Capitalism: A Love Story
There are many things which need to be said, but which Michael Moore, by his stunt antics and controversy-inspiring reputation, risks driving people away when he says them.
This is actually the first Michael Moore film I've seen, and I think it's pretty good. It starts off a little shaky, though the introduction about Rome was cleverly done, and the film builds up well to tell its message. Its momentum is broken at a couple points by some of Moore's stunts --I think they're supposed to be comic relief. But overall, it works.
Early on it implies the rise of exploitative corporatist capitalism is relatively recent, coming under Reagan's presidency. The history of wealthy private interests turning the institutions of government to support their ends goes back farther, including the impetus of most of the U.S.'s less well known and less celebrated wars. I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact, but Moore does not delve into this history, nor are the names of any recent or classic critics of capitalism to be heard, nor any interviews of the same. This gives the film a certain quality, as a liquid suspension of moral appeals filled with free-floating facts. Long on facts, short on history. It works, but I can't be sure it's the best way to make a documentary. In particular because it doesn't provide so many useful hooks for viewers to go on and find out more for themselves. The bibliography is a truly critical part of any informative piece, whether written or filmed.
Left-but-not-too-left people often come off as too forgiving and supportive of Democratic Party politicians, seeing them as the good guys merely for being less obvious supporters of corporatism. The film shows a little of this tendency, but does show how prominent Democratic Congresspeople capitulated and sabotaged the mass popular opposition to the bank bailouts.
Moore asks several priests about the moral nature of capitalism. (Answer: it is an evil to be eliminated.) He presents both his own Catholic faith and the words of the American founding fathers as in opposition to capitalism as practiced. The Catholic Church has a sordid political history, with the hierarchy of the Church often supporting reactionary and fascist leaders and causes. But there is also a history of priests working with the people against these powers. In this way Moore illustrates the conflict between unadulterated capitalism and the radical teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
The film also explores co-ops as a valid alternative to the power-profit system of corporations. It shows us a successful American electronics manufacturer and a baked goods producer where every worker is an owner -not with a mere stock option, but an equal-share-owning decision-maker for the business. This part isn't given as much time and attention as it deserves, Moore should show viewers more about cooperatives, participatory economics, and other from-below alternatives. Worldwide, there are actually millions of people who have gainful employment through co-ops. The film could also use some mention of credit unions as a contrast to banks. As Ralph Nader noted when the news was focused on the banks in collapse, the credit unions were generally doing just fine.
Moore seems to take the change and hope message of Obama's electoral campaign at face value (a message numerous left and independent sources in my observation were skeptical of even then.) Seems to. To his credit Moore actually focuses on the direct action from below by people inspired by the message, rather than on any alleged change from above through the administration. He highlights actions such as the taking of Republic Windows and Doors in a strike, community actions directly resisting home foreclosures (not rallying around a government building, but rallying around the bank's agent and the local police as the family moves back in), and a Sheriff's decision not to enforce or allow foreclosures in his jurisdiction. This is the film's closing argument, intended to inspire we the people watching the film to further actions.
See the movie. But don't stop at the movie. Take its message to act, but inform yourself further to understand the context of the problem and the available solutions.
A few helpful google terms: the shock doctrine; economic hit man; Friedman and Pinochet; mutual aid; Noam Chomsky; participatory democracy; Edward Bernays propaganda; Walter Lippmann public opinion
20091014
20090713
there'salwaysone
Happens every time there's a discussion somewhere about gay marriage. Hell, I did it myself a few times. Some clown tries to dodge the whole issue saying, "well we should just do away with all marriage, get the government out of the marriage contract an just let churches and couples do what they want."
It's nice for you that you've found a way to pretend to have such an original and edgy interpretation of things -as opposed to just imitating every other a-cap* who says the exact same thing. But here's a little human compassion test for you: you're in the voting booth, and there's a referendum with two choices, keep government marriage restricted to straights, or extend government marriage to include all committed couples. Which society would you rather live in?
There are some problems with the "marriage is just a religious institution, leave it up to the churches" take. Specifically, that marriage was not just a religious institution. It was a civil institution used to formulate alliances and property management schemes. It was very often performed by priests of one stripe or another, but never exclusively by priests, and "priest" has always been a community/social role first, with any actual communications with otherworldly spirits being secondary at least in a time management sense. Marriage was adopted as a sacrament by the Catholic church as they became the official church of the Roman Empire, but even that didn't make it into an exclusively religious thing. Moreover, in terms of social evolution and community standards, marriage has been extended and translated into a commitment to romantic love and mutual support over the last century or so, which has pushed the institution further and further away from an exclusively religious thing.
