Michael Moore Makes a Movie

Since I am using alliteration in the title, I really ought to add mendacious somewhere, or perhaps malicious or moronic. Anyway, Micheal Moore has been rushing to make a movie just is time to (hopefully) affect the election, as he related to me in an e-mail.

Dear fellow MoveOn member,

I’m terrified.

Despite the craziness of the past few weeks (really, months!) that should have made Donald Trump’s chances of being president laughably low, I believe he can still win. He’s ahead in Ohio and Iowa and close in a half dozen other battleground states.^1,2 He can still win because his supporters are passionate. And he can still win if all of us are too complacent and don’t do EVERYTHING WE CAN DO to stop him, repudiate his politics on Election Day, and hold Republicans up and down the ballot accountable for his toxic campaign.

So I did something—I made a new movie: “Michael Moore in TrumpLand.” It’s an hour-long comedy in which I go to Ohio to talk to Trump supporters and undecided voters about why they should join me in doing what I didn’t think I’d ever do—vote for Hillary Clinton for president!

And now I need you to do something.

Pitch in to MoveOn’s United Against Hate campaign—so they can knock on 1 million doors, distribute rapid-response videos online, and throw everything but the kitchen sink into making sure we turn out progressive voters who—like many people I know—just haven’t yet committed to voting for Hillary Clinton. Will you help out by chipping in $2.70?

Yes, I’ll chip in now.

Look: There are only 15 days left, and we are fighting a creature who is the embodiment of every sexist, racist, and elitist trait rolled into one human being. Donald Trump isn’t just bad news. He’s an aggressive, erratic, and dangerous bully, who boasts about sexual assault, encourages violence at his rallies, and who is now inciting a mass revolt among his gun-toting followers should he lose.

We must beat him. And we must beat him RESOUNDINGLY.

Please, chip in $2.70 to MoveOn now.

On Election Day, we need to send a loud and clear message that the white supremacists and sexual-assault apologists who have fueled and are encouraged by Trump and his campaign are heading straight for the dustbin of history.

Are you with me on this?

Click here to chip in $2.70, or whatever you can, to MoveOn now.

Onward!

—Michael Moore

P.S. If you want to see my new movie, just click here to get it from iTunes. At my request, they’ve made it affordable for everyone. Also, MoveOn and I are working together to give voters in swing states more opportunities to see the film. Tell your friends about the movie, and then go knock on some doors or make some calls, for victory on November 8!

 

I wonder if Michael Moore has considered that if Hilary Clinton has Citizens’ United vs FEC overturned a movie like this world come under the jurisdiction of the FEC which could prohibit him from releasing it close to an election. That was in fact, the issue behind that case. Citizens’ United is a conservative non-profit organization that wanted to show an anti Hilary Clinton movie on television, but the FEC wouldn’t let them because it violated the provisions of the McCain-Feingold act which prohibits spending on “electioneering communication” by a corporation or union within sixty days of a general election. This, of course, defeats the purpose of the first amendment which was intended to protect the right of free speech, particularly political speech. Does Moore not realize that if Citizens’ United were overturned, he might not be allowed to show his movies so close to an election? Or, maybe he doesn’t believe any future campaign finance laws will apply to both sides. No one seemed to mind when he released the anti-Bush Fahrenheit 911 in order to affect the 2004 election.

I also wonder if Michael Moore is aware that most of the violence this election year seems to be directed at supporters of Trump. I have read more accounts of Trump supporters being attacked, signs being stolen, property being vandalized, than the reverse. This is not unexpected. Most Republicans, even those, like me, who dislike Trump view Hilary Clinton as “Crooked Hilary”, an immoral, corrupt woman who should not be president. You don’t necessarily hate a crooked politician or wish to attack their supporters. Trump, however, is viewed by many Democrats as “embodiment of every sexist, racist, and elitist trait rolled into one human being” who supports violence and sexual assault, not to mention the second coming of Adolf Hitler and possibly the Anti-Christ. Naturally, such an evil candidate must be stopped by any means necessary, legal or illegal.  This applies to his supporters, who after all are, “white supremacists and sexual-assault apologists who have fueled and are encouraged by Trump” who has “gun-toting followers” ready to initiate a “mass revolt” if Trump loses. It seems to me that it is people like Michael Moore who are inciting the violence by labeling their political opponents as somehow less than human. So much for civility.

