Sunday,October 4th,2009

Friends,

I'd like to have a word with those of you who call yourselves Christians (Muslims,
Jews,Buddhists,Bill Maherists,etc. can read along,too,as much of what I have to
say,I'm sure,can be applied to your own spiritual/ethical values).

In my new film I speak for the first time in one of my movies about my own spiritual
beliefs. I have always believed that one's religious leanings are deeply personal
and should be kept private. After all,we've heard enough yammerin' in the past
three decades about how one should 'behave,' and I have to say I'm pretty burned out
on pieties and platitudes considering we are a violent nation who invades other
countries and punishes our own for having the audacity to fall on hard times.

I'm also against any proselytizing; I certainly don't want you to join anything I
belong to. Also,as a Catholic,I have much to say about the Church as an
institution,but I'll leave that for another day (or movie).

Amidst all the Wall Street bad guys and corrupt members of Congress exposed in
'Capitalism: A Love Story,' I pose a simple question in the movie: 'Is capitalism a
sin?' I go on to ask,'Would Jesus be a capitalist?' Would he belong to a hedge
fund? Would he sell short? Would he approve of a system that has allowed the richest
1% to have more financial wealth than the 95% under them combined?

I have come to believe that there is no getting around the fact that capitalism is
opposite everything that Jesus (and Moses and Mohammed and Buddha) taught. All the
great religions are clear about one thing: It is evil to take the majority of the
pie and leave what's left for everyone to fight over. Jesus said that the rich man
would have a very hard time getting into heaven. He told us that we had to be our
brother's and sister's keepers and that the riches that did exist were to be divided
fairly. He said that if you failed to house the homeless and feed the hungry,you'd
have a hard time finding the pin code to the pearly gates.

I guess that's bad news for us Americans. Here's how we define 'Blessed Are the
Poor': We now have the highest unemployment rate since 1983. There's a foreclosure
filing once every 7.5 seconds. 14,000 people every day lose their health insurance.

At the same time,Wall Street bankers ('Blessed Are the Wealthy'?) are amassing more
and more loot and they do their best to pay little or no income tax (last year
Goldman Sachs' tax rate was a mere 1%!). Would Jesus approve of this? If not,why do
we let such an evil system continue? It doesn't seem you can call yourself a
Capitalist AND a Christian because you cannot love your money AND love your
neighbor when you are denying your neighbor the ability to see a doctor just so you
can have a better bottom line. That's called 'immoral' and you are committing a
sin when you benefit at the expense of others.

When you are in church this morning,please think about this. I am asking you to
allow your 'better angels' to come forward. And if you are among the millions of
Americans who are struggling to make it from week to week,please know that I
promise to do what I can to stop this evil and I hope you'll join me in not
giving up until everyone has a seat at the table.

Thanks for listening. I'm off to Mass in a few hours. I'll be sure to ask the priest
if he thinks J.C. deals in derivatives or credit default swaps. I mean,after all,
he must've been good at math. How else did he divide up two loaves of bread and five
pieces of fish equally amongst 5,000 people? Either he was the first socialist or
his disciples were really bad at packing lunch. Or both.


Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/