Capitalism: A Love Story

This movie isn’t exactly new (came out in 2009), but it finally moved up to the front of our Netflix queue. I think it’s Michael Moore’s most powerful movie yet. Here are some links.

It wasn’t as much of an emotional roller coaster as Sicko. But that’s only because the personal tragedies — and the corporate gaming that caused them — just kept coming, one after another after another, until you’re just numb. After endless scenes of families losing their homes because of the fine print on page 87 of their contract; of financial executives high fiving each other after they’ve made a few more million dollars from other people’s tragedies — all you can do is sit there in a thousand yard stare and go “Huh.”

Here’s just one example: If you aren’t familiar with the term “dead peasants insurance,” Google it. And then imagine a two-hour movie where one wretched horrifying fact like this after another comes flying at you, nonstop.

In Sicko, a former HMO employee told Michael Moore that “People don’t fall through the cracks. It was our job to push them through the cracks.” And in the larger picture, that’s exactly what’s been happening to millions of Americans over the past few decades. Every time another person gets laid off, goes bankrupt, gets dumped by his/her health insurance company, loses his/her home — chalk up another one for the Oligarchy. People are being PUSHED through the cracks; they’re not just “falling.”

After seeing so many families being driven out of their homes, union members fired with Zero notice and not even getting a final paycheck, and on and on and on, all I could think of was — why aren’t THESE people out there protesting and shouting? We get millions of teabaggers out there, mostly middle class and comfortable, all getting their panties in a twist because their taxes might go up or because some lazy parasite might get something for nothing.

Our current administration is trying to make a few tiny inroads against our thirty-year slide into feudalism, and suddenly millions of gullible inbred teapukes are out there screaming that Obama is a Communist Muslim who was born in Kenya and is going to ruin this great nation.

One elderly man who had just lost his home that had been in his family for generations, told Michael Moore: “I’m not gonna get a gun and go around shooting people. But I understand why some people are doing that.”

I understood it too, as I was watching the movie. For a few minutes I could actually relate to those news stories from the 1960s, where Communist insurgents would take over a country (usually Southeast Asia, if those stories were even true) and round up all the rich people and have them executed. Watching the endless parade of desperate Americans who had just had their world yanked away from them, I understood the hopelessness and fury that would motivate suicide bombers. People can really become so desperate, so despondent, that they’re willing to take their own lives if they can take a few of “the enemy” with them. And I couldn’t help wonder — why isn’t this happening here??? The oligarchs may be surrounded by bodyguards, armored vehicles, gated communities, “secure” office buildings — but that doesn’t guarantee anything. What if somebody placed an explosive device inside his briefcase, put on a $4,000 suit and sauntered all business-like into one of those Wall Street offices? Outsiders can’t drive into a gated community, but they can fly over it in a private plane or an ultra-light. They might accidentally crash into — or drop something onto — a private party full of Wall Street VIPs. For that matter, if the Mafia (or any other underworld group) has their sights on you, you’re toast, no matter how many armored vehicles or bodyguards you have. It’s just a matter of when, not if. I’m surprised there hasn’t been enough white-hot fury out there for some sort of organized highly-trained group to zero in on some of these…

[takes a deep breath] Well, that was a bit of a rant, wasn’t it. Time to do a little proofreading, make sure I didn’t…….ooooookay, that last paragraph needs a little rewriting. Wouldn’t want to put something like that out there on the Internet. I’ll look over this later and maybe dial it down a bit.

OK, I’ll click on “Save As Draft” instead of “Publish.” Let’s see, it’s this button over — OOPS.