marcosolo, 10. Oktober 2003 um 19:35:35 MESZ

Thanks, from Michael Moore, on Saddam Statue Toppling Day

October 9, 2003

As I head out on my book tour this morning, I just wanted to drop you a note of thanks for making my new book #1 on Amazon.com, a place it's held now for the past week.

By now, most of you have probably seen the "Dude, Where's My Country?" cover of the Bush statue being toppled. Today is the 6-month anniversary of the Baghdad photo-op where the Saddam statue came a tumblin' down ("We won! We won! We...um...what did we do? Right! WE WON!"). We thought we'd celebrate by taking out a full page ad in today's New York Times -- of us toppling Bush! It doubles as a great poster that you can just rip out of the paper and hang on your wall. If you live anywhere near a New York Times box, pick up a copy today (Oct. 9 -- it's on the back page of the Arts section). If not, you can download here.

Well, I'm off to Boston on the first leg of a 35-city tour. Hope you can come see me if you have the time ( click here to see the tour schedule). I'll be keeping a tour diary on my web site, and I'll be adding new stuff to the site every couple days.

In the meantime, don't be depressed about Arnold. The people are pissed off and they have every right to be. They are in a "removal" mood. That is a good thing. As soon as we do our work to inform our friends and neighbors how Bush has wrecked the country, the economy and our standing in the world, they will be more than ready for "Terminator IV: Hasta La Vista Bush." And, please, let this be the end of wimpy, wishy-washy Democrats like Gray Davis who are really Republicans. The American public hates b.s. and hates fakes. We -- you -- need to think about getting people to run for office who STAND for something. Time is running out.

See you on the road!

Michael Moore

www.michaelmoore.com

 

... Link

marcosolo, 4. Oktober 2003 um 21:36:26 MESZ

Michael Moore's New Book, "Dude Where's My Country?" Hits the Streets This Tuesday

I have written a new book, and this Tuesday it's being released. It's called, "DUDE, WHERE'S MY COUNTRY?" Because its content is likely to upset more than a few people, the publisher has "embargoed" the book until midnight Monday (which means no store or media outlet or anyone has access to a copy of the book until then).

They have taken these measures because I have written a book that seeks not to defeat the Bush people next year, but to have them removed from Washington right now. I know, I'm not asking for much. But I have spent the better part of the past year researching and writing this new book, and when you read it you'll see why the current criminal investigation of the White House for outing a CIA agent in revenge is, in my opinion, just the tip of the iceberg. I can only hope that my book will make a small contribution toward that day when we'll see one long perp walk of administration officials in handcuffs being led out of the White House and into a waiting paddy wagon. Like I said, I'm not asking for much.

"Dude, Where's My Country?" is also my humble attempt to violate the Patriot Act on every single page of the book. And, I have learned that many want to get on John Ashcroft's evildoer list with me. There are already a record number of orders from bookstores across the country. The first printing alone is almost one million copies (my last book's first printing was 50,000). Chapters include "Oil's Well That Ends Well," "The United States of BOO!", "How to Talk to Your Conservative Brother-in-law," and more. (Click here to see the cover that will win me a free ticket to Gitmo)

If you get the New York Times, you may have noticed a mysterious ad for the past four days in the Arts section. Each day, the ad simply asks a new, pointed question of Mr. Bush. They are questions from my new book, from a chapter entitled, "Seven Questions for George of Arabia." We are running one ad each day until the book comes out on Tuesday. In case you've missed them, here are the first four:

Dear Mr. Bush, is it true that the bin Ladens have had business relations with you and your family off and on for the past 25 years? Dear "Mr. President," what is the "special relationship" between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family? Dear "Mr. President," who attacked the United States on September 11th—a guy on dialysis from a cave in Afghanistan, or our friends, the Saudi Arabians? Dear "Mr. President," why did you allow a private Saudi jet to fly around the U.S. in the days after September 11th and pick up members of the bin Laden family and then fly them out of the country without a proper investigation by the FBI? In my book, I provide some of the answers and all of the background evidence. It is astounding, and it is criminal. Will there be one Democrat in Congress willing to begin the investigation?

