Topic: The AMERICAN DREAM film, animated, on youtube (Read 8889 times)

This film would have drawn me in about 10 years ago when I was a teenager who knew nothing of how things actually work and had no understanding of history.

Lots of misguided, inaccurate information here but also some good stuff.  Like a candy covered turd, it's only good until you bite into it.

Jefferson is a great person to go quote mine from as he was on both sides of many issues and was a wonderful writer.  He was also many other things, many of them very unpleasant although he was still a great man.  Showing him in front of everyone as some powerful orator is totally historically false.  He was a very poor public speaker and actually conducted much of his presidency through writing rather than face to face meetings and speeches.
That is a minor thing, but still annoying.
 Insinuating that Alexander Hamilton was an agent of the Rothschilds lacks any historical merit that isn't on some David Ickeian lizard-people site.  Insinuating that the 1st and 2nd banks of the United States were previous incarnations of the Federal Reserve is over simplifying the situation.  Ignoring the economic collapses that occurred after the disbanding of the 1st and 2nd banks of the United States is worth mentioning.  Author pretends that it was a golden age between Andrew Jackson's dismantling of the 2nd bank and the coming of the Federal Reserve totally dismissing things that happened between 1837 and 1913 as being "glorious".  The economic meltdown under Martin Van Buren after the bank was dissolved and AJ was out of office (Google the "Panic of 1837").  Remember the Civil War?  The Progressive Era, Robber Barons, sweat shop factories, the list goes on that this movie sweeps under the rug.

John Adams mentioned that it is much easier to tear down than build up (can't find the exact quote).  And that gets to the heart of the matter: what does this film-maker propose as a solution?  Kicking Hank Paulson into a pit?  That if the Fed is dissolved that paradise will somehow follow? 

Our present problem isn't that money is 'created out of thin air' but what is done with it.  It is loaned to zombie banks on Wall St. at virtually 0% interest that go gamble with it using derivatives and high-frequency trading algorithms or loan it to people at 23% interest.  None of this creates any products or new technology or research or infrastructure.  Just money making money. 

This film argues (loosely) for a gold standard without going into any detail.  There are many problems with a gold standard, but like the other details, this film doesn't go over them.

Overall this film riles people up using quotes you’ve already heard if you’ve ever watched Zeitgeist or any Alex Jones produced film.  And there is a lot in those films that is true, but like this one, there is a lot that is misleading or false or viewed from the lense of someone who believes in the idealistic Jeffersonian fantasies regarding what government can be.

I got that linked on my webpage on the money scam, plus a few others.
You could find em on youtube but I pulled em together.
There is a good documentary called The Money Masters' that's well worth a watch.
Both  Lincoln and Kennedy were assasinated and at least one other Pre because they dared to
print Debt free money.
Kennedt issued executive order 11110 ordering the US Treasury to begin issuing Silver Backed US Treasury Bills as opposed to Federal Reserve Notes issued by the PRIVATE Federal reserve AT INTEREST to the US Govt.
Five months later, kennedy was assasinated, coincidence ?

http://harveyalexander.weebly.com/themoneyscam.html

This is a very good video. They played it at the liberty forum at CPAC, and I was a big fan.

Very entertaining, but I can only imagine how confusing this video is to the average person.  Almost every concept introduced could use some fleshing out.  Like the guy keeps asking "what does this have to do with my house?"  There's no real explanation of interest rate manipulation, inflation and deflation, the "business" cycle.  No mention of the reason for the Fed's quasi-independence (government would print money even faster than banks) and not enough mention of it's special government-like powers.  It's a difficult task to successfully marry the "evil banker" archetype with a belief in market anarchism since many people view evil bankers as a free-market phenomenon.

It's really well done, though, and would be a good candidate for a longer film.  That interview is really good too.

The DVD is being auctioned on BiddingPond:
  http://www.biddingpond.com/item.php?id=398

The filmmaker, Tad Lumpkin, was interviewed:

I wanted to thank you for bringing this movie to my attention.  It was definitely amusing and fun to watch with the pop culture references.  I see some facts/quotes are distorted and there is some conjecture but nothing more than any other documentary style movie out there.  It helps them prove a point I guess.  Thanks again.

I wanted to send the people from the movie some bitcoins, they only accept paypal.
They had never heard of bitcoin...

