More on Moore

From Salon's review of Michael Moore's "Sicko."

When Moore interviews Tony Benn, a leading figure on the British left, his larger concerns come into focus. Benn argues that for-profit healthcare and the other instruments of the corporate state, like student loans and bottomless credit-card debt, perform a crucial function for that state. They undermine democracy by creating a docile and hardworking population that is addicted to constant debt and an essentially unsustainable lifestyle, that literally cannot afford to quit jobs or take time off, that is more interested in maintaining high incomes than in social or political change.

Benn just misses one of the ironies of American life. We have a "docile and hardworking population" that is little interested in large-scale "social or political change." However, we also have an enormous amount of personal aggression in the United States. There are much higher rates for murder, rape, violent crime, and other kinds of interpersonal violence in the U. S. than in comparable countries. If Americans are docile toward social, economic, and political authority, we are extremely and destructively aggressive toward our families, friends, girlfriends, co-workers, and acquaintances. The only legitimate social targets for our aggression are those who complain about or criticize the reigning political-economic system--those on the left who complain about economic injustice, blacks who criticize racism, feminists, and gay rights activists. Americans certainly are docile in many ways but we're also sitting on a volcano of anger.