I've heard from several people over the years that marriage itself is outdated, or not appropriate to the type of relationship they have, and that's fine. That's further evolution of the idea and eventually new forms of social convention and institutions will develop to account for that. Meanwhile don't throw a whole social/cultural complex back to the faith healers and witch doctors, and don't sacrifice it to the dogmatic belief that government is something wholly other and distinct from all other forms of human social organization.
*a-cap = anarcho-capitalists, pseudo-anarchists (usually not actually posessed of capital nor practicing capitalism themselves) inspired by the likes of Rothbard and Von Mises, believing that pure laissez-faire is the foundation of universal competitive enrichment
It's nice for you that you've found a way to pretend to have such an original and edgy interpretation of things -as opposed to just imitating every other a-cap* who says the exact same thing. But here's a little human compassion test for you: you're in the voting booth, and there's a referendum with two choices, keep government marriage restricted to straights, or extend government marriage to include all committed couples. Which society would you rather live in?
There are some problems with the "marriage is just a religious institution, leave it up to the churches" take. Specifically, that marriage was not just a religious institution. It was a civil institution used to formulate alliances and property management schemes. It was very often performed by priests of one stripe or another, but never exclusively by priests, and "priest" has always been a community/social role first, with any actual communications with otherworldly spirits being secondary at least in a time management sense. Marriage was adopted as a sacrament by the Catholic church as they became the official church of the Roman Empire, but even that didn't make it into an exclusively religious thing. Moreover, in terms of social evolution and community standards, marriage has been extended and translated into a commitment to romantic love and mutual support over the last century or so, which has pushed the institution further and further away from an exclusively religious thing.
I've heard from several people over the years that marriage itself is outdated, or not appropriate to the type of relationship they have, and that's fine. That's further evolution of the idea and eventually new forms of social convention and institutions will develop to account for that. Meanwhile don't throw a whole social/cultural complex back to the faith healers and witch doctors, and don't sacrifice it to the dogmatic belief that government is something wholly other and distinct from all other forms of human social organization.
*a-cap = anarcho-capitalists, pseudo-anarchists (usually not actually posessed of capital nor practicing capitalism themselves) inspired by the likes of Rothbard and Von Mises, believing that pure laissez-faire is the foundation of universal competitive enrichment
20090507
centercannotstand
I came across a snippet mentioned in passing in Casey Jones' political humor column in the Trib from Sunday. Some googling brings up this:
In an e-mail sent Wednesday to the 168 voting members of the committee, RNC member James Bopp, Jr. accused President Obama of wanting “to restructure American society along socialist ideals.”
“The proposed resolution acknowledges that and calls upon the Democrats to be truthful and honest with the American people by renaming themselves the Democrat Socialist Party,” wrote Bopp, the Republican committeeman from Indiana. “Just as President Reagan’s identification of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’ galvanized opposition to communism, we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism.”
The resolution, proposed by a committeeman from Washington state, was agreed upon by 16 RNC members from 16 different states and is part of a petition asking RNC Chairman Michael Steele to set a special committee meeting next month when the state chairs meet in Washington, D.C.
I think it's kinda funny. The Republican leadership has been attacking their own moderates because they've moved so far right that anything too close to the realms of sanity looks like the October Revolution to them.
I'd be all for the name change if the Democrats even halfway resembled democratic socialism. (Which covers a number of diverse viewpoints, all a far cry from the imagined resurgent Stalinism the Republicans think to define their goodness by their opposition.) In realms closer to reality and fair judgment, the Democratic Party is pragmatically centrist and has been so for a long time. They play host to some people with real leftist views who don't have anywhere else to go if they want influence, but most of these people are successfully corralled to pose no risk of actually upsetting the status quo. If there was Hope in President Obama's campaign, I held some glimmer of hope he might be one of those who successfully broke free, but I don't think that's really likely anymore.
Pragmatism means Democratic Party will occasionally be on the right side just because being seen to be right can be good for the party. So for example, in the sixties they placed a bet on which way society was moving and shed their Southern Dixiecrat stronghold to attract black voters. Likewise, though I hope they've underestimated the pace of social change, they've mostly aligned themselves with the right side of the gay rights movement.
