Moore on Opie & Anthony

Much thanks to reader Mike, who not only grabbed the audio but gave us an outline which you will find after the jump.

Audio file is a 12.5MB MP3.Get it here.

My personal highlights are Moore talking about the “me” versus “we” society and right/left coming together.  We know he’s not telling the truth about both of those concepts; we have it from his own lips.  Of course credit where it is due, it’s nice that he re-stated that I did thank him.  It helps tone down the crazy emails, and I’m grateful for that.

Mikey’s Motive

Hi gang.  Before I begin, let me preface this by saying that these are MY REMARKS and MY REMARKS alone.  They should not be assumed to be in line with or representative of anything that Jim might think.  Everyone got that?  Good.

As I have been sifting through the volumes of hate mail I have been receiving (mostly because Moore fans are too stupid to click the correct link) one point became abundantly clear.  As I read the newspaper articles about the incident with Jim and the $12 grand I saw the germination of this meme, and the current press and hate mail prove it.  There are a few variations on this meme but they all tend to follow a general pattern.

1) Michael Moore saved Jim’s wife’s life.
2) Michael Moore paid Jim’s wife’s medical bills.
3) The website was in danger of closing, and Moore paid to keep it up.
4) Jim has not thanked Moore.

This, my friends, is why Moore ponied up the $12k.  It had nothing to do with altruism or a sincere desire to help his fellow man.  Moore, being a narcissistic sociopath, doesn’t do anything unless there is some benefit to doing so.  Here’s the benefit.  The world now largely thinks that Moore not only saved the life of a guy who hates him, but he also gave money so the website could stay up.  It’s all complete bullshit, of course, but that’s beside the point.  The average person thinks this about Moore, and you can’t buy publicity like that. 

Well, actually you can.  For giving $12k to a guy who needed it to pay bills, then telling everyone about what a great guy you are for doing so.

Let me just say this, too.  At the time we were having our server donation drive we had multiple large donations from famous people, including a television producer.  These gifts were given sincerely, some with promises that we would not reveal the source.  NOT ONE OF THESE DONORS has ever tried to capitalize on the fact that they helped the site out of a financial jam.  They, unlike Moore, have too much class for that.  They, unlike Moore, gave us the donations out of a sincere sense of altruism.

Moore fans, you’re being duped.  Don’t be a sheep, open your eyes and see how this vermin of a man is manipulating you.

Jim Kenefick and Moorewatch as presented by Michael Moore in Sicko

Well, at least now we'll all know exactly how Mikey presents this dumb story, eh? The video below requires Flash.



Let's break it down, shall we?

First of all, love the fake sotto voce delivery. My God that's pretentious. I also love the lead-in to the segment about me and this site; Moore and I are mortal enemies, just like Castro and America, but look! Enemies can be so wonderful to each other! Isn't Michael Moore a really great human being?

He opens the segment calling us "the biggest anti-Michael Moore website on the internet." Can I quote you, Mike? Would you mind if I put that on a tee shirt? He goes on to imply that the site was absolutely shutting down, when the fact is I said it was a very likely possibility, but that we could try to save it by getting some cash together quickly. It's a small detail, but like everything with Michael, the devil is always in how he presents these little things.

SIDEBAR - This was the infamous (to long-time readers) "lightning strike" incident which we found out later only kind-of happened. Remember, at the time I still trusted our server provider (JT Thompson of E-places.net) and considered him a friend. Little did I know that he was using the fact that lightning did indeed strike the data center as a way to bilk me (and you) out of a couple thousand more dollars. As it happened, the lightning strike did no damage whatsoever. It happened, but it was not the cause of the server crashing. That was ALL manufactured by the con man (JT Thompson of E-places.net) who was providing our service at the time.

He goes on to say the site was in trouble "because his wife was ill, and they could no longer afford to pay for her health insurance." Now, that's a half-truth at best. The insurance was in place for over a year. Come hell or high water I was going to cover that. If it meant losing the site and anything else we could trim, so be it. But it wasn't just the health insurance. It was JT's server scam, our mortgage increase, and an increase in premiums for both health and auto insurance all at the same time that led us to a minor crisis. Of all those things, the most immediate and the easiest to lose was the dedicated server.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: Long before Moore even considered sending a check, you, the readers of Moorewatch, as well as the readers of Right Thoughts and Right Thinking, banded together and you saved these sites. You did it, not Michael. His money never arrived until long after the sites were safely up and running again. I even said to the person who emailed me, this Google Ghost named "Nora LaVelle," that the sites were all taken care of for the moment, and she asked if I had any other ongoing expenses. That's when I told "her" about the insurance premiums and "she" said that my "angel" wanted to help.

Moving on, Moore says that "He was faced with a choice of either keep attacking me, or pay for his wife's health. Fortunately, he chose his wife" Of course I did. What a lovely implication that is, eh? It subtly implies that there may have been a decision at all to be made. It implies that I might be the kind of person who would choose to rant about Michael Moore and let my wife suffer.

