"And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much. "

Yeah, the Dixie Chicks, who pulled a 180 when they realized their politics was hitting them in the pocketbook. So much for standing up for what you believe in.

The funny thing is, the reaction to Michael Moore is directed at him being a liberal and democrat, but even he denounces them (Stupid White Men - Democrats, DOA) for their habitual cave-in's to the right and overall lack of focus as a party. No, if you really want the source on the hatred, you have to look at a paper like the Wall Street Journal and ask, what does it have to lose by showing any sort of support for Bowling for Columbine? Well, the first reaction would be subscribers, some jack-off in the Lockheed Martin head quarters might see his company's name being dragged through the mud in a huge publication, but in all honestly subscriptions don't drive print media revenue - it's the advertising. The biggest corporations all advertise in the biggest newspapers - WSJ, New York Times, Washington Post, etc. etc. If all of sudden, the WSJ starts showing favor to a pro-labor, pro-American worker, anti-multinational corporation bashing political activist, I guarantee shit would be hitting the fan in a matter of minutes after the paper hit the street. The fact is, the mainstream media (which is basically comprised of four conglomerates) either berates or ignores people like Michael Moore because he represents everything they've abandoned - the idea that the media is a watchdog, and not a mouth piece for the government and corporate America.

A perfect example of this is the Viet Nam War and the NY Times. A study was done examining every piece the NY Times wrote during the Viet Nam War to see, as stated by media and military pundits over and over, that the liberal American media cost us support at home and ultimately the war. The study showed the criticism leveled by the NY Times was never of an "anti-war" slant as suggested, but that it was more along the lines of, "we're not fighting hard enough." Not one single piece questioned our motives or reasons for being there, it was just accepted we were gonna be there. Never mind the fact that we were using B-52's to specifically wipe out civilian populations, THAT wasn't news worthy at the time. The media, like today with Iraq, is simply along for the ride, happy to be there with the scoop, because ratings matter, even in war time.

Ultimately, the people who criticize this stuff simply do not want the populace educated as to the backdoor bullshit that goes on everday. Thanks to people like Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky (who a lot of this is diatribe is paraphrased from), we can be a little better informed and at least make a somewhat intelligent decision about what and how we think as Americans.

My question is, what did those people at the Academy Awards think was going to happen? They applauded when he won, for a movie with very strong viewpoints. Did they honestly think he was just going to walk up to the podium, say "Thank you," and then walk away? There's no way in hell that Michael Moore wouldn't use that as a political platform. So you've got audience members politely applauding because god forbid Access Hollywood gets a shot of them frowning, and then he launches into his speech and then people are all like, "Well, now god forbid Access Hollywood gets a shot of me supporting this guy."

Jesus. It's called the First Amendment people. Let the man speak.

i dunno. I guess I kind of thought everyone knew it was all editorial opinion.

I have always found this to be an extremely telling quote by the current "administration:"

KARL ROVE, Bush's long-time political guru and White House advisor:
"As people do better, they start voting like Republicans...
...unless they have too much education and vote Democratic,
which proves there can be too much of a good thing."

Sheeeeesh, you guys! I'm afraid I'm gonna have to see some works cited pages from you boys. Are these your own words? You know I'm only kidding cuz I'm impressed w/your well thought out, clear opinions.

I am, however, going to pull my advertising from the next TS5 CD.

War. What is it good for?

Los Angeles Times Op-Ed


I'd Like to Thank the Vatican...

By Michael Moore
March 27, 2003

A word of advice to future Oscar winners: Don't begin Oscar day by going to church.

That is where I found myself this past Sunday morning, at the Church of the Good Shepherd on Santa Monica Boulevard, at Mass with my sister and my dad. My problem with the Catholic Mass is that sometimes I find my mind wandering after I hear something the priest says, and I start thinking all these crazy thoughts like how it is wrong to kill people and that you are not allowed to use violence upon another human being unless it is in true self-defense.

