I think it's Boosh's fault.[ /Seminar Caller Rant ]
Posted on 05/19/2004 2:19:41 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
‘BUSH is an idiot." If I say this about ten thousand times, it can become a bestselling book: if I slip a few jokes in it (and a few rude words) it can be a stand-up comedy routine. With a camera, it can be a blockbuster film.
Just ask Michael Moore, a baseball-cap-wearing comedian who has turned his hand to literature and made Stupid White Men - an anti-Bush polemic - a worldwide bestseller in an era when people were supposedly fed up with politics.
The secret of his success: his books are billed as fact, but contain myths woven together with conspiracy theory. He has discovered a powerful trick being copied by authors hungry for fortune - and, increasingly, by politicians hungry for votes.
The greatest compliment to Mr Moore is to see so many piling in behind him. Books slagging off President George Bush now stand even taller than the groaning cliff of Churchill biographies insulating bookshops across the country.
And they walk off the shelves. People may not vote much nowadays, but the number of political works on bookshelves has increased massively. And Mr Moore is resonating with millions in the way that politicians are not.
Spurned by his success, Mr Moore has swapped his luxury Manhattan flat for the Cannes Film Festival this week to preview Fahrenheit 9/11 - a film with which he says he wants to topple the US president.
It’s a work intended to expose links between Bush’s allies and the Saudi royal family and, to be fair to Mr Moore, it concludes on a staggering event. In the days after the 11 September terrorist attacks, President Bush allowed his friends in the Saudi Arabian royal family to flee America when a no-fly ban was firmly in place.
Mr Moore takes up the story: "Nobody could go up in the sky. Except the administration allowed a private Saudi jet to go to five American cities and pick up 20 members of the bin Laden family and get them out of the country. And the FBI was very upset that they didn’t get to interrogate them."
This is truly remarkable. But it is also flatly untrue - as proven by the bipartisan 9/11 Committee, which found that the planes with Saudis took off only after airspace reopened and the FBI had interviewed 22 of the 26 suspects. The White House was not involved.
This is, sadly, by no means the only myth masquerading as fact in Moore’s bestselling books. There are entire websites devoted to nailing down the parts where he’s dressed up gossip as gospel, or concocted entire arguments.
Take Bowling for Columbine, his Oscar-winning documentary about the massacre five years ago at Columbine High School in Colorado. Its title is based on the "fact" that the murderers went bowling before starting the slaughter. Except they were nowhere near a bowling alley, as is now proven. This is just the start of the little deceptions which routinely "sex up" Moore’s work. It is not sloppiness. He being deliberately loose with the facts, and it pays.
A while ago, he was challenged by CNN about "glaring inaccuracies" in Stupid White Men. "This is a book of political humour. So, I mean, I don’t respond to that sort of stuff, you know ... How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?"
A wonderful caveat. Mr Moore makes his money from people who think the facts he presents are true. His Oscar was for documentary, not fiction. Yet his policy, it seems, is to make ’em laugh - even if that means bending the truth.
Mr Moore is neither venal nor stupid. He has become the world’s richest comedian by taking a political theme, sexing it up with a few deliberate distortions and then dressing it all as fact: even if this means misleading his audience.
And he has made a fortune, as he likes to boast about: "Those who run your life live in my neighbourhood. I walk in the streets with them each day." Several people want more of the same.
Hence the avalanche of anti-Bush books. But, more seriously, the lure of Moore-style fortune has bent several serious commentators who have found they can treble their sales with a few salacious details. Serious economists such as Paul Krugman and former ministers such as Paul O’Neill, President Bush’s first Treasury secretary, have been on the same money trail discovered by Mr Moore. Noam Chomsky, the linguist and conspiracy theorist, has long been churning out books blaming the US and Israel for everything that’s wrong in the world - backed up by footnotes often found to be spurious. His reward: a poll last week found him to be the US commentator most read by Europeans. Both he and Mr Moore portray Washington as a force for evil in the world - and several million are ready to believe it.
The sadness is that both hit strong themes which deserve strong attention. Fahrenheit 9/11 is based out the outrage of the West propping up the House of Saud - which, in turn, houses the most fanatical regime in the world now that the Taleban have left Afghanistan.
It deserves to be lambasted: but a comedian who is misleading his audience with twisted and bent facts is doing this far more effectively than politicians, with whom a higher bar of truth is required.
So is the moral of the story that truth is superfluous? Or that politicians should stop presuming that the voter’s IQ sinks to room temperature at election time?
