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Critique of Michael Moore
by ps
Monday, Jun. 21, 2004 at 5:21 PM
excellent critique of Michael Moore from a black radical perspective
Connecting the Dots: Michael Moore, White Nationalism & the Multiracial Left
By Kenyon Farrow & Kil Ja Kim
June 9, 2004
In a little more than a decade, filmmaker and writer Michael Moore has become one of the bad boys of the left. Some may question our inclusion of Moore in the left given that few will garner the credentials Moore has amassed in the past ten years, which include two books on the New York Times bestseller list as well as the 2003 Best Documentary Oscar for a movie that confronts the gun industry and the highest honors at this year's Cannes Film Festival for Fahrenheit 9/11, which critiques GW Bush's handling of 9-11. That film companies fell over themselves to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11 after Disney CEO Michael Eisner blocked its release is another reason why Moore will probably never get credentials as a "progressive," let alone a "radical." Overall, that he has entered with a burst of applause (at Cannes, twenty minutes worth) into the mainstream media world and become its bad boy darling is enough to discredit Moore in the eyes of many leftists whose ideas are marginalized within mainstream political discourse.
We don't connect Moore to leftist politics to expand the parameters of what it means to be "left." Rather, we seek to problematize a troubling undercurrent of many sectors of the left that are embedded in Moore's approach. Simply, we think Michael Moore is a white nationalist. And his white nationalist approach is what connects the self-professed liberal to the institutionalized left regardless if the latter takes Moore seriously or not.
Some will be confused by our use of white nationalism since it's a term usually reserved for "extremist" organizations. To the contrary, we consider white nationalism to be normalized in US social relations since by white nationalism we mean the project of nation building that is driven by the experiences and history of white people. White nationalism, however, is more than just being white-centric, per se. Rather, white nationalism is the project of maintaining or expanding the white nation-whether established along state lines or as socially created communities or both-in ways that reflect the anxieties, fears, dread and aspirations of white people. As such, in a white nationalist discourse, whiteness and US civil society as well as the racialized and sexualized project of citizenship that maintains both are not confronted. Instead the point of departure for a white nationalist approach is: what stands in white people's way of being able to claim the nation as rightfully theirs? A white nationalist project therefore is fixated with what government forces, "subversiveness" from below or shifts in the global economy threaten the rights of the white citizenry.
The white citizens' losses of rights and efforts to reclaim them are a consistent theme in all of Moore's work. Despite the disproportionate impact particular situations and institutions have on people of color, whether auto-industry layoffs in Flint, MI, the weapons industry, the stolen presidential election of 2000, or the USA PATRIOT Act, Moore positions the declining power of the white citizen/worker as the reason to be concerned about these issues. Consider how, in the introduction to Stupid White Men, the top selling nonfiction book of 2002, Moore claims, "we, collectively, as Americans, all know that someone has pulled the plug on our all-night binge. The American Century? That's over. Welcome to your Century 21 Nightmare!" Reasons given for the end of the "American Century" is that a president who stole the election is sitting in office, (mainly professional) jobs are being downgraded or exported, the stock market isn't doing so well and it's difficult for homeowners to pay their mortgages.
The white, middle-class chauvinism expressed by Moore in Stupid White Men is also evident in his other bestseller, Dude, Where's My Country? The title itself expresses a sentiment of ownership and entitlement to America that's central to the notion of white nationalist ideology. Emphasizing 9-11 and the current war against Iraq, Dude is a treatise that is at once critical of government/corporate control and the eroding earning/buying power of the American citizen/worker and a hopeful statement about the "reformability" of the nation. Whether bemoaning the middle class's difficulty paying the mortgage or rallying those who have access to voting to defeat Bush in the 2004 presidential election, Moore remains upbeat about the ability of the (free) citizenry to reform the re/public. At one point Moore concludes, "There is a country I would like to tell you about. It is a country like no other on the planet…It is a very, very liberal, liberated, and free-thinking country…This Land O' Left paradise I speak of is none other than…the United States of America!" Not only is Moore's optimism white-centered in that it speaks from the position of someone who's lived a life much different than most non-whites in the US, it expresses an inherent commitment to a white supremacist state and the white citizenry.
