In defense of Michael Moore, an oldie, but a goodie

(Based on a column written circa April,2005)

Before I read George Will's column, I tried to guess what it would say. I had two things to work on: the author's name, of course, and the article's title. The author's name was 'George Will' and the article's title was "Liberals will rue disparaging Middle America". I thought for a second, jotted some notes and here's roughly what I presumed he would say: wild liberals who align themselves with the likes of Michael Moore (and in a previous generation, 'Jane Fonda') will undercut their political clout by not paying obeisance to the narrow minded prejudices of middle class America. In short, by not kneeling to the intellectual acumen of our Babbitt class.

Though, truthfully, I suspected, he probably would not use the word 'Babbitt', because George Will, like most conservatives is a prejudiced reader, and a prejudiced thinker, and has probably not read Sinclair Lewis whose sharp satire, if actually understood it, would make George Will call into question many of his assumptions. Sinclair Lewis was a Nobel prize for literature winner, unlike George Will, who has mostly mastered the conservative bow tie kiss ass award, beating Tucker Carlson by a pucker. For the same intellectual turpitude, he may not have mentioned Jane Fonda, either. It would be impossible, however, for him to write the article without mentioning Michael Moore. Not because he wants to, necessarily, but because every talking point from the Republican Party luminaries to the plebian dregs of FOXNEWS has named Mr. Moore as a specific target. Thus surmising, I eagerly read his riveting account.

I was not disappointed. Half way through the article, I found this jewel:

"Beinart aspires to change the Democratic base so that it will accept a presidential candidate who espouses 1947 liberalism -- someone for whom antitotalitarianism is the organizing imperative of politics. But how do you begin reforming a base polluted by the Michael Moore/MoveOn faction?"

I really like that word, 'polluted'. It takes a special skill to work all your venom into a single word like that. Here's how it works with George Will. Because he has no opinion that is not ultimately derived from Ancient Celtic Nobility, The Georgian Period, or someone He Simply Deems Smarter, he must, at all cost, point to an external authority of some stripe for his ideas, otherwise he has nothing to say. (Unless his column is in reference to baseball, in which case he is sometimes accurate). In this particular situation he calls upon the somewhat elevated authority of a Peter Beinart to lay waste to Mr. Moore's and MoveOn.org's 'radical' influence on the grand old Democratic party. Not that he likes 'Democrats', god knows, but if George had his 'drothers' (as we Southerners like to say), he'd prefer the Dixie-crat swine sucking Democrats who are indistinguishable from Republicans except that they've had the unhappy accident of being born below the Mason Dixon line in the midst of a large black majority, to the North Eastern liberal Democrats who gave away the nation with the advent of such desperate concepts as forty hour work weeks, legalized unions, social security and medicare. We find the locus of Mr. Will's discontent in the following illuminating passage, actually quite worthy of Babbitt, but not referencing Babbitt, of course, because that is merely satire, and not real, as is, unfortunately, this:

The reason Moore is hostile to U.S. power is that he despises the American people from which the power arises. Moore's assertion that the United States "is known for bringing sadness and misery to places around the globe" is a corollary of Kuttnerism, the doctrine that "middle America" is viciously ignorant.

Beinart is bravely trying to do for liberalism what another magazine editor -- National Review's William Buckley -- did for conservatism by excommunicating the Birchers from the conservative movement. But Buckley's task was easier than Beinart's will be because the Birchers were never remotely as central to the Republican base as the Moore/MoveOn faction is to the Democratic base.

Well that was fun. And, of course, absolutely wrong, unless you live in a world where Michael Moore and the John Birch society are somehow equivalent.

I've viewed nearly all of Michael Moore's films and can promise you he does not 'despise' the American middle class--he despises the hypocrites who manipulate the American Middle Class (like, for example, George F. Will) and occasionally he makes fun of the fools who have spent their lives making fools of the American Middle Class. There is an anger, but it's directed at the likes of Charlton Heston, with his insane promotion of the NRA in the footsteps of the Columbine massacre, for example, not at the Columbine students, themselves. He portrays our congressmen as a pack of opportunistic assholes, willing to send our sons and daughters to their deaths in Iraq, but unwilling to volunteer their own sons and daughters. How exactly is this 'despising the middle class?' Maybe George needs to actually sit through a Michael Moore film before he deigns to deliberate to the middle class what they should think of it.

Beyond this, Will's and Beinart's assessments can be summarized as follows: Those who oppose Washington warmongering from the left "despise America" and are beyond the pale, just like the Birchers. The patriotic and prudent course for the Democrats is to follow the example of the neocons, conflate "Islam" with "totalitarianism," and encourage the country to unify for a war against "Islamic totalitarianism" And further, without noting that Islamic totalitarianism, or as the kool-kids like Chris Hitchens like to call it, those "Islamofascists" buggers, are a mere handful of humans, maybe, if we really, really, really piss them off, some 5,000 strong.

