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A 75th Anniversary for the American Dream, a 25-Year Anniversary for Me
On this day 25 years ago, in 1987, I became a filmmaker. It was around ten in the morning and the first-ever roll of Kodak 16mm film for my first-ever movie was loaded into my friend's camera to shoot the very first scene of 'Roger & Me.' I had no idea on that morning in Flint, Michigan what my life would be like after that, or what would happen to Flint, or to General Motors. It all felt fairly ominous, though -- after all, GM, which was posting record profits at the time, was closing its first Flint factory (the first of what would become many) and unemployment in Flint had officially been listed as high as 29%. Surely things couldn't get much worse.
That morning, 25 years ago today, a group of autoworkers had come together on the lawn of the soon-to-be-closed Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac assembly plant to raise their voices against the closing -- and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Great Flint Sit-Down Strike, which had begun at that very factory. That strike, in 1936-37, was actually an occupation. Hundreds of workers took over the factories in Flint and refused to leave for 44 days until GM capitulated and recognized their union. The strike inspired thousands of other workers across the country to stage their own occupations and, before you knew it, in the years to follow, factory workers were paid a living wage, with benefits, vacations, and a safe working place.
The middle class and the American Dream were born 75 years ago today, on February 11, 1937, the day the Flint workers won their struggle. And for the next 44 years, working people everywhere got to own their own homes, send their kids to college and never worry about going broke if they got sick. That belief, that life would be good if you were a good citizen and a hard worker, now seems out of reach for nearly half the country which is either living in or near poverty. Perhaps people wouldn't mind it as much if the burden were being evenly shared. But everyone knows that's not the case. In a time of record personal bankruptcies, record home foreclosures, record family and student debt, there are a group of people having the best years of wealth and profit ever recorded in human history. And it is those very people who have made the decisions to export our jobs, to decimate unions, to make college unaffordable, to start wars and to pay themselves with gluttonous joy while paying little or no tax -- this is the 1% that has created the burden so many Americans (and people around the world) now share.
And so, 75 years after the victory in Flint, the battle is now being fought all over again. But this time it's not just about getting paid a dollar an hour, or having Sunday off, or reducing the chance of your hand being crushed in the metal stamping machine. This time, the stakes are even greater: Who is going to own America and control the basic functions of our democracy -- the richest 1% who buy the politicians to get what they want, or the 99% who don't have much these days and live in anxiety or fear of what's around the bend.
I believe that justice will win out again, in the end, just as it did 75 years ago today in Flint in 1937.
I have no special plans to mark this day of anniversaries other than to post a short story I wrote called 'Gratitude.' You may have read it in my book, but if not, here it is to freely download and enjoy:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/gratitude
If you'd like to hear me read it in my own voice, click here:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/gratitude-audio
It tells, in part, the story of that day I first placed that roll of Kodak film into a movie camera. I am proud of the town I was born in, and I'm proud of my uncle who participated in the Sit-Down Strike. I am grateful to those of you who have gone to my movies over the years, and I thank all of you who have been inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement to speak up on behalf of the 99%.
There's no turning back now. Onward!
Comments
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134 Comments so far
Show AllPlease do stop purposefully denigrating me, by clearly quoting me WAY out of context.
I asked I question about how much self-destructiveness we could afford -- and NEVER equated ANY agreement with me -- as:
<<" necessarily mean "working against our best interests." " >>
Your subtle twists of context, manipulating contents to suit your agenda is demonstrably proof enough of your clear intent to deceive, invalidate real discussion, and be divisive.
See also Feb 13 2012 - 7:26pm
I am expressing my opinion.
Attack the message, not the messenger.
It is baseless speculation and insinuations about the motives and agendas of other people here that is the cause of divisiveness, that is deceptive and manipulative, and destroys the possibility of "real discussion."
I am not denigrating you, I am making a rebuttal to your argument.
Your condescending lack of an apology after I clearly explained how you misquoted me, is hardly a passive, honest, and/or logical action.
This is clearly quite a bit more concrete than supposedly about mere "baseless speculation and insinuations," as the FACTS speak for themselves (truthfully).
That is for those with eyes, that wish to look …
How is MY asking a question, the same as making supposedly a statement that then ever conceivable allows you to errantly claim that you were merely "making a rebuttal to your argument."
How EXACTLY is my asking a question, about me somehow making a argument ?
Haven't you ever learned that answers are the appropriate response to questions ?
Apology? For what?
The only time I referred to anything you said I quoted you directly. Most of my post had nothing to do with you at all.
