{"id":488,"date":"2009-09-23T12:35:56","date_gmt":"2009-09-23T12:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/should-conservatives-embrace-m.html"},"modified":"2009-09-23T12:35:56","modified_gmt":"2009-09-23T12:35:56","slug":"should-conservatives-embrace-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/should-conservatives-embrace-m.html","title":{"rendered":"Should conservatives embrace Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story” ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I admit to not having ever seen a Michael Moore movie, though from what I understand his film Roger and Me<\/em> was probably his defining film, one that predated the Bush era and thus was more balanced in its critiques. Of course his latest effort, a rant against the horrors of unrestrained capitalism, is not going to make any converts. Still, I was intrigued by the positive review of Capitalism: A Love Story<\/em> at AICN<\/a> by their resident conservative critic Massawyrm (he lambasted<\/a> the animated film Happy Feet<\/em> for being a propaganda film against religion, intended to indoctrinate children, and proclaimed<\/a> The Ant Bully<\/em> to be a storybook version of The Communist Manifesto. I have to agree with the former, and haven’t seen the latter.).<\/p>\n

Massawyrm speaks of his admiration for the “old” Michael Moore, invoking Roger and Me, and then makes the claim that this new movie is the closest Moore has come to returning to those genuine speak-truth-to-power roots. And he puts it in context of conservative ideals, even though it’s basically an argument for socialism:<\/p>\n

\n

Now, it is important to understand that I wholeheartedly disagree with Moore’s final conclusions. I do not believe that the framework of a “second bill of rights” – as FDR referred to it – is the solution to the problem. BUT, Moore’s argument is compelling and very, very important. He makes a solid, virtually unassailable case against deregulation and fiscal anarchy, showcasing how it has profoundly crushed the backbone of the country and left many of our citizenry looted, helpless and worst of all, holding the bag. And what frustrates me most about all this is that it is an argument those of us on the republican side of the aisle really need to hear right now<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

You see, while it is easy to point at the crazed evangelical ultra-conservatives as the source of the Republican party’s problems, the truth is they’re just the easy target; the loud distraction while the crew cuts in three piece suits repeat over and over that we are a party about freedom (that’s good) and freedom means keeping the government out of our daily life (that’s really good) and keeping the government out of our daily life means letting the financial industry do what they want without oversight (that’s BAD.)<\/strong> In truth, the fundamental core of what a large majority of Republicans believe in is very much rooted in what Moore is talking about. After all, I can name three guys off the top of my head that hated banking, speculation and usury. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Jesus. Not exactly the thinkers most often quoted at liberal cocktail parties. Here Moore refers to them all.<\/p>\n

If that segment of the population would see this film and hear Moore’s arguments – while they won’t throw up their arms and embrace socialism – the argument could become just how to go about fixing [capitalism] again, rather than screaming SOCIALIST! FASCIST! at one another<\/strong>. But Moore commits one, serious, fatal error.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Emphasis mine. This is a remarkable argument and one that in many ways captures my own fascination with conservatism, a movement whose core principles are in many ways complementary to liberalism, not opposed.<\/p>\n

The error to which he refers is that Moore doesn’t level the same critique at Obama. He puts this in context of marketing, ie that the film will be seen as critical of GOP Presidents but deferential to The One, and thus dismissed by the very people he argues most need to see it. Thats probably a fair assessment, since Obama is a pro-Establishment politician and not a revolutionary. However the bulk of the bank bailouts were indeed the previous Administration, and the Obama stimulus<\/a> was a much broader package that in no way was limited only to “fat cats”. Also, it should be noted that Banks accepting stimulus money were forced to accept exactly the type of rigorous, anti-capitalist intrusive regulation that Moore is probably advocating for, which is why the Banks are trying to give the money back<\/a> now that they are out of the woods.<\/p>\n

At any rate, it’s likely that the relevance of Moore’s critique to Obama is going to fall along the usual partrisan lines. I don’t think omission of the Obama era invalidates the thesis for the preceding Administrations, however.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I admit to not having ever seen a Michael Moore movie, though from what I understand his film Roger and Me was probably his defining film, one that predated the Bush era and thus was more balanced in its critiques. Of course his latest effort, a rant against the horrors of unrestrained capitalism, is not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[107,94,314,25,26],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purple-politics","tag-conservatism","tag-economics","tag-movies","tag-news","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nShould conservatives embrace Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story" ? - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Should conservatives embrace Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story" ? - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I admit to not having ever seen a Michael Moore movie, though from what I understand his film Roger and Me was probably his defining film, one that predated the Bush era and thus was more balanced in its critiques. Of course his latest effort, a rant against the horrors of unrestrained capitalism, is not…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/should-conservatives-embrace-m.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-23T12:35:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Should conservatives embrace Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story\" ? - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Should conservatives embrace Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story\" ? - City of Brass","og_description":"I admit to not having ever seen a Michael Moore movie, though from what I understand his film Roger and Me was probably his defining film, one that predated the Bush era and thus was more balanced in its critiques. Of course his latest effort, a rant against the horrors of unrestrained capitalism, is not…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/should-conservatives-embrace-m.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2009-09-23T12:35:56+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/should-conservatives-embrace-m.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/should-conservatives-embrace-m.html","name":"Should conservatives embrace Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story\" ? - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-23T12:35:56+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-23T12:35:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/should-conservatives-embrace-m.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/should-conservatives-embrace-m.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/09\/should-conservatives-embrace-m.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Should conservatives embrace Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story” ?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}