Kids

I have always felt a bit out-of-step with other film lovers when I consider my feelings toward two early Steven Spielberg films, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. They seem painfully didactic to me–lessons clumsily wrapped inside an entertainment. I'm on board with one of the lessons, that a thing's strangeness does not necessarily make it menacing; the idea was a welcome counter to Nixon-era paranoia. But the other lesson, which could be read as, the innocence of children is the greatest wisdom, sticks in my craw. I think it gets kids way wrong.

For me, the worst moment of both films comes in Close Encounters. A woman and her young son are inside their house when a UFO approaches outside. There are bright lights and vibrations and loud sounds. The mother is terrified, but the child is attracted to the lights, runs outside, and is carried off by the UFO.

I know that there is a point in child development when the child actively separates its identity from those of its parents, but that sort of breaking free comes for children much older than the boy in the film. In fact, in the movie the child is more oblivious of his mother than alienated from her. And that oblivion seems utterly false to me; in a strange, potentially frightening situation, children of that age will look to adults for emotional cues rather than ignore them.

This wrongheaded depiction of a child came to mind recently when I watched a very fine film that gets adult-child relations right. What Maisie Knew (as of this writing, available for streaming on Netflix and elsewhere) updates the Henry James novel to modern New York. Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan play the horrible parents of six-year-old Maisie (Onata Aprile). When it suits them, they are affectionate toward the girl; but mostly they are tied up in bitterness toward one another. Maisie loves her parents but learns that she must entrust herself to other adults as well. There is a point in the film when Maisie, abandoned by her parents, stands curbside next to a man she barely knows (Alexander Skarsgård), a bartender friend of her mother's. Maisie automatically reaches up to take the hand of this unfamiliar adult. That little gesture is an emotionally searing moment in the movie, and it contains more truth about children than either of the Spielberg films.

Religious Freedom? Really?

I confess it. I have gotten exercised about the whole issue about what should be provided in women's health insurance. I have Taken The Bait.

Here's how I look at it. Try to follow along.

First, a completely imaginary case:

You're an election judge. Your job is to provide ballots to people who come to vote. But now something occurs to you, in a flash of overwhelming righteousness: Women who do not cover their heads in public are shameful beings. When women with uncovered heads come to the polls to vote, you do not acknowledge their existence. Certainly you do not give them a ballot.

News flash: I have it in for you. You have taken a job and then decided that the job is unworthy of you. You will not besmirch yourself by doing what the job requires. I demand you either find someone–an election clerk, perhaps–who can handle the work that is beneath you, or you get out of the election judge business.

Now to reality:

You are a church. But you have chosen to get into non-churchy things, such as health care. And now you have decided that a part of health care–providing women with contraceptive services–will diminish your unfathomable holiness.

My stern advice: Find a way to accommodate these women, or get out of health care.

If you have taken a job, and then decided you are too noble to do the job, but will not give up the job: To hell with you. The fist of your religious freedom is smashing my face.

No rabbi or imam or bishop gets to decide what health care women should get. (Women or anyone else, for that matter.) Not in my America.

Resemblances

The first time it happened was in 2005.

I was watching the movie Bad Day at Black Rock. Spencer Tracy plays John J. Macreedy, a World War II veteran who pays a visit to an isolated town in the West. Robert Ryan is Reno Smith, the informal leader of the town, and it's pretty clear that he's a bad guy.

Macreedy is puzzled by the townspeople's secretive behavior, and early in the film Smith confronts him at a filling station and tries to bully him into leaving town. That's when the resemblance hit me: Smith (Ryan) looked exactly like George W. Bush! And his pugnacious attitude solidified the likeness.

Then a few weeks ago it happened again.

This time I was viewing Water for Elephants, in which Christoph Waltz plays August, a handsome, hard-nosed circus owner. Early on I saw that August was the spitting image of Mitt Romney! And there were several character elements that also linked the two: August enriched himself by taking over the assets of other circuses; he enjoyed firing people; and he didn't always have his animals' best interests at heart.

Chilling.

Christmas: A Note

For your holiday pleasure, I heartily recommend this week's podcast from Start the Week With Andrew Marr. The discussion centers on the Roman Emperor Constantine, who decided it would be politically useful to appropriate a carefully edited version of Christianity for his Empire. The result is nicely summarized in the Nicene Creed, which covers these aspects of Christ: Birth, Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. Carefully omitted from Constantine's religion: Jesus's Ministry. It seems the actual words and deeds of Jesus were too controversial; they didn't serve the Emperor's political agenda.

The podcast explains this much better than I do. But the next time you hear public figures bloviate about their devotion to Christianity, without actually showing any familiarity with the teachings of Jesus–well, perhaps you have Constantine to thank.

