Bowling for Columbine

I saw Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine with my sweetie
kyubi last night.

( rant, containing spoilers and ranting )

I can't really point to a particular part of the movie that gave me this impression, but I came away thinking about the many ways that something not dissimilar to slavery still exists in the US - that is, many people who are stuck not quite making ends meet working 1 or 2 low-wage jobs and thus staying stuck in situation where they don't have very many choices. (Barbara Ehrenreich also covers this in her book Nickel and Dimed.)

Because the movie covered this subject, and also covered the media's overemphasis on crime (crime rates are falling, but crime coverage and fear of crime are rising), I'm surprised that there was no mention of the prison-industrial complex - which is another way that something even more similar to slavery than the welfare-to-work programs still exists in the US, and another reason that there's an overemphasis on crime - because this industry wants to be able to keep on building and staffing more prisons, and because prisoners are a form of cheap labor in the US.

I am definitely going to have to check out the book The Culture of Fear mentioned in the movie. (Moore interviewed the author Barry Glassner.)

Bowling for Columbine

I saw Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine with my sweetie
kyubi last night.

( rant, containing spoilers and ranting )

I can't really point to a particular part of the movie that gave me this impression, but I came away thinking about the many ways that something not dissimilar to slavery still exists in the US - that is, many people who are stuck not quite making ends meet working 1 or 2 low-wage jobs and thus staying stuck in situation where they don't have very many choices. (Barbara Ehrenreich also covers this in her book Nickel and Dimed.)

Because the movie covered this subject, and also covered the media's overemphasis on crime (crime rates are falling, but crime coverage and fear of crime are rising), I'm surprised that there was no mention of the prison-industrial complex - which is another way that something even more similar to slavery than the welfare-to-work programs still exists in the US, and another reason that there's an overemphasis on crime - because this industry wants to be able to keep on building and staffing more prisons, and because prisoners are a form of cheap labor in the US.

I am definitely going to have to check out the book The Culture of Fear mentioned in the movie. (Moore interviewed the author Barry Glassner.)