Of course the Republican Party has not usually been less pragmatic. The current Republican leadership is blinded by devotion to the holy trinity of neoliberal economics, neoconservative foreign policy (and those two are very intimately linked), and evangelical Dominionist social values. This is a temporary holdover from what probably was a very safe bet in the later decades of the 20th century. The Clinton Presidency likely should have been an alert that the third point of that trinity wasn't as safe a bet as they thought, but Clinton didn't vary much from the first two points, and Republicans missed the lesson. And having the 9/11 card to play during Bush II meant they didn't think they needed a lesson. This all will change, and the Republicans will very likely return in coming years once they find a new center. (And finding a new center won't necessarily mean "moderate" just different from what they are now.)
Pity, I'd rather like to see the Republican Party weld itself inescapably to the wrong side of something like gay rights and be ground to nothing by the course of history. Ideally something would lead the Democratic Party to schizm and implode at about the same time and then maybe we can ban parties from the political process.
Change; I can always Hope.
In an e-mail sent Wednesday to the 168 voting members of the committee, RNC member James Bopp, Jr. accused President Obama of wanting “to restructure American society along socialist ideals.”
“The proposed resolution acknowledges that and calls upon the Democrats to be truthful and honest with the American people by renaming themselves the Democrat Socialist Party,” wrote Bopp, the Republican committeeman from Indiana. “Just as President Reagan’s identification of the Soviet Union as the ‘evil empire’ galvanized opposition to communism, we hope that the accurate depiction of the Democrats as a Socialist Party will galvanize opposition to their march to socialism.”
The resolution, proposed by a committeeman from Washington state, was agreed upon by 16 RNC members from 16 different states and is part of a petition asking RNC Chairman Michael Steele to set a special committee meeting next month when the state chairs meet in Washington, D.C.
I think it's kinda funny. The Republican leadership has been attacking their own moderates because they've moved so far right that anything too close to the realms of sanity looks like the October Revolution to them.
I'd be all for the name change if the Democrats even halfway resembled democratic socialism. (Which covers a number of diverse viewpoints, all a far cry from the imagined resurgent Stalinism the Republicans think to define their goodness by their opposition.) In realms closer to reality and fair judgment, the Democratic Party is pragmatically centrist and has been so for a long time. They play host to some people with real leftist views who don't have anywhere else to go if they want influence, but most of these people are successfully corralled to pose no risk of actually upsetting the status quo. If there was Hope in President Obama's campaign, I held some glimmer of hope he might be one of those who successfully broke free, but I don't think that's really likely anymore.
Pragmatism means Democratic Party will occasionally be on the right side just because being seen to be right can be good for the party. So for example, in the sixties they placed a bet on which way society was moving and shed their Southern Dixiecrat stronghold to attract black voters. Likewise, though I hope they've underestimated the pace of social change, they've mostly aligned themselves with the right side of the gay rights movement.
Of course the Republican Party has not usually been less pragmatic. The current Republican leadership is blinded by devotion to the holy trinity of neoliberal economics, neoconservative foreign policy (and those two are very intimately linked), and evangelical Dominionist social values. This is a temporary holdover from what probably was a very safe bet in the later decades of the 20th century. The Clinton Presidency likely should have been an alert that the third point of that trinity wasn't as safe a bet as they thought, but Clinton didn't vary much from the first two points, and Republicans missed the lesson. And having the 9/11 card to play during Bush II meant they didn't think they needed a lesson. This all will change, and the Republicans will very likely return in coming years once they find a new center. (And finding a new center won't necessarily mean "moderate" just different from what they are now.)
Pity, I'd rather like to see the Republican Party weld itself inescapably to the wrong side of something like gay rights and be ground to nothing by the course of history. Ideally something would lead the Democratic Party to schizm and implode at about the same time and then maybe we can ban parties from the political process.
Change; I can always Hope.
20090417
notheOTHER(evilanduncool)skinnybitch
As a gesture of open-mindedness and a sign of how much I love and respect some conservatives I was interacting with online, I offered to read Ann Coulter's Treason.
I tried, really I did. No, I didn't finish. I read some of each chapter, I flipped around trying to pick up threads of meaning, I scanned the index and read anything related to topics I knew or found interesting, I read her conclusion chapter. The phrase 'rhetorical storm' comes to mind, though that implies something a good deal more orderly than what is found here. Most of the statements are at a tangent to, or utterly incidental to, any facts she happens to cite. Even if every fact cited is correct, I can't think of her as an honest writer. Everything is... spun just so.
Coulter writes to give the ignorant and belligerent a sense of justification. This isn't a work meant to persuade anybody, it's intended to draw in people already sympathetic to her view and take them on an emotional fairground ride pointing out who they should love and who they should hate. Sweeping a variety of liberal, Democrat, (no those two are not the same and only coincidentally overlap) and perhaps even a handful of actual socialist and other statements together, she paints a picture of a monolithic force of evil that True Patriotic Conservatives Like Her and You can define their goodness by their opposition.
