Micheal Moore, Health Care: The Fisking (A Zombie Post from March 2010)

[Editors Note: I've been cleaning out the old blog today, adding tags, deleting drafts that would never see the light of day, when I stumbled upon this. God only knows why I got this far and never finished it. I was faced with either deleting it or getting rid of it. And for some reason I cannot choose to un-fisk Michael Moore. I just can't quit the big fat bastard]

Because.

To My Fellow Citizens, the Republicans:

Say, what you will about the man, he loves him some schtick. And he loves no schtick like the "Phoney Politeness" schtick.

More on Moore

News flash: Famous People's Bodyguards Carry Firearms!

I link this incident not to add to the bonfire of Moore hatred (Moore himself keeps that bad boy going all by himself), but to point out something of the insanity of gun control. Would anyone like to estimate how many hundreds of thousands of illegal firearms are found in the Five Boroughs? So who do the police actually arrest? Someone, whose job involves providing protection, who "declared he was carrying a firearm at a ticket counter." Apparently the only way the NYPD makes a gun bust is if the perp says "Hey, arrest me! Come on, G-Man, arrest me!"

Are we ready to give this up yet? Are we ready to stop pretending that law and coercion alone can make a society un-violent? The NYPD is the size of an Army Division, and they can't stop drugs, and they can't stop guns. They never will.

We need to do something else.


Well, Ain't That a Kick In the Pants?: Turns out the story's bogus. Burk was and is employed by a bodyguard firm and was once assigned to protect Lumpy, but not any longer, and not on the date in question. Boo on Fox News for screwing the story up. Although the question of why a Port Authority (not NYPD) cop felt the need to bring this guy in for questioning if it was all as routine as the firm says it was could prove interesting. Plus, it keeps MY point intact. Huzzah!

Fisking Michael Moore

I do this because I'm a mean Republican who hates, and hates, and desires nothing more than to increase the degree of suffering in those I have arbitrarily decided are my enemies, and to hear the lamentations of their women. Also because I'm about to tie my post-per-day record.



The original article is here, in USATODAY.



The GOP doesn't reflect America




In point of fact, it porously absorbs America into itself, only to wring itself out again, and then to rub suds of America all over the Kitchen of Freedom, and oh, I've gone cross-eyed...



Michael Moore, Filmmaker



NEW YORK — Welcome, Republicans. You're proud Americans who love your country. In your own way, you want to make this country a better place. Whatever our differences, you should be commended for that.




Sounds almost sincere, don't he? I'm sure in some way he thinks he is, and doesn't see any form of condescension in this.




But what's all this talk about New York being enemy territory? Nothing could be further from the truth. We New Yorkers love Republicans. We have a Republican mayor and governor, a death penalty and two nuclear plants within 30 miles of the city.




I'm glad to see Moore is falling away from the usual "Republicans are Hick Aliens in Boffo, Socko NYC" routine. Good for him. But perhaps he'd like to explain how nuclear power is a strictly Republican issue. Or perhaps he'd like to explain where these two plants he refers to are. I went looking for nuclear plants in the NYC area, found this site, but couldn't find any plants within thirty miles. The closest one was in Buchanan, NY, and that's 46 miles away. The next closest one is in Forked River, NJ (81 miles), which would not seem to have anything to do with the Republicanism of New Yorkers. Maybe he means the Secret Halliburton Plants that have been built with money from the Saudis, the North Koreans, and the Freemasons.


As for the death penalty, it was re-instituted under Republican Governor George Pataki. But it was first de-instituted under Republican Governor Nelson Rockefeller. One may argue that it's Republicans who support the Death Penalty more vigorously than democrats do, but public opinion polls have shown widespread support for capital punishment in every year since 1972. Presumably, that includes some Democrats.




New York is home to Fox News Channel. The top right-wing talk shows emanate from here — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly among them. The Wall Street Journal is based here, which means your favorite street is here. Not to mention more Fortune 500 executives than anywhere else.



You may think you're surrounded by a bunch of latte-drinking effete liberals, but the truth is, you're right where you belong, smack in the seat of corporate America and conservative media.




New York is home to every news Channel, and hosts most nationwide radio programs. Even PBS has an office in New York. That proves nothing. Surely Moore isn't arguing that every Fortune 500 exec is a Republican. Quick someone get the memo to Warren Buffet!




