Documentary Movie Reviews
(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)
Where to Invade Next (2015)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
8/16
8/16:
Where to Invade Next is the worst documentary yet by Michael Moore.
Don't get me wrong. I like his stuff, and they're compelling, informative, and interesting. But this one, it's the
most cherry-picked piece, leaning heavily to the viewpoint of white people. All I saw is white, white, white, white...no
blacks, Latinos, or people with disabilities.
I'm familiar with the education system in Finland and the United States' international standing
for reading, science, and mathematics. There's so much myth surrounding around them.
The first problem is the population total and the demographics of both countries. Finland inhabits 5.5 million people which
ranks in the middle of the pack among states in the U.S., a country of 319 million people which includes 39 million blacks
and 55 million Latinos. Finland? Although no official data exists, the number of black people is reportedly to be around
20,000 with almost no Latinos.
Finland has a national curriculum which includes specific objectives for each grade level that all schools must follow.
But the U.S. doesn't have it, just something vague that's individually created by states. Most classes at the same grade
level are different from each other. So, whatever the child is learning in one class of a particular subject won't match
what his brother is learning in another class with a different teacher.
Why the Finnish can succeed under the model it currently has in place is due to homogeneity of the student population.
They all share the same set of values, beliefs, culture, and language, and the students are pretty much white. This makes
education easy to accomplish. All sorts of behavior problems are literally vanished. The same can be said for
most European countries which are inhabitated by 743 million people including 7 million Blacks that's roughly 1%
of the total population. The United States doesn't have the same luxury; it has one of the most heterogeneous population
in the world.
The implication is the teachers are stuck with blacks and Latinos and they're difficult to teach due to
their language, behavior, intelligence, and cultural issues. Yet public schools are legally required to provide education
to all students, regardless of their color and behavior issues.
The fact that the Finnish teachers come from the top 10% and have a master's degree is irrelevant. Working with
white normal students will make any teacher's job super easy. But place these Finnish teachers in the U.S.'s Title I urban
schools, many will quit within one year and be desperate enough to work in schools that reflect the color of
their skin and their set of beliefs, values, and culture.
Although IQ is the most direct cause, poverty is the number one factor of poor academic achievement among black and
Latino students. They're just not cut out for learning. Approximately 20% of the students live in poverty. Finland?
It's just scanty 3%. Yet when you take away the international test scores of students living in poverty, the United States
is actually, on average, far away the best in the world for reading and math. Henceforth, it's true the U.S. has the best
schools, especially in postsecondary education, in the world, and many students from foreign countries flock to them.
However, not everything is rosy in Europe. Xenophobia, racism, racial discrimination, and related intolerance remain huge
problems in European countries. Compared to them, the United States doesn't have a racism issue; a lot of it is
largely exaggerated by the media which likes to exploit outliers that are never reported within the context.
Italy's unemployment rate has been around 11% to 12% for years, and it's steadily increasing. The United States?
It's 4.9% and decreasing. Free universal medicare and college tuition in Europe? They're paid for by exorbitantly
high tax. Sure, it costs money to receive them in the U.S., yet the Americans enjoy one of the lowest tax rates among
developed countries in the world. Most European countries take advantage of it by not spending money on military defense
that's provided for free by the United States around the world. That's why it's been relatively safe compared to
the others.
Americans won't take kindly to the idea of a murderer or a rapist going unpunished because
it creates the idea of him getting away with the crime. That's why the country locks up so many people which meets the
definition of punishment: doing time the hard way. Yet what people do not realize the U.S. is a country of second
chances. Many get them all the time which goes back to the beginning of elementary school, and once they're adult
enough to face the music, it's the final time before they're sent to prisons.
The United States is among the best countries to live in the world. It has one constitution, compared to France
which had seventeen, that has been in existence for 226 years. There have been only 27 amendments.
Social advancement is based mostly on meritocracy, not nepotism, lordships, or titles. The color of the skin
has nothing to do with it. People work hard to get what they want. The rest suffer because they don't want to put
in the effort. It's simple as that.
If Michael Moore thinks this country is so bad, why doesn't he pull up examples of countries from other continents such as
North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Australia? How about North Korea, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, El
Salvador, Haiti, South Africa, etc.? Who the hell wants to live in these shitholes given their deplorable conditions?
By the way, if everything is so good in Europe, why doesn't Michael Moore move there? Oh, right. He's a millionaire (net worth: $50
million), and he doesn't want to pay the high tax rate. What a hypocrite. He's just a capitalist trying to sell socialism.
All in all, Where to Invade Next is an embarrassing propaganda that's insulting to my intelligence.