I count it as self-evident that you can't assume you're so obviously the good guy that all of your acts can be simply justified by that foundation. Coulter does not agree here, "Republicans proceed from the assumption of America's virtue. Democrats do not." This is apparently proof of Republicans' moral superiority in her version of the universe, never mind the fact that I know several Republican voters and self-described conservatives for whom it's not true. There's the "patriotism" (really nationalism, per Orwell) which says "we are absolutely the greatest," and there's the patriotism which says "we should and can be better." Coulter puts herself firmly in the former, and considers you an America-hater if you fall into the latter.
I tried, really I did. No, I didn't finish. I read some of each chapter, I flipped around trying to pick up threads of meaning, I scanned the index and read anything related to topics I knew or found interesting, I read her conclusion chapter. The phrase 'rhetorical storm' comes to mind, though that implies something a good deal more orderly than what is found here. Most of the statements are at a tangent to, or utterly incidental to, any facts she happens to cite. Even if every fact cited is correct, I can't think of her as an honest writer. Everything is... spun just so.
Coulter writes to give the ignorant and belligerent a sense of justification. This isn't a work meant to persuade anybody, it's intended to draw in people already sympathetic to her view and take them on an emotional fairground ride pointing out who they should love and who they should hate. Sweeping a variety of liberal, Democrat, (no those two are not the same and only coincidentally overlap) and perhaps even a handful of actual socialist and other statements together, she paints a picture of a monolithic force of evil that True Patriotic Conservatives Like Her and You can define their goodness by their opposition.
I count it as self-evident that you can't assume you're so obviously the good guy that all of your acts can be simply justified by that foundation. Coulter does not agree here, "Republicans proceed from the assumption of America's virtue. Democrats do not." This is apparently proof of Republicans' moral superiority in her version of the universe, never mind the fact that I know several Republican voters and self-described conservatives for whom it's not true. There's the "patriotism" (really nationalism, per Orwell) which says "we are absolutely the greatest," and there's the patriotism which says "we should and can be better." Coulter puts herself firmly in the former, and considers you an America-hater if you fall into the latter.
20090312
preludefluff
Today, I was getting ready to leave work, about to pull my non-work shirt on over my work shirt, when I noticed a single strand of Milky cat fur inside the collar. I just stared at it a minute, wondering what to do. Then some damn stupid customers needed attention so I clocked back in and helped them.
I couldn't see the cat hair anymore when I got back.
I actually did a kind of daily diary during the last days of my catgirl's life. I'm not going to post them straight, but I will write something up based on them and share it with you, because I think I need to.
Stay tuned.
I couldn't see the cat hair anymore when I got back.
I actually did a kind of daily diary during the last days of my catgirl's life. I'm not going to post them straight, but I will write something up based on them and share it with you, because I think I need to.
Stay tuned.
20090220
So it turns out getting my computer to hunt down every flac music file in my collection and encode an ogg version of it takes just under four seconds to type, and just over four days to run. It doesn't slow down basic web surfing at all. I used to think typing on the command line was something one tried to get away from in computers.
On something of a whim, Tuesday, I drove up to the capitol and sat in on the hearing for HB 288, to allow cohabitating unmarried adults to become foster and adoptive parents. It got shot down, of course. Whaddaya expect? I didn't speak for the audience participation bit, though maybe I should have. I noticed the speakers from organizations opposing the bill tried to bring in statistics on the allegedly greater volatility of gay relationships. Speakers for the bill generally tried to argue against these numbers, but I think they missed a valuable moral point in doing so.
It actually matters not at all how much more or less likely homosexual couples are to break up, or have abusive relations, or take drugs than heterosexual couples. (The speakers against were actually very vague on just how much more or less.) Suppose tomorrow someone published a clear statistical study showing left-handed people were more likely than right-handed people to suffer from mental illness. Or ethnic Italians more likely than ethnic Albanians to divorce. Or that Mormons were more likely than Baptists to let their kids have too much ice cream and too little exercise. No one would actually believe that therefore these demographic categories should be entirely cut off from adopting children, even if the differences were quite large. The DCFS has a whole vetting process in place specifically to evaluate these things on a per-family basis. (And however effective or ineffective it is, it's likely to be just as effective or ineffective for all demographic groups.) An essential moral principle of America's progressive values is that you don't restrict someone based on their broader demographic category. I regret not saying anything then (not having articulated this paragraph entirely on the fly during the open mic period.) I'll probably rework this into an LTE and a too-little-too late email to the State Representatives on that committee.
