I just found this great article called America's Teacher on ZNet. It's definitely worth a look! Michael Moore and Naomi Klein discuss Moore's new film as well as topics like the Wall Street crisis, the role of unions in the workplace, and the health care system.
As someone interested in health care I found the following exchange worth emphasizing:
Naomi Klein: Wasn't part of it also, though, that the left, or progressives, or whatever you want to call them, have been in something of a state of disarray with regard to the Obama administration--that most people favor universal healthcare, but they couldn't rally behind it because it wasn't on the table?
Michael Moore: Yes. And that's why Obama keeps turning around and looking for the millions behind him, supporting him, and there's nobody even standing there, because he chose to take a half measure instead of the full measure that needed to happen. Had he taken the full measure--true single-payer, universal healthcare--I think he'd have millions out there backing him up.
This is absolutely right! For a number of reasons, there is very little hope of ever building a mass movement to counteract the right's tea parties unless we embrace national health insurance as the goal. That will mean replacing organizations like OFA and HCAN which only follow the Obama agenda with independent ones like Healthcare-NOW!
NK: Now that the Baucus plan is going down in flames, do you think there's another window to put universal healthcare on the table?
MM: Yes. And we need people to articulate the message and get out in front of this and lead it. You know, there's close to a hundred Democrats in Congress who had already signed on as co-signers to John Conyers's bill.
Obama, I think, realizes now that whatever he thought he was trying to do with bipartisanship or holding up the olive branch, that the other side has no interest in anything other than the total destruction of anything he has stood for or was going to try and do. So if [New York Congressman Anthony] Weiner or any of the other members of Congress want to step forward, now would be the time. And I certainly would be out there. I am out there. I mean, I would use this time right now to really rally people, because I think the majority of the country wants this.
Yes! In fact there are many polls that back up Moore on his feeling here, despite many people (ahem, like certain Daily Kos editors) denying that the majority of the country wants national health care.
NK: The thing that I found most exciting in the film is that you make a very convincing pitch for democratically run workplaces as the alternative to this kind of loot-and-leave capitalism.
So I'm just wondering, as you're traveling around, are you seeing any momentum out there for this idea?
MM: People love this part of the film. I've been kind of surprised because I thought people aren't maybe going to understand this or it seems too hippie-dippy--but it really has resonated in the audiences that I've seen it with.
But, of course, I've pitched it as a patriotic thing to do. So if you believe in democracy, democracy can't be being able to vote every two or four years. It has to be every part of every day of your life.
Democratically run workplaces imply a non-capitalist system similar to libertarian socialism or anarcho-syndicalism. I am personally not sure if this is possible to do on a large scale, but we should still move in that direction and find out.
NK: You had your US premiere at the AFL-CIO convention. How are you finding labor leadership in relation to this idea? Are they open to it, or are you hearing, "Well, this isn't really workable"? Because I know you've also written about the idea that some of the auto plant factories or auto parts factories that are being closed down could be turned into factories producing subway cars, for instance. The unions would need to champion that idea for it to work.
MM: I sat there in the theater the other night with about 1,500 delegates of the AFL-CIO convention, and I was a little nervous as we got near that part of the film, and I was worried that it was going to get a little quiet in there.
Just the opposite. They cheered it. A couple people shouted out, "Right on!" "Absolutely!" I think that unions at this point have been so beaten down, they're open to some new thinking and some new ideas. And I was very encouraged to see that.
The next day at the convention the AFL-CIO passed a resolution supporting single-payer healthcare. I thought, Wow, you know? Things are changing.
I too am very happy that AFL-CIO has at long last endorsed single payer. It's definitely an encouraging sign!
Read the rest of the piece here.