by Paul Garver
More than a thousand supporters of single-payer healthcare rallied at the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, and marched along with filmmaker Michael Moore to promote the single-payer cause and attend the American premiere of Michael’s new film CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY.
Pittsburgh media reported 1400 marchers in all. About half of these were AFL-CIO Convention delegates and guests, and the other half local Pittsuburgh activists. Sponsoring unions included among others the Steelworkers (USWA), the California Nurses’ Association (CNA/NNOC), the ILWU, IFPTE and Calif. School Employees Association (CSEA). The large turnout from the Convention guarantees the passage of the resolution supporting Single-Payer as a long-term goal for the AFL-CIO (while the resolution supporting the incremental Obama position will pass as well!).
Now to the film. The first message: GO SEE THE FILM WHEN IT OPENS ON OCTOBER 2 ACROSS THE COUNTRY. OR IF YOU ARE UNEMPLOYED YOU MAY BE ABLE TO SEE THE FILM AN EVENING EARLIER WHEN IT OPENS IN SEVERAL HARD-HIT AMERICAN CITIES.
Who among us could dislike a film that combines a hard-hitting attack on the ideology and central institutions of global capitalism, sympathetic portraits of many of its victims and those struggling for justice, and Michael Moore’s zany humor? Oh, there were times when I thought the editing was a little rough and cumbersome, or that one of Michael’s shticks went on too long, but no matter. Here are a few moments I thought were really great:
1. Clips of pro-capitalist propaganda shows from the 50s and 60s.
2. moving coverage of the successful struggle at Republic Windows in Chicago.
3. Good footage of a militant struggle against foreclosure in Miami
4. His interviews of legislators and regulators about how they were stampeded into an unsupervised bailout and subsidies to the undeserving rich.
5. Moore’s labelling bank headquarters with the yellow yape denoting Crime Scene, and his attempts at making citizen arrests of corporate criminals.
6. Never before shown footage of Franklin Roosevelt’s filmed Jan. 1945 appeal for a Second Bill of Rights for all Americans (rights to decent jobs and livelihoods, good education, healthcare, pensions, etc. to be made part of their constitutional rights as citizens).
As always, Moore combines heart-wrenching sympathy for the victims of exploitation with pillory and contempt for those who exploit them. But with CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY, Moore tries hard to analyze its deeper causes. Capitalism is evil and as frequently stated by Catholic clergy in the film, sinful. There is an alternative, which sounds to me like democratic socialism and Moore labels “democracy.” Although sometimes he sounds a bit starry-eyed about alternative models and how to get from here to there, Moore is a creative genius and on our side.
Like many of us, Moore struggles with the tension between his delight over Obama’s electoral victory and the hopes it has raised for real change in America, and concern about the domination of his economic advisors by the same self-serving financial elite that brought about the last crisis. Or as Michael states (more or less) in his voiceover towards the end of the film: “I refuse to live in a country where capitalism abuses people this way, AND I’M NOT LEAVING!
Obama will speak here in an hour, certainly to great acclaim, but shadowed by some of the same doubts for many of us present at the AFL-CIO convention.
Filed under: 2009 AFL-CIO Convention, Conferences and Events, Health Care Tagged: | AFL-CIO, capitalism, Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare, Michael Moore, Single-payer health care