A More Perfect Union Buster

A man does a good turn to a genie. As reward, the genie offers to grant one wish. "I am a very powerful genie. If you wish it, I can put an end to HIV or world hunger. I can stop global w—."

"Abolish the unions!"

That's the reaction I would expect nowadays if that man happens to be a Republican officeholder. (Such sentiments may or may not be held by rank-and-file R's.) A GOP elected official may praise hard work; but let the working man try to organize, to accumulate power, and he will find that governor or legislator to be a savage enemy.

There seems to be something more than politics going on here. It's true that unions (with the occasional exception of the Teamsters) have supported Democrats at the polls. But other parts of the Democratic coalition don't seem to evoke nearly so much Republican wrath.

It's also true that unions have not always accomplished a public good. The auto unions have taken part in the dismantling of the American auto industry, and some of the failings of American schools can be placed at the feet of the teacher unions. It would seem that any trace of greed in the heart of a laborer is a very bad thing. (And yet greed in the hearts of executives and entrepreneurs is not merely a natural thing, but the very engine that makes our economy go! Amazing!)

I'm trying to work out the psychology of this whole mess.

Perhaps, as society becomes more and more unequal, the powerful become more and more jealous of the diminishing strength of the not-powerful. We will finally get through this bad stretch when the rich control everything!

Perhaps, deep down, many of the powerful sense their own lack of legitimacy, and that suspicion adds to their rage against anyone who would challenge their power. (I doubt this theory, though. I think that a great many people who have lucked into wealth are convinced that their riches testify to their inner virtue.)

Whatever the motivation, the Republicans seem to be pushing for a final, utter victory over organized labor. Earlier this year in Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker went all-out against the public unions—and got his nose bloodied. And because of the messiness and uncertainty of the legislative process, the Republicans seem to be pursuing a second strategy: Pack the courts with pro-corporate, anti-union ideologues. Regardless of the law today, I foresee the day when judges rule that concentration of power in the hands of corporate executives is an absolute good, while concentration of power in the hands of workers is an absolute evil.

And this will be done without the aid of a genie.

Michael Moore: A Love Story

Two types of people should not watch Capitalism: A Love Story: (1) those who get hot under the collar whenver they hear an opinion expressed from the Left (for Michael Moore will truly melt them down); and (2) those who uncritically believe everything they see (for they could finish watching C:ALS dumber than when they started—Moore spouts a fair bit of nonsense). Okay, maybe there's a third type: (3) those put off by big fat slobs (because that describes Moore pretty closely, and I sort of love him for that). Everybody else should check out the documentary; it's eye-opening a lot of fun.

Which is not to say that it's anywhere near a perfect film. You get a smorgasbord of critiques of the way our economy works, some of which are on-the-nose and some of which are, WTF? I can imagine writing Notes to Michael as I watch the picture, like some priggish Hollywood suit.

A recurring thread in the film is the story of the eviction of a blue-collar family from their home. It's pretty infuriating to see a group of sheriff's deputies pry open a house's locked door and force the residents to leave.

Note #1: Michael, I would love to have seen an explanation of how banks set interest rates on their loans, and how much leeway the regulators give them. It seems like they can charge pretty much whatever they want—whatever the market will bear, until the market collapses. Borrowing money while ceding the lender control over interest rates is tantamount to giving away everything you own. Is the Mafia still in business? I can't imagine a mobster nowadays who's scarier than your average bank or credit card company. Okay, this probably is getting boring; I realize you don't want to lose your audience with too many facts. Hey, I'm still watching!

Note #2: those deputies. How about a fantasy sequence where deputies show up at a telemarketing operation and stand over the callers, making sure they aren't using any underhanded sales tactics? Or maybe the deputies go out on the floor of Congress and monitor the speeches for honesty. It's not fair that the guy with the crowbar only shows up at the common man's house. Just a thought.

There's also a section on "dead peasant" insurance, where companies take out insurance policies on their employees' lives. In general, this is a hideous practice. The only logic I can see supporting it is of the "completion bond" variety. (I don't know if that's the right terminology. I'm referring to the insurance a movie producer takes out on the stars during production, since losing the star would be financially disastrous.) But C:ALS documents companies making a killing (if you'll pardon the expression) far out of proportion to the loss they suffer when an employee dies.

Note #3: How does this really work? I mean, insurance companies aren't stupid. If employers are making money with "dead peasant" policies, then the insurance companies must be losing. Is it that the employers know more about their workers' risky lifestyles than the insurance companies do? Or is "dead peasant" insurance just a crapshoot? You do give some examples of companies whose investments in their workers' imminent deaths aren't producing the expected profit.

The film uses Wallace Shawn as an expert on capitalism.

Note #4: Really? Actor and playwright Wallace Shawn? You know what I think? I love it! The guy is both brilliant and down-to-earth. (Anyone who doesn't know this should go out and rent My Dinner with Andre, which is simply a dinner conversation between Shawn and theater director Andre Gregory. Great film, and it demonstrates Shawn's intelligence and rootedness.) Great call!

