Peter Occhiogrosso: September 2009 Archives

I've never thought of Michael Moore as an especially religious person, let alone a Catholic, although he does often come off as a moralist. But his new film and a series of interviews about it give a clear impression that Moore sees the world in spiritual terms. His latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, takes the American system of capitalism and its wealthiest proponents to task for their lack of concern about the rest of the country--the 99 percent that live outside the sheltered world of the most powerful 1 percent. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN discussing his film, Moore explicitly attacks the belief held by many of those in power in the U.S. that the richest one percent should control everything. "It's not right, it's not fair, it's not American, and it's not part of our Judeo-Christian ethic, or whatever religion you belong to--Buddhism, Islam. All the great religions are opposed to the wealthy being in charge and letting the poor suffer because of that." When Blitzer asks, "Are you a socialist?" Moore replies, "I'm a Christian." But Blitzer pushes his socialism question: "Would someone emerge from this movie saying, 'Michael Moore is a socialst'?"
    "Oh, no," Moore answers. He says that people instead would feel that "Michael Moore is following through on the values that his parents and the nuns and the priests gave him as a child. He believes that he is his brother's keeper. He believes that we will be judged by how we treat the least among us in this society."

Can political activists also be spiritual teachers? That's a valid question at a time when large groups of people are pursuing both active involvement in the political sphere and the development of personal spiritual practices, often outside of the conventional wisdom traditions. My good friend Andrew Harvey has written a new book called The Hope that promotes the fusion of political activism and spiritual practice into what he calls "sacred activism." Although I haven't yet read the book, on several occasions I have heard Andrew discourse for hours on this subject, and I can tell you that it's essential wisdom he is purveying, and that The Hope is highly recommended reading. Indeed Andrew would say that the two--spiritual practice and social activism--need to be inextricably intertwined in our contemporary world.
    Andrew's book has just been published by Hay House, but the whole issue came to me synchronistically as I watched a film dramatization of the life of Abbie Hoffman, entitled Steal This Movie