Matt Taibbi: Michael Moore Wants Us to Go Kick Ass

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/143108/taibbi%3A_michael_moore_wants_us_to_go_kick_ass

Taibbi: Michael Moore Wants Us to Go Kick Ass

Posted by Matt Taibbi, True/Slant at 7:12 AM on October 6, 2009.

If we got up off our chairs and went after the villains that Moore attacks in his latest documentary, everyone would be better off.

snip//

In Capitalism: A Love Story we’re now talking about how the compensation for professional jobs we used to consider upper-middle class, like the job of airline pilot, have dropped below subsistence level. This is a portrait of a society steaming toward a feudal structure.

He then shows that the mechanisms we’re supposed to appeal to to correct these problems — the combination of public awareness (i.e. the media) and the elected government (i.e. congress) — have been almost completely corrupted. We have a media that doesn’t pay attention to the fact that airline pilots are giving plasma in order to buy groceries. Even after deadly crashes, they don’t focus on the real causes.

I found most of the content of Moore’s movie horrifying. It was also striking to me that the theme he is addressing here, i.e. the rapid peasant-ization of most of the country, is basically a taboo subject for every other major media outlet in the country. The vast majority of our movies are either thinly-disguised commercials for consumer products (Law Abiding Citizen), remakes of old shows and movies designed to transport us back to the good old days when life was better (i.e. Fame) , or gushy nerf-tripe with no hard edges crafted to serve as escapist fairy tales for stressed-out adults wanting to dream of happy endings (Love Happens).

What we call a “good movie” is usually also escapism, and sometimes even also a nostalgic remake, it just happens to be well-done and expertly directed, with great production values and acting performances (I haven’t seen it yet. but I assume Where the Wild Things Are will fall into this category).

But we’re living in a time of extreme crisis almost nothing on TV or in the movies is designed to get us thinking about how to fix our problems. If anything, most of the stuff on TV is designed to jack up our anxiety level without offering any solutions except the short-term fixes of buying and eating — witness the endless reality shows in which ordinary people slave away and scheme against each other for weeks on end for a 1 in 12 shot at a (pick one) modeling job/date with a non-deformed, non serial-killing person/chance to be shouted at by Donald Trump.

Now that stuff is cynical and monstrous. It is my sincere hope that the people who are producing these programs will someday be tried and executed by war crimes tribunals at the Hague.

At least Michael Moore is getting us talking about the right topics. And while I get that the right way to start a revolution is not to wildly misinterpret the nature of capitalism in a coffeeshop conversation with Wallace Shawn (whose line about the grabber product was the funniest thing in the movie, by the way), well, it’s not really Michael Moore’s job to start a revolution. He probably thinks it is — and this is that “Atlas” complex fellow True/Slant writer Joseph Childers is talking about — but that’s only because nobody else out there, in the major media at least, is doing a freaking thing.

It’s natural for Michael Moore to behave like someone who thinks he’s taking on the world alone. Because he is, sort of. If we want him to stop behaving like this, it’s kind of on us to do something about it. At some point we’re going to have to make a commitment to giving up our escapist entertainments for a while while we fix our actual lives. I’m as guilty as everyone else, spending half my time watching movies and sports. putting off my problems until later. If we all did less of that, my guess is that we might start thinking less like movie and TV critics, and more like citizens — at which point the flaws in Moore’s movies won’t seem so bad at all. We might not even notice them.

[Tutankhamun]

1. Taibbi is awesome

[mnhtnbb]

2. After seeing the movie Monday night, hubby and I wondered the same thing.

What do we DO to participate in a revolution? It's going to take more than voting. The health
care reform process is an example: 65% want a public option and the Senate is determined
to eliminate it.

[voteearlyvoteoften]

3. Taibbi know how to think

And he knows how to research and put together an article. Must read his piece in latest Roling Stone re: short selling, market manipulation and the take down of Bear Stearns and Lehman. The SEC is crap, they put Martha Stewart in jail and let the wholesale rape of our financial markets occur without restraint.

[blueworld]

4. Maybe it's time to have a good ol' fashioned national strike (like the socialists did)

Taibbi, Moore, many others have made great points about non-responsive paid-for Congress critters & their media pets.

Last night KO interviewed Wendell Potter and pointed out that if we only had a "strike" by not paying our health-care premiums we'd all be dropped in a New York minute & be unable to find future policies. So what do we do? What power do we have left????

I won't ever advocate violence or violent rebellion. It's anathema to me. But I'm beginning to think the only way we can beat a paid-for Congress & Corporate government is to have a NATIONAL strike - all workers still employed, plus the unemployed! And sit down in the streets. The unions could help organize this much as the rich f**ks like Koch are doing for the teabaggers.

No public option - no bill! No public option, no freakin' mandate no matter how "low" the fines are!

Otherwise, I honestly can't think of what to do. We write; we call; we scream; we organize. They're deaf. :banghead:

[vinylsolution]

5. That is a terrific idea....

.... a healthcare premium strike.

Nobody pay a dime for a whole month.

Hit the HMOs and Wall Street where it hurts, I say.

Maybe our un-representatives would sit up and listen if the lobbyists suddenly ran out of cash....

[bertman]

6. Recommend. Great post, babylonsister.

"Now that stuff is cynical and monstrous. It is my sincere hope that the people who are producing these programs will someday be tried and executed by war crimes tribunals at the Hague."

I love that one. Taibbi is the man.