Overall, throughout his work Moore never interrogates how in the American project, concepts such as "citizen" or "nation" are socially and legally constructed or how both are central to what James Baldwin quipped as "The White republic." Even though Moore has been defined by New York Times writer Frank Rich (another member of the white left elite) as the "everyman" (a racist and sexist term almost used exclusively for white men), it's clear that he's really only interested in white citizens' access to and inclusion in the nation-state rather than radical transformation.
Moore's fixation with inclusion in the nation-state means that he never really challenges the American project of white supremacy, capitalism and US dominance. To Moore, the main hurdle in the way of "real" democracy is corporate control and the government forces and special interest groups that support it. His sole focus therefore becomes rich white men (or "stupid white men"), such as GM Chairman Roger B. Smith, Lockheed Martin executive Evan McCollum, NRA advocate Charlton Heston, GW Bush and Dick Cheney - and the white middle and working classes that are adversely affected by their greed. Moore doesn't critique capitalism as a system that is inherently oppressive, particularly to non-white bodies, but instead suggests that rich white men shouldn't be so greedy. "Stupid white men" therefore, should share the wealth with their white middle and working class brethren, thereby allowing them to participate in and enjoy the fruits of the American project.
To problematize corrupt individuals and ignore corrupt systems of oppression (carried out by institutions such as corporations and the state) not only lets capitalism and white supremacy off the hook, but also doesn't call into question the ways in which, despite internal differences, the white middle and working classes are complicit in upholding all systems of oppression vis-Ã -vis their allegiance to white supremacy and white nationalism. This allegiance to white supremacy and white nationalism (via an investment in notions of citizenship and democracy) also reflects an investment in anti-black racism and sexism.
Evident from debates during the 1787 Constitutional Convention, citizenship in the US was constructed initially in opposition to an enslaved body. In the US, the citizen or "free" person able to participate fully in civil society is a racialized/sexualized subject. So too is its antithesis, the slave. Despite different groups experiencing slavery or indentured servitude, only Black people were viewed racially as slaves for life, meaning incapable of or unfit for freedom and participation in the re/public. And although there were "free" Blacks during the legalized era of slavery, they were continuously threatened with being returned to or forced into slavery, violence and de facto and de jure discrimination.
Today, despite the incorporation of a variety of bodies into the American project that has turned the white re/public into a multiracial one, blackness has continuously stood outside of citizenship or "the assimilable," thereby serving as the antithetical object to the citizen subject. While the citizenship status of non-Black people of color is often tenuous at best and never tantamount to the citizenship status of white people, blackness nevertheless functions as anti-citizen to give coherence to the project of multiracial American citizenship.
Thus, Moore's investment in citizenship and democracy doesn't question how, as Joy James puts it, in racialized societies such as the US, the "plague of criminality, deviancy, immorality, and corruption is embodied in the black" and "the dreams and desires of a society and state will be centered on the control of the black body." Moore's lack of engagement with such analysis is apparent when he interviews the white militia families to understand their fixation with guns in his Academy Award winning film Bowling for Columbine. Although he's clearly weirded out, Moore doesn't question the anti-black undertones the interviewees use when talking about the need to arm themselves against "criminals" or "intruders." Nor does he question that such organized white anti-state militias are allowed to exist, especially when militant movements like the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement (AIM) who encouraged armed liberation struggles (against a hostile and violent white state and citizenry) were dismantled systematically and violently by the same state Moore is selectively critical of through FBI informants, COINTELPRO and the myriad of institutions that worked to destabilize Black and Indigenous communities. In other words, the same white citizenry Moore identifies with and portrays as sympathetic, albeit confused, is also protected by a white nation-state that today controls aggressively Black and Indigenous people - largely through repressing radicalism, de-funding public education, practicing various types of structural adjustment programs in ghettoes and poor rural areas, criminalizing poverty and addictions (while participating in the drug trade), public housing and reservations, and policing and mass incarceration.
