Dude, Where's My Country?

Rating:
Summary: Where's Your Country? Cuba, or Iran
Review: After reading the drivel from this socialist chucklehead I found "his" country. It's a fascist totalitarian Marxist hellhole where the "union" man gets a "fair break" (free bread and government cheese) but everyone else who actually thinks goes to jail for practicing their religion or criticising a postage increase.

Dude, go to hell.

Rating:
Summary: A Fun and Factual Read
Review: I am a liberal and have always claimed to be ... however, I only started reading 'liberal' books in my 30's. I had come to the decision of being a liberal on my own. That is why I do not think that you should buy this book to convince you of anything. Buy this book because you are interested in ideas that might be similar or dissimilar to yours. In that way, you can make your own decisions.

I do agree with most of what Michael Moore says. I do think Oprah would make a great President ... although he also gives us more realistic possibilities. My favorite part of the book (although I do not agree with all of his points) is the chapter ("How to Talk to Your Conservative Brother-in-Law) on convincing a good hearted republican or conservative into voting for a liberal or a democrat. In the end, I do believe we all want the same things, we just differ on how to get there.

He points out that we live in a country that is "very, very liberal, liberated, and free-thinking," no matter what the right wants the world to believe. He comes at us with facts and why perhaps we are led to believe otherwise.

Open your mind, read the book, and read the sources. Agree, or disagree, I don't care, but become educated.

Rating:
Summary: Moore's Book Are Full of Old and Failed Ideas Of Karl Marx
Review: Micheal Moore's book takes a good crack at trying to demonize the United States as it (the United States) does not live up to his "Utopian" visions for the world. I suggest you read the Communist Manifesto to find where most of Micheal Moore's old and failed ideas originate from. The problem with Karl Marx and Micheal Moore is that the "Utopian World" envisioned by the Communists dictates the destruction of all we hold dear in the United States including Family, Religion, The Free Market, Private Property, and ultimatly our National Sovernity. Of course, communists like Micheal Moore delude themselves into thinking that elitest (like him) have the power to create a better society. A society where those in power would control every aspect of our lives in and effort to "level the playing field" for the good of all. Numerous countries including the Soviet Union, Cambodia, North Korea, etc. have tried to implement Karl Marx's vision of a "Utopian World". Millions of people were and are being killed, imprisoned and tortured in pursuit of this so called dream of a perfect world. I just hope and pray that the people who admire Micheal Moore and by extension, Karl Marx, wake up and smell the rot and decay inherent in these old and failed ideologies before they are successful and destroying our great Nation. If the United States is brought down, who will protect us against the terrorist on slaught now before us and the slow death the Europeans are suffering in large part brought on by the ideas of Karl Marx and his blood brother Micheal Moore.

Rating:
Summary: Better than I was expecting!
Review: Michael Moore does an excellent job of exposing the agenda of the Bush administration, without falling into too much rant, which I found weakened his previous book. Ranting is forgivable, but to have your arguments taken seriously, it's better to just expose what's going on, or better yet, let others do the talking, a formula that worked well with Bowling for Columbine.
One of my favourite chapters was "How to talk to your conservative brother-in-law." The last chapter about taking action was also thought provoking, and really badly needed. There must be a solution to all this mess!
Moore's humour, and broad overview definitely add some buoyancy, something that's lacking in some of the other books of a similar vein. (Who really wants to read endless chapters about the Enron scandal? - let's get to the point.)
The only disagreements I have with Moore - and they are rather minor, are that he tends to nitpick (would you criticize your friends in the same way for their minor blunders?), and he tends to tow the party line of the left, when the real issue is much broader than left vs. right. Don't pigeonhole yourself.
Anyway, still one of the best books I've read lately, and I've lent it to my friends. And if you're going to say something bad about Michael Moore here, at least read the book first, OK?

Rating:
Summary: At least read the book.
Review: How can people rate the book one star and then say they haven't read it?!? The book describes exactly how bush is ruining this country and it's packed with facts. If you haven't read the book I don't want to hear how you feel about it!