On a global scale, this is like swatting flies over a picnic basket. They are annoyances, to be sure. So are Republicans. But really, should we waste that much money trying to kill every last one of them? Especially when our every effort obviously creates more of them? Seems very stupid, somehow, doesn't it? Not even the John Birch society had that kind of hubris. The comparison of Michael Moore to John Birch is wrong, not because John Birch is so out there vis a vis the American Psyche, but because the insanity that Michael Moore is trying to stop (as I am trying to stop, as MoveOn.org is trying to stop) is far beyond anything the most testosterone laden, speed addicted, conspiracy whacked nut job would ever come up with that the John Birch society might fear. Compared to the insanity of our current rightwing regime (I use the term as precisely as possible) Al Qaeda, in the words of my New Jersey friend, "is a fucking joke."

The most the so-called terrorist threat ever deserved was a police action. Making 'war' on terrorism like this gives folks like bin Laden the single thing they desperately needed, attention and respect among their own kindred--something the Pentagon and the Bush administration still idiotically do not understand or choose to ignore.

George Will and Peter Beinart apparently think America can somehow go to war against a country with no terrorist ties under the anti-islamic-anti-fundamentalist-anti-totalitarian-anti-whatever-banner to impose, through force, a system of government that is highly offensive to the religious sensibilities of the occupied natives in the hopes that this will somehow, someway prevent terrorism. They also believe that over time occupying U.S. forces can eliminate enough of the opposition to socially (re) engineer the remaining inhabitants into accepting 'our' system and making it work.

Even though this again has nothing to do with al Qaeda or terrorism except in the most remote drawing room way (the impression of 'free' 'democracy' will prevent terrorism, rather than say, going after bin Laden in Tora Bora might have prevented terrorism). And they believe that those who have been manipulated into paying for all this can be manipulated into cognitively embracing it if only the intellectual elites who put the plan together work to steer them in the right direction. The intellectual elite including folks at our universities who actually have degrees and know what ignoramuses and embarrassments the humans in our civilian command really are.

That's why George Will and his ilk don't like Michael Moore. He advertises their ignorance and stupidity. It's not the Middle class he ridicules as morons. It's our current crop of business rulers, representatives and pundits, who richly, richly deserve it.

Apparently, in the universe that George Will and Peter Beinart and the other neocons inhabit, to build fire stations in America before building them in Iraq is "isolationist"; Cold War allies like France and Germany shouldn't be allowed to 'thwart' the militaristic ambitions "deemed necessary by Washington"; and wars of religious extermination should be carried out against "the worldwide spread of Islamofascism."--whatever that phrase even means. Oh, and while we're at it, let's put China, Russia, and Latin America on notice, too.

Is this what passes for "mainstream" in Washington these days? George Will Republicans and the neocons, the pied pipers of the current Washington establishment, have dressed up a radical, warmongering agenda and are pulling out all the stops to make it respectable – indeed, to make it appear to be the only rational course. While it may be true that some Democrats are out of touch with the average American on social issues, George Will and those in Washington who have fallen in line behind this neocons' totalitarian world view (freedom and democracy at gunpoint) are completely out of touch with the average 'Middle Class' American on the moral issue of war, and it can only be a matter of time before America realizes that.

We should be cheering Michael Moore from the rafters, he's one of the few respectable Democrats left who is announcing the hypocrisy, cruelty and stupidity of the war party to the world. Even my mother (life long Republican) thinks these guys are nuts. As even the libertarian party (not especially known for its lucidity) has noted, "The GOP's big November victory has made it drunk with power and blissfully unaware of how far the Republican Party's manic brain trust continues to drift from mainstream American sensibilities." The scary thing is, the libertarians are right. Four years ago I could have never written that sentence. Now, we're best of ideological soul mates. I'm a left leaning Green, folks. Think about that.

Beinart, Will and others on the neocon-fringe are merely encouraging the Democrats to follow them over the cliff. Luckily, so far, the Democrats have decided not to follow the lemming suicide march. So Thank you, Thank you, Thank you Michael Moore for being one of the few voices in the wilderness that calls the Democrats back from that perilous edge! The difference between John Birch and the Democratic left is that John Birch was always the dark lemming in the night, while the Democratic left was always the one thing that kept the mass of Democratic idiots from becoming a jellified nothing in communion with the Syborg that is the Republican group think apparatus as so gallantly hailed by the likes of the bow tied idiot George Will and his doppelganger, Peter Beinhart.

Is that real enough for you, George? Is this authentically 'Middle Class' enough for you? If not, may we suggest you read Sinclair Lewis's Babbitt, or Dos Pasos's The Camera's Eye, or just watch another Michael Moore film: all are more 'real' Americana than you might be able to stomach at one princely sitting.

Requisite Footnote: Thanks to MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, ACORN and a lot of other horrible 'liberal' organizations, the Republican party was handed their ass in the last election, losing the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and many lower level offices in a Democratic landslide....thanks for the advice George. We continue to eagerly listen.