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Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN February 15, 2004 Issue 
Dude, Where's My Country? By Michael Moore 
Michael Moore Uncloaks Ugly Truths Lemmings are cute little rodents who migrate en masse. Following their leader blindly into the ocean they also drown en masse. When I hear news reporters and political pundits repeat meaningless words turning them eventually into slogan clichés, I wonder if we have become a nation of lemmings blindly accepting what we are being told. On the surface it would appear that we've become if not lemmings, at least too complacent to deal with social issues that require social consciousness. But a look at the bestseller list contradicts this impression. Books that question accepted ideas have been at the top of bestseller lists nationwide for several years now. Take for example the two bestsellers "Stupid White Men" and "Dude, Where's My Country?" by Michael Moore, the controversial writer and filmmaker of the award-winning "Bowling for Columbine." "Stupid White Men" would have been pulped if it weren't for The Librarians. The book came out the day before 9/11. It was published by Regan Books, a division of HarperCollins, which is a division of Fox News owners News Corp and Rupert Murdoch. Labeling it unpatriotic, the publisher immediately regretted the meager 50,000 copies printed and decided to pulp it. It was those oft-stereotyped-as-mousy librarians turned People's Freedom to Read Warriors who stormed HarperCollins with unparalleled eloquence in defense of the banned book that freed it in the end. "We're getting hate mail from librarians!" HarperCollins told Moore. "I guess that's one terrorist group you don't want to mess with," replied the author. Convinced that the book would die immediately, the publisher distributed it to bookstores without any publicity. Moore was told, "You are out of touch with the American people, and your book will now suffer as a result of it." "I was so out of touch with my fellow Americans that, within hours after the book's release, it went to number one on Amazon - and within five days it had gone to its ninth printing. It's in its fifty-second printing as I write this," the author tells us. Perhaps Michael Moore's books are at the top of the bestsellers list precisely because the news media considers it unpatriotic to ask the type of probing questions that might reveal the unpatriotic activities of our leaders. In his second book, "Dude, Where's My Country?" Moore poses some tough questions about 9/11 and the war on Iraq directly to President Bush. With empirical logic masked by caustic humor, Moore delves into hard facts that have yet to be analyzed or explained fully either by the media or by our governing administration. Why was intelligence about terrorists' attacks preceding 9/11 ignored? Why did the safety of Saudi Arabians and the 24 members of the bin Laden family living in the U.S. at the time of 9/11 take precedence over anything else for President Bush? "With all that was happening in the days after September 11," Moore asks, "how did you find the time to even begin thinking about protecting people named bin Laden?" Why were the Saudis and bin Ladens permitted to leave the U.S. immediately after 9/11 without being questioned when fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis? "Why did you allow a private Saudi jet to fly around the U.S. in the days after September 11 and pick up members of the bin Laden family and then fly them out of the country without a proper investigation by the FBI," asks Moore. Why was this information not reported widely? "Is it true that the bin Ladens have had business relations with you and your family off and on for the past 25 years," the author asks President Bush and then goes on to document in great detail the close ties between the two families as well as the chummy business ties between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family. Why wage war on Iraq, Moore asks, when all the reasons for the war attributed to Iraq - the bin Laden and al Qaeda connections and funding, the barbarous anti-human rights laws and shady business dealings with the Bush family - are much more applicable to Saudi Arabia. In Moore's words, the U.S. becomes only a shadow of the once truly great democratic nation. He demonstrates how the hype about the war on terror has "distracted the nation from the Corporate War on Us" and how the Patriot Act violates our privacy and freedom to read. According to Moore, it is the corporate criminals and the Patriot Act that are the real terrorists in America. Woe is us and lucky for all those bin Ladens whisked away right after 9/11 to be safely beyond the reach of the Patriot Act! The end of the book, dealing with the most serious issue - how to affect positive change - is the most humorous. If only facing truth, no matter how unpalatable it might be, was that simple and uncomplicated by egos and character flaws! Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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