Some might consider our argument that Moore's project is anti-black as unfair given that in both his books and films he addresses issues such as slavery, racial profiling and the prison system. Yet Moore does so in a way that doesn't disrupt his white nationalist project. Rather, Moore's project depends on the very realities he discusses in order to make the white citizen/worker/anti-corporate personality a sympathetic figure worthy of mass support.
And in some cases, Moore is willing to lend this support to non-whites who can fit into these paradigms, a "generosity" that reveals the problematic partnership between white nationalism and the multiracial left.
An example of how white nationalism can coexist with a support for the multiracial re/public is Moore's criticism in Dude of the detention of Middle Eastern and South Asian immigrant men that occurred after 9-11. While we of course think that the detention of large numbers of non-white people in the name of national security is white supremacist, we take issue with Moore's defense of immigrant detainees: "It is un-American to incarcerate a large group of people when there is no credible reason to think they are dangerous." The obvious problem with this statement is that it's very American to lock up people without any credible reason, a point buttressed by the fact that the US has the largest imprisoned population in the world. But more problematic is that inherent in Moore's challenge to the detention and deportation of non-white immigrants is a reliance on the presumed reality of a "criminal" body that is "dangerous" and therefore should be locked up for credible reasons. Given that African Americans have, since the legal end of chattel slavery, been incarcerated overwhelmingly compared to other racial groups-and that in the "free world," blackness serves as the criminal profile that informs policing measures, including those applied to non-Black bodies-Moore's sympathy towards the unfair incarceration of immigrants reflects an anxiety that they are being treated like "real criminals" (read: Black people) when they don't deserve to be. This approach doesn't question a social structure's reliance on a black position to function but instead draws from it to make its claims about innocence.
Thus, while there are differences between Moore and the multiracial left that he lends support to, the two share similar tendencies. Most of today's progressive movements, themselves critical of "stupid white men" in power, are also driven by the same fear of blackness, which put simply, is a lack of concern for Black people and instead more of an anxiety of being treated like them.
Consider, for instance, the anti-globalization movement in the US, which is comprised of a multiracial cadre of labor, immigrant rights, and anti-sweatshop, anti-corporation and anti-prison forces. As Frank Wilderson describes, "the democratic populism of the anti-globalization movement is rhetorically and materially scaffolded by an unspoken, but nonetheless necessary and pervasive anti-Blackness…where the anti-globalization movement is concerned Black people are refugees, squatters in somebody else's project."
Black death as the "condition of possibility" for the anti-globalization movement has its roots, according to Wilderson, in Jacksonian Democracy, a 19th century tradition that sought to expand greater access to civil society and citizenship rights for the "average" white man in opposition to the white ruling class. This effort wasn't just simultaneously pro-American and anti-ruling class however; it was also anti-black because the project of self-enlightenment and expansion of rights for the "everyman" necessitated the continued existence of slavery or an enslaved, anti-rational figure in order to give coherence to notions of enlightenment, freedom and citizenship. Just like the Jacksonian Democrats, Moore uncritically relies on society's fear and dread of a black position to marshal support for the rights of the "everyman" even as he dukes it out with the ruling class.
But as Wilderson points out, "unlike today's anti-globalization movement, Jacksonians openly avowed their white supremacy." Today, in an era of multiracial politics, white people invested in citizenship and democracy can remain silent on how black death functions to provide coherence for social access and mobility and yet avoid being labeled a white nationalist by chastising and ridiculing "stupid white men" or "white people in power" (a redundant term if ever there was one), as well as express sympathy or appreciation for some folks of color (Moore's favorite is Oprah Winfrey).
