The Last Movie I Saw

I have to admit that I generally find Michael Moore kind of facile and glib in the way that he presents current events. There are points in all of his films (including Capitalism: A Love Story) that make me cringe or roll my eyes at his blatant manipulations. But at the same time, and despite his often irritating mannerisms and "cinematic" tropes, I generally find him on the right side of the issues, and capable of generating immense sympathy for those victimized by the combined forces of corporate bigwigs and sell-out politicians-- and that's valuable in the current media climate. The fact that he has become such a boogy-man to the right is indicative of this effectiveness; though their labeling him a radical is pretty funny and only makes sense if one sees a center embodied by Ronald Reagan. Moore is a populist in the historical sense of the term, one who identifies with the ignored and disenfranchised working class not as the means of pushing an ideological agenda, but because he recognizes that their estrangement from the system devalues the principles that supposedly define the American character, politically, economically, and culturally. This has been consistently true from Roger and Me on. The new cast of villains in his latest film are still the selfish CEOS and pandering pols (both Republicans and Democrats) with special focus on the rapacious bankers who both precipitated and profited from the near collapse of Wall Street last year. There's irony in that point, as it suggests that Moore is in sync with the so-called Tea-Baggers, though they'd never admit an alliance of interests, having fallen prey to the demonization of Moore by the likes of Fox News and the Drudge Report as some kind of Marxist mouthpiece. I can't pretend to know all of what motivates Moore, but based on the evidence of this and his other films, it's a desire to return the working middle class to its position as the chief marker of American strength and prosperity (as was true fifty or sixty years ago), and that's certainly consistent with the rhetoric (if not always the actions) of those who criticize him the most. In other words, it seems like there ought to be plenty of opportunity to build a constructive coalition across the partisan divide to address the actual problems plaguing the country, rather than to continue just yelling at one another. As much as Moore is accused of leading such hollering, I think his broad-based call to action is legitimate, and not in the service of the kind of subversive revolution his more paranoid critics charge, but rather to reinstill the idea of "We the people" to the political process. Then again, maybe that is a radical concept.