Michael Moore has made my list, and I don't mean Christmas Card.
A few nights ago, at about one in the morning, my phone rang. For some reason, I'd left it by my bed, so all I had to do was reach over groggily and pick it up off my night table. The little caller ID monitor showed my sister's number in Tacoma. Thoroughly freaked, I picked up right away.
"Hello? Are you okay?" My brother-in-law is in Iraq. My sister is thousands of miles away, all alone and terrified, with nothing to do but worry about her husband.
On the other end of the phone, muffled sobbing. All my internal organs tried to climb up my throat.
"Is John okay?"
Through her tears, she told me that he was. The problem, it turned out, was that she'd Netflixed Fahrenheit 9/11, and so now she was afraid of the following: that something bad would happen to John, that he was embroiled in evil, and doing terrible things to innocent Iraqis. My field of vision immediately went red, just like in the Popeye cartoons.
Speaking of Red: I nearly am, in case you're wondering. I'm so liberal, I'm practically a communist. I am not, however, a fan of Michael Moore's, and here's why: I firmly believe that Michael Moore is much more interested in furthering his own career than he is in telling the truth about anything. And like our illustrious leader G.W. "Motherfucker" Bush, he's willing to terrify people if it helps his cause. In fact, if you ask me, Moore and Bush should get together and go bowling. Or move to Mass. and get married. Because they're pretty much two ends of the same horrifying political phenomenom: Vote with your terror, not with your mind, or even your heart.
The next day, Meg heard from her husband, who told her that while he can't of course talk about what he's doing in Iraq, that the stuff he and his men are involved in are changing Iraqi lives for the better. I believe that. I didn't support this war, but now that we're there, I think guys like John can really make a difference. Iraq has a police force now, I think for the first time ever. They have some semblance of democracy. And while I don't approve of us just running pell mell into any political mess that begs sweeping up, I'm not shedding any tears over old Saddam.
Just don't try to tell me that we invaded because of Al Qaeda. They're in a cave somewhere with Injun Joe and we have no fucking idea where they are. But that's another blog entry.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for mopping up my tears, Sis. And sorry I freaked you out. I just shouldn't watch anything except The Carebears for the next year. And maybe Spongebob... maybe.
ReplyDeleteI think that i would be most upset with mr moore based on the fact that he had a negative influence on the kerry campaign, and in fact, his movie helped to motivate (in large part out of rage) the conservative constituency. But rather than come up propaganda in the form of an inuendo laden movie (not that some conservatives didnt, but they didnt get the press that moore did), the conservatives did one better: they came out and voted for their candidate. And unfortunately, the northeaster/west coast white middle class college educated 20/30 somethings that watched the movie are a VERY small minority amongst the voting community.
ReplyDeleteEnd result: he pissed off the majority, while pandering to a REALLY small minority, and was an influence (not the biggest by any stretch, but a documented influence nonetheless) in getting bush re-elected.
So conservatives out there would say "keep buying/renting his movies, so you can provide him financing to make more movies where he mutates the facts to promote his opinion, and in the end, aid the republicans in their election efforts".
And while i hate war, hate to see death on either side, and pray for the safe return of your and all families relatives in the military, i have served in combat in Iraq, and i can tell you that regardless of the rationale for being there in the first place, the cause is just, and the end result will be a better place for the Iraqui people. Will it be worse before it gets better: yes. But talk to any Iraqi father that had their daughter raped in front of them by members of Husseins regime, and your attitude about our efforts in Iraq quickly changes. You can argue that there are other ruthless regimes/leaders that may or may not been higher up on the list of "murderous bastards to remove from power", but this guy had it coming.
As Malcolm X said, the ends justify the means, and the end of husseins means a better world for future generations of Iraqis and humanity in general.
See, I'm thinking that maybe this is something that could unite conservatives and smart liberals: that Michael Moore has to go. Where, I don't care -- I was thinking we could just send him to Canada, but then we might make enemies out of the Canadians. Last thing we need are more enemies, right? I'd suggest gift-boxing him and giving him to Osama for Christmas, but until Osama lets us know his address (for some reason, all the mail addressed to Osama bin Laden, Cave 342, Middle-of-the-Mountain Range, Bumf*ck, Afghanistan comes back as "Return to Sender - No Forwarding Address"), we can't do that, either. Too bad, 'cause I think those two would have a lot of fun together, making movies to scare Americans and swapping rants about Americans.
ReplyDelete--Christine P.
