Orwell Rocks!

Well, really this is a review of Road to Wigan Pier, but since that title is supremely lame for the book itself, I couldn’t use it as the blog title either.

Wigan is a city in England, northwest of Manchester.  It is not on the coast, so the “pier” was just a riverfront with no access to the Atlantic Ocean, much less any beaches.   The title really says almost nothing about what the whole thing was about.  [All I knew about Wigan before this is that they have a soccer team.]

For those of you familiar with only 1984 and Animal Farm, let me clue you in.  Orwell had a substantial volume of nonfiction as well, and remarkably, his non-fiction is at least as entertaining as his fiction.  Mainly it’s because he had such a phenomenal way of describing things, a perpetual WTF attitude, that he could describe paint drying and it would be interesting. 

Up until this point I considered Homage to Catalonia, his “WTF” account of his brief experience in the POUM (non-Stalinist, socialist militia) in the Spanish Civil War, to be his best nonfiction.  He was in Barcelona in May 1937 when the various Republican factions – Fascists miles away – took shots at each other.  If you want to know about the Spanish Civil War, read this one.

Anyhow.  In Road, he goes up to northern England and visits different cities, notably Wigan, but also Sheffield (home of Def Leppard, not mentioned herein).  In particular he went into the coal mines to see what that was like.  As a tall guy, he had a hard time.  He came away with a much better understanding, tactically, of what coal miners do.  But he also came away with a better understanding of the bigger picture of working class relations in that part of the country.  There’s really no substitute for actually going somewhere to see with your own eyes, hear with your ears, smell with your own nose, taste with your own tongue, and feel with your own appropriate body part, what is actually going on. 

In the second half of the book, he takes issue with the contemporary socialist movement.  At that time – 1937 – Hitler and Mussolini were well in power, but so was Stalin in the USSR.  Capitalist democracies appeared helpless to fight the two extremes (what he would say once the US entered the war, might be something else).  One thing he noticed was that very few socialists were actually FROM the working class.  Most were bourgeois.  Another thing he noticed is that very few of these bourgeois socialists had ever even met, much less associated with, any members of the working class they professed to champion.  To the contrary, they could not bring themselves to shed their existing unease and contempt for these folk.  Moreover, on the few occasions in which they did, they could not resist acting as snobs, intellectual and otherwise, and using Marxist jargon, and going on about how great Stalin was and what a wonderful place the Soviet Union was.  The perverse result was that too many workers, whose interests were served by the socialists and opposed by the fascists - and were often even able to recognize that for themselves - were driven into the enemy's arms by the spectacularly poor job the socialists did of selling their cause.  Socialist Facepalm.  

I recall a Nation article ages ago written by Michael Moore.  Yeah, the fat “Roger & Me” guy.  He bitched about ivory tower socialist intellectuals who never come near a factory worker, wrapped up in Marxist ideology and jargon – “proletariat”, “bourgeois”, “class consciousness”, etc. – none of which means anything to the GM, Ford, and Chrysler workers who the socialists are trying to reach.   His advice (copying Orwell’s): “Hang out with them, go to a hockey game, go hunting with them.  Talk about how the company is screwing them over.  Whatever you do, don’t go on about Marxism.”  I assume Moore had read Road, as Orwell said the same thing to his colleagues in England in 1937. 

Orwell also reviews much of the contemporary socialist literature, plus H.G. Wells and Aldous Huxley (Brave New World).  Again, I found his analysis of the contemporary situation and his fellow socialists to be riveting.  What I find especially refreshing is his ability to concede points and play devil’s advocate. 

I’m not now, nor have I ever been a socialist, and I doubt I ever will be.  However, by far the most persuasive case that can be made, is made by Orwell.   His closest contemporary equivalents are Christopher Hitchens (RIP) and Michael Moore.  Neither are very persuasive; both are too arrogant, too stuck up, too self-satisfied.  I’m not aware they were coordinating on the same team, though Hitchens seemed to fight the more intellectual capitalists while Moore focused on the trenches, as it were.  I don’t consider either to be particularly effective.  Judging by the outcome last November, Moore did a poor job getting the American proletariat to oppose Donald Trump.  What’s even more remarkable, and what Orwell was noting in his own time, is that most of Trump’s opposition, and Hillary’s support, came from people we’d describe as bourgeois:  upper class white people.  In fact, much of what Orwell describes in 1937 could also apply to 2017 – a surprising amount.  I have to wonder how recently Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein have consulted Orwell.  Not recently, it seems…if at all.  Then again, I doubt Trump is even aware of Orwell’s existence, much less having read any of his books.