You're being purposefully obtuse, evasive, and any rational person can see you now clearly as a blatant distorter of truth, stating the obviously false-to-fact distortion (Feb 13 2012 - 11:54pm) that :
"The only time I referred to anything you said I quoted you directly".
QUESTION_1. Really, how is that even possibly comprehendible, when I have stated clearly (Feb 13 2012 - 9:13pm) that you've taken my words out of context and DIRECTLY created an entirely different meaning ?
QUESTION_2. How is it possible that you can errantly claim to know what I said, better than I ?
QUESTION_3. Who can believe your incredible arrogance, in absurdly claiming to be THE ultimate authority on what I said -- and what it meant -- as if my own opinions are irrelevant ?
Any reasonable person would take the objections of someone being misquoted, as having intrinsic meaning and validity, and unquestionably being substantially more credible than someone already challenged to explain their distorted and twisted attempts to ridicule and make nonsense of what I did say.
Your only defense of what you fallaciously stated, is the doubled-down absurdity of it being truly an accurately referred and direct quote.
FACT_1: your post (Feb 13 2012 - 12:51am) started with exactly this sentence :
<<" Disagreeing with you does not necessarily mean "working against our best interests." ">>
FACT_2: I didn't mention anything about agreement or "disagreeing" about any "mean[ing]" of "anything."
This proves that the main focus of your falsely attributed combined sentence (in dispute), was not even close to being a fair and direct use of what I did say and mean.
QUESTION_4. Is your appending your own ideas referring to some words of mine, an example of how you "only … referred to … [me] directly" ?
QUESTION_5. What does "ONLY" mean to you ?
FACT_3: you deceptively appended 7 of YOUR OWN WORDS (see FACT_2) to 5 of my own, that completely mangled the meaning and intent of my original question, and certainly that of final phrase (what you did put in quotations marks).
FACT_4: you deleted 12 words from of my initial question, which directly and completely removed my original contextual meaning.
QUESTION_6. You claim that your statement is a direct quotation of my original posting, so where exactly is my original QUESTION ?
QUESTION_7. How is extracting one-third (5) of my original 17 words (in a query form), "quot[ing me] directly" ?
QUESTION_8 - 10. How irresponsible is it IGNORING two questions at the heart of this matter (see at the end of Feb 13 2012 - 9:13pm) ?
Online discussion groups offer an easy to use format for social interaction. The threshold for entry is low. One can remain anonymous. This makes it very accessible and very safe.
I intend no harm to you whatsoever. Even if someone here did intend harm, they could not harm you. You are completely safe.
<< continued from above >>
To me, you appear to be an inconsiderate, unfeeling, and amoral person to snidely state that "Even if someone here did intend harm, they could not harm you. You are completely safe."
What unmitigated "sticks & stones" malarky.
That's entirely your own encrusted delsuion, that hurtful and unfeeling words have no lasting and impactful emotional hurt -- that then can subsequently easily impact a person's physicality (if unable to heal the emotional scars).
We are all enmeshed within complex interactions of mind/body/soul, each other, and the world around us.
Even IF I were to believe that you didn't "intend" to hurt or harm me (or others), you show absolutely no remorse or sense of contriteness, as you coldly portray yourself emotionless and outside of normal human existence. Basically, you're unable to back up your own words with the emotionality that substantiates and reinforces that point of view.
I suppose -- for your screen presence -- one's physical safety is the only thing that has any merit toward one being "safe," and that's your real problem, acting as if our mutuality via electronic virtual existences, have no relationship to pains inflicted on actual flesh and blood people.
Whole living people, not virtual representations of them.
But even that, I cannot really believe (that you believe) as you appear to be a well educated and intelligent person, so it's quite difficult to imagine that you are ignorant of the affliction and harm that words can and do cause people. Because, sometimes you write and act with understanding, and empathy -- and people just don't have switches that turn that on and off.
The fact is undeniably scientifically so, that no human being can harm another -- specifically the extremity of killing another -- w/o permanently loosing and/or damaging part of their core selves (aka a piece of their souls). Vets, prison wardens, mirror neurons, and fMRIs have proven this to be fact, and it's there for anyone to see in their afflicted eyes.
Did I "lose" you there ?
Listen up, take as my own personal FACT that may be entirely at odds with what you believe occurs in this world -- you hurt and pained me -- and I fought back because that's what living organisms do in order to survive.
No it's not a serious injury to me (my heart racing), but my own pain and suffering (however minor, relatively speaking) resonants with millions of other violent, uncaring and abusive violations -- and my sense of compassion for all of that -- means that I chose not to quietly suffer fools (or worse) like you.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself, HOWEVER, this more human face of your screen presence is nonetheless a welcome improvement.