As angry as I am at Mr. Moore for showing me charred bodies of US soldiers being strung up and beaten by Iraqis when my husband is over there, and as much as I think he gives liberals a bad name, I don't wish he would be exiled. As long as there are extreme conservatives like Bill O'Reilly, there must be extreme liberals like Michael Moore. He is as entitled as anyone to express his views in whatever legal way he sees fit. And, for now, at least, it is still legal in this country to speak one's mind. He revealed some very interesting connections between the Bush and Bin Laden families, and I'm sure there are some other interesting facts in there as well, if only I'd been able to get through the first 45 minutes. It's just too bad that he has to express himself in such vulgar ways, which turn people off to him who would benefit from knowing the information he has uncovered. However, he has done what he has set out to do: He's started a conversation. The more we talk about these things, the more familiar we become with them, the more powerful each of us becomes. It's just too bad that, by inspiring fear in us all, Michael Moore has usurped some of that power.
ReplyDeleteHistory 385: how I, nearly a freakin' red myself, came to be disillusioned with the radical left.
ReplyDeleteSo Ma Smash and I were 21 and really pissed off about Nixon's bombing Cambodia as a way to get out of Vietnam (no it didn't make any sense then, either) so we went on strike with the rest of the nation's college kids and headed off to this big rally. On the way, we heard some kids had been shot in demonstating at Johnson State and more at Kent State.
So by the time we got there, we were really raw. I had also just heard that one of my old roomates had been killed and 7 of my Beta boys were overthere ducking Claymores. Jennie Smash, my brains were SMOKIN'
So we get to this rally and they had a beautiful April afternoon, down by the pond, and some great music (Tom Rush in his mercifully abortive rock stage, and somebody else smoothy like the Turtles or someone like that.) Every body, I mean EVERYBODY, all 30 friggin' thousand UMies and Jeff's and half of N'hampton (the part that were not yet stoned.)
So then the speaker's start. There were SDS, and MadRads and Puckernoodles and all sorts of amalgamations of letters and movements. I was gettin' even more worked up, ready to burn, pillage, and burn! Wavin' my little hobbit fist, stompin and rompin. Ma Smash was starting to say things like, "You're not going to, like, blow a headgasket or something, are you?"
Then the Black Panther's got up. After 2 minutes of F.. that white guy, and F.. that F..in Jew, and F.. that gook, and shoot all them F.. in ties, and .... well, somewhere in there they just sort of lost me.
Me, and the other 27k white kids, and the 3800 black kids who were glad to be in school instead of in a rice paddy with the rest of their high school class, and they surely lost all of the Taiwanese grad. students.
Actually, they made me want to sort of puke. Here we were, 30k kids all agreeing about something, all ready to do something, and poop.
So yes, we need Michael Moore, and James Carvel, and all the rest because otherwise the center gets pulled over to the right by FOX News'liars who think everyone to the left of Hitler is a commie jew. But don't take them, any of them, seriously to heart.
A great man I once studied with twisted an even more famous saying: Everything is political, and mostly everything is lies.
JS, just believe in real people, people you know and understand like John Bourque who proudly stepped forward to protect the way of life to which he was born, and now through the misadventures of those to whom we entrusted such fine men, he must see too close up how extremists have ruined the oldest of the Western civilizations.
Believe in people like Jim Taggart who fought for you and me during WWII and China and the Korea, and still training kids during the 1960's. A great father, a fine man, even though he was a Republican.
Believe in the lady up the street who checks in every day with 20 elderly people, or the guy who owns the restaurant and feeds 3 squares a day to the retarded man who shacks in the alley.
Sure, believe also in some of those famous people who promote the fight against just as famous diseases, but more importantly, believe Jimmy Carter who brought the reality of home ownership to the working poor, or Big Bad Bubba Clinton.. who settled the Troubles after 800 fightin' years.
These people are not extremist by any standard except they stepped forward when they did not have to do so, when they could have folded in or cracked out, or left it to the other guy.
Ya, W is a snake, and a stupid one at that. Ya, there are apparently like 65 million suckers in this country who never heard the "girlfriend" speach the "American President".
Ya, women in this country will lose their reproductive freedom unless they live in a state that can protect them from the tighty-whities who are stupid enough to think that they know God in their tin-horn revivalist rhetoric and thoughtless prejudice they call religion, having the unmitigated balls to speak in the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
No doubt we will have a Supreme court that courts us back to the edge of civil disentigration in the name of tradition.
But you know what? I'm pissed. You are pissed. We're pissed. And action is two part piss and three parts vinegar, and that's what it will take to wake up my children's generation to understand that they are being assaulted by those who would sell their future prosperity for a few billion shekels for a few hundred oily pukes.
Maybe people can't ever hear... may be the stupid who voted W into 4 more years need to see it happen to understand.
