Moore's anti-US populism

[DaveSZ]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/07/19/moores_anti_us_populism/

Moore's anti-US populism

By Cathy Young, Globe Columnist | July 19, 2004

WITH "Fahrenheit 9/11" still riding high at the box office and a new book titled "Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man" soaring to the best-seller lists, Michael Moore continues to be at the center of public debate. (So much the worse for public debate.) While many agree that Moore traffics in one-sided, nasty agitprop and factually shaky innuendo, quite a few people are willing to recognize him as a scrappy David battling the Goliath of the Bush propaganda machine, a hero who may bend or stretch a few facts but is right about the larger truths. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott even called him "a credit to the Republic."
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So who, exactly, is this populist hero?

Moore isn't just antiwar and anti-Bush; he is also virulently anti-American. That's a label some right-wing pundits tend to slap on anyone critical of the war and of President Bush. In Moore's case, however, the label fits.

Moore, the 50-year-old filmmaker and author of several books, has made a career of traveling round the world talking about how stupid, brainwashed, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten Americans are. He regales British audiences with tales of a National Geographic survey which found that many young Americans cannot find Iraq or England on the map -- neglecting to mention that the survey results for British youth were quite woeful as well. Inviting an audience at Cambridge University to share some packs of Doritos, he comments, according to an account in The New Yorker, "It's still your way, right, to share? You don't want to turn into us -- a society where the ethic is me me me me me me me, you."

-more

[The Zanti Regent]

1. Crackpot Cathy, the Ayn Rand Clone, strikes again!

and she defends the "me me me me me me me me" shit espoused by Ayn as in Mine!

[phantom power]

19. Ayn Rand's philosophy was a little more suble than that

She was a proponent of enlightened self-interest, which makes a lot of sense. In fact, (imo) America would be better off if people applied some enlightened self-interest to their lives.

My take is that Rand went wrong with her belief that humans could (or should) achieve some sort of pure rationality as a goal. That's just not a good model of human cognition or brain architecture.

Even so, I always liked her because she thought we at least ought to *try* to be more rational. That seems like a good goal.

[The Zanti Regent]

25. Ayn as in Mine never practiced what she preached!

Remember how she lied about the Hollywood Ten before HUAC??????

That bullshitter never walked the walk. Joseph Schumpeter was right when he said she was the most dangerous person in America!

[NJCher]

2. another rightwing outright lie

WITH "Fahrenheit 9/11" still riding high at the box office and a new book titled "Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man" soaring to the best-seller lists

Huh?

I just checked the best seller lists and cannot find "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man" anywhere.

Michael Moore's book "Stupid White Men" is currently a bestseller (see nonfiction paperbacks) but not a book about him.

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller/

Nor is this book mentioned here:

http://asp.usatoday.com/life/books/booksdatabase/default.aspx

or on the Independent Booksellers lists:

http://www.booksense.com/bestsellers/index.jsp

Just another outright lie. Why do these newspapers like the Boston Globe allow this? Where are their fact checkers?

They are getting a letter from me about this.


Cher

[Kolesar]

4. "soaring to the best-seller lists"

"TO" the best seller lists? Not "on" the best seller lists? What kind of weasel wording is that? Do they not have editors? Go get 'em.

[tom_paine]

28. Half the Editors today are Bushevik Shills or Mockingbirds.

What editors?

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. No. 13 on the NYT hardcover nonfiction list

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/books/bestseller/0725besthardnonfiction.html

and was no. 9 the week before.

[the Kelly Gang]

3. who the f*** is this sleazebag Cathy..dumpkof !!!

[mhr]

5. "virulently anti-American" - I Don't Think So!

Never Forget The Face Of American Fascism'THIS IS NO DIFFERENT THAN WHAT HAPPENS AT THE SKULL & BONES INITIATION...I'M TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE HAVING A GOOD TIME. THESE PEOPLE -- YOU EVER HEARD OF EMOTIONAL RELEASE? YOU EVER HEARD OF NEEDING TO BLOW SOME STEAM OFF?'

[ClintonTyree]

6. Michael Moore's..............

approach to the apathy in America is "tough love". In my opinion, Moore does not hate America or Americans, he hates their zombie like actions when it comes to their government and their life styles.
We've become a nation of apathetic narcissists and Moore's exposing this this for all to see is a wake up call for all Americans to.......DO BETTER! We CAN be better, we can once again claim the moral and societal high ground in the world. We can be a beacon for freedom and justice, or we can just hide our heads up our collective asses and continue to let our country decline into the politics of pre-emptive strikes, personal destruction and apathy toward the rest of the world.

