Regcession

2014, Politics  -   32 Comments
4.00
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Ratings: 4.00/10 from 85 users.

Government response to global warming has been mired in controversy. Are nations doing enough to curb the crisis, or are they overreacting? At the center of this debate lies the United States. Many believe the gridlock in Washington has prevented the U.S. from taking a meaningful leadership role in the fight against climate change. The producers of the documentary Regcession take a different view. For them, the actions of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have only worked to line the pockets of emerging Green Movement industries while placing the nation's economy at risk with oppressive and profit-crushing regulations.

The filmmakers contend that the U.S. is undergoing more than just a periodic recession. Amidst a tidal wave of crippling regulations, businesses are forgoing national duty by moving overseas for the promise of greater profits. This mass exodus has decimated the U.S. economy, and fostered a culture where it's acceptable for American-bred companies to abandon their own. The film asserts that these same attitudes are reflected in the U.S. government's assumed role as the world's policemen. They borrow money from foreign nations for the benefit of interests outside of their own country, mire themselves in wars that fatten the bottom lines of international corporations, and bail out auto manufacturers who continue to produce 70% of their vehicles overseas.

Regcession argues the following: Global warming is the culmination of this disastrous mindset - the death knell of the "America First" movement - and yet another ruse designed to embolden foreign corporations while the American worker suffers in poverty. The media has wholeheartedly embraced this juicy doomsday scenario, and successfully indoctrinated its dogma onto the American people.

Though its main goal may be to convert believers of climate change, the film will appeal mostly to those who already view it as a hoax. Climate change advocates, particularly those who support the efforts of President Barack Obama, will likely find much of the film's content intolerable. The filmmakers approach the subject in broad strokes, overlooking much of the evidence that supports the existence of climate change, and the overwhelming majority of the scientific community who stand behind it. Viewers may also find much to ridicule in the film's most flamboyant conspiracy theories, such as tying the movement to save the Spotted Owl to the devastating rise in opiate abuse.

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32 Comments / User Reviews

  1. Michael

    This documentary shovels the BS with two hands. It is such a propaganda piece it'll make you vomit. The so called documentary states how the EPA is keeping America down economically causing industries across America to layoff millions due to tough regulations against polluting. At the same time that America is going under, China is experiencing great economical success, thanks to companies leaving the US to move to countries that have less regulations and lower taxes or none at all. While I do tend to believe the documentary when it states that companies are moving to other nations to avoid paying taxes here in the US and higher cheaper labor in other countries, it fails to mention the levels of toxicity in China's cities and their water supply. I am sure China's government has money and resources but let's not forget that China's government is very laxed on human rights. If millions were to die in their nation due to toxic contaminates in their soil, water, and air, the Chinese government most likely would not do anything to stop the pollution or assist those affected by the pollution. Do Americans want to have air so polluted it's difficult breath? In some areas we already have rivers so polluted no one would even think of drinking from them. I used to live in New Jersey (yes I'm familiar with all the jokes) and I often went to New York City. The Hudson River separates New Jersey and New York. It is one of the most polluted rivers in the United States but it still resembles water. In one of China's cities where the Olympics were held recently (i am writing this in Aug 2018), they actually had to dye the water blue because due to over pollution the river is a yellowish color which of course is not natural.

  2. Xavier

    This is a mix of truth and propaganda. It's right ring and anti-environmental at best. However, it does raise some good questions about the American way of life versus other countries such as China.

  3. Leslie Johnson

    Wow. What a classic right wing flat out propaganda piece. At the time this was first printed (2014) the ugly head of climate change had not fully surfaced....which did not mean climate warming didn't exist, just that the effects hadn't fully developed. Today we have the physical evidence of yearly temperature rises, photographs of the shrinking ice caps, increases in devastating hurricanes, massive fires, etc. And let me say this about China....I lived there for 3 years. They are doing well and not because they are stealing our jobs, but because our corporations chose to outsource jobs to increase their profits. When I was in China, often the skies were gray. They have since (and I was there 10 years ago) reduced much of that pollution and are continuing efforts in that direction. Many people back then were using coal in their homes for both cooking and heating. That, too, is changing. They can afford to make progressive changes... we've given their people a lot of jobs at the expense of our workers. Is that China's fault? Absolutely not. Again, it was our greedy corporations. The ones today that are getting even bigger tax cuts from our government, while we, the middle and lower classes are getting next to nothing. The present government under the jerk/incompetent/dyslexic (can't read)/dangerous White House inhabitant, is now further disabling environment protections, denies climate change, believes coal is clean, increases military spending even though we out spend the next 8 countries combined, cuts social services, is trying to cut Medicare and Social Security, and have given large tax cuts to corporations. The US, today, is completely out of control. The reason why we "need to keep America safe"? Because the wars we have been involved in since our last horrible president, were and are illegal by international law (wars of aggression, per the Nuremberg Trials after WWII). I have a friend who used to work in the UN. I asked him why the US was never condemned by the UN...his answer? Because the US contributes to most money. Apparently, our corporations buy politicians for favorable legislation and the US buys no UN sanctions for its illegal wars. "The love of money is the root of all evil" and, today, the US has earned the right to be the Poster Child for that quote.
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  4. bobby

