[Peace-discuss] Paul Street and Moore's film

[Morton K. Brussel]

We went to see Michael Moore's film Capitalism, A Love Story, playing  
at the Art theatre, and highly recommend it. It is not great cinema,  
even as a documentary; it is not uniform in capturing one's attention,  
but over all it succeeds in delivering several strong punches at our  
current economic system and, even when going perhaps overboard with  
Moore-esque devices, is informative and entertaining with its  
interviews and episodes. It is especially powerful in its later  
scenes, including a clip of FDR's speech at the end of WWII.

Don't be put off by less then enraptured reviews.

Unfortuately, Moore lets Obama off the hook, and for a copious and  
trenchant analysis of the film as it relates (or rather fails to  
relate) to Obama, read Paul Streets piece on ZNet,

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/22823

Paul ends his article:

…Of course, Moore isn't just some silly, burned out campus-town  
liberal with an Obama bumper sticker in which the first letter of the  
president's last name is written (a la Orwell) as the Peace symbol.  
He's an influential "left" icon, someone whose opinions hold water  
with a considerable part of the nation's progressive citizenry.

When Moore gets (involuntarily or voluntarily) "punked" and  
"bamboozled" by "Barack," so do untold masses of much less culturally  
privileged and empowered Americans (and others) who watch his movies  
and follow his spoken and written commentary on his Web site and in  
numerous interviews on television and radio.

It's nice and important to see him tackling the problem of capitalism.  
The human race's viability probably can't survive more than another  
two decades of the profits system. It would be nicer still to see Mike  
understand Capitalism: A Love Story" as the beginning of a genuinely  
radical new phase in his movie-making, not a moment for shoulder- 
shrugging resignation, and to see him dramatically upgrade the moral  
and intellectual level of his understanding of the Obama phenomenon  
and presidency.…



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