Michael Moore newsletter 7/4/2004

[shemp]

The following newsletter represents the views of Michael Moore. It does not necessarily represent the views of the James Randi Educational Foundation or James Randi. Much of it does represent the views of The Church of Shemp[TM] and Pope Shemp I[TM]. It is presented for informational and discussion purposes only. Please, no wagering.

July 4th, 2004

Friends,

Where do I begin? This past week has knocked me for a loop. "Fahrenheit 9/11," the #1 movie in the country, the largest grossing documentary ever. My head is spinning. Didn't we just lose our distributor 8 weeks ago? Did Karl Rove really fail to stop this? Is Bush packing?

Each day this week I was given a new piece of information from the press that covers Hollywood, and I barely had time to recover from the last tidbit before the next one smacked me upside the head:

** More people saw "Fahrenheit 9/11" in one weekend than all the people who saw "Bowling for Columbine" in 9 months.

** "Fahrenheit 9/11" broke "Rocky III's" record for the biggest box office opening weekend ever for any film that opened in less than a thousand theaters.

** "Fahrenheit 9/11" beat the opening weekend of "Return of the Jedi."

** "Fahrenheit 9/11" instantly went to #2 on the all-time list for largest per-theater average ever for a film that opened in wide-release.

How can I ever thank all of you who went to see it? These records are mind-blowing. They have sent shock waves through Hollywood -- and, more importantly, through the White House.

But it didn't just stop there. The response to the movie then went into the Twilight Zone. Surfing through the dial I landed on the Fox broadcasting network which was airing the NASCAR race live last Sunday to an audience of millions of Americans -- and suddenly the announcers were talking about how NASCAR champ Dale Earnhardt, Jr. took his crew to see "Fahrenheit 9/11?" the night before. FOX sportscaster Chris Myers delivered Earnhardt's review straight out of his mouth and into the heartland of America: "He said hey, it'll be a good bonding experience no matter what your political belief. It's a good thing as an American to go see." Whoa! NASCAR fans -- you can't go deeper into George Bush territory than that! White House moving vans -- START YOUR ENGINES!


Then there was Roger Friedman from the Fox News Channel giving our film an absolutely glowing review, calling it "a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail." Richard Goldstein of the Village Voice surmised that Bush is already considered a goner so Rupert Murdoch might be starting to curry favor with the new administration. I don't know about that, but I've never heard a decent word toward me from Fox. So, after I was revived, I wondered if a love note to me from Sean Hannity was next.

How about Letterman's Top Ten List: "Top Ten George W. Bush Complaints About "Fahrenheit 9/11":

10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing

9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election

8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words

7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported

6. Didn't have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger

5. Of all Michael Moore's accusations, only 97% are true

4. Not sure - - I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe

3. Where the hell was Spider-man?

2. Couldn't hear most of the movie over Cheney's foul mouth

1. I thought this was supposed to be about dodgeball

But it was the reactions and reports we received from theaters around the country that really sent me over the edge. One theatre manager after another phoned in to say that the movie was getting standing ovations as the credits rolled -- in places like Greensboro, NC and Oklahoma City -- and that they were having a hard time clearing the theater afterwards because people were either too stunned or they wanted to sit and talk to their neighbors about what they had just seen. In Trumbull, CT, one woman got up on her seat after the movie and shouted "Let's go have a meeting!" A man in San Francisco took his shoe off and threw it at the screen when Bush appeared at the end. Ladies' church groups in Tulsa were going to see it, and weeping afterwards.

It was this last group that gave lie to all the yakking pundits who, before the movie opened, declared that only the hard-core "choir" would go to see "Fahrenheit 9/11." They couldn't have been more wrong. Theaters in the Deep South and the Midwest set house records for any film they'd ever shown. Yes, it even sold out in Peoria. And Lubbock, Texas. And Anchorage, Alaska!

