Moore praised Franklin Roosevelt’s "second bill of rights" (which was never adopted) yet did not once mention the U.S. Communist Party’s role in the 1930s in fighting racism and in organizing the mass production industries. That’s what produced what passes for "the American standard of living" which Roosevelt used in his "bill of rights."

Moore’s only reference (implied) to communism was as "the other ‘ism’" and in depicting troops marching. He closed with a Sinatra-esque rendition (over the final credits) of the communist "Internationale" (which most movie-goers would not recognize) adapted to U.S. issues.

Moore says nothing about imperialism, which capitalism spawns. He ignores the union sellouts’ role in the demise of the labor movement. And in promoting the European social-democratic welfare state as "better than" U.S. capitalism, he also ignores the mass layoffs and anti-immigrant racism there.

Moore advances a monumental historical lie in saying that the National Guard was ordered out in the 1936 great Flint sit-down strike against GM to "protect the strikers from police attacks." (!) They were there to take the plants back from the workers, and were prevented only by the sit-downers’ determination to destroy the company’s billion-dollar machinery if attacked.

Moore’s analysis of capitalism and class struggle is the same old formula of rich vs. poor. It lacks an understanding of capitalism as a class dictatorship where the bourgeoisie owns the means of production and uses the working class to extract surplus value — its profits — from our labor. Moore basically defines capitalism as greed.

He says "democracy" is the only hope to defeat unregulated capitalism. One member of our group shouted out that he had already disproved "democracy" 30 minutes earlier when he showed Congress as not stopping the bailouts because the ruling class had decided to keep them. This abstract term "democracy" hides the true nature of the bosses’ dictatorship which allows us to choose our masters’ mouthpiece once every so many years. "Democracy" means voting according to the bosses’ rules and for one or another of their politicians.

The audience reacted strongly to images of evictions, the "dead peasant insurance" — companies insuring its workers while making themselves the beneficiaries when the workers die — as well as the story of corruption and fraudulent incarceration of Wilkes Barre, PA’s youth. They shouted, swore and agreed with much of the criticism of greed endemic to capitalism. Although the audience’s anger at capitalism is positive, Moore does the bidding of the liberal wing of the ruling class, the major imperialists, as they seek to curb the excess short-run greed of maverick capitalists in order to win workers and youth to defending capitalism in the long-run, especially in a wartime economy.

One friend said she was angered by the white middle-class lens that permeated this film. Only white teenagers were depicted as being falsely incarcerated in a rural community, not the black and Latino working-class youth routinely harassed and murdered by the state. Moore also omitted the constant police brutality against black, Latino and undocumented workers. He carefully navigated around the bosses’ need for racism to maintain capitalism.

He only portrayed the eviction of white families, though he did show a multi-racial (non-violent) struggle to keep a family in their home. This was the exception in the film, not the rule. The movie is clearly aimed at middle-class liberals and white and black workers who Obama needs for support.

Though the film doesn’t provide a structured analysis of the failure of capitalism, it does place the word "capitalism" back into the discussion of what’s wrong with the world.

Workers and students should see and discuss this movie with their friends and co-workers. It was entertaining, especially when Moore tried to make a "citizen’s arrest" of the corporate big shots who pillaged the treasury via "bailouts" and he himself was threatened with arrest. This climactic moment can easily lead to a discussion of how workers’ tribunals will arrest and punish the capitalists and their imperialist lackeys when our class has state power in a workers’ dictatorship.

Moore’s definition of "democracy" as a system where everyone can discuss what they need can only be realized through millions of workers fighting for a PLP-led communist revolution.