Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Michael Moore, Monsanto, and Me

A few years ago I watched Michael Moore's flick about Capitalism. After the credits, a simple search revealed that Moore was merely mistaken when he created his flick: It's Corporatism, silly man.

I just finished watching a far-less fun flick, but with a bit more information: Genetic Roulette. If you've been in the gluten-free world and seen Food, Inc--as I have--the first 40-60 minutes may be familiar (or boring). But there's some good stuff that was new to me, and the end really picks up.

So, Michael Moore misunderstands what he rants about and Monsanto sure looks evil... what do those have to do with each other?

Politics.

Going into the Genetic Roulette film, I expected some kind of cry for government intervention or overhaul. You know, the two sides to the same coin where Reds and Blues live. Instead, I found the Libertarian view peeking around the corner. "We have the power," the filmmaker intoned. "It's up to us to make this right by using market forces to bring change that our government--for a billion (trillion?) little green reasons--has failed to do."

Granted, just like Michael in his films, there was lots of talk of what the government should do, and what evil, money-grubbing corporations have done... but ultimately, the burden was placed back on us: the people.

I found that happily refreshing. Like a GMO-free smoothy.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester