{"id":69794,"date":"2016-02-15T12:43:38","date_gmt":"2016-02-15T12:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=69794"},"modified":"2016-02-15T12:43:38","modified_gmt":"2016-02-15T12:43:38","slug":"where-to-invade-next-is-the-most-subversive-movie-michael-moore-has-ever-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-is-the-most-subversive-movie-michael-moore-has-ever-made\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWhere to Invade Next\u201d Is the Most Subversive Movie Michael Moore Has Ever Made"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore.jpg\"  rel=\"attachment wp-att-69795\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-69795\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore-1024x575.jpg\" alt=\"where-to-invade-next michael Moore\" width=\"700\" height=\"393\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore-1024x575.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore-768x431.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>10 Feb 2016 &#8211; <\/em>I can\u2019t claim this is\u00a0a neutral\u00a0review of\u00a0<em>Where to Invade Next<\/em>, Michael Moore\u2019s latest movie.\u00a0Beyond the fact\u00a0that I\u00a0worked for Moore for six years,\u00a0including on\u00a0his previous\u00a0documentary\u00a0<em>Capitalism: A Love Story<\/em>,\u00a0I may\u00a0literally\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2013\/10\/skin-cancer-obamacare-ted-cruz\" >owe my life<\/a> to the high-quality,\u00a0zero-deductible health insurance he provides employees.<\/p>\n<p>What I\u2019ve\u00a0lost in objectivity, I\u2019ve gained in knowledge of Moore\u2019s\u00a0career. I even know\u00a0his darkest, most\u00a0closely guarded\u00a0secret: the\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Xxq6rogiBi0C&amp;lpg=PA79&amp;dq=%22free%20to%20be%22%20%22flint%20voice%22&amp;pg=PA79#v=onepage&amp;q=%22a%20newspaper%20called%20free%20to%20be%22&amp;f=false\" >original name<\/a>\u00a0of the 1970s alternative newspaper he\u00a0started\u00a0in\u00a0Flint,\u00a0Michigan.\u00a0So\u00a0I can say this for sure:\u00a0<em>Where to Invade Next\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0the most profoundly subversive thing he\u2019s ever done. It\u2019s so sneaky that\u00a0you may not\u00a0even notice exactly what it\u2019s subverting.<\/p>\n<p>On its surface, <em>Where to Invade Next<\/em>\u00a0seems to be a\u00a0cheerful\u00a0travelogue as Moore enjoys an extended vacation,\u00a0\u201cinvading\u201d\u00a0a passel of European countries plus Tunisia to steal their best ideas and bring them back home to\u00a0America.\u00a0For instance, French public schools have chefs who serve students hour-long,\u00a0multi-course lunches on\u00a0china,\u00a0featuring dishes\u00a0like scallops in curry sauce.\u00a0I haven\u2019t laughed harder at any movie this year than when the\u00a0French 8-year-olds stare\u00a0in perplexed horror at photos of American school lunches.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s all so\u00a0upbeat\u00a0in\u00a0such an un-Michael Moore\u00a0way that he\u00a0considered calling it\u00a0<em>Mike\u2019s Happy Movie.<\/em>\u00a0Certainly it\u2019s the only time I\u2019ve walked out of one of his documentaries and\u00a0said, \u201cWow, everything\u00a0is\u00a0fantastic!\u201d But what made me feel this way is\u00a0the secret message hidden in\u00a0<em>Where to Invade Next<\/em>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0and\u00a0if you see it, you\u2019ll feel that way\u00a0too.<\/p>\n<p>httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1KeAZho8TKo<\/p>\n<p><strong>Moore\u2019s Biggest Foe Ever<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To understand what I\u2019m talking about,\u00a0look at the trajectory of Moore\u2019s major films, and how he consistently became\u00a0more ambitious.\u00a0With every movie\u00a0he\u2019s raised the stakes,\u00a0each time aiming\u00a0at a bigger\u00a0institution and\u00a0its\u00a0claims that it knows best and is totally\u00a0serious and in control\u00a0and <em>definitely\u00a0nobody should laugh at\u00a0it<\/em>.