by Jean Sidden

Created on: October 05, 2009

As we spend our days pummeled with the latest gloom and doom surrounding the battered economy and ask ourselves "How did we get in this mess?" rest assured Michael Moore will answer the question. As we contemplate how swiftly events seemed to take place to leave many of us jobless and living off our credit cards, Moore's film Capitalism, A Love Story will enlighten us to the recession's long history. If we lose faith and bury our heads in the sand or stick our fingers in our ears, the film will expose the truth loud and clear.

Outrage after outrage is revealed in Capitalism. The film evokes stunned disbelief, tears and a good helping of reality checking. The overwhelming avalanche of information is relieved by Moore's masterful touch at building the story.

Moore takes us back through the history of capitalism in the last half of the twentieth century. Point by point leads to the inevitable. The euphoria of the 1950s when America had no global competition; Jimmy Carter's glum prediction of our materialistic demise; Reagan's aw shucks optimism as he deregulated banks and gave himself over to their influence. There lies the parasite. Deregulation gone wild is revealed as a stock market that Moore refers to as a casino gambling with the public's money.

Next he looks at the religious aspects of capitalism and shows that there are none. Religious experts speak of capitalism as an insult to the Bible. Nowhere is it written that the rich shall inherit the earth. In fact, capitalism is counter to everything Jesus Christ stood for. Constitutionally there is no evidence of capitalism being included in the founding fathers' document.

We hear the story of a for profit juvenile detention center that fed off a corrupt judiciary who incarcerated children for offenses such as throwing a piece of food at the dinner table. This is a portion of the film that begs the question "where were the parents?" We live through a couple in the mid west cleaning out their family home after foreclosure, a home that had been in the family for four generations. Next comes the story of a factory closing, laying off its workers with no pension, severance or remuneration of any kind.

Just as the barrage of insult, humiliation and degradation of the weak by the strong becomes almost unbearable Moore starts the climb back up the mountain. He begins with the election of Barack Obama as a clear sign the people are speaking out and the vote is all-powerful. However, in the next moment he shows that

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>