Thank God for minor miracles …
A progressive and virtual forum like CD has essentially infinite space available, but real human beings increasingly can no longer afford to tolerate, excuse, and condone those purposefully demeaning, invalidating, discouraging and otherwise attacking people -- for whatever political agenda or rationalizations.
Any real integral and authentic person, knowing that they've hurt someone will apologize, or make some sort of amends (if only to themselves).
* * *
Sure, our intrinsically flawed (fear disables empathy) egos stand between making connections with people and our own hearts, so I invest more time to express myself clearly.
We all get to chose, every minute : be kind to affirm and connect, or be righteous and inflict greater separation and pain.
My hope for all of human kind -- is that we increasingly chose the 'heart path' and strengthening relationships selflessly -- as the monkey-minded ego's relentless selfish consumptive abandon, is otherwise going to murder us all.
"Don't believe everything that you think"
How about we just take on faith, that we're all interconnected & interdependently conscious (at levels science has only begun to discern), and what we do to others, we do to ourselves and everyone else suffers as well.
Healing the chain of pain -- starts one link at a time -- with each of us.
When our lives have pain -- that's the klaxon call for learning now -- how to stop the immediate circumstances, but also heal the lasting internal mental/spiritual struggles to be more human and increasingly connected with each other.
Externalizing our fears, hate, enemies, and responsibility no longer works, and it really never did. In the past, OUR consequences were easily hidden, denied, and relatively indirectly impactful -- but those times are long gone
We're all in this together, even the pyromaniacs lighting the fires, and those shooting holes in our life-boat Earth.
I am sorry that you are experiencing pain and discomfort.
That's a start …
NOTES TO SELF,
and whomever else
wants to read them.
Sure, the harm of your seemingly "very safe" virtualized lying and attempting to get away and evade any responsibility for your twisted words, is with and on you, as much as it is with and on me.
This "format for social interaction" may permit "anonymous" violence between abusers and victims, but it is a delusion to believe that that there are no social consequences and long lasting impacts and suffering for such.
I suspect that those vehemently denying any "harm" or violations of anyone's "safety," -- know full well the exact opposite is true.
That mindset and paradigm is dying now (thankfully), as it's a banal outgrowth of the now proven absurdity of human existence being strictly some sort of materialistic clock-like mechanism ONLY -- where nature and each other -- are ALL there to be consumed rapaciously.
Those that attempt to reinforce the dying paradigm, regardless of their intent, are causing us all harm, delaying the inevitable shift of consciousness that bodes well for our survival. Otherwise, not.
The Corporatist 'Greed at any Cost' agenda, is clearly to keep the consumptive egotistic blinders on, for us to go out and shop away to numb out our useful fears, to attempt to increase materialistic maladaptations so as to maximize profiteering and control.
MANDATORY (for our survival) social change, dignity, egalitarian redistribution of wealth and resources globally, ALL are completely at odds with Corporatist propaganda and deceitfulness
That COINTELPRO science has long known how to disembowel dissent, how to discourage and create divisiveness between those leaders advocating social change, so as to destroy increasingly solidified and connected, cohesive, and coherent protest and actions.
That's the reason why I will not roll over and play dead, when bullied and libeled, because your attempts at dehumanizing me impact you as well as all who read these comments.
What's worse is that impact YOU, directly, regardless of your belief.
No one could ever enjoy the self-inflicrted penalties and interest, as we have a conscience to deal with such, even if only a faint whisper or deeply mired in decades of denial and repression (survival mechanisms).
Perhaps, even psychopaths will eventually be found to have those redeeming aspects, once we can figure out how to compassionately dig deep enough into their devastated core beingness, to finally acknowledge and be present with that as yet unfathomable suffering, to heal their still raw wounded souls.
I don't in the least accept as true your feigned (now not so dumbed down) statement "I intend no harm to you whatsoever," as that is blatantly at odds with the written record here on CD (my feelings exposed). Sure I don't know what your intent was or is, but your very indirect deflecting approach, that might be construed as attempting an apology, nets out as less than a ZERO.
Next time try dealing with the facts, because your dealing with feelings (of being harmed) is like you attempting the speak Etruscan (a dead indecipherable language).
I forgive you because that's about my own healing and moving on, but that doesn't erase the memory scars of the hurt that you've caused to me and who knows how many others.
<< continued below >>
That was going to be my line, ezeflyer!