\u00a0Here\u2019s the progression:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Roger &amp; Me<\/em> in 1989\u00a0was an attack on\u00a0General Motors when it was the largest\u00a0corporation on earth, and\u00a0suggested\u00a0that GM\u2019s\u00a0decision to\u00a0brutalize\u00a0its workers,\u00a0customers, and hometown might not be the greatest\u00a0long-term\u00a0strategy.\u00a0(You\u2019ve probably\u00a0noticed this\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2009\/06\/01\/news\/companies\/gm_bankruptcy\/\" >turned out to be true<\/a>.)<\/li>\n<li><em>Bowling for Columbine<\/em>\u2019s\u00a0target\u00a0in 2002\u00a0was\u00a0even\u00a0larger than GM: It wasn\u2019t\u00a0just about America\u2019s\u00a0constant gun massacres, but our\u00a0omnipresent\u00a0culture of\u00a0fear that makes us hostile to any possible solutions.<\/li>\n<li><em>Fahrenheit 9\/11<\/em> in 2004 aimed\u00a0higher again: It was about the reality that the president of the United States might be illegitimate,\u00a0definitely\u00a0had\u00a0no idea what he was doing, and everyone was terrified to point any of this out.<\/li>\n<li>In 2007\u00a0<em>Sicko<\/em> critiqued something even more important than the presidency: healthcare, America\u2019s biggest,\u00a0cruelest industry.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, in 2009,\u00a0Moore reached what seemed like the logical summit\u00a0of his career\u00a0with\u00a0<em>Capitalism: A Love\u00a0Story<\/em>,\u00a0pointing out that our entire economic system seems to be broken.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So where could anyone go from there? Once you\u2019ve done\u00a0capitalism, it\u2019s hard to imagine there\u2019s any larger\u00a0nemesis. But\u00a0as\u00a0<em>Where to Invade Next<\/em>\u00a0demonstrates, there\u00a0is.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore2.jpg\"  rel=\"attachment wp-att-69796\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-69796\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore2-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"where-to-invade-next michael Moore2\" width=\"500\" height=\"750\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore2-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore2-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore2-768x1151.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/where-to-invade-next-michael-Moore2.jpg 1955w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>America\u2019s Real Ideology<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>About halfway through\u00a0<em>Where to Invade Next<\/em>,\u00a0Moore visits\u00a0an\u00a0island prison in Norway that\u00a0houses inmates who\u2019ve committed violent crimes but are being rewarded for good behavior.\u00a0It looks less like\u00a0<em>Oz<\/em>\u00a0and more like a frugal resort, with prisoners in regular clothes doing wheelies\u00a0on\u00a0bikes, fishing, and sunbathing.<\/p>\n<p>In the prison\u2019s kitchen, Moore\u00a0talks\u00a0to Trond, a convicted murderer with a huge tattoo on his face. Looking past him, Moore says:\u00a0\u201cUh, I can\u2019t help but notice that behind you are a whole bunch of very sharp knives.\u201d And in fact there are a dozen of them, including a gigantic\u00a0cleaver.<\/p>\n<p>There also appear to be zero guards.\u00a0Trond\u00a0explains how many guards are at the prison on weekends: four. That\u2019s for a prison population of 115. Plus, he says, the guards generally\u00a0all stay in another building, leaving the prisoners to supervise themselves.<\/p>\n<p>For most Americans, including me, this looks\u00a0<em>completely insane<\/em>. But the prison warden, sitting at\u00a0a park bench\u00a0with birds chirping in the background, explains:\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t understand why you think this is a strange idea. \u2026\u00a0The main idea is just to take away their freedom. That\u2019s the only punishment we are giving them. We are trying to help them back to society.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Norwegian philosophy is to create a\u00a0normal\u00a0environment with as\u00a0few external controls as possible so that when prisoners get out, they know how to control themselves. It works so well that Norway has one of the world\u2019s lowest murder rates, and its recidivism rate is about 20 percent, two to three times lower than in the U.S. (Moore also visits a standard Norwegian\u00a0maximum security\u00a0prison that\u2019s less spa-like but totally free of the brutality and spiritual darkness of U.S. prisons.)