爱情故事2009

最近網上流行一句話說，少時不努力，老大搞IT。

南方朔說，無論任何社會，中産階級都是最主要的穩定力量，他們由于多半是有點技術的上班及上工族，而且經濟條件尚可，他們的價值觀遂比較個人傾向，他們不會去煩人，也不希望被政府煩。他們權利義務分明，多半都希望就這樣平安幸福的終其一生。但這種卑微的願望，現在卻已變得愈來愈遙遠。

Moore說，美國的中產階級消失了，靠在企業做工買的起房，3年換新車的生活已經不存在了。

 

於此我恍然大悟：按美國50年前中產的標準和南方朔中產的定義，買的起房，買的起車，有點技術又個人化並希望安於此境，如今的中國大陸中產階級好像根本就不存在，南方朔說的這種人在中國跟現在美國的這種人同樣，成了Peasant，翻譯為民工我想更加確切，這就不難解釋少壯不努力，老大搞IT了，在中國除非你成為公僕OR紅頂，如同在美國你西裝革履在華爾街上班，不然你就是個Peasant。他們有American Dreanm，我們還有Chinese Dream呢，呵呵，哈哈，哈哈哈哈。

 

美國被商人掌控了，中國則被公僕和紅頂商人掌控。如此看來，中國的中產者產生於那個楊百萬的時代，終結於和世界接軌之後，前後短短10多幾年。世界也差不多，80年代出生的我們，見證了一個時代，中國的，世界的，我是指，從80年開始，美國變成了華爾街的賺錢工具，中國變成了公僕們日積月累不斷鼠竊的糧倉，蘇俄則被那些心狠手辣，眼疾手快的紅色寡頭買下來了，這個世界正在如此同步的轉化為富人和窮人的世界，讓人不經懷疑，是否冥冥中自有天命。

 

American dream就像美國人的一場戀愛，美國人失戀了，然後中國人開始追求她。中國人多久會嘗到失戀的苦果呢？

 

或許Moore給我們了一個結論，democracy。誰知道呢？

这片子跟华氏911一比，差了不止3条街。缺了阴谋论，看上去就很乏味，以至于后半段简直令人昏昏欲睡。对资本主义的血泪控诉，就这点桥段，都不好意思写进我国的政治教材啊（话说按今天的眼光看，80年代的中学政治教科书很像另类科幻，什么牛奶倒大海，什么证交所多过米店，竟然都一一应验了）。说实话，我真的很想推荐老麦看一看我国80年代的中学政治教科书，虽然分析我国的事情不怎么靠谱，但是找资本主义的茬，那还是相当地一针见血啊。

其实华尔街，多好的阴谋论题材啊，但看到老麦对函数的导数满头黑线，就知道这不是他可以驾驭的了（不如请宋鸿兵来当顾问）？于是剩下的就只有感情宣泄了；美国本来是很好的，都是布什/鲍尔森良心让狗吃了，只要信天主信民主（党）以及巴马，于是乎就万事大吉了。红脖子智商固然低，但也没有这么好忽悠的吧。而且话说巴马上台已经两年了，那下次再怎么拍呢？看情形是要搞”党内出了佩洛西这样的走资派“之类的桥段了。

既然对问题没有深入的分析，老麦开出的药方也是可笑的。”罗斯福多活几年就好了“，算是解决方案？要知道罗斯福的social security现在都快破产了唉。人人有工作，人人有房子住，人人有医疗，哪个不需要花钱的啊？当然罗斯福有可能办得到，您老自己在开头就说了，那是因为欧洲日本都被还原成2D了嘛。

说老实话，搞福利国家北欧可以，日本可以，但是美国不可以，因为美国是老大，天塌下来也只能硬顶着，养懒人的下场就是老大地位不保，这个是一点办法都没有的事情。

喂喂，最后摇滚版的ED是虾米意思啊？欺负美宣部的同志们没有听过国际歌是吧？伟大导师教导我们，革命不是请客吃饭，自发的，盲目的，没有xx党领导的，那个啥啥啥，终归是要失败的。哼着小曲就想改天换日，那是门也没有的。现如今只有我国纪念的51劳动节和38妇女节，想当初都是芝加哥工人的滚滚人头啊。

我不能完全同意其中的观点，但是我却完全彻底的喜欢这样的说话方式。
不过我也有些悲哀，因为在中国承认自己是一个彻底的信仰共产主义的共产党人（不是说你一定中国共产党员，而是说你完全相信并且追随《共产党宣言》的人），会被人觉得可笑。这是一层悲哀。
另外还有一层悲哀。那些所谓的资本主义的追随者，也无法真正的解决资本主义的问题。
最终的悲哀是在于，当你真正的去思考人类社会未来的美好前景的时候，你会发现你是孤单的。

