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"You are not stranded. You own the store. The bad guys are just a bunch of silly, stupid white men. And there's a helluva lot more of us than there are of them. Use your power." -- Michael Moore, "Stupid White Men"
Michael Moore again shows he knows the winning formula for compelling social criticism -- be provocative and funny. Moore's new book "Stupid White Men" (Regan Books/Harper-Collins, $24.95) is a searing look at America as we move into the 21st century.
Moore gained international acclaim with his film "Roger and Me," his personal quest to get the chairman of General Motors to look at what plant closings did to Flint, Mich., Moore's hometown.
Now Moore rages on with his hilarious analysis of what's wrong with us, how we got that way, and what changes we ought to make. Nothing is sacred and the professional provocateur takes on everything from George W. Bush to the fast food industry.
Moore sees the first decade of the 21st century as an extension of the Clintonian era. "Bush is only the uglier and somewhat meaner version of what we already had throughout the '90s -- except that back then it came dressed in a charming smile from a guy who played soul tunes on a sax and told us what kind of underwear he (and his interns) wore. We liked that. It felt good, normal. He could sing the Black National Anthem. He partied with Gloria Steinem. He watched my show! I liked the guy!"
Moore is irresistibly irreverent, and his scathing most bipartisan. "What's the difference between the Democrats and Republicans? Democrats say one thing ('Save the planet!') and then do another -- quietly holding hands with the bastards who make the world a meaner place. Republicans just give the bastards an office in the West Wing."
"Stupid White Men" is full of such astute analysis, but before going on, full disclosure is in order. Moore is an old friend of mine. I was a guest at his wedding and knew him long before he became rich and famous.
I am actually listed in the credits for "Roger and Me," and the film, the biggest-grossing and most popular documentary ever made, marked my silver screen debut. I retired after that auspicious success.
When I moved to Michigan in 1985, I did what I always do when checking out new territory. Finding the daily newspapers is simple, but seeking out the alternatives is where the fun and real stories often are to be found. I quickly latched onto a weekly journal called the Michigan Voice. It had evolved from an earlier life as the Flint Voice, whose popularity had made the paper a statewide delight.
Like the Niagara Falls Reporter today, the Michigan Voice back then took on all the sacred cows, protected the powerless and challenged the powerful. Stories you'd never see in the big corporate-owned daily papers were found in the Voice. The paper was insightful and funny. I loved it and noted the editor was a guy named Michael Moore.
In those days, I was spending a fair amount of time in Flint covering GM's closing of plants there, which had become the symbol of corporate America's poor treatment of the Rust Belt. Most people, even in Michigan, were unaware that GM had actually started in Flint, not Detroit. That was also where the sit-down strikes of the late 1930s forced the automaker to recognize the United Auto Workers and brought the labor movement to industrialized America.
Flint was interesting and suffering, and when you understood what was happening there, it gave you an important perspective on how communities were terribly exploited and then discarded like old shoes when corporations went looking for more money elsewhere. Flint's sad experience was similar to what other once-important industrial areas like Niagara Falls, and most of Western New York, were also enduring.
I once convinced my boss at the time to do a profile of the Voice and its editor. Moore was a howl on television, and our political views as well as our temperaments meshed.
Shortly afterwards, he headed out to California to become editor of "Mother Jones" magazine, a national journal devoted to iconoclastic causes. Michael's free-wheeling style was too much for the chi-chi liberals who ran the magazine and that assignment didn't last too long.
I ran into him covering the 50th anniversary of the Flint sit-down strikes and he told me about his idea to put together a documentary on Flint's plight. I told him I'd help in any way I could. My news director provided Michael with archive video and film of stories we'd done in Flint over the years. But we had to do the work, and I can't tell you how many Saturdays Michael and I spent going through poorly labeled library tapes.
I had great hope for the project, and knew his wonderful wit and sense of irony would make the bleak topic wildly entertaining. But I never dreamed the film would gain the great success it has.
But then it previewed at a few film festivals and got great reviews. More importantly, Warner Brothers signed on to distribute the film. That, along with its essential appeal, assured a vast audience.
The film's Michigan premiere was at some theaters just outside Flint. At a pre-show party, Michael signed the original scenario he had given me a few years earlier. On the cover, under "Roger and Me: A Humorous Look at How General Motors Destroyed Flint, Michigan, A film by Michael Moore," he wrote simply "To Bill -- You Believed."
I did and I still do. Michael takes on the people, institutions and political and economic systems that need to be examined and challenged in a free society. In "Stupid White Men," he goes to the heart of George W. Bush's inadequacies, the cheating in the Florida presidential vote count, the hypocrisy and cowardice of the Democratic party, racism and race relations, capital punishment, the ravishing of the environment, the abuse and neglect of public education, the insanity of drug laws and imprisonment, corporate greed and stupidity, and more and more. Michael uses anecdotal and autobiographical material to give these themes human and humorous faces. But the book is also well researched and thoroughly documented, and he has an eye for the poignant facts that buttress his themes and make you chuckle with disbelief. "Stupid White Men" is a wonderful read and Michael Moore is a national treasure.
What's unsettling is that it almost didn't make it into print. Some editors at Harper-Collins Publishing (again a disclosure: Harper-Collins is owned by News Corporation, the same company that owns Fox News, my employer) wanted to drastically change the book and even considered withholding publication after the September terrorist attacks. It seems they were a little antsy that Michael's views on the Bush administration were harsh and might be considered "unpatriotic" in some circles.
But wiser white men prevailed and the book was published as Michael had written it. For a few weeks it topped the New York Times Best Seller List and still is near the top. Nice work, Michael.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 23 2002 |