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Smash the
state
>>
Michael Moore keeps fighting the right with
surprise best-seller Stupid White Men
by JULIET WATERS
 On the cover
of Stupid White Men... and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the
Nation, Michael Moore, best known for his documentary Roger & Me,
stands menacingly over a bunch of suits in a boardroom, wielding a blunt
object, obviously a miniature of the Pentagon. Inside, there’s
a heartfelt message of hatred towards George W. Bush, as well as chapter
entitled “Kill Whitey.” Near the end of the book, Moore proposes
a prayer, asking God to smite rich, comfortable Americans with terrible
tragedies.
Written before September 11 and initially scheduled to be released on
October 2, Stupid White Men ran into obvious problems. But when Moore’s
publisher asked him to rewrite roughly 50 per cent of the book, tone
down the criticism of Bush, or at least admit Bush was now doing a better
job, then pay $100,000 in advance royalties to offset the cost of the
first printing, Moore was outraged. It took an e-mail campaign orchestrated
by members of the American Library Association to get the book back
on the shelves, unchanged from the original.
Released two weeks ago, Stupid White Men is already in its ninth printing.
It hit number one on Amazon.com’s Top Seller list, number two on
the New York Times Best-Seller list and number four on the Wall Street
Journal’s list. Given Bush’s 80 per cent approval record,
it’s hard to believe that a book calling for a popular coup to
bring down the government is doing this well. There must be a lot of
anger and distrust simmering in the melting pot right now that isn’t
being reported.
The tone of the book is weirdly prescient, even in chapters like “Kill
Whitey,” which have nothing to do with terrorism. Moore argues
that all the pain he’s ever experienced has been at the hands of
fellow whites. “I have never been attacked by a black person, never
been evicted by a black person... never been puked on by a black teenager
at a Mötley Crüe concert... never had a black person deny
me a loan… and never heard a black person say we’re going
to eliminate 10,000 jobs here—have a nice day.” Moore’s
statement, that white men have started every war America has ever been
in, may not be entirely accurate anymore. Still, by the time next September
11 rolls around and the victims of Enron, the families kicked off welfare
for life as a result of welfare “reform” and the civilian
casualties in the “axis of evil” have been counted, there
will be many more people whose lives have been devastated by stupid
white men than by terrorists.
Moore has always succeeded by keeping his left wing satire anti-intellectual
as well as anti-corporate. He’s not much softer on Democrats than
he is on Republicans. This book is as much a manifesto for a radical
third party as it is a broad satire of current American politics. It’s
much more fun to read than most contemporary critiques and significantly
better than most at offering solutions. Some are over the top (“Hire
only black people”), some practical (“Contact your representative
at least once a week and get three friends to do the same” or,
“take over you local Democratic Party).
But despite the tone of imminent apocalypse, Moore is ever the optimist.
He believes very strongly in the power of the individual. Why not? This
is someone who at age 18 got elected to the school board on the promise
that he would fire the principal and assistant principal of his high
school. He won and they resigned soon after. He seems bent on repeating
this mission with Bush and Cheney and, however close he comes to accomplishing
his goal, the campaign should be fun to watch. :
Stupid White
Men by Michael Moore, Regan Books, hc, 277pp, $37.95
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