Then there's the talk about free markets.

Note #5: Michael, this is where you missed the chance to distinguish between free markets and capitalism. Most of us know about the free market. You have various people manufacturing interchangeable products called widgets, and the free market forces these people to compete and offer the public the best price they can. But the first rule for any entrepreneur worth her salt is this: Get away from the free market as soon as you can! Find a niche where no one else is producing a product like yours! Buy out your competitors and form a monopoly! Spend campaign and lobbying dollars to get the legislature to pass laws that favor you and erect barriers to everyone else! The absence of a truly free market is the dominant feature of our capitalist economy.

One of Moore's big themes is capitalism vs. democracy. He asks a museum guard to point out where the Constitution talks about capitalism. Of course there's no such clause. But here is where the documentary is unbalanced. Any sensible expert on the Constitution could explain the protection our form of government gives to the businessman and the property owner. It's not either/or.

Moore uses a couple of corrupt judges as exhibits against capitalism. The judges were bribed by a contractor who provided juvenile detention to send young offenders to their facilities. Sometimes the judges imposed sentences far longer than the prosecutors asked for. The story is truly outrageous, but the judges did eventually go to prison.

Note #6: For this anecdote, I would shift the focus just a little. Privatization is one of the Republican Party's holy words that deserves to be 99% annihilated. Practice has shown that privatization consists of for-profit entities doing government work at higher cost and lower efficiency in order to funnel taxpayer money into the pockets of Republican friends and the campaign treasuries of Republican candidates.

Then there are the stunts. (Sigh.) I am truly tired of scenes of Moore confronting a security guard with his intention to make a citizen's arrest of a corporate honcho, or his empty bags to be filled with money stolen by a corporation. I get it, but the confrontations are a little sad; the security guard probably lunches on bologna or PB&J. It would be cool to see a guard say, "Michael Moore! I love your films, but you can't come in here; our corporate officers don't want to see you." But probably that will never happen, and the security guard harrassment just looks like bullying ... because that's what it is. And yeah, the corporate officers could spare their guards the humiliation by agreeing to an interview. But you shouldn't beat up on the working man just because some scummy CEO hides behind company security. Whoops, I probably should have called that Note #7.

(And I do think back to a previous documentary, where Moore is invited to interview an infirm Charlton Heston and bullies the old man. It's an unpleasant thing to watch, but in retrospect, considering Heston's long affiliation with the NRA—one of our nation's all-time bullies—maybe the old guy had it coming.)

I really intended to be more critical of this documentary than I have ended up being. Stacked up against the absurdities we get from Republicans every day, Moore's distortions often don't seem much more than white lies. My standards have been beaten down by the level of everyday political discourse.

Michael Moore, you lousy bastard: Um, when is your next movie coming out?

For the Mosque

If I had known the party was going to last this long, I would have arrived sooner.

Really, I thought we'd have a few days of politicians demagoguing, and then we'd move on to the next manufactured crisis. Oh, well. For what it's worth:

A few weeks ago, when I heard about the proposed Islamic mosque and community center a few blocks from Ground Zero, a center where the emphasis would be on tolerance and understanding, it was not difficult to form an opinion. Of course we should allow the mosque to be built; in fact, we should welcome it. This was also the reaction of the local authorities and community, along with a commentator on Fox News and probably a lot of other folks. No-brainer.

Then this summer, a few sharp-eyed politicians spotted an angle, a wedge they could pound on to stoke fear and loathing to their advantage. They've paraded a grab-bag of bogeymen: Islam; the leader behind the mosque; the funding for the mosque; the violation of the sanctity of Ground Zero; the hurt feelings of 9/11 survivors.

Sorry folks. My opinion hasn't changed.

You may detect a lack of energy here. Lordy, I feel like I'm having to explain, for the umpteenth time, why it's good to have an open society. This is like going back to school and repeating civics. Some smarter-than-me fifth-grader can probably do a better job, but here goes. (Or you can skip my feeble prose and read William Saletan's articles here, here, here, here, and here.) As I see it, these are the main arguments against the center, with my responses:

Islam is evil. Well, we certainly have no shortage of people making evil use of Islam these days. The Taliban are lopping off noses in Afghanistan. In many theocracies, women are being sentenced to death for not much more than being women. And Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are proclaiming death to anyone who disagrees with their world-view—Muslims, Christians, anyone.

But I would hesitate to assign a religion to perdition based on the horrible behavior of a few of its followers. Fifteen years ago, it would have been Christianity in the dock. Catholic Rwandans and Orthodox Christian Serbs had carried out genocidal campaigns against Christians and Muslims they didn't like. If anyone had pointed to these murderers and claimed that's what Christians were like, we would have marked that person down for a liar or a lunatic.