As for my own readers, I would advise everyone, socialist or not, to read this book if they haven’t already.  Orwell’s analysis is superb.  It’s witty.  It’s funny (far more so than 1984 or Animal Farm).  Non-socialists will probably enjoy reading Orwell take the piss out of his fellow socialists.  And the socialists among you may well enjoy Orwell’s wit and honesty. 

Or maybe not.  

Inglourious Sniper?

Recently I saw a movie which has lots of people talking:  “American Sniper”, the story of Chris Kyle.  CK served as a Navy SEAL sniper in Iraq for four tours.  This involved shooting people.  Bad people.  The movie made some people upset.  I have not read CK’s memoirs, so I’m going off the movie by itself.  I expect most people will do so as well, though some may well be induced to follow up with the book after seeing the movie.  I don’t plan on it.   

And I’m posting this on Wednesday instead of Friday for two reasons: first, I’ll be out of town this Friday, and second, for those of you who haven’t seen it, that’s two more days for you to get down to the multiplex and see it while it's still playing in the movie theaters (IMAX is optional).  By the way, there’s a short memorial to Chris Kyle at the end of the film, a montage of pictures of his funeral in Texas, which was as big an affair as the passing of a head of state.  I was seated in the middle of the row and couldn’t leave my seat until this was over, as NO ONE got up until the whole thing was over – and the whole room applauded.  Mind you, this is in Blue State Zone, Fairfax County Virginia, which went for Obama in 2008 and 2012.  Go figure.

Let’s review the movie, in basic terms.   CK is a rodeo dude from Texas.   He sees 9/11 and decides to join up – and to “be all he can be” (yes, I know that’s the Army’s old slogan) as a Navy SEAL.  After surviving and passing the grueling training which SEALs have to endure, he’s sent to Iraq.  Even after surviving his first tour and having a wife (Sienna Miller) and kids at home, he volunteers for subsequent tours (4 in all), much to his wife’s anger and resentment.  Each time he’s sent back to Iraq and pretty much does the same thing:  sniping at bad guys.  Somehow he survives, but it’s not a given that he’ll make it out alive.  Many of his buddies don’t.

Coward?  That’s an issue Michael Moore raised.  I wonder if he actually saw the movie.  He clearly doesn’t know anything about snipers, because if he did, he’d know that despite being nominally hidden and taking shots at a distance, snipers are still in danger – especially from other snipers.  “Enemy at the Gates” – based on a true story – covers the battle between Red Army sniper Vasily Zaitsev (Jude Law) vs. German sniper Major Koenig (Ed Harris); Zaitsev’s kills include 11 other snipers.  Other WWII snipers have even higher kill scores for enemy snipers.  In this film CK is engaged in a campaign with an Iraqi sniper who nearly kills him.  And at various points, when CK ascertains he can’t find any targets from up on the roof, he joins the grunts down on the ground clearing apartments block by block.  He routinely faces danger.   Whatever else he might have been, coward doesn’t apply. 

Propaganda.  A parallel was made with Quentin Tarantino’s movie “Inglourious Basterds”, which was QT’s attempt at making an offbeat WWII film.  A German sniper, Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) tries to romance a French girl, Shosanna (Melanie Laurent), oblivious to her hatred of Germans, no matter how heroic they might be.  The Nazis have made a movie glorifying Zoller (a film-within-a-film) which Zoller arranges to have premiere at Shosanna’s little French theater.  The Nazi top brass will be attending the premiere, so the good guys decide it’s a great opportunity to try something explosive and take them all out.   Naturally we don’t get to see a complete sniper film, just bits and pieces.

In this case the movie is naturally sympathetic to CK, but less than enthusiastic about trumpeting the entire Iraq war.  Clearly the bad guys are bad guys: Al-Zarqari (whatever his name is) has an enforcer who kills Iraqis who betray Al Qaeda to the Americans, and he likes to use a drill to do so, even against children.  Recall, however, that not only did Clint Eastwood do this film, he also made a pair of WWII films, “Flags of Our Fathers” (about the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, told from the US perspective) and “Letters From Iwo Jima” (the same story, dovetailed from the Japanese perspective).   A filmmaker can tell a story about a sympathetic soldier without necessarily endorsing the cause the soldier fights for.  The local Catholic newspaper, which reviews films to screen them for moral issues and religious topics, put it very well: “Yet the film avoids any big-picture moral assessment of the specific struggle in which he participated or of armed clashes in general.” 

