Michael Moore and Simmons Make Fine Bedfellows

I saw “Capitalism” over the weekend. In further documenting the rumblings of left-wing progressives, Michael Moore went from offering social criticism and commentary, all the way to advocating revolution. I loved it.

His bottom line is simple: Capitalism is a viciously flawed system that’s lived since inception on a fantasy (not to mention an ethic) that will never, ever be shared by the vast (and exploding) majority of people. As soon as the duped wake up, they will rise up.

In the meantime, America will continue to create a precious few millionaires among people who trade in “paper,” produce nothing, and exploit everybody else to make more dollars. Today’s New York Times article about The Simmons Bedding Company underscores Moore’s point.

What happened at Simmons has happened here – and in other countries -- many times over. “Investors” have bought, leveraged, sold, leverage again, borrowed against, and finally bankrupted a 133-year old manufacturing company. The employees are now out of work, but the investors toodled off with millions “made” in some financial boondoggle than none of us can understand. If you haven’t read the article, you should.

Together, Michael Moore and Simmons have raised a serious question: How long will Americans – the union members, the struggling middle class and the beleagued working class, the health-care ruined, the un- and under-insured – well the 99 percent of us -- continue to be fooled and made “afraid” by the corporate/media conglomerate that cows the rest of us by throwing around scary words like “socialiasm”? How long will we be tricked into hating one another instead of helping one another? How long will we not see that -- in the vast, "them" is us, while in the narrow them is only them that uses us. In short, how long can we be tricked into voting against our own self-interest?

-- scrubbed by Marketing Brillo

p.s. Because of his scathing critique of Wall Street, Moore reportedly fears that this movie will be this last. I figure if Michael Moore can risk using the "S"[socialism] and "R" [revolution] words, they bear repeating.