt. Rather than government(s) charging more to companies that spew their toxins everywhere, they charge less! It is as if the national policy could thus be expressed as "Help and show compassion to those who hate you and lie to you, and whose chemical waste products may kill you. This is the established and true way!"

Yet, as the book points out, so called "libertarian" organizations like the Cato Institute usually argue on the side of the corporations. This holds true not only in terms of human rights in general, but also in simple economics. It is the corporations who violate most egregiously the principle of a flat, equitable, and level tax (or equitable anything). I've also seen this penchant for defending corporations repeatedly in the Reason Foundation's writings. This is depressing for me, as I not only favor a libertarian philosophy, but for years voted libertarian and was a member of both the state and national parties. One is suckered into the libertarian culture by the rationality and commonsense against such atrocious policies as the drug war, and then one is confronted with the opposite of intelligence in other matters, much as democrats have suckered folks into the idea that they don't aid foreign despots (they do!), or that Republicans are for limited government (ha!).

(Fortunately, I voted for Ralph Nader in the last election).

But regardless of ones politcal sympathies and/or affiliation, this book is a masterpiece, and should be consumed by we "consumers" like the way marathon runners guzzle liquids to prevent dehydration. Enjoy!

First, I liked this documentary/humor film, and I agree with Moore on some of his key political convictions and perceptions, such as the our government's enormous bias toward rich.

Having said that, however, I would like to make a few criticisms of this film.

1) Moore makes the interesting observation that in Canada (as well as most European countries) there are far fewer gun murders (per capita I assume). Then he points out that -- oddly enough -- gun availability and ownership in Canada is still quite high -- underscoring this point by going to a Canadian Wal-Mart (as himself, an American citizen) and buying (without any problems) lots of ammunition -- the implication being apparently that Canadians must have even more availability to guns and bullets than he did. (Evidently for an American to be able to buy a gun must be more difficult, but he doesn't go into that.). So far, so good, for this shows that having guns around doesn't necessarily turn people into killers, at least in Canada. He then shows how Canada has no slums, nor indigent people wandering around, since Canada takes care of the poor and disenfranchised -- an excellent point. Thus, the conclusion seems to be that this is why Canadians don't kill each other like we do, and even don't lock their doors! Most feel "taken care of" -- and thus less fearful, even if guns are still relatively numerous. Again, so far, so good. But later in the film he seems to retreat from this thesis by implying that the real problem is -- after all -- the ready availability of guns, especially handguns, and drops the social welfare part -- especially during and after the interview with Charleton Heston. I don't get it -- is violence here due to both a) this ready availability of guns coupled b) with our callousness toward the poor, or is it just one of them? He seems to state at first that is must mainly be the latter (using Canada as a sort of proof), but then drops it. If he consistently postulated that perhaps America could drastically reduce its murder rate by leaving guns alone, and instead doing something about the enormous inequality our system promotes, maybe more people would be receptive to his message -- I don't know. Unfortunately he is vague on this, but should be commended at least for bringing the economic factor into the debate.

2) He brings up many of the foreign interventions such as our (U. S. A) overthrow of the democratically elected and very popular leader, Mossedegue (spelling?) in Iran in the 1950's, and his replacement by the dictator, the Shah. Likewise, Moore mentions many other of our imperialist crimes, like Vietnam. But when Moore mentions Guatemala, and the United State's overthrow of the democratically elected President Arbenz, he fails to mention that the dictatorship that the United States replaced him with proceeded to ban guns, limiting all such ownership to the police and military, leaving the poor Mayan population completely vulnerable. The government consequently proceeded to murder and terroize the poor for decades. Moore's argument and thesis would have been much more sophisticated if he mentioned this, and delved more fully into the issue. For Guatemala isn't the only example of fascists imposing gun control. While he briefly shows a sign at an NRA convention that shows other dictatorships that had/have gun control and gun registration (Hitler's Germany, Castro's Cuba, Stalin's Russia), he doesn't delve into it, nor mention the obvious fact of how many left-wing heros and peasents throughout history have felt compelled to use arms against murderous, thieving, fascistic governments (the Zapitistas, the Sandinistas, the East Timorese, the American Indians, etc. etc. ), and how perhaps they may have been more vulnerable if gun control had limited their ability to defend themselves.

Moore asks a right-wing radical at one point why he doesn't take Gandhi's path of civil disobedience. Moore doesn't bring up the irony of gun control: spiritual pacifism (such as Gandhi's) is supposed to be a voluntary, non-coercive, volitional choice of the individual, (or a "state of consciousness" rather than a pretentious intellectual idea), and not something imposed by the muzzle of a government gun. Although Moore is "thought provoking," he doesn't go deeply enough into this distinction between volitional pacifism and government enforced disarmament. .

3) Lastly, I feel that Moore should point out that, while European countries are generally far more "progressive" in having a welfare system for the masses, he fails to mention that many of them still are guilty of horrible imperialistic policies. England, for example, aided and traded with Indonesia during its 25 year occupation of East Timor in which 300,000 were murdered, despite being "progressive" with its own folks. Likewise, according to Noam Chomsky, "progressive/socialist" countries such as Holland, Canada, and Australia also were happy to remain Indonesia's ally (and make money as a result) despite Indonesia's blantant mass-murder policies. In addition, Canada still abuses its native peoples, robbing them of their land. Canada also imposes draconian sentences on those protesting the deforestation of its public lands. Thus, just because there are less murders in a "progressive" country, or has a more humane welfare system, doesn't mean that everything is "a-okay." Some "progressives" can still be downright murderous to other countries and peoples, even while being nicer to their own subjects, an important but neglected point . . .

