Another Inconvenient Truth

I saw Michael Moore's new movie this weekend, 'Capitalism: A love story'. It could have well been titled 'Another Inconvenient Truth'...!

I'll start out by admitting I have long been a fierce believer in the efficiency, power and inherent fairness of free market forces. Allowing supply and demand to inter-operate freely, whether it be for goods, labor, etc... I continue to believe that. But I have also come to the conclusion that our economy is far from a free market economy, and is in fact manipulated and distorted by powerful forces.

The other inconvenient truth, following Al Gore's assertions on what human activity is doing to our planetary environment and climate, is that the economic system we have long held up as the model to promote fairness and opportunity for all is in fact not doing that at all.

Moore does a good job of reminding us that the cut-throat, profit-at-all-cost model our capitalistic economy is based on is not somehow defined in our constitution, or somehow ideologically inherited from the founders of this country. Further, he clearly demonstrates that the greed and ruthlessness that the system promotes clearly go against established religious beliefs of looking out for one another etc... Moore then tries to give socialism a good name, and there I think he fails. Socialism, communism and even capitalism have their merits on paper, in theory. Where Moore loses credibility is that socialism has proven to be just a corrupt as any other model. The Soviet model was 'you will all be equal in poverty and oppression'. The European socialist model was for the most part 'we will tax ourselves into an economic coma and the ruling class will squander the money'. Mind you, at least they have long vacations and universal healthcare and typically a much higher quality of life, so it's not all bad. But it's not all good either.

So where does that leave us? Well, for one it's high time to dramatically reduce the power the corporations and their lobbies have in our government. For this, real campaign finance reform is needed. We all watch - outraged but idle - as lawmakers who are taking millions from health insurance lobbies try to convince us that universal health care in un-American. Or as we continue wasting tens of billions of tax payer dollars on unjust wars instead of using that money to build renewable energy and cleaning up our planet.

Moore reminds us that when GM auto workers were being bullied by corrupt local police and industry thugs, Roosevelt sent in the National Guard to protect the workers. I wonder if President Obama should call in the National Guard to prevent all lobbyists from approaching within 1000 feet of the Capitol while urging Congress into an extraordinary session to get some real work done. None of this 'starting to phase in by 2017' crap...

Drastic regulatory measures with real teeth are needed. But first, enough politicians with real integrity are needed to support these measures. Do we have enough of these?

Can we regulate fairness? Are we measuring success in this country in ways that push us to these cut-throat systems? By most measures other than GDP, the US falls very far down the list when it comes to social equality, quality of life, etc... Is that the American dream? I say it's not.

My main fight is to combat climate change and the destructive human activities causing it. Yet it is clear that blind capitalism is the very cause of planetary abuse, pushing for consumption for its own sake, making long term sacrifices for the sake of short-term returns, etc...

Enough. Moore has a fantastic quote at the end of the movie: 'I refuse to live in a country like this, and I'm not going anywhere'. Change is needed. Real change. And it won't happen on its own. The American people deserve so much better, the world deserves so much better. Throughout history, oppressed populations have risen up against tyrants, have stood up for what was right once they could no longer stand by and tolerate the egregious behavior of those who were oppressing them.

Given the outrage of having been lied to in order to get this country into unjust wars, or to bail out financial institutions that did not deserve to survive (and whose leaders should be made to give back all the money they took while raping the system and should be sent to jail), or watching in real time as the health care lobby buys its way into even more lucrative outcomes, I'd say the tipping point is not far off. Politicians in Washington today will soon need to decide if they want to be part of the solution, or continue being part of the problem.