<\/p>\n<p>Moore\u2019s visit to Portugal is also about its prison system, or rather its lack of one comparable to the U.S., thanks to its total decriminalization of drugs in 2001. Dr. Nuno Capaz,\u00a0the\u00a0Portuguese minister\u00a0of health, classifies himself as a drug user: \u201cMostly\u00a0alcohol, internet, a lot of coffee, some sugar.\u201d When Moore points out that drug abuse\u00a0may bring a lot of sadness to someone\u2019s marriage, Capaz responds,\u00a0\u201cSo? So does Facebook. Are we going to\u00a0illegalize it?\u201d The results in Portugal have been just\u00a0as counterintuitive for Americans as Norway\u2019s results,\u00a0with drug use actually falling now that you can\u2019t get arrested for it.<\/p>\n<p>By the end of\u00a0<em>Where to Invade Next \u2014\u00a0<\/em>after seeing\u00a0working-class Italians with two months\u00a0paid vacation,\u00a0Finnish schools with\u00a0no homework and the world\u2019s best test scores,\u00a0Slovenians going to college for free, and women seizing unprecedented power\u00a0in\u00a0Tunisia and Iceland\u00a0\u2014 you may realize that the entire movie is about how other countries have dismantled the prisons\u00a0in which\u00a0Americans live: prison-like schools and workplaces, debtor\u2019s\u00a0prisons\u00a0in order\u00a0to pay for\u00a0college, prisons of social roles for women, and\u00a0the mental\u00a0prison of refusing to face our own history.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll also perceive clearly why we\u2019ve built these prisons.\u00a0It\u2019s because the core ideology of the United States isn\u2019t capitalism, or American exceptionalism, but something even deeper:\u00a0<em>People are bad.\u00a0<\/em>People are so bad that they have to be constantly controlled and threatened with punishment, and if they get a moment of freedom they\u2019ll go crazy and ruin everything.<\/p>\n<p>The secret\u00a0message of\u00a0<em>Where to Invade Next<\/em>\u00a0is that America\u2019s had it wrong all along about human beings.\u00a0You and I aren\u2019t bad. All the people around us aren\u2019t bad. It\u2019s okay\u00a0to get high, or get sick, or\u00a0for teenagers\u00a0to spend every waking moment trying to figure\u00a0out how to bonk each other.\u00a0If regular people get control over their own lives, they\u2019ll use it wisely rather than burning the country down in a festival of mindless\u00a0debauchery.<\/p>\n<p><em>Where to Invade Next<\/em>\u00a0is all the more powerful because it doesn\u2019t tell you this, it simply shows you. It\u2019s not\u00a0speculation about how human nature will be transformed\u00a0after the revolution so\u00a0we\u2019ll all be happy to share our ration of grass soup with The People. It\u2019s all\u00a0happening right now, with imperfect human beings just like us.<\/p>\n<p>The movie ends with Moore visiting the\u00a0remnants\u00a0of the Berlin Wall, and remembering how he\u2019d been there in 1989 and joined with all the Germans chiseling away at it. When he was growing up during\u00a0the Cold War, he says, the one certain thing was that \u201cThis wall would never come down.\u00a0Built to stand forever.\u00a0Impenetrable.\u201d\u00a0But less\u00a0than 30 years later it was gone.\u00a0What America\u2019s President of Documentaries is saying now is:\u00a0<em>Tear down these walls<\/em>. We will be much better off without them.<\/p>\n<p>____________________________________<\/p>\n<p><em><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/staff\/jonschwarz\/\" >Jon Schwarz<\/a> &#8211;<a href=\"mailto:jon.schwarz@theintercept.com\">\u2709jon.schwarz@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/2016\/02\/10\/where-to-invade-next-is-the-most-subversive-movie-michael-moore-has-ever-made\/\" >Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On its surface, Where to Invade Next seems to be a cheerful travelogue as Moore enjoys an extended vacation, \u201cinvading\u201d a passel of European countries plus Tunisia to steal their best ideas and bring them back home to America. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}