People who voted for W arent necessarily stupid, and that attitude played a big part in why Kerry lost the election. Once the left wing gets off its high horse and realizes that if someones disagrees with them politically/socio-economically, that does not necessarily make them ignorant/stupid. But its that elitist attitude that cost you quite possibly the most important election of this generation. Rather than worrying about actually getting people who registered out to actually vote, the democrats preferred to sit around in pseudo think tanks talking about how stupid ANYONE is who would vote for GW. And, while you were having that discussion, the conservatives mobilized, registered new voters, and they completed one last critical task: they actually got those newly registered voters to go VOTE.
ReplyDeleteI love when someone tells Dems not to stereotype the Righties as ignorant by stereotyping Dems as elitist. Hee hee. pee ess, anyone who thinks that the govt has any business telling me which consenting adults I can sleep with -- s/he's the elitist.
ReplyDelete--KaraBara
See, you just proved my point, little boy righty-anonymous-too-chicken-to-identify-yourself. You have no facts, just your uninformed prejudice. You, not I, are the self-crowned elite because you have no sympathy or program for helping those who cannot help themselves. You are the one telling 35M Americans to eat cake.
ReplyDeleteYou are wrong, bubba; I do, in fact, know a number of highly intelligent conservative thinkers, but to a person, everyone of them spends their given talents on trying to control other people. In their hubris, they believe that forcing others into conforming to their own narrow, unexamined, unscientific view is moral when it results in unwanted pregnancies that oppress women. News flash... it's women who carry the fetus, and raise the unwanted child while the sperm donor gets the next promotion. I do not care a fig what you do or don't do, except when you start picking on those who don't have the resources to fight back. You express your inherent pack instincts in the basest form by promoting the wellfare of your own Alpha males, instead of protecting the interest of the poorest among us.
You are wrong, bubba, because your own massive brain power did not enable you to remember for one friggin' week that BOTH parties signed up more new voters than in any election in history anywhere in the world. It was hard, doorbell ringing work. I spent two days doing it... how many minutes did you work for your candidate? Or did you spend it sitting in a pew somewhere showing the neighbors that you are holy, too, and that's right, that's right, Mama got a new coat, too. But then you didn't have to ring door bells, did you, because I contributed to your candidate everytime I filled little Buster, my truck. So yes, I did pay for your win, temporary as it will be.
You are wrong, bubba, because the tighty-whiteys assumed a mantel of moral superiority and convinced many hundreds of thousands of people that I do absolutely consider stupid because they couldn't see the collossal error in invading Iraq without adequate equipment, vehicles, or numbers, which just begged the second invasion of Irag by a large number of the world's crazies, from whom we now do not have the resources to protect the general population of Iraq. What kind of intelligence considers this gross and unmitigated negligence to be "fighting terrorism with strength?" If you are so much behind W's bug war, enlist and volunteer for the Sunni triangle.
Yes, you and your like-mini-minded, bubba, are stupid because you believe that it is moral to give huge tax breaks to rich people while unemployed people lose their health care and AIDS continues to destroy millions in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Don't assume a moral superiority over me, bubba. Did you do as I did and give your tax refund to a homeless shelter or did you spend it on a new iPod?
Do you even know that 70 times as many people lost their health insurance during the first 4 W years than got a tax reduction over $1000, even though the total tax break for those making over $200k per year was something between $72M and $100M? Did you realize that most of the deficit in the SS fund generated in 2004 could be eliminated by reversing that cut?
No, you are wrong, very wrong, because you don't even hear the corruption and decay in the words of your own political clergy. Oh yes, much to my chagrin and the pain of this nation, there are many reactionary, neo-elitist, self-styled preachers out there calling themselves Christian conservatives who are quite capable of intelligent thought. The travesty is that they use their education, pulpit, and advantages to dupe so many others into thinking that waving a flag is patriotic, even God-like, if they pollute the planet and drive more and more of their fellow citizens into poverty, as long as they throw and extra fin in the offering. Jesus would shit his drawers.
Yes, those people are stupid, not just because they are easily led by self-elected "profits" of Christ, and not because they are chemical morons, but because they acted stupid at the polls. And now, when I go to Europe, I'll give a Gaulic shrug and say, "They're fuckin' tin-horn, oil-soaked Texans, man, what'd you 'spect? Of course it's another Vietnam!"
Voters not stupid? They re-elected Eisenhower despite the McCarthy hearings. They elected Richard Nixon, twice. They re-elected Regan when it was already common knowledge that he illegally traded high-tech weapons for the hostages and funneled money to the Contras. Voters can be stupid, yes, but they usually bounce back.
ReplyDeleteHey there Mr. Anonymous Republican preachy guy, I would like to know where you get your information, because as far as I know, it's complete crap. If you do have proof that all these Republicans converted voters while we liberals sat around with our thumbs up our asses, I'd like to see it. Otherwise, you need to either stop accusing us Democrats of stereotyping Republicans, or stop stereotyping us. By doing both, you've turned yourself into a hypocrite.
ReplyDelete