Documentaries serve an important purpose by educating the public on matters that impact their lives on a daily basis. It is vital that we all remain vigilant and enlightened about the people in power and the decisions they make, particularly because those decisions directly affect us on some level.
Here is a list I compiled of the documentaries you must watch.
Inside Job(2010)
This documentary is about the late-2000s Financial Crisis and the series of circumstances that led up to it. It is a riveting film and goes into such shocking detail about the various levels of corruption within the financial industry in the United States and the effect the has rippled not only throughout the US but the entire world.
The film explains all about the financial industry becoming deregulated and how that led to there being only a handful of very powerful investment banks throughout the 2000s. It also goes into detail about the sub-prime mortgages, which we all became aware of by late 2007.
One part that is surprising is that just before the government bailed out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, they had a credit rating of AAA. This was the same for Lehman Brothers, which also fell into bankruptcy. What is even more surprising was that the very top executives of these now ruined investment banks left with their fortunes unaffected.
Deregulation has become a serious problem, not only with regards to the financial services industry but with the health industry as well, as you will see with the next documentary on the list.
Sicko (2007)
This 2007 documentary by Michael Moore illustrates the problems with health industry and its effects on the American people. In this film he tackles the health industry, focusing mainly on health insurance and the misfortunes of the people lacking in said insurance.
What I particularly like about Moore’s documentaries is that he shows the true effect of corruption and deregulation by illustrating the outcome at its most basic level: those earning minimum wage. He shows the hardship of certain individuals by going into such detail and making you, the observer, feel like you know that individual and the frustration they feel.
No surprises that the health insurance companies became privatized and deregulated, but what I found surprising was the comparisons of the American health industry to other countries such as Canada, UK and France, all of which have Universal Health Care systems. What was terribly disturbing was the fear mongering created by records, narrated by Ronald Regan, and distributed by the American Medical Association during the 1960s. In these records, Regan spoke about how universal health care would lead to socialism and therefore a loss of individual freedoms.
The Shock Doctrine (2009)
Originally a book by Naomi Klein, this short film basis itself in the free market theories of economist Milton Friedman and expands to show how his theories have been used by governments for economic gain.
It starts out explaining how electric shock therapy is used to alter patient’s personalities and then moves on to illustrate the use of economic shock as a means of achieving a certain economic goal. According to Klein, this is done by the practitioners of economic shock creating a leveled foundation upon which to develop their ideal free market economy.
It goes into great detail and provides various examples, such as the economic alterations of the South American countries, such as Panama and Chile, during the 1970s.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
A riveting documentary by Michael Moore, it seeks to make a connection with the Columbine High School Massacre and gun control in America.
There are so many aspects to this film. It does go into detail about the Columbine killers but more so into other aspects. There is the facet dealing with why we are a violent nation and whether that has to do with our bloody history or the fact that we have a large amount of guns in the public, or both. The documentary manages to tackle a lot of ideas but narrows down to something I agree is the root of the problem: gun control and particularly the association for protection of the Second Amendment, the National Rifle Association.
Even though the Supreme Court has ruled that the term “keep and bear arms” refers to private citizens, there has been much criticism from lawyers and historians who say that term only refers to militias.
One surprising aspects of the film was where Moore opened up an account at a bank in Michigan and a free gun was given. This was the bank’s policy. Free gun for opening a bank account.
That is my list. A few other documentaries I would recommend are: Fahrenheit 9/11, Gasland and Freakonomics.
If you have one that I missed, leave me a comment. I would love to know.