Rating: 
Summary: Standard Fare
Review: There are no surprises in this book. It is standard fare for those who live in the make-believe world of the bonafide liberal democrat. In typical liberal fashion, the so called "intellectual elite" characterize anyone who doesn't share their particular set of biases and prejudices as stupid and unsohphisticated. Readers with the same bent will probably enjoy the book. Those in pursuit of a serious discussion of the issues facing America today would be well advised to look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Finally someone says what's on YOUR mind.
Review: Moore's book is a well researched and entertaining polemic against the current occupant of the White House and his right wing puppeteers. His exposure of the appalling behavior and stunning hypocrisy of those in leadership positions on the right is a revelation, even to those who follow their antics in the alternative media. If you are one of the few conservatives who can actually expose yourself to ideas which will challenge your thinking I would strongly suggest that you start with this book.
Rating:
Summary: THIS BOOK IS GREAT
Review: All I have to say is that I cannot wait for Michael's next book. Mike has genius level insight that far exceeds any politician in office. Beware if this man runs for President. Because people will vote for him.
Rating: 
Summary: Quite Revealing
Review: Michael Moore has a lot of good points in this book. If half of the information in this book is true (and I believe it is), it is apparent that Americans are getting the wake-up call that we require. A very revealing book. The book is definitely one-sided. I consider myself to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Even I found myself a little taken aback that Moore couldn't find anything positive to say about the state of the "state". I know that's not the purpose of the book, however, it is hard to take him as completely credible when he doesn't even allow for the illusion of a balanced look. Of particular annoyance to me was his chapter of "We're Number One". Not one positive remark in this chapter, when clearly America is number one in a whole host of positive things as well. I did not take this book as an assault on America, I just find it hard to lend credence to a host of the claims here, when there is no acknowledgement in the book of the good things that are going on...however few they may be. That being said I found a lot of thought provoking items here. I liked that he did acknowledge that there is very little difference between Democrats and Republicans and really not that much difference between Bush's policies and Clinton's. I also thought his observations about Ken Lay, Enron, and our situation in the Middle East, and Bush's "Bite Me" foriegn policy were very astute and unfortunately pretty close to "nail on the head". Considering the book was was written well before Sept 11th, it's kind of humbling to know the signs have been there for a long time and we just didn't see it. Good, eye-opening book. I think it is far more factual than hyperbole.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful!
Review: After being a mad camper that I had to miss Michael Moore's booksigning here in St. Paul, I finally bought "Stupid White Men" last night. Couldn't put it down; read it cover-to-cover. What can I say? Michael packs an incredible amount of important information in such an entertaining way that even the most uninformed voter can easily digest it without too much heartburn. (Until they get to thinking how they've been had by our "President", his cohorts, and other affiliated stupid white men.) This one book contains much more real news than the last several years worth of network/cable "news" broadcasts or mainstream "news"papers. I hope that these "news" outlets take a hint from the book's bestseller status that voters are hungry for the truth out here in the hinterland.
Rating:
Summary: Tragi-comedy That Challenges
Review: Michael Moore's book "Stupid White Men" is delightfully funny, yet at the same time, frighteningly dark. (By the way, men in Moore's case includes wo-men!) Beneath some of the seemingly hysterical rants, lie some very serious questions I believe every American citizen needs to ask of ourselves -- color and gender not a factor. I think the saddest point that Moore confronts us with is that as the Free-est country in the world, we are the least politically present at voting time and in letting our representative goverment know what we demand of them. This is a sobering fact and I believe Moore puts the right time on our alarm clocks for a wake up! Along the way, he asks some other questions and presents some wonderful facts.
Rating: 
Summary: A great jumping off point for jumping up and down
Review: Michael Moore's heart and his big fat mouth are both in the right place. He aspires to be the left wing's answer to Rush Limbaugh, and he succeeds in being as colorful, as funny, as relentlessly outraged. He succeeds in gathering as sweeping an array of factoids tailor-made to stir the blood of any self respecting American, with the difference that his factoids are aimed at stirring things up to afflict the comfortable, instead of at stirring things up to kick the comfortless while they're down. ... he also emulates Rush in often not bothering to get his factoids right. To his credit, *most* of them are accurate, including the one most shocking assertion, that Dubya only "won" Florida because his brother's administration deliberately and successfully set out to disenfranchise thousands of black Floridan voters in advance. And unlike Rush, he does provide footnotes, so the diligent reader can check up on a good deal of what he says. It's a fun read, swift if not altogether Swiftian. As a collection of liberal Usenet flames, this would be a classic: raunchy, intelligent, principled, often devastating, intermittently hilarious. But from a hardcover book we have a right to expect a higher journalistic standard than we ordinarily apply to flame-meisters. So, read it by all means. Most of it is true, and it may motivate some of us to do more to grab control of the Republic back from the one-star reviewers here, who take it as articles of religious faith that we'll never be safe from Communism until all the world's air, water, and sunlight are duly privatized, and that the market will never be truly free until the final glorious merger places it all, together with the U.S. Congress, under the exclusive control of one megacorporation. But before you introduce Moore's nuggets into the stream of political discourse yourself, take the time to learn whether the particular nugget is a misinterpretation, an exaggeration, or a real live horror. God knows the reality is fearsome enough. The good guys can safely leave the truth-stretching franchise to the other side.
