资本主义：一个爱情故事

其实还挺触目惊心的。最简单的一句话就是，买了房子之后尽早还贷款，因为美国银行已经改了法律条款，可以提高loan rate的。而且千万千万不要refinance ur house，不然落得个倾家荡产流离失所可就不是好玩儿的了。当然，除非你也想像片子中的老兄们听到的国会议员建议那样做，耍无赖就是不走。

其实当Obama当选之后导演的态度大转变就让我厌恶到不行。这总统这么厉害这么优秀，成效在哪里呢？我们怎么都还没有看见。最后争取自己权益的还不是咱们working class自己嘛？

我这一辈子是不想去美国的，老师在那里实在是没办法混，这一点看我在这里的美国同事们有多开心就知道了

最后的国际歌还挺那什么的～～
咱们工人有力量

片子本身还有些不够客观，依然带了太多的Michael Moore自身的观点，远远没有<Food Inc.>好。

最后说一句，可以看一看的，哪怕是抱着审视和怀疑的态度去看。

我想我在精神上某处应该是上升了一个层次，如果我开始为了记录片而不是剧情片流眼泪的话。

只是，作为一个不跟经济专业沾边的局外人，一个流离在美国的异乡人，为了被腐蚀的美国梦大放悲歌，难免有些自作多情。我怀着这样又激动又惭愧的情绪无处抒发，因为我知道，无论是已看过的还是将要看的，说它好还是说它坏的，很少再会有人跟我有一样的感触了。

五星给Michigan。

影片一开始，他说我生在Flint, Michigan, GM的总部所在地。这个时候我身在Dearborn, Michigan, Ford的总部所在地。我在这里三年了，三年间我无数次地听人说，不要去东边的底特律啊，那是美国最乱的一个城市；也不要去北边的Flint啊，那是美国第二乱的城市。我们是异乡人嘛，听到这些话的时候只需要乖乖地做出惊恐的表情，而不用体会他们背后的悲凉。我也无数次听人说，以前这里如何是美国的工业重镇、经济支柱，福特大楼如何风光，底特律大街上人潮熙攘。异乡人，我们同样只需要叹息一声“来的不是时候”，所有属于他们的悲哀、痛惜就由他们去吧。

可是影片里的michigan看得我心痛了。那些废弃的工地，破旧的遗址，那些被赶出家门的大胖子工人看得我心痛了。我从来不知道长成一个大胖子，笨重地搬着家具，放火烧掉，然后低低地骂着人，有这样让人心痛的力量。

给Michael Moore。

都说他是主观的纪录片导演。可我热爱他固执的主观。啊，他也是一个大胖子，在美国随处可见的那一种，拥有撼动人心的力量。我喜欢他的叙事方式，怎么严肃也遮掩不住的幽默，对经典轻轻的致敬和重重的玩弄。至于他身上那些刺眼的永恒存在的激进，大抵是真的勇士才能做得出的。作为旁白的声音也很好听，胖子都有好听的声音。

在底特律中心的大楼下，他被警卫拦住，他说我是Michael Moore，我拍了这么多年的电影还从来没有说我哪里不能进；他拖着他肥胖的身躯在华尔街拉上犯罪现场的拦幅，拿着大喇叭喊你们都是罪犯。我不禁在想中国的名导们都在做什么。嗯我听说了，他们在拍纯爱文艺片和所谓灾难伦理片。意义在哪里？力量在哪里？我们不需要更多温情了啊。

给Blockbuster。

有一件伤心的巧事。我家电影一直是在Blockbuster租的，这部也不例外。我租下这部不久，就突然有人告诉我Blockbuster，美国最大最老资格的影片出租公司，申请破产保护了。我对破产的Lehman Brothers没有过什么感情，对GM也没有太多感情。在金融危机这么久以后，Blockbuster成了我最不忍卒读的一个。我常去那里租电影，因为他们有很多家门店遍布周围，更因为他们有异常热心的店员，总是忙不迭地过来跟我们介绍电影，比冷冰冰的寄来寄去的Netflix好很多。遇到的每一个人都看起来那么乐观，那么健谈，啊，还有，喜欢Denzel Washington和Leonardo DiCaprio，每个人都是。我总想，他们是因为经常看电影才这么心情舒畅呢，还是心情足够舒畅了才被招来做店员？

这件事情以后，我似乎不敢再去那里了。我怕看到任何忧伤的面孔，或是紧闭的门，或是不再出现的人。我只有把看过的电影默默寄回去，再等着下一部默默寄来。

给所有拒绝留下又不要离开的人。

影片最后他说，I refuse to live in a country like this - and I'm not leaving. 我不要在这样一个国家生活，可我不会离开的。拒绝留下又不要离开，这是每个深爱这片土地的人的困境。我看到更多更多的人，愤怒着，叫嚣着，辱骂着，却更安心地留着。

给你们。

The other day I was watching Real Time. As usual, Bill and his panel - Arianna Huffington and Andrew Sorkin in this case - talked about how the Corporate America, especially those financial elites, rip off the hard-working middle class people and get away with it with tons of taxpayers' money in their pockets. As the heat mounted, it is, of course, inevitable to raise doubts about and criticize the existing system. Then, all of sudden, I was shocked, and partly amused, by how these spouts resemble what we have been preached throughout our education. Greed, exploitation, and ultimately the populist revolt. This type of rhetoric sounds no strange to us; for this is what we are expected, if not ordered, to believe in. And yet, to the American people, particularly the younger generation, it sounds just as exotic and remote as a fashionable historic curiosity.