In other news, today I've started biking to work again. Had to dial the speed down a bit for my lazy delinquent legs. It's several hours later now and I'm not aching or tired from it. Hopefully I'll get back into some approximation of shape.
On something of a whim, Tuesday, I drove up to the capitol and sat in on the hearing for HB 288, to allow cohabitating unmarried adults to become foster and adoptive parents. It got shot down, of course. Whaddaya expect? I didn't speak for the audience participation bit, though maybe I should have. I noticed the speakers from organizations opposing the bill tried to bring in statistics on the allegedly greater volatility of gay relationships. Speakers for the bill generally tried to argue against these numbers, but I think they missed a valuable moral point in doing so.
It actually matters not at all how much more or less likely homosexual couples are to break up, or have abusive relations, or take drugs than heterosexual couples. (The speakers against were actually very vague on just how much more or less.) Suppose tomorrow someone published a clear statistical study showing left-handed people were more likely than right-handed people to suffer from mental illness. Or ethnic Italians more likely than ethnic Albanians to divorce. Or that Mormons were more likely than Baptists to let their kids have too much ice cream and too little exercise. No one would actually believe that therefore these demographic categories should be entirely cut off from adopting children, even if the differences were quite large. The DCFS has a whole vetting process in place specifically to evaluate these things on a per-family basis. (And however effective or ineffective it is, it's likely to be just as effective or ineffective for all demographic groups.) An essential moral principle of America's progressive values is that you don't restrict someone based on their broader demographic category. I regret not saying anything then (not having articulated this paragraph entirely on the fly during the open mic period.) I'll probably rework this into an LTE and a too-little-too late email to the State Representatives on that committee.
In other news, today I've started biking to work again. Had to dial the speed down a bit for my lazy delinquent legs. It's several hours later now and I'm not aching or tired from it. Hopefully I'll get back into some approximation of shape.
20090109
musikopi
So my current project is putting my music collection conveniently on my computer in FLAC format, since I picked up a hard drive that can hold that much a couple months ago. (Really, I consider myself fairly computer-savvy, but unlike many people interested in computers, I've mostly made do with hardware that was top of the line back in the final days of Windows 98.) I've been at it a couple weeks now, off and on, and I'm in the middle of 'E.' (I think 'D,' 'M,' and 'S' might make up nearly half my collection.) I find that, actually having the songs a mouse-click away, I've been listening more than when they're in a batch of CDs. Although Exact Audio Copy is still considered the best available ripping program, I've been using one called Rubyripper instead. EAC can work in Linux under WINE, but it and WINE look like Windows programs and I find their appearance jarring. Plus WINE makes for some processing overhead. An audiophile site I found says Rubyripper is nearly as good and I've taken to it. Like most Linux graphical programs, it's a frontend for a command line program. In this case cdparanoia. It's a bit slow going. It works by ripping each track multiple times (two by default, I set it to three), breaking it into chunks about 1/75th of a second long and comparing the chunks from different rips. It assumes anything that matches your preferred number of times is good, then makes additional rips for anything that couldn't match (I have it set to require four matches for anything that didn't work out in the initial three rips.) It's not a quick "rip some songs to put on the iPod before class" program, but for archiving it's pretty good. The only problems I've encountered are on CDs with hidden tracks (that is, audio information in the pregap.) For those (two so far) I have broken out EAC. It seems to struggle with them, too, but it does manage to rip them.
Speaking of copying music, a few weeks back I was playing pool when a really great bluesy rock song came on. I don't know how common my attitudes are but I can't treat music as only a background thing. If it's there it ought to be an occasional part of the conversation, so I commented on it, and then went up to the bar to ask what it was (something I actually do quite a bit at places that have music playing in the background.) The guy told me it was Janis Ian. So after some web searching I've downloaded some tracks off her website, where I also came across this great article against the recording industry's approach to copyright and digital restrictions. Do check it out (although I'm probably late to the party on this one.)
Speaking of copying music, a few weeks back I was playing pool when a really great bluesy rock song came on. I don't know how common my attitudes are but I can't treat music as only a background thing. If it's there it ought to be an occasional part of the conversation, so I commented on it, and then went up to the bar to ask what it was (something I actually do quite a bit at places that have music playing in the background.) The guy told me it was Janis Ian. So after some web searching I've downloaded some tracks off her website, where I also came across this great article against the recording industry's approach to copyright and digital restrictions. Do check it out (although I'm probably late to the party on this one.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