The perfect example is Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox” of WWII.  Easily Germany’s most capable commander, he was also a man of such skill and integrity that even hard-asses like Winston Churchill couldn’t resist admiring him.  There was even a US movie made in the 1950s, “The Desert Fox”, with James Mason as Rommel.  Rommel, however, redeemed himself in the eyes of the Allies by being executed by Hitler for having a tangential role in the plot to kill the Fuhrer in July 1944. 

Yet Heinz Guderian, the top German Panzer general, arguably as talented as Rommel, never got a movie.  His deal was that he was temporarily relieved of duty for several months but eventually reinstated when Hitler realized he needed someone competent – even if Guderian lacked the tact and sense to simply tell Hitler what he wanted to hear.  But Guderian never joined the anti-Hitler group, mainly because he realized that (A) the group was doomed to failure, and (B) with the Allies insisting on unconditional surrender, regime change in Berlin wouldn’t save Germany anyway.  The Americans were impressed enough with him to encourage him to write memoirs, but unlike Rommel, no one made a movie glorifying him.

Even Dante, of all people, recognized “virtuous pagans” such as Virgil, who served as his guide through Hell and Purgatory.  Sooner or later someone may make a movie about Saladin, who is the Muslim warlord most amenable to Christian admiration.  He appears in “Kingdom of Heaven”, a film which is mostly unfavorable towards the Crusaders. 

If you’re convinced that any movie which sympathetically portrays a soldier is, ipso facto, per se, propaganda for the soldier’s country, side, and cause, well… I can’t argue with a sick mind.  Agree to disagree.

Anyhow.  Jesse Ventura attacked the movie for suggesting a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.  The suggestion is highly attenuated:  CK sees the Twin Towers collapsing on 9/11, gets upset, volunteers for the military, and gets sent to Iraq.  I missed the part when ANY character explicitly makes a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.   Apparently CK was already in the Navy when 9/11 occurred, so 9/11 could not have been his motivation for joining the military.  Again, the connection is very slim.

There is some issue in here about CK targeting women and children.  According to the movie, they were armed and attempting to kill US soldiers.  Contrast that with “Full Metal Jacket”, in which a door gunner on a Huey in Vietnam takes delight in shooting Vietnamese civilians.  Asked by “Joker” (Matthew Modine) how he can shoot women and children, the gunner laughs, “easy, you don’t lead them as much.” 

Finally, one of CK’s comrades in Iraq starts having second thoughts about the war and begins articulating them, discreetly, to CK.  Later the man’s mother reads out a letter her son wrote to her, which goes into more detail.  CK himself appears immune to doubt, but not everyone in the film is so sure of the US position as he is.  This ingredient in the film is a large counterbalance to CK’s gung ho attitude yet gets ignored when the film is criticized as “propaganda”.  Seriously, if Josef Goebbels was watching this, he’d wind up in a “bitch please” meme.

If you understand Eastwood and what he tends to do with his films, you’ll understand why the film was done the way it was.  I expect he distilled the essence of CK and showed him as imperfect but skilled.  The man was a sniper in a nasty war.  He accepted what he was told and didn’t question authority or policy.  He had a difficult time adjusting to civilian life, as many veterans do.  While he may have exaggerated somewhat in some ways and puffed up his own achievements by some degree (debatable), when you strip it down to what we can confirm and verify, you’re still left with an impressive character.  If you can grasp distinctions, you can understand that he was a minor hero, and we can celebrate his story without devolving into propaganda.  

Who Wants to Run America

Good evening, America.  We’ve assembled an impressive array of politically astute figures, and an ordinary American, in the hopes of deciding which economic/political system fits the needs and preferences of America’s workers.  

 First, let’s meet our target audience, personified in the form of John Carter, a 40 year old auto worker from Flint, Michigan.  He has a wife and two children.  He likes Grand Funk Railroad, hunting, and watching the Red Wings. 

