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Saturday, July 10, 2004
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THE AWFUL TRUTH: NOTES ON MICHAEL MOORE
One would've thought the fact that Michael Moore is a lying sack of shit was beyond dispute. The instances of his stretching the truth beyond the point of plausibility or just outright fabricating seems beyond dispute. Spinsanity.org, hardly a friend of the Bush administration, has gone to some trouble documenting Moore's more blantant distortions. They have done some fact-checking on Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine, and his books Stupid White Men and Dude, Where's My Country?, where no fewer than seventeen mistakes or distortions were found.
These are by no means the only instances where Moore has played fast and loose with the truth. In his first "documentary", Roger & Me, he shifted events in the timeline to maximize the dramatic effect. As Spinsanity.org noted, he superimposed a caption on the Bush/Quayle '88 "Willie Horton" ad that was not in the original in Columbine and when this was discovered, he removed the caption from the DVD.
Moore has always been a hypocrite. To learn more about his pre-celebrity days,see Larissa MacFarquhar's profile on Moore, "The Populist" in the February 16/23 issue of the New Yorker. MacFarquhar reveals that in 1986, Moore was fired as the editor of the left-wing journal Mother Jones for refusing to run an article critical of the Sandanista regime in Nicaragua's human rights record. Moore then held a press conference on the steps of San Francisco City Hall denouncing the article and its author as "traitorous to the left." Moore did not stop until the writer, Paul Berman, became an outcast in his political community. Moore also said that his firing was due to class issues. He and his friend, Ben Hamper (whom Moore had hired as a columnist) were "too working class for the rich liberals." It appears that the only right of dissent that Moore truly supports is his own. Once your politics diverge from his, he will silence you as quickly as he purports that the Patriot Act is designed to. This is also reinforced by Moore's threatening of lawsuits against those that would dare criticize Fahrenheit 9/11. Moore isn't about free speech so much as he's about his free speech.
Then there is Moore and his affinity for the organized labor movement. Moore proudly proclaimed his "Michigan roots in a union home" over and over again. However as MacFarquhar makes clear, he hired at least two writers for his television series, TV Nation, that were not members of the Writers Guild "and thus were not receiving health benefits and would not qualify later for a percentage of video and rerun sales." Moore called the two non-union Associate Producers and complained of union complaints as to their status. He noted that he would have to fire one of them if the pressure continued. The New Yorker piece also relates several complaints of Moore's staffers at his television shows and Mother Jones regarding his abusive conduct toward them.
Such a staunch supporter of the little guy.
Then there's Moore's relationships with corporate America. Moore has made a career at railing at corporations. Yet, one should think about the media through which he has done so. Moore has at various times worked for Disney and AOL/Time/Warner, hardly cottage industries. On his media tours, he travels by private corporate jet. Does Moore have any bad things to say about his corporate sponsors? Hardly. Its interesting to note that Stupid White Men was published by HarperCollins, which is owned by NewsCorp, itself a part of the media empire of.....Rupert Murdoch. Presumably, Moore would have serious issues with Murdoch's politics and the news presentation of his "fair and balanced", Fox News Channel. Did he ever say so? No, in fact he never had a bad word to say about HarperCollins, NewsCorp or Fox until he was safely in the employ of Warner Books and Disney.
Once writing for Warner (a division of AOL Time/Warner) Moore accused HarperCollins of cowardice in publishing Stupid White Men following September 11th. In the preface of Dude, Where's My Country?, Moore writes that Harper Collins was reluctant to release the book at all and when they did, they did it with minimal publicity. Moore's own website contradicts this assertion. Given that, one can only come to the conclusion that Moore was a cowardly corporate toady then, or a liar in his next book.
It gets better. F911 was financed by Disney through its subsidiary, Miramax. Here's a dirty little secret about the entertainment industry, once a company pays to produce a project, it owns that project. It can distribute it or not. It's called capitalism. Disney decided they wanted nothing to do with the movie, as is their right. Moore, of course, cried "censorship." I wonder what he would have cried if they refused to finance it in the first place.
Then there's the war. Moore has some interesting ideas on the war generally, and the four American contractors murdered in Iraq this spring specifically. As he wrote, again on his website,
First, can we stop the Orwellian language and start using the proper names for things? Those are not "contractors" in Iraq. They are not there to fix a roof or to pour concrete in a driveway. They are MERCENARIES and SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. They are there for the money, and the money is very good if you live long enough to spend it.
Halliburton is not a "company" doing business in Iraq. It is a WAR PROFITEER, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In past wars they would have been arrested -- or worse.
The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?
It should be noted that the "Revolution" or "Minutemen" have targeted and murdered far more innocent Iraqis than they have "occupiers", "mercenaries" and "soldiers of fortune." Get it, Mr. Moore? Stop cheerleading unrepentant murderers.
Moore has gone on record several times as to who has "profited" from the war. In November of 2003, according to the New Yorker, Moore asked at an appearance in Liverpool, "Who's the beneficiary of this war? Halliburton...Has anyone else benefited? It's all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil companies, Israel, Halliburton." The inclusion of Israel is interesting. Behind the scenes they actually lobbied against the war, fearing the incitement of the greater Arab public and the destabilization that would occur. But Moore has never let the facts get in the way of his hatred of Israel.
But while we're talking about war profiteers, why isn't Moore including himself? As I write this, Fahrenheit 9/11 has made $68,880,00. The film couldn't have cost more than 5 million to produce, and probably cost significantly less - particularly given Moore's aversion to union labor. That's a healthy profit. I wonder where that money is going. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't begrudge Moore his profits, but since Moore is busy decrying, in the most vulgar terms, everyone who has made a time from the conflict except himself, I can comfortably do so. If Moore had a moral compass at all, to say nothing of intellectual honesty, he would turn every cent of his profits to veteran's groups or charities supportive of the Iraqi people without writing those donations off of his taxes. He should also then release his tax returns to verify this. Then, and only then, should he be able to bitch about Halliburton without getting shithammered for it.
But I think we all know what the odds of that happening are, don't we?
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