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Documentary Oscar Goes to Obama; Mikey Applauds

Mike’s been putting a lot of letters up on his site and, being on vacation, I’ve been slow to respond.  I’m tinkering with an omnibus post addressing the worst points he’s been making, but he had a double post on Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize that contained some classic classic Mike.

First, this, his initial reaction.  At first, it seems like something I wouldn’t have a problem with.  He points out that the Afghan War is quickly becoming Obama’s War and thinks that we should have gotten bin Laden without a war (how you do this without taking down the government sheltering him is left unexplored).  Whatever you may think of those views, they’re legitimate.  But he just can’t write a simple open letter without driving headfirst into a septic tank.

The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of Afghanistan to resolve—just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789, the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people who wish to be free—they ultimately have to bring about that freedom themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else’s Humvee.

Our independence came after a very long and bloody war and with a big assist from the French.  The French Revolution went ten years, was a bloody disaster and ended, not in Democracy but in Napoleon’s tyranny and even more wars of aggression.  You can say that we have to leave Afghanistan to let the Afghans sort out their future—but you have to acknowledge that this will mean years, possibly decades of bloodshed and may end in something just as oppressive as the Tallban.  Iran had a revolution too, you know.  And right now, they’re raping people in prison to stay in power.

For an example of revolutions gone wrong, you need look no further than the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions that Mike bizarrely juxtaposes with the American and French.  It’s that connection that moves this letter from “normal Michael Moore background stupidity” to “post worthy”.

Neither of those revolutions was based on ideas of enlightenment, freedom or democracy.  Both installed horrendous tyrants who imprisoned dissenters, oppressed minorities and use violence and murder to stay in power.

Both also reduced their populations to abject poverty.  Cuba went from the richest nation in the Caribbean to a nation so poor that teenage girls prostitute themselves to foreign visitors so their families can eat.  Yes, the US has a stupid embargo in place.  But Cuba got billions in aide from the Soviets and has open relations with many other countries.  Our Iranian embargo is more oppressive but you don’t see Persian girls working the streets to avoid starvation.  Cuba is such a badly run country that their famous cigars are almost unsmokeable now.  How do you screw up cigars?  By being a God-damned communist, that’s how.

As for Nicaragua, they have foolishly re-elected the Sandanistas, fooled by the veneer painted on their dissent-crushing, freedom-gobbling, Indian-murdering thug of a leader, Danny Ortega.  Apparently, they failed to learn the last time when the Sandanistas looted the country on the way out of power.  They will learn again, sooner or later.

There’s also Mikey’s jab at Nobel critics—“Why do they hate America so much?”.  I’d attack this but I’ll be generous and assume he’s being sarcastic.  It is worth noting that the DNC said this in all seriousness.  When Michael is less stupid that the DNC, we’re in trouble.

He’s followed up his letter with an even dumber one today.  Here’s my absolute favorite Michael Moore quote ever:

I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they could to crap all over Barack’s big day. Did I—and others on the left—do the same?

The question, I think --- it’s sometimes hard to slice Michael’s prose into coherent ‘thoughts”—is whether the Left always dumped on everything Bush did and what little he accomplished.  Um, Mike?  You made a whole damned movie in that vein.  You might remember it?  You do remember when the evil capitalist system kept bring dumptrucks full of money up to your poor starving artist’s mansion as you bravely put out your underground film?  No?  OK.

Then after his call to action—and the pre-requisite lumping of the Religious Right, libertarians, flat taxers, social security privatizers and Bush into one big glump called “stuff Michael Hates”—there’s this gem.

So, at least for this weekend, let us celebrate what people elsewhere are celebrating—that America now has a sane and smart man in the White House, a man who truly wants a world at peace for his two daughters.

As opposed to Bush, who wanted his daughters to live in a barren nuke-ravaged hellscape.  Everyone wants peace, Mike.  It’s what we’re willing to endure for it that distinguishes us.

And there’s this, which is currently second on my list of favorite Mike quotations:

The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Norman Borlaug planted crops while wars were going on and saved a billion lives.  F. W. de Klerk defied his own nation to end apartheid.  Nelson Mandela and Andrei Sakharov endured years of oppression for their ideals.  Lech Walesa fought communism for decades.  MLK used non-violence to liberate millions.  Sadat and Begin made peace between Israel and Egypt.  For all their flaws, the UN Peace Keepers put their lives on the line to try to stop conflict.  Hell, even Jimmy Carter helped make the Egyptian Peace and has worked to make the world more peaceful.

And Barack Obama ... successfully ran a campaign to become the most powerful man on Earth.  I realize that, to his critics, anyone who is not George W. Bush was going to be worthy of some award.  But you might want to check out the Constitutional limits on presidential terms, Mike.  Someone was going to replace George Bush.  Would you think it appropriate if John McCain got a Nobel Prize for winning the election?  Don’t think too hard.

I too was distressed by a lot of what Bush did.  But John McCain would have broken from a lot of his policies as well.  And—and I’m sorry to keep pushing this—What.  Has.  Obama.  Actually.  Done?  Is Gitmo closed?  Are the wars ended?  Is the recession over?  You don’t give people awards because they might do something—you give them because they have done something.  Barack Obama was awarded for things he said against the Bush Presidency (he was nominated by February), not things he did.  Would Mike be fine—as one wag quipped—if Obama were given this year’s Best Documentary Oscar because he “might” make a great movie one day?

Actually, I think I’ve pinpointed why Mike is so enthusiastic about this.  An award given by intellectual elites to undeserving recipients for political purposes?  Oh, my God.  Mike thinks Obama just won the Palme d’Or!

And, as always, Michael Moore can’t get through a letter without the usual bashing.

I think the Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio) ... After seeing searing images of our black fellow citizens left to drown in New Orleans—and poor whites seeing their own treated no better than the black man they had been raised to hate—we had all seen enough. It was time for change.

Change passed you by decades ago, Mikey.

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