The pope even came right out and said it: This war in Iraq is not a just war and, thus, it is a sin.

Those thoughts were with me the rest of the day, from the moment I left the church and passed by the homeless begging for change (one in six American children living in poverty is another form of violence), to the streets around the Kodak Theater where antiwar protesters were being arrested as I drove by in my studio-sponsored limo.

I had not planned on winning an Academy Award for "Bowling for Columbine" (no documentary that was a big box-office success had won since "Woodstock"), and so I had no speech prepared. I'm not much of a speech-preparer anyway, and besides, I had already received awards in the days leading up to the Oscars and used the same acceptance remarks. I spoke of the need for nonfiction films when we live in such fictitious times. We have a fictitious president who was elected with fictitious election results. (If you still believe that 3,000 elderly Jewish Americans -- many of them Holocaust survivors -- voted for Pat Buchanan in West Palm Beach in 2000, then you are a true devotee to the beauty of fiction!) He is now conducting a war for a fictitious reason (the claim that Saddam Hussein has stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction when in fact we are there to get the world's second-largest supply of oil).

Whether it is a tax cut that is passed off as a gift to the middle class or a desire to drill holes in the wilds of Alaska, we are continually bombarded with one fictitious story after another from the Bush White House. And that is why it is important that filmmakers make nonfiction, so that all the little lies can be exposed and the public informed. An uninformed public in a democracy is a sure-fire way to end up with little or no democracy at all.

That is what I have been saying for some time. Millions of Americans seem to agree. My book "Stupid White Men" still sits at No. 1 on the bestseller list (it's been on that list now for 53 weeks and is the largest-selling nonfiction book of the year). "Bowling for Columbine" has broken all box-office records for a documentary. My Web site is now getting up to 20 million hits a day (more than the White House's site). My opinions about the state of the nation are neither unknown nor on the fringe, but rather they exist with mainstream majority opinion. The majority of Americans, according to polls, want stronger environmental laws, support Roe vs. Wade and did not want to go into this war without the backing of the United Nations and all of our allies.

That is where the country is at. It's liberal, it's for peace and it is only tacitly in support of its leader because that is what you are supposed to do when you are at war and you want your kids to come back from Iraq alive.

In the commercial break before the best documentary Oscar was to be announced, I suddenly thought that maybe this community of film people was also part of that American majority and just might have voted for my film, which, in part, takes on the Bush administration for manipulating the public with fear so it can conduct its acts of aggression against the Third World. I leaned over to my fellow nominees and told them that, should I win, I was going to say something about President Bush and the war and would they like to join me up on the stage? I told them that I felt like I'd already had my moment with the success of the film and that I would love for them to share the stage with me so they could have their moment too. (They had all made exceptional films and I wanted the public to see these filmmakers and hopefully go see their films.)

They all agreed.

Moments later, Diane Lane opened the envelope and announced the winner: "Bowling for Columbine." The entire main floor rose to its feet for a standing ovation. I was immeasurably moved and humbled as I motioned for the other nominees to join my wife (the film's producer) and me up on the stage.

I then said what I had been saying all week at those other awards ceremonies. I guess a few other people had heard me say those things too because before I had finished my first sentence about the fictitious president, a couple of men (some reported it was "stagehands" just to the left of me) near a microphone started some loud yelling. Then a group in the upper balcony joined in. What was so confusing to me, as I continued my remarks, was that I could hear this noise but looking out on the main floor, I didn't see a single person booing. But then the majority in the balcony -- who were in support of my remarks -- started booing the booers.

It all turned into one humungous cacophony of yells and cheers and jeers. And all I'm thinking is, "Hey, I put on a tux for this?"

I tried to get out my last line ("Any time you've got both the pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, you're not long for the White House") and the orchestra struck up its tune to end the melee. (A few orchestra members came up to me later and apologized, saying they had wanted to hear what I had to say.) I had gone 55 seconds, 10 more than allowed.