There are more of these moments to find in Michael Moore's documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. Jimmy Carter's presidential statement that "we are at a turning point in our history" in that "human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns" called for the very same thing the Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces is intended to. The only difference here is that one has perished amid the laissez faire spree triggered by the president's successor, while another is ongoing in an emerging superpower experiencing an astounding economic growth and faced with increasingly polarized distribution.

Carter also rightly decried that "too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption". Ironically enough, this is exactly where Ronald Reagan thrived. By cutting taxes by a enormous margin, by packing those ideas that Carter hated and warned against into the doctrine of capitalism and the almighty power of the free market, the Republican president created a robust consumption-driven economy and garnered tremendous popularity. Historically, this was also a significant period of what Walter R. Mead, an advisor to Henry Kissinger, described as the breakdown of the blue model. Union power declined, competition intensified - just as Michael Moore lamented in the film, it was not an easy time for everybody. However, the cosmetic served well. With new policies well implemented, economic index responded with great numbers. So did the stock market, so did the financial sector; and so people say of the economy and the president's legacy. Indeed, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

But this does not solve the moral problems incurred by the ever greater gap between the wealthy and the poor. In an electoral democracy, for a policy, or more precisely -- an ideology to become legitimate it has to promote the core ideas that have been deeply rooted in this nation ever since its foundation - well known as the "American dream" - which, in its simplest form, requires two most basic elements: freedom and equal opportunities. Of course, it is no difficulty to claim freedom in a capitalism for it is already a "free market", but the concept of "equal opportunities" is not an easy case. How could everyone be equal in a system in which more capital could be gained out of capital itself? How is deregulation supposed to promote equality when the ones with more wealth is granted with access to more influence, and hence even more wealth? This is where the economists, along with their terrifying-sounding jargons, weighed in. Drawing on one after another premises that are too good - and too simple - to be true, they derived elegant models functioning perfectly in equilibriums yet inherently inconsistent with reality. But politicians, as they always do, conveniently neglected those flaws in nature and with the help of speechwriters blended the pretty conclusions into their exciting orations. The "invisible hand", what a tempting yet handy idea - it's like finding the key to the ultimate mystery of the universe - sparing us the tedious thoughts of how our society and economy really work, develop, and interact with fast changing circumstances. Capitalism and the free market, as the Cold War ended in the collapse of the Soviet Union, soon earned their unchallengeable status in the realm of economic expertise. This, I firmly believe, is the ugly but real side of the truth: people blindly come to believe in those slogan-like theories not because of prudence, but because of laziness; for it is the one of the most common human nature of us to see what we want to see.

But, how about the immoral and unchristlike worship of "self-indulgence and consumption"? It indeed sounds like a righteous warning, doesn't it? Let me put this in relatively vague words for the sake of a bit wit here. When people see and hear of the media promotions of smoking elaborately plotted and sponsored by big evil tobacco companies, as depicted in Hollywood products, in either an upbraiding or a nostalgic way, they easily buy it, assuming that's what surely is bound to happen, as though the condescending liberal media elites just reclaimed their integrity out of blue. Nonetheless, contradictory to the common ground that government and politicians are evil, hypocritical, or, at best, incompetent, when it comes to massive political propaganda people easily get dismissive, disdainfully calling them conspiracies. Anyway, were those speculations to have been true, you have got to give applause to the gentlemen behind the curtain, for they can somehow manage to manipulate people to do and believe in things that are obviously against their own interests. It is truly a tour de force, works like magic.

Back to the film, and the ideology talk partly thanks to its title. It is amazing how frequently and strongly Michael Moore stress the term "socialism". And not in a Cold-War-minded way, but in a progressive and advocating way. So advocating that it proclaims socialism is the unfulfilled dream of FDR. So, how does the landscape really looks like in the US? Is it as biased as either side insists? Trying to answer that question, another popular liberal president, Jed Bartlet, would probably say, "Give me numbers." Fair enough. Let's take a look at them:

http://filer.blogbus.com/4598556/45985561268749559s.gif
http://filer.blogbus.com/4598556/45985561268749552q.gif

This poll was conducted earlier this year. It shows that, significantly, though 58% of Americans still maintain a negative image of socialism, among Democrats and leaner a majority of people share a positive one, and that majority grows even bigger when it comes to liberals, topping the "supermajority" threshold at 61%.