Finally, since the effort to stop Trump is so important, why didn’t Micheal Moore ask iTunes to distribute his new movie for free. He surely has enough money to cover the costs of making the movie and compensating Apple for distributing it for free. Surely Mr. Moore does not expect to make a profit from this venture. As a wise man once said, “at a certain point, you’ve made enough money”. I think Micheal Moore passed that point a long time ago.

Michael Moore’s Mansion

 

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You Have the Right to Remain Innocent

Chances are, that if you are ever questioned by the police about a crime, you will be eager to tell them everything you know. And, if it turns out that you are a suspect, you will want to waive your rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present, and will want to explain to the police the reasons you couldn’t have the crime. That is a serious mistake according to James Duane, author of the book, “You Have the Right to Remain Innocent” and the YouTube video “Don’t Talk to the Police“. In his book and video, Duane contends that you should never talk to the police or give out any unnecessary information unless you have an attorney present, especially if you are innocent.

The problem is that while you know that you are innocent, the police do not. They think that you are guilty or they wouldn’t be interested in talking to you. Because the friendly police officer who is asking questions just to clear things up is certain, in his mind, that you are guilty, he feels justified, and is legally empowered to, use any means of deception or pressure to get you to confess to the crime. This means that any discrepancies in your answers (who really can keep every detail of what they did last Thursday evening straight in their minds, especially when questioned by a trained interrogator seeking to trip them up?), any misstatements, any statement taken out of context  can be taken as proof of guilt and used against you in court. Remember that scene in My Cousin Vinny in which Ralph Macchio repeats the statement, “I shot the clerk” incredulously only to have it repeated as a straightforward statement of guilt at his trial. This sort of thing really happens.

Compounding the problem are recent court decisions which, according to Duane, make more difficult for a suspect to use their rights to remain silent and seek counsel. It is far easier for the police to get away with lying to you to induce a confession and they can ignore a request to speak to an attorney, unless you clearly and explicitly ask for one. Taking the fifth to avoid incrimination can be a perilous step, since such a request can not be used to imply guilt. Making matters worse is the problem of overcriminalization. As Duane points out, there are so many federal laws on the books and so many of them are badly and carelessly worded by Congress, that it is no longer possible for any human being to know the whole scope of the laws, much less be in compliance. Any given individual may be guilty of committing many federal offenses on any given day. A clever and unscrupulous prosecutor can find something to convict anyone. Speaking too freely could get you in trouble.

It is not necessary to buy and read this book if you can remember to say only four words when questioned by the police; “I want a lawyer”. But You Have a Right to Remain Innocent is worth reading if you want to get some idea of just how poorly our system of justice protects the rights of the accused. Prepare to be shocked and alarmed.

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The Last Battle

The Last Battle is the cruelest, and most heart rending of the Chronicles of Narnia, as perhaps is appropriate for the last book in the series. It is set in the last days of the world of Narnia. There is a false Aslan, the Narnian Anti-Christ, abroad in the western woods of Narnia with a false prophet, the ape Shift, to promote his claims. Under Shift’s guidance the Calormen have been infiltrating into Narnia and cutting down the trees, killing their dryads. Tash, the Calormen god has taken up residence in Narnia to be worshipped as Tashlan. The scenes where Tash makes an appearance must be the most terrifying in the whole Chronicles.

Tirian, the last king of Narnia, and the two children sent from our world, Eustace Shrubb and Jill Pole try to save Narnia, but nothing they do works. They try to expose the false Aslan as the befuddled and repentant donkey Puzzle wearing a lion skin, only to have Shift and the Calorman captain announce that there is a donkey pretending to be Aslan and so Aslan will not appear to the animals any more. They await reinforcements from Cair Paravel only to learn that Cair Paravel has fallen to a Calormen army. They rescue Dwarfs being led into slavery, but the Dwarfs decide that they will not be ruled either by Calormen or the King of Narnia. In the end, Tirian and the two children fight a desperate battle for Narnia with the few animals who will fight alongside them, knowing there is no hope of victory with each one thrown one by one into a stable where something terrible, perhaps Tash, is waiting. All throughout  the beginning and middle of the Last Battle the reader’s hopes are raised again and again, only to be cruelly dashed. It seems that all is lost.

But then, Aslan makes his long delayed appearance. The stable turns out to be not the home of Tash, who is promptly banished to his own place, but the way to Aslan’s country where the Seven Friends of Narnia are waiting to greet  Tirian. Aslan is there to set everything to rights, though this means that Narnia must be ended. Yet the end of Narnia is not really cause for grief, for as Tirian and the Friends discover by going further up and further in, that the real Narnia, of which the Narnia they knew was only a shadow, is eternal and everything that was good about the old Narnia, and England, will be preserved forever in the new Narnia.