Was it appropriate? To me, the inappropriate thing would have been to say nothing at all or to thank my agent, my lawyer and the designer who dressed me -- Sears Roebuck. I made a movie about the American desire to use violence both at home and around the world. My remarks were in keeping with exactly what my film was about. If I had a movie about birds or insects, I would have talked about birds or insects. I made a movie about guns and Americans' tradition of using them against the world and each other.

And, as I walked up to the stage, I was still thinking about the lessons that morning at Mass. About how silence, when you observe wrongs being committed, is the same as committing those wrongs yourself. And so I followed my conscience and my heart.

On the way back home to Flint, Mich., the day after the Oscars, two flight attendants told me how they had gotten stuck overnight in Flint with no flight -- and wound up earning only $30 for the day because they are paid by the hour.

They said they were telling me this in the hope that I would tell others. Because they, and the millions like them, have no voice. They don't get to be commentators on cable news like the bevy of retired generals we've been watching all week. (Can we please demand that the U.S. military remove its troops from ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/MSNBC/Fox?) They don't get to make movies or talk to a billion people on Oscar night. They are the American majority who are being asked to send their sons and daughters over to Iraq to possibly die so Bush's buddies can have the oil.

Who will speak for them if I don't? That's what I do, or try to do, every day of my life, and March 23, 2003 -- though it was one of the greatest days of my life and an honor I will long cherish -- was no different.

Except I made the mistake of beginning it in a church.

From Chartattack.com

"BEN HARPER: MICHAEL MOORE IS MY HERO"

Though Ben Harper's music has always been infused with an insightful reflection — whether it's of a political or spiritual nature — he's reluctant to accept the idea that his work has a wider impact on the way listeners interpret and deal with current world events.

"I can't think of my music in social terms otherwise I'd probably be too intimidated to even make it," he says. "I just have to put a sincere emotion out there. By tuning into my own instinctual creativity, it tunes out a lot of what's going on so that it remains true and pure to me."

While the reflections tucked into his most recent album, Diamonds On The Inside, follow Harper's articulate, evocative style, there's something softer about them. Themes of racial oppression and environmental degradation have been replaced by the gentle vulnerability of one who's in love, the stirring hope of looking to a higher power and the elation of a man strengthened by his beliefs. Songs like "With My Own Two Hands" and "Picture Of Jesus" are unembarrassed hymns to the power of spirituality, and "When She Believes" is a sweet, tentative love song that you’d imagine hearing while sitting on the terrace of a Parisian cafe. The feeling is unmistakably uplifting and joyful, one that is not easily lost on those looking for solace and courage in the midst of terror alerts and shock and awe bombing campaigns. Nevertheless, Harper is uncomfortable placing his music in such a broad social context.

"I'm not sure what's worse: immodesty or false modesty," he says, laughing. "Forcing me to talk about how my music affects people in these times — what can I say? It has none or, oh my God, it has all the effect in the world? Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation."

Harper finds comfort in the hope that his music might make life a bit more livable for a handful of those who listen, just as the music he loves does for himself. He may be unsure about the place his music has in this time of conflict, but his voice is unfaltering as he airs his views on war.

"In Michigan, a woman's 20-year old son is shipped off and told he may spill his blood for our freedom. That's what they're being told. And that's the reason I believe in peace, because I don't want them to die," he says. "And I hate to think that in this country, in this day and age with all that we know and all that we've learned, I would hate to imagine that freedom is still synonymous with death. Let's face it, man, pigs aren't at war, dogs aren't at war, rats aren't at war... what in the world are we doing at war? I can't get with it."

While he attempts to keep such politics from poisoning his musical instincts, Harper's painfully aware of his surroundings.

"Every six months, as many people die by handguns as died in the World Trade towers. So we've got a 9-11 happening every six months here," he says.

The most obvious proponent of this theory is Michael Moore, last night's Oscar winner of best documentary for Bowling for Columbine.

