by Lynn Foster
“The Communist Manifesto” got a shoutout during the 2020 Oscars.
Julia Reichert, the co-director of best documentary winner “American Factory,” which was produced by former President Barack Obama’s new film company, apparently quoted from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ infamous book during her acceptance speech on Sunday night.
“Working people have it harder and harder these days — and we believe that things will get better when workers of the world unite,” Reichert said.
The quote was a riff on the last lines of the 1848 political document, which are frequently translated from German as “Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
The quote was also famously one of the official mottos of the Soviet Union before its fall. Communist regimes in the last century were responsible for the murder of more than 100 million people — including tens of millions murdered by the Soviet Union.
WATCH:
Netflix’s “American Factory” comes from Higher Ground, the production company of the former president and his wife Michelle Obama. It tells the story of a Chinese company occupying a shuttered General Motors plant in Moraine, Ohio.
“Congrats to Julia and Steven [Bognar], the filmmakers behind American Factory for telling such a complex, moving story about the very human consequences of wrenching economic change,” Barack Obama tweeted following the win.
Congrats to Julia and Steven, the filmmakers behind American Factory, for telling such a complex, moving story about the very human consequences of wrenching economic change. Glad to see two talented and downright good people take home the Oscar for Higher Ground’s first release. https://t.co/W4AZ68iWoY
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 10, 2020Advertisement
“Glad to see two talented and downright good people take home the Oscar for Higher Ground’s first release.”
But there’s also a dark secret behind the “documentary”. According to Breitbart, Former President Obama played a direct role in the hardships of the workers featured in American Factory.
But the so-called “documentary” doesn’t even mention this!
Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), the former mayor of nearby Dayton, Ohio, wrote last year, the movie leaves out President Obama’s own role in making life worse for the GM workers who lost their jobs.
Obama’s auto bailout, he recalled, helped force the plant’s closure and made it harder for the workers to find new jobs because his administration was dealing political favors to its favored union allies — and they were in the “wrong” union.
Turner wrote in the Wall Street Journal last September, after the film’s release:
It’s a fascinating and at times moving film. What’s interesting about it, though, is that it never once alludes to the part Mr. Obama played in diminishing the ability of Moraine’s laid off workers to transfer to other GM plants. The president’s role wasn’t indirect and isn’t a matter of dispute: His administration’s bailout deal for GM included a backroom exclusive agreement with the United Auto Workers.
