[font=Tahoma]I haven't yet had a chance to read this book in full, because it seems to be a big hit at our library and I'm certainly not shelling out $30 for what these two "wackoe attackos" have to say. Reading from this excerpt, I'm not sure I can sit through the entire book without taking a month - a day to read it and 29 to laugh at the absurdity of the claims it makes.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]That being said, the following is an excerpt from chapter one, with my analysis. Enjoy![/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Let me begin with the title. The title, Michael Moore is a Stupid Fat Stupid White Man, is a rip-off. I should appluad the author's uncanny ability to combine the titles of two successful books written by liberals to create one sort of "super-title", but if this is an indication of their total creative process, then we're all in for a disapointing read. More to the point, Al Franken's book (Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot) was a creative title in its irony. Limbaugh claims he's not into "personal attacks", when really he does little else. Perhaps the authors figured no one would make the connection to a book written in 1996? Or maybe Conservatives just pretend such books do not exist?[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Anyway... moving on to the book itself.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Chapter One:[/font]
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[font=Tahoma][/font][font=Tahoma]An Open Letter to Michael Moore[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Dear Mike,[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Here we are again, a year or so later.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]What, you don't remember us? We understand how we might've slipped your mind -- what with your hectic schedule composing wildly arrogant letters to presidents and other people who actually do things for a living. Or touring Europe to preach resentment of the United States (before jetting back to enjoy the good life here). And, of course, there's the significant amount of time you must spend laughing all the way to the bank.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Well, they've stolen Moore's "Open Letter" idea. Isn't imitation a form of flattery? Nevermind the irony in their comment about "writing letters"... they're doing exactly that, right now. But that's less important.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]First off, Moore's letters are factual - they often pose questions, as opposed to pure bashing. They are not "wildly arrogant" - unless you consider the truth wildly arrogant. Your choice. This letter is simply untrue - Moore may not like the President, but that does not automatically mean you hate the country. I believe it was the Happytones who said "don't hate us because we're American, just hate our government." Contrary to the author's belief, it is allowed to hate the government. If Moore hated the United States, he would surely move to a country he preferred (like Canada). He certainly has the money, and America is not the number one country to live in, according to various reports.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]There's more to say, but the things wrong with this letter thus far are longer than the little excerpt... so I'll let you figure the rest out.[/font]
[font=Tahoma]But we're your "wacko attackos," as you've so affectionately dubbed us. We're among the many who've been keeping an eye on you -- and piping up -- over the years. And well, we thought you deserved a response to the many unanswered letters you've sent to the high and mighty ... so here goes.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]It all started in March 2003 as we were sitting in our respective homes on opposite ends of the country. While watching the Academy Awards, we saw you take the stage to accept the Best Documentary Feature award for Bowling for Columbine. And like many of the millions of Americans who had also tuned in, we were disgusted and appalled by your shamelessly self-aggrandizing and ironic acceptance speech.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Speaking for millions of Americans is all well and good. Can you provide proof please of the polls showing that millions of Americans agree with you? I have little doubt that in a population of 300 million+ they can be found - but some proof would be nice. Or even a significant figure - like 50%. Those are the kinds of numbers Moore's able to quote from real polls...[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Everyone was waiting for you to thank your team and family, to share the limelight for a moment. But you didn't have it in you. "We live in fictitious times," you bellowed from the stage, knowing that it would make the moment, and indeed the entire ceremony, forever about Mike. Then you summarized your political views: "We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it is the fictition [sic] of duct tape or the fictition of orange alerts, we are against this war, Mr. Bush! Shame on you, Mr. Bush! Shame on you!"[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Note to Author: When Moore was on stage, all the other nominated documentary filmmakers where there with him. Also, not only ommitted from the speech as given in this book, are some important words: [/font]
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[font=Tahoma]I'd like to thank the Academy for this. [/font]
[font=Tahoma]I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to — they're here in solidarity with me... [/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Not only do the authors outright say he did not thank anyone (he did), they ignore the fact that he was very gracefully sharing the limelight with his fellow documentarians. I could be wrong, but is this the first time this has happened at the Oscars? God help us if we're not allowed to have political views! Mike made a movie about America. He's been very open about his views. What, exactly, is wrong with him stating his opinion? Or is just because it's not supportive of Bush?[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]The reaction to your calculated "outburst" -- just one episode in a long line from your factory of carefully plotted spontaneity -- was immediate and irate, beginning with the audience you addressed. You were roundly and quickly shooed from the stage. This must have been an especially difficult pill for you to swallow, given that you were surrounded, in large part, by your ideological peers. But you had made a foolish, grandiose mistake: You imagined that a few polite handshakes and back pats from L.A. liberals gave you carte blanche to make a spectacle of yourself as a grandstanding, blathering, leftist idiot. Understand, Mike: It wasn't that the audience thought your views were wrong. How many Bush supporters and war hawks were there in that Hollywood audience, anyway? It isn't about politics. It's about being a pompous ass.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Little more than insults and cheap shots here... and mistruths. If you listen to the video from the awards, you clearly hear Cheering, followed by some booing. Another ignored fact. What else is there to say? All the author is doing is insulting the man![/font]
