Never Trust a Propagandist: More on Michael Moore

(The Intelligence Daily) -- I recently wrote a review of Michael Moore’s latest film Capitalism: A Love Story. While the film is not without its merits, Michael Moore seems to be, on a balance sheet, a negative fixture in American culture. If anything, his value lies in being a foil for legitimate leftists. While a lot can be said for how he raises sharp questions about key issues, the more important point to me is the role he plays in shielding the Democratic Party from the left. Indeed, as I have stated time and again, I consider those who constantly provide cover for the Democratic Party to be among the most dangerous and destructive forces in American politics. They act as apologists and lawyers for the plantation party which keeps the working class from acting independently and effecting meaningful change. In his latest article for Huffington Post, “My Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now” Michael Moore proves himself to be one of the most craven apologists going for the party which currently leads attacks against the working class at home and abroad.

The article displays a number of tropes recurrent in those who seek to shore up or reform the Democratic Party. First and foremost, the film betrays a fundamental understanding of how capitalism works. It also focuses on begging Democrats and shaming corporations into being nicer. In an attempt to clarify the issues, I would like to begin with the middle section of the article, pathetically titled “Five Things We Can Do To Make Congress and the President To Listen To Us.” The title itself tells us a lot about Mr. Moore’s perspective. In his analysis, the state is not an instrument in the hands of the capitalist class that needs to be smashed. It is a class-neutral organ which can be made to “listen to us.” The last year or so has made painfully clear to many Americans precisely what the state is. It is a tool of parasitic plutocrats for the further exploitation of working class Americans. This misunderstanding is not trivial, and speaks to the heart of the limitations of Moore’s politics.

Let us examine them in turn:

“Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (contact), one to your Congressperson (contact) and one to each of your two Senators (contact)… Let them know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent — or even a candidate from another party — if they don’t do our bidding. Trust me, they will listen.”

Translation: Make a daily habit of supplicating yourself before corporate politicians. They’ll listen. And if they don’t, you can always vote for another pro-capitalist politician. They’ll listen because they work for “we the people.” Oh, and I’m totally kidding about that voting for candidates from another party thing… no serious person would ever do that.

“Take over your local Democratic Party. Remember how much fun you had with all those friends and neighbors working together to get Barack Obama elected? YOU DID THE IMPOSSIBLE… There will not be many in attendance and they will either be happy or in shock that you and the Obama Revolution have entered the room looking like you mean business. President Obama’s agenda will never happen without mass grass roots action — and he won’t feel encouraged to do the right thing if no one has his back, whether it’s to stand with him, or push him in the right direction.”

Translation: Didn’t feel betrayed by Barack Obama placating the far right and corporations before he was even sitting in the Oval Office? Still think that electing a Black man fundamentally changed America? Take advantage of the fact that almost no one is involved in ward-level politics in America and attempt to pressure Wall Street’s favorite politician to the left.

This chestnut is the essence of reformist politics in America: that the Democratic Party can be pressured to “move to the left” or “get tough” if only we have enough letter writing campaigns / petitions / marches in the streets / progressives winning primaries / whatever. It ignores the fact that the Democratic Party isn’t even kowtowing to the right on attacks on the working class right now. It is actively leading the fight to lower wages and living standards. It has expanded the War on Terror and made almost no attempt to roll back Bush-era torture and police state. And, most importantly, the Democratic Party is bank rolled by war profiteers and other vermin, not me and you.

“Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year — or, better yet, consider running for office yourself! You don’t have to settle for the incumbent who always expects to win. You can be our next representative!”

Translation: The problem isn’t the system. It’s the people running it. If we elected good people the system would do good things.

“Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the bailout money… Place “Capitalism Did This” signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure.”

Translation: Capitalists can be shamed into doing the right thing.

The final point- about common people starting blogs, spreading the word, and becoming the media is probably the strongest in the article. I will give credit where credit is due, particularly as I think that getting the word out is about all any of us can do at this point. However, in the context of the rest of the article, it is worth asking what “the word” is that Mr. Moore wants people to get out.

Having hammered away on one of my favorite points- that the Democrats are useless and incapable of reform, I would like to address the first five points, titled “Five Things We Demand The President and Congress Do Immediately.” In principle, I am not opposed to any of his demands. However, the idea that Democrats can achieve any of these demands- or any other reformist political party which takes the profit system as a given- is laughable at best. We will not get another New Deal. The atmosphere of ascendant American capitalism is as far away as the age of the dinosaurs so far as you’re concerned. The period in which we live is not one of concessions to a working class based on American hegemony over world capitalism. It is one of increasing attacks on working people and their living standards by a ruling class desperately trying to reassert that rapidly waning hegemony.

In this highly important broader context, the demands raised by Mr. Moore aren’t progressive, but dangerous. They sow illusions in the ability of the Democratic Party and the capitalist state to provide meaningful improvements in the lives of working class people. I, for one, would be in favor of a moratorium on foreclosures and a law that prevents banks from evicting people for the crime of losing their jobs. But only a revolutionary workers’ government can provide for this. Further, the remainder of Mr. Moore’s demands may sound good at first pass, but upon further examination are little more than standard liberal boilerplate in an era of right-wing and proto-fascist reaction.