A look at the campaigns for the 10 June elections in Britain suggests that Moore-style populism is winning over. The Liberal Democrats are asking voters to make the European Parliament into a plebiscite on the Iraq war.
The European Parliament is all about clean-air initiatives and employee legislation: it has nothing at all to do with foreign policy or defence. Iraq is no concern of the MEPs. But the Lib Dems who knock on your doorsteps over the next few weeks will tell you otherwise because they’re the only one of the three main parties voting against the war - and they want to cloud the issue.
The Lib Dems are not alone in their mendacity. Labour is fighting the European Parliament and English local government elections slagging off Michael Howard, as if the Tory leader is in any way relevant to any of the seats up for grabs.
As for the Tories, they are suggesting that Labour policies will so impoverish the elderly that pensioners will be forced to dig up the road to earn extra cash. This is just as untrue as Mr Moore’s bogus evacuation of the Saudis.
This is not a new game - in literature, at least. From Froissart’s Chronicles to John Prebble’s works on Scottish history, fact has for centuries been mixed with fiction to make the end result more entertaining.
But fighting lies with even bigger lies is no recipe for political success. Tell some tall stories in books, and you can make lots of cash, as Mr Moore has proved so successfully. But mislead voters and the result will be millions who will not bother to vote at all - and start to believe comedians in baseball caps instead.
People who are informed by or have their opinions enhanced by such a man as Michael Moore are mental midgets and still dangerous...They vote.
--A while ago, he was challenged by CNN about "glaring inaccuracies" in Stupid White Men. "This is a book of political humour. So, I mean, I don’t respond to that sort of stuff, you know ... How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?"--
I appreciate the writer states many of the lies Moore spouts as fact.
I think it's Boosh's fault.[ /Seminar Caller Rant ]
In books stores in Britian, there are tons of anti-Bush books. Noam Chomsky practically has a whole shelf to himself. Woodward's books and Moore's books line the shelves, but there aren't any conservative books.
Mr Moore takes up the story: "Nobody could go up in the sky. Except the administration allowed a private Saudi jet to go to five American cities and pick up 20 members of the bin Laden family and get them out of the country. And the FBI was very upset that they didn’t get to interrogate them."This is truly remarkable. But it is also flatly untrue - as proven by the bipartisan 9/11 Committee, which found that the planes with Saudis took off only after airspace reopened and the FBI had interviewed 22 of the 26 suspects. The White House was not involved.
From a Barnes and Nobles review:
A reviewer, a college student, January 7, 2004,
I've found a candidate for the presidency!
Michael Moore knows his stuff. And just as importantly he has the courage to speak his mind in a time when free speech (by the left) is (hypocritically) seen as unpatriotic.
Furthermore, his clear and coherent writing style makes this book very user-friendly. No wonder it's gaining international fame and popularity! He speaks the truth!
That is too bad. Grab some from Amazon or other online book dealers. Read them and share them.
Penn's fans don't like Michael Moore's lies either.
Thanks for the link. Some interesting comments.
Moore sells because he offers the political equivalent of urban legends that many people believe. They believe Moore because they desperately want to believe him. Who needs facts when a good unfounded rumor or outright lie will do? Like urban legends Moore can offer a small kernel of truth (or half-truth) in his manure pile of lies. It goes like this: politicians have financial and other relationships with corporations and other interests. Some politicians and some corporations are corrupt. Therefore according to the likes of Moore: all politicians who associate with corporations are corrupt...as long as they're Republicans. Of course Democrats and certain obnoxious, leftist, lying filmmakers with poor hygiene and millions of dollars made off these same "corrupt" corporations don't count.
Yes but they never vote republican. The danger is that it energizes more voter. I had a long dicussion with someone the other day that was a Moore freak. Turns out that he has never voted. Funny thing is I wonder of he votes this time around.
Why do good, honest writers not do a TV documentary for prime time, write newspaper articles, books, magazine articles, etc., on the lives of these men who care so little about integrity or how their work destroys the nation. Just a few photos of Michael Moore in his baseball cap along with a few captions of his statements with a counter statement showing the depth of his depravity would turn any decent person off.
I'm pleased to see that some members of the British press see through him.
American socialists are all over Europe, spreading lies about Bush, America and Israel. But American conservatives never leave America. Drives me mad to see all these American-written anti-American books flying off the shelves in the UK.
I saw post yesterday, that called for Moore to release his new movie over the internet for free. (Since he claims he is not in it for the money.) Good idea!
*bookmark*
b
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