Michael Moore: Dishonest Comrade of the Revolution

Comrades,

If Comrade Michael’s movie is right, then the Revolution begins now! We must throw off the yoke of the oppressors and seize the means of (content) production. I’ve got the passwords for the Web site and Comrade Ledbetter’s got the Marx archives. We’ll type in shifts, and America will look into our mirror to see the ugly capitalist tycoon—through the digitized words of Comrade Karl—staring back. Surely then the uprising will commence.

Well, wait a minute. Something’s amiss. Comrade Michael has, now that I think about it, just performed this very feat. What could be more damning of capitalism than the movie we all just watched? And yet, here we sit. As we have noted, Moore took the reins of production (and, in high service to his brother comrades, also writing and direction) to start the rebellion for us, even using the pig’s money in the process. And yet we proletarians have not rushed to the barricades, nor, actually, even bothered to erect any.

Despite Moore’s exhortations and demonstrations, those of us with homes left to live in or jobs left to work at are staying in both. And those of us who thought voting for change would be the same as enacting change are left to watch as the Changer we voted for has his reforms chipped away in the name of political expediency, one by one, until the bankers, who we all know really control our "democracy," are placated by the "reforms" proposed by the Party, er, Administration.

And for those "homeowners" Moore spotlights—you know, the ones whose "private property" has already been reassigned, via government-owned banks, to the state—well, as long as their token unemployment benefits keep getting extended, they won’t get too demanding about change, either.

So how to light the fuse of Moore’s Revolution, then? How to convince Americans the capitalism they think they love—tainted as it is with a bevy of socialist programs, from Medicare to, duh, Social Security, to the bailout—is a disaster, and must be replaced with, wait, what did he say? Capitalism must be replaced with democracy? Why the hell does Moore end his movie with a swinging version of The Internationale if we’re all supposed to be fighting for more democracy?