I'm going to be perfectly honest here. I've never been a huge fan of Michael Moore. Sure, I appreciate Bowling for Columbine as much as the next person, but I find Mr. Moore to be, a lot of the time, unnecessarily rude and abrasive. So when I sat down in the conference room at the Sutton Place Hotel earlier today for Mr. Moore's press conference about his new documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, I was certain that I would find him insufferable.

After all, this documentary is much larger in scope than any of Mr. Moore's previous films. Here he's not just attacking the health care system in the States, or poverty in his hometown of Flint, Michigan, but capitalism as a system. I assumed that since his subject was much grander, so too would be my intolerance for him.

Boy, was I proven wrong!

Mr. Moore spoke for 40 minutes about his film and about his take on capitalism. I barely noticed the time passing. I was completely caught up in what he was saying. The man is among the most eloquent I've ever heard. He has an infectious laugh, a wicked sense of humour, tends to punctuate what he's saying with expansive hand gestures and above all, he's smart. You might not agree with what he's saying at any given moment, but you have to admit that he's well-versed in his subject matter.

Mr. Moore is an encyclopedia of economic statistics. I'm not at all surprised that he's having trouble getting booked on talk shows to promote his doc due to the fact that no one will oppose his viewpoints. I know that I could hold my own against him for maybe a good two seconds before getting mowed over by his facts and opinions.

So I stand corrected. I admit that I misjudged Mr. Moore. And to apologize, I'm going to let him do the rest of the talking. Below are excerpts from his 40 minute rant about Love Story and capitalism in general. Go see his film. You won't be disappointed.

"I've probably been thinking about this movie for the whole time I've been making films. It seems like every issue I make a film about comes back to the core issue that there's something seriously wrong about the economic situation in our country. And so I felt that instead of dancing around the issue, that I'd just go for it. 'Tell us how you really feel, Mike!'

[...]

I think that capitalism in general is responsible, not for the worldwide recession, but for a lot of suffering, both in the United States and around the world. If it seems to be more on steroids in America, that's because we do everything better! Canadians have better banking regulations, but I see you try to copy so much of what we do that it's kind of sad. And you end up with a lot of the problems similar to what we have.

[...]

I don't think anybody who has tried to create art in any form, and in this case cinema, succeeds when one tries to reach for the mediocre, or to create art that makes people feel more comfortable. The purpose of art is actually, in many cases, to make people feel quite uncomfortable. Or at least to go to that place that is already of discomfort inside of you and tap into that. Because in that place and from that place come the emotions that the filmmaker, the artist, is trying to evoke, whether that's laughter or sadness or anger. That's how I really feel and I've felt that way for a long time.

[...]

When I say that capitalism should be eliminated I'm not talking about eliminating someone trying to open up a business selling shoes or someone working hard to earn money or even earning more money to do better for themselves... To me capitalism is a system of legalized greed and it guarantees that just a few people at the top of the pyramid are going to earn most of the money. And everyone else becomes their worker ants, becomes their slaves, essentially, to do their bidding, to earn that money for them. And the money that those earn, those other people below the pyramid, sometimes is okay, is sometimes enough to get by, and sometimes you're living from paycheck to paycheck. And a lot of the time you're one of the one out of eight people whose homes are either in delinquency or foreclosure right now. One out of eight!

[...]

I reject that system because I believe in democracy, I believe in the principles that our founding fathers gave us, that we are to treat each other in as fair and as equitable a manner as possible. The richest one percent in America have more financial wealth than the bottom 95% of people...that is not democracy. That is not moral; it's not right; there is no ethical foundation to it. In my film I speak to that through my Catholicism. But you don't have to be Catholic to say that. All the great religions denounce that kind of greed and denounce treating the poor as if they were your doormen. And if you're of no religion and belong to the Church of Bill Maher, this is just simply wrong.

[...]

I'm a filmmaker who sees something he doesn't like and who has witnessed a lot of suffering, a lot of letters from people around the country telling me their stories of utter despair everyday, and its painful to read. I try to think of what I can do in my privileged position as filmmaker, a person who's able to sit here and talk to you, to give voice to what they're living through. Because they don't get to have their voices heard in cinemas or on the nightly news or in the dying newspapers. I just think we can do better. We're in the 21st century... Aren't we smart enough to come up with something that is relevant to what we're dealing with right now?

[...]

I may not be right, but we're not going to be able to have that discussion about what's right and what we should do unless someone gets it going. Here we are. A year ago tomorrow the shit hit the fan. It's been a year and I don't think I've seen a single talk show, a single edition of Meet the Press, an op-ed in the New York Times, where they've allowed a voice to state the following: the real problem here, my friends, is capitalism itself. It's not this particular symptom or that particular piece of it. It's an economic system that doesn't work. It's not fair, it's not democratic, it's not just...it's gotta go! Has anyone heard anyone say that?

[...]

This film, like my other films, exists to interject an idea into the discourse. I have an open mind and I'm willing to listen to anything at this point.

[...]

Greed was there before capitalism. Greed is in all of us, it's the dark side of human nature. So we need to have a moral code that keeps it in check. Capitalism is not that moral code that keeps greed in check. Capitalism encourages it! Capitalism almost demands it! We legalize it. It make it part of our law, in the United States and in Canada, where we say if you are a corporation with shareholders you have a fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders to maximize profits. Capitalism is this legalized endorsement of greed. It doesn't have a soul, it doesn't compromise or allow for any form of safety net!

[...]

I believe in a moral code that says that those who are the "have-nots" should not be punished because they have less than us. A hand should be extended to them and there should be an equitable distribution of that pie.

[...]

Socialism is closer to a democratic concept. Socialism is closer to saying 'everyone at the table has a right to a slice of that pie.' So the irony is that dictatorships, under the guise of socialism, talked about having this equitable distribution of the pie, but really people had no say as to who was baking it, or cutting it. So that had its own crazy aspect. But certain aspects of socialism are necessary for a fair society, a just society. In a sense, Jesus was the first socialist, in the true sense of what it should be.

[...]

Capitalism is a beast. It will never stop. It has an insatiable appetite to make money. You can put as many strings or ropes around it as you want, but it will break through. There's no such thing as 'enough' in capitalism. People have asked me, 'well what's the love story in this movie?' The love story is that it's a movie about wealthy people who love their money. Except this movie has a twist. They don't just love their money, they love our money, and they're going to find any way they can to get it."

Well said Mr. Moore. Well said.

Press conference photo by Michelle O. Capitalism: A Love Story will screen tomorrow at Scotiabank Theatre at 3:45 pm.