In this sense, Moore and most leftist movements have a lot in common. Given the multiracial nature of today's re/public, few contemporary progressive movements that have institutional currency promote what can be taken as explicitly white nationalist projects. Yet rather than question the fundamental nature of the American project as one structured by the containment and death of Black people, most progressive movements, in their efforts to access US civil society, take on "stupid white men" in a manner similar to Moore.
That is, although today's multiracial progressive movements aren't necessarily white nationalist, their main preoccupations tend to express both a desire to access US civil society and an anxiety of being pushed down to blackness. This is demonstrated by popular concerns about citizenship access or impingements on civil liberties and individual rights. So while not all leftist movements are necessarily white nationalist per se, they do share a point of convergence with Moore's project and therefore with the Jacksonian Democratic principles of the 19th century. This point of convergence, simply, is anti-black racism. Wilderson is instructive on this matter: "This is not to say that all oppositional political desire today is pro-White, but it is to say that it is almost always anti-Black…" Simply, whether multiracial or not, most movements of whatever political persuasion don't fundamentally seek radical transformation by challenging the American project's reliance on a black position to function but rather rely on the existence of such a position to gain political visibility and make claims to citizenship, democracy and rights.
Given all of this, the challenge for activists, then, is how do we avoid replicating the white nationalism and anti-black racism/sexism of folks like Moore in our fight for social justice? How do activists draw attention to urgent matters without necessitating the physical and social death of Black people to gain sympathy, support or funding for their efforts? Under white nationalism, how do non-Black bodies claim innocence without relying on the shadowy figure of the Black criminal as their antithesis? How do we challenge exploitative conditions and oppression in ways that challenge the purpose of a black position rather than reproducing it? What does such an effort look and sound like?
We do not have the answers to these questions given that this is a daunting task, daunting because it requires an entire reorganization of political vocabulary, identifications, commitments and desires than what generally gets published, circulated and institutionalized as "left" in this era of white nationalist/multiracial politics. This then necessitates the need to question established discourses and modes of politics that have gained institutionalized currency in today's political movements, even those that are deemed progressive, radical and revolutionary. Overall, such an effort requires engaging critically and then eventually looking beyond the institutionalized canon of leftist discourse, including that the work of Michael Moore and other political projects with similar tendencies.
Not an excellent critique
by me
Thursday, Jun. 24, 2004 at 1:18 AM
this critique is insane. Michael Moore has spoken out against racism over and over again. Just read any book or watch any film he has made. Racism is one of the centerpieces of Bowling for Columbine. To me this looks like another typical "i hate everything and think it's just cool to be called radical or fringe" rant. Sometimes many folks on the left drive me crazier than the psycho conservatives.
marginal
by joad
Saturday, Jun. 26, 2004 at 5:37 PM
tomjoad21@yahoo.com
I'm for logical critiques but this is marginal and reaching. It basically just serves as another reason to factionalize the progressive side of the country and making us weak and divided. While I don't agree with many of Moore's statements, Particularly his stance on Mumia Abu Jamal's situation, I do think that his efforts are marching in the right direction. To dismiss him as a "white nationalist," despite the author's description and eloquent word selections that are vague at best, is really missing the point. This man could help us get Bush out of office, that needs embraced right now - I think all progressives can agree with that.
where would we be without those genteel Leftists
by Irving
Sunday, Jun. 27, 2004 at 9:17 PM
http://www.klas-tv.com/global/story.asp?s=1970759&ClientType=Printable
Chris Saldaña, Reporter
Movie Goer Assaulted at Fahrenheit 9/11 Showing
(Jun. 25) -- The highly anticipated film, Fahrenheit 9/11, came with more than just controversy at one Las Vegas movie theatre. Moviegoer, Richard Streeter, was one of the many who made his way to a theatre to see what the hype was about. After viewing the film, he was greeted outside the theatre by members of the Las Vegas MoveOn.org.
The group was handing out leaflets on the importance of the film. Streeter voiced his view on the movie, "I made the comment, apples and oranges -- Kerry, Bush -- one's no better than the other. You really ain't got much of a choice. This guy comes up to me and says, 'Oh yeah?' " Streeter was then spat on by the same man.
