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07/27/2003 Archived Entry: "michael moore is a big fat idiot"

MICHAEL MOORE IS A BIG FAT IDIOT: Kay Hymowitz has a terrific piece taking apart Michael Moore in the City Journal, dwelling at length on his dishonesty, hypocrisy and best of all moral simplicity. You know the kind that according to Berkeley researchers characterizes conservatives. Link via Toogood Reports.

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One insufficient interpretation in the article, with emphasis added:

When asked by a reporter from the Arcata Eye in 2002 why he wasn’t speaking at independent bookstores rather than at corporate chains, he exploded in a tirade that revealed his willingness to have his principles—in this case, his distrust of corporate power—take a backseat to his personal vengefulness. “You know in my town the small businesses that everyone wanted to protect? They were the people that supported all the right-wing groups,” he ranted. “They were the Republicans in town, they were in Kiwanis, the Chamber of Commerce—people that kept the town all white. The small hardware salesman, the small clothing store sales persons, Jesse the Barber who signed his name three different times on three different petitions to recall me from the school board. **** all these small businesses—**** ’em all. Bring in the chains.”

Not just personal vengefulness. In fact, one can see an agenda-based reason (rather than just political money contributions) that the Dems generally favor big biz over small biz. The GOP has been more half & half. (I hold no brief for small-business racists, but racism is a wedge issue for the left.) For all the more-leftist-Dem jeering against major corporations, the major corporations’ sheer size & systematic organization renders them more subject to leftist pressure (e.g., as large targets by boycotts — look at Citigroup & Rainforest Action Network just recently) & leftist reform (a large corporate system for implementing programs can be held accountable for implementing a reform if a reform law is passed). A major corporation certainly isn’t government, but is nevertheless closer than is a small business in structure to the public-sector kind of organization which “liberals” (American-style liberals) like to see businesses tend to approximate & into which leftists want businesses to be transformed. Small business also means many more people with ownership’s stakes & skills. When it comes to government takeover, it’s nationalization for big business but the more arduous collectivization for small business. The last thing the left wants is for many people to be in business for themselves.

Someone's appearing to go batty in thoughtless response to a pointed question reflects merely a not stopping to think at the time of the question. Moore could easily have already thought carefully in the past about the idea that small business generally tends to be a greater obstacle than big business against the left. In fact the burden of his complaint concerns precisely a case in point, one involving the Left's best wedge issue, racism.

Posted by ForNow @ 07/28/2003 01:33 PM EST