Michael Moore, Hero or Rogue

Both blatham and Lightwizard tell it like it us. There's nothing uniquely wonderful -- or horrible -- about the US, in terms of moral rectitude, or whatever American Exceptionalism really connotes. The whole thing started with Europeans wiping out the native population (of which, despite my avatar, I'm not one). Nowadays, we call that "ethnic cleansing."

I'm not saying we should feel unmitigated shame about all this, but I do get tired of the misty-eyed sense of self-importance, especially when it's invoked for political reasons....

David Brooks, as quoted by au1929, wrote:

Like Hemingway, Moore does his boldest thinking while abroad. For example, it was during an interview with the British paper The Mirror that Moore unfurled what is perhaps the central insight of his oeuvre, that Americans are kind of crappy.

"They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet . . . in thrall to conniving, thieving smug [pieces of the human anatomy], " Moore intoned. "We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing."

It transpires that Europeans are quite excited to hear this supple description of the American mind. And Moore has been kind enough to crisscross the continent, speaking to packed lecture halls, explicating the general vapidity and crassness of his countrymen. "That's why we're smiling all the time," he told a rapturous throng in Munich. "You can see us coming down the street. You know, `Hey! Hi! How's it going?' We've got that big
[expletive] grin on our face all the time because our brains aren't loaded down."

I am a German who liked "Bowling for Columbine" when I first saw it, and who was part of the above-mentioned "rapturous throng in Munich". Speaking as such, I can confirm how Brooks described Moore's style of talking about Americans to European audiences -- at least to the particular audience here in Munich. Subtle differentiations, like the ones Blatham wants to read into Moore's rants, weren't apparent to me from listening to him.

Moore's sneering comments clearly referred to Americans as a whole, not to the subset of those Americans who govern the country. As an excuse for Moore -- admittedly a weak one -- you could argue that he was carried away by his enthusiastic audience. You see, we Germans have egos too. So when a prominent American tells us that Americans suck and that we are morally superior to them, we are flattered, we applaud, and we edge him on. Same dynamics as when a crowd of people watches a ball game in a pub, and someone starts trash-talking about the other team and tellíng us that our home team is the greatest. Those reflexes are hard-wired. So yes, American liberals may discount Moore's quotes for this mob factor. But they'd be willfuly ignorant if they pretended that he didn't say what he actually said.

Immediately after the event, I was as enthusastic about Mr. Moore's performance as everybody else in the audience. Moore does have lots of charisma, and he has a very captivating stage presence too. But now that I look back at it from a certain distance, Moore's remarks in Munich come across to me as a self-serving form of grovelling. My respect for him as a person is now smaller than it was before the event, and so is my trust in the honesty of his movies. Moore is a great showman, no question, and I still think his heart is in the right place. But I'm getting wearier and wearier about his substance.

Just one datapoint from someone who has actually seen the show.

When was the last time that we saw people take to the streets of Paris, London or San Francisco, to protest the sins (real or imagined) of any other nation?

It would make sense to me that the Saudis had invested that much in America. All the money they get for oil funnels right back out of the country to foriegn markets, and we've sure given them a lot of it.

And at an economy at around 11 trillion dollars (a quote I got to day off of Faux News) 800 billion would be right around..... 6%.

You can say that doesn't equal 'ownership' but if I had 8 out of every 110 shares of stock, I'd certainly say I owned 6% of whatever I was investing in.

You can say that doesn't equal 'ownership' but if I had 8 out of every 110 shares of stock, I'd certainly say I owned 6% of whatever I was investing in.

I realize the situation is a little different but it is not a strech to say so, IMHO.

blatham wrote:

As to further racism or cultural supeiority portrayed in the coalition partners bit, again Craven has come away with a reading unique to him (I've not seen mention of it elsewhere). That doesn't make it wrong, but the subjectivity of that understanding makes it difficult to argue against.

Dear god the denial is hilarious.

Ok, forget the Arab scare part and skip to where he mocks the "coalition of the willing".

How about the monkeys? Do you remember that scene?

Writing off whole nations as primitive just to demean the coalition?

This isn't vague stuff, and no I didn't say his scenes were racist but that they pandered to the racism.

Americans like to believe that poor nations are primitive. Moore played on that and portrayed three nations as backwards with an insipid mokey element for one of them.

If you think this is an "alternative" interpretation that's cool. I'll remind you of this when you call the exact same thing racism when some conservative spouts something similar in the future. You'll be in the middle of tsk tsking someone who demonstrates a similar disregard for certain cultures and I'll remind you how you should treat it more subjectively.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

When was the last time that we saw people take to the streets of Paris, London or San Francisco, to protest the sins (real or imagined) of any other nation?

