Open Letter to Michael Moore

Hey Mike,

I don’t know if you mind me calling you Mike, it’s just that you seem like a really down to earth guy, even though you won that Palm-thing over at that snotty film festival (on second thought maybe I should call you Mr. Moore?) Anyway, I wanted to tell that I’m a big fan and have really enjoyed your movies (even that one about invading Canada). They’re poignant and real and even a tough guy like myself can admit to getting choked up at times. Despite my appreciation for your work I think they’re missing something. It seems to me that your movies, while accurate and heartfelt descriptions of how unfortunate and unfair situations truly affect people’s lives, they merely skim the top of the proverbial iceberg, the symptoms of the problem if you will. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve realized that your movies have a unifying theme which you’re not addressing.

Let me explain.

In “Roger and Me” you exposed the effects that big business’ “downsizing” and “outsourcing” have had on local communities but you didn’t more closely examine fundamentally why and seemingly all of a sudden these companies were able to just close up shop and relocate someplace cheaper. In “Bowling for Columbine” you threw the doors wide open to a nearly bankrupt culture that on the outside appears to have wealth and contentment but is really a festering mess laced with indifference and simmering with violence. “Fahrenheit 9/11″ concluded that the fault lied mainly with 1 man and the problem with doing that is that it gives the impression that once he’s gone, that’s it, there’s nothing more to worry about. The root of the issue upon which I speak is something that you touch upon in each and every one of your movies. It’s about how communities are continually being assaulted by the special interests that purchase not only our government but our way of life. Though I have yet to see it, I think your latest movie “Sicko” will be probably best represent this reality. For your next movie, why not address the fundamental question of why these things are so?

The problem as I see it, is that our government and our society have been overtaken by the money changers, yet there isn’t many people fashioning whips to drive them out. These people have created so much havoc on our way of life by financially and morally bankrupting our society, convincing people to feed on minutia and banality which (as you are all too aware) way too often rears up kids that go on shooting rampages without anyone seeming to notice their precipitous descent into hell, (probably because they were too busy lining up at tables in the temple, changing their money.) Even honorable men are too busy cleaning up after them, they don’t have the time to address the root of the problem. There seems to be to few voices proclaiming that the one thing that can stop them, our government, isn’t the enemy - it should be a representation of, for and by the people. Unfortunately today, our government has moved so far from the words of Abraham Lincoln that many wouldn’t disagree that it has become a finely wielded tool of the elite and powerful, at the expense of the people. In believing that our government is the enemy we have given up on our only hope for a more just and substantive society. You’ve been showing us exactly what happens when the profit-seeking, immoral elite succeed; why not show us how they do it and what we can do to stop it?

Let’s change the conversation in this country from what is wrong with our country to how we can fix it. Let’s expose to the light of day how privately funded elections and the interplay of the wealth of the elite in these processes is the starting point for corruption in our government and our society. You could dig up example after example of how there is a direct and continual quid pro quo institutional machine between elite self-interested campaign contributors and politicians who do their bidding by stifling the flow of our resources from education and other public uses that yield tangible and invaluable returns on our investment and to corporate welfare to military hardware companies like Boeing in Littleton Colorado, car manufacturers like GM that closes plants in Flint Michigan and to for-profit hospitals, that after accidents make patients choose which body parts they can afford to reattach.

It’s about time this country learned where the root of their indifference lies and that there is a concerted effort by the powers that be to convince them that they are impotent to do anything about their reality. Our government should be our weapon for use against them, not the other way around. We need someone to show us how it can be wielded. I’m asking you since you seem to be one of the few public people who still has a set of balls. First, you can start by showing us what is possible when the money changers are kicked out of government through publicly financed, “clean elections.”

Maybe I’m being naive but like the man said, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Anyway, who would have thought that 231 years later we’d still be entertaining the idea of a government of, by and for the people?

Sincerely,

The Indy Voice

On Iraq and the “Media”

To suggest that the media is only emphasizing the negative ignores the reality that the “media” isn’t some collective group pushing a shared worldview on unsuspecting customers but rather a number of disparate and fiercely competing corporate conglomerates each made up of individuals who, while they see the world differently, are all involved in the corporation’s quest for increased profit. To suggest that there may be some kind of conspiracy being perpetrated by these corporations to make the Bush administration look bad, an administration which has pushed “deregulation” policies from which these companies stand to gain billions of dollars in profits is absolutely ludicrous and contradictory to their self-interests. Anyone who denies this reality ignores that the sole purpose, the reason for the existence of a corporation is to consistently increase and maximize profits.

When a famous broadcaster contends that they are free to make there own decisions regarding what they emphasize in their newsrooms they neglect to recall that the corporation that hired them did so because they believed that this broadcaster would maximize their profits. Therefore, the corporation would not have hired an individual that they perceived to espouse views contrary to their self-interest or hire someone who would upset their advertisers and customers by possibly proposing so-called “radical” worldviews. For example, predicting in 2003 that no WMD would be found in Iraq and that the invasion and occupation would only exacerbate and expedite regional instability, increase the influence of Iran and decrease U.S. hegemony or suggest that the occupation would be the impetus for Iraq to devolve into absolute anarchy, all of which were views that received no airtime in 2003 because they were perceived to be “radical,” “liberal,” or “unpatriotic” and were views held by the absolute smallest of minorities.

These views also happened to be correct.

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