Rave on, Mr. Moore!

Review by Mike Gange

Dude, Where’s My Country?
Michael Moore
Warner Books, $37.95, 249 pages.

If you tried to compile a list of those known for their consciousness-raising efforts you might include Woody Allen or George Carlin, Pete Seeger or Joan Baez. Maybe we ought to add Michael Moore in there too.

Moore is sometimes held in the same regard as the big bad wolf in the children’s story The Three Little Pigs. Like the wolf, Moore huffs and puffs quite a bit but is often dismissed as being too loud, too driven, too frank. His last book, Stupid White Men, was virtually ignored by major U.S. media, despite spending more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list and becoming the largest selling non-fiction book in 2002. Moore’s documentary film, Bowling for Columbine, won Moore an Oscar last year, but his politically slanted acceptance speech was booed (although in fairness it was no worse than some previous Oscar winners’ commentaries). His 1995 television show, The TV Nation, was too much for NBC and it was cancelled after only a short run as a summer replacement.

Michael Moore’s latest book will probably also be dismissed by the major media because, as he continues to be blatantly opposed to U.S. President George W. Bush, he will be viewed again as too loud, too driven, too frank. If this work is dismissed, it would be a shame, because in Dude, Where’s My Country? Moore shows why he is someone we should recognize for his social conscience.

True, more than half of this book continues to be a vitriolic attack on George W. , but instead of just bashing Bush, Moore conclusively proves this U.S. President has a hidden agenda and it is not about what is good for the free world. Moore gleefully, aggressively and thoroughly shows how Bush’s agenda is about making himself and his cronies more money and ruthlessly grabbing more power. For example, among the Bush family’s close friends and business partners are such notables as the Bin Ladins, the ultra-wealthy Saudi Arabian family whose brother is Osama Bin Ladin. Over the past 25 years, many of the Bin Ladin family have been regular visitors to the Bush family ranch in Texas and they invest millions of dollars in the same businesses as the George W. and his father. Members of the terrorist group the Taliban were also wined and dined extravagantly in Houston while George W. was the Governor of Texas. Many of these terrorists, says Moore, may have met with the U.S. President as recently as six months before the 9-11 attacks on the U.S.   Moore’s proof comes from meticulously harvested details published by some of the major media’s most trusted sources, including the BBC, the CBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

True, there are a couple of low points in Dude, Where’s My Country? That whole chapter where Moore has God address the reader is pure goofiness. So is that bit about drafting TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey to run for president. And true, Michael Moore’s style is still ‘in your face,’ and his writing is alternatively inflammatory, funny, angry and thought provoking.

For a change, though, Moore comes across as less angry and more concerned about the long term and far ranging effects of Bush’s decisions and the favours he has done for his friends, ultimately allowing corporations more control of our lives.

Moore writes, "Companies including Disney, Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, Dow Chemical, JP Morgan Chase and Wal-Mart have been secretly taking out life insurance policies on their low and mid-level employees and then naming themselves – the corporations – as the beneficiary! That’s right: When you die, the company – not your survivors – gets to cash in...And what does Corporate America call this special form of life insurance? Dead Peasants Insurance."

If Michael Moore continues to write about the ongoing corporate control of North America and the erosion of personal rights, and writes about it as effectively as he does in certain parts of Dude, Where’s My Country? he will long be remembered as a writer with important things to say. Meanwhile, he continues to huff and puff, and try to blow the house down – George W. Bush’s White House, that is.

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.