The other day I was watching Real Time. As usual, Bill and his panel - Arianna Huffington and Andrew Sorkin in this case - talked about how the Corporate America, especially those financial elites, rip off the hard-working middle class people and get away with it with tons of taxpayers' money in their pockets. As the heat mounted, it is, of course, inevitable to raise doubts about and criticize the existing system. Then, all of sudden, I was shocked, and partly amused, by how these spouts resemble what we have been preached throughout our education. Greed, exploitation, and ultimately the populist revolt. This type of rhetoric sounds no strange to us; for this is what we are expected, if not ordered, to believe in. And yet, to the American people, particularly the younger generation, it sounds just as exotic and remote as a fashionable historic curiosity.

There are more of these moments to find in Michael Moore's documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. Jimmy Carter's presidential statement that "we are at a turning point in our history" in that "human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns" called for the very same thing the Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces is intended to. The only difference here is that one has perished amid the laissez faire spree triggered by the president's successor, while another is ongoing in an emerging superpower experiencing an astounding economic growth and faced with increasingly polarized distribution.

Carter also rightly decried that "too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption". Ironically enough, this is exactly where Ronald Reagan thrived. By cutting taxes by a enormous margin, by packing those ideas that Carter hated and warned against into the doctrine of capitalism and the almighty power of the free market, the Republican president created a robust consumption-driven economy and garnered tremendous popularity. Historically, this was also a significant period of what Walter R. Mead, an advisor to Henry Kissinger, described as the breakdown of the blue model. Union power declined, competition intensified - just as Michael Moore lamented in the film, it was not an easy time for everybody. However, the cosmetic served well. With new policies well implemented, economic index responded with great numbers. So did the stock market, so did the financial sector; and so people say of the economy and the president's legacy. Indeed, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

But this does not solve the moral problems incurred by the ever greater gap between the wealthy and the poor. In an electoral democracy, for a policy, or more precisely -- an ideology to become legitimate it has to promote the core ideas that have been deeply rooted in this nation ever since its foundation - well known as the "American dream" - which, in its simplest form, requires two most basic elements: freedom and equal opportunities. Of course, it is no difficulty to claim freedom in a capitalism for it is already a "free market", but the concept of "equal opportunities" is not an easy case. How could everyone be equal in a system in which more capital could be gained out of capital itself? How is deregulation supposed to promote equality when the ones with more wealth is granted with access to more influence, and hence even more wealth? This is where the economists, along with their terrifying-sounding jargons, weighed in. Drawing on one after another premises that are too good - and too simple - to be true, they derived elegant models functioning perfectly in equilibriums yet inherently inconsistent with reality. But politicians, as they always do, conveniently neglected those flaws in nature and with the help of speechwriters blended the pretty conclusions into their exciting orations. The "invisible hand", what a tempting yet handy idea - it's like finding the key to the ultimate mystery of the universe - sparing us the tedious thoughts of how our society and economy really work, develop, and interact with fast changing circumstances. Capitalism and the free market, as the Cold War ended in the collapse of the Soviet Union, soon earned their unchallengeable status in the realm of economic expertise. This, I firmly believe, is the ugly but real side of the truth: people blindly come to believe in those slogan-like theories not because of prudence, but because of laziness; for it is the one of the most common human nature of us to see what we want to see.

But, how about the immoral and unchristlike worship of "self-indulgence and consumption"? It indeed sounds like a righteous warning, doesn't it? Let me put this in relatively vague words for the sake of a bit wit here. When people see and hear of the media promotions of smoking elaborately plotted and sponsored by big evil tobacco companies, as depicted in Hollywood products, in either an upbraiding or a nostalgic way, they easily buy it, assuming that's what surely is bound to happen, as though the condescending liberal media elites just reclaimed their integrity out of blue. Nonetheless, contradictory to the common ground that government and politicians are evil, hypocritical, or, at best, incompetent, when it comes to massive political propaganda people easily get dismissive, disdainfully calling them conspiracies. Anyway, were those speculations to have been true, you have got to give applause to the gentlemen behind the curtain, for they can somehow manage to manipulate people to do and believe in things that are obviously against their own interests. It is truly a tour de force, works like magic.