As I write this, things are looking a little bleak for our country. The frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election is an unprincipled, amoral woman who would gladly sell out they country she aspires to lead for her own profit. This ought not to be at all surprising since she is the nominee of an unprincipled, amoral political party that places the pursuit of political power ahead of honor or decency and has come to have a vision for this country that is sharply at odds with the principles of freedom it was founded upon. Not that her opponent is better. He is a narcissistic con man who tells people what they want to hear and who has somehow become the presidential candidate of a political party that ideologically he has next to nothing in common with, insofar as he espouses any coherent political ideology at all. Neither of the two major candidates seem to have much use for the concept of liberty, particularly religious liberty. Even the Libertarian candidate doesn’t seem to really have much support for the idea of liberty in the abstract. He and his running mate are willing to fight for the freedom to smoke marijuana. They are less willing to fight for the freedom of a person to live a life according to the beliefs of their faith, unmolested by the state. We may be facing dark times in the next decade, whoever wins the election.

It would be easy to feel despair. There seems to be nothing we can do to keep the country from making a disastrous wrong turn. It is not even easy to see what the right turn might be. It is only natural to worry about the future. We shouldn’t worry, all the same. In the end, we are not the ones who will decide what comes next. Not even our leaders, whatever their pretensions, will have the last word. It is Aslan, or Jesus Christ as he is known in our world, who is our king and is the one guiding events according to his plan.  Aslan is the one who has everything under control and he will make everything right in the end. It is not for us to question or doubt him. We are all between the paws of the true Aslan and we must take what adventures he sends us as true Narnians must and have faith that Aslan will guide us.

 

Dilbert Targeted

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon strip, believes that he has been targeted because of his blogging about Donald Trump.

This weekend I got “shadowbanned” on Twitter. It lasted until my followers noticed and protested. Shadowbanning prevents my followers from seeing my tweets and replies, but in a way that is not obvious until you do some digging.

Why did I get shadowbanned?

Beats me.

But it was probably because I asked people to tweet me examples of Clinton supporters being violent against peaceful Trump supporters in public. I got a lot of them. It was chilling.

Late last week my Twitter feed was invaded by an army of Clinton trolls (it’s a real thing) leaving sarcastic insults and not much else on my feed. There was an obvious similarity to them, meaning it was organized.

At around the same time, a bottom-feeder at Slate wrote a hit piece on me that had nothing to do with anything. Except obviously it was politically motivated. It was so lame that I retweeted it myself. The timing of the hit piece might be a coincidence, but I stopped believing in coincidences this year.

All things considered, I had a great week. I didn’t realize I was having enough impact to get on the Clinton enemies list. I don’t think I’m supposed to be happy about any of this, but that’s not how I’m wired.

Mmm, critics. Delicious 🙂

Scott Adams has not identified himself as a Trump supporter until recently, when he decided that Clinton’s proposal for a confiscatory estate tax was sufficient reason to endorse Trump. Evidently, just writing positively about Trump’s persuasion skills was enough to get him condemned as a thought criminal. I imagine that next there will be petitions to newspapers to drop Dilbert. If Hilary Clinton gets elected, Adams may find his tax statements being audited by the IRS every year for the next four to eight years.

We are not dealing with normal people here. Whether you call them Social Justice Warriors, Politically Correct,Liberals, or Progressives, these are not sane, normal people with an interest in politics. These are fanatics. Normal people do not launch into a tirade about racial oppression and try to get a Lyft driver fired when they see a stupid hula dancer bobblehead. Normal people do not report a classmate to a Gender Bias response team when he makes a joke in his Chinese class about being handsome nor do normal, sane people prepare lists of forbidden phrases for incoming college freshmen, sorry freshpeople, or spend their time writing fake reviews for Amazon and getting people banned from social media.

These people are fanatics, bullies, digital Brownshirts who like to push people around and who are not in the least willing to act with tolerance or civility. They often say that they support diversity, and perhaps in their own way they do, but they are not interested in diversity of opinion. You cannot reason with these people or appease them. They always want more concessions. You can only stand up to them and fight them. Then, like most bullies, they will seek out easier targets.

Fortunately, Scott Adams is already a successful cartoonist and author, so it is not too difficult for him to stand up to them. It isn’t much of a loss for him if he loses speaking fees because of a perceived support for Donald Trump. Still, even those of us who are not so well situated need to stand up to these bullies and let them know that this sort of totalitarian behavior is simply unacceptable in a free country. Otherwise, we won’t be living in a free country much longer.

