On time take off from Narita.

Easy passage through the checkpoints, thanks to the Japanese obsession with top-notch service and the wheelchair. This time, I was only twice as heavy as the attendant, who was, however, almost as old as me and who began to wheeze softly as he pushed me through the long STRAIGHTAWAYS DOWN PAST THE MOVING SIDEWALKS ALL THE WAY TO THE GATE. He locked me in the handicapped toilet room which was so high-tech that I may have peed in the wrong vessel. Oh well, there were plenty of little buttons explaining all the things you could get the water to do, so I just pressed them all and left. But you can’t just open the door: you have to press the green button. Japan is very high-tech. You can’t open your own door in the cab either; the driver opens it from his seat just like on a bus. That’s so you don’t nail a cyclist (of which there are some, but not as many as I would have thought – about like Mpls.)

Takashi suggested we see a film on Saturday afternoon: Capitalism: a Love Story. My old friends from the Christic Institute, Carl Deal and Tia Lessin worked on it, as they did on some other Moore films. They also got an academy award nomination for best documentary for Trouble the Waters. I recommend everyone see it. Mainstream reviews are predictably supercilious and snotty. One review said , in effect, “this is 9old news”, which is what they say when they don’t want to talk about the substance. (Remember when Dan Rather asked Bush I about his involvement in the Iran-contra crimes? The VP got all petulant: “that’s old, we’ve been all through that”. Well, we hadn’t; he had just denied any knowledge, which everybody knew was a lie.) So the critics attack the style and a couple of minor flaws in the film-making, and avoid any commentary on the actual analysis.

Except for one scoop, which even these folks – the same ones who have always considered Noam Chomsky beyond the pale of reasonable discourse, because they have no answer to his criticisms – had to admit was a “bombshell. That was a secret but leaked memo that circulated around the upper echelons of Citibank management, in which the thesis, frankly set forth, was that the global economic system is a plutonomy, which is organized deliberately for the benefit of the very rich, and that is as it should be. A tiny minority must control all the world’s wealth and consume most of its benefits, while the majority labor to produce them. It is as if the author were a Marxist and wanted to confirm his theories! One hopes this memo will go viral. I will do my part (watch this space), and please do yours, too; SEND IT TO EVERYONE AND POST IT ON YOUR Facebook page, and then ask yourself why the hell Obummer is in bed with these creeps.
Moore’s film, is dated in a melancholy sort of way: it has stirring footage of the campaign, the enormous crows that responds to the promise of “change we can believe in.” Moore even went so far as to suggest that this might have been the beginning of a democratic movement to undo the plutonomy. The film was in the can before it became clear that this was a false hope.

A sadly more realistic appraisal was given by Co. Andrew Bacevich (USMCRet.) of Boston University. (Please watch Bill Moyers interview him here.) Filmed during the campaign, the historian said it didn’t make much difference to the imperial presidency who won – Obama or McCain. Neither one was going to change very much. How true.

It was good to see the interviews with Moore’s family priests in Michigan, and the local assistant Bishop, who were unanimous in their appraisal of capitalism as ungodly. The critic want us to think this is all so-o-o old fashioned. But the fact is, Moore makes it clear that Marx is more relevant now than ever, and he accompanies his attempt to rehabilitate the term socialism with a hilarious, Frank Sinatra-like crooning of The Internalionale. Then he shows FDR’s second to last State of the Union message – from the White House. He asked that the last part be filmed, and that was what brought me to tears: the great president’s appeal for a constitutional amendment to enlarge the Bill of Rights, to include economic rights. (A decent place to live, a good job, health care, and a good education.) Why is this so laughably “impractical” or “unrealistic”? Only because Citibank and the other plutonomists tell us so, I think.

So, never one to mind contradictions, after the film we went to the Tokyo headquarters of the French tea-purveyor, Mariage & Freres to pick up some very bourgeois treats. And now, I am enjoying the luxuries of Singapore Airlines economy class, where they serve free wine and beer m which I still appreciate, though it does not benefit me, and rally good food. (I switched from Halal to regular fare and chose the Japanese. This gave me the opportunity to practice my newfound skill of eating noodles with chopsticks. The secret, it turns out, is to hold the bowl right under your chin. That must be why Japanese restaurants don’ have napkins. This is the company based in the country that flays people for spitting on the sidewalk, fines them for chewing gum, and will not permit the International Herald Tribune to be sold (do they still exist?) because it had the impudence to criticize the policies of President (for life, effectively) Lee. No, I guess I don’t mind contradictions at all.

BTW, I finally got my sushi: a really fine assortment in one of the airport restaurants. Not all that expensive, considering it was the airport. My attendant wheeled me in, left me at the counter, and appeared at the appointed time to wheel me out. Then onto the plane (I was the first one – before business class, before first class, before super-high-mileage patrons. I informed the most gracious flight attendant how kind it would be of her to put me in business class for free. This she pleasantly declined: “I would if I could, but I can’t.” I’ll bet they have empty seats. Worth a try.
And now, my Acer is beginning to beep joyously as we pass over Taiwan, so I will sign off. And until next time, Don’t Forget to Smash the State.