He attempted to call police to report the incident when he was told not to, "A guy standing next to him said why don't you drop it. I said, 'No, I'm calling the police. I'm exercising my right as a citizen, I've been assaulted.' "
But the horror kept on growing for Streeter as he walked to his car on the phone with police, "This guy turns, and totally by surprise takes his hand and bam! It was a big guy. Shoved me onto the ground, I hit my head." A police report has been filed.
The film is a portrayal of President Bush and his administration. Filmmaker Michael Moore admits Fahrenheit 9/11 is his personal attack on the President and intends to change voters' minds. The President's supporters say the movie is being used for propaganda.
oh pleez...
by fruitcake
Monday, Jun. 28, 2004 at 7:25 AM
"The President's supporters say the movie is being used for propaganda."
Something the President's supporters would never dream of engaging in, of course...
When the Establishment's favorite tactics are used against the Establishment, suddenly they become repugnant and immoral. Ironic innit?
$
by $
Monday, Jun. 28, 2004 at 10:27 AM
More centrist 'infotainment'
by the evil of two lessers
Tuesday, Jun. 29, 2004 at 4:09 AM
Moore's film is a "documentary" the same way FOX is "news".
Moore is my idol
by Sodom Hussein
Thursday, Jul. 01, 2004 at 8:34 AM
Michael Moore: Immoral, fat, lazy, stupid
July 1, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern
Joseph Farah
In my most recent book, "Taking America Back," I raised some eyebrows by explaining that the American people were increasingly becoming immoral, fat, lazy and stupid.
I explained that there appeared to be a government conspiracy to promote this trend.
How?
The government is quickly adding sexual deviancy to the list of protected classes of people. In other words, it will soon be a crime across the board to draw conclusions about people based on their behavior. What on earth are we supposed to use as criteria if not behavior?
The government considers the aborting of innocent unborn children a natural right. Yet, there is widespread debate still about whether the death penalty for convicted murderers is "cruel and unusual punishment."
The government penalizes – with a special, onerous tax – married people, thereby encouraging couples to shack up instead of making a lifelong commitment.
The government discourages, at every turn, through strict regulation of churches and church-related ministries the civic involvement of pastors, priests and rabbis – the very people to whom officials should willingly turn for moral counseling and guidance.
Government schools, faced with decades of declining test scores, rampant functional illiteracy, truancy and crime, continue to devote more classroom time and resources to teaching "alternate lifestyles."
Physical education is no longer a serious part of the government school curriculum in most districts. Now, "gym," as it was once called, is co-ed – meaning boys and girls are supposed to hone their athletic skills and workouts together. All one really needs to do is watch the news on a daily basis to see countless illustrations of my "immoral, fat, lazy and stupid" thesis.
With that critical background, let me introduce an American who, better than any other, epitomizes and personifies these four characteristics.
I give you Michael Moore and his new film, "Fahrenheit 9/11."
This is agitprop entertainment that could only be swallowed – enthusiastically, judging from the early box-office results – by a gullible American public conditioned to be immoral, fat, lazy and stupid.
Even Moore seems to understand this.
In a moment of candor last year he described his fellow countrymen to the London Daily Mirror: "They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet ... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pr---s.
"We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance," he said. "We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing. National Geographic produced a survey which showed that 60 percent of 18-25 year olds don't know where Great Britain is on a map. And 92 percent of us don't own a passport."
Just who does Michael Moore hold responsible for that ignorance? Isn't the education system in America controlled lock, stock and barrel by people who share his philosophy?
And, since his book "Dude, Where's My Country?" was a No. 1 best seller for a time and his new movie is No. 1 at the box office, what does his characterization of Americans say about their receptivity to his own work?
I'll answer my own questions.
