The moral wisdom of Michael Moore
Whatever his flaws, I've always seen Moore as morally righteous. Does everyone know that Mike is a serious Catholic and even came close to becoming a priest? I don't think religiosity equals morality but I do think that religion in many cases does lead to more moral thinking and I see it in Mike's work.
In particular, this scene in F-911 where he shows footage of normal residents of Baghdad before our war started. Omg the outrage this scene created from the pro-war side! They either deliberately misinterpreted it as portraying Saddam's Iraq as a paradise or they truly did not understand Mike's point.
The point is very simple and yet very profound and as far as I know only Mike made it: that our war will have consequences for real live human beings. What is more "moral" than that?
Contrast this with Tucker Carlson's offhand declaring Iran to be "evil" on a Fox News "comedy" show, and thus deserving of annihilation. Oh Tucker is so morally brave, as he points out, so ready to call evil where he sees it. But how moral is it to so lightly declare your support for however many innocent Iranians dying in a war, and to do it in such a stupid way? And on a comedy show? Maybe it's ok because "Red Eye" is never funny?
Also contrast with Michael Ledeen's not-famous-enough quote:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/205187/baghdad-delenda-est-part-two/jonah-goldberg
WHY IRAQ?
So how does all this, or the humble attempt at a history lesson of my last column, justify tearing down the Baghdad regime? Well, I’ve long been an admirer of, if not a full-fledged subscriber to, what I call the “Ledeen Doctrine.” I’m not sure my friend Michael Ledeen will thank me for ascribing authorship to him and he may have only been semi-serious when he crafted it, but here is the bedrock tenet of the Ledeen Doctrine in more or less his own words: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” That’s at least how I remember Michael phrasing it at a speech at the American Enterprise Institute about a decade ago (Ledeen is one of the most entertaining public speakers I’ve ever heard, by the way).
We hear a lot about "evil". If there is such a thing, Ledeen's quote is an example of a very common form of evil. Zero regard for the real live human beings in those "crappy little countries". And Goldberg calls it "entertaining".
Here's the Moore video and the Tucker Carlson video:
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for how he’s helped us in our town. I live in a small town in CA where Mr.Moore’s sister Anne worked in the Public Defenders office. She saw poor people being railroaded into taking guilty pleas. The judges and prosecutors would go to lunch and come back with an agreement.
They got away with it for YEARS!( I, myself got caught up in it where the judge turned my $100.00 fine into 1200 hrs. of community service!) She was ignored when she tried to talk to co-workers(duh, they were knee deep in it them selves!) So Mr.Moore did an expose on the Awful Truth..
http://www.theawfultruth.com/gotojail/
It was AWESOME and judges and prosecutors got fired or were replaced.. It literally changed 30 years of corruption. All the old cases got thrown out and they were retried.
I know he doesn't get a lot of publicity when he does things like this but he honestly puts his money where his mouth is and actually helps the little guy!
He still remembers us and even stood with us with our Occupy here in town.
http://www.theunion.com/article/20111030/BREAKINGNEWS/111039995
We REALLY love him here!
I have always respected MM and once drove to a distant city just to have him sign the book "Stupid White Men" ...
For me .. Micheal Moore is an American Hero.
YM