Rating:
Summary: Follow the advice
Review: I am so encouraged that inspite of Michael Moore's bitter attack on the 2000 election debacle (the details of the Katherine Harris's at best unethical and at worst un-Constitutional disenfranchisement of 57,000 voters is detailed with disturbing clarity, unlike anywhere else in main stream American media), and the character of Resident Bush, that this book has done so well in the post-September 11th tone of our country. (However, those of you who are happy that Bush won should be pleased to know that VP Al Gore is attacked with equal vigor.) (BTW - if you are Ari Fleischer or one of his similiarly minded "Never say anything bad about the Fatherland" peers, please don't read the rest of my review: I am not watching what I say, even though I am reasonably sure that I am not aiding any terrorists by saying that America is good, but it could be SO much better.) To me, the saddest irony of the state of the world is that we are fighting to convince the world that America is the best, most benelovent global power to ever have come into existance, while there is so much that is broken about our country. Moore illuminates many of these failings, which include; the lack of depth in our political debate, the corporate take over of the American political process, the dismantling of the good aspects of government (i.e. the ones that serve to protect the majority of Americans) along with the bad as part of a general campaign of anti-government sentiment, the huge increases in the wealth of the ruling class of this country coupled with the growth in the numbers of the poorest Americans and the shrinkage of their income, the "Republicrats" - which most of you may know as the Democratic party, but who only have an idelogical difference from the Republicans in the media, the state of racial relations, the status of women, the sorry state of our education system, etc. And he does so with much more humor than I would ever be able to muster. And he doesn't just attack the failings of our society and leave it at that. Instead he gives you a very simple model to follow that can bring about change to our society: GET INVOLVED. Don't just vote for your party: go to their meetings and move the agenda towards issues that are important to you and the people that you know. Run for local office. Call your represantives in Congress and the Senate. Write letters to the editor. Volunteer for political organizations. Etc. FOLLOW THE ADVICE. (I bet we'd all be surprised - and happier - at where our nation would be with even a small increase in real people involvement.)
Rating:
Summary: Utter Brilliance
Review: If you only read one book this year, read this one. Even if you cannot read, have someone read it to you. Michael Moore has presented a brilliant, humorous and insightful look at what is going wrong in not only America, but the world at large if one is so inclined to think it out a little further. The well-documented facts he stands behind lay waste to the late election disaster and are a source of scivvy-rash for staunch Republicans everywhere. His book asks how can they defend the actions of the Thief-In-Chief and his bumbling cohorts in suborning the Constitution to claim the top spot? There are just too many loose ends in this whole scenario. Curious though, Bush ratings are at 75-80% approval, yet Michael's appearances across the country are completely packed, filled to overflowing. Those 100 people in Omaha used by the pollsters must not be reflecting the views of the nation. The news media would sure like us to believe that though.
Rating:
Summary: A left wing Limbaugh?
Review: Ten years ago, Rush Limbaugh produced a smash best seller titled "The Way Things Ought To Be". This phenomenon seems to be repeating itself with Mike Moore's "Stupid White Men"; only the hordes of people flocking to the bookstores today are left wingers instead of right-wingers. Aside from that, the response from rabid fans is essentially identical - the vast majority of reviews here basically say "Megadittoes Mike!" along with chants of "Moore for President!" Like Rush, Moore combines politics, entertainment, and exhortations of outrage. And, as if these similarities weren't enough, Moore is also quite rotund. So, is Moore the left wing's Limbaugh? The literary styles are similar: both are essentially works ... meant to promote a political viewpoint, and, as a result, both are quite happy to loudly provide facts that enhance that viewpoint while conveniently ignoring those that don't. And, in an ironic note, Moore bashes Democrats for being too spineless in their dealings with Republicans. He and Rush should sit down and discuss this over a few beers since Limbaugh and other conservative pundits have been saying the exact same thing for years about the GOP. Like Rush, Moore is a hardcore political partisan; true, he beats up on Democrats, but only for not being far enough to the left. Having read both books, I would say that Rush is the better thinker and Moore the better writer. Moore simply does not know how to apply logic or rationality to his arguments, he makes little effort to explain why his views are better, he just seems to assume, like religious faith, that it is self-evident. But then again, this is not meant to be a book that appeals to the intellect; rather, it is an appeal to the emotions. Most notably, Moore is still angry, no, make that furious, then again, make that apoplectic, about the 2000 election outcome. Which, I suppose he has a right to be, but, to my eyes at any rate, this tirade of his gets, well, tiresome rather quickly. In short, it comes off too much as the whining of a sore loser. Which is itself ironic, since Moore was initially a passionate supporter of Nader, the man who, had he NOT run, would have ensured a clean Gore victory. To his credit, Moore explains in some detail in the last chapter the motivations behind his supporting Nader and admits that lots of Democrats and liberals are mad at both him and Ralph, and understandably so. Nonetheless, his position is a bit hard to fathom. After spending a whole chapter telling us what a bunch of sellouts the Democrats in general, and Clinton/Gore in particular, had become, one has to ask - why is he still so upset that Gore lost? In fact, he cannot even bring himself to accept it, instead he (rather childishly, IMHO) continues to act as if Bush has no legitimate status as our President. Note to Mike: Get over it, the man has an 80% approval rating, and most of the country seems damned glad Gore wasn't in the White House on Sept 11, 2001. So, yes, this is definitely a book that hardcore leftists will seek solace in, and one that most conservatives will either ignore or vilify. Such is the nature of political screeds, and Moore is no worse than most of his fellow screamers on both sides of the political fence. Of course his arguments are ideologically self-serving with minimal effort at balance or fairness, but so what? At least he manages to be entertaining. Which is really what books like these are all about, since those looking for serious, intellectual analyses of important issues know to look elsewhere.
| 