 And here are our contestants:

 From Berkeley, California, attempting to pitch the dictatorship of the proletariat to Mr. Carter, is Professor Trotsky (no relation).  (Trotsky, coiffed as his namesake, warmly waves to the audience).

 From Flint, Michigan himself, the man corporate America loves to hate, here to pitch “market socialism”, it’s…Michael Moore! (wearing yet another blue collar hat, Moore also warmly smiles and waves).

 From Washington, DC, here to sell Mr. Carter on our current capitalist system, let’s welcome the ascerbic, caustically witted, former National Lampoon writer P.J. O’Rourke! (Insincere smile but still waving).

 And finally, from Texas, here to pitch an unusual and radical idea called “libertarianism”, US Representative and aspiring Republican presidential candidate, “Dr No” himself, Ron Paul!  (Weak but humble smile).

 Each candidate will present his case, but the others can offer useful criticism and insights.  We’ll start with Professor Trotsky, who takes a seat opposite Mr. Carter. 

 “Good evening, comrade.  I understand you have kept your job at the Ford plant despite the recent economic problems.”

“Sure have.  I’m Ok.”

“Good.  For a moment there, it was fairly scary, wouldn’t you say?”

“I suppose so.”

“Good.  Do you believe the men running Ford, and the men in Washington, including President Obama himself, are looking out for you?”

“I don’t know.  I doubt it.  The union sticks by me.”

“I would hope so.  Wouldn’t you prefer it, though, if the entire country was set up to look out for your interests?  If the government took over Ford and ran it for your benefit?   In fact, the government would run everything.”

Carter looks uncertain.  “Everything??”

“Yes, there would be no private companies at all.  You would be guaranteed a job, health insurance, a place to live.  No worries at all.”

Carter remains skeptical.  “One big huge government?”

“Yes, Mr. Carter.  You see, Ford, GM, all those big companies have gotten too big.  We need to get rid of them.  We’ll have the government run everything.  For you, of course.  That is, for the working men and women of America.  On their behalf.”

“What if I don’t like what the government is doing?”

P.J. O’Rourke butts in.  “Then you can talk to the secret police.  They’ll throw you in a labor camp…without a trial.”  Shock and alarm from Carter.  Moore keeps quiet, but Paul smiles.

Trotsky regains his composure.  “Democracy has had its day and failed, Mr. Carter.  As it is today in America, corporations control the elections and decide who your candidates can be.  Whoever you vote for, big business has already bought and paid for.  Why talk of a choice under those circumstances?”  He smirks at O’Rourke and Paul.  Even so, Carter is still not happy.

“So who is going to run this government?”

O’Rourke interrupts again.  “Well, it won’t be you.  It will be a small group of guys like Trotsky here who know what’s best for you.  Not workers, of course.  And if you don’t like it, too bad.  And if you raise your voice and complain, you’ll get a visit in the middle of the night.  Bye bye!”   

Trotsky replies.  “I understand your concern, Mr. Carter.  But it will not be this way forever.  After years of dictatorship, the state will disappear and we’ll have a stateless society, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.  Communism.  No more government, no more secret police, no more labor camps to re-educate the bourgeois to be nice, humble workers.”

“…and WHEN will this happen?” O’Rourke asks.  “HOW will this happen?”

“In the future.  We don’t know when or how.  But it will happen.”  Only Trotsky is satisfied with this explanation.

“Has it ever happened anywhere in the world?  Russia?  China?  Cuba?  North Korea?”  O’Rourke smiles as he mentions these countries.

“Not yet, but it will.  Someday.”

Trotsky’s arrogance can’t overcome O’Rourke’s warnings.  Carter is not sold. “I don’t think I like that idea, Mr. Trotsky.  I’ll hear what Moore has to say.”  Trotsky gets up and leaves, upset.  

 Michael Moore sits down in the chair opposite Carter.

“How about those Red Wings, huh?”

“Meh.”  Since they didn’t win the Stanley Cup this year, Carter isn’t excited.

Sensing Carter’s ambivalence, Moore starts his pitch anyway.  “You’ve heard Mr. Trotsky.  I don’t want a dictatorship like he does.  I think the system works fine the way it does.  It just needs some help.  Big business needs to be slammed into the boards every now and then.  No labor camps, no secret police, we still have elections, you can keep your guns, your pickup, and everything else.  But if you go with me, here’s what you get….

