Capitalism: A Love Story

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was very impressed with the combination of comedy, tragedy, and historical explanation. Yes, there is a bit (or more) of playing to the camera by Moore himself--however, I enjoyed the grandstanding--kind of an investigative revenge fantasy to physically call attention to one of the biggest crime scenes ever. While the use of 1950s instructional film segments is played for laughs, other historical footage is literally breath-taking. My NY audience was utterly silent when we saw what FDR wanted to do, and might have done, had he lived longer. MY REQUEST, at least for the DVD version, would be to have more labels on the lesser-known political figures, so we could more readily identify the few, brave souls who spoke out in vain. I plan to see it again.

1. You know the document Hank Paulsen "forced" the top 9 banks to sign to take billions in dollars in a one page letter? Did you know it contained one sentence, "This agreement cannot be reviewed by any court" clause, putting all of them above the laws you and I have to follow or be jailed? This one minute of the film is worth the price of the ticket. It conclusively proves the corruption, fraud, and taxpayer theft going on right before our eyes by our congressional representatives. 2. Delete a few f**ks, and this would be a "G" rated movie. Why would Michael Moore accept a very undeserved "R" rating? 3. Every fact stated in the movie can be proved. So why do his critics say he lies just to make money? Every moviegoer has been affected by the facts so brilliantly portrayed. Yet they prefer keeping their heads in the sand while their grandchildren are saddled with so much phony debt. 4. Michael didn't include it, but Goldman Sachs' tax rate last year was One Per Cent of their profits. Try paying a one per cent tax rate on your earnings and see what happens. 5. See this movie and tell your friends.

I saw the movie last night at a free screening. The theater was packed and after the movie started you could not hear a sound from the audience for the rest of the two hours besides two or three times when applause errupted.

You could feel that everybody in the audience really got the message.

I only hope that Michael's parting words will come true and everybody will join his fight. As long as we are being led like pigs to the slaughter nothing will change. We have to stand up against the insurance companies, the exploiting employers, the greedy merchants, the predatory lenders. If we all say no, things will change.

I will not be punished again for pre-existent conditions, car accidents caused by somebody else, retributions because somebody stole my wallet and I was punished. I will not fall buy trash anymore which breaks in a short time and cannot be repaired. I will not be talked into buying useless gimmicks which change every few months. etc.etc.

Thank you Michael Moore, without you, I would have lost hope a long time ago.

Economics. Who in their right mind would try and make a feature length film about that subject? Michael Moore's previous work that included subjects about guns, General Motors, and George W. Bush, to the audience these were clear points for us to identify with, or in most cases, against.

In his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore attempts demystify what economics and capitalism really mean to the vast majority of Americans. This is no easy feat. I must admit the first quarter of the film had me doubting if he would secede. I am not going to sit by and say that people who took out adjustable rate mortgages and then were foreclosed are not at all to blame. They bear a good share of personal responsibility. But so do the lenders who were drooling to make a profit via the art of deception.

Soon afterwards we are presented with an example of capitalism gone awry. A judge in a US town was locking up juvenile offenders, for "crimes" such as throwing meat or criticizing a vice-principal online. The prison was a privately run corporation that was sending financial kickbacks to the very judge who was locking these kids up on absurd charges. Granted this was just one example, but a shocking one that could make you question just what are American values. This is where the film really started to get interesting. Are capitalism and Christianity compatible? What becomes of capitalism when you strip out regulation? Who actually controls the government of The United States of America, the top 1% or the bottom 95%? When the markets crashed last fall and the banks cried uncle, where was the oversight by our elected officials regarding the bailout funds?

These are questions, and some answers, that make Moore's documentary effective and engaging. While he is reflecting upon the past he is also asking us, what are we going to do about it in the future?

He took on our nation's obsession with guns in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. He took on the politics of Bush/Cheney fear mongering in FAHRENHEIT 9/11. He even took on the health care insurance industry in SICKO. And once more, the tenacious rabble-rouser from Flint, Michigan, Michael Moore, takes on the powers-that-be in a cinematic broadside that needs to be seen--CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY.

In this new opus from the man who has always gotten under the skin of the nattering nabobs of negativity on the Far Right, Moore posits some very chilling questions about our system of Capitalism: Is it really intrinsically evil? Should it be abolished? And he does so with the kind of simmering populist outrage that has been his stock-in-trade since his 1989 breakthrough ROGER AND ME (which is in fact part of the archival footage he uses here). In it, he details how America's financial system got overheated by deregulation and predatory loan practices that struck at the heart of the poor and middle class, the ones who actually make up the heart and soul of America and who are always the most vulnerable, leaving the rich to walk away with billions in taxpayer bailout money. It also shows us how corporate greed, far from enriching our lives, has actually corroded them, and subsequently corroded our political system so that the villains of this whole scheme are the same ones that buy off our elected representatives to sit there and save their sorry behinds.

But for each horror story he tells us (and there are many, make no mistake), there are stirring examples of common people standing up against the faceless corporate bullies and exercising their democratic rights (what a novel concept!): homeowners in Miami who refuse to budge from a foreclosed home; union workers in Chicago who refuse to leave their place of employment, a manufacturer of doors and windows, even after Bank of America has foreclosed; people in Congress who have finally had enough and scream "BULLS**T!" to the corporate interests.

All of this may seem like Moore is going to his usual excessive lengths to make his point, particularly when it comes to the idea of abolishing the capitalist framework altogether--a pipe dream, if ever there was one. But when doing a satirical documentary like this, a little excess can go a long way to expose some hidden truths about our country; and the fact that Moore exposes truths that we either disagree with or don't want to know about inevitably makes him a target for blind followers of the Far Right and the Palin/McCain/Joe The Plumber sect, whom Moore once again is able to skewer with their own words. And he doesn't go so easy on Bill Clinton's administration either, as several members of that administration themselves were involved in setting up the self-fulfilling prophecy that led to the near-complete collapse of the American economy in 2008.

It was Michael Douglas' character Gordon Gekko who, in Oliver Stone's hard-hitting 1987 film WALL STREET, said to the audience at a stockholders' meeting: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed works!" Well, as CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY shows, just the opposite is true. It is unrestrained greed and unrestrained fear that pushed America to the brink of total economic meltdown. And it is those same elements that have led Moore to the conclusion that Capitalism is evil. If he is wrong in his conclusion, then it is unfortunately not by much. And that is why CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY should be seen. We may not be able to abolish the capitalist system that has kept America a world power, but unless we do fundamental things now to place regulations on those that profit from greed, fear, and predatory behavior, then America may one day in the future go over the edge into the abyss with no hope to recover its lost greatness.