Tonight, my friend Priscilla and I went to the Bell Auditorium, the nation's first dedicated non-fiction film screen to see the movie The Take by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein.

Here's the blurb from their website:

In the wake of Argentinaís spectacular economic collapse in 2001, Latin Americaís most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act óthe take óhas the power to turn the globalization debate on its head.

Director/producer Avi Lewis (Counterspin) and writer/producer and renowned author Naomi Klein (No Logo) take viewers inside the lives of ordinary visionaries, as they reclaim their work, their dignity and their democracy.

The film does not hide the incredible perseverance one must have in order to create something honest and good in this crazy world. On the other hand, it does answer the question we leftists often get, which is "What would you do differently?"

Klein is featured in an interview at Alternet that I scanned earlier today. My first read through left me with a bad taste in my mouth because I have a low tolerance for anyone who starts a sentence with "The anti-war movement isÖ." For me, it's clear that the anti-war movement is so broad and so wide that it's misleading to characterize it as holding any particular viewpoint on anything other than the belief that U.S. troops should leave Iraq.

I was a participant in what was, apparently, the first demonstration against U.S. intervention in Iraq in the world (more details when I can find the links). I must say that there are plenty of anti-war activists who have been fighting for democracy in Iraq and with Iraqis for years. We may have been right all this time, but being right doesn't mean squat next to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths that have occurred over the years.

So if you want U.S. troops out of Iraq now, I don't care why you want it or how you want it done. I just want it done. Stop underestimating the Iraqi people. They are ready, willing and able to control their country. They will welcome our humanitarian assistance and expertise to help rebuild their country, but the thing they agree on more than anything else is that military occupation must end now.