Unimaginable Gymnastics

I have not seen "Killers of the Flower Moon."  My sister is urging me to see it.  But my sense is that it's very depressing (she says the ending is upbeat, but from what I know today, I doubt it), and it's 3 1/2 hours long.

The story, as I understand it, is that the Osage Nation, which may have been consigned to a reservation in Oklahoma, somehow discovered that "their" land had lots of oil below it, and they tapped the oil, and got extremely rich, and the Caucasians (most prominently represented by Robert DeNiro) decided they should take the oil, and the money, for themselves.  As I understand it, this even involved killing members of the Osage Nation, not to mention tricking them into marrying Caucasians (Leonardo DiCaprio), who would presumably take ownership of the land, and the money.

The latter is interesting, because it recalls Arthur Conan Doyle's "Hound of the Baskervilles," which involved a half brother, who stressed out the reigning Baskerville until he died of a heart attack, and when his half sister got engaged to Baskerville's next heir, he tried to kill the younger Baskerville (by having a hound attack the younger Baskerville).  He had discovered through genealogical research that he was a distant Baskerville relative, and he presumably planned to kill his half sister after she married the younger Baskerville, so he could have the estate for himself.  I guess he's not a believer that "no one lasts forever."

If you're thinking that all of this is insane, I agree.  But that, in a sense, is the problem.  It's insane, but it's prevalent.

I was listening to a "Lever" presentation called "Movies vs Capitalism," and they were discussing "Killers of the Flower Moon," and also segueing into discussions of the problems of capitalism (yeah, imagine if capitalism was a problem), and referencing Marx's Das Kapital for a contrasting view.  (The fact is that we don't have a capitalist system in this country.  We have a blend of capitalism and socialism, as do most developed and civilized countries.)

It's not hard to recognize the problems of communism, as we've seen it played out in the XXth and XXIst centuries (not as described by Marx), but there are massive problems with capitalism, too.  (Not the charming and peaceable capitalism fictionalized by Ayn Rand.)  To the extent that anyone thinks communism suffers from the possibility of laziness, capitalism suffers from overpowering greed and selfishness, and the criminally bad behavior that actualizes them.  We read and hear about it every day, from bloated corporations that work hard, and spend a lot of money, not to pay workers properly, (and not to pay taxes,) to inhibit them from unionizing to protect themselves, to mistreat workers, including children, and to take as much money as they can possibly get, regardless of whom they're disadvantaging.

People who are fierce advocates of undiluted capitalism should be ashamed of themselves?  They are ashamed of themselves.  They don't want anyone to know how they behave, or what's of primary importance to them.  That's what the book-banning, and censoring of what's supposed to be taught, and government based on payoffs are about.

And they'll tell you that.  They'll tell you that if school children, for example, had to learn about slavery (you know, you get to own other people, and have them work for you for free, and you can [mis]treat them any way you want), the children might feel bad, or feel badly about themselves.  If capitalism was so wonderful, the students should feel great about themselves and about their forebears, who made the very best of the capitalist dream.  But they don't.  And everyone knows it.

And on another note, Donnie-Boy Trump is unable to stop shooting his mouth off, commonly about precisely the things judges tell him to belt up about.  And his excuse for himself is that he thinks he has unlimited freedom of speech.  But when he ran for president, and the public wanted to see his tax returns, he whined that he was restrained from releasing them, because, as it appears he invented, he was under audit.  So Donnie-Boy gets selective about when his authorization to communicate is restricted, and when it's not.  He appears to make up these rules himself.  Imagine a fat thing of his age engaging in such gymnastics.