Let me also say I admire your resolve. You're true believers. Even though only a third of the country defines itself as "Republican," you control the White House, Congress, Supreme Court and most state governments.




Dare one ask, how that happened? Did we Reps, driven by our resolve, simply walk into the political branches of government one day, like student radicals did to President's offices in the 60's, and refuse to leave?


Or did the voters put them there, in spite of the fact that we're only a third of the country? Maybe we aren't a third of the voters?




You're in charge because you never back down.




That's funny, I could swear that I've read guys at NRO attribute the same character trait to the Democrats. Either one side is wrong, or, now bear with me here, both sides find the stubborn refusal of the other side to say "Gosh! You're Right!" incredibly irritating. Maybe that impression shouldn't be used as argument.




Your people are up before dawn figuring out which minority group shouldn't be allowed to marry today.



That's why today (but never before, mind you) we don't allow gays, tommorrow we won't allow asians, thursday it'll be the blind, and to kick of the weekend, just to be crazy, we won't let ourselves do it. It's called "strategery."




Our side is full of wimps who'd rather compromise than fight. Not you guys.



I can only guess this is sarcasm. If so, where's the kicker? Is the statement so ludicrous that it refutes itself? Or is the magic and holy word "compromise" what elevates your side?


I guess you'd prefer to compromise with the Saudis that you think are the real villains behind 9-11. Good luck with that.




Hanging out around the convention, I've encountered a number of the Republican faithful who aren't delegates. They warm up to me when they don't find horns or a tail. Talking to them, I discover they're like many people who call themselves Republicans but aren't really Republicans. At least not in the radical-right way that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Co. have defined Republicans.




And again, the reason that these non-Republicans are here to nominate a radical-right Republican is...?




I asked one man who told me he was a "proud Republican," "Do you think we need strong laws to protect our air and water?"



"Well, sure," he said. "Who doesn't?"



I asked whether women should have equal rights, including the same pay as men.



"Absolutely," he replied.



"Would you discriminate against someone because he or she is gay?"



"Um, no." The pause — I get that a lot when I ask this question — is usually because the average good-hearted person instantly thinks about a gay family member or friend.



So you ask a "proud Republican" three questions and discover that he desires clean air and water, favors equal rights for women, and is not a slavering homophobe. What do you conclude? That Republicans want the same things as the rest of us, and just disagree on the details? Noooooo...you conclude that this person, his claims to the contrary, obviously can't BE a Republican!




I've often found that if I go down the list of "liberal" issues with people who say they're Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don't want America to be the world's police officer and prefer peace to war.




See? Since EVERYONE KNOWS that Republicans are warmongering savages who'd bomb a third-world nation as soon as look at them, people who think peace is better than war are OBVIOUSLY not Republicans! Why, it's so simple!




They applaud civil rights,



And here's more proof. Republicans never support civil rights. We must therefore conclude that Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and all the Republican congressmen who voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, were, in fact, not Republicans.


Who was a Republican? Maybe...Woodrow Wilson...?




believe all Americans should have health insurance



And I think no American should have health insurance. Nope, none. That'll solve the problem...muhuhahahahahaha!


I don't suppose Mikey asked these people if they think the way to give all Americans health insurance is for the federal government to pay for it.




and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don't think the government has the right to tell a women what to do with her body.



Here's where I want Mike to show me his questionairre, and maybe reveal just how large his sample was. A lot of people who are opposed to "gun control" will say that they don't like "assault weapons," but I find it difficult to believe that he covered a wide swath of Republicans and met no NRA members. Likewise, no National Right-to-Life members.


Sure, it's very likely that there are plenty of Republicans who don't mind gun control and who don't mind abortion. As regards the latter issue, Republicans are a bit less doctrinaire than the other guys, as the careers of Pataki, Guiliani, and Schwarzenegger show. But when Moore claims that these views constitute the majority, I just don't believe him.




There's a name for these Republicans: RINOs or Republican In Name Only. They possess a liberal, open mind and don't believe in creating a worse life for anyone else.



Ideology is is an amazing thing. It renders someone capable of writing a sentence like that and not perceiving how utterly fatuous it is.