Rating:
Summary: The 9/11 comments were interesting, the rest was dreck.
Review: This book was given to me. I don't normally read political opinion, but I read this anyhow. The first chapters here cover 9/11 and its impact. I liked this part of the book. While I only agree with half of what Moore has to say, almost all of it was thought provoking, and helped put the event in a different context than I had thought of it in the past. The second half of the book is about how the world would be if he were king, why Bush sucks, why the country is really 89% liberal, and how the Democrats can win the next election. I disagree with many of his assertions here, but would respect him if he was honest in how he said it. Unfortunately this half of the text is largely political propaganda, and uses all the same rhetorical tricks, manipulations of statistics, bullying, and undocumented assertions, that Moore criticizes regarding GW's handling of 9/11. Remind me not to read any more political books from either the Demipublicans or the Republicrats.

Rating:
Summary: Moore tackles the issues that few are brave enough to
Review: Author/filmmaker/political pundit Michael Moore has a number of things working against him. For starters, he looks a bit like a slob. While one wouldn't think that this should have anything to do with the political message being put forth, politics has proven to have as much to do with image as substance. Second, he has become scourge of the conservative movement by attacking issues and causes near and dear to the conservative heart (Big business in "Roger and Me", the National Rifle Association and gun ownership in "Bowling for Columbine", both well-received documentaries). Third, he has a reputation for framing facts to fit his agenda. Finally, his self-serving speech at the 2003 Oscars did nothing to endear him to those who are already wary of him and his message.

Let's address these strikes. As mentioned above, image counts for a great deal. The neo-conservative movement powered by Fox News puts on this image of professional, button-down commentators who give you the unbiased truth. A nice suit does not mean that the person is honest anymore than Moore's baseball cap and jeans means his a dishonest, clueless individual. Where it comes to be the scourge of the conservative movement, Moore should be applauded. In post-9/11 world, where a spate of conservative mouthpieces of emerged all across the airwaves to discourage dissension of any kind, Moore's boat rocking is relevant and necessary. As far as framing the facts to fit his agenda, well there is no political commentator out there who doesn't do this. You think Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter don't do the exact same thing in the conservative literary rants? It's the nature of beast in this genre. The only strike against Moore that sticks is his performance at the Oscars. It was unnecessary and seen by most (including his strong supporters) as self-serving and self-promotional. Yet, everyone in the public eye has had moments like those, so let's digress.

So, what is the purpose of all this background? It's to set the table for this review of Michael Moore's latest book, the highly relevant and important "Dude, Where's my Country?" Don't let the goofy title throw you off and make you think of bad Ashton Kutcher movies (is there such a thing as a good Ashton Kutcher movie?). "Dude, Where's my Country?" tackles the most important issues to face this country since that horrible Fall day in 2001. Since that time, we've been encouraged to not question President Bush and his administration on any aspect of his 'War or Terror'. We're not to question the civil rights destroying legislation that is being passed; we're not to question the connections of the Bush family to parties who may have been complicit in 9/11 (Moore does not, for any moment, imply that Bush had anything to do with that awful day the way many revisionists damn Franklin Roosevelt for Pearl Harbor. He mere highlights the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi and that Bush's cozy ties with them may very well provide a real hindrance in this war.); we're not to question the many wars that Bush has started or is threatening to start in the name of National Security; and, of course, we're certainly not supposed to question the shady business dealings that have destroyed the economy in the past two years or the strong connections these business CEOs have to the Bush Administration. Fear powers this current government and Moore seeks to break its hold on the people to they can return to doing what makes this country great (questioning dissenting, striving for change).

Now, it may seem like this book serves as just a hatchet job against the Bush administration and conservatives in general. To take that view and avoid reading this book for that reason is a mistake because you will be missing many of the very salient points made by Michael Moore. Moore is here to help remind the public that post-9/11 legislation like the Patriot Act and its yet-to-be-passed successor, Patriot Act II, are the biggest threats to personal freedoms since the ethnic internments during World War II and are the most shameful pieces of 'patriotic' legislation since the Alien and Sedition Acts during this country's infancy. Moore reminds us that this war with Iraq (which I personally support because I believe in the end result of removing Saddam Hussein) was started under false pretenses and done so by sticking a big middle finger up at the rest of the world that opposed military action. Even more important is Moore's reminder of evil actions wrought upon America by corporate big wigs such as Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Bernard Ebbers upon the public. These corporate CEOs, who are already rich beyond relative standards (just witness the fact that the average British CEO makes 24 times what his average employee makes, while U.S. CEOs make 411 (!) times as much as the average worker), still felt the need to squeeze a dime wherever they could and swindled the public, defrauded their own employees, and generally destroyed corporate trust in general just to horde more in the wealth among the fewest people possible. Relations with Bush and Cheney have, of course, prevented any real action from being taken against these men or restitution being given to the employees whose life savings where eradicated. Michael Moore calls these men the 'real terrorists' and he may very well be right.

