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A pattern emerges

Michael Moore’s Sicko came out on DVD this week, and let me tell you, my inbox has been like a minefield of stupid.  It’s amazing how little people think for themselves these days, or are willing to look up the simplest of details.

Let’s do an exercise.  Let’s say there was this film. 

In this film, the “documentarian” decided to try to humiliate someone he didn’t like.  During the segment a website was mentioned.  You decide to visit that website.  At the top of it is a big graphic that basically says “If you are here because of the movie, read this first” and links to a page full of facts, links to stories about the events leading up to the appearance in the film, and detailed explanations of the person’s actual thoughts and political leanings.

Would you read that page before you sent the person an email?  If you said yes, you are smarter than 99.999765% of all Michael Moore fans on the Internet.

The phrase “stuck on stupid” has never meant more to me than it has this week.  I mean, the flood of email was MUCH worse when the film was in theaters.  At one point during opening week I was getting thousands a day, and I deleted most of them unread.  It stopped almost as soon as it started, as Sicko was not the smash hit and huge influence Moore expected.  It crashed rather hard, as did our traffic levels and the amount of hate mail I was getting.  Due to the release of the DVD, interest has revived just enough that I can actually look at each email, so I am seeing the patterns much more clearly. 

I have received exactly three emails that were well-written, thoughtful and polite.  I’ve received maybe a hundred and fifty negatives.  Half of that are just childish name-calling.  The rest all follow a formula, in this order:

1. They open with one of two statement; “I am not a fan of Moore” or “I am a fan of Moore”

2. They affirm that they know he’s a liar, but it’s OK because the cause is just, or they claim he tells the 100% truth.  Either way, they always dismiss the Cuba segment as an aberration or completely unimportant.  One out of thirty will claim that Cuba is exactly the paradise portrayed by Moore.  My guess is, those are the same kind of scum who think Che Guevara is a hero.

3. They offer some proof of why they know better, like they work as an orderly or they once visited France and got stitches from the health service and it was free.  I swear that was one guy’s example of why America is evil.

4. They accuse me of being a big fan of Bush, Cheney, Hannity or Rush.  Or all of them.

5. They tell me that the site is hateful.  Some try to use analogies like Nazi/Jew, KKK/Black people, etc.  Obviously in these analogies I am the Nazi or the Klansmen, and Moore is the put-upon minority.  Some just flat-out state that opposing Moore means I hate the poor, and I must be rich “like Bush” to not believe in 100% socialized medicine.  Some say that questioning Moore means I hate him.  This part often varies in detail but is ALWAYS included and always revolves around the word “hate.” It seems to be a buzzword among college leftists these days.

6. They seem to think I spend all day, every day doing nothing but Moorewatch.  Aside from reading the email, I haven’t spent more than ten minutes actual time at Moorewatch in about ten days.  The site is self-perpetuating at this point.  It takes a couple hours a month at the most, but that doesn’t seem to register with anyone.  The emails always contain some variation on “You spend all your time___” (usually “hating on Moore” but sometimes it’s other things).

7. Incorrect facts.  Sometimes they lead with “Moore saved your wife’s life” but most often it’s buried at the end.  They all seem to think Donna was dying of cancer, and Moore’s $12,000 cured her.  I don’t know where this cancer thing started, or why someone thinks you could cure cancer with $12,000 worth of anything, but there you have it.  If it’s not cancer, they just say she was “dying.” Either way, Moore saved her life and I need to shut the site down.  No one seems to know that both Donna and I publicly thanked Moore either.  Again, sometimes they lead with “Why didn’t you at least thank him” but more often than not it’s buried down here.  They also never know that Moore lied and literally tricked us into accepting the money as a setup for the movie.

8. The buying of my silence.  Almost to a man and woman, every “critic” thinks that $12,000 should buy my silence.  That I should be so grateful to him for tricking me and trying to humiliate me in his film, I should stop ever disagreeing with anything he ever says.  Some go so far as to state that my opinion should be changed now.  Somehow, this cash was supposed to change the facts and make Moore not a liar.  Some say it should make me OK with him being a liar, even though sometimes they open the same email by saying he’s not a liar.  So, he’s not a liar but if he is a liar I should not care because he lied to me and tricked me into taking money so he could use it in the film.  Sure.  That makes perfect sense.

9. Insults.  Well, obviously.  These vary, but always seem to fall into categories.  I am; right wing, ungrateful, hateful, stupid, xenophobic and greedy.  Most of the Brits will use one of the following: twat, wanker, prat.  Most of the Americans will swear.  The purely insulting ones are almost always a single paragraph with seemingly random punctuation.  Many of them include a lot of TXTSPK, loads of lol and rofl and “u” instead of “you.” I weep for our future.

10. Sometimes it’s none of the above.  Sometimes it’s machine-translated gibberish, oddly enough often from Denmark.  Or it’s terrible English from a European.  I’m not insulting the skills, as I can’t write in any language except English, but if you know you are bad at another language, why on earth would you try to discuss higher concepts like socialized medicine and free market economies?

11. Lastly, some of them include most of the above, but they write missives.  HUGE emails, sometimes in the thousands of words, packed to the gills with errant facts, bad conclusions, assumptions about me, my wife, Lee, the cost of eggs in China and everything else they can pack in there.  Often, if they originate outside the US, these missives are specifically and expressly anti-American just for the sake of it.  Oddly, they attack me as representative of all Americans, as if I am responsible for everyone from the President to the LA gang-banger doing drive-bys.  Generally the missives are repetitive and insulting, which is nice.  One woman was so verbose I decided to string her along.  I would reply in sentences of five words or less, always insulting and goading.  She would reply with massive, lengthy emails that must have taken the better part of an hour to compose and type.  She did this fourteen times before I just gave up.

I’ll be honest; I don’t understand Moore fans.  I don’t see how a person capable of using a computer and the Internet could write like a ten year old, and have no comprehension skills whatsoever.  I don’t know why a person would visit a website and not read the huge disclaimer that specifically applies to them.  I don’t know why anyone would encourage lies in service of massive government waste and at the same time be a critic of Bush’s spending policies.  I don’t understand why you would compose missives without doing the tiniest bit of research first.  I don’t understand how you could ignore a film like Manufacturing Dissent while at the same time following the instructions of a guy who lies and deceives everyone around him every day in order to turn a profit and increase his fame.

Then again...I’m not a Moore fan.  I guess it’s not for me to understand.  They don’t seem to understand why we would be concerned with uncovering the truth and asking people to become informed before trying to change the system by which we are governed.

Six of one, half dozen of the other, I suppose.

*UPDATE*

As if on cue...this came in not moments after this post was finalized:

from Jim K [email protected]
to jimk.moorewatch, lee
date Nov 10, 2007 3:43 PM

You people are despicable! you should both burn in hell… michael moore seems to have things on the right track. altho he is not the most correct person in the world, he has the right idea. america sucks, simply put it is the best place to live; IF YOU HAVE MONEY… if not, you are shit out of luck.

Yours Truly,
-A Canadian

We should burn in hell because we disagree with a man who “is not the most correct person in the world” but, don’t forget, “he has the right idea.” Also, “america sucks” unless you are rich.  Nevermind that poor in this country means you have running water, a roof, television, a car, telephones, free health care from the government, etc.  That’s pesky factual evidence and we don’t deal with any of that.  America sucks, this Canadian has spoken.

God bless ‘em, every one.

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