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The Take
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Canada
DVD detailsActor: Naomi Klein DVD: Region Code 1 Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled Picture Format: 1.33:1 Running Time: 87 minutes DVD Release Date: 2006-02-21 Audience Rating: Unrated Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
DVD Reviews of The TakeDVD Review: Reflection on "The Take" Summary: 5 Stars
Reflections on "The Take" J. Alexander
I've seen this film a few times now and it remains inspiring on repeated viewings, as do the bonus features included on the disc. Not just a microcosm of the effects of globalization in Latin America, this film is a microcosm of globalism everywhere in the world and how ordinary people can overcome the extraordinary corruption and exploitation institutionalized throughout the world economy of, by, and for the corporate elitist bankers, investors, and politicians. As is said toward the end of the film, "We [Argentina] are the mirror to look into, the mistake to avoid. Argentina is the waste that remains of a globalized country. We are where the rest of the world is going."
In the 1990s under President Menem and the direction of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), social services in Argentina were reduced, whole industries were sold off to foreign firms, and backroom deals were made, guaranteed to benefit the international elites and corrupt politicians when the well ran dry from being over bled by `pigs on the wing'. No other outcome was possible, and no other outcome has ever ultimately resulted. To profit under capitalism, corporations must create scarcity (by limiting supply) on the one hand, and an unlimited supply of cheap labor on the other. So when they were unable to do this in Argentina (due to worker demands and depressed global demand), they decided to remove all liquid capital from the Argentine economy and liquidate factories and equipment as quickly as possible.
Many workers, however, though `free to starve,' chose, rather, to take their right-to-life seriously by seizing their means of earning a living. Though non-ideological, they naturally and un-self-consciously embarked on an anarcho-syndicalist adventure not unlike the kibbutzim (collective farms) of Israel.
To succeed, they had to work with the corrupt system and politicians still entrenched in their country. But most of them apparently could see that putting the factories back to work was in the interests of the whole country. Where the workers have had the toughest time is in securing any sort of credit or loans from financial institutions, and the worker-owned factories that have found lasting success have done so by nurturing strong connections with, and support from their local communities.
To answer a few of the `guiding questions', socialism and capitalism are both state-run on behalf of corrupt elites; their just two models for exploiting the people. What the enlightened workers realize is that they cannot depend on any leader of any party, because the entire system, including the so-called democratic process, is entirely corrupt and controlling. No one, for instance, should be at all surprised that Barack Obama is giving the bankers billions and billions of dollars, after the millions they contributed to his election campaign. What we all need is a truly democratic process not for sale to the highest bidder.
When the workers find themselves in control of their own remunerative destinies they learn the greatest lesson of all: (political/economic) freedom = (moral) responsibility and vigilance. Most people are secretly afraid of freedom and the responsibility it demands, and this is why most people have allowed themselves to be enslaved, in one form or another, around the world and throughout human history.
The would-be owners and rulers, like Menem and "Mr. Zanon", are forever watching and waiting for their moment. They are leaches with the heart of compulsive gamblers. Their ideal world is a casino and a pair of loaded dice; and any `system' with rules can and will be rigged to benefit them--once they get in. This is why Thomas Jefferson said that every generation needs a revolution to "renew the blood of freedom".
Not only is such a anti- or counter-globalist revolution possible in the United States today, it is absolutely necessary if we value our lives and our future. Furthermore, given the current `take' by Wall Street, I believe it is imminent. Our economy is being swallowed whole, and we are headed for an unavoidable cataclysm. But this time, although the revolution will probably not be televised by Murdoch and friends, it will happen on a global scale and succeed in the industrialized cities with universities, where workers can most easily and effectively organize, and where idealistic student activists are a short march away from campus to CBD (Central Business District).
Given current science and technology, a worker-controlled resource based economy will provide an unlimited supply of renewable energy for the cheap production and transportation of food and medicine to every corner of the world. But there's nothing in that for the profiteers -so they'll have to go.
¡Viva la revolucion!
More The Take reviews: 1 2 3
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