"Michael Moore is my hero," Harper says. "And I hate to put that much pressure on the guy," he chuckles.

That's all right. After Moore's impassioned 'acceptance' speech last night at the Oscars, where he flat out refused to accept the fiction of the Bush administration's war in Iraq, Moore has most certainly become a hero for every anti-war peacenik out there, not just Ben Harper.

—Lauren Ferranti

Michael Moore's latest e-mail newsletter:

My Oscar "Backlash": "Stupid White Men" Back At #1, "Bowling" Breaks
New Records

April 7, 2003

Dear friends,

It appears that the Bush administration will have succeeded in
colonizing Iraq sometime in the next few days. This is a blunder of such
magnitude -- and we will pay for it for years to come. It was not worth the
life of one single American kid in uniform, let alone the thousands of
Iraqis who have died, and my condolences and prayers go out to all of
them.

So, where are all those weapons of mass destruction that were the
pretense for this war? Ha! There is so much to say about all this, but I
will save it for later.

What I am most concerned about right now is that all of you -- the
majority of Americans who did not support this war in the first place --
not go silent or be intimidated by what will be touted as some great
military victory. Now, more than ever, the voices of peace and truth must
be heard. I have received a lot of mail from people who are feeling a
profound sense of despair and believe that their voices have been drowned
out by the drums and bombs of false patriotism. Some are afraid of
retaliation at work or at school or in their neighborhoods because they
have been vocal proponents of peace. They have been told over and over
that it is not "appropriate" to protest once the country is at war, and
that your only duty now is to "support the troops."

Can I share with you what it's been like for me since I used my time on
the Oscar stage two weeks ago to speak out against Bush and this war? I
hope that, in reading what I'm about to tell you, you'll feel a bit
more emboldened to make your voice heard in whatever way or forum that is
open to you.

When "Bowling for Columbine" was announced as the Oscar winner for Best
Documentary at the Academy Awards, the audience rose to its feet. It
was a great moment, one that I will always cherish. They were standing
and cheering for a film that says we Americans are a uniquely violent
people, using our massive stash of guns to kill each other and to use them
against many countries around the world. They were applauding a film
that shows George W. Bush using fictitious fears to frighten the public
into giving him whatever he wants. And they were honoring a film that
states the following: The first Gulf War was an attempt to reinstall the
dictator of Kuwait; Saddam Hussein was armed with weapons from the
United States; and the American government is responsible for the deaths of
a half-million children in Iraq over the past decade through its
sanctions and bombing. That was the movie they were cheering, that was the
movie they voted for, and so I decided that is what I should ackno
wledge in my speech.

And, thus, I said the following from the Oscar stage:

"On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan (from
Canada), I would like to thank the Academy for this award. I have invited
the other Documentary nominees on stage with me. They are here in
solidarity because we like non-fiction. We like non-fiction because we live
in fictitious times. We live in a time where fictitious election
results give us a fictitious president. We are now fighting a war for
fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fiction of duct tape or the fictitious
'Orange Alerts,' we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr.
Bush, shame on you. And, whenever you've got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks
against you, you're time is up."

Halfway through my remarks, some in the audience started to cheer. That
immediately set off a group of people in the balcony who started to
boo. Then those supporting my remarks started to shout down the booers.
The L. A. Times reported that the director of the show started screaming
at the orchestra "Music! Music!" in order to cut me off, so the band
dutifully struck up a tune and my time was up. (For more on why I said
what I said, you can read the op-ed I wrote for the L.A. Times, plus
other reaction from around the country at my website http://www.michaelmoore.com)

The next day -- and in the two weeks since -- the right-wing pundits
and radio shock jocks have been calling for my head. So, has all this
ruckus hurt me? Have they succeeded in "silencing" me?