Still, I enjoyed the DVD, and praise Moore for many of his perceptions. The part about Dick Clark taking advantage of the system was very good.

I read both this first book by Robert Caro and his "Means of Ascent" (Vol. II) in the early 1990's, and loved both of them. (I intend to read his newest volume in the next few months).

At that time I was very libertarian in my views, and still am. But his books helped educate me immensely about history -- some of which I had known but forgotten -- but mostly bringing fresh facts into my mind. Thus, the books helped prepare me for the more leftwing libertarian views of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn. et.al. whom I have come to love even more than the rightwing side of it (though I still love both)!

What is truly exquisite about historians like Caro -- very rare jewels indeed -- is that they never spare anyone. That is, whether they're heaping praise on someone or "raking them over hot burning coals," they don't spare the person(s)involved, nor attempt to gloss over any of their actions. He thus presents a truly remarkably accurate picture, no matter how complex, even when the two opposite qualities of good and bad are intermixed in the same bizarre personality -- like they were in LBJ. While reading his book(s), I often ended up deploring LBJ on the one hand, yet oddly being unable to resist liking the "s-o-b" at the end. It wasn't that I looked any more kindly or forgivingly on his sins (or anyone else in the book, regardless of their political affiliations), but a strange admiration intermixed with this comes through. I think in the case of LBJ, part of this is because he worked unceasingly and tirelessly for his successive accomplishments of power and position, and that is perhaps at least "something." But this also proves that work isn't equivilent to morality or goodness -- in fact, it often can result in truly evil results as well as good. LBJ's saga -- as related by Caro -- demonstrates this perfectly, I think.

LBJ was intensely ammoral and opportunistic, and Caro brings this out. It didn't matter if something was good or bad to him -- if it worked for his ambitions, he went with it regardless. LBJ thus comes across to me as being sadly very much a machine-like person, devoid of any real feelings or enobling emotions that could guide his political life. (I get the same feeling about most politicians -- actually, but usually in a less singular way. There is something oddly representative about LBJ, matched perhaps only by Nixon, in our contemporary society, that symbolizes the negatives -- with occassional positives -- about AMBITION and POWER, more so than any others.)

To convey one item which I think represents for me just how beautifully instructive Caro's biography is, and how comprehensive, I would have to bring up Caro's mentioning of Calvin Coolidge's duplicity in regard to tariffs. Caro discusses in great detail the early populist movement among the sharecroppers in the Southeast US (including the Hill Country in Texas, where LBJ was from), and how they desperately needed protective tariffs so they could sell they crops for a sustainable price. Well, Mr. Coolidge refused to sign a tariff bill into law that would help them, claiming it was against the principle of "laizze faire," yet -- as Caro then points out -- Coolidge then signed a bill raising the tariff on pig iron by 50% -- ON THE SAME DAY! ON THE BLOODY SAME DAY!!!! One thinks, "What an ass!" (One also thinks of the so-called "free-trade" of today. Nicaragua faces ((for example)) a tariff three times higher when trying to sell their products here in the U. S. than the one the WTO, World Bank, GATT, NAFTA etc. force them to set for products coming in from the United States ((In other words, there is little "free trade" in current "free trade"!)) Or one could bring up Haiti, or Mexico, or Ghana etc. etc. etc. ((This same duplicity is revealed in these international institutions forcing so-called "free market reforms" on these poor countries, such as making their respective governments eliminate subsidies for agriculture -- and then forcing these same countries to accept the same crops, that they used to grow themselves, from countries like the United States, where their cultivation is still heavily subsidized. These are such blatant and damnable double standards that it stuns the mind. And yet, it also reminds one of Coolidge and LBJ,and their double standards!))

This item (about Coolidge), and many others, constantly reassure the reader that he's not reading some partisan-driven diatribe or expose' on "just the democrats," or "just the republicans." Far from it!! One is seeing what is there, in all its ugliness, regardless of "which side" the person(s) are "on."

It was just such horrible political duplicity and betrayal that Caro is so good at describing and detailing, without any rancor or partisan nonsense. He does the same when exposing his main subject, LBJ, of course, and many others. God bless him, and his wife (who did a lot of the research for this book, I understand -- and this is partly because Caro doesn't trust anyone else! I don't blame him!)

I hope that Caro's upcoming volumes with LBJ's presidency help bring to light such crimes as the May 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic, order by LBJ, by the "Organization of American States," which removed the democratically elected President Juan Bosch, and how this invasion was tied to the financial interests of several of LBJ's closest and richest friends, like Abe Fortas, J. M Kaplan, and Adolf Berle.

Lastly, it was fun to finally see -- a few days ago (Sept. 2003) -- a C-Span program on Caro. He came across as a truly sweet and intelligent man -- with an intelligent and sweet wife! God bless them both! And may they live extremely happy, successful, rich lives, exuding and radiating integrity in all directions simultaneously!