[font=Tahoma]Outside the Kodak Theater, across the rest of the country, the thundering dismissal of your screed was amplified many times over in offices, at family dinner tables, and around bars.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]And I imagine the author was at each and every one of these places and heard this first hand? Again, I don't doubt that this did happen - there are lots of people who disagree with Moore is America. But the authors fail to give any real numbers or proofs - something which Moore, at least, is able to do.[/font]
[font=Tahoma]Enter our web sites -- Moorelies.com and Mooreexposed.com. Just two small examples of the many Internet sites where you can find highly critical analyses of your award-winning "documentary," Bowling for Columbine.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Analyses written by opponents of Moore, directed specifically at taking him down, lacking any real cognetive facts or arguments, and utilizing the same sorts of standards they accuse Moore of using... ironic, in the least. Any despite this, none of these sites are as big as what might be considered their liberal counterparts. AntiWar.com, MoveOn.org, ANSWER, and BushFlash, and BuzzFlash are all well known liberal outlets... how many people have heard of BushLies or Bowling for Truth?[/font]
[font=Tahoma]Thanks to the Internet, the steady stream of insight into the true nature of your work began to pass effortlessly between the mainstream and the underground, between media big shots and regular folks who were sick and tired of standing by while your legend grew unchecked. Seemingly overnight, conventional wisdom about you came under question for the first time. No longer the media darling of your Roger & Me days, now much of the coverage about you became more accurate -- and thus more angry.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]You weren't about to take a hint though.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Instead, your reaction was to dismiss us all -- and with malice. You labeled an entire movement looking critically at your work as "wacko attackos," and rather than address our charges, you dismissed us out of hand as "henchmen" of the president or tools of the right wing.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]That would be because the majority of such arguments I've read are baseless, insulting, and useless. Look at this book thus far - it's insult after insult, accusation after accusation, all without fact to back it up. Why take the time to point out every problem with your argument? Moore can point to his sources, all listed on his website, and say "I'm telling you the truth." The "other side" can't - at least, not from what I've seen.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]We can get over the almost hilarious paranoia reflected by your response. See, Mike, after the years together, we're aware of the well-worn pattern: People organize and present facts that expose the fallacies of your work, and you reply by characterizing them as "henchmen" and "wackos," whether in interviews, speeches, or on your web site.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Insults are not facts. Accusations are not facts. Opinions are not facts. Moore's work is factual, if biased. You can actually read the sources, should you so desire, and come to your own conclusions. The factual backing used by the "wackos" is never seen. It's just stated as being the truth. Porve it![/font]
[font=Tahoma]The pattern since last year's Oscars is only a heightened version of your longtime modus operandi. You've been loudly condemning a long line of your critics for quite some time now, in exactly the same way, since your Mother Jones days in the mid-1980s. You're the King of Deflection and always have been, no matter how long the chorus of criticisms last.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]And while your true nature has been revealed several times over your career, like a Democrat caught in a sex scandal, you continue to come back into vogue, stronger than ever. By now, of course, you've got millions on hand (in both cash and acolytes) to keep you afloat.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]With your debut film, 1989's Roger & Me -- a comedic look at the downfall of your hometown -- you were savaged by two of film's most respected critics, Harlan Jacobson and Pauline Kael, but it was too late. By the time your misleading editing of the movie was exposed, you were already too deeply insulated by a wave of positive press to suffer any real damage. That didn't curb your reaction (or should we say reflex?) and you were soon shrilly accusing your critics of being part of a General Motors (GM) conspiracy against you.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]I'll be honest. I've never heard of these guys. When I think of a "respected critic", I think of Ebert and Roper... but maybe I'm just missing something. But a Google search only seems to bring up anti-Moore sites... one of them the website of the author! But if the movie was so "savaged", where did the positive press come from? Can it be that two men's opinions aren't always right? Can it be that the other 98 critics liked the movie?[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]In 1992, you survived the critical drubbing of your followup movie, Pets or Meat -- which was dismissed as a short and unoriginal rehash of Roger & Me -- and you even managed to refrain from lashing out at anybody for it. We'll chalk up the silence on your part to a sophomore slump.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Pets or Meat is a follow-up to Roger & Me. Doesn't that automatically make it a self-admitted "rehash"? The point was to see what had (or hadn't changed) in Flint. It was 30 minutes long, and showed on TV. The authors portray it as a failure of a movie, however. That's not even true...[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]It wasn't long before you got your wind back. Your propensity for altering reality served you well in your break into TV. Of course, you had to go to work for NBC, and then Fox Broadcasting -- two of the world's largest corporate media conglomerates -- but you seemed oddly unperturbed by the hypocrisy. Had you forgotten so quickly that rallying against the scourge of corporations is what made you famous?[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Of course, the fact that they ARE two of the world's largest media conglomerates might have had something to do with it... Considering how much these guys own when put together, I'd imagine it'd be pretty hard not to be working for one or the other if you're seeking a job in the industry. Moore's books and movies have been put out by subsiduaries of Fox, haven't they? (I don't know who owns what and what owns who in the States).[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Again, the authors totally blow what happens out of proportion. I think there are three companies in the US that own all the cable channels? Then odds are 2/3 (or 67%) that he'll end up working for one of them! But that's glossed over - he worked for them!!![/font]
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[font=Tahoma]The book goes on, my excerpt does not. But that's what I've got so far. Lies, accusations, and no evidence to back it up. Quotes from TIME, newspapers, respected people... none of that. Just pure, biased opinion from two enemies of Michael Moore.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]It's an interesting read, if only to look at how petty the conservative "side" can be.[/font]
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[font=Tahoma]Cheers.[/font]
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