    This movie is nothing more than right wing propaganda enabling the rich and enslaving the poor for the sake of corporate profits and as such us a waste of time.

  5. Wayne

    Regulations don't occur spontaneously. Regulations occur when people refuse to play nice.
    In essence, business has been slitting their own throats.
    This video is not placing the blame in the right place.

  6. Leslie

    The road to destruction....this country is so misguided. And the people so propagandized. And where does our money go? Into war. Nothing noble about that, nor good for the people here or the world, for that matter. Love of money is the root of all evil and the US has become the Poster Child for that Biblical insight.

  7. nick

    this is total corporate ,Nazi ,environmental poisoning propaganda, please don't want this dog sh*t

  8. HokieBS

    This is such a propaganda machine for BIG OIL it's not even funny. I love when they play the anthem or God bless America, cuz ya know we're in for some shady facts. First of all, the part where they said, the U.S. is only 4% of the world's population, how could 4% affect the world's climate?...BECAUSE, that 4 % CONSUMES 25-30% of the TOTAL FOSIL FUEL ENERGY IN THE WORLD. We are gluttons consuming the world's resources at an unsustainable rate. I like how they said that warming changes wouldn't even be noticeable until 100 years from now...so just SCREW your great grandkids so you can drive your HUMMER, errrrr SUBURBAN living room down the road every day. I like the way they said that China is growing it's solar energy industry, forgetting that REAGAN basically killed it in '80 by taking the Solar Panels that Carter had put on the Whitehouse down, thereby professing his allegiance to DIRTY POWER. How they used the seed money given to solar power in American (Synerdyne IIRC) as a negative, even though they laud the Chinese for developing theirs.
    Every schill on here is part of the Energy Industry or some Republican (Koch) stink tank like Americans for Prosperity. I'd have no problem if these frackers LIVED in the fracked areas and had to drink the water from the wells in those fracked areas, but no, they're drinking Evian and Perrier in their NYC high rise far from the environmental disasters they create. Research Love Canal, Kepone - Richmond VA, Exxon Valdez, BP Gulf spill, Shell Oil Nigeria. Those disasters show how quickly corporations get INTO the environment, and how QUICKLY they get out and deny responsibility when they destroy the environment without any care for the local residents.

    SCREW the energy industry, we need to have you get your heads out of your arse and develop renewable technologies instead of the same old ways. The world is changing and it's going to take decades to convert the systems, but the Chinese, Japanese and Europeans are now beating us at the technologies we used to be best at in the 70's, solar, rechargeable batteries and wind. We have the wealth, the technology, and the educated workforce, we just don't want to be run by the same idiots that took the solar panels OFF THE WHITEHOUSE--REAGANITES.

  9. Karl Eriksen

    This is classic think tank propaganda. It leads with a bit of truth- that we are wasting a fortune on our military- but mischaracterizes this as an effort to police the world to protect other countries. It mentions that taxpayers are funding the security needs of large corporations The lies get really blatant when they talk about regulation- a lack of decent regulation of the logging industry has resulted in the old growth forests being decimated in a generation while producing very little employment. Corporate management of the resource without adequate regulation of the public asset to ensure that resource exploitation benefits the owners of the resource has destroyed the resource.

    The old growth forests of the Northwest could have easily provided full employment for all the residents in the area forever if managed in the public interest. Value added products, furniture construction, musical instruments, and selective logging practices would not only have prevented the destruction of many fisheries and watersheds, but also resulted in more jobs. Global warming has caused massive increases in infestations of forest destroying beetles. To try to pretend that overregulation in the public interest is the problem in today's America is absurdly insulting to the intelligence of citizens- sadly many are stupid enuf to believe it.