Newspaper after newspaper wrote stories in tones of breathless disbelief about people who called themselves "Independents" and "Republicans" walking out of the movie theater shaken and in tears, proclaiming that they could not, in good conscience, vote for George W. Bush. The New York Times wrote of a conservative Republican woman in her 20s in Pensacola, Florida who cried through the film, and told the reporter: "It really makes me question what I feel about the president... it makes me question his motives..."

Newsday reported on a self-described "ardent Bush/Cheney supporter" who went to see the film on Long Island, and his quiet reaction afterwards. He said, "It's really given me pause to think about what's really going on. There was just too much - too much to discount." The man then bought three more tickets for another showing of the film.

The Los Angeles Times found a mother who had "supported [Bush] fiercely" at a theater in Des Peres, Missouri: "Emerging from Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' her eyes wet, Leslie Hanser said she at last understood.... 'My emotions are just....' She trailed off, waving her hands to show confusion. 'I feel like we haven't seen the whole truth before.'"

All of this had to be the absolute worst news for the White House to wake up to on Monday morning. I guess they were in such a stupor, they "gave" Iraq back to, um, Iraq two days early!

News editors told us that they were being "bombarded" with e-mails and calls from the White House (read: Karl Rove), trying to spin their way out of this mess by attacking it and attacking me. Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett had told the White House press corps that the movie was "outrageously false" -- even though he said he hadn't seen the movie. He later told CNN that "This is a film that doesn't require us to actually view it to know that it's filled with factual inaccuracies." At least they're consistent. They never needed to see a single weapon of mass destruction before sending our kids off to die.

Many news shows were more than eager to buy the White House spin. After all, that is a big part of what "Fahrenheit" is about -- how the lazy, compliant media bought all the lies from the Bush administration about the need to invade Iraq. They took the Kool-Aid offered by the White House and rarely, if ever, did our media ask the hard questions that needed to be asked before the war started.

Because the movie "outs" the mainstream media for their failures and their complicity with the Bush administration -- who can ever forget their incessant, embarrassing cheerleading as the troops went off to war, as though it was all just a game -- the media was not about to let me get away with anything now resembling a cultural phenomenon. On show after show, they went after me with the kind of viciousness you would have hoped they had had for those who were lying about the necessity for invading a sovereign nation that was no threat to us. I don't blame our well-paid celebrity journalists -- they look like a bunch of ass-kissing dopes in my movie, and I guess I'd be pretty mad at me, too. After all, once the NASCAR fans see "Fahrenheit 9/11," will they ever believe a single thing they see on ABC/NBC/CBS news again?

In the next week or so, I will recount my adventures through the media this past month (I will also be posting a full FAQ on my website soon so that you can have all the necessary backup and evidence from the film when you find yourself in heated debate with your conservative brother-in-law!). For now, please know the following: Every single fact I state in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the absolute and irrefutable truth. This movie is perhaps the most thoroughly researched and vetted documentary of our time. No fewer than a dozen people, including three teams of lawyers and the venerable one-time fact-checkers from The New Yorker went through this movie with a fine-tooth comb so that we can make this guarantee to you. Do not let anyone say this or that isn't true. If they say that, they are lying. Let them know that the OPINIONS in the film are mine, and anyone certainly has a right to disagree with them. And the questions I pose in the movie, based on these irrefutable facts, are also mine. And I have a right to ask them. And I will continue to ask them until they are answered.

In closing, let me say that the most heartening response to the film has come from our soldiers and their families. Theaters in military towns across the country reported packed houses. Our troops know the truth. They have seen it first-hand. And many of them could not believe that here was a movie that was TRULY on their side -- the side of bringing them home alive and never sending them into harms way again unless it's the absolute last resort. Please take a moment to read this wonderful story from the daily paper in Fayetteville, NC, where Fort Bragg is located. It broke my heart to read this, the reactions of military families and the comments of an infantryman's wife publicly backing my movie -- and it gave me the resolve to make sure as many Americans as possible see this film in the coming weeks.

Thank you again, all of you, for your support. Together we did something for the history books. My apologies to "Return of the Jedi." We'll make it up by producing "Return of the Texan to Crawford" in November.

