Bill Gallagher
May 6, 2009 - Smirking Chimp
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Michael Moore, the Academy Award winning filmmaker and disturber of the peace for the powerful, is preparing a scathing assault on America's economic system with his new film set for release in October. As usual, Moore pulls no punches proclaiming the three things wrong with capitalism: "It's anti-Jesus, it's anti-democratic and it just doesn't work."
Moore previewed the themes in the film during a speech last Saturday at a Michigan Peace Team dinner and fundraiser. The MPT trains ordinary citizens in the creative use of nonviolent conflict interventions and the origination has built an admirable record working in troubled spots of the world such as Bosnia, Palestine and along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Father Peter Dougherty, a Catholic priest and a founder of MPT, is a long time friend of Moore's who introduced him as a man with "a passion for justice" and reminded the audience that the Flint, Michigan native - who is a lightning rod for right wing rage - is "very real" and "what you see is what you get."
I can vouch for that. I met Michael when he was poor and obscure and we've been friends for nearly 25 years. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Moore's first film, "Roger and Me." I had the privilege of helping to collect some of the video used in the film and made my silver screen debut in an excerpt from a news report where I stood in Flint describing the devastating impact General Motors' plant closings were having on the town where the giant corporation began.
"Roger and Me" was a seminal piece of filmmaking, revolutionizing the documentary genre. As Moore said in his remarks, the film was not really about Roger Smith, the late GM chairman who squandered billions of dollars in non-auto business fiascos, nor was it about Michael and his zany quest to confront the isolated and aloof executive. The film was about "an economic system that is unfair, unjust and not democratic," Moore said.
"Roger and Me" was prescient and prophetic and, had General Motors and the other domestic automakers paid attention to its message instead of denouncing Moore as a grandstanding trouble maker, they might be in better shape today.
As Chrysler plunges into bankruptcy and General Motors could soon follow, Moore reminded us that GM "has brought about its own demise." He recited the corporate legacy where "They have fought everything good for the planet and good for people." At one time GM opposed rear view mirrors and turn signals and "dragged every step of the way to build safe and fuel efficient vehicles."
Moore blasted the years of planned obsolescence in U.S. auto making where the martini sippers who ran the companies decided, "Let's build a piece-of-shit vehicle that will last three years." In the short term, that strategy lined the pockets of the executives that forged it, but long term it perversely branded American products as poor in quality even when they had improved. That "arrogance and greed drove Detroit where we are," Moore sadly noted.
Moore's films are timely, poignant and pointed - made for people to understand what's really happening in the world rather than the bland, sanitized and ultimately distorted messages the mainstream media feeds to the uninformed.
"Bowling for Columbine" showed how a gun-worshiping society spawns promiscuous violence and human degradation. Moore's microphone was shut-off and he was booed off the stage as he used his Academy Award acceptance speech for "Bowling" to denounce the war in Iraq which began five days earlier. The blood still flows in Iraq six years later; the war is a recruitment gift for Islamic revolutionaries. Moore had the guts to speak the truth and those who booed him should feel shame today.
"The president lied to invade another country," Moore said. "Is there a greater crime than that?" He called the war a "black mark on the American soul" and asked, "What do we have to do to redeem ourselves?"
"Fahrenheit 911," Moore's brilliant film about George W. Bush, his exploitation of the Sept. 11th attacks, and the rush to war in Iraq, will become a standard in high school American History classes used to help students understand the madness that gripped this nation.
"Sicko" exposed the failures of a greed-driven health care system where even those with insurance suffer and are denied basic coverage. Moore dissected a failed system that costs twice as much as anywhere in the industrialized world while falling behind "Third World" nations in basic health measurements such as life expectancy and infant mortality rates.
Moore's newest film project pits him against American "banksters", the crooks in suits responsible for "The largest robbery in the history of the world." That's not hyperbole. Look at the numbers.
Moore calls the evolution of unbridled capitalism in America, "The beast." He sees these money-addicted bastards - with their indispensable allies in politics - coming up with trick after trick to lure and push working-class people into economic slavery locked in "the chains of debt."
The banks are the "new conquistadors", who brought slavery to the Western Hemisphere and committed genocide on many of the native peoples to accelerate a rapacious and bloody capitalism aimed at amassing unrivaled wealth. The methods are different, less openly brutal, but the enslavement is similar.
Moore argues that wildly expanded credit offered to those unable to afford it, usurious interest rates for credit cards, costly student loans that force recent graduates into low-paying jobs to pay back the banks, home equity loans, mortgage refinancing, and the whole sub-prime scam suck up the limited resources of working people and pump the proceeds into the pockets of the already filthy rich.
Moore sees the dream world of George W. Bush's "ownership" society - where Americans rely on 401 k accounts as a substitute for employer-employee supported fixed pension benefits - as a disaster, that would have been devastating had Bush succeeded in his mad quest to funnel Social Security payroll taxes into the stock market.
"Enough" is the dirtiest word among the rich capitalists who've been gaining a greater share of our total national wealth since 1980, when Ronald Reagan first came into office, while their tax burden has been reduced significantly. The debt-financed tax cuts were passed out to wage earners who accepted Reaganomics, as Moore contends, in a bizarre social contract where "the oppressed believe the oppressor is their friend."
Moore showed a snip of the trailer for his new film (rumor is it's titled "Bailout" but he's not saying) where he's looking into the camera wearing his signature baseball cap, making what sounds, at first, to be a sincere appeal to help those suffering in the economic melt-down.
He's holding a coffee can, asking for donations. Then - with a straight face - he pleads for money for Bank of America, Citi Group and the other suffering banks. The label on the can reads: "Save Our CEOs."
The film is being shot in Michigan and Michael is secretive about the project because, he said, "I want to live to finish it." He quipped the Bush people he took on were "pretty dumb" but the "banksters" are smarter, and even more ruthless than his earlier adversaries.
Reporter Amy Lange and her husband, photographer Michael Shore, are friends and colleagues and vigilant voices for the suffering in our society. Amy ably served as emcee for the packed crowd at MPT's "Evening with Michael Moore."
Amy and Mike are preparing a visual and narrative display for Marygrove College in Detroit called "Portraits in Social Justice," Michael Moore among them. Shore's compelling photographs of these committed people present faces etched in high purpose.
After his speech, we ushered Moore into an adjoining room where Shore had to shoot some photographs of him for the display. Moore already had a long day shooting his own interviews for his upcoming film.
As Shore got him to pose, he hoped for a serious expression and asked Moore to think of Dick Cheney. Moore obliged, looking somewhat severe, while never fully suppressing the ever-present twinkle in his eyes.
He is an extraordinarily creative communicator who breaks down complex issues into understandable human stories. He is an exceptional filmmaker and the most effective social critic of our times.
Like Mark Twain, his predecessor on this American stage, his wonderful wit usually wins the day. And also like Twain, my old friend Michael Moore's greatest gift is that he knows and shares the awful truth.
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Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News.
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