CG : Archive : December 2002
Taking Aim At "Stupid White Men"
he director of Bowling for Columbine spoke in Vancouver to an overflow audience at the Vogue Theatre, where thousands of people had lined completely around all four sides of the block but could not get in. Moore answered questions from the audience and read from his best-selling book, Stupid White Men.
Michael Moore After I come back here it’s looking more and more American. Your news looks more American, getting more and more airheaded and focusing on the big, splashy, scary stuff instead of the real stuff.
Q. How much profit is your book making?
M.M. Now that’s the kind of question I like. For me or for Harper Collins? It’s making millions for Harper Collins. That’s why you’re stuck in a theatre in Vancouver, a city this size in this small of a place. I’ve made them millions of dollars - Harper Collins in Canada and the US. It’s the most amazing thing.
They would not send me out here initially. I got a school to bring me to the Portland area. This was a couple of weeks ago. The book is already #1. So, I called Harper Collins and I say, “Listen, I’m going to be in Portland. Why don’t you fly me up to Seattle? What could it be, a hundred bucks from Portland to Seattle?” The publicist at Harper Collins goes, (whispers), “Let me shut the door. Okay, I think I can get a hundred dollar ticket for you. I’ll just put it somewhere in the budget, but don’t tell anybody.”
I said, “Are you in East Berlin? Why are you whispering?” My book is making them millions of dollars. It’s bizarre.
Q. Why not go with an independent press?
M.M. Believe me, the Catholic in my head, the nuns have been swimming in there for months now. I’ve got sharks in my conscience, you know. “You got exactly what you deserved, Mike. You went to bed with Harper Collins, Rupert Murdoch and you wanted read by millions of people. You could have gone with a small, independent publisher from Ann Arbor, Berkeley, you know. Five thousand people could have read the book. But, no, you wanted it read by millions of people. So, now you’re getting exactly what you deserve.”
For a long time I believed it was my fault. Anyways, I’ll do the math for you. There’s over half a million books that I know of that have been sold in the first month. So, that’s $25 US a book. Half goes to the bookstore, half to Harper Collins. I get about $3.00 a book and I’ll see that in six months to a year. So, after paying off the agent and everything else I’ll clear over a million dollars on the book.
I’m a dangerous guy to give a million dollars to, because I have very few material needs. It will only give me the freedom to make more films and tv shows the way I want to make them. Every book that’s sold on this tour, whatever my royalty is I’m giving away to various groups and causes that I support. A lot of it’s back home in Flint, Michigan - soup kitchens and shelters and things like that. So, for every $3.00 that comes to me I’ll be giving away $2.00.
Then I’m going to buy a big fucking yacht!
Q. What about the author who wrote Favourite Son: The Making of a President? He didn’t do it very well. He got bumped by St. Martin’s Press and he died in a hotel in Arkansas. Could you talk about him a bit?
M.M. The guy who wrote the Bush biography. I don’t know much about the story. I know a lot of people know about it and I think the book will live on. A lot of people have read it. There isn’t a night that I’m not asked about it, so clearly a lot of people do know.
Is that what you mean? Or am I going to die in a hotel room in Arkansas.
Q. I heard that you almost got arrested at one of your book signings?
M.M. We were in San Diego and I guess the people that rented the place, we went past their curfew. So we were told to leave. I said, “I just have to sign a few more books here.” Everybody felt bad and a few people in line started getting kind of ugly because I started to get up to leave. So I thought I’d sit back down and get them done real quick and a few minutes later the police came in and shut the thing down. They said to get out or they’d arrest me and everybody in line. That’s one of a number of weird things that happened on the book tour.
Q. The war on drugs and the war on terrorism....
M.M. No. I think they’re connected.
Q. Do you think that George W. will be re-elected and, if not, who do you think might run against him?
M.M. I don’t think so. I’m hoping the Democrats will call for a special prosecutor on Enron and that will force him out of office along with Cheney. I don’t know who could run or win.
Q. You?
M.M. I want to live.
Q. Do you think people are starting to do what you’re suggesting in your book?
M.M. Yes. The mail I’ve been getting about what people are trying to do in their local communities, a number of people planning to run for office. I’m hoping that in any group of people two or three will do something.
Q. Would the US invade Canada if they needed the water?
M.M. Abso-fuckin’-lutely. What kind of question is that? You’d do the same thing.
Q. I was wondering if I could work for you?
M.M. As our receptionist. We only hire black people now. You have to read the chapter in the book. I stopped hiring white people. They’re a total nuisance. Sorry, we’ve got to undo a big problem.
Q. Do third party candidates stand a chance of getting elected in the US?
M.M. The only way third parties would have any chance in the US is if we change the ballot laws. I encourage people to take over their local Democratic parties and run people. Even Greens. Greens should just go in and take over their local parties, run people, get them elected and change the laws and open up the ballot.
Q. (Inaudible)
M.M. It is turning around. People themselves have already started to turn around. It’s up to us to organize them. That’s the sad thing. The majority of Canadians probably agree with you on most of the issues that you’re concerned about, but there’s a lack of leadership in organizing them. If you’re sitting around waiting for a leader to rise up and do this it ain’t gonna happen. You’re going to have to do it yourselves.
Q. What about Harper Collins?
M.M. I doubt I’d ever publish a book with them again.