Dude. This site is becoming a parody of itself.
Disagreement is not a "circular firing squad." Vigorous debate is not destructive.
However, your sneering and condescending characterizations of those with whom you disagree - that they want to "feel oh-so-superior" and are expressing their disagreement with you as merely a "preferred form of entertainment" and are demanding "ideological purity" - most definitely are destructive and divisive.
So what would you describe as the reasons the left has been wandering in the political wilderness for 30 years, TA? Just curious.
There are a number of causes, and I don't have the last word on this.
Violent and relentless attacks on the radical leadership is a major factor. The most co-opted and compromised intellectuals in history, in the form of the liberals and progressives, is another.
As we can't just tap "Like" for a comment, I'm writing, "Good post, ezeflyer!"
Bill in Dubuque
" The middle class and the American Dream were born 75 years ago today... the day the Flint workers won their struggle."
But, as with every battle, the "victory" includes the seeds of its own destruction and precipitates the next battle.
While wealth in America was more broadly shared than at any other time, our wealth was bought at the price of poverty around the world, so it was no more sustainable than what came before or what we are experiencing today. In the prosperous post-War years, the American people were the global 1%.
There is no going back and no going forward - if, by forward, we mean to greater general prosperity. We've used up the world - the oil, the forests, the fisheries - and there are now many more people wishing to share far fewer resources. Yes, we must more equitably share what wealth remains, but we must also redefine wealth, security and happiness.
The only way out is to create an entirely different paradigm for human culture which will be fundamentally different than anything we've known for millennia. And that will require very different strategies than the occupations, strikes and protests of our recent past (something that #Occupy has yet to learn).
What many are attempting is to establish a basic ideological understanding. One understanding being that it is futile to work within the federal electoral system. Many believe that non-recognition the preceding premise encapsules a unviable agenda. We need to get as many as possible to viable agenda's such the Anarchistic process of Occupy and as many as possible away from the futile support of the duopoly. A public declaration by those with many supporters concerning the unviability of the electoral system will move many to viable agendas such as Occupy. We need to describe what is possible, what is strong and what is weak. To ignore the futility of todays fed electorial process is a missing plank in any leftists platform. To support the fed. democrats is to admit that important missing plank in your platform. Politics involves discrimination, building power and education. This is not asking for purity it is educating and attempting to create the power for the change that is desparately necessary. If someones platform fails to promote what one sees as the wisest course, one must elucidate how that platform may be much better and more powerful, regardless of how nice the guy is or what good they may have done.
"it is futile to work within the federal electoral system"
http://www.mikegravel.us/national_initiative
==One understanding being that it is futile to work within the federal electoral system.==
Another understanding is the context. The futility derives from the gelding or compleat impotence of democracy in America. Democracy is on its knees fellating the one percent, and the rest of u.s. chimps stand around hating ourselves for getting aroused by the spectacle. We can't help but hold elections, which are basically masturbatory activity.
Bill Moyers hammered out warning years ago, "Democracy has been stolen," he cogently observed. Wow. Now I find it peculiar that he's acting as if the theft was recovered - sort of like a precious painting - and we can continue where we were before he picked up his hammer. Bill?
My observation "Lemmings of the world unite" either went over peoples head or beneath their political radar. Michael Moore is the personification of lefty hope, BUT we have had interesting debates on CD about the positive and negative value of Hope. Hope is the subject of myriad, equal and opposite, aphorisms. Hope can freeze too many people, like the phenomenon Isaac Asimov called Roboblock.
The division of humanity into units of 1 and 99 percent is a Report Card on the status of our species. It is the ultimate proof of the observation that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. A dangerous corollary to that is that, those with power delude themselves into believing themselves more Worthy, or financing a tautology to support that statement. So they hire thugs with flat foreheads to keep their Stuff and Nookie. The goal of government to redistribute Stuff has, to date, not succeeded very well, by ANY form of human government, except to spawn the dismal science of economics. 99 percent Nookie isn't all that bad, actually, so I am not girding my tired loins for revolution.
Trylon
One time in this great country immigrants were given free transportation over here. They had guaranteed work for life with food, shelter, and clothing provided. They worked in the day sang at night and were encouraged to make as many babies as they could. Then that SOB Lincoln got elected. TSWRA
Actually, the first sit-down strike took place in Akron, Ohio By union workers at General Tire with Goodyear Tire and Rubber following suit. Goodyear is remembered as the first probably because it was a larger company than General. The old United Rubber Workers, now part of the United Steelworkers union, was one helluva union!
