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Question of the day - “Why?”

One common question I get from Moore supporters in virtually every email is “Why?” Why do we focus on Moore when there are so many larger ills in the world?  I’ll attempt to answer exactly that after the jump.

First of all, the easiest answer is another question: Why not?  Do the people who ask me why Moorewatch exists go around asking every other blog in the world why they exist?  Is it a waste of time to write a food blog, or a blog about comic books, or one about weight loss, cars, Nintendo, Democrats in Congress, movies, Ford or any other topic?  There are millions of blogs (literally) that cover every imaginable topic thought of by mankind.  Why is it such a surprise (and to some, a travesty) that one out of the millions of blogs that exist focuses on Moore’s work and Moore’s pet issues?  Do these same people email Kos and ask him why he only focuses on “progressive” issues?  For that matter why not ask Moore why he’s never made a movie that focuses on the good in America?  He makes the movies that interest him.  We blog about the issues that interest us.

The question of “Why Moore?” itself is kind of a waste of time.  Without meaning to be dismissive and insulting, it’s kind of a stupid question.

Secondly, the simple answer is “Because we can.” It’s a logical extension of the first answer.  We do it because at the time the site was created, no one else was, and we could.  We were the first, we’ll probably be the last.  Why do people climb mountains?  Why do people form political action committees?  Why do people join pottery classes or play soccer or collect thimbles?  Why does anyone do anything?  Further extending this line of thought, why is it somehow a bad thing that we choose to spend a few minutes a day doing this site?  Because we don’t tackle every single problem in the known world, we aren’t allowed to have a blog about what we see as one specific problem?  If we don’t do everything, we aren’t allowed to do anything?  I’ve never understood that logic.  I don’t think I ever will.

Third in the series of answers to this non-question; Because someone needs to try to keep Moore honest.  Rather a Sisyphean task, I know, but we exist to debunk and/or verify facts, claims and even opinion put forth by Moore.  It is, for lack of a better term, our mission statement.  Even his fans know he’s not honest.  They tell me all the time.  Then in the next breath, they ask me why we spend “so much time” debunking him.  Oddly contrary, those two positions seem.  But then, I’m not a disciple of the Church of Moore, I just don’t have the faith to accept lies as truth.  I don’t accept lies as truth form my government (regardless of what the trolls think, I’m not a “Bushie") and I won’t accept it from a man who is trying to socialize my country and turn it into a clone of Europe.

Lastly (for now) we exist because we’re still here.  This site started as a collaborative effort between myself and Lee.  We had a couple of guest authors who quickly fell off the radar (One quit blogging for a long time, the other just wandered away).  Lee and I kept dropping our posts about Moore on both our personal blogs and here at Moorewatch.  As the hubub about BFC continued, we started creating posts solely for this site.  During the run-up to F911 and the 2004 election, we were cranking it out and adding other authors as well.  We inspired a “cottage industry” [i.e. other people managed to make money, not us—Lee] of films and books and movies and websites about Moore, but more importantly to me, we grew a community.  It’s a small one, but there are some great writers and some sharp minds here, on both sides of the political fence.  Every time I have thought to myself “Moorewatch is more trouble than it’s worth” I look at the comments or the forums and I look past the trolls and critics to the users, left and right, who come back and add the real value to this site.

At this point I wouldn’t close it down even if Moore retired.  After the 2004 elections, the site almost went dead.  Traffic was down to the low hundreds per day, but that small community kept it going, fulling the forums with topics, packing the posts with comments that often ended up a million miles from where they started.  If you really want to see what keeps this place going, pick any given month from 2005 or 2006 and start reading the comment threads.  We’re at the stage now where the site keeps itself alive because of the community.

I hope that sheds some light on things.  Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go light the grill and cook me some tasty goodness.  Enjoy your weekend, people.  We don’t get enough of them in this life.

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