So why do they use the same label as those who back a status quo of women earning 75 cents to every dollar a man earns, 45 million people without health coverage and a president who has two more countries left on his axis-of-evil-regime-change list?



Hold the phone a second. Name me one instance where anyone in the GOP has said that women making less than men (which is a statistic I've always found specious, but that's an argument for another day), or that 45 million people without health coverage is a GOOD THING. Sit down for five seconds, breathe into a paper bag and allow this thought to cross your mind: MAYBE THEY JUST DON'T THINK MY SOLUTION WILL DO ANY GOOD OR IS WORTH THE COST.


And I seriously doubt that your conversations with these supposed "RINO's" led you to think that they disapproved of Bush' Axis-of-Evil Diplomacy. Hell, most Republicans I know favor P.J. O'Rourke's solution to Middle Eastern Conflict: "raze buildings, burn crops, sow the earth with salt, and sell the population into bondage," especially after a sufficient number of alcoholic beverages. Then they usually sober up and decide that giving Arab countries democracy so they can argue with one another instead of the rest of the world is the preferable alternative. If Mikey had asked anybody whether they supported removing Saddam Hussein from power, I'll bet he would have found a connection between the straw hats and Dubya.




I asked my friend on the street. He said what I hear from all RINOs: "I don't want the government taking my hard-earned money and taxing me to death. That's what the Democrats do."



Money. That's what it comes down to for the RINOs. They do work hard and have been squeezed even harder to make ends meet. They blame Democrats for wanting to take their money. Never mind that it's Republican tax cuts for the rich and billions spent on the Iraq war that have created the largest deficits in history and will put all of us in hock for years to come.



Because we weren't all in hock before that. Clinton balanced the budget for a few years (well, him and the presumably all-RINO opposition that, through rigid party discipline even though they know they don't agree with the leadership, somehow got voted into control of Congress), and that solved all our budget problems. The fact that prior to the Clinton years we hadn't had a balanced budget since the Johnson Administration (and that a weasely one) wasn't going to do us any financial damage, noooo....




The Republican Party's leadership knows America is not only filled with RINOs, but most Americans are much more liberal than the delegates gathered in New York.



How can that be, Mike? You've established that the delegates are all eco-friendly, gender-neutral, non-gay-hating, pro-civil-rights, pro-health-insurance-for-all, pro-gun-control, pro-choice, "normal" folk. I thought they were "quite" liberal.




The Republicans know it. That's why this week we're seeing gay-loving Rudy Giuliani, gun-hating Michael Bloomberg and abortion-rights advocate Arnold Schwarzenegger.



The fact that Guiliani was a national figure before 9/11, a celebrity afterwards, and the former mayor of the city where the convention is taking place; that Bloomberg is the current mayor of the city where the convention is taking place; that Schwarzenegger is a worldwide celebrity and the man who unseated the governor of the largest state in the Union by an unheard-of recall vote has nothing to do with it.


One might also keep in mind the fact that John McCain, who cannot fairly be described as gay-loving, gun-hating, or an abortion-rights advocate, also spoke the first night. There must be a reason for this somewhere...somewhere...




As tough of a pill as it is to swallow, Republicans know that the only way to hold onto power is to pass themselves off as, well, as most Americans. It's a good show.



This must be a motive similar to the one which caused the Democrats to spend their convention trying to convince the country that they actually gave a rat's ass about fighting terror. We shall see whose mask slips first.




So have a good time, Republicans. It could be your last happy party for awhile if all the RINOs and liberal majority figure it out on Nov. 2.



Figure what out, Mike? That real-life, actual Republicans, unlike the writhing cacodemons of your books and movies, are normal, bourgeois folks who wish no harm to anybody?


Why, you visionary you. It must have been like looking into Chapman's Homer.

Moron, Er, More on, Campaign Finance Reform.

Robert Samuelson agrees with me.

The Real Problem with Michael Moore

A few days ago I bought a copy of Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man, and zipped right through it (it's a quick read). I found the book not quite as funny as it's author's probably wanted it to be, and a bit repetitive at moments. But overall the book is a pretty damning indictment of Moore's habitual fabrications, manipulations, and general mendacity (as well as his habit of claiming artistic license and/or lashing out whenever anyone calls him on this).