“FREE healthcare!  No dicking around with insurance companies.  None of this ‘previous condition’ crap.  You’ll have a pension, you’ll have unemployment benefits, you’ll have disability, maternity leave, all of that.  All for free.  No one’s going to lay you off and send your job overseas.  It’s fantastic.  They already have this in Europe, and it works!”

Carter now looks much more excited.  “No KGB?  No gulags?”

Moore smiles.  “Nope!”  He’s smug.  Very smug.

O’Rourke interrupts again, with his familiar nasty smile.  “Tell him about the taxes.”  Carter perks up cautiously, as if he knew what Moore was promising was somehow too good to be true.

Moore gets very nervous and evasive.  “Taxes might be a little higher.”

“How much higher?”  Carter asks, very wary.

“Try 80% and higher.  To start.  And at the top it’s close to 100%.”  O’Rourke had to say it, because Moore would never admit it.

“80%????” Carter is really upset now.  And he’s pissed at Moore.  “What kind of fast one are you trying to pull on me??”  Moore just shrugs, looking irritated but also guilty.  “I’ve heard enough.  Get out.”  Moore gets up and leaves, petulantly.

 O’Rourke sits down.  “Ok, my part is easy.  I’m simply selling you the system you already have now.  You can get laid off.  You have crappy health insurance… if you have any at all.  No gulags, no secret police.  And if, by some miracle,” his eyes twinkle, “you hit the jackpot, you get to keep most of it.  Not all of it, but most of it.  Your taxes are what you pay now.  Nothing like 80%,” he scoffs.

Carter thinks.  “I’m not all that happy with what we have now, but I don’t want a police state and I don’t want to pay 80% taxes just to get free health care.”

O’Rourke smiles.  “I didn’t think so.”

Carter nods.  “Ok, let me hear what this Dr No guy has to say.”  O’Rourke gets up and lets Ron Paul sit down.

 Ron Paul meekly nods and takes his seat.  “I’ll keep it simple.  No Federal Reserve.  No taxes.  I’ll legalize drugs, prostitution and gambling.  The government will shrink to just the police and military, and we’ll be out of Afghanistan, Europe, all those other places.  In fact, it will be so small, you’ll hardly even know it exists.”

Carter is stunned.  “How will we pay for all this?”

Paul comes clean.  “I suppose I should clarify.  I mean no income taxes, no IRS, and no Social Security.  There will be a few sales taxes and things like that, but the burden would be much smaller.  And with the military not fighting wars all over the world, it won’t need to be as large or expensive as what we have now.   We can also sell off Federal property.   Of course, if marijuana is legal we can tax it and make money that way.”

“Roads?”  Moore smirks, regaining some composure.

“Gas taxes and tolls,” replies Paul.  “The New Jersey Turnpike predates the federal highway system, was built completely with private money and opened on time.  If it works in New Jersey it can work elsewhere.  Toll roads have gotten much more convenient with EZPass.  But if you don’t like tolls, gas taxes can pay for roads too.  You pay when you fill up at the pump.  And if you’re not driving anywhere and not buying gas, you don’t have to pay for the roads.”

Carter isn’t quite sold.  “If this is so good, why haven’t I heard of it before?”

Paul now shows his familiar obvious resentment, bitterness, and petulance.  “Because most of the media tends to sympathize with Michael Moore’s viewpoint, and those that don’t almost always support O’Rourke’s position.  No one takes my ideas seriously because they don’t think it will work.  So they write me off as a crackpot and call me names.  I do have other positions besides auditing the Federal Reserve, but you wouldn’t know it from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, or Fox.”  Paul takes his seat and the chair in front of Carter is now empty.  Now it’s time for him to choose.  Which of these 4 men represents the America that John Carter, the American worker, really wants the most?  If it were up to John Carter, who would run America?

 Carter now is extremely indecisive.  He thinks out loud.

“I don’t want this ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ Who knows when we’ll get communism.  Maybe never.  It just sounds like an excuse for you to take over and run everything.  I don’t like that.  I’m out.”

Carter then turns to Michael Moore.  “I might go for your system…were it not for those horrendous taxes.  I’m out.”

He turns to O’Rourke.  “Don’t think you’ve sold me, O’Rourke.  I am not happy now.  And I don’t know how it would get any better.  In fact, I do want change.  I want to try what Ron Paul is offering.  It seems like the only one we haven’t tried yet, anywhere.  It has no track record for failure, because it’s never been done.  So I’ll go with Dr. No on this one.”