America is quickly becoming two nations. It is divided like never before in our history since the War Between the States. It is polarized not between haves and have-nots, as Moore might suggest, but between people of good moral character and those without.
It is divided between the immoral, fat, lazy and stupid and those who strive to do the right thing, to work hard, to sacrifice and to use their common sense.
John Kerry is basing his presidential bid on winning the votes of those without a moral compass, without intellectual discernment and without any personal ambition to achieve on their own merits.
While he's fishing around for the perfect vice-presidential running mate, he might consider bottom-feeder Moore, who genuinely seems to have learned the art of tapping into the growing reservoir of self-doubting negativity in so many other immoral, fat, lazy and stupid Americans.
Thank Goddess
by ____
Thursday, Jul. 01, 2004 at 11:19 AM
...that it's only 90 minutes, FOX news runs the same op-ed stuff 24/7.
Wendy Campbell-Stormfront member?
by Nathan
Sunday, Jul. 11, 2004 at 10:37 AM
I know the first gut response will be to roll your eyes because of the mention of Free Republic, and the editors might want to delete this post. I ask you to at least *consider* what's below. If a Nazi group is looking for people sympathetic to them, why can't they look to liberal groups just the same? Read of their tactics, and imagine they're also here at an IMC. And ask yourself about Wendy Campbell. Who is she? When did she appear? What are her credentials?
----------------------
Svyatoslav_Igorevich has taken a keen interest in inducing Stormfront members to register at Free Republic. Free Republic is approximately five times as large as Stormfront.
"How do we penetrate Free Republic?"
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=136636
Over the past few years, Free Republic has gotten less and less interesting. However, many posters and readers at Free Republic are four square behind stopping the illegal invasion from Mexico. This is one topic on which you will be allowed to post at Free Republic.
Free Republic does not suffer criticism of Jewry, so- if you insist on trying to get that topic in, you'll be banned in short order. That is certain.
They will allow minority crime stories, but don't try and headline it "Negro Rapes and Kills White College Girl" etc., cause you'll be history.
I believe you have to be a member for a very brief while- a few days or a week, before you can start your own threads, but you can post from the start.
A few ideas I have on registration names: perhaps it would be wise to use names they can relate to easily...GOPin04, WtheBEST, ConservativeGirl (take up a girl's name as a handle- most politicos are men, and they'll appreciate it LOL), GodBlessUSA, SupportOurBoysInIraq etc. And don't use my examples, cause for certain, Jim Robinson and his mods will soon find out about and read this thread.
Remember. What we consider staid, they consider radical racist. If you find a good minority on White current crime tale- toss it right in there. Then, for good measure- just to show you're not racist (cause some of them will say- "You ONLY ever post black on White crime!")...well, post some White homo principal who's been playing with his students. A digital incursion onto Free Republic can be managed. We have the numbers, and the abilities. But a lot of us will get knocked out as surely as if we had been British redcoats charging in a line, if we don't be sensible and clever.
Remember these pointers before you click that mouse. And ask yourself: "Would Jim Robinson post this?"
If we meet with some successes, we can't come back to Stormfront and say- "I am posting over at Free Republic as "RightWingChick" and here's what I said...", cause their mods will be following our threads having to do with the incursion. We could post threads in which we've participated and let everyone at Free Republic and Stormfront guess, but we simply can't name our names and expect to go undetected. Jim Robinosn will even be looking for increases in registrations, and all those who have registered within 30 days or so of Svyatoslav_Igorevich's
Wait?
by confused
Tuesday, Jul. 27, 2004 at 11:29 AM
Is Kerry the corporate frontman from New England with the public speaking prowess of a cigar-store Indian or is he the corporate frontman from New England who can barely speak English.
Like a lobbyist, I can't tell the difference.
cigar store indian
by laughing man
Tuesday, Jul. 27, 2004 at 12:56 PM
The wife of a friend calls him a funeral director.
Moore unethical as always
by Moore basher
Friday, Jul. 30, 2004 at 5:18 AM
flick@pantagraph.com
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