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Friday, October 16, 2009

Capitalism: An Open Letter to Michael Moore

Curse you Michael... for being an unapologetic cheat. You do this every time, and it kills me. You do a ton of quality investigative reporting and great interviews, you stage impressive public demonstrations... and then you make conclusions that are populist rhetoric crap with no substance. It just kills me.

Yes, by all means... let's get rid of capitalism (as you suggest) and "Replace it with democracy." What the heck does that even mean Mr. Moore? Are you saying we should get rid of banks, private property, the marketplace, Wall Street, and Amazon.com and replace it all with public forums where every citizen gets one vote? That makes no sense. How do you replace an economic system with a decision-making system?

I suppose you probably meant, "Let's tear down this plutocracy with massive rebellion and put the power back in the hands of the people." But that's not democracy... that's revolution. And if you're ballsy enough to state overtly that "Capitalism is evil"... it's hard to imagine you're afraid to openly say "Let's get the revolution started." But, most importantly, you dodged the question. Just what are we supposed to replace capitalism with? Democracy doesn't cut it. That might work for the angry masses... but when you rally people with false ideas, you're little better than the petty dictators that constantly rise and fall in unstable regions of the world... each one promising the people liberation, but delivering just another flavor of genocide, servitude and torture.

Maybe what you were trying to say is, "Let's replace capitalism with socialism!" That would have made sense. It would have been consistent with your stance that Canada and Europe have better health care models. It would have given you an honest platform to stand upon. You could have allowed for continuing the banking system, the investment process, the practice of small business ownership and a competitive marketplace. All these things can happily exist within socialism... there are just more protections and regulations. You definitely waxed nostalgic for the Roosevelt administration: when taxes on the richest class of people were significantly higher, protections for unions were significantly better, and the ruling class seemed to understand the value of wealth redistribution. Well, that was still capitalism. There was just a better class of people at the highest level of government.

Your chapters about the moral bankruptcy of our leaders was interesting. I never expected you to get two priests and a bishop to agree that capitalism was "evil". It wasn't until I read Mountains Beyond Mountains, a book about Dr. Paul Farmer's work in Haiti, that I even considered Catholicism as anything but a force of tyranny by bamboozlement. That book introduced me to the idea of "liberation theology"... that many of the priests and nuns in devastated parts of the world are staunch advocates of the poor in the face of hostile governments. The idea that the Catholic priesthoods of Chicago and Detroit have become the same thing (an ally to the poor in a forsaken land) is... compelling. I'm not sure I'm willing to completely buy this line... but I'm interested in hearing more if you need an idea for your next movie. And I hope to God that you weren't suggesting we replace capitalism with theocracy!

I still love you and your work Michael. I wish you'd quit cheating, but you're the only one putting this much humor and style into these kinds of documentaries and I've appreciated all of them. You may never produce another one quite as brilliant as Bowling for Columbine or Fahrenheit 911, but I'll still be giving you my dollars at the box office... it's the capitalist way.

By the way... I thought that this was the most effective 58 seconds of the whole film:


This snippet makes your central point about government being hijacked by the banking industry better than any of the anti-capitalist rhetoric.

Update:
I found this audio interview between Howard Stern and Michael Moore on Youtube. The clip should auto-load parts 2, 3, 4, etc. In the interview he discusses his motivations and relationship with capitalism in greater depth... and in an uncensored fashion. I found myself appreciating his work even more as I listened.

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Saturday, October 03, 2009

Ode to a 1984 Audi GT Coupe

Back to square one. My foray into "writing a whole song" was a whole lot more work than I imagined... and terribly frustrating... so I'm back to writing fragments. Today's is a simple meditation on the gold Audi that I owned during my undergrad years in Olympia. If I'm stretching myself in any way here... it's probably in the pacing. This tune is a little faster than my typically glacial bpm. But not so fast as to get a speeding ticket.

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