 There you have it, John Carter has made his decision: Ron Paul.  The rest of America can text in your choices: 001 for North Korea (Trotsky), 002 for IKEA America (Moore), 003 Business as Usual (O’Rourke), and 004 for It’s 4:20 in America (Paul).  Standard text messaging rates may apply. 

Red Is The Color

I’ve just finished watching a few of Michael Moore’s movies, and my earlier conclusions and suspicions are confirmed. He is Red, Red, Red.

Roger & Me. This was his first movie. He went to Flint, Michigan (where he grew up) and busted on General Motors for umpteen minutes. GM created Flint, but also – so he claims – destroyed it by shutting down plants. As if it was GM’s duty to keep plants open just to give people jobs. I found his arguments less than persuasive.

Canadian Bacon. Fiction: the US trumps up a war with Canada when the Cold War peters out and the Russians refuse to play along. A bunch of stupid Americans try to invade Toronto, believing it to be the capital (try Ottawa) and various SCTV people get a chance to be in a movie. Dan Akroyd was quality as the trooper who advises them to repeat the nasty anti-Canadian slogans in French as well as English. Given that we haven’t invaded Canada long after the Cold War ended, I’d say this idea was pretty stupid, though it probably served to amuse a few Canucks.

The Big One. Moore goes on a tour of the US promoting his books, and stopping by various corporate headquarters along the way to hassle, harass, and embarrass various corporate PR people and media escorts. Not much happens, the highlight being his meeting in person with Phil Knight of Nike. Honestly, the odds of finding a plant full of Americans willing to put sneakers together for $5.50 an hour is pretty damn low.

The analysis here shouldn’t be how low Indonesian Nike wages are compared to US minimum wages, it should be how they compare to other wages in Indonesia. If they were paying less than the prevailing wage in Indonesia, why would anyone there work for Nike?

Then there’s this business of prison labor. How sorry are we going to be for prison inmates doing telemarketing or customer service for less than minimum wage? They’re in prison! I suppose the alternative is someone in India doing the same. Should I wonder, “hmm, this person doesn’t sound Indian. Are they in prison?” Does it really matter? Again, if Americans were willing to do this for the same price, we wouldn’t be hiring prisoners or Indians. Economics, pure and simple – and nothing wrong with it.

Bowling for Columbine. Thanks to Moore, we know who to blame for the shooting in Columbine. No, it wasn’t the two boys. No, it wasn’t Marilyn Manson. Hold your seats, people, it was K-MART! Yes, the chain was responsible. Lovable, boring, big-ass and cheap K-Mart was the merciless murderer of those poor kids in Colorado. We had no idea. Who will K-Mart murder next? Stay tuned.

Fahrenheit 9/11. More propaganda. In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes propaganda as, “don’t fight fair, fight dirty. Never acknowledge the other side’s points. Don’t argue rationally. Just cram your message down their throats, repeat the lies, and shout louder than the other guy. It’s a war.” Similar deal here. Whether it’s busting on Bush for Carlysle group connections or Saudi ties (which applied to past presidents, administrations, and Democrats), blaming Bush for Oregon’s State Police budget (try blaming Portland instead), trying to get us paranoid about FBI or sheriff’s snoops on harmless peaceniks (who were never even arrested) or simply busting on US troops in Iraq, Moore strikes out on every issue. Far from being left with a damning, smoking gun no-brainer indictment on 9-11, we simply have an incessant string of vague innuendo, tenuous connections, and mysterious allegations. When’s Moore going to tackle the Kennedy Assassination? I guess he hasn’t figured out which American multinational company to pin the blame on.

Sicko. Here he takes on the US health care system. All well and fine to slam the US system – which does have its faults – but to suggest we adopt what they have in France or Cuba? Come on. There is NO WAY the US taxpayer would accept the 90% tax rate necessary for these so-called “free” health care systems (which aren’t free, of course). So we’re back where we started.

TV Nation/The Awful Truth. I caught a few episodes of these, but did not watch them consistently. The one that sticks out in my mind was when Moore painted a tractor trailer red with a yellow hammer & sickle, and drove by various truck stops trying to elicit some sort of recognition from the trucking proletariat. Nope, not much class consciousness along the highways of US.

