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Michael Moore: Where are you Going with This? By: Rizzuto Tue Feb 19, 2008 - I began writing this column in the late hours of a Saturday night in Pearl River, NY. There is a small strip of bars in this largely Irish section of suburban New York, and I happened to be sharing a few beers with friends at The Saloon, a bar that tends to draw an older crowd. Working class men and women enjoy their night off, or catch a cold one after the late shift in this bar whose floor is laden with peanut shells and discarded Quickdraw tickets. Pearl River also happens to be a very patriotic area, with more than a few American Flags flown not only on houses, but proudly displayed in the windows of business establishments, and The Saloon is no different. As I observed the people walking in and out I began to think about the self proclaimed spokesman for the working class. A man by whom the people I was sharing this establishment, had been co-opted. I?m speaking about Michael Moore. To the puzzlement of the Irish Brogued bartender, who would eventually take notice of me scrawling on a small piece of paper for the better part of the night, I began to write. In a satirical letter, written to Elian Gonzalez, Moore says; ?The worst that could be said is that, in Cuba, you were in jeopardy of receiving free health care whenever you needed it, an excellent education in one of the few countries that has 100% literacy?? This quote clearly shows that his preference for socialized medicine supersedes his respect for the basic freedoms we take for granted as Americans, freedoms which are non-existent in Castro?s totalitarian Cuba. But why wouldn?t Moore perpetuate the Myth of the workers paradise of Cuba? Because it doesn?t serve him to point out a blatant example of the monumental failure which large-scale socialization leads to. It leads to an inevitability that has reared its head throughout history, as it did in Russia, Romania, Cambodia and Korea to name a few. The funniest thing I see in Moore is his consistent insults of the intelligence of the American people. He seems to take pleasure in announcing to the world, how many people can?t point out Iraq on a map, yet assumes that we are sophisticated enough to make the form of socialism he and his ilk push work. He seems to have as much disdain for the American people as a whole as he does for our government. Bowling for Columbine amounts to a two-hour insult to the preference of those amongst to own a gun for our own protection, in the guise of a satirical look at this country?s obsession with firearms, set on the backdrop of the American tragedy at Columbine. Moore even goes so far as to ignore the concerns of those he interviewed for his Oscar winning 2000 documentary, which was the medication that the two Colorado students were taking. A health expert working on the new documentary film, The Drugging of Our Children, spoke with some of the same individuals Moore did for Bowling for Columbine. The expert told the New York Post that "They had told Moore repeatedly about the meds ? he didn't use any of it. When his documentary came out, it was all about the guns. He got an Academy Award for something that was a lie." Moore fails to even scratch the surface of this topic. Rather than exposing the roots of this obsession, he exposes himself as an opportunistic leech, capitalizing off the tragedy that was the Columbine massacre. Sometimes it seems as if Moore is more interested in his own celebrity status than he is of the plight of the working class, reminding an audience at Humboldt State University on March 5th 2002 of his wealth; I'm a millionaire, I'm a multi-millionaire. I'm filthy rich. You know why I'm a multi-millionaire? 'Cause multi-millions like what I do. That's pretty good, isn't it? There's millions that believe in what I do. Pretty cool, huh?" Then regaling that same audience with his view of the importance of the small business owner saying, ?Fuck all these small businesses - fuck 'em all! Bring in the chains. The small business people are the rednecks that run the town and suppress the people. Fuck 'em all. That's how I feel.? Then there?s some times where we can?t tell the difference between Moore and J-Lo. When performing at the Roundhouse Theater in North London, Moore reportedly ??flew into a rage, verbally attacked everyone associated with the theater because he thought he wasn't being paid enough,? according to the crew. Apparently 750 dollars per night was not enough to quench the man?s financial thirst. As if this wasn?t enough, Moore acted like a primadonna at moveon.org?s award ceremony for Bush in 30 Seconds competition. According to the Intelligencer; It appears that man of the people Michael Moore has gone completely J.Lo on event organizers with pre-event demands. Before he?d agree to present an award for the best 30-second anti-Bush ad at a Manhattan MoveOn.org benefit earlier this month, Moore?s handlers insisted that he have a supply of Evian backstage. ?Even Poland Spring wasn?t good enough,? says our inside source. ?They called up to make sure he would have Evian.? Moore seems to be attempting to shake America at its core, with little to no regard to the effects of his actions. His ultimate goal seems to be ascension to the mantle of the ?hero of the working people.? However it seems that he?s found his greatest allies amongst the elite of Hollywood, and ideological college students, still attached by the bank accounts to their parents, and not the working class, which for the most part know the value of an honest days work. The result of his actions, if brought to its extreme, would result in the misery of the very people he claims to champion. The corporate giants like GM which he targets as the height of corporate greed, send paychecks home and put bread on the table, which is more than can be said for Moore and his Hollywood friends. Michael Moore seems to rally against the concentration of wealth. I?m here to remind everyone that a massive concentration of wealth exists in Hollywood, while the elite does little to redistribute it. How many paychecks do Tim Robins and Alec Baldwin sign? How many new jobs have been created through their ingenuity? Hollywood has certainly found themselves a pitbull in the robust, disheveled heap from Flint, Michigan. Let them be the first to share their wealth with the masses of this nation, as they obviously view us all as charity cases. Moore?s latest project, Fahrenheit 911, being funded and distributed by Disney subsidiary Miramax films, will hit the silver screen in the summer of 2004, just in time to act as a campaign add for whatever democratic hopeful is nominated at the national convention. This movie will be what I like to call six degrees of separation to Osama bin Laden. By linking the Bush family with the bin Laden family through business, he expects that we will assume that George W. Bush is somehow connected to Osama bin Laden. If he is lucky, he will convince the unintelligent amongst us that Bush is partially responsible for the attacks of September 11th. If very lucky, he will convince the mildly retarded amongst us that Bush was in league with Osama, and that they together plotted the September 11th attacks in order to strip us of our civil liberties. Such implications will no doubt serve to inflame our enemies as well as our allies, with whom our relations are already strained. We all must ask ourselves, where has responsibility gone? Where are this man?s redeeming qualities? How long will this Moore be allowed to co-opt the sweat of the working class? Isn?t it time we asked Michael Moore, where are you going with this?
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