I obviously can't speak about the streets of Paris, London or San Francisco, but the protests here are frequent - and not limited to the actions of the United States. From my desk, I can see the entrance to a major subway station, as well as the U.S. embassy a bit further up the road. I can often hear the protestors when they're at the subway. Canadians/Torontonians are definitely equal opportunity protestors. Perhaps with a little extra gusto directed toward Britain and France some weeks.

1) The Saudis owning 6% of America

I think you need to watch that portion again. He asked someone who appeared to know how much the Saudis have invested in America. The response was blah, blah, most of it is on wall street in blue chip companies...what I'm saying is that there were a number of qualifiers stated before the answer was provided - and I'd be willing to bet good $$ that if we can get the proper quote it will turn out to be pretty accurate.

2) Your "rag-heads" comments

I think this is some baggage you're carrying, because that wasn't the read I got at all. He showed a number of pictures of Bush shaking hands with rich Saudis and Afghanis, which I believe was to establish that Bush was no stranger to these people. I'm sure Moore would have included non-turban wearing rich Saudis or Afghanis, but there aren't a whole lot of pictures of these guys without their turbans on. You'll note there were a lot of pictures of Bandar with no turban.

3) Monkeys

The monkey pictures weren't there to show how primitive the society was...he made one reference to one of the countries offering 2000 monkeys to search for landmines - and I believe that the rest of the monkey images were a metaphor for the trained monkeys in the administrations of the coalition of the willing who had to go along with the Bush government or face repercussions in one way or another. What he was saying about these countries was they had nothing to offer in the way of military support.

I went into the movie looking for the stuff you'd talked about....

But I disagreed with almost every complaint that you stated about this movie.

It was a very good flick - and something that I hope encourages the masses to think while there listening to Fox, CNN, and all the other major news sources.

I was particularly happy to see him go at the color-based "terror rating". And to say how ridiculous it was for everyone to be scared all the time.

Roll the eyes elsewhere, craven.

Your superior objectivity and perception isn't accepted by me....

...your reading is your reading.

Likewise your claim that this was 'pandering to racism'. You say that 'isn't vague'. Yet your particular take on this is the only such instance I've come across, which suggests it isn't sitting there waving.

To portra a connection such as Moore suggests between Iraqi oil money and Texas politics, then desert apparel is part of what we will see in any pictoral representation of the principals, and that isn't because he's pandering to racism but because of what Saudis commonly wear.

Do an image search on google and if you find some significantly higher proportion of Saudi ruling class members in shirt and tie than in robes and turbans, I'd take your argument more seriously. If the commodity was otherwise, we'd see other clothing.

He might as well have stated "Bush's families have shook hands with RAG HEADS!" because that was the LCD that Moore was pandering to.

The one point Craven made that I do agree with is the prospect of some future polemics coming out of the right and moving into theatres near all of us. That's an ugly prospect, because it means theatres will go the way that radio has gone, and to some extent, the rest of the news media.

blatham wrote:

...

Quote:

To portray a connection such as Moore suggests between Iraqi oil money and Texas politics, then desert apparel is part of what we will see in any pictoral representation of the principals, and that isn't because he's pandering to racism but because of what Saudis commonly wear.

Bush did much more that make a connection between "Iraqi oil money and Texas politics".

He was making a connection with 9/11.

Do not agree? Then why try to forge a connection between Bin Laden's family and Bush?

Why the mention that 9/11 was commited by 15 Saudis? All the pictures of him with Saudis and then the coincidental mention of the terrorists being Saudi was a "connection" made merely on the basis of shared culture and nationality.

Nearly without exception the people depicted are upstanding Arabs and have only their heritage as a connection with the terrorists.

The shared heritage is the sole connection Moore makes.

He goes so far as to do a riff on the 7 schoolroom minutes and make Bush think in his head to pin it on Saddam to deflect from his friends.

He made an explicit effort to portray Bush's Arab aquantances as a negative using the Bush = some Saudis = 15 of 19 were Saudis chain.
OK. There are two relevant news issues here.

First, the facts of Saudi contribution to terrorist causes, their support for madrass schools, the proportion of the 9-11 principals who were Saudi, and the heavily deleted commission report where Saudi Arabia was the subject). Those facts deserve to be contrasted against the administration's choice to wage war against Iraq (justified, deceitfully, as a terrorist source) while leaving Saudi Arabia almost completely unmentioned. There are logical contradictions in here which need to be explained. The AEI documents from 92 go some distance to establishing why the administration took out Iraq, but not why the Sauds are somehow untouchable. So the valid news issue here is purposeful deceit leading to war, a somewhat serious endeavor, what with the burned babies and all.

The second news issue sits above in the 'why?' question. Why are the Saudis untouchable? There's a piece from Foreign Affairs I linked above that does a nice job of describing the dynamics of some previous US foreign military adventures as relates to advantage for powerful business interests. I doubt very much you'd make the claim that such factors are NOT present in this case of Iraq/Saudi Arabia. How much do they influence? Who do they influence?