The call for Medicare For All is weak, and does nothing to discuss the real issue. I am in favor of adequate medical coverage for all, using the profits currently hoarded by a parasitic layer of insurance conglomerates, pharmaceutical companies, and medical equipment manufacturers. There is no mention in Mr. Moore’s article that poor health care for the masses comes at the enrichment of an elite few. This is hardly a trivial complaint. Once again, it cuts to the heart of everything that is wrong with Mr. Moore’s analysis.

Publicly funded elections and getting corporate money is another proposal that sounds great. But when put into the very real social context in which we find ourselves, it is a dangerous proposal. I am opposed to corporate control of elections, which is precisely what our current system amounts to. Assuming that publicly-funded elections were even a possibility- and I am highly skeptical that it is- are we really to expect that incumbent politicians are going to support a system that undermines their position? Further, what assurance do we have that funds with be distributed in a manner that is conducive to the broadest possible marketplace of ideas? What assurance do we have that the right will not benefit disproportionately? Finally, what of the tradition of bona fide revolutionary socialist groups in refusing state money to run their electoral campaigns? What recourse would they have in the system that Mr. Moore proposes? All of these problems are too large to ignore.

Mr. Moore’s call for a state-owned bank is perhaps the trickiest of his proposals. In the first place, these banks will still have to compete with larger, private banks on the open market. Companies, banks or otherwise, that put people over profits will soon fall in the face of those that do not. An unprofitable state bank will be nothing but a drain on taxpayers- obviously overwhelming working class, and our tax system is becoming increasingly regressive. But again, the most important point that needs to be made is that the profit system is the problem. We don’t need “good” capitalist institutions run by the state. We need to smash the system that allows the enrichment of a tiny few at the expense of the rest of us.

In the same paragraph, Moore calls for “reinstat[ing] all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies — and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies — you name it.” Again, making the huge leap and assuming that such things are possible at this stage of American capitalism (and, again, I categorically do not think that they are), Moore is again telling the American public that we don’t need to get rid of the profit system. We just need to turn back the Reagan Revolution. As if the two aren’t intimately related to one another. The Reagan Revolution didn’t “just happen.” It was the collective action of a capitalist class that needed to increase its rate of profit. The clock can’t be turned back, you can’t go home again, and even if you could, the real, fundamental, and underlying problem isn’t being addressed. Capitalism is a deeply flawed system and anything that does not address this is designed to fail. It is putting a Band-Aid where a tourniquet is needed.

Moore’s final proposal to socialize natural resources and “save our planet” is more of the same. He cites Alaska as a place where natural resources are “owned collectively” in “Sarah Palin’s socialist Alaska.” Nothing could be further from the truth. The people of Alaska get a collective stipend from the profits of oil companies. The resources of Alaska are not owned in common by the people, and they are not planned and allocated in a democratic, equitable manner. The essence of socialism is the elimination of the profit system and ownership and planning of the world’s resources democratically by and for the majority of its inhabitants. Some meager crumbs thrown to the people of Alaska resembles socialism about as much as a dog resembles a horse.

His use of “socialism” as an epithet to attack a right-wing politician is beneath response.

The final section on Mr. Moore’s are largely apolitical appeals toward a more “responsible” consumerism. While such activities may make a person feel better about themselves and sleep better at night- and to be sure, such things are helpful in as much as revolutionaries with a good sense of self-esteem are better than those without- they do nothing to address the underlying problem. On a personal level, I am certainly in favor of people making responsible choices, and not mortgaging their future to multi-national banks under the auspices of credit card debt. I certainly think that it’s a “better” choice to put your money in a locally-owned credit union that is rooted in the community. I prefer to patronize local mom-and-pops because they are not actively plotting my death. But this has fucking zero to do with opposing capitalism, which is something that Michael Moore at least claims to be doing this week.

However, even in this section, there is some fairly insidious rhetoric. His repeated appeals to patriotism (”Nothing is more American than democracy… Americanize your workplace”) are the worst kind of left social chauvinism, the same kind of pap as “dissent is patriotism.” His bland assertion that “[y]ou are not a wage slave. You are a free person” is wishful thinking at best and intentionally misleading at worst. It shows just how out of touch he is with the realities of the working class under capitalism. His final paragraph lecturing Americans on their personal habits is nothing more than grotesque prole flogging.

I’m not expecting Michael Moore to be anything other than he is- a Democratic Party propagandist. Nor am I impugning his personal character, intentions, or feelings. He doesn’t lay awake at night trying to figure out ways to help the Democrats keep American capitalism afloat- or at least he doesn’t think he does. If anything, he’s losing sleep over working class people losing their homes. But his intentions and feelings aren’t what I’m concerned with. What I’m concerned with is his broader role in society. And that role is to keep an increasingly radicalized American working class and youth penned in the Democratic Party, the party which is currently leading attacks on the standards of working class people, and reigning bombs over the heads of working class people abroad.


Nick P grew up in New England in the 1990s. From a young age he sought out the strange and unusual. He first started irritating strangers internationally when he started writing for Maximumrocknroll in 1995, being voted “Most Hated Columnist.” After being fired for allegedly being a plant for Jeff Bale and Larry Livermore , he went on to write for Jeff Bale’s far superior The Hit List until that folded. He is also a founder of the Esozone event. Nick runs a website called The Black Sun Gazette