Michael Moore is OK by Me

I saw the new Michael Moore movie, Capitalism; A Love Story the day after it opened, and wrote a blogpost about the experience. I had a few reservations, one of which was that Moore was big on condemning Capitalism as a system but was not offering anything substantive to take its place. He stirred the emotional pot and hinted at revolution and left it at that.

Today I have to eat a little crow because Michael Moore has posted on his website a very comprehensive list of specific things we Americans can and should do. His cry is not "man the ramparts", but use the phone and media to make your citizen's voices heard. Tell Congress and our President what we want and make them listen. He has a plan after all and it's not bad. I'm gonna participate. How about you?

Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite and the link. Have a look and do what you can.

FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY:

1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home.

2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is H.R. 3200 (but only with Rep. Anthony Weiner's amendment). You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises allowed.

3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826.

4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.)

5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!!...check out the rest by clicking on the link belos.

...Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now

I take it all back Micheal. This list rocks and you are OK by me.


photo from filmofilia.com

Thoughts on Michael Moore and Capitalism

I went to see the movie that Michael Moore calls his "magnum opus" yesterday. Capitalism: A Love Story is quite a film. I don't know whether to say I loved it or hated it, but I will say that it is well worth plonking down money for a ticket and a bucket of popcorn to see on the big screen.

I've seen every Michael Moore film since Roger and Me. I loved Bowling for Columbine, cheered Fahrenheit 9/11 with its condemnation of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq and approved of Sicko which took dead aim at health care in America.

Michael Moore has always been a champion of the little guy and not been afraid to criticize the powerful and greedy. I've laughed and cried with him and always enjoyed his pseudo documentary style. But this time I think he went too far. Or, perhaps I have just gotten tired of the Michael Moore formula the way I got tired of Woody Allen ( although I still think Annie Hall is one of the greatest movies ever made.)

A Combination of Karl and Groucho Marx

In Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore is a combination of Karl and Groucho Marx with a bit of Thomas Paine thrown in for good measure. These surely are the times that try men's souls and Michael Moore issues a stinging indictment not only of corporate excess( which I was expecting)but also of the entire system of free market capitalism (which kind of shocked me). The film opens with a wonderful visual comparison of the decline of America to the fall of ancient Rome and ends with a stern warning of revolution in the offing. As the credits roll, the background music playing is the Internationale( the socialist anthem) which left me thinking that Moore is expecting revolution from the left... from the downtrodden American workers with whom he so identifies and whose plight he outlines so brilliantly.

I'm not so sure. Perhaps that is what leaves me feeling so uncomfortable. I see in our current situation unfortunate parallels to Germany as the Nazis came to power. I think given the anger of the huddled Republican masses on the far right, that a Fascist revolution is equally possible.

Either way, I don't like the idea of revolution and that is the underlying theme of this film. It is not a documentary but a docu-drama and an impassioned plea for a fairer world. Like the pundits of the far Right, Moore aims at the heart and not at the mind-- a dangerous thing to do when times are tough and people are afraid. Revolutions, like wars, are unpredictable. You can start out going in one direction and end up somewhere else entirely. I have to say it scares me. Moore is sincere in his message and passionate about his point of view, but I am uneasy. It all seems a little too pat. The jokes and the irony sometimes seem a little inappropriate given the gravity of the subject....kind of like laughing at a funeral oration.

The build up to this movie has been big. I blogged an early promo some time ago. My friend Loup d'Argent has written three anticipatory posts about it on his blog Forward and Share. Internet and TV pundits have been buzzing about it like teenage girls at a sleepover for months.

I was excited too. But now I don't know. The actual film was like a shotgun blast that left me reeling. It inflamed my anger and expanded my fears. Did I love it or hate it? I really don't know,but I'm feeling scared and I'm humming the Internationale under my breath.