May the farce be with you, but not for long,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com

P.S. You can read letters from people around the country recounting their own experiences at the theater, and their reactions to the film by going here.

P.P.S. Also, I'm going to start blogging! Tonight! Come on over and check it out.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

I saw it last night. It was playing at a multi-plex in the small town where my parents live (a small town in North Ontario). The audience was mostly young people (teens to early 20's).

The one thing I remember is the parents of a soldier killed in Iraq received his last pay check. He was docked 5 days pay for being dead.

Charlie (it was an ugly documentary about ugly people) Monoxide

 

[Skeptic]

A man in San Francisco took his shoe off and threw it at the screen when Bush appeared at the end.

Damn. So close, and yet so far... if only he had thrown a "heavy newspeak dictionary" at the screen! Moore then would have achieve the high-water mark of succesful propaganda, the one used against Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984's The Two Minutes of Hate:

In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. ... The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out 'Swine! Swine! Swine!' and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein's nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably.

Think about this, people. Moore is actually bragging that his movie is causing the same sort of reactions about Bush as the crowd in "1984" had to Emmanuel Goldstein, the enemy of the people. Read the link I posted, and compare the crowd's reaction there to the reaction Moore claims it had. The similarities are more than disturbing.

(But of course there's a huge difference: Moore is telling us THE AWFUL TRUTH about the EVIL CONSPIRACY of the AWFUL PEOPLE he disagrees with politically, while the "two minutes of hate" film is merely propaganda that just FALSELY CLAIMS to tell the viewers the AWFUL TRUTH about te EVIL CONSPIRACY of the AWFUL PEOPLE Big Brother disagrees with politically. As I said, totally different. Must be my paranoia, seeing any similarity at all here. What am I thinking?)

Sorry, Mikey "Big Brother" Moore; if I had any doubt before that you are nothing but a propagandist, you yourself erased them in your latest rant.

P.S.

Is it just me, or does Moore's latest rant have a very eerie similarity to the way movie reviews used to be written in Stalinist Russia? Both telling us "the truth" about the how the latest "anti-capitalist" film is wonderfully well despite nefarious imperialist plots to impede its screenings; how even viewers who originally were a bit pro-capitalist came out shocked and full of hate of the imperialist opressors; how the film is causing panic in the strongholds of plutocratic capitalism like the White House; and so on and so forth?

Moore's language is so "Stalinist" in tone, it is downight scary.

 

[MacGuffin]

Moore's language is so "Stalinist" in tone, it is downight scary.

I HOLD IN MY HAND A LIST OF 205 KNOWN COMMUNISTS!

When all else fails, call your enemy a Commie, it has always seemed to work in the past.

I again commend Michael Moore on his great pro-America film and to keep up the good work.

Share and Enjoy - Aaron

 

[Blue Monk]

A man in San Francisco took his shoe off and threw it at the screen when Bush appeared at the end.

Damn. So close, and yet so far... if only he had thrown a "heavy newspeak dictionary" at the screen! Moore then would have achieve the high-water mark of succesful propaganda, the one used against Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984's The Two Minutes of Hate:



Think about this, people. Moore is actually bragging that his movie is causing the same sort of reactions about Bush as the crowd in "1984" had to Emmanuel Goldstein, the enemy of the people. Read the link I posted, and compare the crowd's reaction there to the reaction Moore claims it had. The similarities are more than disturbing.

(But of course there's a huge difference: Moore is telling us THE AWFUL TRUTH about the EVIL CONSPIRACY of the AWFUL PEOPLE he disagrees with politically, while the "two minutes of hate" film is merely propaganda that just FALSELY CLAIMS to tell the viewers the AWFUL TRUTH about te EVIL CONSPIRACY of the AWFUL PEOPLE Big Brother disagrees with politically. As I said, totally different. Must be my paranoia, seeing any similarity at all here. What am I thinking?)

Sorry, Mikey "Big Brother" Moore; if I had any doubt before that you are nothing but a propagandist, you yourself erased them in your latest rant.

