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michael moore has lampooned his way across America and around the world for the past dozen years. Starting with his guerrilla documentary Roger And Me and continuing with two television shows, TVNation and The Awful Truth, he’s taken on greedy corporations, arrogant politicians and life’s everyday idiocies with such wit that the viewer always learns while laughing.Moore has put that same anger into a very funny book. As the title indicates, he blames many of the world’s woes on Stupid White Men, the stupidest of whom is George Bush Jr. He’s compiled a very powerful case that Republican forces in Florida, in cahoots with the Supreme Court, stole the Sunshine State to give George the throne.
A chapter called Kill Whitey points out that the earning power of blacks relative to whites in the U.S. is the same as it was more than 100 years ago, just one of many uncomfortable truths Moore raises about race relations in the U.S.
He lambastes the Republican party for blaming American teachers for poor student achievement while cutting funding for libraries and paying teachers poverty wages.
Moore also goes after President Clinton, who, from the environment to the death penalty, followed a conservative program.
He advises the Palestinians to use Gandhian tactics to force the Israelis out of the Occupied Territories, and he’d solve the problems of Northern Ireland by forcing the Protestants to convert to Catholicism. (Some of his suggestions are more serious than others.)
This is one angry progressive yell mixed with a chuckle. Moore speaks at Convocation Hall on Tuesday (April 16). See listings.
Write Books at susanc@nowtoronto.com
Stupid White Men… and other sorry excuses for the state of the nation! by Michael Moore (Regan/HarperCollins), 304 pages, $37.95 cloth. Rating: NNNN
