REVIEW - BIG MEN

In the dwindling debate about capitalism vs. communism, there is one detail more pertinent to contemporary politics than the others, yet perhaps less discussed: the process of the acquisition of power. Communists rise through the ranks, earning money and political prestige, via the flaws in the application of their ideology in the modern world. It's an illegal acquisition, and thus the communist leaders are so easily vilified by onlookers and brought down by challengers. Capitalists rise via the routes etched out for them by the makers of the system. It's not only a legal acquisition, but the very essence of this ideology. The new millennium's oil barons in Texas have committed no crimes, but they have committed so many evils. And it's impossible to bring them down, since they've only exploited that system as it was designed to be exploited. Everybody wants to be a big man, and everybody's going to try, as long as the system remains. The toxicity in the atmosphere, bred by the oil that people rich and poor will risk life and livelihood to get their dirty hands on, infects all exposed to it - it's natural to project our hateful, disapproving emotions onto the greedy white Americans who have profited so much from Ghana's oil and who can't even begin to conceal their smugness since they don't even acknowledge its existence. It's alarming, though, when we see that the impoverished black Nigerians who have been robbed of this resource by their own corrupt government are equally greedy. And when the situation is then projected onto us, how would we feel about ourselves? Would we disapprove of what might be our own greed? Big Men is a compelling documentary - it could have been twice its own length and I would have been riveted throughout - and one of the most thought-provoking films of the year.