Q. Where are you going to invest your million dollars?
M.M. I don’t invest. I don’t own a single share of stock.
Q. When are you and Rick Mercer going to collaborate directly?
M.M. When he apologizes for stealing my material!
Q. (About political contributions.)
M.M. Absolutely. There should be no private money in our campaigns. It should be all publicly financed with a brief election period and with every candidate invited to the debates.
Q. What films have inspired you?
M.M. Other than Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure? A Vietnam documentary called Hearts and Minds. A Japanese documentary called The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On. Clockwork Orange. There’s a whole list.
Q. (Inaudible)
M.M. Oh yeah. That’s what I’m saying. I think the success of Noam Chomsky’s book is a guarantee that his next book is going to get even wider distribution. Phil Donahue is being let back on American television in prime time. An unapologetic Green party Nader supporter is going to have a nighttime show on MSNBC starting in June.
I see this happening quite a bit. That’s why I’m saying I’m somewhat optimistic at what’s going on. I think people are beginning to see the political shift that’s taking place.
Q. Have you received much support on this book from the major American networks?
M.M. I’ve received none. I’ve not appeared on a single broadcast network. That’s ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. With the exception of one show…
Q. Moneyline?
M.M. No. I’m talking about a broadcast network that’s in every home. Forty percent of Americans don’t have cable. Politically Incorrect, at 1:05 am, is the only time I’ve been allowed on broadcast television in the US. No morning show, no 11:30 pm show, no PBS, not a single NPR show, no Rosie, no Nightline, no Dateline, no prime time, no nothing. No review in 95 percent of the American newspapers and it didn’t matter - it went to number one without any of them! It just shows how irrelevant they are!
[Moore appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in October, 2002.]
So now The Today Show finally are going to have me on on Thursday, but only if I appear with a right wing author. Rule number one. Never put me on live. That’s their mistake on Thursday morning. (Don’t call them up and tell them I said that here in Vancouver.)
Should I read from my book now?
Q. Yes! Shhhh!
M.M. This is from a chapter called “Kill Whitey:” “I don’t know what it is but everytime I see a white guy walking toward me I tense up. My heart starts racing and I immediately begin to look for an escape route and a means to defend myself. I kick myself for even being in this part of town after dark.
Didn’t I notice the suspicious gangs of white people lurking on every street corner drinking Starbucks and wearing their gang colours of GAP turquoise or J. Crew mauve? What an idiot!
Now the white person is coming closer and closer and then - whew. He walks by without hurting me. I breathe a sigh of relief.
White people scare the crap out of me. This may be hard for you to understand considering that I am white, but then again my colour gives me a certain insight. For instance, I find myself pretty scary a lot of the time. I know what I’m talking about. You can take my word for it. If you find yourself suddenly surrounded by white people you’d better watch out. Anything can happen.
As white people we’ve been lulled into thinking it’s safe to be around other white people. We’ve been taught since birth that it’s that people of that other colour we need to fear. They’re the ones who’ll slit your throat.
Yet as I look back upon my life a strange, but unmistakable pattern seems to emerge. Every person who’s ever harmed me in my lifetime - the boss who fired me, the teacher who flunked me, the principal who punished me, the kid who hit me in the eye with a rock, the other kid who shot me with his BB gun, the executive who didn’t renew TV Nation, the guy who’s been stalking me for three years, the accountant who double paid my taxes, the drunk who smashed into me, the burglar who stole my stereo, the contractor who overcharged me, the girlfriend who left me, the next girlfriend who left me even sooner, the pilot of the plane I was on who hit a truck on the runway, the other pilot who decided to fly through a tornado, the person in the office who stole cheques from my chequebook and wrote them out to himself for a total of $60,000 - every one of these individuals has been a white person!
Coincidence? I think not. I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord (never had a black landlord), never had a meeting in a Hollywood studio with a black executive, never seen a black agent at my film or tv agency, never had a black person deny my child the college of her choice, never been puked on by a black teenager at a Motley Crew concert, never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon by a black car salesman (never seen a black car salesman), never had a black person deny me a bank loan, never had a black person try to bury my movie and never heard a black person say, ‘We’re going to eliminate ten thousand jobs today. Have a nice day.’”
“I don’t think I’m the only white guy who can make these claims. Every mean word, every cruel act, every bit of pain and suffering in my life has had a caucasian face attached to it. So, what is it exactly that I should be afraid of when it comes to black people?
I look around the world I live in and folks, I hate to tell tales out of school, but it’s not the African-Americans that have made this planet just a pitiful, scary place to inhabit. Recently a headline in the front page of the science section in the New York Times asked the question, “Who built the H-bomb?” The article went on to discuss a dispute that went on between the men who claim credit for blaming the first bomb. Frankly, I could have cared less because I know the only pertinent answer - it was a white guy.
No black guy ever built or used the bomb to wipe out hordes of innocent people, whether in Oklahoma City, Columbine or Hiroshima. No my friends, it’s always the white guy.
Let’s go to the tote board. Who gave us the black plague? A white guy. Who invented PBB, PVB, PVC and a host of chemicals that are killing us? White guys. Who started every war America has been in? White men. Who’s responsible for the programming on Fox? White men. Who invited the punch card ballot? A white man. Who’s idea was it to pollute the world with the internal combustion
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