Moore provides some serious, if uncomprehensive, critiques of capitalism by focusing on the most glaring of its inhumanities. The segment featuring "dead peasant" life insurance policies taken out by employers on their employees without the knowledge of those employees was among the most egregious. Moore document numerous instances of corporations listing the death of employees on their profit sheets in addition to memos bemoaning the death rate of employees not living up to expectations.
The segment on the bailout that came from Congress was also done well, although Moore made more than subtle allusions to the type of conspiracy that sounds better suited to a John Grisham novel or a Central American country's political turmoil.
Nevertheless, there seems to be a fatal flaw in the documentary. The last half-hour is dedicated to the triumphs of the people. And in between clips of a successful strike scene at a factory in Chicago, clips of a group of low-income families sending away the representative from the bank and the police as they attempted to evict residents from foreclosed homes, and clips of protesters outside Wall St. are interspersed clips of Obama campaigning and people rallying at his rallies. But what has Obama done to distinguish himself from his predecessors. Sure, he campaigned on a message of change, but Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner are two of his chief economic advisors. Obama has populated his team of advisors with all the people who used to be in Washington.
Those who argue that the system has changed politically will point to the passage of the financial reform bill last summer as proof that the Obama administration is serious about tackling these issues, and maybe he is. Those of us firmly on the left, however, remain mostly disappointed with a president who campaigned on a message of wholesale change and has brought minor reform at the most. Moore portrays Obama as the man emblematic of the people's desire to profoundly reshape the country. If Obama was such a figure, then it will surely be more than just a few radical leftists who are disappointed.
What Moore could have highlighted to a greater extent was a changing social psyche regarding the power of the people. While I may condemn the Tea Party consistently for its anti-intellectualism, intolerance, and short-sightedness, it is representative of this newfound belief in the power of the people to be heard. Tea Partiers are upset just as much as leftists by the bailouts given out to the banks. They're populists, and so don't make much distinction between government elites, business elites, and academic elites.
I have said it before and I will say it again. What the country needs is an equivalent movement on the left to the Tea Party - a radically democratic movement that demands a certain standard of living for everyone in the country. In that sense, Moore did well to end with FDR's Second Bill of Rights. It highlights many of the concerns of our society today.
If you haven't seen Moore's film, and you're upset about what's happening to the country, give it a watch. If you think socialism is a dirty word, you probably already hate Michael Moore, but you should watch this anyway. It might show you that socialism in moderation isn't as bad as you thought it was. And if you're a leftist, you should watch this to know what ideas are out there on your side.
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