The Sandspur

Issue date: 10/9/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

"Capitalism: A Love Story," the compelling new film from controversial filmmaker Michael Moore, opens with juxtaposing images of modern day America and dialogue from an educational movie about the later days of the Roman Empire. Rome fell, in part, because of the vast dichotomy between rich and poor. Currently in America, the top one percent of income earners make more money than the bottom ninety five percent combined. To quote from a Citibank report, America has become a "plutonomy" with the sole danger being that the underprivileged still retain the right to vote. To distract the people from these injustices, the Romans implemented games "to keep the idle citizens entertained."

Moore then flashes images of current sporting events and "American Idol." The comparison is effective as Moore is suggesting that unless we do something, our "empire" is going to fall. Over the next two hours, Michael Moore takes us on a "CliffsNotes" version of the current economic situation and how it came to be. Beginning with the Reagan administration and the implementation of deregulation, Moore follows its effects through to our current financial crisis.

Moore's films have always focused on the common man, but never as effectively as shown here. In one astonishing revelation, Moore interviews a commercial airline pilot whose annual salary, like those of most pilots, has dwindled to a staggering $20,000, forcing the pilot to rely on food stamps. Moore also takes on a corrupt judge who, in a backhanded deal with a for-profit juvenile detention facility, sentences teens to months of "rehabilitation" time for having done nothing more than arguing with friends at the mall or smoking pot at a party. That the judge receives millions of dollars from the facility for these harsh sentences is evident, Moore suggests, of a capitalist system gone awry.

In addition to great investigative reporting, Moore is also a master at uncovering lost video footage. Early in the film, we are shown a clip of Ronald Reagan speaking to Wall Street traders. During a moment of applause, former Secretary of the Treasury Don Regan, tells the president to "speed it up." The outrageousness of such an order is strikingly more outrageous when we understand that Regan's former position was CEO of Merrill Lynch and that he was largely responsible for spearheading deregulation and cutting taxes on the nation's top earners during the president's first term.

Continued...

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