Also underlined in the film is Barack Obama's ascendency in polls during the '08 presidential election, which Michael Moore arbitrarily attributed to the underlying socialism in his rhetoric and agenda. It is easy to commit the mistake of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but the exhilarated crowd was real and hard. Young people, with their compassion and idealism yet to fade, are known to be the main components of the liberal base. This hypothetical electoral map below demonstrates that fact convincingly well:

http://filer.blogbus.com/4598556/45985561268757624r.jpg

These results altogether illustrate a sharp contrast with that across the Pacific, where the pro-capitalism outrage amid the young is burgeoning seemingly as fast as the economic growth. The bottom line is that it is widely acknowledged that China's economy and growth model are in fact ill and flawed, but is capitalism the solution to all our conundrums? I am too often astounded by the extend to which some of our professors and pundits, who are supposed to think and analyze in a much more comprehensive way, appear so naive as to blame many problems on the markets not being open, free, and in essence capitalist enough. The contemporary history of the US has already showed the idealistic promises of capitalism that everyone shares an equal opportunity to work his way into the upper class are nothing but a fantasy; in reality, it is never in its purest form but other derivatives, namely, crony capitalism. Which does little good to the society as a whole but quite the opposite, creating even more inequality in the long run. In an economy that is strong and hence resilient to tentative turbulences so long as the marginal well-being stays positive, it might take decades for a bubble to burst. Nevertheless, in an over populated nation governed by a young regime dealing with various inherent social tensions, it could lead to catastrophe.

So, what does all this imply? Should we just entirely reject the Western philosophies as merely historical blunders? Of course not. To me the very point here is that we are bestowed - in an ironic way - with this dual perspective on the nature of human society, in terms of how social progressivism driven by different values eventually converge at promoting human equality and how dogmatism could be manipulated to impede that momentum and ultimately undermine our integrity. For a nation in the face of a seemingly unstainable economy, for a people shadowed by a wobbling ethical system, this is an utterly important issue.

最近網上流行一句話說，少時不努力，老大搞IT。

南方朔說，無論任何社會，中産階級都是最主要的穩定力量，他們由于多半是有點技術的上班及上工族，而且經濟條件尚可，他們的價值觀遂比較個人傾向，他們不會去煩人，也不希望被政府煩。他們權利義務分明，多半都希望就這樣平安幸福的終其一生。但這種卑微的願望，現在卻已變得愈來愈遙遠。

Moore說，美國的中產階級消失了，靠在企業做工買的起房，3年換新車的生活已經不存在了。

 

於此我恍然大悟：按美國50年前中產的標準和南方朔中產的定義，買的起房，買的起車，有點技術又個人化並希望安於此境，如今的中國大陸中產階級好像根本就不存在，南方朔說的這種人在中國跟現在美國的這種人同樣，成了Peasant，翻譯為民工我想更加確切，這就不難解釋少壯不努力，老大搞IT了，在中國除非你成為公僕OR紅頂，如同在美國你西裝革履在華爾街上班，不然你就是個Peasant。他們有American Dreanm，我們還有Chinese Dream呢，呵呵，哈哈，哈哈哈哈。

 

美國被商人掌控了，中國則被公僕和紅頂商人掌控。如此看來，中國的中產者產生於那個楊百萬的時代，終結於和世界接軌之後，前後短短10多幾年。世界也差不多，80年代出生的我們，見證了一個時代，中國的，世界的，我是指，從80年開始，美國變成了華爾街的賺錢工具，中國變成了公僕們日積月累不斷鼠竊的糧倉，蘇俄則被那些心狠手辣，眼疾手快的紅色寡頭買下來了，這個世界正在如此同步的轉化為富人和窮人的世界，讓人不經懷疑，是否冥冥中自有天命。

 

American dream就像美國人的一場戀愛，美國人失戀了，然後中國人開始追求她。中國人多久會嘗到失戀的苦果呢？

 

或許Moore給我們了一個結論，democracy。誰知道呢？

其实，我是摩尔大叔的粉丝，他之前的几部，我都看得津津有味。只是，从 "Bowling for Columbine" (2002), "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004), "Sicko" (2007)　到这一部《资本主义：一个爱情故事》，我必须承认，大叔江郎才尽了。
 
大叔的那种有些幽默感的讽刺(让我称其作comical satire)，我曾经非常喜欢。这一次，他又试图炮制一部comical satire, 只是不知是我厌倦了，还是这次大叔耍得水平不够，幽默好冷，讽刺方面也不具之前那种直刺心肺的力量。
 
可能年龄大些了，阅历多些了，就更能头脑清晰、对事物作出客观的判断，大叔的作品我现在看来，实在是过于偏激、煽情和挑斗，逻辑混乱又太把自己当回事。这部片子中又有一些他强行采访未果的镜头，让我有些忍俊不禁。也许，像有些豆友所指出的，大叔这次选择了过为宏大的题目，实在“螳臂当车”。
 
Michael Moore　富于自我审视和批判的精神，这一点也许比一般美国人强，但作为一个电影人，他的水准好像一直没有提高。这部影片但愿不是他电影生涯的最低点。
 
下次看到Michael Moore的新作，我会好好考虑到底要不要看。
 
评分：6.5 out of 10

2011.9.25