There has been a long time since I saw the movie but let me give you a quick list (if you are really interested in some area I can dig up and check some reliable sources about some specific period so you can take your own conclussions):

- Several of the quotes he uses on the film I found to be undocumented and dubious, f.e: Widrow Wilson saying at the end of his career that he regrets creating the Fed. It seems he never really felt sorry about it..

- During the Lincoln era he seems to imply that he was killed by the bankers because he wanted to keep printing and bankers did not want to. The reality is that the greenback was hyperinflating and the only way to avoid it was to stop printing it. Also, Lincoln approved a banking act at the end of the war that centralized the credit in the banks of New York, so bankers were happy about him.

- Then he talks about the silver thing like if it was a popular movement, when in reality it started as a industrialist thing. Actually all that part is horribly explained, and he talks about it like if it was a big crisis and then suddenly after some few years the USA has become a industrialized nation. It does not make sense, because it did not happen that way.

Etc...

As I said, if you are interested in some specific period I could look for some references so you can read and make your own opinion.

Thanks.  I fixed the link in the first post with another source to it:
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j69Ap4lndl0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hQUtitIO7A
doesn't work anymore...

Bid 2 BTC for the movie for shipping to a Mexico City, Mexico address. I really hope they offered the DVD for BTC in their website.

Can you provide some historial & economical context ? "Was horrible" doesn't say much.

Lincoln/greenback part was horrible, the tally stick part, etc... Its been a while since I watched it.

OK, so point out these parts, i am interested what was lies and what was the truth.

I myself noticed one inexactness, but i wouldn't call it a lie.

Yeah found out a few months ago (first saw Money Masters about 4 or 5 years ago) that the Federal Reserve is not just a private corporation like Federal Express afterall. It's a strange hybrid beast, neither government organization nor private enterprise. It has elements of both. Shareholders are not allowed to sell their shares for instance, or some such thing.

At one point I got concerned that a lot of this anti-bank stuff comes down to pure anti-semitism, isn't that what one of histories more notorious Austrians used to bang on about (not Fritzl, the other one), about how it's all an international jewish conspiracy. The Bankers this, the Rothschildes that. I actually asked Bill about that and he was quite clear that no, it's not about antisemitism at all, which was nice.

I remember I found it frustrating that when trying to correlate what Bill Still and Money as Debt were saying about banking and so on, it was almost impossible to talk about money and how it works without being dismissed as an anti-semite ( ) or some sort of lizard-hating loon. (see David Ike). So it took me a while to bring any kind of proper informed criticism or discussion to bear on Money as Debt and Money Masters.

The thing about economics is it's very complex, somewhere between thermo-dynamics and psychology. Take nothing at face value and ask lots of questions. Money as Debt and Money Masters gets you asking those questions, this American Dream stuff... not so much, for me anyway. Maybe coz I compare it with the other stuff too much.

Also I'm not American damnit, I want info that doesn't assume everyone lives in the US. Money as Debt is way less parochial and Americacentric than the other two. Was abit pants the way they did a pastiche of 300 at the end too, a non consistent pastiche, all over the place, was like listening to a beautiful song being ruined by a confused drunk with delusions of grandeur fresh from a botched tonsillectomy.

No. Simplification is alright. I am talking about distorting history and outright lying. Part of the film is legit, but other parts are simply wrong. That does not mean central banks are fantastic neither.

I wouldn't call it lies - that would be an overstatement. It is just not very precise.
The movie itself is just adjusted so that the masses can understand how the system works without too much thinking, and it does that well. For the ones who want details, they can study Wikipedia, books, or watch other movies.

Money as debt is better though. But i have also met people who said that "money as debt is lies" because "it is more complicated than that". But in it's core, both Money as debt and AMERICAN DREAM are right. Central banks (and generally banks in today's sense) are here to steal from us and make us slaves. As simple as that.

I use to love Bill Stills films, specially The Money Masters, until I started studying real monetary history. The movie is a mix of truth and blatant lies. Big disappointment.

I would rather pay money to the site if they publish a bitcoin address or paypal or something themselves. I do not want to send money to someone random spotted on forums.

I resemble that statement!    


BTW, Bill Still's Speech at Bromsgrove 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrV84FZ_4G4