Moore Cries A River
If Michael Moore is indeed changing his movie to a paen to Barack Obama, I can save you the effort of seeing it. Just read his hysterical open letter.
Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair.
In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea. The racists were present throughout the campaign and in the voting booth. But they are no longer the majority, and we will see their flame of hate fizzle out in our lifetime.
Oh, it gets better.
There was another important “first” last night. Never before in our history has an avowed anti-war candidate been elected president during a time of war. I hope President-elect Obama remembers that as he considers expanding the war in Afghanistan. The faith we now have will be lost if he forgets the main issue on which he beat his fellow Dems in the primaries and then a great war hero in the general election: The people of America are tired of war. Sick and tired. And their voice was loud and clear yesterday.
The problem here is that Obama won, at least in part, because he toughened his message on terrorism. If the Taliban re-establishes itself in Afghanistan, Obama will have a very short four years.
It’s been an inexcusable 44 years since a Democrat running for president has received even just 51% of the vote. That’s because most Americans haven’t really liked the Democrats
Is it because of their big-government high-tax agenda? Their occasional spinelessness in confronting Communism and terrorism? Jimmy Carter’s comically bad presidency?
They see them as rarely having the guts to get the job done or stand up for the working people they say they support.
Precisely. They tax their employers to death and regulate their companies into the ground. Wait a minute. I’m not sure that’s what Mike meant.
Well, here’s their chance. It has been handed to them, via the voting public, in the form of a man who is not a party hack, not a set-for-life Beltway bureaucrat.
Voted with his party over 90% of the time. Was a product of the Daley Machine. Yes, definitely not a partisan.
We may, just possibly, also see a time of refreshing openness, enlightenment and creativity. The arts and the artists will not be seen as the enemy. Perhaps art will be explored in order to discover the greater truths. When FDR was ushered in with his landslide in 1932, what followed was Frank Capra and Preston Sturgis, Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck, Dorothea Lange and Orson Welles. All week long I have been inundated with media asking me, “gee, Mike, what will you do now that Bush is gone?” Are they kidding? What will it be like to work and create in an environment that nurtures and supports film and the arts, science and invention, and the freedom to be whatever you want to be? Watch a thousand flowers bloom! We’ve entered a new era, and if I could sum up our collective first thought of this new era, it is this: Anything Is Possible.
FDR created Capra and Steinbeck? Does that mean that President Polk created Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne? Did Carter create Steven Spielberg and George Lucas? What the hell is this messianic twaddle? What kind of artist can’t function unless there is a divine being at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?
An African American has been elected President of the United States! Anything is possible! We can wrestle our economy out of the hands of the reckless rich and return it to the people. Anything is possible! Every citizen can be guaranteed health care. Anything is possible! We can stop melting the polar ice caps. Anything is possible! Those who have committed war crimes will be brought to justice. Anything is possible.
News flash: anything was always possible in America. It was even possible, under the eeevil Ronald Reagan, Bush I and Bush II, for a documentary director of moderate talent and piss-poor accuracy to become undeservedly rich and famous.
Comments
Frank Capra was making films before FDR was president. He directed Harry Langdon in silent films many years before Roosevelt took office. I found Landgon to be a little creepy, but Capra’s talent was evident even in those early films.
And I was always under the impression that there’s much more innovation when people are allowed to keep the fruits of their labors instead of giving all their money and property to the government.
But why lets facts stand in the way of a good rant?
I just read an interview with Moore on CNN. It was basically a “see? I told you so! “Roger and Me” was a work of genius that was far ahead of its time. I am an economic prophet!” kind of thing.
I wonder what the current economic situation would be if the government hadn’t spent the last 70 or 80 years protecting the Big Three. Maybe there would be 20 car companies....
OH. MY. GOD. I think this was one of the best posts I’ve read here in months. Not only was Mikey wading hyperbole and melodrama, but MikeS’s responses were GOLDEN. Thanks!!!
We may, just possibly, also see a time of refreshing openness, enlightenment and creativity. The arts and the artists will not be seen as the enemy. Perhaps art will be explored in order to discover the greater truths.
I am now personally offended.
As an artist, my best years have, typically, been during REPUBLICAN presidencies.
I started my business under Reagan, and it was booming.
Under Bush I, I stabilized, but was still able to do what I love while making a profit.
When Clinton first took office, things were okay. By his second term, I was closing the doors. It wasn’t the economy, so much as it was the growing PC movement, and the chilling effect it had on artists, everywhere. The 90’s were, for many artists, a creative gulag. The atmosphere was stifling- only those on the correct side of that great, artistic-cold-war-wall had any freedom at all. If you were pissing off the “establishment”, mocking religion, or traditional family structure, or capitalism, or conservative thought of any stripe, you were golden.
If there could be found, however, even the slightest opposition to this new groupthought in your work… or, if, god forbid, it were found out you held any conservative views (even if they were completely irrelevant to your work!) you were, essentially, blacklisted from the artistic community.
Only after Bush II took office, (about a year afterward.) did things start to change for us, again. Freedom of thought blossomed. Some of the shackles fell away. (Not all… never all, ever again.)
Post Sept 11 was, without question, the most unhindered period for artists in my memory. As the feeling of patriotism grew, so did the appreciation (TRUE appreciation- not politically-driven idol worship) for artists. Freedom was again on the rise, in all forms, and we all felt it.
By the time the BDS crowd took over, it had all fallen back into the oppressive Clinton-era fog, again. Actually, no… it was worse.
Now, if you showed any conservative message (or even if you FAILED to show a rabidly ANTI-conservative one), you were not only blacklisted, but critically lambasted, publicly humiliated and even physically threatened.
Things have been this way, since.
So don’t tell me, you disingenuous bastard, that you are now “finally free”!
You are only free to continue to oppress true creative freedom, by squelching any artistic dissent!!
So, to my fellow artists who believe in actual freedom- not just freedom to say what is state-sponsored and popular-
I say welcome to life behind the artistic iron curtain. Be careful what you say. I hear the brownshirts coming.
Yeah, here comes the candidate of change, with his Clinton-era appointees lining up, backpedaling on the tax increases, trying to figure out whether or not he talked to the governor of his state about appointing his replacement… hooray for chope, where change meets hope.
But yeah, I also love the bit where any criticism of Obama is immediately tagged racism. If this is going to be the level of discourse for the next four years, I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. I seem to recall those same people not liking the “doesn’t support the troops” meme…
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A nation founded on genocide and slavery… yup, Moore sure does love America.
And nice to see him trot out the “If you didn’t vote for Obama you’re a racist” trope so blatantly and so soon. One might have feared he learned the art of subtlety.
Everyone remember to save copies of this. Should be fun to trot out in a few years when Obama’s not popular anymore and Moore’s trying to scramble back to attention by slamming him.
Also, liked the bit about “Those who have committed war crimes will be brought to justice”. Moore actually thinks that Bush is going to wind up in some sort of court. He’s gone COMPLETELY around the bend, hasn’t he?