Dear Michael,

I know where you came from.  I’ve lived there.  Have you been home lately?  I have.

Flint did not become what it is today because of Ronald Reagan, Capitalism or wealthy Americans.  It was destroyed by poor oversight of an out-of-control banking system (because people like Barney Frank decided stricter regulation was unnecessary), NAFTA (which essentially destroyed many United States industries) and unscrupulous mortgage companies who talked people into taking “No Income Verification, No Credit Check” loans when they had no business doing so.  Flint failed because of the abuse of Capitalism, not Capitalism itself.

As you know, anything taken to extremes ends badly.

In a Capitalist society, you get what you work for.  In a Socialist society, you get what your neighbor works for.  Is that what you really want?  Would you be willing to give up your wealth and share it with me?  I highly doubt it.

Would you be willing to give up your right to make movies?  In Cuba (a nation whose Health Care System you love) making films such as yours would most likely land you in prison.  But, you wouldn’t have to worry about that.  After all, you would probably be given the position of Propaganda Czar in a New America.

Have you noticed that the government programs that have been, historically, abject failures are the ones based upon the Socialist principles you embrace? Social Security.  Medicare.  Medicaid.  Shall I go on?

Union members have suffered quite possibly more than any other members of the American work force.  And not through any fault of the members themselves, but because of the abuse of power by Union Leaders.  Kind of like Fidel Castro living in luxury while his “fellow citizens” are poverty-stricken.  The idea of a Union was to give equal pay for equal work, protect its members and have no one member be more important than any other.  A traditionally Socialist principle.

If the country in which you became a wealthy, fat, happy product of the very Capitalism you abhor makes you that ill, I invite you to denounce your citizenship and go live in Cuba or Venezuela.  Why should you suffer so when the solution is really that simple?

Love,

Katrina