 

 

 

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Colin Kaepernick

Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback for the San Francisco 49’s, has been making some waves lately with his refusal to stand for the National Anthem in protest over the treatment of Blacks in America, or something. As is often the case, there is a good deal of nonsense being written about this matter which needs to be dispensed with.

First, contrary to what some on the left are saying to confuse the issue, no one is disputing that Mr. Kaepernick has a right to refuse to stand when the National Anthem is played. He can stand, sit down, or turn somersaults if he wants to. I hope we can be spared any lectures on the first amendment by progressive hypocrites whose first instinct is to censor any ideas they don’t like.

Now, the NFL and the 49ers, as private corporations, do have the right to sanction Mr. Kaepernick if they believe his actions bring discredit or loss of revenue to them. He is working for them and can be expected to abide by their guidelines. They will not sanction Kaepernick, however. Political correctness has taken over even the world of sports and no athlete will be sanctioned for expressing an opinion so long as the opinion expressed is properly politically correct orthodoxy. A devout Christian who refused to stand for the national anthem on the grounds that he cannot support a nation that continences abortion or gay marriage is not likely to be met with the same bemused tolerance.

This leads to the other piece of nonsense that ought to be dispensed with, that Colin Kaepernick is being in any way courageous or brave. He must know perfectly well that nothing bad is likely to happen to him as a result of his demonstration. It is not at all controversial to regurgitate left wing talking points. If he really wanted to be brave and controversial, he might make a public statement that the wounds afflicting the African-American community these days is either of their own making or inflicted by people wanting to “help” them. If anything, his actions help him by drawing attention to him. I, and many others who are not football fans, would have never heard of him if not for his actions. Also, he has made himself immune from being dismissed from the team if  he underperforms. He can simply proclaim that he is being punished for his courageous stand and there is no shortage of fools who would believe him.

The question is not whether Colin Kaepernick has a right to sit during the national anthem, he does, but whether he is right to do so. His stated reasons for sitting are:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,  “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Are blacks and people of color being oppressed and murdered in this country? Should he refuse to show pride in his country. It seems more than a little grotesque for a man who is being paid millions of dollars to complain about being oppressed. Granted, he is not saying that he is personally being oppressed but is unselfishly protesting the oppression of all the other people of color, but it is still odd that he has not considered that a country willing to pay him so much money for playing a game may not be the oppressive dystopia he seems to believe it is. There are, indeed, tragic occasions in which police officers make the wrong decision and shoot suspects, but does he really believe that there are any police officers who start their shifts intending to gun down innocent Blacks? Does it not occur to him that a police officer might be unpunished for shooting a person simply because the shooting happened to be justified, that the officer had good reason to fear for his life?

That is really the point. No one denies that Blacks and people of color were treated very badly in the past in this country. There is, no doubt, still some discrimination against people. What Colin Kaepernick and others do not seem to understand is that oppression, prejudice and discrimination are what’s normal throughout human history. What is not normal is for a privileged group to willingly give up its privileges and to attempt to redress past wrongs, yet that is what has been happening in the United States for the past half century. Mr. Kaepernick’s vision of country that oppresses people of color does not match the reality of a government that has made it a priority to end discrimination and a media that denounces racism and prejudice at every opportunity.

The truth is that neither Colin Kaepernick, or any other American in the twenty-first century can justly claim to be persecuted and oppressed, whatever their color, race or circumstances, not by the standards that have prevailed in most times and places. There has been a lot of talk, lately, about white privilege and the one percent. Perhaps it would be better to talk about American privilege. If you have the good fortune to be born in America, then you are one of the most privileged persons to have ever walked the Earth. You have freedoms and opportunities few have ever had. You don’t have to be afraid of going to jail for saying the wrong thing or practicing the wrong religion. Your career opportunities are not limited by by your social class or birth. You can rise to the top, however humble your origins, if you have enough talent, ambition and are willing to work hard. Naturally, not everyone has the same opportunities and some have advantages others do not. That is inevitable. We cannot make everyone begin on a precisely level playing field. Despite that, and despite the real history of racial discrimination in this country, the United States of America is probably the best place in the world to be Black, or White or Yellow, or whatever. America is a country worth being proud of, despite its faults.

It is too bad that ingrates like Colin Kaepernick cannot see past the faults and recognise what a great country they live in.

 

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