P.S.

Is it just me, or does Moore's latest rant have a very eerie similarity to the way movie reviews used to be written in Stalinist Russia? Both telling us "the truth" about the how the latest "anti-capitalist" film is wonderfully well despite nefarious imperialist plots to impede its screenings; how even viewers who originally were a bit pro-capitalist came out shocked and full of hate of the imperialist opressors; how the film is causing panic in the strongholds of plutocratic capitalism like the White House; and so on and so forth?

Moore's language is so "Stalinist" in tone, it is downight scary.

Wow, a whole rant complete with eloquent comparasions to 1984 yet otherwise devoid of content.

 

[Skeptic]

Wow, a whole rant complete with eloquent comparasions to 1984 yet otherwise devoid of content.

You missed the point, I take it.

 

[Frostbite]

I still don't get why Moore is labeled a communist or a leftist. He certainly isn't against freedom of speech, capitalism or whatever it is America stands for. I find him to be extremely patriotic in fact, so much so that he's invested much efforts in fixing what he thinks is wrong in his country, mainly a high crimerate and corrupt politicians.

 

[thatguywhojuggles]

from: http://www.sundayherald.com/43167

Controversial film-maker Michael Moore has welcomed the appearance on the internet of pirated copies of his anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 and claimed he is happy for anybody to download it free of charge.
The activist, author and director told the Sunday Herald that, as long as pirated copies of his film were not being sold, he had no problem with it being downloaded.

“I don’t agree with the copyright laws and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they’re not trying to make a profit off my labour. I would oppose that,” he said.

“I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I’m happy this is happening.”

...

Moore said: “Is it wrong for someone who’s bought a film on DVD to let a friend watch it for free? Of course it’s not. It never has been and never will be. I think information, art and ideas should be shared.”

Defenders of Moore’s position include Pulp Fiction director Quentin Tarantino, who earlier this year encouraged audiences in countries where his films are not legally available to obtain counterfeit copies.

 

[Jocko]

Moore said: “Is it wrong for someone who’s bought a film on DVD to let a friend watch it for free? Of course it’s not. It never has been and never will be. I think information, art and ideas should be shared.”

And then he wonders why he has so much trouble landing a distibutor. I mean, who wouldn't want to pay to issue a film whose creator actively encourages people to undercut the distributor's profits, right?

But of course he'll dress it in freedom of speech now (because he doesn't agree with copyright law) and then as censorship later (when no one wants to pick up a film whose maker encourages piracy).

What a hypocrite.

 

[rikzilla]

A man in San Francisco took his shoe off and threw it at the screen when Bush appeared at the end.

Damn. So close, and yet so far... if only he had thrown a "heavy newspeak dictionary" at the screen! Moore then would have achieve the high-water mark of succesful propaganda, the one used against Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984's The Two Minutes of Hate:



Think about this, people. Moore is actually bragging that his movie is causing the same sort of reactions about Bush as the crowd in "1984" had to Emmanuel Goldstein, the enemy of the people. Read the link I posted, and compare the crowd's reaction there to the reaction Moore claims it had. The similarities are more than disturbing.

(But of course there's a huge difference: Moore is telling us THE AWFUL TRUTH about the EVIL CONSPIRACY of the AWFUL PEOPLE he disagrees with politically, while the "two minutes of hate" film is merely propaganda that just FALSELY CLAIMS to tell the viewers the AWFUL TRUTH about te EVIL CONSPIRACY of the AWFUL PEOPLE Big Brother disagrees with politically. As I said, totally different. Must be my paranoia, seeing any similarity at all here. What am I thinking?)

Sorry, Mikey "Big Brother" Moore; if I had any doubt before that you are nothing but a propagandist, you yourself erased them in your latest rant.

P.S.

Is it just me, or does Moore's latest rant have a very eerie similarity to the way movie reviews used to be written in Stalinist Russia? Both telling us "the truth" about the how the latest "anti-capitalist" film is wonderfully well despite nefarious imperialist plots to impede its screenings; how even viewers who originally were a bit pro-capitalist came out shocked and full of hate of the imperialist opressors; how the film is causing panic in the strongholds of plutocratic capitalism like the White House; and so on and so forth?

