Roger Moore has an ability to touch a funny bone but at the same time to capture the irony and ambiguity of our capitalist system. He's told by a straight-faced lobbyist for GM that it's OK that CEO Roger Smith gets a several million dollar increase in salary while people are getting evicted from their homes in Flint, MI. It's good, we're told, that businesses make money. That's why they're in business: to make money, not to provide social welfare. The lesson is lost somewhat in the feeble attempt to instill the great "entrepreneural spirit" that made America great in a dying community. Moore's persistence to get to Roger Smith is neatly blocked at every path, until the final episode when they crash the Christmas party and get more sympathetic blather about how dreadfully sorry they are, but, (as we can infer from having seen The Godfather) "Nothing personal. Just business." We can see that point of clarification on where the sympathy of the Roger Smiths had such a great impact on the mother getting evicted from her home on Christmas Eve. Angry, foul-mouthed? Yes, she was...and in sharp contrast to the oily smoothness of Roger Smith when he looks at Michael Moore like I used to look at cooked spinach when asked to go to Flint to see conditions there.
Moore's messages are often attacked as being "socialist," as I saw in a recent posting of a review of his recent Fahrenheit 9-11. Worse, "communist," said another, contending MM should be jailed for treason and his film(s) burned. I must confess that much of what he said rings true with the old signal tocsin from my earlier Red-baiting days in the 50s when calling someone a "commie" was worse than suggestions about the questionability of their parenthood. Yet, the stark reality of seeing communities gutted by "down-sizing," and the desperate hopelessness of laid-off workers being evicted from their shabby homes is sobering. We're faced with the questions of why do we endure the tragedies of having our production forces shipped off-shore to enhance the profits of corporate management and the stock-holders at the expense of our own labor force? We're going to pay one way or the other. The social costs of out-sourcing are more costly to us as a society than any trickle-down benefits gained by upper management and large corporate stockholders. We pay, they play. And, we should acknowledge a debt to this unkempt, shaggy bear of an obnoxious man who's not afraid to shove a mike in the face of these moguls and giants of industry who are asking us to pay for their pleasure.
Moore's messages are often attacked as being "socialist," as I saw in a recent posting of a review of his recent Fahrenheit 9-11. Worse, "communist," said another, contending MM should be jailed for treason and his film(s) burned. I must confess that much of what he said rings true with the old signal tocsin from my earlier Red-baiting days in the 50s when calling someone a "commie" was worse than suggestions about the questionability of their parenthood. Yet, the stark reality of seeing communities gutted by "down-sizing," and the desperate hopelessness of laid-off workers being evicted from their shabby homes is sobering. We're faced with the questions of why do we endure the tragedies of having our production forces shipped off-shore to enhance the profits of corporate management and the stock-holders at the expense of our own labor force? We're going to pay one way or the other. The social costs of out-sourcing are more costly to us as a society than any trickle-down benefits gained by upper management and large corporate stockholders. We pay, they play. And, we should acknowledge a debt to this unkempt, shaggy bear of an obnoxious man who's not afraid to shove a mike in the face of these moguls and giants of industry who are asking us to pay for their pleasure.