Well, take a look at my Oscar "backlash":

-- On the day after I criticized Bush and the war at the Academy
Awards, attendance at "Bowling for Columbine" in theaters around the country
went up 110% (source: Daily Variety/BoxOfficeMojo.com). The following
weekend, the box office gross was up a whopping 73% (Variety). It is now
the longest-running consecutive commercial release in America, 26 weeks
in a row and still thriving. The number of theaters showing the film
since the Oscars has INCREASED, and it has now bested the previous box
office record for a documentary by nearly 300%.

-- Yesterday (April 6), "Stupid White Men" shot back to #1 on the New
York Times bestseller list. This is my book's 50th week on the list, 8
of them at number one, and this marks its fourth return to the top
position, something that virtually never happens.

-- In the week after the Oscars, my website was getting 10-20 million
hits A DAY (one day we even got more hits than the White House!). The
mail has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive (and the hate mail
has been hilarious!).

-- In the two days following the Oscars, more people pre-ordered the
video for "Bowling for Columbine" on Amazon.com than the video for the
Oscar winner for Best Picture, "Chicago".

-- In the past week, I have obtained funding for my next documentary,
and I have been offered a slot back on television to do an updated
version of "TV Nation"/ "The Awful Truth."

I tell you all of this because I want to counteract a message that is
told to us all the time -- that, if you take a chance to speak out
politically, you will live to regret it. It will hurt you in some way,
usually financially. You could lose your job. Others may not hire you. You
will lose friends. And on and on and on.

Take the Dixie Chicks. I'm sure you've all heard by now that, because
their lead singer mentioned how she was ashamed that Bush was from her
home state of Texas, their record sales have "plummeted" and country
stations are boycotting their music. The truth is that their sales are NOT
down. This week, after all the attacks, their album is still at #1 on
the Billboard country charts and, according to Entertainment Weekly, on
the pop charts during all the brouhaha, they ROSE from #6 to #4. In the
New York Times, Frank Rich reports that he tried to find a ticket to
ANY of the Dixie Chicks' upcoming concerts but he couldn't because they
were all sold out. (To read Rich's column from yesterday's Times,
"Bowling for Kennebunkport," go here:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/articles/in ... 06-nytimes.
He does a pretty good job of laying it all out and talks about my next
film and the impact it could potentially have.) Their song, "Travelin'
Soldier" (a beautiful anti-war
ballad) was the most requested song on the internet last week. They
have not been hurt at all -- but that is not what the media would have
you believe. Why is that? Because there is nothing more important now
than to keep the voices of dissent -- and those who would dare to ask a
question -- SILENT. And what better way than to try and take a few
well-known entertainers down with a pack of lies so that the average Joe or
Jane gets the message loud and clear: "Wow, if they would do that to the
Dixie Chicks or Michael Moore, what would they do to little ol' me?" In
other words, shut the f--- up.

And that, my friends, is the real point of this film that I just got an
Oscar for -- how those in charge use FEAR to manipulate the public into
doing whatever they are told.

Well, the good news -- if there can be any good news this week -- is
that not only have neither I nor others been silenced, we have been
joined by millions of Americans who think the same way we do. Don't let the
false patriots intimidate you by setting the agenda or the terms of the
debate. Don't be defeated by polls that show 70% of the public in favor
of the war. Remember that these Americans being polled are the same
Americans whose kids (or neighbor's kids) have been sent over to Iraq.
They are scared for the troops and they are being cowed into supporting a
war they did not want -- and they want even less to see their friends,
family, and neighbors come home dead. Everyone supports the troops
returning home alive and all of us need to reach out and let their families
know that.

Unfortunately, Bush and Co. are not through yet. This invasion and
conquest will encourage them to do it again elsewhere. The real purpose of
this war was to say to the rest of the world, "Don't Mess with Texas -
If You Got What We Want, We're Coming to Get It!" This is not the time
for the majority of us who believe in a peaceful America to be quiet.
Make your voices heard. Despite what they have pulled off, it is still
our country.

Yours,

Michael Moore
http://www.michaelmoore.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mailing/unsubscribe.php