 

... Link

marcosolo, 4. Oktober 2003 um 21:29:13 MESZ

A man on a message

Sean Clarke Friday October 3, 2003

If anyone ever set out to prove that the medium wasn't the message, it's Michael Moore. With Moore, the message is the message, and the medium is neither here nor there. He believes there's something fundamentally wrong with the way America is run (and that the rot spreads) and he's prepared to use any means necessary to tell you. As a writer, he's got a bestseller under his belt in Stupid White Men. As a film director, he has an Oscar for his documentary Bowling for Columbine. As a stand-up he recently performed a well-received six-month one-man show in London's Roundhouse. In fact, if you had to choose one word to describe him, the most satisfactory would probably be satirist - comedian seems too toothless, campaigner too earnest. Think Jeremy Hardy with a beer belly, or Bill Bryson with balls.

Moore, now 49, first came to the British attention with his 1989 film Roger and Me, a guerrilla documentary about the decision by General Motors to close their plant in Moore's home town of Flint, Michigan. In it he developed the door-knocking, give-them-enough-rope style of documentary-making that would prove so successful in Bowling for Columbine.

Roger and Me also showcased Moore's credentials as a working class US leftist, a breed we in Britain are sometimes inclined to assume doesn't exist. His brash, uncompromising stance can make middle class liberals uncomfortable, but Moore dismisses them as "police for the right", and vaunts the grass roots labour movement of his home town.

His abrasive style also keeps him on difficult terms with publishers - in any medium he works in. His award winning satirical show TV Nation lasted one season on US network ABC before being dropped and picked up by rivals Fox, who again managed to endure the discomfort for exactly one season. In the end, he gave up on US networks and got Channel 4 to back his new effort, The Awful Truth, which at least managed two seasons.

But it was his book Stupid White Men which really made - and very nearly sunk - Moore's reputation. The book, a hugely energetic rant on the evils of the Bush-Rumsfeld administration, calling Dubya the "Thief-in-chief" and demanding that the US marines evict him from the White House, was nearly pulled by its publishers when Al-Qaida attacked New York and Washington shortly before its planned publication.

Moore says the publishers then wanted to pulp the entire print run, and asked him for a substantial rewrite to fit the new mood in America, without which he should surrender half his advance. He refused, and after a six month stand-off, they backed down and released the book. Which, of course, went straight to number one.

Without a doubt, Moore has his critics. Some pick holes in the detail of his arguments, for instance with the starting premise of his film Bowling for Columbine, that the teenagers who went on a killing spree at their high school in April 1999 had been bowling the same morning. It seems that this was an early police report later contradicted, but it's hard to see how this dents Moore's central proposition that America's preoccupation with guns is unhealthy and fuels a broader acceptance of violence which informs its foreign policy.

Others prefer the feet of clay approach, reporting, for instance, that on his last night at the Roundhouse he threw a diva's temper tantrum, shouting at stage hands, keeping the audience waiting, and leaving without saying goodbye. The other side to the story goes that Moore received death threats while in Britain, a situation which understandably made him a little fractious, and that he fulsomely thanked Roundhouse staff at the end of his final show.

Moore himself tends to laugh these criticisms off. He tells the story of a British reporter who questioned whether Moore's plan to rebaptise all the Protestants in Northern Ireland as Catholic was really the best way to end the province's troubles, before quietly (but not perhaps accurately) suggesting that it was the British who invented satire. The implication being that maybe we might not always take him so literally.

If anything has earned him the enmity of America's rightwing establishment - something Moore would surely welcome - it was his not unexpected, but rewardingly spectacular outburst at last year's Oscar ceremony. With the war in Iraq only just started, and Hollywood consensus demanding a low-key night, expectation was high that some of the Tinseltown residents with known opposition to the administration might use the podium as a soapbox. In the event, decorum reigned all night. Until Moore took the mike.

Flanked by his fellow nominees, and brandishing his best documentary Oscar as though he meant to knock some leftist sense into celebrity heads, he used his full 45 seconds and more on a breathless denunciation of George Bush and those around him, stopping only when he could no longer be heard over the band which struck up to silence him. "We live in fictitious times," he said. "We live in a time where we have fictitious election results that elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons."

His new book continues where that speech left off. Unsurprisingly, Moore hasn't mellowed since then, and nor has he come round to Dubya's way of thinking, and he aims to use his share of Bush's infamous tax cuts to campaign against the Texan's re-election. Just don't expect him to pull any punches.

 

... Link