    The regulation in the public interest of the banking sector resulted in 30 years of a stable financial industry without any bankruptcies. Within a few years of Reagan's deregulation savings and loan failures began. As deregulation increased, the financial industry became increasingly unstable, run by the most greedy and criminally irresponsible for short term personal gain ultimately resulted in near total failure of that sector. This a very good example of what happens when a public resource is regulated by corporations instead of the public. T The deregulation and trickle down experiments have run their course, and they are wildly successful- but their purpose is not to increase the prosperity of the America citizen.

    The purpose is to create an aristocracy that is above the law and owns government, redesigning it as an agent of the wealthy, protecting their interests only. This entire production is designed to obfuscate and confuse people so they vote against their own interest. Obama's failures were not that he over-regulated, but that he failed to adequately regulate Wall st. He didn't arrest any of the Bush era war criminals, didn't reinstate Glass-Steagal, didn't end the wars, didn't end the Bush tax cuts, didn't deliver a public option for health care and instead implemented the insurance company's wet dream.

    The EPA failed to protect the water supply, and corporations were not regulated to prevent outsourcing to criminal regimes where slave and child labor undercut American jobs, but products manufactured under these conditions are allowed freely into the US market. To pretend that the money is in environmentalism, rather than big oil, war, pharma should be insulting to your intelligence.

  10. Thomas

    @ scubahalo... lol, calls people lemmings yet uses the term lefties. Try to think for yourself instead of just hopping on to a rather meaningless bandwagon in the former of the established political parties. Politics should be based solely on ideas, not allegiance to one of two parties with very little difference. Wether you believe in climate change or not, it is a fact that the world is being destroyed by humanity. Pollution. Deforestation. MASS overpopulation. Some things should never even make it to a debate. Not destroying the earth (the only livable one we know about by the way) should not be something decided by the simple minded masses via our democratic process. I see very little hope for humanity, and it's all more or less tied to population control. Most people don't seem to care about the dozens and dozens of freedoms that have been, and continue to be taken away from us, but they won't put up with a "life as we know it" saving reform such as limiting a couple to two kids? Maybe, maybe not. People are very selfish, and wanting to have many little you's running around, to the detriment of the earth, is about as selfish as it gets. If humanity does have a chance, it will come in the form of the bold and just, possibly willing to sacrifice ones own goals and dream for the sake of the future and life on the planet. - the logic and common sense guild. Facebook it and comment. Looking for like minded people.

  11. Ispini

    Watched part of this and had to turn it off after it dismissed global warming. Global warming is real, the earth is getting warmer. In the 70s and 80's people thought the earth would cool due to the amount of sulphur dioxide being realised into the atmoshere which actually causes cooling; but global warming happens through carbon dioxide which has a warming effect. Ignorance of these facts will ruin the earth for our children, educate yourselves people and dont listen to the uneducated idiots which tell you what to believe.

  12. Gunther

    "And yeah, the documentary says, ALL americans took immediate action after 9/11.
    And in the vietnam war, america was at "risk".."

    Yeah and the wealthy people and their government cronies did not take immediate action during the Great Depression of 1929, and the various Wall Streets scandals since 1980. Furthermore, I have read books about colonial America where many of our top economic/political people tried to avoid military service during the various Indian Wars and the American Revolution War and expect the lowest rung of our society do the fighting for them

  13. Gunther

    Winter, I think you are the one that needs to go back to school and Kathy, too many Americans have been brainwashed by Fox News and the rest of corporate controlled media about bad government is and how wonderful American businesses are. Anyone remember that the 1987 Wall Street Scandal and the Savings and Loan Scandal were also the results of deregulation?

  14. commentor

    wow pretty bad right-wing propaganda
    Anybody remember that the recession was the result of wallstreet deregulation?

  15. winter

    Methinks all of you global warming disciples protest too much. Time to go back to school, children.

  16. Kathy

    The negative comments here just prove how easily some Americans have been brainwashed by our wonderful government.

  17. Gunther

    The corporations and wealthy people were heavily regulated and taxed during the 1950s and 1960s; however, you did not see the US economy collapsing because of it, you did not see American businesses going out of business because of taxes and regulations and finally, you did not see wealthy people being put out on the streets because they were heavily tax.

