A Michael Moore FAN page

But I thought people in this group might be interested. The producer of the political documentary American Blackout which won at Sundance a couple years ago has produced a narrative webseries with very overt liberal politics.

you can see the first three minute episode here at www.feedseries.tv

and here is the trailer

Did any of yous do the "broom" thing outside your polling plce? I totally forgot! I suck!

I just joined this community five minutes ago. I finally found a LJ community that shares the same love for Michael Moore that I do! I have a connection to him too. Remember in Roger & Me, when the woman at the Scrabble tournament says that "partier" is not really a word? She is - seriously - my great grandmother. I am not lying. She is. Anyway, did angone watch BFC last night on Bravo? I did, even though I own the movie. See you on the boards!

Do you believe America has made significant progress in the War on Terror since Sept. 11, 2001? Go vote at JacksonSun.Com. Poll's right there on the front.

G.O.P.S. - This is Mark Fiore's take on COPS. It's really funny. It got me thinking about CORPORATE COPS. Remember that?

Originally posted in cargoweasel's LJ as a response to an excellent post he made. I strongly suggest you read the original article, first, before understanding my response to Cargo.

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LiveJournal doesn't go against anything the essay you posted to says, nor do any of your posts.

What the author writes is what I've been saying in local circles for years: I can't be an activist for everything for two reasons, 1. I don't have the time and by spreading myself too thin on everything I care about, I do a disservice to all of them by dilluting the effort, and 2. you need to concentrate and mainstream the message for others to appreciate and identify with it.

How is what you do on LiveJournal in violation of this?

I don't, for a minute, think that my essays are real activism; I write them, here, to get a few words out into the echo chamber and -maybe- refine my thoughts a bit by seeing them in print. I suspect you do the same.

The Internet -the Web- is atrocious at making money; it takes years to attract customers to any site; it took until -I believe- the year 2000 before Amazon.com finally made a profit! All the sites I've designed for various companies over the years have almost never made a profit, and that includes Target, 3M, and Upsher-Smith Pharmeceuticals. Speech ...activism... is no different: you're selling something on the Web and -frankly- it's too big for most methods to really work. At best, your speech on the Web is best used by those rare sites that can link to it and make their points more clearly with the aide of your writing.

In that regard, my essays have had an effect: not on my own, but by getting a few other groups with focussed messages selectively re-printing them or linking to them.

Even the essay about activism focus that you linked to, on Embracing Political Irrelevance is the same thing.

Look at our local activism group, OutFront MN. They focus as well; clarify and keep their central message relevant and on-target. It's one of the reasons I've chosen them as one of the very few causes I directly support. When they host Lobby Day at the Capitol every year, they have dialogue coaches help talk to activists and community citizens as to how to talk to the politicians. They simplify and don't go overboard. It's an approach that we even try with local Pagan Pride Twin Cities (this weekend, in case you're interested).

In short, the work we do -even using LiveJournal- is not an end in and of itself; it's contributing to a whole. A few -a very few- like Rex Wockner and the folks over at You Are Dumb.net, will get a disproportionate audience for one reason or another; their words will have greater impact. But that's not going to be everyone. Many of us just work in the trenches and provide individual essays, observations, or ideas that will get bandied around.

queenofstripes will always have more readers than I (I assume) and that's how it is. So will 2_gryphon. They may be activists, and they may not be. But we're still in the same business of putting ideas on the Web; they've gotten -through skill, luck, popularity, or a combination of the three- to be a small storefront in the marketplace of ideas.

You and I are more the apple-sellers on the street corner.

The guys in the massive chain behind all of us, meeting customers every day? Daily Kos.

Don't fret too much about watering down your message at this level. The guys inside the big department store come out onto the street and selectively buy their produce before taking it back inside to share with their co-workers. It doesn't make us any less effective to write, here, but we should recognize that we probably aren't going to be achieving all we want, either.