Moreover, the book neatly unravels the lynchpin of Fahrenheit 9/11: the charge that Bush is in bed with the Saudis and the Bin Laden family. Moore's only evidence is the fact that the Bushes and the bin Ladens both invested in the Carlyle Group, an international investment firm. So they have their money in the same bank, wooopeee, right? But it turns out that George Soros, billionaire Bush-hater, Democratic fund-raiser, and founder of moveon.org, also invests in Carlyle, and in amounts that dwarf the Bushes and the bin Ladens.


Taking this annoying little fact and running with it, the authors create a conspiracy theory involving Moore, Soros, the Saudis, and Disney (I knew they were evil! I just knew it!) no less plausible than that advanced by Moore in his film. Which is to say, not very plausible at all, in the end.


But all of this is minor stuff, putting the structure underneath the thesis that Moore is a waste of space and his films of the Goebbles school of public debate. That point's been made by better men than I; Lileks, for example, here and here. What Lileks doesn't mention, and what I think far more interesting, is the book's suggestion of, for lack of a better term, an ideological connection between Moore's brand of Leftism and the Islamic Jihadism with which we are at war. The missing link is called Qutbism in the book, and it provides an interesting answer to the by-now-cliched question: "Why Do They Hate Us?"


Because they were taught to do so.


The book points out that the vast majority of jihad leaders are not ignorant camel-jockeys, but educated men, and mostly educated in western schools. This is unsurprising; many of the great leaders of Third World Communism, such as Ho Chi Minh, were also educated in the West, and learned there to hate the West and what it stands for. Now who would it be that teaches them to learn such things? Perhaps Karl Marx, who disdained the freedoms he enjoyed and spent his life devoted to their spiritual undermining? Perhaps lefty academics of the Sartre/Fanon school, who never met a bloodthirsty revolutionary they couldn't cheer for? Perhaps the hip trendies running Colorado State University and Stanford, who educated Sayiid Qutb, Osama's John the Baptist?


Qutb, according to the book, drew heavily on western thought, especially Marx, in divising his writings, which hold, among other things, that America was the land of brutes and sluts, primitive and materialistic and soulless, and deserving of violent distruction.  The West corrupts the Islamic world, so the Islamic world must destroy the West. We deserve whatever is done to us, no matter how foul.


Thus Qutb. Here's Moore:

The Iraqis who have riesen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and they will win. (comments on President Bush's A13 News Conference, April 16, 2004)

 

What I do is that all day long I have heard everything about this bin Laden guy except his one fact--WE created the monster known as bin Laden. (Moore's Sept. 12, 2001 letter, on his website)

 

We, the United States of America, are culpable in committing so many acts of terror and bloodshed that we had better get a clue about the culture of violence in which we have been active participants. (from "Somwhere in the Land of Enchantment" on his website, September 15, 2001)

Add to that the core theme of Bowling for Columbine -- we are an aggressive, excessively materialistic and dangerous culture that erodes the individual soul -- and you have the basic set of beliefs that animates jihadis.


I should point out that none of this is to imply that a) criticizing Western culture or b) criticizing the War on Terror automatically puts you in bed with Osama. It is the form and content of your criticism that matters. And if you're going to accept the Michael Moore view of reality, you should know whose views you're sharing.


 Because our enemies have no difficulty with this. Qiadar Faisal, lawyer for Imam Samudra, the leader of the conspiracy behind the October 2002 Bali Bombings, quoted from Moore's book Stupid White Men when presenting the defense summation at Samudra's trial.




 

Moore, On

I haven't seen any of M. Moore's films, and don't plan on starting now. Swallowing the rage at seeing just the commercials to "Fahrenheit 9/11" is about all I'm up to right now (indigestion: the Ideologues Complaint). But I've heard a bit, here and there, about his premise, and it seems to center on Saudi Arabia as the true home of terrorists (and doubtless, WMD's). If I'm wrong, you all know where my email address is.


But If I'm right, then riddle me this: if Saudi Arabia is the real enemy, then would Moore support war on that country, in retaliation for 9/11 and as deterrent for future 9/11's? Would he support this war even if George W. Bush were the Commander-in-Chief? Or are these allegations merely a distraction for the fact that he can't stand Bush and can't stand the thought of the U.S. being in a victorious war?


But I fear I am treading old ground again, and with a bit of research, I am right. Here's Christopher Hitchens, sounding off.