The thrift in me allowed me to wait until Michael Moore’s “Capitalism - A Love Story” came out on second run theatres - it was well worth the wait. The powerful effect that Moore has on his audience derives from the personal stories he relates combined with a sense of humour that highlights the bizarre nature of our capitalist society. The stories of the evictions, the factory shutdowns, the “Dead Peasants”, and the visuals of corporate towers juxtaposed against abandoned and rotting houses gives a powerful visceral message to the viewer. The statistical information flipped past the viewer in a matter of seconds, all that was needed to underline the numbers behind the emotional reality of unemployment without much of a future.
The opinions of the Catholic church leaders who characterized capitalism as evil, as opposed to God’s will, and the way of Jesus, emphasized that it went against all of the main religion’s precepts about caring for one’s fellow citizen and the common good. For a country that pledges allegiance “under God” these contrasting statements are powerful.