Moore's language is so "Stalinist" in tone, it is downight scary.

Wow! From Moore's rant:

In Trumbull, CT, one woman got up on her seat after the movie and shouted "Let's go have a meeting!" A man in San Francisco took his shoe off and threw it at the screen when Bush appeared at the end. Ladies' church groups in Tulsa were going to see it, and weeping afterwards.

From 1984:

Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room.

The similarity is stunning.

-z

 

[gethane]

Wait, let me get this straight. He's a hypocrite for saying that he doesn't believe in copyright laws, and then later saying (paraphrase) "Go ahead and download my movie. I want you to see it. I don't believe in the copyright laws." Apparently he wouldn't be a hypocrite to say he doesn't believe in copyright but DON'T download the movie and if you do I'm going to sue you?

Wow some people just forbid themselves from seeing ANYTHING MM does as positive.

edited for spelling errors

 

[crimresearch]

It would seem he is a hypocrite because he claims to be against the copyright laws *unless* they interfere with his profits.

The implication that he is striking a blow for freedom because he opposes copyright laws which prevent people who have paid for a copy from sharing it for free with a friend is a strawman, because the copyright laws prohibit selling copies, not sharing for free.

So Moore is actually in favor of the copyright laws, and has created a non-existent controversy to sell more copies...just as he did with his fraudulent censorship claims.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I don’t agree with the copyright laws and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they’re not trying to make a profit off my labour. I would oppose that,” he said."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[gnome]

The similarity is stunning.

Except for the mandatory attendance bit. And the part where they started screaming and throwing things regardless of the content.

 

[gethane]

It would seem he is a hypocrite because he claims to be against the copyright laws *unless* they interfere with his profits.

Uh, except wouldn't logic tell you that if someone downloads it for free, he's not going to pay to see it in the theater, therefore interfering with his profits. However, if you truly believe that MM is in this for the money, I want some of your drugs, they must be good stuff. There is NO evidence that this is true.

The implication that he is striking a blow for freedom because he opposes copyright laws which prevent people who have paid for a copy from sharing it for free with a friend is a strawman, because the copyright laws prohibit selling copies, not sharing for free.

Have you followed the whole MP3 thing at all? Illegal downloads of music? Or is that just under your radar?

So Moore is actually in favor of the copyright laws, and has created a non-existent controversy to sell more copies...just as he did with his fraudulent censorship claims.

The original intent of the copyright law was to allow artists to make a living wage selling their work. After a short term of time, those works would then become "owned" by the public for the common good, so other artists could build or expand on that work. That law has been totally bastardized by corporations to make obscene amounts of money, totally outside the orginal intent of that law. Sounds to me like MM feels like he's made his "living wage" and is eager for his works to enter the public for the common good. Sounds just about exactly as the ORIGINAL INTENT of copyright was. Not how it is now. Many people, including myself, don't object to the original, constitutional intent of copyright. Just the bastardized, paid for byy corporations, revision of it. Perhaps MM is included in this. I haven't seen a statement by him, one way or another, on his feelings on the original intent of copyright.

However, I'm sure I'm wasting my time with this. Anyone who so fervently wants to belive bad things about MM isn't going to let any argument sway his/her opinion.

 

[Suddenly]

The similarity is stunning.

"Similarity?"



In 1984, people exhibited a strong emotional reaction, because the government vaporized the ones that did not.

After Moore's movie, people exhibited a strong emotional reaction, because the government would vaporize the ones that did not.

When the Pistons won the NBA title, people exhibited a strong emotional reaction because...

Then again, the idea of the right criticizing anything for appealing to emotion rather than reason is pretty absurd and really doesn't need deconstruction. Wonder if anyone ever threw a copy of an Ann Coultier book at a FOX news broadcast, or a computer with a newsmax story on it, or better yet that morining infomercial I saw a few years ago where some guy in a suit explained that the ACLU and other liberals suffer from what he called "normalphobia."