...As long as "all we want" is more than we can realistically achieve.

Still, I guess I try. I still post my essays on a variety of topics.

But LJ is also for me talking about movies. I still wax rhapsodic about porn, fandom, cooking, and role-playing games. It's about a great many things for me; my activism isn't just online but it's supported by my online activities.

You seem to be the same.

So does xydexx, rigelkitty, bluerain, petsnakereggie, greenkira, firecatmn, gealach, and so many other intelligent people who post their essays and thoughts to the Web.

Nothing in that excellent essay you linked to violates what we believe or the work we do; it just matters that if we stop at our writing -if we limit ourselves to only being online- we'd better either grow to become the Amazon.com of Web activism or become used to not being relevant.

The brick-and-mortar activism is still the biggest way to reach people; the Web, for the most part, is just here to facillitate things.

A few days ago, I got the following email from a former co-worker at LivingOUT. It strikes me as a good idea, but I've been taken in by "activism that sounds good but on examination really sucks" schemes, before. Can anyone else find much wrong with this?

Oh, and I'm not talking about arguing the fundamental point as to whether or not oil prices are being artificially raised or not. I'm talking about an assessment of the tactic of choosing one of the big companies and not buying gas there until they lower prices.

( Start A Price-War by Not Buying Exxon/Mobile )

I'll admit that I'm mostly skeptical for a pretty lame reason: the massive, overuse of CAPS and Exclamation Points!!!!!!!!

Anytime I see a lot of those (or underlines) I immediately start questioning the veracity of what I'm reading.

I'm also aware that, overseas, prices have been this high for years. Part of me is wondering about whether or not this is all the oil companyies' fault and whether or not we've finally hit the point where we're being charged "fairly" (or, rather, as "fairly" as others have been charged up until now).

In my mind, it's probably mostly the oil companies' doing the prices are so high.

So, what do you think? Let's discuss the merits and flaws of this plan, here...

Yours,
Sylvan (Dave)

Friends,

Last week I closed my New York production office and sent my staff down to New Orleans to set up our own relief effort. I asked all of you to help me by sending food, materials and cash to the emergency relief center we helped set up on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain with the Veterans for Peace. We did this when the government was doing nothing and the Red Cross was still trying to get it together. Every day, every minute was critical. People were dying, poor people, black people, left like so much trash in the street. I wanted to find a way to get aid in there immediately.

I hooked up with the Vietnam veterans and Iraqi war vets (Veterans for Peace) who were organizing a guerilla, grass-roots relief effort. They were the same group that had set up Cindy Sheehan's camp in Crawford and now they had moved Camp Casey to Louisiana.

I have good news and horrible news to report. First, your response to my appeal letter was overwhelming. Within a few days, a half-million dollars was sent in through my website to fund our relief effort. This money was immediately used to buy generators, food, water, a mobile medical van, tents, satellite phones, etc.

Others of you began shipping supplies to our encampment. People in communities all over the country started organizing truck caravans to us in Louisiana. Twenty-two trucks from southern California alone have already arrived. A semi-truck from Chicago delivered ten tons of food. A group of friends in New Jersey got two 24 foot trucks, got their community to load them up with goods, and arrived in Covington tonight. Fifteen iMacs are inbound from California. One man gave us his pick-up truck and another donated truck is en route from Houston.

Your response to my appeal has been nothing short of miraculous. And it has saved many, many lives.

A number of you decided to just get in your cars and drive to our camp to volunteer to help. We now have had 150 volunteers here doing the work that needs to be done. Last night they unloaded twenty tons of food from a tractor trailer in under two hours. Each day more volunteers arrive. Everyone is sleeping on the ground or in tents. It is a remarkable sight. Thank you, all of you, for responding. I will never forget this outpouring of generosity to those forgotten by our own government.