Back to the film, and the ideology talk partly thanks to its title. It is amazing how frequently and strongly Michael Moore stress the term "socialism". And not in a Cold-War-minded way, but in a progressive and advocating way. So advocating that it proclaims socialism is the unfulfilled dream of FDR. So, how does the landscape really looks like in the US? Is it as biased as either side insists? Trying to answer that question, another popular liberal president, Jed Bartlet, would probably say, "Give me numbers." Fair enough. Let's take a look at them:

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This poll was conducted earlier this year. It shows that, significantly, though 58% of Americans still maintain a negative image of socialism, among Democrats and leaner a majority of people share a positive one, and that majority grows even bigger when it comes to liberals, topping the "supermajority" threshold at 61%.

Also underlined in the film is Barack Obama's ascendency in polls during the '08 presidential election, which Michael Moore arbitrarily attributed to the underlying socialism in his rhetoric and agenda. It is easy to commit the mistake of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but the exhilarated crowd was real and hard. Young people, with their compassion and idealism yet to fade, are known to be the main components of the liberal base. This hypothetical electoral map below demonstrates that fact convincingly well:

http://filer.blogbus.com/4598556/45985561268757624r.jpg

These results altogether illustrate a sharp contrast with that across the Pacific, where the pro-capitalism outrage amid the young is burgeoning seemingly as fast as the economic growth. The bottom line is that it is widely acknowledged that China's economy and growth model are in fact ill and flawed, but is capitalism the solution to all our conundrums? I am too often astounded by the extend to which some of our professors and pundits, who are supposed to think and analyze in a much more comprehensive way, appear so naive as to blame many problems on the markets not being open, free, and in essence capitalist enough. The contemporary history of the US has already showed the idealistic promises of capitalism that everyone shares an equal opportunity to work his way into the upper class are nothing but a fantasy; in reality, it is never in its purest form but other derivatives, namely, crony capitalism. Which does little good to the society as a whole but quite the opposite, creating even more inequality in the long run. In an economy that is strong and hence resilient to tentative turbulences so long as the marginal well-being stays positive, it might take decades for a bubble to burst. Nevertheless, in an over populated nation governed by a young regime dealing with various inherent social tensions, it could lead to catastrophe.

So, what does all this imply? Should we just entirely reject the Western philosophies as merely historical blunders? Of course not. To me the very point here is that we are bestowed - in an ironic way - with this dual perspective on the nature of human society, in terms of how social progressivism driven by different values eventually converge at promoting human equality and how dogmatism could be manipulated to impede that momentum and ultimately undermine our integrity. For a nation in the face of a seemingly unstainable economy, for a people shadowed by a wobbling ethical system, this is an utterly important issue.

奥巴马貌似不是社会主义者，他硬是给共和党敌对阵营逼成了，老是非此即彼选边站，一如冷战时期政府对待卡斯特罗这老地主一样，关于那笔政府救济金的发放，面对政府干预市场是社会主义行为的质疑时,有当值政府官员比喻巧妙：”如果一座房子失火，有孩子深陷呼喊，你在救人之前是否还要考虑自身的绑架嫌疑。”搞得脱口秀主持人当时语塞，现在答案是：“那火是假的，是与银行资本家勾结的执政者干的,就像伊拉克战事一样，政府喜欢因势利导，夸大事实捕风捉影，维护自身与资本利益。
幸亏那钱没像国会议员提议的那样发放给劳苦大众，否则奥巴马就一步到位成共产者了，毕竟事实是资金还是流向了资本，上层建筑要倒塌那就叫革命而非金融政变了。
美国梦的铸造旨在同一世界统一梦想，然而如今的美国早已不是冒险家们那片尚待开发的热土，它被资本意志所顶礼膜拜的贪婪开发殆尽，“富不过三代”，刚做做次贷二元方程就刨出底了。
此时美国人民才发现自己与资本拥有者还是有区别的，而且区别不小，贫富两极到没有中间值，真正资产阶级的世界要大过普罗大众，自己不过是替银行打工的有产者，并不是银行的有产者，前者是被压榨的对象而非格格林斯潘所谓的压榨者，世界不能全是有产者，必定有人要破产，而运用资产谁是银行家的对手，所以打工的有产者变成了街友，街友们一时无法适应自己的社会新身份，说：“到处是闲置丢弃的街道楼房，这等萧条还是美国吗？”于是突然发现自己的先辈们以难民的身份漂洋过海到底不是为了繁衍新型难民的，有1%的难民做的比我好，于是对这1%的好学生难民产生对立情绪，有了对立面就会产生阶级斗争，美国人大梦初醒，发现这世界还有另一种社会结构自己没见过，听说很坏，但先拿来救救难民的急也好。
PS:摩尔总是以已出发身体力行的站在一个普通美国民众的角度拍个人感触，而不是什么公共知识分子或评论员的高度，这是他成功的很大原因。