He also wrote an article for The Nation years ago (I wish I could find it) in which he slammed US leftist intellectuals for being snobs who wouldn’t deign to have a beer, bowl a few pins, or (God forbid!!!) hunt with Joe Sixpack, the American Proletarian. These are the American workers: how are you going to win them over writing obscure books full of Marxist jargon 99.99% of these people will never read? Don’t talk about “bourgeois”, “proletariat”, “capitalist imperialist exploiters”, etc. Simply ask them if they think they’re getting a raw deal from management. Paul Wellstone had the right idea. Fortunately for us, the Wellstones are few and far between.

Books. I haven’t read any of his books. His movies are annoying enough, why go through the hassle? Hell, it took me ages to see “Fahrenheit 9/11” because I wasn’t keen on giving Moore any of my money.

Ralph Nader. Before Moore, there was Nader, causing a stink. I recently heard him speak at one of these eco/green conventions in DC, badmouthing corporate America as usual. I’ve read his book Unsafe at Any Speed. Granted, GM was being a major dick with him, and the Corvair was a shitty car – an idiotic competitor to the Mustang, and far outclassed by the Camaro and Firebird which should have been GM’s answer in the first place. But he seems to ignore Volvo and other companies which voluntarily introduced safety features without government mandates. The reality is, if people want to pay for safety they will. But the fact that Volvo doesn’t have a lock on the market suggests that consumers sometimes have other priorities than safety. Maybe they’re not Nader’s preferences, but who cares what Nader wants in a car? He doesn’t speak for anyone except himself and the tiny minority of leftists. However, I do hope he runs again and draws off Osama/Clinton voters so McCain can win (even though Ron Paul is my choice).
Both Moore and Nader are clearly lefties (to use the food analogy I brought up last week, watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside). Moore never met a corporation he liked. I suppose if you wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, you could say that he simply wants to hold corporate America accountable and expose bad companies.

Fine. But why not show us good companies too? We know they’re out there. Why not show us a company that treats its employees fairly – or even one that’s employee-owned (you NEVER hear about them from Moore and Nader). The obvious reason for this is that his ultimate motive is to make us mistrust corporations as an aggregate and capitalism as a system. For that matter, neither have I ever seen Moore do the obvious thing: purchase stock in a company and show up at its annual shareholders’ meeting to bitch and gripe.

Nor does he spend much time talking about unions. Many leftists (including many of America’s various socialist parties) dislike unions because they represent an attempt to work within the capitalist system instead of overthrowing it. It’s a sellout to The Man, they claim. To the extent workers get tangible benefits and a decent wage from a union, that shows the system works, right? Why give us a totalitarian North Korean regime – or even watered down “market socialism” like Denmark or Sweden with 90% taxes – when we can get what we want within the US capitalist system?

I see the European model as being philosophically incompatible with American culture. Americans are the adults who moved out of their parents’ house in the 17^th century and grew up. Europeans are the 30-somethings still living at home, living off mom & dad. They pay 90% taxes and keep a small, nominal allowance. Mom & Dad pay their health insurance, rent, education, etc. and provide for their needs. After that, what more do they need?

Paul Weaver. Having busted on Moore, I’ll mention Weaver’s book, The Suicidal Corporation. (I’m still reading John DeLorean’s book, On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, which I’ve momentarily misplaced and will finish when I find it). Weaver started out as a neoconservative who felt that Big Business got a bum rap from Nader and the left, and went to Ford in the late 70s to help them set the record straight. Once there, however, he learned that much of the shit that Big Business catches is well-deserved, and most of it brought upon itself by its own idiotic political maneuvering. Moreover, there was NEVER a “Golden Age” in which Big Business was pro-capitalist; for the most part of its history, since the late 19^th century, business has behaved badly, has never been pro-capitalist or pro-market, and has constantly sought government favors and protection. He describes a corporate atmosphere reminiscent of Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) with Cuffy Meigs, Orren Boyle and Jim Taggart, and uncomfortably close to Mussolini’s Italy. The book is dated from 1988, the tail end of the Reagan era (he wasn’t phenomenally impressed by Reagan) and is 20 years out of date. But many of its points are well taken, so I won’t call Moore and Nader 100% off the mark.

So where does that leave us? Capitalism does work, although it also, quite obviously, has problems. But that doesn’t mean the solution is revolution, as Moore and Nader so quietly shout (don’t get me started on Rage Against the Machine).