This whole comparison may be the silliest argument I have seen in quite some time, and I get a lot of mail from people who spend all day in prison law libraries.

Emotional reaction to something by people = that something is sinister

or is it

Right wing political embarassment = start accusing the left of being commies/facists/loons to distract/downplay the embarassment

 

[crimresearch]

"However, I'm sure I'm wasting my time with this. Anyone who so fervently wants to belive bad things about MM isn't going to let any argument sway his/her opinion."

You are definitely wasting your time with such silly trolling antics.

You asked a question, and I replied with a supposition as to how others might find Moore's insistence on supporting the copyright laws as long as *he* got paid to be hypocritical.

For you to go from that to a bunch of ludicrous assertions about what *I* think of Moore reveals you to be a gullible idiot. Consider yourself to have publicly failed the first test for being taken seriously on a sceptic's forum.

Not that you won't have plenty of other superstitious boobs to keep you company in your illiterate babbling, its just that you won't be able to play your silly games here after Wednesday.

 

[Jocko]

Wait, let me get this straight. He's a hypocrite for saying that he doesn't believe in copyright laws, and then later saying (paraphrase) "Go ahead and download my movie. I want you to see it. I don't believe in the copyright laws." Apparently he wouldn't be a hypocrite to say he doesn't believe in copyright but DON'T download the movie and if you do I'm going to sue you?

Wow some people just forbid themselves from seeing ANYTHING MM does as positive.

edited for spelling errors

You utterly and completely missed the point.

He had problems securing a distributor. He made great noises about censorship, even though there was nothing unsavory (or even surprising) when Disney declined to handle it (which had even been reported almost a year ago).


Suppose you decide to distribute the film. That costs a lot of money, and you expect to make a profit on the attendance. Now the guy who SOLD you the film encourages people to steal it instead of buying it from you.

Wouldn't you be just a tad pissed off about that? More to the point, can you imagine that Moore's next film will also have problems getting distributed because no one wants to get screwed by the filmmaker?

The point is that Moore is ripping off the people who put up for his film to go into theaters. When it comes back to bite him, I guarantee it will be another bullsh*t censorship argument again.

That qualifies as hypocrisy, just as his go-around with Disney was hypocrisy.

 

[Jocko]

However, if you truly believe that MM is in this for the money, I want some of your drugs, they must be good stuff. There is NO evidence that this is true.

Of course he's not in it for the money. He's in for the publicity. And he has no problem lying and misrepresnting the facts to get that publicity.

I'm not talking about his movies, I'm talking about Moore himself.

The distributor is in it for the money, and Moore has actively undercut its profit potential on the film. He has no right to do that.

 

[gethane]

Hmm, interestingly enough. Profit from the movie didn't seem to be in doubt. And it appears that the movie has already mad 60 million or so in the theaters, and cost, IIRC about $6 million. So yes, I'm so sure that profit was the number one reason Disney didn't want to distribute.

Please.

 

[gethane]

"However, I'm sure I'm wasting my time with this. Anyone who so fervently wants to belive bad things about MM isn't going to let any argument sway his/her opinion."

You are definitely wasting your time with such silly trolling antics.

You asked a question, and I replied with a supposition as to how others might find Moore's insistence on supporting the copyright laws as long as *he* got paid to be hypocritical.

For you to go from that to a bunch of ludicrous assertions about what *I* think of Moore reveals you to be a gullible idiot. Consider yourself to have publicly failed the first test for being taken seriously on a sceptic's forum.

Not that you won't have plenty of other superstitious boobs to keep you company in your illiterate babbling, its just that you won't be able to play your silly games here after Wednesday.

Thanks for the personal attack, rather than addressing any of the points I've made! Easy to see why I don't bother posting much here. Surely calling me a gullible idiot does qualify as a personal attack? Or a superstitious boob? Or are personal attacks allowed here and I just didn't understand that.