  18. John

    This film is laced with schizophrenia. For example the use of "excessive" regulation and excessive "corporate greed" as both evil while ignoring the banking industry and our monetary system, designed by bankers for banker's profits which is proximate to most if not all of our problems. They have created, with the complicity of bad legislation in the us congress, as money creation scheme which keeps 99 percent of us in a state of debt slavery. Watch the "money masters" and "97 percent owned" to understand the history of how this scam came to be.

  19. Gunther

    That CEO Blankenship in the film was on trial for killing those West Virginia miners and only received one year of prison. He spent millions of dollars to undermine county, state, and federal regulations that oversaw his coal mine operations and to put pro-friendly politicians in power to keep the inspectors off his back not to mention trying to get a pro-friendly business judge elected to the court system.

  20. Qnyan

    This is the very defenition of western propaganda. Almost like this doc was made by the tea party. Always find it funny when people question global warming. The stats they pulled in this doc was so off. China for example is the leading country on solar power as we speak. Then we have the US who wanna step back 50 years in time to use more coal. Just insane! What the US needs to do is to end the warmachine that takes +50% each year and insted of invading every country with oil insted start using that money for schools, free education for everyone and creating jobs. Stop being the worlds police and stop justifying going to war. The world looks upon the US as the biggest terrorist state on earth. Peace out.

  21. Rob

    scubahalo -- as you've pointed out, you have an opinion. Science, on the other hand, has evidence. There's the difference...

  22. scubahalo

    Rob: Funny, your "scientific facts" aren't facts at all - they're strongly held beliefs based on faulty computer models (and outright fraud IMHO). But, as I said before (and here I agree with you), it's pointless to argue with true believers of a theory whether it's based on religion or so-called science. That said, I'm done.

  23. not interested

    And yeah, the documentary says, ALL americans took immediate action after 9/11.
    And in the vietnam war, america was at "risk"...

    Yeah, go to Hell! The same people who plundered the world, killed good leaders and crippled it's own people are putting those videos out there.
    As an American, you don't have ANY security, you are always in debt, the land and rivers are poisoned... From schools to medical care, the systems are prevented from doing it's job.
    And they still believe the lies about how great of a nation the people are. "We are a special breed", "We all have something in common, being american"... yea right, every human has something in common smartypants! Patriotism has brainwashed US population for generations now. From far away it's like looking at someone eating his own excrement.

  24. not interested

    That's one of the reasons everybody hates the Americans (US Americans).
    How can anybody believe this BS?
    Some asshole fascists are putting those lies and propaganda out there. And the whole world is leaving the US behind. If they just hadn't so many weapons!

    And they just don't get it. Look at those comments, they can't. It's over, their brain is spammed. Arguing feels like a waste of time against that stupidity.

    Look at those clips! The producers are trying to break down the trust in government, journalism, the justice system, and people themselves. Go live in your filth! But don't take us all down with you motherf*s!

  25. Rob

    scubahalo -- It's people like you who deny the science of climate change who are like religious creationists who deny the science of evolution. Trying to convince people like you that man-made climate change is a scientific fact is like trying to convince Ken Ham that evolution is a scientific fact.

  26. Travis Sichel

    It is true that companies just move to avoid regulations. Perhaps embargoes against companies is the answer, to force them to adhere to the regulations no matter where they hide.

  27. scubahalo

    What's the point? It would be like trying to convince a Catholic priest that there is no god. You would just dismiss any argument I presented as "insane". Same attitude the Catholics displayed when Galileo claimed the Sun didn't orbit the Earth.

  28. ThxNoThx

    @scubahalo, @Timmer - Do you have any reality-based factual information to support your arguments? If so, what is it that you know that the most (sane) people don't?

  29. Timmer

    Might watch it, even though I firmly believe that climate change is a hoax/scam just to scare people into supporting idiotic taxes like carbon taxes that only pad the coffers of the political party that forces them onto their citizens!! The only climate change happening would be occurring with or without humans since it is a natural planetary process!!!!

  30. Anon

    This is an absolute load of hos-posh of disinformation propaganda filled with half truths, lies, and misdirection factory's. Wake up america for the next 4 years we are all f*ked in the a%shole.

  31. scubahalo

    Actually, it sounds like the same old left-wing tripe you chicken little's have been spewing for decades. Climate change - the religion of lefties and other lemmings.

  32. User-1

    This is sounding like some right-wing bend on issues. Good luck on regulating pollution!