Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Why Michael Moore?

"Me at Trump Tower, December 16, 2015, 3:35pm."
Source: Facebook
I enjoyed "Roger and Me", "Downsize This" and "Capitalism: A Love Story". Nice stunts - especially the crime scene tape around Goldman Sachs (was it?).

But apart from enriching himself - while wearing a faux-loser slobcap - has Michael Moore changed anything? What industrial jobs has he saved, what bankers brought to justice, what pharmaceutical company greed punished?

Along comes Donald Trump, a genuinely crass populist, but one who as soon as elected starts to take action about the haemorrhage of reasonably-paid factory work. Now, citing national security, he's also put a temporary moratorium on arrivals from a list of "countries of concern" drawn up under the previous administration.

Moore wishes us to treat him as deplorable - but the attempt to do a "Je Suis Charlie" is a stretch. We are not all Muslims, Muslims are not at all the same thing as terrorists, the ban is not on Muslims, and not all Muslim-dominated countries are on the list.

You don't have to like Trump to get a little suspicious of Moore. He's good at making us cheer his ineffectual sallies at the rich and powerful, but really, if it were up to him, would anything actually get done?

For the economic issue it may be too late, anyhow - tools and equipment shipped abroad, skills rusting and lost, money flitting elusively round the world like a Jack-'o'-Lantern - but a combination of sideshow virtue-signalling and mob-inflaming isn't going to put that or any other matter right. Many Facebook users appear to be losing their minds, insta-reacting with screams to every new issue, and Moore is happy to photobomb America's existential crisis to wind up excitable idiots and make an extra buck or two.

I wonder whether, in private, Moore thanks his Maker for Trump's election to the Presidency.

6 comments:

Dioclese said...

Off topic but important re Trump and the snowflakes. Sign this :

‘Donald Trump should be invited to make an official State Visit because he is the leader of a free world and U.K. is a country that supports free speech and does not believe that people that appose our point of view should be gagged.’

This is growing very quickly (8000 + added in last hour, over 125,000 at time of writing).

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/178844

Sackerson said...

How many of the million-plus signers of the "ban Trump" petition understand that it's merely a request for a debate - without concluding division - in Westminster Hall, NOT the Houses of Parliament?

A K Haart said...

Great post - spot on.

Paddington said...

President Trump has screwed over everyone that he has ever worked with. The closest analogue is a human rooster, who wants it all for him, with no quarter given.

James Higham said...

He'd be one of the first thrown off the tall building.

Twilight said...

I feel much the same as you, Sackerson, about Moore and his ilk (there are lots of 'em - limousine liberals, who didn't give a cuss about what was going on during the past 8 years as long as a Democrat was in the White House. Though my politics are far to the left of most in the USA, I'm still disgusted with the screeching and wailing about Donald Trump.

If all of these "resisting" crowds had voted for the single decent Democratic candidate in the primaries (Senator Bernie Sanders) there'd be no need for their faux distress. But no....they were encouraged to diss him, their leaders in the DNC made sure Bernie had no chance. Karma can be a bitch!

Trump is doing exactly what he always said he'd do. Any other Republican would have been as bad, Pence, his VP maybe even worse, so Democrats should be careful not to get what they wish for. At least Trump is not of the establishment - that's at least one point in his favour.