Quote:

Do an image search on google and if you find some significantly higher proportion of Saudi ruling class members in shirt and tie than in robes and turbans, I'd take your argument more seriously. If the commodity was otherwise, we'd see other clothing.

You are too hung up on one comment of mine.

It was a rhetorical exhuberance that I quote below. The apparel was immaterial to my point blatham and you know this well.

I wrote:

He might as well have stated "Bush's families have shook hands with RAG HEADS!" because that was the LCD that Moore was pandering to.

I stand by it. There was no reason for there to be any omnious association between Bush and terrorism except that he is pictured with upstanding Arabs who happen to be the same nationality as the infamous 15 of 19.
As I tried to point out above, there are very good reasons to associate Bush and terrorism...he talks about it all the time, he launched two wars under the banner of fighting it, he's rejected humanitarian and legal notions of rights and prisoner treatment in the name of it, he's forwarded intrusive domestic law in order to prevent it, and he (his entire administration) avoids almost any negative mention regarding the Sauds who deserve negative mention (even while, a week past, the FBI announced that their two main concerns for domestic terrorism are animal rights groups and environmentalists). The aspect of the bin Laden family is not designed to link Bush to Usama, but to demonstrate how (in Moore's view) it is corporate interests which actually determine who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, not support of terrorism or the inhumane treatment of Iraqis by Sadaam.

Moore is saying "Look, the standard justifications and rationales that this administration advances for what they are doing in the Middle East just don't make sense. They only make sense if you add in these other big money factors"...and on that, he is absolutely fukking right.

But if I am to revisit my rhetorical ejaculation I would like to amend to it something I'd touched on elsewhere.

The film certainly doesn't only pander to the daft, ignorant and racially prejudiced but also to the partisan. So I hereby amend it below:

He might as well have stated "Bush's families have shook hands with RAG HEADS!" because that was the LCD that Moore was pandering to [i]in addition to those of a political predisposition that makes them inclined to serve as an apologist for his prevarication due to agreement with the thrust of his position (i.e. he's on the same side).[/i]

Quote:

The one point Craven made that I do agree with is the prospect of some future polemics coming out of the right and moving into theatres near all of us. That's an ugly prospect, because it means theatres will go the way that radio has gone, and to some extent, the rest of the news media.

Well, I knew I could at least count on you to find it ugly if the other side does it, if not when yours does.

Side, shmide. "The Murder of Vince Foster" penned by Ann Coulter and Carl Rove ain't gonna be a Michael Moore work. And it seems likely you are going to be a while before you twig on the differences.

You indict me here and elsewhere for either misperceiving from bias or for an unbalanced treatment of arguments or arguers out of my personal biases. Let me return the compliment and indict you for too much satisfaction with the feeling of the fence picket up your bum.

Why might someone as knowledgeable and as careful with claims as Krugman suggest that democracy is presently at risk? The man is no paranoid, he's wise and alarmed. There is not much I find more frustrating here (if understandable) than the axiomatic principle that if someone claims the sky IS falling, then that claim is SO improbable that the listener (for intellectual efficiency and to avoid future embarrassment) ought to proced immediately to full rejection of the claim. Hell, it can't happen HERE.

My present area of study involves trying to understand who actually has power within this administration and within the new Republican party, and what it is they are doing...how have they managed to gain the control of the party to the extent they have, to what degree they have managed to control or manipulate modern media, the particular tricks they use (eg the Lunz memo ) and what the principals actually have said and what they believe, and the likely policy outcomes. It's a complex picture, with a number of discernible groups each pushing their own ideas, but tightly (even tyrannically) held together for the perceived gain of all. They are playing to win and there's not much they won't do gain permanent control (explicitly stated goal). They are very smart, very effective, and they understand 'democracy' to mean something quite different from what you think that word ought to mean.

It is no longer a matter of Robert's Rules of Discourse Etiquette. We are going to lose if we don't hit back in the manner that Moore is attempting here. I agree that we must first of all be careful about facts, and use innuendo only where we are pretty damn sure that we point to something relevant and important that needs to be clarified. I am unhappy that this battle needs to be engaged in this manner, but I've concluded, with Krugman and many others, that it does.

For anyone who might have doubts about some of the things I'm saying here, I urge you to pick up Nina J Easton's "The Gang of Five" on five central figures in the new conservative movement. I'll quote Wall Street Journal editor Paul Gigot's comment on this book...
"The rise of the political Right caught most journalists by surprise because they didn't take conservatives seriously. Nina Easton is a rare reporter who does. She almost never agrees with her five prominent profile subjects, but her illuminating book shows what they believe, why they beleiveit, and how they are succeeding."

It was worth the ten bucks.