"Dude, Where's my Country?" asks the questions that few are brave enough to ask and tackles issues that few wish to address. Moore does this all while never once getting sanctimonious or belligerent. He takes a generally upbeat approach to his topics and his belief that there are solutions. Michael Moore, you are to be applauded for your efforts with this book.

Rating:
Summary: Partisan attitudes will not save our country
Review: Moore continues to display hypocricy in this work, much as he did in "Bowling for Columbine". (note: I am /very/ opposed to partisan politics, and have views on both sides of the fence as well as views that neither side embraces.) I liked the movie until I noticed something interesting - Moore's major claim is that a "culture of fear" exists in America, right? Yet he consistently uses fear to motivate people to believe his viewpoint throughout the movie. Deliberately and repeatedly. His bias, while clearly stated, is still sickening - the subtle manipulation is what makes you seem like his views are true in spite of the bias.

(And in my opinion, many of them are. However, being manipulated towards someone else's exact conclusions is hardly something I care for.)

I don't want to "give away" anything in this book by going into such examples, but I encourage anyone who has read or plans on reading this to look for such things in this, and other of his works. I also encourage people to think outside of partisan politics (and I find it sad that so many of the votes here are either 5s or 1s solely due to partisan views). Both parties love having big fat governments do stuff for us (the stuff is just different) - parties such as the Libertarian party are the alternative to large, invasive government. Both parties are in the pocket of some special interest groups - the Democrats with a wide variety of "liberal" oriented groups AND some big business and the Republicans with a few "conservative" oriented groups and PLENTY of big business...

...let's get it together, America.

Rating:
Summary: Just a bunch of moronic opinions with little basis in fact.
Review: I really hate bashing anyone who would write a book that condemns The Presidency of George W. Bush. As an American Soldier I believe that he's an awful president who cares more about getting revenge for his daddy than the American people. Having said that, Michael Moore's book is mostly his own opinions of what is going on in the Global War on Terror and very little of it is based on fact. Since the release of his book, some of it has even been scrutinized, if not refuted. For example: The book was released before Al Queda was conducting terrorist attacks on Saudi Arabia, yet Moore insists that 9/11 was a military attack conducted by the Saudi government. If the Saudi's attacked us on 9/11, then who is blowing up THEIR buildings? What about Turkey? Did Saudi Arabia suddenly get a grudge against them, or was this really the work of bin Laden? Yes, bin Laden was having kidney problems, but it didn't stop him from going on Al Jezeera months after 9/11 and condemning his hatred for the U.S. Even if he was laying in bed with a machine keeping his kidneys up and running, it wouldn't impair his mind and his ability to think up ways to hurt people who believe in democracy. Moore's idea's for stopping terrorism include "Giving the world a glass of water to drink." I seriously doubt that Hamas, Al Queda, or any other terror group with a grudge against the U.S. would really care if we fixed their drinking water. If they did, why don't they notice that we give their countries millions, if not billions of dollars in humanitarian aid? Is the Iranian government and the terrorist organizations it supports going to stop hating the U.S. now that we've donated human and financial aid to their country to help them in the midst of a natural disaster? If they do, then stop reading and discard everything I just said. If they still hate us; however, know the Michael Moore is an idiot.

Rating:
Summary: Wake Up!!!!!!!!
Review: I read this today after having got it from a dear American Kentucky woman friend who got it as a Xmas present from her 21 year old daughter.

My wife looked at me and said you are rather "prickly today" like I had been in the rosebush or blackberry thorns.

I kept thinking non-spiritual materialism.

Go to church on SUndays, read the bible and then bomb the crap out of Iraq since you can't find Osama.

I think Michael has a good heart and a penetrating mind.

Anyone who doesn't consider it in its entirety before passing opinion should read Gerge Orwell's 1984. Because that is where we are.