Michael Moore does our country a great service by trying to throw cold water on the collective souls of our sleep-walking populace.

Cathy Young obviously misses these points and thereby takes her place at the head of the line of the people Moore is trying to reach with his message. If she'd just take her head out of her ass long enough to look at things in a different fashion for one minute, to look at things differently, outside the box so to speak, her parochial view of the world might change. She might then see that Michael Moore does not hate America, he wants to make it a better America. An America that we can all be proud of again.

[Hello_Kitty]

7. Moore is "anti-American" but.....

When conservative gasbags like William Bennett decry the so-called 'decline of morality' in modern America and fundies like Pat Robinson and Jerry Falwell claim that God allowed 9-11 to happen because of gays, feminists, and civil liberties, they are considered concerned patriots? GMAFB!!:eyes:

[Hello_Kitty]

8. oops! I meant Pat Robertson...(n/m)

[myopic4141]

29. In a manner of speaking.

Both Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have it correct about the decline of morality in modern America; however, it is not the Gays, Feminists, or Civil Libertarians that are behind the decline, Instead, it is Shrubby and his minions along with Robertson, Falwell and their ilk that are the cause. Though they claim to be people of faith, I have yet to see them act within the tenets of their espoused beliefs. The greatest sins are being done by those who complain about sinning the most.

[Vogon_Glory]

9. A Lying Right-wing Crock of Excrement; Moore Pro-American

I'm perhaps one of the most right-wing of DU's regular posters but nevertheless took the trouble to see F911. I thought it was unfair (As persuasive pieces are meant to be), partisan, but very much pro-American.

Despite my objections to Moore's very minor distortions, I thought that F911 was far, far closer to the truth about what has happened in the last four years than the endless torrents of right-wing propaganda spewed out through right-wing "talk" radio, right-wing columnists, on-line tripe web-sites, the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page, and Faux news that is lapped up without either scrutiny or analysis by the lazy, arrogant, self-important place-sitters and mouthpieces who have the gall to call themselves American journalists.

Michael Moore is a media phenomenon we haven't seen that much of for sixty years--a pro-American writer and director who is pro-American without being obliged to be a paid apologist for lawless, heartless corporations, their creatures in the federal government, or the Republican Party. Unlike that small portion of the Vietnam-era left who did go out of their way not only to disparage the political establishment pushing the war, but also the sons of the proletariat who actually went and fought it, Moore's care and concern for his fellow citizens clearly shows.

This Young person is just another one of a long, shameful line of right-wing columnists who equates American patriotism ONLY with knee-jerk apologetics for jingoism and blind support of the Republican Party and love of country ONLY through parroting right-wing propaganda.

[Kenergy]

16. I agree

Well said Vogon :-)

[jimshoes]

10. Only a neo-con would use a word

like agitprop. Hell They invented it.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. What horsepucky!!

Not all real Americans are stupid, brainwashed, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten. You can tell a real American by his name. It's John or Jim or Jane or Mary or Jose or Fatima or something like that; a real American has a name with a human face.

On the other hand, there are the artificial Americans. You can tell them by their names, too. They have names like ExxonMobil or Halliburton or Chase Manhatten or News Corp or something like that. They are stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten. And if Ms. Young doesn't know this, she's brainwashed.

[piece sine]

22. I do gotta stop and remind myself sometimes...

I'm thinking about all those companies you really hate: "ExxonMobil or Halliburton or Chase Manhatten or News Corp or something like that. They are stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten." And I'm thinking, a lot of people, like hundreds of thousands of people, work for those companies and millions more have invested in them and own tiny but valuable pieces of them. Are all those people "stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten" too? How far down the line do we have to hate? I presume if you hate the head, you probably hate the whole damn thing.

Trouble is, we'd like to see a lot of those people vote for our guy, even though you bray about their stupidity.

[Jack Rabbit]

27. That's stretching it

I am voting for Kerry not because I agree with him, but because he a pramatist rather than an foolish ideologue and because I believe that whatever mistakes he makes will be made within a framework of constitutional law rather than do everything imaginable -- and even some things that not long ago weren't so imaginable -- to subvert that framework.

I also do not believe that common people who invest in stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten corporations are themselves stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten. They are securing their retirement that way because there is little recourse to do otherwise.

If one wants to put a sinister human face on a stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten corporation, one can. There are real people behind the artificial ones. They are stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten. However, the stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten face behind ExxonMobil isn't the guy who has part of his 401K tied up in a stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten enterprise like ExxonMobil. It's Lee Raymond, the CEO, the stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten creep whose decisions make ExxonMobil the stupid, selfish, greedy, and otherwise rotten coprporation that it is.

[Raster]

13. Recognize the winger meme? Michael Moore is anti-American...

...(Repeat Continuously. Doesn't matter that it's NOT TRUE! Repeat Continuously.)

[GoldenOldie]

14. Cathy Young verifies Michael Moore's F9/11

She blames Michael Moore's books and film for the lack of debate????
What and where have she and her profession encouraged honest debate on the serious problems this Nation is encountering???? Digesting a script handed to them by a controlling, ego-maniac, administration and their ability to serve it up word-for-word, does not a "debate," make.

It seems that Cathy and her co-horts tend to get their panties in a twist when anyone calls them on thier lack of professionalism.

[Old and In the Way]

15. All RW commentary about Moore and F9/11 end up as "opinion"

because they can't refute the truth.

[piece sine]

23. be sure to avoid

Dave Kopel.

[Classical_Liberal]

17. If you confuse America with neoliberals, Bushistas and Cathy's imperialist

(they want America to become British empire II) friends, maybe that is true. I don't.

American's are not well versed in geograpy. That is just a fact. Pointing this out doesn't make a person antiamerican. In fact wanting people to get a good education in Geography is pro-american. We won't fall for the neocons anymore when we do that. It is like saying MLK was antiamerican for pointing out that there was legalized segregation against blacks.

Furthermore, the people who want to drag in Europe to make them save us are only doing this to save Bush, so he can carry the war to the other PNAC targets like Iran, and Syria. If Bush won't do it, I think the neocons will try and get Kerry to do it, so even if Kerry wins the Europeans should let America lay in its own pig dung. They aren't doing this out of sympathy for our soldiers. WE are already talking of invading Iran. It is this weeks fox talking point. IN the long run it is better for the soldiers that this imperialist strategy be completly discredited, for any adminstration that wins in November.

Basically Miss Young has said the truth is antiamerican. What a moron. If we follow this logic it means that to love America one must believe in lies. Miss Young would appear to be the true antiamerican.

[piece sine]

24. FOUR MORE WARS! FOUR MORE WARS!

Iran and Syria makes two. Korea is about to split wider open (that's three) and if Pakistan could flip into civil war(and it might) we're in there for War Four. We are looking at four new major military campaigns by 2006. The thinking is "We're already in Iraq, let's stretch out and pick-off Syria and Iran." Get'em under out thumb before moving Bush's crusade to Pakistan, which by then will have split itself in half, thaks to the ISI. China, of course, will have final say about the military disposition of Korea, but only if Korea survives its'limited by self-inflicted nuclear stike.

[Catfight]

18. Yeah, all those poor black kids from Flint MI are also anti-American!

If you're not voting for Bush, you're Anti-American, Anti-Bush, Anti-fill-in-the blank. As Cheney would say, "Go fuck yourself" Kathy and as Bush would say, "Go find real work."

A vote for Bush is a vote for torture!

[struggle4progress]

20. Great 4 July essay by Moore on his own patriotism:

LAT-The Patriot's Act by Michael Moore
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=60567

[Lisa]

21. anti-imperialist, more like it

As a Canadian, I'm had a lot of practice detecting anti-Americanism. While one hears a lot in the press about "self-hating Americans", I can testify that they are MUCH rarer than Limbaugh's rantings would indicate. I know plenty of leftist anti-authoritarian hippie-types (I even dated one for a number of years!) who would bristle if they saw someone disrespecting the Stars and Stripes. I found out that it was wisest to let them take the lead when it came to bashing US politicians -- Nixon was fair game, but they'd tense up if a foreigner slammed Reagan or Goldwater straight out of the gate.

Sort of like listening to a particular family critiquing Uncle So-and-So -- they'd say anything, but heaven help any stranger passing judgement!


Listening to people like Steve Earle or Michael Moore -- they will often criticize other countries, so it's really a mindset they are against, not any particular nation.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. Having taught college, I can attest to the fact that

many young Americans can hardly find their own state on a map, much less any foreign country.

Stating the truth is not being "anti-American."

[Strawman]

30. What should be considered un-American and unpatriotic

is calling people un-American and/or unpatriotic. I can't think of a single time that I have seen that label used other than as a cynical attempt to silence legitimate political criticism or free speech. Using one's first amendment rights to voice a political opinion (especially a dissenting one) seems to me to be at the core of what it means to be an American. This phrase needs to be reclaimed. People who do not tolerate dissent reject very best aspect of the American political tradition and in my view are categorically "un-American."