My staff and the vets spend their 18-hour days delivering food and water throughout the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. What they have seen is appalling. I have asked them to post their daily diaries on my website (www.michaelmoore.com) along with accompanying photos and video so you can learn what is really going on. What the media is showing you is NOT the whole story. It is much, much worse and there is still little being done to bring help to those who need it.

Our group has visited many outlying towns and villages in Mississippi and Louisiana, places the Red Cross and FEMA haven't visited in over a week. Often our volunteers are the first relief any of these people have seen. They have no food, water or electricity. People die every day. There are no TV cameras recording this. They have started to report the spin and PR put out by the White House, the happy news that often isn't true ("Everyone gets 2,000 dollars!").

The truth is that there are dead bodies everywhere and no one is picking them up. My crew reports that in most areas there is no FEMA presence, and very little Red Cross. It's been over two weeks since the hurricane and there is simply not much being done. At this point, would you call this situation incompetence or a purposeful refusal to get real help down there?

That's why we decided not to wait. And we are so grateful to all of you who have joined us. The Veterans for Peace and my staff aren't leaving (and that's why we are hoping those of you who can't get to Covington will make it to the Veterans for Peace co-sponsored anti-war demonstration in DC on September 24: www.unitedforpeace.org.)

If you want to help, here's what we need in Covington right now:

Cleaning Supplies (glass cleaner, bleach, disinfectant, etc.)
Aspirin and other basic over the counter drugs.
Bottled Water
Canned Goods
Hygiene Supplies
Baby Supplies - Baby Food Formula, diapers #4, #5, Wipes, Pedialyte
Sterile Gloves
Batteries - All kinds, from AA to watch and hearing aid batteries.
Volunteers with trucks and cars
Self contained kitchens with generators, utensils, workers

Consider sending supplies in reusable containers. List the contents on the outside of the package so the folks in the warehouse can easily sort the items.

Clothes are not needed. If you go, keep in mind that you MUST be self-sufficient. Bring a tent and a sleeping bag. People are driving to Covington from across the country and often have extra room in their cars for you or for an extra box of supplies. For more information, go to the Veterans for Peace message board: www.vfproadtrips.org/katrina/.

Send supplies via UPS to:
Veterans for Peace
Omni Storage
74145 Hwy. 25
Covington LA

Thanks again for funding and supporting our relief efforts. It has been a bright spot in this otherwise shameful month.

Yours,
Michael Moore
mike@michaelmoore.com
www.michaelmoore.com

To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush:

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that the man you elected to lead us after we were attacked went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows?

That's right. Horse shows.

I really want to know -- and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect -- how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C'mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don't start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

When you look at Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, a man with little experience in national security, do you feel secure?

When men who never served in the military and have never seen young men die in battle send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea? Will you give yours back so hundreds of thousands of homeless in New Orleans can have a home?

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us? Hurricane Katrina came in and blew off the facade that we were a nation with liberty and justice for all. The wind howled and the water rose and what was revealed was that the poor in America shall be left to suffer and die while the President of the United States fiddles and tells them to eat cake.

That's not a joke. The day the hurricane hit and the levees broke, Mr. Bush, John McCain and their rich pals were stuffing themselves with cake. A full day after the levees broke (the same levees whose repair funding he had cut), Mr. Bush was playing a guitar some country singer gave him. All this while New Orleans sank under water.

It would take ANOTHER day before the President would do a flyover in his jumbo jet, peeking out the widow at the misery 2500 feet below him as he flew back to his second home in DC. It would then be TWO MORE DAYS before a trickle of federal aid and troops would arrive. This was no seven minutes in a sitting trance while children read "My Pet Goat" to him. This was FOUR DAYS of doing nothing other than saying "Brownie (FEMA director Michael Brown), you're doing a heck of a job!"

My Republican friends, does it bother you that we are the laughing stock of the world?

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours. And you know, for our peace and safety and security, this has to be fixed. What do you propose?

I have an idea, and it isn't a horse show.

Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com