I know Michael is from Michigan and his 75th Anniversary starts in Flint for him and his recollection which is inspiring. Ours started in Akron, and many other workers across the country will remember the day they stood up to the corproations for better pay, safer working conditions, time and a half, and benefits. We need the workers of America today to unite, occupy, and challenge the inequities in the capitalistic system once again.
The URW, like the USW and UMWA (all CIO unions) actually succesfully organized in the South before red-baiting broke/co-opted the U.S. union movement.
(Former URW/USW Local 303 of Natchez, MS, once had some of the best tire-building contracts in the nation (under multiple employers) before it recently withered away.
The former local union hall is now a house music/disco dance club. When it died, the local was half-black, half-white. It was frought with multiple problems, including U.S. apartheid, but it really was so much more than what there is now.
Have you read or re-read Orwell's 1984 recently? Really, you must!
From Wiki: "Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel...published in 1948. The story, which focuses on the life of Winston Smith, was Orwell's vision of a totalitarian state which has absolute control over every action and thought of its people through propaganda, secrecy, constant surveillance, and harsh punishment...."
~~~
Inner Party member O'Brien describes the Party's vision of the future:
"All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this, Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler.
"Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever."
...From the outset, the aims of the workers in the forefront of the struggle for industrial unions were in conflict with the limited aims of the leaders of the CIO and UAW. The Flint strike was called by second tier national and local UAW officials who considered themselves socialists. Kermit Johnson, a Trotskyist, led the occupation of Chevy No. 4.
Leon Trotsky, in assessing the CIO movement, wrote in the Transitional Program of 1938, the founding document of the Fourth International: “The unprecedented wave of sit-down strikes and the amazingly rapid growth of industrial unionism in the United States (the CIO) is the most indisputable expression of the instinctive striving of the American workers to raise themselves to the level of the tasks imposed on them by history.”
The incipiently revolutionary movement of the American working class was aborted by the reformist, pro-capitalist and nationalist policies of the UAW and CIO leadership. With the support of the Stalinist Communist Party, the union bureaucracy rejected the independent political organization of the labor movement and instead tied the new industrial unions to Roosevelt and the Democratic Party.
This paved the way for the postwar anti-communist witch-hunt, led by UAW President Walter Reuther, which sealed the labor movement’s allegiance to US imperialism and the Cold War by driving socialists and left-wing militants out of the unions. Among the victims of the purge were many of those who had led the formative struggles that established the UAW and CIO.
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/pers-d30.shtml
The consolidation of the unions on the basis of the defense of capitalism and support for the two-party system established the trajectory that has led to the collapse of the labor movement...
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/pers-d30.shtml
My personal opinion - the 'american dream' is/was spin and resonates with american 'exceptionalism'. And if that is the best of all dreams, someone is deeply in need of some imagination. "Leave It To Beaver" is the dream come true.
And the debate over whether Michael Moore is Wally Cleaver or Lumpy Rutherford will rage on and on.
whichever - there's no doubt that 0 is Eddie Haskell.
vdb, what n excellent analogy! Slightly deficient in the malevolence aspect, but very good nonetheless!
error
What started in Flint has not stayed in Flint. Michael is right on in saying that the battle that began in Flint is now being fought all over again, all over the nation, and all over the world. And this time, the stakes are even greater because the 1% has had quite a few decades to take more away from the 99%.
In this present fight for who is going to own America and control the basic functions of our democracy -- the richest 1%, or the the 99%, Michael Moore has been an huge inspiration, a compassionate, empathetic, and tireless advocate for the 99%. He is one of the great patriots who wants to see our system completely reformed. No matter how much money he has, he will always identify with the 99%, and will be one of this nation’s great philanthropists.
There is nothing wrong with working to make a better life for yourself and your family, AND helping others at the same time. What Michael Moore and others have said many times, but the right wing never seems to get or intentionally ignores, is that the problem is not capitalism per se, but the abuse that occurs with those who have accrued powers by nefarious means, (think Koch Brothers and many of that mindset) who distort and abuse and pervert the law in a dog-eat-dog manner, who take more and more for themselves and leave nothing for anyone else.
These types of people throughout history have done everything in their power to transfer the wealth of the many to their own selfish ends.
We have to rise up like those heroes in Flint and take back our democracy, our jobs, our unions, our benefits, our hopes and dreams. We must never turn our backs on the greedy 1% who will always be looking for ways to satisfy their insatiable appetites.
Happy Valentine's Day, Michael. We love you for the very wonderful person you are. What a great heart!
Feb. 14, 2012