Moore

I consider Michael Moore my soul brother. Last evening, I watched his film, "Capitalism: A Love Story". If you haven't seen the film, I recommend it. If you don't agree with the politics of the film, you will still get a few laughs.

The laughs endear Michael Moore to me. He is the daring fool, the courageous bumbler, on the surface. Inside his down-home, just-another-guy exterior, Michael is truly awake to the truths of the human condition. He is wise, as well as being a wise guy.

For me, Michael's greatest service to humanity in this film is his exposure of the Ronald Reagan presidency as a coup d'etat by Wall Street. Everything political since Reagan's ascendancy in 1980 has been guided by the financiers in New York. This casts a clear light on the motivation behind the attack of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent bristling of the American government into war and internal-spying mode for the last 7 years. The paranoic response of a shadow government to the light of exposure.

The major Hollywood backing for Michael Moore's "Capitalism" confirmed my suspicion that the corruption and control of the government by Wall Street has offended even the most calloused sensibilities in America. Yet, the majority of citizens seem dulled, narcotized. Is it the high obesity rate? Is it the high substance abuse rate? Is it a societal depression? Perhaps it is all of them.

Hype-ocracy

"Economic growth is not an end in itself, but policy makers pursue it because richer countries are better able to provide health, jobs and a clean environment for their people," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Saturday in a commencement address to the graduating class at the University of South Carolina.

What Mr. Benanke left out was the modifier that those countries with strong socialist democracies, working in concert with nationally supported, taxed and regulated industries, such as Finland and Norway, far surpass other rich countries in providing for quality-of-life needs of their citizens. Of course, he was a Northern intellectual in South Carolina. He may have been afraid of being tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.

My question is: Mr. Bernanke, when you were sitting by and watching your Wall Street friends ruining the American and world economies, did you caution them about the higher values and ethics of providing for the people with more regulation and higher taxes? Or were you hedging your own political bets?

Corruption

The Republicans in U.S. Congress are now mounting a mock battle against financial reform after organizing gun-toting, bullying goons against health industry reform on the basis that the government unjustly bailed out Wall Street. Think about it. Is it about what's best for the American people? Obviously not. It is about Republicans wanting control of the graft and corruption in Congress. They will do anything to regain that control.

"In the Senate Gregg was the leading Republican negotiator and author of the TARP program, which bailed out financial institutions, while he had a multi-million dollar investment in the Bank of America." ---Wikipedia, "Judd Gregg".

Matewan

The Matewan Massacre in 1920, as depicted in John Sayles' 1987 film, Matewan, represents the struggle between corporate power and human rights. Any American who carelessly condemns socialism as evil should perhaps take the time to see this film, which is readily available in video rental shops or from Netflix.

The Matewan story speaks for itself. However, I believe the neoconservative movement within the Republican Party in the U.S. still represents the powers of blind greed and materialism which cause poverty and human misery in too many American lives today. Today's free-market capitalists are the descendants of the coal magnates who used economic subjugation and violence to maintain their profits.

They work through trading rooms on Wall Street, while their minions slash payrolls with massive layoffs, export jobs to easily subjugated labor markets and manipulate U.S. government officials to avoid regulation and taxes. They begrudge universal health care for their own population. They prop up wealthy banks and insurance companies, while those duped into buying into their schemes are turned out of their homes. They are the new aristocracy, Social Darwinists who feel they are inherently better than those they exploit. They are about winning, not about sharing.