That Moore, he sure is a nice guy, huh? Altruistic to the core.

This moment in the film is accompanied by one of Michael's misleading tricks; he highlights the phrase "The sites are likely going down." What he doesn't tell you is that was from a whole other point in history. That blog post was NOT from the same time period as the first one he showed. It was from the period of time when we found out that JT Thompson was a con man and that he was not paying his bills, and that all of his customers were about to be terminated due to non-payment. If you stop the clip and read the surrounding text, you can see the context...something that theater-goers will never be able to do.

It's another half-truth editing trick by Moore. Call it the "two ties" moment from Bowling For Columbine, where Moore edited together two completely different speeches to make Charleton Heston look like an uncaring monster.

He goes on to discuss how I should be able to "Have health insurance and exercise his First Amendment right to run me into the ground." This is just a cornucopia of various posts from all different times. He goes back to December 2004, jumps to 2006, then back to 2004...it's all edited with the Ken Burns motion technique and much of the text obscured by a dark filter with certain key phrases highlighted. Then he highlights a post I made on 4/16/2004. It was in response to one of "Mike's Messages." In that message, he was running down a few civilian contractors that had just been brutally murderered in Iraq. I was disgusted by his reaction then and I an just as disgusted by it now.

That's the context of me saying "Dear Michael, Fuck you." Again, something that theater-goers will never, ever be able to discern from the brief, carefully presented clips in the film. All it does is serve to make me look, as he did to the Bunny Lady and many others, like an unhinged loon.

He then shows the actual check/money order thing he sent - complete with our names on display. Fair enough. I'm not exactly hiding under a rock here. he then says that he sent it anonymously. Anonymous except for that part where it's in the movie. Oops!

The clip continues to show my thanking the "anonymous" guardian angel, and he closes by saying "His wife got better and his website is still going strong." Another misleading statement. My wife is getting better. There is a difference, but it's a difference that Moore could not care less about. He never asked, personally or through a representative, about my wife's current health. He just made it up.

The line "and his website is still going strong" comes over a tight shot of a line from that post about his reaction to the deaths of the civilian contractors in Iraq. Leaving the viewers with that last impression that I'm the most ungrateful bastard who ever lived.

Of course the facts are that those words were written TWO YEARS before Michael sent that check.

So what can we learn from all of this? Well, nothing new, unfortunately. We learn that Michael Moore is still using editing tricks, time compression and juxtaposition to create the emotional reactions that he wants you to have. Reactions that you might not have if you were presented with all the facts accurately and in chronological order. Some important things to remember as we go forward:

1. Michael Moore did not save this site. You did. The readers, commenters and supporters of this and our other sites saved our bacon, as you have many times over the years. You are without a doubt the best bunch a blogger could ask for as readers, and if I don't say it enough, please know that I an eternally grateful for each and every one of you.

2. This money helped us a great deal. It took us from sitting behind the eight ball to balancing on top of the eight ball. For that my wife and I will always be grateful. No matter what other people say, no matter what happens in the future, Donna and I can say without reservation that Michael Moore helped us. I don't think it's unreasonable to discuss why he decided to do it in this manner, and I would hope that anyone reading this could understand that.

3. Sometimes, Mike just makes things up because it makes his narrative flow better. Michael's defense for going to Cuba proper is that his trip was journalistic in nature. You know what? I agree. I actually agree that, regardless of his intent to glamorize Cuban health care, he was allegedly making a documentary about health care. Therefore it seems reasonable and this non-lawyer, within the law to visit Cuba for the purposes of journalism. Such exceptions are granted to journalists all the time.

However, this also means that now Michael has stated for the public record that Sicko is a work of journalism. Therefore, Sicko must be held to higher standards than Moore's previous works, which he himself categorized as entertainment. Making up little white lies and telling half-truths is not what a documentary film-maker or a journalist should be doing. Using deceptive editing tricks, emotionally charged rhetoric and using juxstaposition to craft a reaction is not what a documentary film-maker or a journalist should be doing.

Ultimately what we should all take away from this is two simple words:

QUESTION EVERYTHING.

Newsweek story on me and Sicko

Not a bad story.  Some of the wording was paraphrased and not exactly what I said, but it was pretty fair.  The only correction I think I’d like to point out is that the person who emailed me to warn me was not a “famous” name but rather one that I recognized.  Other than that, the intent of what I wanted to say is there.  I feel fairly represented by Tony Dokoupil, and I’d like to thank him for being an easy guy with whom to talk.  It was a pretty pleasant interview experience.

So...How great is my stupid frigging picture I sent them?  It’s halfway down on page 2.  I look like an idiot, but that’s of course the point: I kind of am an idiot. ;)