Likewise, anyone today who points at extremist Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or wherever and claims they represent Islam is seriously disconnected with reality. In Houston, we've lived among Muslims for years with no problem. (Remember that basketball star who used to play for the Rockets?)

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not to be trusted. Rauf has spent a lot of time building goodwill toward Islam here and abroad, and he hasn't been afraid to condemn extremists. Christopher Hitchens has found a few objectionable utterances, but this is far from showing the man intends to subvert our society.

You just can't trust those Muslims. This is the blanket version of the distrust issue, and today isn't the first times America has cast an entire group under suspicion. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, we rounded up Japanese-Americans and interned them—just as a precaution, mind you. The President was in on this, as were the Supreme Court and most of the rest of the country. Later we realized what a shameful act this was; the Japanese-Americans were overwhelmingly patriotic. And today I have yet to see any evidence that large numbers of American Muslims are out to destroy our country.

The funding for the center is suspicious. As Jon Stewart has pointed out, the funder of the mosque is also a major stakeholder in Fox News. I think this guy's radicalism may be exaggerated.

Ground Zero is sacred. Fortunately, the Islamic center is proposed for two blocks away. And after the center is built and in use (if that happens), I can easily imagine groups of Muslims walking over to Ground Zero and vowing that never again must Islam be used to justify this sort of atrocity.

Since 9/11, a lot of people in Manhattan have a visceral hatred of Muslims; don't aggravate them. Certainly this is a consideration for Rauf and his followers. They may yet decide to go elsewhere so they don't have to deal with the hostility. But if they decide to see the plan through, how can decent Americans oppose them? It's too much like the old days when blacks were discouraged from moving into white neighborhoods, because there were a lot of whites who hated blacks. Many blacks beat a retreat, but a few went forward. And in many cases integration was disruptive, but ultimately a boon for our country. Segregated America needed to be shaken until its damn teeth rattled. And today's sudden irrational fear of Muslims deserves the same treatment.

"Socialism!"

In the past few years, Republicans have found "socialism" to be the go-to word when they want to put a scare into their fellows. The word is sloppily defined; it tends to mean any government program Republicans don't like. (Recently Jonah Goldberg wrestled with the term; here is Jonathan Chait's assessment of Goldberg's effort.) With respect to this socialism-phobia, I divide the Republicans into three groups:

1. The true believers. These folks are frightened and furious about the turn our government has taken. The health care bill is the biggest abomination, but the automotive and bank bail-outs probably also fall within this category. Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security also get the "socialist" label, when the true believers are being honest with one another. And anything carrying that label is a horror which must be exorcised from our nation. I suspect the largest group of Republicans fall in this category.

2. The cynics. These Republicans find the word "socialism" is a dandy way to keep the troops fired up and to keep themselves in power.

3. The go-alongs. These are the politicians who are happy to ride on the coattails of the first two groups.

We can safely ignore the third group. The other two groups take four approaches to the programs tainted by "socialism":

1. Kill. This is the only truly satisfying approach for the true believers. These bad programs must be repealed!

2. Poison the well. If the programs can't be repealed, additional provisions can be enacted to make the programs cumbersome or unattractive. Exemptions can be carved out for one's allies.

3. Defang administratively. Put the programs in the charge of people who will ignore the law or come up with regulations to make the programs ineffective.

4. Make lemonade. If a program can't be abolished, it can at least be privatized. One of the galling features of government agencies is that they can't make campaign contributions. However, if you turn a program over to your friends in private industry, two wonderful things happen: Your friends get to peel off a sizable bit of taxpayer money and put it into their own pocket as administrative cost and mandatory profit; and a bit of that profit will make its way back to you as campaign contributions. The idea of soaking the taxpayers to keep themselves in power is sweet nectar to the cynics. The true believers should find the idea unpleasant; they won't want to see themselves as parasites of socialism.

The depth of passion against "socialism" today means that the next time the Republicans are in power, we should expect each of the programs mentioned above to be attacked in one or more of these ways. In other words, you should vote Republican if you are comfortable saying goodbye to universal health care, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security; otherwise, you really should consider the Democrats (or some other alternative). This will be bitter for some, but it's where we seem to stand today.

How long will this mania last? We can get an idea from looking at the Democrats. A few decades ago, those on the left went comparably berserk at the mention of the word "nuclear," whether it referred to energy production or weaponry. Today there's still a strong anti-nuclear sentiment on the left, but it's no longer monolithic. True, there are still politicians who use "nuclear" as a scare word. But at least with respect to nuclear energy, a fair number of Democrats are ready to endorse new plant construction. So with respect to the "socialism" phobia, I wouldn't advise electing Republicans again until around 2030 or maybe 2040.