Giving Bush a good poking! (Stupid White Men ... and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore)

Member Name: michaird

Product:	Stupid White Men ... and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore
Date:	24/02/03 (276 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Humourous, Though provoking, Controversial

Disadvantages: Not 'That' humourous, Leading in the thoughts it provokes, Lacks balance

Poking fun that is!

I've read a fair few reviews of 'Stupid White Men' before now; the common theme that leapt out at me was that it would make me angry. 'Ooh' I thought 'A bit of controversy, give me some of that' and so when picking a special offer book from my book club I decided that a pound wasn't too much money to lay out to be made angry.

Michael Moore is probably best described as an aggressive political satirist; he attempts to tell the general public all those things the big wigs didn't want you to know, with a twist of humour. He has done this through various film projects, his TV show 'The Awful Truth' and this most recent offering 'Stupid White men, and other sorry excuses for the state of the nation'. Personally, I've never got on with his humour, its lacks the subtlety and irony that makes political satire really work, I prefer our version of him, Mark Thomas (he's better looking too). Basically I don't find Michael Moore funny, I didn't find this book funny either, amusing in places but not the 'hilarious, rollicking, fantastic read' the cover promised.

But even saying that, there's no doubt that what Michael Moore has to say is both interesting and enlightening. He's obviously an angry man and if I were to believe everything he's written in his book I can see why. So about the book, well lets look at it shall we?

The introduction tells us a little bit about how the book came to be. We learn that the first 50,000 copies came of the presses on September 10th 2001 and then the publishers refused to distribute them. We learn that it took a year and a bunch of very angry librarians before the books was finally released to the public, under a media blackout and then sold out within hours. All very interesting I thought and I did find parts of this section quite funny.

Highlights include:

The story of George W
Bush's election and why for the rest of the books he is referred to as the 'president' - specifically with those little quote marks. Michael Moore does not like George Bush; he doesn't like the other guy much either, but believes he was robbed.

After reading this chapter I finally understand all the fuss that was made during the US presidential election. It's rather shocking and if it wasn't for the fact that he would've had his ass sued off for libel if it weren't true, I'd think it wasn't.

A letter to the 'president'. Very cheeky, genuinely concerned and in places funny. It outlines four pages of crappy things the Bush administration have done since they came to power and for once there are none of those all to often repeated, yet very funny, 'Bushisms'. He also asks some very intrusive, yet pertinent questions of good old Dubya.

Revelations that the starting pay for an airline pilot in many US domestic airlines is between $13k and $20. The people who are in charge of the planes! $13K is about £8K, how can anyone live on that kind of money?

Amongst all this Moore gives his views on the state of the US education system, the prevailing institutional racism in US society and the appalling attitude toward the environment held by the people in charge. He doesn't pull any punches; he doesn't mince his words or sugar-coat them in any way.

In between all this he gives some serious - and seemingly not so serious - advice to his readers on how to make a stand against this kind of thing.

Serious:

How to obtain free speech and expression with schools - School presidents, Newspapers, community and how to use them to gain free speech without getting into trouble (well not much)
Survival tips for white America (When dealing with poor workers) - Pay a living wage, provide day care, provide health insurance etc

Not so serious:
<
br>Survival tips for Black people: Driving while black, voting while black, breathing while black. All quite tongue in cheek but accepting the fact that racism is a reality in US society and that it is crap.
How to survive global warming: Learn to swim, find floating devices from within the house, but a waterproof camera.


Some of this book didn't work for me. I couldn't relate to a lot of the politics on anything more than a general level as it is focus on the US system and it's politics. I know the UK system is equally flawed but the two are still so fundamentally different it's hard to know how to apply it. Moore's analysis of the lives of Black people in the US, in the chapter called 'Kill Whitey' is poles apart from my own experiences of integration and multiculturalism. Again, the UK does have a problem with racism but I don't think it is anywhere near as ingrained as it seems to be in the US. I refuse to be ashamed of my colour, as I wouldn't expect anyone else to be ashamed of his, and Moore seems to believe that all white people should be ashamed of themselves. It's still very interesting though.

So read it if you like controversy, read it if you like American style satire, read it if you already dislike GW Bush and all that he stands for, read it if you like to be angered.

Don't read it if you're very pro American and dislike anything that tarnishes the image. Don't read it if this kind of thing doesn't normally interest you.

If you do read it don't take it too seriously, remember every story has two sides, research Moore's statements before deciding to act on them and them, then let her rip!

Did it make me angry? No not really, but then I'm remarkably level headed when it come to this kind of thing. Though I was quite amused when he referred to Tony Blair as a Clinton clone.

I paid £1, Cover price is £7.99, Amazon sells
it at £5.59 + p'p

Summary: